Host joining us this week on newsmakers, the present of tom emmer, public and of minnesota and the chair of the National Republican congressional committee. Thanks for joining us this morning. Guest good morning. Editor andur hotline the House Campaign reporter, thanks for coming. Thanks for having us. Host go ahead and start. Lets start with the current news. How has the last week of impeachment hearings altered the trajectory of the 2020 race in terms of messaging or outcome . Talking aboutare the republican side, the messaging issue is interesting because both sides is a little bit different. The republican side, i have not changed my opinion of the democrats that the new socialist democrat majority in the house literally gave away the majority the day it started this impeachment proceeding. The polling over the last week shows it. Since they have socalled made it public, independent voters are losing very quickly. We already knew from polling done shortly after this began that two thirds of the voters in battleground states Want Congress to work on the things they send them here to work on, two thirds of those voters think this is nothing more than political theater. Want congress to work out reducing the cost of prescription drugs, addressing surprise medical billing, pass a trade agreement, things like that. Last night, Bernie Sanders said during a debate that democrats are more than capable of chewing bubblegum at the same time as walking. In other words, they can pursue impeachment while also pursuing the legislative goals you just laid out. Is that something you think they could actually do . Guest heres the problem that you have. When you ask about messaging, sideeadership on the other of the aisle understand how devastating this is in the battleground seats. Counterpart, they are conducting focus groups to try to figure out how they messaged independent voters. What they came up with was we cant call it quid pro quo, weve got to call it bribery. This doesnt have to do with doing one and the other at the same time, this has to do with who we are talking to. Voters want you to get the word out that they sent you here to do this. Democrats have done absolutely nothing except this impeachment process. And we are running out of time. We just passed one continual resolution. Its going to take until december 20. There just are not enough. Their obsession with the hatred of this president and their desire to undo the peoples vote in the 2016 election is stopping them from doing anything else. There has been some democratic polling that showed support for the inquiry is largely a wash in the battleground. As many support who dont. With that in mind, why is this going to be such an issue to take back the majority . Guest it is a wash . Support as many dont support in the about iran, it is not moving people either way. Guest i totally disagree. If you are talking about the National Polling, National Polling will typically pick up larger concentration of democrat voters. The problem with those polls if you are going to use those, it also matters how you ask the question. They are not upset with the investigation. They dont have a problem with investigation. They have a problem with the process and the fact that nothing else is getting done. And i would disagree, i challenge that statement that it is a wash. There is a poll that came out yesterday, i will have to get to you after this. Just the last week since this socalled impeachment process would argue isnt even a process , the adam schiff show. He makes up the rules as he goes along, he decides who is going to get to testify, what they are going to release. That is not a true, fair process. Wisconsin, since this thing supposedly went public last week, the gap with independent voters which is where this election will be decided is growing. Independent voters believe this is nothing more than political theater. When it comes to independent voters, you think that we sometimes put them all in one big category together when that is just not the case, there are two types of independent voters in the country. Independent voters, folks who may be have supported traditional republicans like mitt romney, and then barack obama supporters who in 2016 saw donald trump and said this is the guy who represents make. Represents me. The question is whether independent voters in those suburban districts, whether those are the kinds who are going to be saturated by constant support of the president and not finding places to disagree. Guest those are the very voters i was just talking about. Take a look. Outsidethe nancy pelosi group, House Majority forward. There is a damming report that House Majority forward just did a looking at new jersey, they are getting terrible responses to what they are doing from educated suburban voters. Even if we take the impeachment proceeding and put it to the side, they havent accomplished anything. They are here to reduce the price of prescription drugs, work on surprise medical billing. Instead, what they are doing is they are offering, they want socialized medicine. Almost 150 members on this medicare for all, government medicine. Which will take people off their private health insurance. They want to totally a limited fossil fuels. They want to sell things like we are going to stop eating hamburger, we are going to decriminalize illegal immigration. Things like this are not mainstream american thought and that is not going to sell in the suburbs. That is why they are going to lose the majority next fall. We are looking back over the last month, republicans have had some pretty hard losses in virginia, both houses of the state legislature. Looking at louisiana, kentucky. Won thoseewon governorships largely on the strength of suburban voters. Does that not worry your party . Guest its interesting because i think the National Narrative from the National Media would like us to believe that this was a total and absolute democrat night. It was not even close. You had a very unpopular governor in kentucky who was way behind. He lost. Interesting note, that didnt translate anywhere down ticket. The republican candidate for secretary of state outperformed the last secretary of state race by 10 points. You want to talk about the suburbs in virginia, take a look at virginia 7. Virginia 7 did not flip one Republican House seat in virginias district. Somebody like jeff andrew has to be extremely concerned. Jeff andrew, his suburban Senate District that he used to represent in the new jersey senate, last fall he won that seat as he was running for congress by 12 points. In the elections last week . That flipped to republican by seven. Victories forcan largestlerk, the suburban population in america. See this isting to what im talking about, the frustration is the new socialist democrat majority has not accomplished anything they were sent here to do. The in session with this impeachment process constantly trying to take out their hatred on this president from the 2016 election, that is what is going to cost them the majority next fall. The new jersey democrat elected in 2018, he could theoretically lose the election and that might not mean that republicans have captured a majority. T is a good disctir district that shows republicans are within striking distance . Guest well, we are. The top 31 donald trump w two years ago. On the next 20 Hillary Clinton won by five points or yes. These are seats like kansas and illinois, those were tough losses but republicans can hold those again. If you just go to the top 31, the top 13 seats, donald trump won by six points or more two years ago. These are republican seats. Oklahoma five, utah 4. You ask me, it is a narrow path, but if you look at it, 19 seats. Lets assume we dont win all 13 of the ruby red districts. We win 10. Now we need half of the remaining 18 in the top 31 which i would argue are trump districts. This is why the first term democrats, you hear people like jeff andrews say lets put the brakes on this impeachment thing. He knows what is coming. Argue depending on what the environment is 12 months from now, that we could easily win back four or five, maybe even six of the next 20. The path is there easily. That doesnt take into account democrat offense, especially in places like texas where you see districts that have been trending away from republicans. Is a bit of ans understatement when it is possible that other republicans could lose their seats. Guest again, i think that is a false narrative. I hope you put all your money in texas. The member of the texas delegation most at risk today is henry and that is because he is getting a wicked primary being generated by justice democrats supported by cortez. Texas, you had half a million trump voters they did not show up last fall that will be showing up this time around. Weve got great candidates in texas. By the way, we just talked about suburban voters. I wish my colleagues on the other side of the aisle good luck as they try it limiting fossil fuels in texas, people eating hamburger in texas. Outlawing private health insurance. These are not going to sell in texas. I hope they put all the money in texas. We are going to take back seats in texas. We do talk about what your party has done to rebuild your brand in the suburb . Is largely 40 seats due to the president s unpopularity. What has changed that makes you optimistic . Guest for me, i believe branding should be for the incumbent. That is where it has to start. This is something we do when we sit down. Right now, weve got 800. 800 candidates that have filed and are already running on congress as republicans across this country. Weve got candidates in 357 races already. Weve got a Record Number of women running. 161, over 160. The previous high was 160 three. A Record Number of minority candidates, close to 130. Running, aterans diverse crowd. It starts with the candidates, do we reflect the district they are running in . Second, i think people underestimate the fact that onee is an estimated million 8 million trump voters that did not show up last fall. You look at iowa, for instance, four congressional districts in iowa. The registerpare republicans and the unaffiliated voters from 2000 ask teen to last fall. 2018. 16 to there are voters that did not show up last fall and i would suggest those are trump voters. That, combined with the fact that donald trump be on the ballot this time. Last time, the midterm was a check on executive power. The party that loses the white house is particularly energized because they want to push back and they show up, and they did. This is called a choice election. People are going to make a choice and the choice is going to be a very simple one between freedom and socialism. You can dislike the personalities, you can take whatever you want from that, and you can vote against a person if you dont like their behavior for whatever reason. Is do this election, it you want the government to decide what your health care looks like . Do you want the government telling you what the healthiest thing is that you could be getting . Do you want the government telling you how you are going to travel from one point to another do you want the freedom to make those choices yourself . When people go into vote, when that is the choice, they are going to make the choice for the republican candidate. It can be a doubleedged sword, some of those governors races from last time around, they energize democrats and affluent voters who may be more if not much of a debate. Guest you are talking about louisiana and kentucky. You try to compare these, and it is your right to have that view of it, but kentucky was a very unpopular governor. The governor in louisiana, his problem was he had to have a Value Proposition. Primary just saying this is a bad governor, our Current Governor is a bad governor. That might be so, but you have to have a message, what is your Value Proposition to voters in louisiana . Instead, he nationalized the race, he got all he could get out of the president supporting him, but he had to have something of substance to offer himself and i wasnt there, im not in louisiana, but talking to louisiana members, they say that is the biggest problem, he didnt have a Value Proposition. Tom emmer, the, chair of the National Republican congressional committee, republican of minnesota. He is joining us to be questioned by National Journal. Go ahead. Is there room for republican candidates, especially in those districts that Hillary Clinton carried, that republicans lost in 2018 . Is there room for them to say that they support the impeachment inquiry,. To separate themselves from the republican president like democrats separated themselves from nancy pelosi . Again, lets separate it from donald trump and this current administration. I dont think voters are telling us a have a problem with investigations that are valid. I think they are having a problem with this being a complete hoax. There is nothing here. You had a witness yesterday that was cherry picked, we are going to offer him because he is supposed to Say Something we want to say. The morning hes is one thing, the afternoon he says something else. There is no basis for an impeachment that has been shown it is not a legitimate process. I would recommend to candidates they stay away from that. If you are going to try to give an opinion on what is going on, the only opinion i would give is that it is a flawed process and should be completely transparent. Put it all out in the public, let everybody see everything. You would probably get a more fair result. You might get a better reaction from voters. They are the reason not doing that is because the information they want is not there. D you thinkhoax, that will resonate with suburban voters . In places like dallas and omaha . Guest i wouldnt use the word hoax, even though i just did. What i usually talk about is the fairness of process. If somebody asked me back at home, i would tell them behind closed doors, it is not allowing every member to have access to all of the facts. Why not . Why dont you put it all out in the open . Why dont you have a completely transparent process, stop telling us this is exactly like the next and clinton proceedings, because its not at all. There was due process, people were allowed to witness, people have representation. That is what i would talk about. The administration can call it whatever they want. From my perspective, congress does have the obligation to look into things, but if you truly believe this is a credible, valid exercise of congressional oversight, then put it all out in the light of day so everybody can see what is going on. In these 31 democratic districts that trump won, butusly 30,000 promised some recruitment holes. You, weve got 357 of the 435 races to be covered. Several of them have multiple candidates in them. Sure, 800 people are running, these are great candidates. Still 12 months out. Going to have a lot more people that show up. If not all 435, 420 races will be covered. There is a difference between a candidate with a credible operation and one who struggles to get off the ground. Guest it depends on the race you are talking about. , keep in environments mind, last cycle, the average winning democrat in the house had 4 million, the average replicant spent 250 million. It costs a lot less to sell the truth. We are doing extremely well, by the way. Tos week, we are within 200 300 of where the committee was at this exact time two years ago, and we have 40 more members. We are way ahead of the pace. Looking at media markets, you are going to have to compete in a lot of major markets like los angeles and philadelphia. Oreone like katie porter mikey, when you look at the bank accounts, it does look a lot more complicated. Guest you can have a lot of money in the bank but youve got to have a message, you got to have some accomplishments. Youve got to convince people instead of trying to allow this hatred and this obsession with this president to get in the way of everything you were sent here to do. Every one of those people is at risk. Oeve got david valide running in california. We are a year out. Katie porter is definitely putting herself at risk. Just because you have 1 million or more in the bank, americans are smarter than that. You could have the most greasy Media Campaign but if you dont actually have a message, if you are going to sell this socialist agenda which it is interesting, there are those who want to own it and they say we are socialist now, and they want the government to do this, we want the government to decide that. And then there are others who want to take a step back and say that is not everybody, we are not that. But when we are silenced by not standing up and speaking out and fighting against this socialist takeover of the democratic party. Party,dfathers democrat everyone of those people is at risk to some extent. ,hose new jersey suburban seats 7, 2, 3, they could easily flip back. Katie porter, we will see how it plays. Obviously the president ial primary dynamic in california 24,d impact californias 21, whatever katie hills seat was. 20. Guest you know what im talking about. It has been called for march 3. We will see how that plays on march 3. Ish on allibly bull of these seats being in play. You guys know, youve got 55 seats targeted as we move forward. Some will rise up and be more likely, others might drop down because the candidate and the operation, whatever happens. Then there are some outside of the 55 that might surprise us. There might be two or three that suddenly because of a charismatic candidate, the lack of getting stuck down here, and electric that is really fresh electorate that is really frustrated with the socialist agenda, and not accomplished, thankfully. It could put other races on the map. Looking back at 2018, what is the number one lesson you learned in terms of messaging and individual campaigns on what to do differently. Guest republicans made a couple of mistakes. Maybe more depending on the campaign you are looking at. Job ofnot do the personalizing the tax cuts and jobs act to the middleclass families. The firefighter, the teacher isnt to her three kids in the suburbs. We didnt do the job i believe of actually making it personal to them. How is this better for you . We have been through the process now, people have done their taxes. Personalizeidnt that, i think we lost that argument, people actually believed that corporations were the biggest beneficiary. Despite the fact that the top 1 , most of them got hit harder than anybody knows. That, i dont think people recognize that. The day that the Health Care Reform stopped in the senate, i should say the day after, we should have set down and said all right, what is the message . What do we do to fix this thing with health care . Second, what is the message that we want to have her the voters when we get to november 2018 . We never had that. Those preexisting condition democratat the candidates perpetrated across the country in the month before the election. Sure we weremake clear, there was no republican that wanted to eliminate coverage for preexisting conditions. But we could do that. When you are trying to fix that in september and october, its too late. Those are the mistakes. You have to be looking today. A decisionng to be made in november 2020 and you have to be prepared. Our job in the first year is to define the choice. We will continue to define the choice as we go into 2020 but it that point, our leadership, kevin mccarthy, steve scalise, we will be putting out our Value Proposition. Why they should show up and vote for republicans. So you are talking about messaging but we cant ignore the role of the president here. And of that had to be his Approval Rating, how voters felt about him. Are you worried is going to be a Major Pressure on the campaign trail in places like kansas and illinois that with republicans drifting away in the year of trump . Guest there are 8 million trump voters that did not show up will be showing up. Anomaly that people in washington, d. C. Just dont understand. People across this country that arent on the northeast coast or on the west coast, they are very frustrated with what happens here and theyve got somebody who they believe is fighting for them. Regardless of style, regardless of anything else. New socialist democrat majority in the house, they have let this thing become all about impeachment. Collusion, you spent two years and 32 million, no collusion, no obstruction, now you go right into this and you havent gotten anything done. Reduced prices on pharmaceuticals, surprise medical billing. The usmca. Weve got the industry across this country struggling. This would be great news for them. Get stuff done. Because they are not doing it, that is why they are going to lose the majority. Host our guest has been representative tom emmer, the chair of the National Public congressional committee. Thanks for your time. Guest thank you. Host we will be right back. So it was his assertion that the democrats gave away the majority because of impeachment and then he gave his reasons why. Is there a reality to that . I think that republicans want the election to be a referendum on the social issues that he touched on. Even Health Care Issues like medicare for all. I think democrats what it to be a donald trump. We do not know what the answer to that question is yet. Republicans obviously are betting on it being a referendum on the major social issues. Therefore, Something Like the impeachment hearings would not be helping democrats. Whether or not that is the case is it is way too soon to tell. Unknowns. Re so many out . Oes impeachment play what do voters think . What is trumps Approval Rating white . What isoon trumps Approval Rating like . It is too soon to tell. Talk about what argument he made. Think republicans are betting that higher turnout among republicans will help them in the midterms. It is a safe assumption to make, considering that the power they in power loses in midterm election. And makes sense that republicans lost seats in the house. What is not being discussed as much is that there might be higher turnout from republicans which could make a huge difference in the rural districts and in some of these white workingclass districts. There could also be increased turnout from young voters and minority voters what people in politics call low propensity voters. Outrs who do not turn during midterms usually, but turn out out may when donald trump is on the ballot. I think we are missing one aspect here persuasion. There have not been trump voters who also voted for democrats. Had to win over some trump voters. Chairman embers counterpart because a lot of these voters trump triers. They tried trump out in the midwest. We will have some interesting test cases come 2020. Host when you ask them about kentucky, about virginia, he pushed back against that. What you think of that . Guest those are very specific. Ounter specific points republicans have trouble in the suburbs. We have three examples across the country. The louisiana and kentucky arguments more than anything else emphasize how trumps influence is limited. He did see that in kentucky. Voters mades that were based largely on personality. It was a strong year for republicans. Kentucky is still a republican state, but trump went to kentucky and asked voters to vote for his candidate. Asked them to vote for his and voters did not do that. If trump is going to be the , there seems to be a hole in that argument. He came to 19 seats, painted a rosy picture of how you get to those 19 seats. Guest guest that is the 30,000 feet view. There are a lot of places where they do not have strong candidates. Or where they do not have candidates that have filed. Cartwright there are certainly more examples. Breaking down trump support in those districts, i believe he more heh 60 of districts ose half of those 31 districts have been trending away from republican. It might be a really good year for republicans. It might be the air republicans can win back those districts. It also will be the first time they win lose some of those districts. Theyre not all the same. They are going to split. Of the 25 seats that hillary one, 22 vote democratic. How ard to see leah of the National Journal serves as their hotline editor. To both of you, thank you for joining us on newsmakers. I think that a National Primary is one of the worst reforms you could implement. If we were doing it in a rational way, have a rotating regional primary so that we, in different elections, have different groups of states go together. Which would allow focus retail campaigning. Learn about the president ial nominating process tonight. Lara brown, director of the school,tial candidate talks about what reforms to the process might be in the works. Watch tonight at 8 00 eastern. Tonight on book tv at 9 00 eastern, jeff mason discuss a warning which looks behind the scenes at the donald Trump Presidency from an anonymous source. President trump is the one who is the ultimate decider. Of course, that is the job of any president. He really, really follows his totincts from anything marketing. Icy to he has his own press secretary. He has his own munications director. He has his own people in congress have given away their powers to the other end of pennsylvania avenue. Something about it is to do something about it. Watch book tv on cspan2. Over the past two weeks the House Intelligence Committee has heard more than 30 hours of testimony during the impeachment inquiry. You can find all of our impeachment cover he inquiry coverage on cspan. Org. Watch themony and latest speeches in reactions from congress and the white house. We will show you highlights from this weeks hearings. Next is gordon sondland, ambassador to the european union. After that, fiona hill and david holmes. Here is wednesdays hearing with ambassador sondland. Rep. Schiff do you swear that te