Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 11052019 20240713

Are joined by Bill Mccollum, former congressman from florida. Joining us this morning to talk about the impeachment effort in the house, and a former member who has an intimate knowledge of the clear whether the u. S. Supreme Court Whenever finder was due process required here what ever find there was due process, again, because the constitution gives us power, sending all of it to congress. ,n the other hand, it is silent and inherently in American History, due process has been accorded. I think that is what this process is right about right now. The president rightfully claiming that he is not being given the same kind of opportunities that were given to president clinton, or, in the rightsaying, this is not i wouldve had no opportunity to present and crossexamine. It is clear that there is discretion, and he might get it under the rule that was passed last week on the floor. It is not mandated or directed. Did president clinton testify . Caller there were people that of and he had a lot opportunities to do that. One of the things that we did have was his article to answer written questions presented by the committee. That went to the floor of the house in the house voted that down and did not send that to the senate as a potential article of impeachment for obstruction of justice for avoiding us in answering that. This for theay Judiciary Committee for telling staff and key people not to testify. I am not sure that will go far but it might go to the florida the floor of the house. Host Bill Mccollum is one of the house managers in the impeachment of president clinton. Democrats use, 2027488000. Republicans, 2027488001. Ndependents, 2027488002 you can also send us a text at 2027488003. Piece in the New York Daily News how to impeach or not. Now that they have codified the procedure that the democrats will move forward on, if you were asked your advice and from this article and etc. , what is your best guidance to speaker pelosi, adam schiff, or jerry nadler Going Forward . Caller let us open this up. You are hurting your cause if you allow the process to encamp continue how it is with the positions in secret. Released transcripts in full, not just parts of them. Fo not have congressman schif making pieces of it available. When something refers to the house Judiciary Committee, but the house Judiciary Committee have everything you have. On the time comes for open hearings, i think they should be open now, let the president have this opportunity and let his counsel be present and involved in crossexamination or responding in some way, and certainly allow the republicans to call witnesses and not tell them as they have been told that your questions in those certain ones cannot be asked. We will not allow those questions. I do not think that is the right perspective because there is none there is an appearance of impropriety. The American Public understands that it is not right to do things in secret like this and not to present it out, that whole thing to the whole public. Host the Washington Times writing about the efforts to prevent Administration Officials from testifying. Upam schiff talk trucks potential obstruction. The chairman of the Intelligence Committee had comments to make about the refusal to testify. I wanted to play this and get your reaction. [video clip] here we have additional scheduled depositions with the top lawyer for the National Security council as well as someone who worked closely with mick mulvaney. Both of them defied congressional subpoenas and refused to appear. As has been the case with other witnesses who have done the same thing. Evidence to further obstruct the constitutional duties of congress. I would also say, and we expect also to bees noshows. This will only further add to the body of evidence on a potential obstruction of congress charge against the president. Indeed, in the nixon impeachment, there was an article impeachment of impeachment based on the obstruction of congress that itemized the subpoenas that had been defied. Today we have four subpoenas to add to the list with a potential charge of the president of the United States and his obstruction of our constitutional duties. [end video clip] host it sounds like he was going along the avenue that you mentioned that your committee tried to get written answers from president clinton at the time. Caller i think that an obstruction of justice charge is inevitable in an article of and cheat of impeachment. Themresident is defying for a reason, he believes due process has been denied him and he has that constitutional right, but that will be decided by the court. The question will go more to the substance of what happened with regard to the telephone call, and whether or not that was so improper with his dealings with president zelinski that it amounts to a high crime or misdemeanor. I do not see that. I do not believe that they can get to that point. It could be that Something Else was revealed, but at the present time it does not appear that way to me. This charge is undoubtedly going to be part of an article of impeachment obstruction of justice. Caller we have called host we have callers waiting for you. To bridgetown, ohio on the independent line. This is mike. Say i am wanted to neither a democrat or republican, although historically i have voted republican. I am really tired of politicians telling us how to think on both sides. I think everyone should listen both liberaland and conservative sides and make their own mind. After all, that is what makes us great. That is why it is great to be an american. Guest i think that is what is missing in this case. We have a media determined to impeach this president. We have a democrat leadership determined to do you do that. They doing this since the president first took office in 2016. If you are watching cspan, you will get a chance through hearings on the floor proceedings to get the facts out there. If more americans would watch the proceedings, read the resolutions themselves, and think for themselves, and weigh the pros and cons of what each side is saying you can come to a reasonable conclusion, and that is a big part of the problem i have that with so far much of what has been going on has been going on behind closed doors in a proceeding that does not appear to be fair in the Intelligence Committee. I am just hopeful that in fact they will come forward and do open hearings, not anymore of this closeddoor stuff, it seems not to be the case right now with congressman schiff talking about witnesses not showing up for further closeddoor proceedings. That is not good and does not help you or anybody else in the public make up their own mind about what is and is not right fact. John,let us hear from from wisconsin on the democrat line. Caller what former representative is saying is a backwards gun. If the that if the democrats go along with what the republicans is saying, and pull the trigger it will shoot them. There is a lot of things about donald trump and what he does. At his conventions and when he gives his speech. He takes the darkest people he can find and puts them up there behind him. That is nothing that just happens. He already he always makes it looks like the minorities are behind him. He might find one or two. That is what he does and that is what he tries to do with the United States government. And america, period. Thank you. Guest every president has tried to make himself look better, trump is more polarized. He has a lot of folks who do not like him for various reasons. A lot of people think that he is great. 63 americans voted for him thinking that the way he conducts himself is exactly what he voted what they voted for. This is why this impeachment process over something that appears to be flimsy is not the way to resolve it. The way to resolve this will be the elections next year. Not like trump, what he stands for, and the way he conducts himself, though to the polls. As far as impeachment should be concerned, that is not something that should be abused and there needs to be serious stuff before you do it. I do not that is here right now. Host a text from martha in North Carolina who asks how many depositions were conducted behind closed doors of his investigation of clinton. Guest he was a prosecutor, and trying to act is as a prosecutor. Congress is not a state or federal prosecutor position. Is unprecedented. Occasionally that position is conducted somewhere by staff, but this kind of parade is very different. The answer is that everything he did was by deposition. Host would it make a difference if they were solely done by the Judiciary Committee . Guest i think behind closed doors is wrong when you get to this point. You may have a staff member of the republicans go out and do depositions, that would be all right, and you present them back for all members of the committee to look at, which has not been the way this has been done, and then you have open hearings. Do not have the chairman orchestrate all of this you do not have the chairman orchestrate all of this to build the case. He is acting like a prosecutor, and he does not have good evidence and hes being selective. Becan be selected he can selective in what he submits to the Judiciary Committee. I think this is all not fair and appropriate. Is it legal . If it is not violating due process then anything they die they decide to do is legal. . S it fair and appropriate the answer should be no. Host let us go to bill, republican line, in pennsylvania. Go ahead. Caller good morning how are you . Guest i am good. Caller i have known you for a long time, i have been around and been here since 1952. We worked 37 years with the government and i know what has been going on. The point. Ides what i am trying to say is that we have a government that sits there and gets paid by the taxpayers and get money. They become alien heirs. I took a lot of people down there, very lewis jerry lewis. It is not the president of the United States, it is the government. You people playing games with the American People, you are wasting taxpayers money. You are not doing your job that you are supposed to be elected only. Duringas not a comment that you had during 1998 . Guest we heard that as well. People who did not like the impeachment is wasted. Even more now i hear it because you have so much of this behind closed doors and secret, and so little evidence. There is no actual criminal behavior that you had in the clinton case. The public did not want to see clinton impeached at the end of the day. Theent the articles to senate and he was acquainted because of public opinion. The American Bar Association disbarred him for it. They did not delete rows to a sufficient level to remove they did not feel it rose to a significant level to impeach the president. That is what is frustrating. You do not have the type of consensus, animal behavior, major crime or whatever that justifies the removal. Just because you do not like the president or you think he is conducting Foreign Policy the way he should because he removes an ambassador he does not like. He has the power to do that. The constitution gives him Foreign Policy powers. It is not like he is doing anything untoward. That is what this caller is frustrated about. I understand that and cannot do anything about it. In congress i am not sure i could do anything about it. Host what was it like arguing the case before the u. S. Senate . Guest it was an awesome experience. I did not think we should have gone through. Through impeachment, but we felt that we had to uphold the law. And, the president of the United States had lied under oath. I made an argument, i did the fact, i did 30 minutes, 15 minutes, and five minutes. I had the job of outlining the case, and it was Something Else to do. Mentioned watching the experience on cspan, the proceedings as they come up. We open the door for us to take you on the way back machine. Here you are on the floor. This is december, 1998. [video clip] the sad fact is that i do not be here anymore. I do not want to impeach this president. This is not a happy day, but the president of the United States committed multiple felony crimes, not just having some relationship which we have no business being concerned about, he committed multiple felony crimes of perjury, obstruction of justice. The evidence is clear about it and a failed to and failure to impeach him would send a message that we have a double standard. The president who is the commander in chief of the Uniformed Services is allowed to get away with perjury. I submit that if we do not impeach him we will send a message resulting in more people lying in court and committing perjury than they do already. It is a serious matter. Thank you. [end video clip] host do you think that same argument could be made today on the floor . Guest if that were what the president were guilty of or if what President Trump had done. What President Trump has done is to encourage the government of ukraine to investigate alleged corruption that occurred with a company in ukraine that is controlled by an oligarch. The oligarch was in the government of the president that resigned and went to russia before russia and putin invaded ukraine. There are questions that no one disputes that there has been corruption, that it was not being investigated. Underneath all of these accusations against Vice President biden is this question of are the ukrainians worthy of the aid . The bottom line of that is that even though we say that the president did these things, maybe he did. I withhold judgment on the facts until they are all out. Even if he did do that, the ukrainians got the aid, and i do not believe that the president of the ukraine understood that it would might be withheld until he agreed to investigate the Vice President s son. Host he served as floridas attorney general from 2007 through 2011. We go back to call on our democrats line. Caller impeachment is not a criminal trial, and ken starr had the ability to go into every aspect of bill clintons life. Not the original thing that it was supposed to be about, and he leaked information every single day. If you want to talk about transparency, trump refuses to testify, tells other people not to testify, will not release documents or honor subpoenas. Boehner made the rules that you are objecting to, not a democrat. Trump lies every day. He could not testify before mother because they were meuller because they were afraid about what he would say. He specifically mentioned getting dirt on biden and his son. Ofwas not just the idea i am so angry at you i cannot even speak. Host we will get a reaction. Guest i certainly sympathize with sympathize with the concerns the way the president conducts himself. It is not just one thing, it is a lot of things. That is something decided in the elections. There was no crime committed here. There were crimes committed by president clinton. Did can start to things the aunt the doken starr do things beyond the initial charge . Yes. There were actual crimes that were broadcast a moment ago. Here they are not. In my judgment, there has yet to be shown anything by which that i would consider a high crime and ms. Nina, and misdemeanor as something to remove a president in office. Just because do not like him, that is no reason to remove him from office. Host to our independent line in north charleston, south carolina. Caller thank you for taking my car. My my call. Schiff,stening to adam he called parity, and i wanted to ask the former congressman have you ever seen everything like that done in a formal hearing, because at first it it confused me. Guest it was wrong for congressman schiff to do that, it mischaracterized the situation. He was trying to make a point that people he believes this is the point this is the way that the president is acting. A lot of people are going to believe what he said is literally true even though he may disclaim it. It was highly inappropriate for him to do that, very misleading and caused a lot of people to make assumptions not grounded in fact. One of the earlier callers said you needed to listen and watch yourself which is why people needs to watch the whole proceeding. Not judge the president on anything you do not like about him or something he has done otherwise. That is not what you should base this on. Should base it on the facts. Did anything he do rise to the level that he should be removed . No crime that i could see, there could be an abuse of power, i think that is flimsy. Obstruction of justice charge for not producing witnesses that would not go through the process. Host question for you on alex. He asks you what would the former karmas men should say is the difference between lying to congress and obstruction of congress . Which one is a high crime misdemeanor . Guest both could be. Lying before congress is one thing, lying in front of the court, which is what clinton was charged with, lying in a judicial setting where people testify all the time and if you are lying you will go to pridgen prison. There was an article written in the Washington Post about all of the people in the jails around the area of washington put there by the courts because they lied under oath. And they served a considerable period of time. That is different from lying to congress. Host robert in North Carolina. Independent line. Caller i find it hard to believe that you can sit there and say that this gentleman has not done anything wrong. He is refusing to show his taxes, this is bribery what he is doing with ukraine. The demeanor of what he has done to this country and what he is doing. You have children and grandchildren, and you should be ashamed of yourself because they will pay for these sins that you Republican Party the Republican Party is like a cold. No one is standing up against this unbelievable this guy is the worst president that has ever existed. We had nobody do what he is doing in office and everyone is marching to him. You should be ashamed of yourself. Think theersonally president has done a lot of good things including the economy doing well now, the tax cuts that he had, a lot of Foreign Policy i agree with. A lot of processes has made the country stronger. Do i care for his style . I criticize it a lot. Do i think that he is right with a lot of things that he does . No. I do like the outcome and the product, so counterbalance that against somebody i might not agree with like Hillary Clinton or Elizabeth Warren might do, i would favor having this man as president. He has not committed, in my opinion, he crime. He has not done something that has a reason to be removed from office . Let this be decided in the polls. We are only a year away from the election. This is not a fair process we are undergoing we have a lot of people who made up their minds based on things such as you just described that have nothing to do with what may be coming forward as charges against him in this process. Nothing whatsoever. Host a couple of your colleagues and current house members with an opinion piece yesterday. The clinton impeachment was fair. I want to go back to the 1998 floor debate and show you lindsey graham, now the chair of the Judiciary Committee and his comments on the floor on obstructing on complying with congressional oversight. [video clip] article three of impeachment against Richard Nixon, it was based on the idea that Richard Nixon failed to comply with subpoenas of congress. Congress was going through a function to provide oversight of the president. When asked for information Richard Nixon chose not to comply in the congress back in that time said you are taking impeachment away from us and becoming the judge and jury. It is not your job to tell us what we need, it is your job to comply with the things we need to provide oversight over you. The day that Richard Nixon failed answer that subpoena was the day that he was subject to impeachment because he took the power from congress away from congress and became the judge and jury. The day that William Jefferson clinton failed to provide truthful testimony to the congress of the United States is the day that he chose to determine the course of impeachment. He usurped our power, abused his authority, and gave false information. That is the same as giving no information at all, actually, i think it is wares. I believe these articles will stand the test of time and scrutiny that has to be done, and the only way to avoid impeachment is to leave your common sense at the door and ignore the facts and talk about Something Else [end video clip] making theey graham argument about the article of impeachment that did not pass the house. Guest that was about the fact that the president did not answer the interrogatories and may not have answered the ones he did truthfully. I think it is something an article can be drawn on. I think the problem for this particular investigation and the impeachment process, if there is any, it is to process for the president due process for the president and the way they are conducting it. Congress, they have the right, and that is one thing that this president is making a mistake on. He is going down this road and being confrontational. And there are people who relish this battle. This is going to the Supreme Court if it gets to that point, and i am not sure how that comes out. I would certainly agree that there is due process being violated, but it is unclear how it would come out. He is putting himself in jeopardy with that. However, i do not believe an article of this nature would be one that you would see the senate throw the president out for. The underlying stuff has been a long process in which the democrats have been trying to get the president on something. They just do not like this president and do not like what he does, and they dont have much of any case on this question of corruption and abuse of power. Host florida native and former florida representative, Bill Mccollum, thank you for being with us. Journalon washington , we are joined by one of president clintons Security Advisors to discuss the National Security claims. Executive director, gabe roth will discuss the findings of a new poll of the opinion on the u. S. Supreme court. Follow the impeachment inquiry and the administrations response on cspan. Unfiltered coverage, live, as it happens. Any time cspan. Org. This week on cspan3 at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, watch samples of our history coverage featured every weekend on American History teed tv. Tonight, Ruth Bader Ginsburg reflects on the impact of the first woman Supreme Court justice, sandra day oconnor. On wednesday, africanAmerican History. Pastday, a look at president ial impeachment proceedings. Friday, the american revolution. American history tv features all week at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan3. The house will be in order. Cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, white house, Supreme Court, and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. And around the country so you can make up your own mind. Broughtin 1979, it is to you by your local satellite or cable provider. Cspan, or unfiltered view of government. Washington journal continues. Ist joining us from florida former deputy National Security adviser and ambassador, nancy served as who also former ambassador as well inresenting United Nations 1997. Looking at the transcripts which have been released of the telephone call between President Trump and the president of inaine, how often do you sit on Something Like that with president clinton . Guest hundreds of times. In the oval office, air force one, and it is fairly normal to but usuallyleast, several people sitting down, and the situation room is also wired to take notes and translators. When a president is on the phone with a foreign leader there are a lot of people who take notes and send it around the government so everyone knows what was happening. In this case it would support it was put into a secure server so it was not handled in the normal process. Of course now it has come out. Secrecy does not work in those situations. Host dozens of people listening in, how many people are involved for the preparation of a typical phone call between a president and another head of state . Securitye National Council staff will talk to the pentagon and state department, and other cabinet officials and their staff on any issues that come up. Might if it is commerce, then a business deal might be involved. If it is a trade deal might have a u. S. Trade representative or the treasury. You have a memo to the president that reflects a government approach. I assume that happened with the president with his phone call last summer. In this case there was an unusual outside of government andess run by Rudy Giuliani some former Russian Oligarchs trying to have a second agenda to make sure that president did not follow the career memos, rather this outside effort to try and use the president s power to get the ukrainians involved in efforts to get reelected. That is where this controversy blew up. Host the transcript of the phone call, a summary of the transcript released late in the summer. When you read that, what were your thoughts . Guest it was stunning. I could not believe they had released it. It was a smoking gun that led to impeachment. Theancy pelosi has said, question will be put forward for the vote to impeachment and sent to the senate, is it appropriate for the president of the United States the hold up hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, which frankly the president and priest increased and clearly needed to have a buffer with the russian incursions into ukraine. That was held up and the president asked the ukrainians for a favor to investigate his political rivals, and that is what is going to go before the American People. I think the country is divided on if it was important appropriate or not, and that is what the impeachment will decide. It looks like the votes are there in the house to impeach the president. I think the senate is divided on this question and that is where the drama is going to unfold. Former deputy security advisor and ambassador Nancy Soderberg is here to talk to us about the National Security implications about the impeachment process, in particular about the phone call between President Trump and the ukrainian president. 2027488000 is our democrats line. Republicans, 2027488001. Independents and others, 2027488002. Also a Foreign Policy advisor for the organization Foreign Policy for america. Tell us about that. Guest that is a group of individuals who want to make sure that we have a responsible Foreign Policy. It is a Bipartisan Group and tries to inform the public on what is happening and make sure that the candidates that it endorses for congress have very center, straightforward, middleoftheroad Foreign Policy that puts americas interest for first. I would encourage everyone to read their information, the briefings, enjoying and supporting and trying to create a conversation based on facts and our interests. I am proud to be one of their advisors. Host the wall street journal saying that the impeachment inquiry is set to release transcripts. The diplomaticof channel pressuring ukraine on pressuring ukraine. The transcripts of the former ukraine investor ambassador and Michael Mckinley were released yesterday. What were your thoughts when you read some of that . Guest first of all we have to pay tribute to our career Foreign Policy officials. These are men and women who have dedicated their lives to Public Service and swore an oath to the constitution that every day they try to uphold. I think you see two very accomplished individuals saying this is just wrong, and in the case of ambassador of the ambassador she was shunted to when giuliani brought people to put pressure on the ukrainian. Russian Ukrainian Oil magnets who made billions and are on the out because the prorussian government lost an election. What they have been trying to do is get back into the oil money flow back to the ukrainians, and giuliani for some reason had gotten involved in that. Been,arly seems to have let us pressure the ukrainians to put forward this ridiculous story that ukraine was the one who meddled in our elections at Hillary Clintons behest, instead of the russians which all of our intelligence agencies including mike pompeo agree that it was the russians, and then to try and get the bidens investigated with ukraine. Service,career civil Foreign Service officers at the National Security council knew that this was wrong, that was why you got the account. I think that the country should be grateful for these men and women who are doing a service to all of us, and i think it is reprehensible that some of the political circles are trying to question their loyalty, and that is unamerican to do that. These are patriots we should be grateful for. I am hoping that they get time person of the year to make sure we pay due tribute to them. But we will see today the transcripts are going to be released from volker and sondland. Volker is a career Foreign Service officer who said why are we holding up aid. He was part of the effort and said no this is not right. Is the puzzle, he was a political donor, on an experienced person and he was given the portfolio as ambassador to the utility the efforts to pressure the ukrainians. I think his testimony will be very interesting, because he was at the center of trying to push this debunked Conspiracy Theory. It was the tip of the spear of pushing the quid pro quo through the u. S. Government. He had the most legal peril. Was it active accurate and wasnt going to be contradicted . I understand that he will be going back to testify. When they go through the public stages he will be one of the most scrutinized officials there. Host we have calls waiting for Nancy Soderberg. We go to tom, hollywood, florida, democrat. Caller i have a couple of things i want to say. Ands despicable what trump mike pompeo have done to our Foreign Service. They decimated our Foreign Service and we lost so many of our good career professionals and it will take years to replace them. Thatd it incredible republicans keep whining about closeddoor hearings, and they are the ones that set the rules up into thousand 15. In 2015. Guest it is interesting because the republicans do not want to talk about the facts. They had the show of storming the hearing room when some of the people storming it had the access to be in the room. I think the democrats have set gatherthodical process, information in the private hearings and will now release the transcripts and have public hearings. All of the people who have been questioned in private will be questioned in front of tv cameras. The republicans have been in the rooms. There are three committees and republicans have full access and equal time. It has led from the president who does not want to talk about what happened. What happened is that the president held up aid to ukraine in exchange for pressure on having them help him get elected, and that is what the fundamental question. Republicans do not want to talk about that. Ultimately they will have to vote on it and i think will break down along the party lines like the vote to the other day. Host let us hear from alan, from little rock. Caller good morning. Hope just thinking, i paula jones is listening she might appreciate this call. The kind of clarify, i am an independent, we often describe opposingosing rhinos, democrats, and the corruption in both parties. That is really how i define a sense of independence. And a sense of honesty that we need to see from our government in washington. What all of us but all of this is showing us is the depth of corruption. Aboutnot calling exactly that, and i looked it up. There younger younger brother is deep in business dealings with ukraine and he had a twin brother who is a targeting expert, limiting targets that we were trying to get, jihadi targets. There was a mess with all of that. On thetried to get in previous guest talking about the clinton impeachment and comparing this quid pro quo, but since your guest now can speak to that since she was there. He mentioned that this was about the legality of the testimony, the fraud and lying to the court involving paula jones, and not about monica lubinski, but democrats wanted to shifted to her as if it was her and some involvement with an intern. Remember, she was given a job. She had been transferred over and given a job for what she was wasg to hide her, but working in the pentagon. There is a quid pro quo that is so corrupt it is unbelievable, but you do not hear that discussed often. Host any response to that . Guest hello from little rock. I spent a lot of time from there in the 1992 campaign. I tried to visit regularly. They have a great president ial library there. The clinton impeachment, he was impeached and not convicted in the senate. That has been erred over and aired over and over. What has happened is fully the in public record. He was impeached for lying and not quid pro quo. I believe that the two are pretty separate issues. One is a private affair with an inappropriate relationship. Today, one is an inappropriate use of president ial power. I think that rather than focus on these conspiracy theories and clinton did something wrong and it is ok for trump. The question before the country right now is is it appropriate for the president to have held favorainian aid for a from the new, experienced inexperienced president of ukraine . It is not looking back at history so much as it is looking at the question for today. Is that appropriate, and that is what will come out, that is a big debate in this country. Unfortunately i think it will divide this country even more, and i think as some who has worked for democrats and republicans, i think hopefully we will get through this process quickly and get back to worrying about what is happening in our families with health care and are middleclass efforts to try and pay our own budgets. That is what Congress Really needs to be looking at once this is over. This will consume the country for the next month. Host on the issue of quid pro quo, one of the senators who did not see a quid pro quo is one of the senators from texas. He told a Radio Station and i want to play you his comments and get a reaction. Heres the senator. Concerns continued under this president. Think that what the problem is that the democrats have a transcript at they did not expect him to release. When i read that letter, i do not see a quid pro quo. Even if it was i do not think it would be impeachable or illegal for the president to do so. Yo. T john cornyn four kf he talked about the president leveraging foreign aid. Guest i think he puts it out exactly what this country will be discussing over the next month during this process. Aid forts do hold up u. S. National security interests. We have done it throughout history. If a country is not on our side on something, we can hold it out, we can put sanctions on, it is only for the u. S. National interest. We are pursuing an effort to try and get a Foreign Government to stop invading a country, repressing its people, or a change in government could occur and you do not want to provide aid. It is always in the national interest. The difference is when President Trump said to me a favor. His that a favor in national interest, it was a favor to help him be elected. That is the fundamental difference, and why the whistleblowers account and all of the testimonies from career Foreign Service officials are offended by that, because what the favor was was not something interests,ed u. S. But instead his own political fortunes in an upcoming election. I will respond to the efforts to on mr. Vindmans honesty, integrity, and patriotism. The conspiracy theories floating around are not true, they are false efforts to impugn this mans integrity. He is a war hero, decorated, and a career Civil Servant that is doing his job for this country. Do not impugn his integrity. It is an effort to deflect from the facts. Is all i would ask, have an honest debate, was it appropriate for the president of the United States the hold up aid to ukraine. That was not something in the national interest. Aid andhave held up used it as leverage, that is called the making of american Foreign Policy and using our leverage as a superpower. I look at it as a toolbox. In Jacksonville University of north dakota. I say we have a toolbox, military tools, political, and economic tools, but we only use them to advance the u. S. National interest. What was the u. S. National interest to hold the aid to investigate the bidens. Host let us hear from florida. Jane, on the republican line. Caller what i take issue with im going tohat try and focus on the facts instead of conspiracy theories. From the time he became president , until now, it seems like president ial harassment. As far as is it ok for the president to ask for corruption to be investigated, that was one of his campaign promises. To drain the swamp. If joe biden does not have anything to hide, what is the problem with that . This is what he has been doing consistent, trying to drain the swamp. Is he an outstanding person . No. I used to be a swing vote, and now i am going to be a republican because i think the way the democrats are acting, i have seen the power going on. They have been after him since day one. That is the way i see it. What does joe biden have to hide . If he did not do anything wrong, wheres the problem . Guest i do not think joe biden has anything to high to hide. Gave a statement a little was on thist how he board getting paid a lot of money and looking back, that probably was not the smartest thing to do. I think they have been open about what is going on there. Thatople feel that they there is something to be investigated about, i would rather u. S. Government to investigate things like that. Why are we not having the fbi or someone in our own government investigating . I do not trust foreign investigations. If there is something to investigate the president should turn to the government to do so. Isyi think the bigger question what is the sitting president doing . Vice President Biden has been pretty open about what he did as Vice President which was to try to push the previous Ukrainian Government that frankly is a cesspool. One of the things i would encourage your caller to look at is the ukrainian Russian Oligarch that made billions on the previous government. Corrupt government that got voted out of office which triggered the invasion of crimea by moscow. He sitting in vienna under house arrest. That is the one who is putting forward the conspiracy theories that the president is trying to get investigated so they can get back into the very corrupt system that was in ukraine at the time. I think dont listen too much to the rhetoric. Just step back and say what is going on here. Weve got a Rudy Giuliani effort to work with some old oligarchs two of whom just got arrested by the way. Rudy giuliani is in the center of a very difficult situation as well and i think hes got a lot of legal troubles coming up, too. Into aort to deflect debunked theory and investigate joe biden for the president s what isl gains is not normal in terms of using the president s leverage. This is joe on the democrat line in North Carolina. Caller can you define the single simple term extortion . And can you tell me one reason that expungedion manaforts record in ukraine is not extortion . This isyou tell me why not extortion . Host thanks joe. I didnt understand what is extortion . I couldnt quite hear the last part. You another ask question. This is a comment on twitter about when did trump first find out about Hunter Bidens position . Why didnt he mention the investigation until july 2019 . Byobviously felt pressured the Vice President gaining ground. Any insight . Host i dont know when he learned about the effort. Im not quite sure i heard the buttion on extortion, extortion is essentially holding some,olding over something the government wants in order to get something that you want. And askanted to try someone to do something they dont want to do in exchange for paying them or being paid. Dont use the term extortion. What i believe here is that it was an inappropriate use of president ial power for personal political game and not u. S. National security interests. Whether that is inappropriate, illegal and a crime will be what the impeachment is all about. Think its clear the president has giuliani looking at this effort. Weve also got bill barr flying around the country trying to have other countries drum up issues as well. It appears that sometime last spring the president put in process and effort to impede bidens reputation. We have to be honest, it was because biden was clearly the front runner and he was trying to sort of figure out a way to undermine that. I think over time we will find out exactly when this happened. Giuliani was the point person on this. You also have rick perry who was secretary of energy involved in trying to put some folks on this board in ukraine. We need to wait for the facts to evolve through this impeachment hearing and its going to come very soon. These facts will eventually evolve into what kind outside Foreign Policy was the president and giuliani running. The bidens are going to be part of the story as that runs out. Anyone who wants to look at that should be run by the u. S. Government and not some outside force. Host the headline, pompeo faces political peril as diplomats revolt over you. Over ukraine. Pompeos role in the situation, the phone call etc. This really started with. Is predecessor Rex Tillerson pompeo has really impugned the reputation of our career Foreign Service officers many of whom i am ive worked with for decades. Diplomats,re good get up every day and do their jobs. We have to stop the impugning of the reputation. Losing theompeo is support of the entire building because hes not defending his career diplomats. For noich was pushed out reason. It caused some more just droop. I have students working in the career Foreign Service office and its a difficult time for the building. The leadership at the state department frankly in the white house needs to stand up for these career Civil Servants and understand they are working for the National Security interests of this country. Mike pompeo was trying to hide the fact that he was on that phone call. He pretended he didnt know a thing about the call and hes in a very difficult situation because hes a strong supporter of the president. Has 100 back to the president but he is also secretary of state and when the president of the United States impugns his career Civil Servants he has a choice to make. In my opinion he should be standing up for the building and the Civil Servants that work for him. Hes also rumored to be thinking about running for the senate back in his home state. I think hes got some tough choices to make. Is he going to stand up for the interests of the United States or his political career with this president. Hes got to decide probably by next january or february if hes going to run. I think hes torn and pulled in many directions. That testimony, this headline in the Associated Press. Former Ambassador Says she was warned to watch my back. Out, we will go to california next. This is the republican line. Christopher. Hello there. Caller i wanted to relate briefly just to emphasize the ambassador being ousted. Rasputin ded of reminded of rasputin. He was just so destructive before lenin took over. Deposition,ugh the the server mentioned how important it is to get to the bottom of the server either being located in ukraine or being moved from russia to ukraine. I wondered if you might be able to talk about why that is so important. And the classification of the conversation is regarded to have been topsecret. I dont know if the integrity on that is challenged. According to the executive order the classification for topsecret is qualified by a very severe amount of harm to be done. Host some finer thoughts. On the testimony that has come back on the ambassador, she was also frightened because the president said she was going to have to go through some things. Its very intimidating when you say that about a woman who has saved the country her entire career. There is no server and its not in ukraine. Thats a bizarre Conspiracy Theory that i would not put any time into. On the classification of the transcript. Secret,they are confidential depending on whats. Iscussed in the conversations if its a spy operation are very sensitive they will put it in codewords. This transcript was moved immediately into the code word which is very highly classified. It means you have to have a clearance to even know what the name of the program or classification is. Thats some of our most classified. Ive been on hundreds of those calls. Ive never seen one classified code word. Usually they are distributed at level. Ret or top secret it was moved to the top secret code word which very few people have access to. Its because the career people thatd the president saw this transcript was somewhat explosive and they wanted to limit access to it. That appears to be what happened here. Soderberg, now an advisor for Foreign Policy for america joining us this morning from florida. So glad to have you with us this morning. More ahead here on washington journal. We will take a look at a new poll that asks respondents about the understanding of the u. S. Supreme court. We will be joined by fix the courts executive director gabe roth next on washington journal. Our cspan campaign 2020 bus team is traveling across the country visiting key battleground states in the 2020 president ial race. Asking voters what issues they want president ial candidates to address the campaign. Want to theing i candidates to address is gun violence. I dont think theres one clearcut answer. We need to initiate that discussion. My question is how are you going to combat the rising. Rices an issue thats really important to me is focusing on fixing the criminal justice system. How can we rehabilitate our offenders and support a positive relationship between the community and law enforcement. How can we fix the mass incarceration rates. How can we help those impacted by the heroin epidemic. How can we focus on helping those in poverty. The school to prison pipeline is also really important. How can we help juveniles involving themselves in the link quincy. A womans right to autonomy. Voices from the campaign trail. Part of cspans underground tour. Washington journal continues. Gabe roth is the executive director of fix the court here to talk to us about their efforts to change the transparency. Tell us about a fix the court to begin with. What do you want to fix in the court . Realized other courts need fixing but fix the court is the only nonpartisan National Organization that adds for greater accountability primarily in the Supreme Court. We believe transparency and account ability means Live Streaming the hearings at the Supreme Court which are currently not livestreamed. Smart policys a change and the Financial Disclosures to be posted online. We want them to explain their conflicts of interest and we want them to follow a code of conduct. Justices are the only judges that dont have to follow a professional code of conduct. We want to convince them to adopt one. Host what led to the founding of your group . Working in d. C. Like a political consultant and i was working on cases where that would reach the Supreme Court. Issues Like Health Care or marriage or voting and a lot of the litigants were in california and they just assumed tune in to. Span cspan was doing this to some extent. That i talkeded to bruce collins. Lots of people and they encouraged me to start it. In broadcast is journalism. An organization dedicated to demystifying the court. About downstream or upstream . The federal judiciary system itself . What does your system think needs to be done . There are some parallels the but there are some differences. Asee the broadcast issue sort of a letter of engagement. They release audio hearings at the end of the day. Ive been able to work with cspan and move that to live audio for some cases. Similarly with all the consternation with confirmation, no matter whose president the last 20 years has always been between 70 and 100 vacancies. They have make sure the resources. What are some of the Cognitive Health resources they have. We want to make sure not only we are advocating for more practicescy but best and ensuring the judges who are working. Ourre their jobs host guest is from fix the court. We welcome your calls and comments. Democrats. 000 202 7488001 republicans. 202 7488002 others. What has been the record of the circuit and the appeals courts and the federal system . The Live Streaming audio started about two years ago. A case that Brett Kavanaugh was actually sitting on. Except it was an Abortion Case about whether undocumented minors should have access to Reproductive Health care when they are in office of Refugee Resettlement custody. Audio fourthe circuit and in the Second Circuit for trump tax cases. The Third Circuit in philadelphia and the seventh circuit in chicago have started doing video on a delayed basis. Court releases audio at the end of the week for its first hearings and we think the court should do at least live audio if not video. Host whats the biggest argument against live video . They are worried it would change things. There a lot of back and forth. Theres a lot of jargon being thrown out and they think maybe the American People cant understand whats going on. I think it would show justices on the right agreeing more often than they dont with justices on the left and seeing that highlevel conversation. American knows what the criminal career act is. We would like to at least believe that one branch of our government is working well and oral argument shows that. Somehow that it would change the nature of whats going on in the court is farcical. Host and its a pretty tightly regulated 30 minutes. He does play a good umpire when trying to get everyone to keep to their time. Its a hot bench. They ask a lot of questions. I think for the American People to see and understand so much changes between on monday and a friday. The idea that we are going to wait until friday to hear the news is kind of ridiculous because thats just not the way news goes anymore. Host you are joining us just as a whole is released on the Supreme Court nationwide confidence finding overall a fairly high amount of confidence especially stacked up against the other branches. Much for the legislative and executive branch and in nots of parties, surprising. A court dominated by republican appointees, 54 confidence in the court. Independent 23 with a high confidence in the Supreme Court. Is your Organization Able to stay out of the partisan arguments of the court . In terms of taking a side where the cooks should be and focused on expanding access and transparency. Think transparency and accountability should be nonpartisan. There are certain cases that touch on what we do. There was the case about whether judges should be soliciting when they run for office and we said there needs to be some sort of walls between the moneywhen judges ask for and they hear cases. There are some cases that touch on what we do. There are some cases in the 60s and 70s about prep access. Tos probably a good idea keep mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court justices. Justice someone like stevens who served until he was 90. Overall i think that theres a big dr. Case coming up d aca case coming up. When the court is in session and the opinion comes out thats not our time. All the other times we want to demonstrate to the American People that they need to open up host how often do you get into watch a case . About two or three times a year. Always like me at the but i still have to get there at 5 00 a. M. And line up with everybody on the sidewalk. Sometimes i just go to the threeminute line so i can catch up for three minutes. The idea that you have to line up days in advance for a runofthemill case is absurd. Host we will start with lynn in new york. Good morning. Caller in my opinion there are two fundamental things that have to occur to make the Supreme Court balanced institution going into the future. One is they need to expand the number from nine probably past 11 to 13. So you can have a situation where a president might even not have to have the opportunity to nominate three. Maybe even four. But it wouldnt be the primary impetus to vote for a president that you expect them to be able to move the court. Thatther even the fact when the constitution was written people werent living that long, perhaps a 26 year limit which they could be renominated for. I justice two years will be retired and the new one who is not renominated is going to be nominated. Depoliticize this thing entirely. Host i will let you go there. Marketto point out the poll shows that 8 strongly favor increasing the number of justices. Or strongly3 favor favor increasing the number of Supreme Court justices. End2 said they wanted to life tenure. I like the math of the caller. Also lives in new york which is where im from. We want to do since there are , niney nine justices times two is 18. 18 is also nine house terms, three senate terms. That would regularize the appointment process. You would do additionally is if for some reason there was some sort of tragedy you could bring justices out of retirement so you wouldnt have to have a president who had more nominees per term. We dont have these apocalyptic showdowns when a vacancy occurs. Host how do you do that if you want to increase the number of appointees . Not be deemed as entirely a political move by either the president or the senate . The bestoposal takes from the left and the right there was a paper a few years ago written by the founder of the Federalist Society that called for 18 year term limits. It was coauthored by the liberal constitution society. I was growing up justices served 18 years on average. Now they are serving closer to 28 or 30. Host it has changed that much . Yes. The idea that we have individuals having so much Power Holding onto their positions so long is very undemocratic. Lets hear from caldwell, idaho. On the independent line. Caller california had a vote called proposition 8 and it was overturned by i think one judge. Millions of people voted for that direction and then youve got three women on the Supreme Court, not a single one of them thinks marriage is between a man and woman. So ill never be able to figure out how these people are able to even obtain a position you are supposed to be judging things. So thats my comment. Question. Was a tough you had a vote in california that made samesex marriage not illegal and it was overturned by a judge in california. Ultimately the case was decided by the Supreme Court. Thats why we want to have trust in the Supreme Court but is ultimately deciding these fundamental questions. Is a little weird that these people are judging our rights. Overall when these things happen and california has all these crazy propositions its important to have a Supreme Court that we can trust so when the opinion comes out we can have faith that there job is done without bias. Host on the democrat line in maryland. Caller good morning. Two quick questions. Clarence thomass wife was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to campaign against the Affordable Care act. That money certainly made its way into her household. Did notand not only recuse himself but voted the way she wanted him to vote. Is that not Clarence Thomas being bought and paid for and shouldnt he be thrown off the court . Why shouldnt he at some point in time be off the court . The only way to remove a justice is through impeachment and removal similar to the way a president would be removed. Currently there is no recourse or reprimand for inexcusable saveiors that you refer to a high bar of impeachment. Right now thats being debated in democratic and republican circles. There is this judicial misconduct act for lower court judges. , they cane censured undergo mandatory sensitivity training. Process where an investigation occurs. Year frustration that there are ethical lapses and more needs to be done to ensure the justices are held accountable. Just talking about it, realizing that the money paid to jenny thomas for example, we didnt even know about that publicly for several years after it happened. Ensuring those disclosures are posted online in a timely fashion. I understand your frustration. A suprememost we see Court Justice is when they speak before a group in times that the court generally is not in session. Thinkour organization they should have to publicize who paid for that speech . Absolutely. I think by and large these are happening at universities. Maybe its tied to a book tour Something Like that. Theres no internal Ethics Office at the Supreme Court. There is supposedly one or two guys. Mechanism for ensuring that when Justice Kagan says shes traveling to the university of colorado to speak golaw school she didnt also on a fancy ski trip with some donor who might care about whats going on at the court next week. I feel like theres gaps in the reporting. They are required to report some object trips but not the amount. Just that they were reinforced for their travel, food and lodging. I was working on a bill that would require the justices to have the same exacting reporting standards that officials have in terms of making it a timely report so we know within a few days of the trip. Host gabe roth is our guest. He is with fix the court, their executive director. This is kurt in new jersey. Thats the independent line. Go ahead. Caller thanks for your time. Bear with me. Im uneducated but very opinionated. I really enjoyed listening to you talk about the court. See your enthusiasm what would be the most important thing if you could do right now to straighten out the Supreme Court to not have sideshows in the news of what would that be. Thank you. A great question. I think the most important thing right now would be for the a code ofo have conduct. Currently there is something fored a code of conduct u. S. Judges. At some point in time has worked through the American Bar Association and then state Supreme Court adopted this code of conduct. There are certain statutes that say if im judge alito and my sister has a case, i have to recuse myself. Aief Justice Roberts life as legal recruiter. Thats in the law. Thats something because back to common law, british law. The fact that there are nine justices sitting over here who believe they are above a professional conduct code on its very easy for them to adopt one. It would not just be whether we can hold it to them. To have theolically that they are not going to hear cases in which they appear to have bias. They are not going to engage in political activities. Host it was on one of those Supreme Court trips that led to the opening of the seat held open in 2016. A couple of affect points from the survey. Aboutsk people confirmation hearings during an Election Year. The people surveyed said it was the wrong thing to do. In terms of the senate not holding a hearing that year. About holding a confirmation hearing during this election hearing. 69 that the senate should hold confirmation hearings if a vacancy happens on the Supreme Court. What do you think the senate would do . Thats a tough question. Currently the senate has the right to do whatever it wants. Fix the court and i look at it from a sort of different perspective. If you have an 18 year term and justices are rotating on and off every 18 years here going to of seniorch customers. You also had oconnor and stevens. So you have individuals to fill that ninth seat. Have individuals who are confirmed Supreme Court justices who can fill the ninth seat. Whether or not the senate decides to hold confirmation hearings in an Election Year we need to take a step back and say what do we need to do to ensure the continued success and operation of the court. Withourt cant operate eight. Its probably better with nine. Lets ensure that individuals could be pulled back into the service if there are other future shenanigans in the senate. Host this is tony in new jersey on the independent line. Caller i was wondering about expanding the courtside. I guess mayor pete has proposed stuff about having different ways other than Senate Approval to nominate or get judges in. What are your thoughts on that . We just posted something yesterday about the 555 plan where you would have five democrats on the court, five republicans and then the 10 would come together to appoint five other justices. I dont particularly like the plan. I the larger plan, the idea that we are going to say these justices are republicans. These are democrats. Weve never done that in u. S. History. Politics shouldnt predominate jurisprudence. That we are just blatantly saying, you are a democrat, you are a republican. And youre going to find five lawyers in america who are independent enough to be those five in the middle to make it to 15 . I like the idea generally that the democratic field in 2020 the republican field in 2016 both fields were coming up with Creative Ideas to fix the broken confirmation process and the problem of nterminal tenures. Endthese folks wanted to tenures at the Supreme Court. You can check which candidates on the democratic side have similar proposals. I like the idea that he was thinking hard about ways to remove the politicization of the court this proposal to me i think would make it worse. We take your comments on text as well. Ell us where your texting from robert says we have enough justices on the Supreme Court already. Kevin is in denver on the democrat line. Good morning. Caller morning. Mcconnell saying in an interview march 20, 2016 during the Merrick Garland hearings that the republican would not consider any nominee not approved. By the nra. I thought that was so staggering. Nd so the question that i have i think it was also the National Federation of independent business. Of the special Interest Groups that arent supposed to be part of that process as i understand the constitution. Its advise and consent by the senate. And the second question i have, Clarence Thomas is extremely politically active in rightwing politics along with his wife. Hes actually ruling on and doesnt recuse himself. But hes a donor, a speaker and an activist. Host ok. We kind of talked about Clarence Thomas. To my knowledge he hasnt donated since hes been on the court. The Mitch Mcconnell question, it was that very afternoon that scalia died that the republicans said they werent going to have a hearing or vote to on the obama nominee. Thats not great. Thats why we need to have mechanisms in place that the continuing function of the court , Justice Souter is still hearing cases on the lower court. When you are Supreme Court justice you have the ability to cases asuit and hear long as you get permission from the chief judge of that court the idea that once you are done at the Supreme Court after 18 , one of the criticisms is you are done with your Public Service thats not true. Having these elder statesmen and women hearing those cases. Host you brought up your efforts and cspans efforts over the years. You can go on our website and read the history of working with the court. Just search cameras in the court at cspan. What do you think its going to take . Think its going to take a generational shift. Im 37 and grew up with the ubiquity of cameras. The bench liken alito who shows up with his ipad to the hearing, kagan, sotomayor. When they arelks, getting towards the majority. Once Justice Ginsburg whose 86, Clarence Thomas is in his 70s. Once those older folks leave the court i think they will be a little more open to it. There is a website ready to go that can do live audio. Make it happen. I think that will be a good start and we will get to cameras a few years after that. In independence, missouri. Caller im glad you are having the court to this show. The court has become way too political. Handing down such damaging decisions as citizens united. Corporation ever be an individual . Its not a human being. And i think gerrymandering and those things that came down on the wrong side, we should get rid of all gerrymandering and they didnt do that either. I think our Supreme Court has become way too political. We should take the selection process. Judges randomly decide who the next Supreme Court justice to be because who better to pick a justice than people who are already in the business of maintaining our constitutional rights. Kind of like a cardinals picking the pope. Thats not a bad idea. Am all in favor of having conversation that talks creatively about the Supreme Court selection process. I definitely think thats a worthy idea. Start by ensuring that justices are on and off the bench. We dont want this to wreak of feudalism. The fact that we are having serious conversations about the tenure of the Supreme Court. It has taken a while. Something the professors have been talking about for 20 years. Its not tied to kavanaugh or gorsuch or garland or scalia. This is finally in the mainstream but its been going on for a long time. I think its a positive for americans to be thinking about what they want their Supreme Court to look like. Host theres a lot more at fix the court. Com. Gabe roth, thank you for being here. We will wrap up the program with your calls and comments. Your top Public Policy issue. A year from now we will be voting for president across the country. We will also look at the latest in the impeachment inquiry and welcome your phone calls next to here on washington journal. Campaign 2020. On theur live Coverage Campaign trail and make up your own mind. Cspans campaign 2020. Your unfiltered view of politics. Cspan3 at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Watch samples of our history coverage featured every weekend on American History tv. Tonight Supreme Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor reflect on the impact of the first woman Supreme Court justice, sandra day oconnor. On wednesday africanAmerican History. Thursday a look at past impeachment proceedings. And friday the american revolution. American history tv features all week at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan3. For 40 years cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white ande, the Supreme Court Public Policy events from washington, d. C. And around the country so you can make up your own mind. Cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Washington journal continues. Host it is election day 2019. The president ial election in 2020. Your thoughts on whos your favorite candidate now and other Public Policy issues and concerns. A pull from the Financial Times this morning, most americans feel no better off. They write that nearly two thirds of americans say they are no federal financial than when donald trump was selected. According to a poll of just over 1000 likely voters conducted by the Financial Times and the Peter Peterson foundation, 31 of americans say they are worse off than they were at the start of the trump residency. There has been no change since his inauguration. The 5 say their Financial Health has improved. Slow wage growth appeared to be the main driver of discontent. 36 said they were worse off. Laying their income levels. President trump encouraging people to get out and vote. The president tweeting this morning the impeachment hoax has fired up voters in kentucky, mississippi and louisiana. Dale city, california. Go ahead. Calling to talk about the court and i think if do thishe Supreme Court we are not going to have the problems with the court. I would like to say about the the economy isk good for the rich and powerful. The poor and the middle class its worse. We go to the groceries, prices are up. We go for gas, prices are up. I think its time we get trump out of the white house. Host lori is also on the democrat line. Good morning. Read isgood morning p it me . Host yes. Go ahead you on the air. Caller i would like to thank you for your last two guests. I think they were informative and i appreciated them. Agree with the lady who was just on and we need to get trump out of the white house. I just wish that more people would wake up to what hes doing and the things hes getting by with. And i dont understand. To bama wasnt allowed. Upreme Court Justice for month now they are complaining because trump has been in trouble since day one. I mean geez. Host in east brunswick, new jersey. Myler thank you for taking call and thank pbs for everything youve done. I live in the community of east brunswick, new jersey. Im very concerned. Im 81 years old. Ive been a social justice and civil rights activist for 60 years. Im concerned that most of the politicians in Middlesex County do not get it. They do not represent the demographics of the county and the Middlesex County Democratic Organization has been a major power for over 100 years. Involvea need to different demographic groups in running for local office whether they are people of color, young people. There is a need to change the structure of whats happening throughout the small towns. Stillall towns are controlled by political bosses. There is a need to change this. Host two more transcripts are inected to be made public trump impeachment. Houseay that investigators are expected to release more transcript from the closed door depositions discussed as part of the impeachment inquiry. Other witnesses summoned to the capital tuesday will probably refuse to appear. Jim jordan, a boisterous trump supporter, on the house Intelligence Committee. We have posted links to the transcripts released yesterday including one by the former ambassador to ukraine. You can find that at cspan. Org. Lets go to new york. Independent line. Dominic. Go ahead caller good morning. How are you. , your last guest along withtmosphere the corporate lawyers. And then they question them on it. I argue with my wife. The whistleblower hes never met with, he doesnt know his name. Lenny davis at the hearing, i watched it on cspan. Are you paying this man . If youve got money youre going to pay him. The whole thing stinks. Of Hillary Clinton. Period. Its ridiculous. Not that he caused it to happen. People are losing their homes. Host thats dom in new york. Coveringarings we are today here on cspan. 2 30 this afternoon they will hear from fbi director Christopher Wray on domestic threats. Thats before the Homeland Security committee. Hearing looking at data breaches and cybersecurity. Thats on cspan3. You can also follow it online at cspan. Org and on the free cspan radio app. This is headline of the wall street journal and they are reporting on the dow. As u. S. A record outpaces world sound economic data. That on twitter this is jodey who tweeps this, with the stock market at an , why dontgh republicans increase the Interest Rate and start paying back americas debt . Isnt that why we lowered the Interest Rates in the first place . Dale is in birmingham, alabama on the democrat line. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you doing . Thanks for taking my call. But if the same situation had applied to insident obama when he was office and had done some of the things trump is doing i would not support him. I would not send my soul to hell for president obama. I dont understand why these republicans are still going along with wrongdoing and they know they are going along with wrongdoing. Theres a lot of things coming out. Turn off fox because the people sit there knowing that they are telling lies. Just like someone called out your republican guest this morning and they did the right thing. If you know this person is wrong , you know trump has done the wrong thing. I dont hate trump. If he was the right president to do things, i would vote for him. I would really vote for him. But i know that hes doing the wrong thing and i cant understand why these people are still going along with him and doing that. Host bob is in st. Louis. Democrat line. Are you there . Host caller yes i am. First i would like to say about President Trump, this guy needs to be removed from office because he has been against the rule of law, all the institutions of this country. Verifiedt had people on his cabinet. And he keeps running this oneman show as if hes a king in this autocratic government and if hes reelected i think the United States will change tremendously. In they does not believe constitution for the rule of law and he does not even understand the constitution. Hill reporting from the this morning. A look ahead to the race in massachusetts. This is alex bolton with the headline, democrats unifying against joe kennedy in senate bid. Senate democrats are nearly united in opposition to joe kennedy of massachusetts. To unseat senator ed markey. The 39yearold graduate of Harvard Law School is putting his political career on the line i taking on a democratic incumbent. His campaign also marks the best hope of putting a kennedy back in the senator whitehouse for the foreseeable future. Ofate democrats include many those who have been inspired by jfk when they launch their political careers are standing by markey who they consider a loyal party soldier even if he sometimes steals the spotlight or finds a way to horn in on their pet issues. In fort washington, maryland. Independent line. Caller thank you for taking my call. Is it ok if i just take a small birdseye view . Host sure. Caller we all know but maybe sometimes forget that by definition people always has two faces. And we know that when the two become one, light becomes darkness and darkness becomes light. For example in an eclipse. Needs a perspective outside and above ourselves that will give us vision. So landing back down practically i think every person is under the pressure of the position that they are sincerely or insincerely choosing. Doractical thing we can individually is choose to maintain a disposition of empathy and open ear and heart and a willingness to support them in the bird and that they are bearing. We are all under the burden of the side that we are on. Lastly we should not succumb to the pressure of fatalistic thinking which will tend to create negative interactions in our relationships. We should remember that we are on display and to a certain extent this life is like a theater and who we really are transcends the role we are playing and ultimately what matters is how we treat one another. Hopefully that will help people get peace of mind in the turmoil that we are going through right now. Host jim is in idaho. Caller i had to kind of chuckle. The media puts the democrats side so squeaky clean. Its just shocking. And biden said he would send over to ukraine and all of a sudden he gets come on. They are not that squeaky clean. Thank you. Host ok, jim. Patricia on facebook kind of agreeing with you. For any ofwont vote them. Kathleen is in los angeles on the republican line. Good morning. They keep saying im a black american, not an africanamerican, not a person of color. They keep saying that trump has lied. Intelligent and eligible americans and black americans know the democrats have lied to black america for six decades. Learning from trump is that all politicians, most of the politicians have been fleecing america. And this is the thing. Trump is giving us this information. Most intelligent and knowledgeable americans will believe that most of the politicians are fleecing americans and are corrupt. They will believe trump is the only corrupt politician in d. C. S is what knowledgeable trump is the only corrupt politician in d. C. Policy issue for me in los angeles is immigration. Black americans are 40 of the Homeless People in los angeles. We have been in this country for hundred years. Yourof your trumphaters, black american trumphaters have no idea what they are talking about because they dont talk about the data. What does the data say . Host that is kathleen from los angeles. Glad you got in on the calls. Hope you join us tomorrow morning as well as we gather again at 7 00 a. M. Hope you can be with us, have a great day. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] at cspan. Org, we are making it easier for you to watch cspans cover of the coverage of the impeachment inquiry. If you have missed any of our live coverage, go to our inquiry page at cspan. Org impeachment. Tally from the Associated Press showing where each democrat House Democrats dans. Stands. Rat it is her fast and easy way to watch cspans unfiltered coverage anytime. Today, the House Committee is overseeing the impeachment inquiry of President Trump. They will oversee testimony of Gordon Sondland and kurt volker. The tweets about impeachment inquiry, one from republican senator rand paul, he tweets, i call on congress to have the courage to it immediately subpoena both hunter biden and the whistleblower. And from former republican, now independent congressman justin , trump republicans believe in exposing whistleblowers to protect government corruption. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg joins Hillary Clinton and bill clinton. Then President Trumps rally in lexington, kentucky. Later this afternoon, live testimony from fbi director Christopher Wray on threats facing the u. S. Theill speak before Homeland Security committee at 2 00 p. M. Eastern. You can watch all of our coverage online at cspan. Org. This week on cspan3, watch samples of our history coverage featured every weekend on American History tv. Court justicese Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor reflect on the impact of the first woman Supreme Court justice, sandra day oconnor. On wednesday, africanAmerican History. On thursday, past impeachment proceedings for andrew johnson, Richard Nixon and bill clinton. Friday, the american revolution. Held thetown law Second Annual Ruth Bader Ginsburg lecture with featured speakers Justice Ginsburg, former president bill clinton, and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. They reflected on Justice Ginsburgs nomination as well as her approach to the law. This is 90 minutes. [applause]