Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 01262020 20200126

much longer than the initial two hours of the arguments on saturday. that is our starting. point, a live view of the capital. give us calls. is the line for democrats. (202) 748-8001 is the line for republicans. if you are an independent, (202) 748-8002. be sure to tell us where you are texting from and your first name. is number i for that (202) 748-8003. a developing story in asia with indications in the u.s., the coronavirus. there are 56 confirmed deaths of the coronavirus across china. hundreds of medical personnel are being employed to treat the ill end to stem the outbreak. there is this from the bbc. the spread of the deadly new virus is accelerating, according to the chinese president. a special government meeting took place yesterday, the lunar new year, a public holiday in china. it said the country is facing a grave situation. the coronavirus has killed at least 56 people, infected as many as 2000 others. the u.s. announcing its staff and the area will be evacuated from wuhan on a special flight that will take place on tuesday. the state department says private americans, most at risk, will be able to board the flight arriving in san francisco. researchers have warned of the real possibility that china may not be able to contain the virus. a story that continues in the u.s. and across asia. now, to the impeachment trial of president trump and the wall street journal with the headline that the democrats have failed to make the impeachment case. that is what republicans are arguing in the first round of opening argument. here are some details. "president trump's legal team says the democrats have failed to make the price -- case for removing president trump from office. there was no evidence he pushed ukraine's president in exchange for a. in their first chance to address the senate, the president lawyers sought to undercut the case democrats may that he abused the power of his office. to useense team, opting just two hours of its time, arguing that the president's actions were in national interest and it was politically motivated. president's white house counsel took the lead in the opening arguments for you here is part of what he told senators. >> we will talk about the process. we will talk about the law. today, we are going to confront them on the merits of their argument. now, they have the burden of proof. and they have not come close to meeting it. in fact, and i want you to ask -- think about one issue beyond process. if you were really interested in finding out the truth, why would you run a process the way they ran it? if you are really confident in your position on the facts, why would you lock everybody out of it? from the president's side? why would you do that? we will talk about the process arguments. the process arguments are compelling evidence on the merits because it is evidence that they themselves do not believe in the facts of their case. they came hereat for 24 hours and hid evidence evidenceis further that they don't really believe in the facts of their case. , for all their talk about election interference, perpetratere here to interference in an election in american history. and we cannot allow that to happen. it would violate our constitution. it would violate our history. it would violate our obligations to the future. and, most importantly, it would violate the sacred trust that the american people have placed in you and have placed in them. the american people decide elections. up, in ninee coming months. we will be very efficient. we will begin our presentation today. finish efficiently and quickly, so that we can all go have an election. host: that is from pat cipollone, the president's white house counsel. the trump team says charges are a ploy to steal the election. round one of the defense, what do you think? ed from lawrenceville georgia on the republican line, good morning. -- lawrenceville, georgia, on the republican line, good morning. caller: good morning. mr. schiff himself, when he was a prosecutor, he put a lot of people away by lying. i think that president trump, yesterday, was proven to be completely innocent. i think that what the democrats have done is so shameful that most of them have committed the of false witness against your neighbor. that is as bad as murder. thank you. line,cheryl, democrats los angeles. good morning to you, cheryl. caller: good morning, steve. how are you? host: i am fine. how are you? caller: fine. thank you for asking. if you would give me a small bit of time to make my point, i would appreciate that. first, i want to start with the republicans. when they say they talk so much about god, these evangelicals, it is as if no one else knows him but them. if you know to do right and do wrong, it is a sin. i will not get too religious on that because i am not a religious person but i love the most high. said don't come to testify. if you are an honest person, you would one somebody to testify if you know you are in the -- want somebody to testify if you know you're in the right. two, to tell the american people you should not believe him when he lied, the first time he lied, maybe it was a mistake. when you are found to tell so many lies, at what point do you think that person is going to tell the truth? my third one is that i think every american who hears this president and thinks he is telling the truth, i think every american should just go out and protest and say we want to hear the truth. telling the truth, you would not want to hide the truth. that's my point. j in the washington post, meaning with reporters after day one of the president's defense lawyers in this headline from the washington post. the president had legitimate concerns about ukraine. c-span is a resource for the impeachment trial. on c-span radio and the free c-span radio app. it will be streamed on the website, c-span.org. jan with this message, i just don't know how anyone can defend trump. this from bob in illinois. the president's defense team knocked it out of the park. come on, november 3. this from steve, chairman adam schiff pointed out that each of the lines presented by the trump defense team, he was correct. caller: good morning. a couple of points. that trump stated should not be on the ballot and has to be removed from the ballot. how dare he tell me who i can and cannot vote for. secondly, and rush limbaugh has been playing this on his show almost every day, when biden actually bragged about stopping an investigation and the famous line is he said i stopped the b-i-itch. biden's speech about how he bragged about stopping an investigation. the democrats are the ones that are scared to death that hunter biden and joe biden, they have to testify. if you want witnesses, include them, include adam schiff and the rest of these dishonest democrats. go, rush limbaugh! host: based on what the biden campaign said, he wanted the investigation. he was not trying to stop the investigation. we will go to dennis in south portland, maine. your view on all of this, good morning. caller: good morning, steve. good morning, america. thanks for taking my call. i have watched the house inquiry, all of it. and all of the senate trial, so far. the most telling thing that i have heard was with adam saying, and this is unbelievable, that we must remove the president now because, in november, we cannot trust the voters to do the right thing. steve,atement alone, ought to scare the daylights out of every voter, regardless of the party. host: dennis, thank you. robin in tennessee, how much of the trial have you watched? caller: i have watched all of it. was basically repeated russian talking points and a bunch of lies. i bet we won't get to see john bolton. we won't get to see mick mulvaney because they know they are guilty. the reason why adam schiff said he needs to re--- be removed is continue to cheat. the republican party has no problem with cheating to try to win an election. it has been proven. they are not disputing the facts. not one of them said what adam schiff said about the facts is not true. it is all true. the republicans are so hell-bent in being in lockstep with trump that they are going along with his lies and distortions. host: robin, thanks for the call. let me go back to the collars on adam schiff, who is the chair of the house intelligence committee and one of the house impeachment managers, from the wall street journal. the trump team took aim republicans have accused's office of coordinating with the whistleblower, whose complaint tocribed mr. trump's efforts solicit ukraine's help. he has acknowledged the whistleblower approached a staff member in his office before filing a form of complaint. it informed the person to seek legal counsel, as is customary when approached by a whistleblower. mr. schiff said he should have been more clear, when he said his committee had not been in touch with the whistleblower. congressmen shift on friday said that republicans were trying to distract from the case. from the wall street journal website. bill from the republican line. good morning, go ahead. caller: how are you doing? so i have toperson vote democratic. i watched all of these hearings. i am retired. i watched all of these hearings and everything and the president's lawyers, in two hours, made the democrats, it just made them look sick. i used to argue with my brother over whether this country used propaganda. i have to believe him. that is about all i've got to say. host: thanks from the call. also from the washington post -- republicans decry the trial as boring. senator rick scott, republican from florida among those pictured in the basement of the u.s. capitol. you can hear a subway in the background. that is the location for members of the senate and house impeachment managers to meet with the press during the after thefore and trial which resumes on monday. a live view of the u.s. capitol on the sunday morning and more from yesterday. senator chuck schumer, reacting to what he heard from day one of the president's defense lawyers, going after house democratic managers. would liket points i to make is that the president's counsel did something that they did not intend. they made a compelling case for why the senate should call witnesses and documents. they kept saying that there are no what a witness -- no eyewitness accounts. there are people who are eyewitnesses. the four witnesses and sets of documents that we have asked for. they made the argument that no one really knows what the president intended. there are people who know. mick mulvaney knows. in all likelihood, mr. blair knows. mr. bolton may know. witnessesn't we have and documents here? and one other point about witnesses and documents. , themake the argument president's council, that the president could not participate in the house process because they believe -- i don't believe it is right -- the president could not participate in the house process because it did not go by the rules of the constitution and what was required. in the senate, we are doing it exactly as the constitution requires. will they purchase a pay? ?- participate or will they find some other excuse? counsel isnt's criticizing the case against the president. while, at the same time, blocking testimony from witnesses close to the president. chuck schumer reacting to reporters and what he heard from the president's defense lawyers. time magazine and time.com has the headline that the impeachment defense takes its cue from the president. house democrats who impeach trump in december for abuse of power and obstructing congresses investigation allege that trump put his own political interests ahead of american national security by withholding aid to ukraine to pressure the country to announce an investigation into political rival, joe biden. they sought to establish other motivations for the president's actions, claiming the president wanted allies to share the burden of providing for ukraine and sought to root out corruption in the country. the other side does not buy that argument and took issue with many of the assertions the defense made. tammy from pennsylvania has this text message saying i found the opening arguments yesterday, refreshing. i could listen and have evidence to process in my mind, not hearsay and innuendo. from cleveland, ohio, loretta, you are next. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning, steve, good morning, america. trump's defense boring, lacking in truth and honesty. trump held back all of the documents. he blocked all of the witnesses. do withn has nothing to what trump did. perfect. call was not as a matter of fact, the lawyer -- the lawyer for trump, he read from the ended phone transcript. what the realknow transcript says. i don't understand what is wrong with these republican voters. they are so ensconced on their side that they refuse to look at the truth. a trial is supposed to seek the truth. host: thanks for your call. anne has this. they have attacked the people who are providing evidence of the crimes. they are operating under the premise that the facts don't matter if you can denigrate the messenger. kenneth is next from texas. good morning. caller: good morning. i don't see a crime here. the attorney general's of 21 to thehave responded democratic articles of impeachment and they explained thoroughly that a president because eveneached corruption was taken out of the constitution. they strictly wanted it to be treason, bribery, high crimes and misdemeanors. there is not one. interesting isnd what adam schiff proposed in his closing statements. i feel that they are trying to get ahead of the ball. the democrats are trying to get ahead of the ball. he says he feared the russians -- packedd computers hacked computers. i think they are trying to set that up where they can say that is russian interference. the truth is, even during the 2016 election, when the russians hacked the d&c computers, there was nothing false about what they found. they just did not like what they found. they are going to find the same thing with burisma, they really are. host: thanks for the call. we will go to susan in orlando, florida next. good morning. caller: good morning. i have watched everything, when of course i would come home from work, i would have to watch that night. onically, i want to comment rick scott. rick scott was a crook. he had the largest fine in the united states for being the ceo of hda and medicare funds. please, do not talk about him. he won by a slim margin and we a decent person, bill nelson as the senator. that's not why i'm calling. you just mentioned him. we think he is a crook. iyway, i wanted to say that am very happy that lev parnas has come out and shown the president to be the liar that he is. he knows the guy. we see him with the guy. i can't understand how any of can not the republicans look at what they're seeing -- cannot look at what they're seeing and believe what their own eyes are telling them. the secondd not play and third days of the impeachment trials by the democrats. they had it on a square of their station with no sound. come on. how can fox news people that are watching that station be informed? they cannot. that is my comment. i appreciate you letting me speak. host: thanks for the call. we will have more on lev parnas and the audio and video in just a moment. will go to lawrence in new jersey. independent line, good morning. caller: can you hear me? host: sure can. go ahead. onler: the impeachment trial the democrats side, i don't want to do this democrat and republican because i am more of an independent and i am looking down the road. i do not see this as so much about trump or so much about the democrats as i do the future of my grandchildren and my children. because, if we allow it to go on now, where does it in? particular hearing is allowed to hold documents and witnesses away, 15 years from now, what can we do? nobody is looking at it like that. one side is crying about this. one side is crying about this. nobody is looking at the future. more onwe should focus what actually is happening than what the radio stations and television stations are telling people. that is what i have to say. host: regarding document, this is kathy. she sent in a text message. you can do so at (202) 748-8003. she said if they thought the documents are so important, they never should have voted to impeach without them. next is sheila. caller: thank you for taking my call. host: certainly. caller: i wonder why the democrats are calling in and they do not understand that this is not like your average trial that we are all familiar with. impeachment hearing. the democrats had every opportunity to remedy the situation about withheld documents and witnesses, if they had followed what the impeachment proceedings require. they wanted these witnesses in the documents -- and the document, they could have gone to the court. it would have been expedited and it would not have been held up for five or six months like they keep claiming. as far as parnas goes, he is under indictment for election fraud and mondrian -- money laundering, whatever. he is not a credible witness. i would like to know where to loop it is. we don't hear anything about him. we do not hear anything about the story about what was going on in ukraine, when ukraine was in a total mess with their elections. the new president had just been elected. i think trump was absolutely correct in learning who was going to handle the funds the united states was giving over. thank you so much. host: thank you so much. audra is next from alabama, independent line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. one quick observation. joe biden was actually on video, bragging about how he got the prosecutor fired. he was going to withhold $1 billion. he was bragging about that. i recall you correcting a previous color. host: it gets confusing because the argument from the bidens from that point is that the vice president was doing so at the direction of the president and of european leaders because they felt the prosecutor at the time was corrupt and was not investigating ukraine. i just want to put that out there. there are a lot of talking points back and forth. i want to deal with the facts. that is what the biden campaign is saying. there is no connection between the firing of the prosecutor and his son. although the optics is an issue that republicans have taken aim at and rightfully so. the point is that the white house is saying that was done in 2016. at the direction of european allies and president obama. obama dictatednt foreign policy because he was president at the time. host: you are right. is right for president trump to do the same. there is no issue there. host: absolutely. the democrats are trying election interference. the argument is predicated on a foreign policy disagreement. people just, it is disappointing to watch. americans talk about the president like a dog. it is so sad. i don't have anything to say. thank you. host: thanks for the call from alabama. released a 2018 dinner that took place in april of that year. news had the video on friday. it was released yesterday. here is a portion of what the president told donors at a small dinner in april of 2018. pres. trump: she is walking around, telling everybody wait, he will get impeached. [laughter] pres. trump: get rid of her. take her out. ok? do it. that is from abc news. the new yorker has this headline. "take her out. the white house response to that abc story did not deny the president attended the dinner which took place on april 30 in 2018 and they did not deny that the president used the language attribute it to him. everynie grisham said president in our history has had the right to place people who support his agenda and policies within his administration. the new yorker pointed out nobody suggested trump did not have the authority to replace her. the issue is why he did it and why he has been lying about his relationship with parnas. last week, the president said i don't know him at all. let's go to mike, joining us import charlotte, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i was trying to get my thoughts straight with so many people calling. i am an independent. i try to take an objective point of view. factssee yesterday was refuting stories. with the brett kavanaugh hearings. it ends up being the same thing. and i don't understand where the people are coming down on it. i don't understand why i would want to elect a person that would have a corrupt son. that would make a millionaire out of corruption and my position. i wish somebody on the left would tell me why i would vote for this person. and you guys have a great day. thanks for your time. host: thanks for your call. joan has this point. finally facts and truth. the democrats did not prove the case. vote for truth, not opinion and party. i headline from the washington shiftsp's lawyer credibility as part of the defense strategy. conduct atthat his the start of the impeachment inquiry will be a sticking point in the defense strategy. life coverage resume tomorrow at .:00 p.m. eastern time o in jefferson station, new york, chris is our next caller on the democrat line. caller: some people want to treat this country like it is russia, north korea, saudi arabia. there is not one person running this country. three branches of government, equal. put it on the table. there it is. love the country first. that is all i am saying. love your country. put anybody else below your country first-rate it seems like independent,ic, forget it. the president loves the country. no doubt about it. you have to love everybody in the country. not just this side or that side. side andple are on one not the other side. that's all i'm saying. --t: our next collar is collar is -- our next ca ller is arthur. have you watched everything? caller: yes. realize mr.k people trump does not have all of his faculties. he lives every day. i think they need to get rid of him. thank you. host: thank you. from cumberland, maryland, thank you for waiting. good morning. caller: good morning. i have been able to watch all of healing from aam fifth heart attack. if you are good at connecting me that really baffles the democrats hate for our president glosses all over -- over all of the actual facts and the house and house managers anythingis cannot read factual. everything has to be interpretative. words are asserting that they want. on. yesterday, the two hour republican rebuttal shut down their remarks. host: there has been some interesting reporting on the connection between the whistleblower. send us a suite. we at c-span2 bj. details.some of the the president is looking for one senate democrat tebow against removing the president -- to vote against removing the president from office. trump took pride that three house democrats voted against his impeachment. he said he would like to be able to get at least one senate democrat to vote for his acquittal so that he can claim the decision was bipartisan. he has cited with the president before, senator manchin has. voting to acquit the president would be a more politically charged decision when it could elp him maintain his reputation as a moderate back home but would make him a pariah in his party. senator susan collins of maine, let's watch. >> senator susan collins, you're not doing the job we elected you to do. meiners demand evidence, foresses, you keep covering trump. oh, sure. you certainly talk a good game. concerned, troubled, worried. one thing you are not is dependent. time, aenator, this finger wag will not cut it. you are a senator. act like it. you work for main, not mitch mcconnell. maine demands independence from our leaders. it is something we had with olivia snow and bill cohen. don't embarrass them protection -- protecting corruption. you are not there to support corruption. meiners support independence. we want a fair trial. either do your job, susan collins, or maine will find someone who will. host: that is from the lincoln project. this is what the website looks like. lincoln project.us. this is a group put together by george conway, a husband of the senior white house counsel kellyanne conway. aren tweeted calling her moderate republican. she gave up the right to be called that. missoula, montana, phoenix. good morning. caller: good morning. i found it interesting that the lawyer yesterday started off by saying the president was shut out and republicans were not allowed to be a part of the house investigation. then, he proceeded to show you clips of the republicans asking all of those questions, saying they did not show you this and this. allnt c-span2 find out who of those imposters were. if republicans were not allowed, who were those imposters asking those questions? secondly, thank you for trying to point out that when biden was removing that corrupt prosecutor in ukraine, the whole administration was behind it, congress was behind it, the european union was behind it but rush limbaugh always place part of the story just so he can deceive his listeners. that started when they removed the fairness doctrine. when i was young, they used to have to at least give the other side away to say something about it. it is not equal when they say they have joe biden on film saying it. ted cruz has been sucking up to president trump after president trump said that ted cruz's father helped kill jfk and that his laugh is ugly. maybe trump was telling the truth. maybe that is why ted cruz loves him so much. i am just raffled at the republicans and how they have tried to say -- one more thing too. impeachment and removal means the people will not be on the ballot again. it is not like adam schiff is trying to deprive people of of vote. also, after trump was elected, then, the people had another vote. they flipped the house and the constitution says that when that they have the sole power of impeachment. you don't have to go begging to the courts. you don't have to go ask permission to send out a subpoena. suppose that hillary clinton had said no, i'm not coming in and testifying for 11 hours to the benghazi fiasco or the irs said .o, we will not talk to you or all of the rest of them. obama sent the people up there to testify. they did not like what they said that they testify. we are -- host: we are one week and one day away from the iowa caucuses. you can watch them as they unfold on c-span and live on we will have the results. the winners and losers. the following week, we are in new hampshire and for the first in the nation primary. we are live with senator elizabeth warren. she is in iowa, our coverage getting away -- getting underway at 5:15 eastern time. openingr in his arguments. >> in their opening statement, several members tried to relitigate the case. here is the bottom line. this is part one. part one of the mueller report. this part alone is 199 pages. managers and their presentation -- in their said this for that. let me tell you something. costs $32 million. took 2800tigation subpoenas. this investigation had 500 search warrant. had 230 orders for communication records. had 500 witness interviews. followingch the conclusion. and i will quote from the mueller report itself. it can be found on page 173. as it relates to this whole matter of collusion and these are, ultimately the words of bob mueller and his report. this investigation did not establish that the campaign coordinated or conspired with the russian government in its election interference activities. let me say that again. this, the mueller report, resulted in this. that for this. ultimately, the investigation did not establish that the campaign coordinated or conspired with the russian government in its election related interference activities. this for that. on thursday night, adam schiff complained that the president chose not to go with the determination of his intelligence agencies regarding foreign interference and decided he would listen to people he would -- he trusted. about thenquire ukraine issue himself. mr. schiff did not like the president not langley trusting some of the advice he was being given by the intelligence agencies. first of all, let me be clear. --th president's with the president's decision on foreign policy matters and what advice is he going to take is in no way an impeachable offense. second, mr. schiff, mr. nadler, of all people, should know this. they should know what has happened. host: he is one of the president's attorneys. for two hours, their defense started at 10:00 a.m. eastern time and wrapped up around noon. the trial will resume tomorrow. publicans have 24 hours. they have used two of those hours. presumably, it will go into the evening on tuesday. us from theing republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: fine. how are you? caller: i am fine. i am calling in. i am an independent. i have voted both republican and democrat over the past 50 years. thing been watching this for the past three years, starting with the russian investigation. has been a scam since day one. they have never produced any evidence of anything in that nature, according to the mueller report. i have even watched all of that and i have read the entire report. to a conclusion that there was no collusion between the trump campaign and russia. the democrats continue to bring it up. i think that, if i remember correctly, about 15 minutes after the president won the election, the washington post theed a headline saying impeachment begins and they were not kidding. it has already begun. now, we will get to this ukrainian deal. nancy pelosi, adam schiff, jerry nadler and chuck schumer are unbelievably corrupt. they are trying to tear down the presidency of the united states. pastresident over the years has exerted executive privilege. the closestllow advisers to the president to be up on capitol hill, telling a bunch of leakers and liars what is going on inside the white house, everyday business. this goes on every day. they don't realize it. they have proven no case. i have watched it all. i am watching it today, again. i watched it yesterday. the president's team completely debunked 24 hours of watching paint dry as the democrats were telling us about the constitution, which they have trampled all over, telling us about hamilton and so on and so forth, giving us a history lesson. and accomplished nothing. where was the facts? there was not one fact. i watched all of the hearings, when they had the ambassadors in there. everything was assumption, presumption. i think -- he did not do what we wanted to do is what you got from that. colonel then men, i am mad at him because i gave him talking points and he did not use them. the call from millbury, massachusetts. we expect to hear that the president had some real concerns that ukraine played a role in the 2016 election. i share with you this abc news interview with the fbi director who says that is not the case. to the government of ukraine directly interfere with the elections on the scale the russians did? >> we have no evidence that ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election. >> when you see politicians pushing back, are you concerned about its impact on the american public? >> there are all kinds of people saying all kinds of things out there. i think it is important for the american people to be thoughtful consumers of information. to think about the sources of it and to think about the support and predication for what they hear. heard from the president himself that he wanted the crowd strike portion of this whole conspiracy in the ukraine investigated. i am hearing you say there is no evidence to support that as far as you know. we at the fbi have no information that would indicate that ukraine tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. host: that was from the president's handpicked fbi director on ukraine in 2016. this headline from politico.com. senate gop leaders strongly considering a move to end the impeachment trial next week. if the motion to call additional witnesses is defeated. that is according to three top republican senators. larry and chicago, independent line, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. it is a little early but i think you will enjoy listening. , he last caller yesterday made a very important point. we need healing. and i tookenhearted it to heart. here is the point. i asked, i called and an important question. would you think of a working class president like ronald reagan and plays guitar like elvis? let, b jesus. have a good, blessed day. host: we will go to chris in leavenworth, kansas. republican line, good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for c-span. theuld like to talk about points, the facts that were brought up yesterday by the president's legal team. were two that i thought locked it in for the republican senators. i don't think you will get any possiblyn defections, for witnesses. that theoints were house never took an impeachment vote. they waited to vote at the end. and they were not under impeachment authorities. the subpoenas they are using as grounds for obstruction of congress are invalid. the second point, upfront, jay sekulow made sense. they were never part of the funding that was delayed and authorized later. therefore, in never put the security of ukraine at risk. the money that was eventually authorized is funding for next year. wasto use this as if it some critical fact of the ukrainian security was invalid of the democrats. nessvalen this -- valid is a different discussion. also, the way they went through, point by point, there were references to everything that they brought up. and brought up film documents, talking about the direct testimony. those are completely fact-based argument. the democrats argument, even the callers who call in, it is all emotional. it is about what trump did or said and it is emotional. it is not a point of fact. i thought that the legal team for the president was very specific about going through fact-based, using references or everything. even the mueller document and they brought it up. to final point, i would like bring out, when you look at the emotional points to house managers are making. even chairmanships response to the argument that the trump legal team made about the fact that they never took an impeachment vote upfront. they were never under impeachment authority. subpoenas were for obstruction of congress and they were invalid. host: we will have to move on because other people are waiting. wrap up your comment. caller: bottom line is that the legal team is making fact-based arguments and the house managers are making emotional argument. host: thank you for that. another comment from somebody who agrees with you on twitter. trump's legal team is going straight at the facts, even ones that democrats conveniently omitted. an excellent appetizer for monday's longer session. the defense seeks to undermine adam schiff. openingm yesterday's argument. pat cipollone to the white house counsel. >> you heard a lot of facts that they did not tell you. facts that are critical. completelythey know collapse their case on the facts. you have heard a lot from them. you will not hear facts from the president lawyers. they will not talk to you about the facts. that is all we have done today. ask yourself, ask yourself, given the fact that you have heard today that they did not tell you, who doesn't want to talk about the facts? who doesn't want to talk about the facts? american people paid a lot of money for those facts. they paid a lot of money for this investigation. and they did not bother to tell you. ask yourself why. if they don't want to be fair to the president, at least out of respect for all of you, they should be fair to you. they should tell you these things. and when they don't tell you these things, it means something. so, think about that. impeachment should not be a shell game. they should give you the facts. that is all we have for today. we ask you out of respect to think about whether what you have heard would really suggest other thananything it would be completely irresponsible abuse of power to do what they are asking you to do. stop an election, to interfere with an election and to remove the president of the united states from the ballot? let the people decide for themselves. that is what the founders wanted. that's what we should all want. , as weat cipollone approach 8:00 in washington, d.c., the house and senate in recess today. back tomorrow. the senate trial gets underway at 1:00 p.m. eastern time. back to your phone calls. laura in indianapolis on the democrats -- gloria in indianapolis on the democrats line. becausei am calling in i thought the president's lawyers were boring, yesterday. things that i hurt like they did not show you this and they did not show you that. i watched the hearings and i saw the things that they said they did not show. if you had seen it, you would have known what was going on. another thing that i was concerned about, they said that trump is concerned about ukraine 's interference. and yet, he is not concerned about russia. that is strange. also, the main reason i called was about the caller earlier that said adam schiff said he did not trust the voters. no, what he said was he did not trust trump because he felt like trump was going to cheat in the election. so, you could not depend on that if you cheated. before that lie gets spread around, i want to say that. like i said, i felt it was boring. i felt that maybe there will be something better on monday but i am not impressed. think what the house managers stood on was on the spot. i agreed with everything that they said. host: gloria, thank you. hearsay is more important than facts, this is the democrats argument. house has sole responsibility of impeachment. no other body can determine if impeachment is invalid. facts matter, read the constitution. finally, a text message. it was great to see the president's attorneys blowholes in the democrats lies. i cannot wait for monday. that is from joan in geneva, new york. , the cover story out last week is youth quake. how the world will change when a new generation leads. donna is next from ohio, independent line, good morning. morning, c-span. here is a fact. the democrats cheated in 2016 when they stole the nomination from bernie sanders. we know that. what was theo know follow-up yesterday, when two callers asked about joe biden, nancy pelosi and john kerry's stepson, all working for burisma . that needs to be investigated. i noticed that he did not go google that like johnny the day before when there were questions about republicans. you are showing your bias a little bit. that is just what i am seeing. thank you very much. host: we will go to randy next, in michigan. caller: i would like to start by thanking you and all of men it takes to bring us this great program. i would like to wish you all a happy new year's, seeing this is my first phone call. host: we appreciate that. caller: thank you if i was a young man and had kids in school, grade school, i would be worried. i think i would be out there pushing to make sure i can get people to vote near my age as opposed to what i have representing in the senate right now. they just don't seem -- and i voted for president trump. i proudly say i voted for president trump, even though i am a democrat. i will vote for who i think is , you have to do the process, and you have to respect it. that is the only thing that holds us together. we do not want to go back to the wild west, where every person is their own law. a shirt i don't like, that is against my law. you don't want to know the penalty is to be against my law care that is the kind of mentality. you had the president's lawyer on. he don't even want to talk about facts. , but justue fact attacking a process, they have not come up with anything to dispute what he has done. s, he said in that interview, you keep telling everybody you don't know me and i will show you new pictures. he has lived up to his word. i wish they would respect the process. they are getting paid to sit there and listen. take your job seriously. half of my town did not like me, but that is what they elected me for, to try to make the best decisions with the information i was received. host: how long were you on the school board? caller: six years. that was a great experience. host: i am sure a lot of politics and school board. we have to go, but final comment? caller: i want to thank you all for keeping up the good work. hang in there. it will get better. host: just want to share these headlines from the new york times and washington post. tomorrow, the israeli prime minister and his chief rival will be meeting with the president. according to the new york times, the meeting with the president will be without netanyahu. questions remain who will be the next prime minister. headline of the washington post. in israel, election politics runs through the oval office. is 8:00 eastern time. coming up, we will turn our attention to presidential politics and campaign 2020. first is liz harrington of the republican national committee and later talking about democrats and the race for state legislative seats. newsmakers heirs after washington journal and our guest this week is steven law, the president of the senate leadership fund come former chief of staff to senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. cnn, called a liberal hack by and appointed arizona senator, here is part of that conversation with steven law. [video clip] >> we saw martha mcsally last cnn reporter a liberal hack and going on to fox news and raising a bunch of money for her reelection race. is this a tactic that you can endorse for your vulnerable candidates? >> i think it depends on the race and circumstances. i have to separate out my personal feelings. asan admire martha mcsally well as the reporter. i looked at that particular incident. i thought two things. one is this is more nimble and aggressive than the 2018 campaign, where some people faulted them for being slow on the uptake. the thing that was also interesting, and you can kind of apply it to the larger political environment, is that campaigns often make the mistake of trying to fix the things that went wrong in the last election. in arizona, you can say what we need to fix is we have to get more of those voters who voted for kyrsten sinema. there were ay that lot of people in arizona who voted for president trump in 2016. they did not show up in 2018. there are coming back in 2020. in 2020.re coming back it seemed to me that mom mover -- maneuver was oriented toward locking down a section of the electorate that is going to come roaring back this upcoming fall. i thought it was an interesting point. -- in somedynamic is ways, it reminds me of 2012. we were active in 2012. we came up short just about everywhere, but what the obama campaign decided was there were not enough voters in the middle for him to win. what they decided to do was focus on driving turn and getting people engaged at their various bases. they did it successfully and that was a big reason why he won. you can see in this polarized environment that may end up being the verdict for a lot of people across the spectrum. the people in the middle are always going to be in the middle. i may not get them. i need to turn out my base and get them enthusiastic. it seems to me that is what that maneuver was. host: steven law is the president and ceo of the senate leadership fund, working with senate republicans. he is our guest on c-span's newsmakers program at 10:00 a.m. eastern time, any time on the free c-span radio app, or online at c-span.org. we want to welcome liz harrington, a national spokesperson for the republican national committee. guest: thank you for having me. host: let's begin with the rnc and its role in the reelection of president trump. guest: we are all on the ground. we are places where we never left. we just announced we are adding 300 field staffers to 18 battleground states where we have already had a presence. we are going to be on the ground working every day to reelect this president and take back the house of representatives. host: the democrats are saying they are not supporting any particular candidate, but there are two republicans running. are you playing a role in their campaigns? guest: now. we fully support the president. ,e has over 90% approval rating the most popular president we have had in our party in modern history. we fully support this president who is an incumbent. we are fully behind him. host: in terms of money, i know the president was in miami last week with fundraisers for the rnc and trump reelection campaign. bottom line, how much money do you think the party and president will spend for his reelection efforts? guest: we have already broken all records. we have 7.5 times the cash on hand. we have broken all records in every month, especially since september, when the democrats decided to go through with what they always wanted with the impeachment push. we have seen astronomical grassroots fundraising, like we have never seen. half $1ready raised billion last year. i expect that to continue to propel us. no incoming president has ever had this type of battleground gain in states working in conjunction with the trump campaign. it is going to put us in a german disposition. -- tremendous position. host: let's watch this. [video clip] >> mike pence does not drag about sexually assaulting women about sexually assaulting women. mike pence does not pressure for an governments into politically investigating his rivals. mike pence does not make fun of people with handicaps. >> i don't know what i said. >> donald is being impeached. it is time for president pence. at least it is an improvement. liz harrington, your response to that spot? guest: we know vice president michael pence is fully supportive of the president. i think that ad was ridiculous. there are a lot of lies in that ad. if you want to support and take the talking points of the democrats, you can go ahead and join their ranks. we have such tremendous support from republican voters and americans and even disaffected democrats. what is amazing about this president is the data we are st eightfrom the la rallies since this overreach by the democrats. the average number of registered democrats coming to the president's rally is 24.8%. we have a candidate who is not misrepresenting members of the republican party but all americans. ofhas a strong message record and accomplishment, the booming economy. think about the record history making things that have happened. we are not even a month into 2020. soleimani, qasem first president to attend the march for life, signed a historic trade deal. we are not even a month into the year yet. we have a history breaking president. that is why we are getting americans of all political persuasions onto our side. it is a winning message. americans are winning under this president. host: we are live wednesday with the president in new jersey. thursday he will be in des moines, iowa. the day before the new hampshire primary key will be in manchester, new hampshire. do you use these rallies as a way to sign up people? do you get a mill addresses? guest: -- host: email addresses? guest: absolutely. this is a hard-working president. the data i mentioned comes directly from the trump campaign. we want to keep in touch with you. we want you to be engaged. we have people coming off the sidelines. give us your name, your phone number, your email. we keep in touch with you and get you more involved. that is what has been amazing in this. we have identified over 2.4 million voters from these rallies. overat number, it is 300,000 that did not vote for president trump. these are people that are getting engaged, who have been disaffected by politics, just like the labor force. when you look at the last quarter of 2019, 74 percent of new jobs that were created went to people who were outside the labor force, who had stopped -bideng during the obama years and now are getting engaged. the same thing is happening in the political environment. people are excited about politics and excited that you have a leader standing up for america and delivering for america. we take that data. we want you to stay involved. we are happy that you're coming out and getting involved again. it is a great resource, a great tool to get out there and reelect republicans and reelect the president. host: our lines are open. (202) 748-8000 for democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republicans. we have a line for independents. this technology is relatively new. in terms of being a political operative, how important is social media, email connection to voters? guest: very important. it is a way people get engaged. for decades, there was only one way to get your news. it was through the major networks. radio came in and now it is online and social media. there are so many different ways to reach voters. you get information out there and sidesteps a biased media that does not have control over communication anymore. a facebook official said the trump campaign in 2016 ran the best social media facebook campaign. it was not micro-targeting, but it was based on using the technology fairly, getting the message out. that is what it is all about, getting our message out, looking at the difference of all of these things that president trump when he was a candidate in 2015 to 2016 said he was going to change in washington. look what he is doing. look at him follow through. this is the third anniversary of his inaugural address. watch that address. it is 17 minutes long. he goes through and says, from this day forward, it is going to be america first on trade, on foreign affairs, on the economy. he has been consistent. that is why it is amazing. it makes our jobs quite easy. and it winning message is totally consistent. people feel the difference. host: our guest is liz harrington, a maryland native. guest: i grew up on a dairy farm. my dad is a dairy farmer in maryland. i was always interested in politics. i went to school at temple. i studied journalism. my background was in media prior to joining the rnc. i joined the rnc last april. it has been an incredible time to be in politics. i have always loved politics. it is a new era. it is fun. i am proud and privileged to be in the role that i am. host: how is the dairy farm doing? guest: very well. all-time high approval for president trump. i was there yesterday. i like to get out of the swamp and spend time with family. it is doing great. andad works hard every day it is still running. host: let's go to north carolina, bob, independent line. thank you very much for taking my call. god bless america. i had a comment about the impeachment and the same concerns the lady and/or gentlemn -- and your an. one thing that got me was when mr. schiff came out and talked about the temporary hold on aid, how many ukrainian citizens and troops died that could be attributed to that hold on aid that mr. trump did for political purposes, which is ridiculous. what about when mr. obama and mr. biden were in there for --ht years and all they gave we had troops from russia with no insignias on invading eastern ukraine and they took a surface to air missile that was russian and shot down a passenger plane and did not let the investigators get to the wreckage for two or three weeks. the only thing mr. obama and mr. biden -- if the democrats are so concerned with ukrainian citizens and troops that were dying because of the russian invasion on the eastern border, why did they just send them wet wipes and blankets? maybe they could sit in the tents and use the sheets to put a white flag out and throw cartons and cans at russian troops. that is hypocrisy. host: thank you. guest: bob raised some amazing points. it is true. where were the democrats? are in an we alternate reality where we never left the obama-biden years, when the ukrainians were still waiting for the javelin missiles. obama and biden never armed ukraine. president trump has done it three times. this goes to the heart of the democrats' case, which is they do not have one. all they can do is smear and come up with another conspiracy theory of military aid and investigations when the fact is the fundamental problem with the democrats' case is they are accusing president trump of what we know democrats did in 2016. you are talking about election interference and we hear this all the time, this falsely caught me where the democrats are now saying it was russia. it can't be ukraine. they say, fine, we will admit the dnc was working with ukrainian officials to "sabotage -- in 2016." what has more of an impact? was it hacking that did not change a single vote in 2016 or was it a dossier based on disinformation paid for by the hillary clinton campaign and dnc that used sources supposedly in russia, sources supposedly in ukraine? what had a bigger impact on our internal politics? a discredited dossier that was used to spy on the trump campaign and used to start hysterical, two year investigation that found nothing. it is shameful that adam schiff still stands out there with no credibility, continuing to push the debunked conspiracy theory n collusion that we paid dearly for in over $32 million to discredit. what had a bigger impact on america and our internal politics? i think that election meddling had much more impact. host: we welcome our listeners on c-span radio. our guest is liz harrington of the republican national committee. for those of you watching in great britain, on the bbc parliament channel. our guest also featured in a podcast available on the daily caller website. this is what it looks like. let's go to lily on the democrats line from st. louis. the first thing he did was line. -- lie. reported some of it, not all of it. all we asked for -- if the democrats lied, show us reports. let the witnesses come out let them explain to us. can see the reports and hear the witness and see the reports. let us have the report and witness. now we will know who is lying. we want a president not tweet all night. people, not tweet and keep everybody up. everybody hates each other. he never bring nobody together. all he did was bring hate and lie every day. every day he lies about everything. a rich man is up there and destroying everybody. all these beggars on the border are dying. he don't care nothing about nobody. trump did nothing but destroy this country. four more years -- we not going to have no more country. guest: democrats should take it to the ballot box. it has been clear what this has been about. adam schiff practically admitted it on the senate floor. he said we cannot decide this at the ballot box. we cannot be sure it is going to be fair. democrats lost an election in 2016. they do not accept it. they did not admit they did not see it coming. they did not admit that millions of americans have been left behind i corrupt politicians. president trump had a winning message. democrats never accepted that victory and now they are saying, when we lose an election, we will accuse you of stealing it. when we are worried we are going to lose again, we are going to accuse you of stealing it. incoherent.erly the is the crucial part of matter. they are too scared to go to the voters and let the voters decide who their president is going to be in less than 10 months. why can't they do that? why are they saying we have to not only overturn the last election but interfere in the next election by taking an incumbent president who has ushered in the greatest economy in modern history? we will take a multi-ballot for something that we cannot even allege a crime occurred. it is the weakest, most pathetic impeachment articles we have ever seen. democrats have defined impeachment down to nothing more than a petty political tool that is going to be meaningless in the future. it will show. it will be history making because it will show democrats overreached. nancy pelosi will be the first woman speaker to lose the gavel not just once but twice. host: how often do you follow the president's tweets? guest: i have alerts on my phone. host: he has 300 over the last five days. hoaxeeted, the impeachment is a massive election interference the likes of which has never been seen before. in just two hours, the radical left and do nothing democrats have seen their phony case shredded. is exposed for illegally making up my phone call and more. let's get to your phone calls. bill on the republican line. morning.ood it is great to see someone like from temple university. you are an excellent spokesperson. i would say this -- when president trump came down the escalator, i had opinions of him. they were not that great. i remember him from the 1990's. he was kind of a playboy. his message that he came out with was a winning message. that heately identified was going to be the one that got the nomination. he got the nomination and he accomplishes greatest task. he won the election. he prevented hillary clinton from taking the presidency. i do not have to remind viewers hillary clinton's husband was impeached. a series ofched for nasty acts. it is a disgrace. what they are trying to impeach trump on right now is such a small model. -- greating at it things on trade. overall, he is given us an economy. great court us appointments. he has given us so much good say thisat we have to is a guy that we are happy with. host: thank you for the call. guest: absolutely. the record speaks for itself. this is a man of his word. just to go back to friday, becoming the first president to speak at the march for life, i went back and watched the debate portion between president trump and hillary clinton on that topic. he has been proven so correct on that. he said democrats, with what you're saying and where you're going on this issue, you're talking about ripping the baby out of the womb at the ninth month. here we are three years later. president trump is in the white house, the most pro-life president in history. where are the democrats on this issue? not a single candidate running for president was willing to admit a single limit on abortion. pete buttigieg justifies abortion up until the moment of the baby's breath. every candidates, including joe biden, who changed his position after decades, they all now support taxpayer-funded abortions. when you look at the statements over the years, you can see president trump has been so consistent and follow through and he is a man of his word. look at the results. democrats emma they have nothing to run on except -- democrats, they have nothing to run on except for left extreme policies. strategistublican for msnbc and the cofounder and ceo of all in together wrote a piece. the headline is, time for the gop to make a serious commitment to electing women. today, there are 23 republican women in congress, the lowest number in decades. in 2018, a record number of democratic women were elected to the house and senate while republican women face near decimation of the ranks. only 13 republican women remain in the house. four of the nine republican women senators were reported rather than elected. party leaders must acknowledge what the 2018 and 2019 elections , as well as what count was pulls of indicated. suburban women, especially those with college degrees, have been fleeing the republican party in droves, turned off by trump. guest: we totally agree that getting women involved is very important. we have a winning message for women. i think you have seen the efforts. representative's to phonic -- representative's to phonic -- is message-- we know our works for women. we know women are fighters. they a lot of times do the payroll for their families. they are the ones writing the checks. they want strong communities. our message is very strong for women. inare very confident expanding those numbers and getting more female support. we absolutely have tremendous support already. host: our guest is liz harrington, the national spokesperson for the republican national committee. democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. just to make a comment about that last statement you just made, that is ridiculous. i wanted to start off by starting with some recent historical facts about the elections, the presidential elections, and then i want to ask you a question. in 2004, the republicans came up with a term where they used a conspiratorial conspiracy against john kerry about vietnam. to2008, they again tried swindle barack obama. caught inhey got bidenattempt to -- joe with ukraine. should trump be allowed to stay on the ballot when he was caught in his conspiracy? if it was not a conspiracy, then let the witnesses come out and prove it was not a conspiratorial -- it was not conspiratorial. host: thank you. guest: the house democrats ran with adam schiff for their impeachment. they said it was the most overwhelming case we've ever seen. they decided not to subpoena witnesses. they decided to withdraw subpoenas for witnesses. they claim they did not want the facts. they obviously were not interested in facts or evidence. they had one agenda, which was to get this done by christmas. why should the senate do the house's job? they are now accusing the senate of a cover-up. hear whatver-up to the democrats in the house brought forth. that is all we are doing is hearing the case the claim was so ironclad, which obviously it is not. host: another tweet from the president, shifty adam schiff is a sick man. he has not paid the price yet for what he has done to our country. i wanted to ask about the tone of the tweet. shifty shift -- he uses that term. why get so personal? guest: i wish jerry nadler would not call president trump a dictator or you look at the rhetoric on the it is this idea that only president trump is upping the rhetoric. it is not true. the democrats have been calling him a dictator. bernie sanders has been using that extreme rhetoric for over a year. president trump is going to fight back. he is absolutely right. this is a corrupt politician who has zero credibility, adam schiff. he lied for over two years. he is still lying about evidence and collusion. he is acting as if it exists and smearing the president for cheating in his first -- he could not get 10 minutes into his argument without falsely smearing the president of cheating. it is not just about president trump. 63 millionent means americans that voted for him -- your vote does not matter if you are that is what democrats are saying to you. they are saying your vote -- we do not accept your vote. he had to cheat to get your vote and we know that is not true. the smears that have been coming out of adam schiff, he lied about collusion. we know are now illegal. he lied about that, smeared devin nunes. phoneeased devin nunes's records. his abuse of power on that committee, bringing us to this moment, was all concocted by adam schiff lying about a whistleblower that he said he had never -- his committee had never spoken to. host: at somebody in politics, do you worry that the tone on both sides, the white house and from congress, is becoming toxic and turning off the american people? guest: i think we have had a talk cyclical going back centuries, quite frankly. political environment going back centuries, quite frankly. like to come -- tone down rhetoric. we wish we could have respectful debate. the democrats are trying to getting alection by president of the ballots come overturned 63 million american'' votes off of nothing come off of no crime, nothing proven come off of something that every democrat witness was allowed to mom -- burisma was corrupt. when you are taking extraordinary levels, you are upping your rhetoric. you are taking the extraordinary level of trying to overturn an election and debasing the constitution in the process. i think you can expect some strong emotion and strong words because this is fundamentally unjust. wilmington go to illinois, democrats line. good morning. good morning and thank you for taking my call. the senate cannot remove a man as corrupt as donald trump from checks and balances is nothing more than myth. host: let me ask you what we can expect tomorrow from the president's lawyers. guest: absolutely. they already have done an incredible job of dismantling key facts, pushing back. i was the first responsibility, to say the democrats, who had complete control over a taxpayer-funded investigation, they did not tell you a lot of things. we are going to see tomorrow, alan dershowitz and other members of the president's team, talking about the constitutionality. on the constitution, this impeachment has no merit. it is a phony charge, obstruction of congress. with the democrats are saying is , we will decide -- talk about checks and balances. we will decide to have separation of powers dispute. we will not even pursue it in the courts that we will say we will impeach you for something that we did not do, which is go to court and litigate this and driver courts be the on this let them decide -- the juror on this. let them decide. we will see the constitutionality argument on every level. we can win on the facts come on the evidence come on the constitution -- on the facts, on the evidence, on the constitution. the president's team has done a good job of dismantling the democrats' case. host: kevin, thank you for waiting. caller: good morning. i have followed this since trump's election. recently, i have seen the kindergarten, playground behavior stemming from the democratic party. they have not -- i would not even say just the democratic party. until recently, trump did not even have support from his own party. trial, the senate house trial and senate trial, the thing is, i hear elizabeth saying they did not do this so why should we do that? why should we do their job for them? you are not doing their job for them. you are doing your job for us. witnesses, anybody that has any truth to what should come forth without a subpoena. host: thank you. guest: we do not have an issue with witnesses. i think democrats will have an issue with witnesses. host: so you are of john bolton testifies? guest: let me finish my point. democrats are under the illusion that it is going to be run like the scam it was in the house, where they could to decide and have complete -- get to decide and have complete control over the witness list with no republican input. that is not going to happen. the main argument is this is the case that the democrats brought. it is such a farce. it is a disgrace. it is an insult to the prostitution. the president deserves -- to the constitution. we have work to do for the american people. the idea that we are -- president trump has said it a million times. mick mulvaney, he would love for him to testify. host: there have been reports that he would use executive privilege and democrats are arguing if you are telling the truth, why are you afraid witnesses coming to the senate floor? guest: why are the democrats afraid of hunter biden coming, joe budden coming, the whistleblower coming who started this? i thinkthe game that the democrats do not want to play. they do not want to hear from what we already know. we cannot learn anything new about the president's actions. we have the transcript. we have the facts. we know exactly why the aid was pause. it was to get european allies to do more on corruption. democrats can try to distort all they want, but the only new whatmation we can learn is exactly was hunter biden being paid for? what exactly did adam schiff's committee and the whistleblower say? who on his committee core donated? how did he -- coordinated? how did he end up with an attorney who has been calling for a coup against president trump? how did this whistleblower urgentnt and up being an -- end up being a urgent concern and read like a legal document? totally designed to trigger an impeachment. there is a lot we can learn. we cannot learn more about why the aid was pause. we know the answer to that question. host: if you had to bet, knowing with the senate will do, do you think there will be witnesses? guest: i do not think there will be. i do not think the democrats wants to go there. i do not think they want to get answers on the bidens' corruption. host: you think this will wrap up this week potentially? guest: potentially. we will see how much longer the white house counsel and president's attorneys think they need to lay out their case. they clearly do not need to repeat themselves like the democrats did. we will have a period of days and attorneys' questions. we will see what the senate decides. we are looking forward to a complete acquittal, a fair acquittal. that is what is most important. the videoow you saw yesterday from abc news, lev parnas from april 2018. is basically walking around telling everybody he is going to get impeached. just wait. it is incredible. >> get her out tomorrow. get her out tomorrow. take her out, ok? do it. this response from the white house on friday, courtesy of "the new yorker." the white house did not deny that the president attended the dinner on april 30 of 2018. from the white house press secretary, every president in our history has had the right to place people who support his agenda and policies within the administration. the new yorker pointing out no one suggested that trump did not have the authority to replace master jovanovich -- ambassador yovanovitch. the issue is why he did it and why he has been lying about his relationship with lev parnas. guest: how many dinners and photos -- host: there are multiple photos them at least eight or nine. -- photos, at least eight or nine. guest: the big take away from this is this is no new information. president trump has made it clear that he wanted to remove ambassador who serves at the pleasure of the president, who was supposed to be in place to foreignhe president's policy agenda. he had every right. the new york times acknowledges halfway down that there is nothing new here. also, it fundamentally hurts the democrats' case. when was this clip from? host: april 2018. guest: was joe biden running for president then? was this idea that there was election interference -- i guess if you take the democrats' standard, one of their star witnesses, he was retroactively meddling in the 2020 election by going to vice president biden's office in 2015 and saying red flag them at your sun is on the most corrupt natural gas company in ukraine. this is nothing new. thatinforces the point, unelected bureaucrats from the beginning have been part of the resistance and have been trying to undermine president trump's agenda. he has every right to have people in place that are going to pursue his america first agenda. attorney wasnas's on cnn yesterday let me share with you what he said. [video clip] >> do you know the reason why he made the recordings? >> i do not know. some people make recordings. they like to take pictures. i cannot ascribe any motive beyond that. are there more recordings that lev parnas has with the president? >> yes. >> do you plan to release those? >> perhaps. we have sent recordings -- recordings to the house intelligence committee. this seems to address the issue of the ambassador and we thought it was important to get that in public. >> what is the significance of these recordings? you aspects are important. first, we hear the president himself saying get rid of the ambassador, fire her, get her out of there. this is one of the first occasions in which he attempts to remove the ambassador. that heas was shocked wanted to raise the subject of the ambassador and have the chief executive say get rid of her and fire her. he could never have expected that the president would take that step. host: that courtesy of cnn. action? guest: it is curious why this individual was secretly recording the president in the first place. again, this adds nothing new. the president has been open about his position about this abbasid are, who he -- ambassador, who he believed did not have the interest of the country, and pursuing interests that were contrary to our interests. there is a lot of corruption in ukraine. people reason why we are even because there is is corruption in ukraine. we wanted to determine if they elected a new president, let's make sure our taxpayer dollars are going to be well spent. discuss that you can't things that happened in ukraine , nobody forced joe biden to run point on ukraine and two months later have his sun end up on the board of the most corrupt company, making $83,000 a month with zero experience. if we had individuals working on ukraine policy that were looking the other way on instances of corruption like that or other things, absolutely he had the right to remove her and he has been open about that. host: let's go to north carolina, jeffrey, democrats line. caller: good morning. you're missing the point. the point is the president lied about knowing mr. parnas. if you can say he does not know him when he is discussing , -- the reason he was talking to him as far back as last year was that the crowd strike. he was trying to get ukraine to oneshat ukraine were the assisting in the election and not the russians. that is what crowd strike was about. tot was his first effort involve ukrainians in our election, our coming election. you -- we arehow not going to address mr. trump is trying to cheat in the next election. what about obama? he did not give them a pair that is what you said, but you forgot to mention -- aid, but you forgot to mention that mr. obama knew that the previous administration was corrupt. that is why they did not get aid. host: response? guest: that is not the reason why obama did not give the aid. he thought it would get us into further conflict with russia and he did not want to jeopardize the relationship with russia because he is russia's close ally. it was in service of the nuclear deal. he did not enforce the redline in syria because of the same issues. it is preposterous, the idea that democrats can smear the president and tried to put blood on his hands of ukrainians when this president is the only president who armed ukraine and gave them tank busting missiles and have their back. democratsrence of the message and argument on this is so illogical. it is so hypocritical to see asm standing there, acting if they want to go to war with russia all of a sudden when they never -- many of them did not support arming ukraine in the first place. it is very hip critical. host: from your standpoint, was ukraine involved in the toy 16 election? guest: read politico. read the great story on january 2017. he was working on this issue as recently as may 1. now he works for the new york times. why is he not pursuing this story anymore? he was going to report that ukrain -- ukrainian officials went to the white house to thatss the bidens and conflict in january 2016. he never reported the story. why didn't he report that? who wasa contractor working with people from the ukrainian embassy, a former member of parliament in ukraine was an individual who was working to sabotage president trump. there is a long record of this. the idea that because russia did ukraine -- that because russia did, ukraine didn't is absurd. they are not exclusive. your reactionet to what the fbi director told abc news. [video clip] >> the government -- to the government of ukraine interfere on the skill the russians did? >> we have no evidence that ukraine interfered with the 2016 presidential election. when you see politicians pushing that notion come are you concerned about its impact on the american public? >> there are all kinds of people saying all kinds of things out there. it is important for the american people to be thoughtful consumers of information and to think about the sources of it and to think about the support and predication for what they hear. heard from the president himself that he wanted the crowd strike portion of this whole conspiracy in ukraine investigated. i am hearing you say there is no evidence to support that as far as you know. >> as i said, we have no -- we are the fbi have no information that would indicate that ukraine tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. host: that is the fbi director. we should point out the president disagreeing with his own fbi director. eight ukrainian court has ruled that they did interfere in our election by someone leaking a black ledger, which to this day people have questions about the veracity of. campaign trump's manager fired from the campaign. that effected -- affected the election. if we are talking about scale, again, homeland security, the senate intelligence committee, robert mueller failed to mention it but he could not find it come evidence that a single that was changed does not exist. not a single that was changed. they have always tried when you're talking about scale and impact of election meddling, look no further than what hillary clinton. you want collusion? take her made up for in dirt. it was a bunch of lies and up dirt, using that to spy on his campaign and spy on his transition and try to sabotage and remove a totally elected president. putting this in context, talk about scale. the day of the phone call is the day after robert mueller testified and finally that collusion line went up in smoke. what did president trump say the day later? i would like you to do us a ourr, though, because country has been through a lot. you bet we have been through a lot. the democrat party lost an election. they decided to try to smear the victor in that election, who defied all odds, defied history, and became the first person who had never held elected office to become the president of the united states. we are going to have this insane investigation and spend countless hours on cable television whipping up hysteria about russia. it was all a lie. weukraine knows about it, have every right to know about this. this is something democrats in the media used to pretend to care about. host: liz harrington, we will conclude on that note. we hope you will come back again. spokesperson for the republican national committee. jessica post is going to join us as we look at the to the statehouse and its impact on the redistricting and the u.s. census and congressional power in the years ahead. you are watching and listening to c-span's washington journal on this sunday morning, january 26. ♪ >> c-span's campaign 2020 differs from all other political coverage for one reason. it is c-span, the people who brought you your unfiltered view of government since 1979 are bringing you an unfiltered view of the people seeking to steer that government this november. in other words, your future. see the biggest picture for yourself and make up your own campaign c-span's 2020, brought to you as a public service by your cable television provider. >> tonight on q&a, with the iowa caucus a week away, we discuss the history of the first in the nation caucuses with iowa public television. >> of course the demographics of this state -- it is a lily white state, rural, but the argument is made that is not all bad. big boost toe a the first african-american president. it did elevate hillary clinton ine with an early victory 2016 on the republican side. they point out that ted cruz, marco rubio, cuban-americans have come forward and won. in iowa right now, pete buttigieg is poised to give a big boost to the first openly gay presidential candidate. the feeling that a lot of islands have -- -- iowans have come we are white but -- >> and our interview tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. the impeachment of president trump. watch unfiltered coverage of these in trial on c-span two come alive as it happens -- c-span2, live as it happens. listen on the go using the free c-span radio app. washington journal continues. host: we want to welcome jessica post, president of the democratic legislative campaign committee, which is what? official are the democratic party organization committed to building power in state legislatures. job is to increase democratic representation in states. host: i want to put on the map of changing representation in congress. it shows the population ship we have across the country. -- population shift we have across the country. texas is expected to gain as many as three house seats come along with florida, north carolina. michigan, illinois losing seats. in terms of your efforts in these states, what is it? guest: part of the reason we do the work we do is state legislatures draw congressional lines in 35 states. in states like texas, where they are gaining an additional congressional seat, one thing we are looking at is our ability to flip the texas statehouse from red to blue. we only need nine seats to flip texas. beto o'rourke won all of those seats last cycle. we have an upcoming special election in texas. it is not make or break to win the chamber, but if we flip it from red to blue, having a democrat holding the texas speaker's gavel gives us 80 -- seat at the table for redistricting. in 2010, republicans had this national strategy where they had an effort of flipping state legislatures and the idea was they wanted to get a 10 year control on the united states congress. now we are doing everything we can. we are better positioned than ever to flip state legislatures red to blue in advance of the 2021 congressional legislative redistricting. host: for those not involved in public -- politics, when you say flip, a slain what you mean. -- explain what you mean. guest: we have a national strategy to flip 13 states red to blue. the republicans have done a great effort to control legislative chambers. since trump, we have changed democratic control in 10 state legislatures. republicans used to have majority control. now democrats do. host: those states include what? .uest: minnesota we flipped virginia red to blue. we flipped the colorado state senate red to blue. we flipped both changers -- chambers in new hampshire. host: democrats were critical of one seat in particular, pennsylvania, for what they call the gerrymandering of congressional districts. will democrats keep that in mind if they control the house and senate to make sure they do not do what the republicans did? guest: absolutely. one goal of ours in terms of flipping chambers red to blue is we only need four seats to flip the pennsylvania senate, nine to flip the statehouse. democrats believe in fairness. if you look at states that have nonpartisan redistricting, it was democratic legislatures, blue states, that have put these nonpartisan commissions into place. truly, democrats felt locked out --the process in the 22 and in the 2010 election cycle. in 2021, they want to make changes to make things inclusive. host: how can you take politics out of redistricting? politicians determine the lines. guest: it is challenging. that is why, and so many democratic states, there have -- has been support for independent commissions. we have learned a lot from what happened in the 2010 election cycle, where republicans drew maps and what they called the bunker in ohio. in wisconsin, republicans locked democrats out of the redistricting process. many of these republican drawn maps have been challenged in court as racial or partisan gerrymandering and have been thrown out, like cap it in pennsylvania. democrats have learned from this and i think have a sense that fairness is the most important thing if we are drawing legislative and congressional lines in the next cycle. republicans claim this impeachment is a sham and democrats are overlaying their hand. -- overplaying their hand. guest: it is a bad moment for america that impeachment is happening at all. no one went into congress wanting to move forward on impeachment in the case of another president. obviously, president trump has given ample reason to move forward with impeachment. it is a sad moment for america. the reality is democrats have flipped two state legislative chambers red to blue and virginia. despite donald trump going to campaign in louisiana, we flipped the louisiana governor come maintained his governorship. -- governor, maintained his governorship. we have won so much since impeachment started. that is not the reason why it is progressing, but the american people are on our side. 70% of americans think trump should be removed from office. host: our graduate is jessica post. your graduate -- backroad is what? guest: i studied political science and communication. i started doorknocking as a college democrat in rural missouri and did campaign work around the country. i ended up here at the dlcc. host: and your pick for the super bowl? guest: i grew up on the st. louis side. i have to go kansas city. host: this is from the president. in the impeachment hoax is a massive election interference the likes of which has never been seen before. the radical left, do nothing democrats have seen their phony case shredded. is exposed for illegally making up my phone call and more. what impact has the impeachment case had on state legislative races, if any? guest: we decisively won both changers -- chambers. we picked up seats in the house and flipped seats in the virginia senate. ways, impeachment set the stage. trump's rhetoric is ridiculous on this. a mobilization of the democratic base, even in light of what happened with redistricting which happened all across virginia. host: our phone lines are open. good morning. caller: good morning. this is connected and maybe not connected. the democrats and i am a , theyty affiliate continue to shoot themselves in the foot, always talking social issues. most americans are concerned about the mortgage, car payments, how the kids will go to school, how things will be better. reason i am a nonparty affiliate is things were good for me under ronald reagan and bill clinton and barack obama. it's not a party thing. it's a social issue thing and the democrats need to stop propping up al sharpton and elizabeth warren and even bernie. he's not the right man for the job. they need the joe biden's and the tom steyer's. am i saying that right? they need moderates like that. we don't need to go so far right. we don't need to go so far left. could put people guy tom.biden and this i would absolutely vote for that. if they keep putting up these way out there candidates, we fourind up with years of the schoolyard bully again. he is just weird. host: i am going to leave that there. inst: the most recent case say exactly what he said, talking about the kitchen table issues. the impact state legislatures have where we see bridges, the schools your kids might go to, those things are determined by state legislatures. we say to our candidates across the country is tell your personal story and listen to what your constituents have to say. they are concerned about the quality schools, concerned about traffic. focused on the traffic in virginia as she campaigned. she knew that was pressing for her constituents. focusing only about those kitchen table issues that are pressing and a real concern for the quality of life for people in these districts. host: let me share with you this headline from the washington post online. here are some of the details from north carolina where lawmakers have been forced back to the drawing board again after the current map was drawn illegally. latest judicial review of gerrymandering in north carolina. guest: the north carolina supreme court ruled that the legislature have lost its right to popular sovereignty because they are such a gerrymandered body. the maps have improved in north carolina after the supreme court made rulings. after the supreme court ruled they would not interfere with gerrymandering, it would go to the states. governorsslatures and and supreme court's will determine what a gerrymandered is or isn't. it is still being ruled on at the supreme court level. partisan gerrymandering is now just something the states have to resolve. this is a trend we have seen with an action at the federal level. democrats across the country have made progress bypassing protections for roe v. wade, improving education, improving voting rights. john roberts wrote this in his opinion from june last year. results that seem unjust. that such gerrymandering is democratice with principles does not mean that this lies with the federal judiciary. guest: this is another piece of federalism in america. so many decisions are decided in the state legislatures. that's why we need to place more of an emphasis on it. supreme court shirking their responsibility. they have ruled another gerrymandering cases. instead, they said the state should move. that's why it's more important to flip these legislatures in order for us to gain a democratic seat at the table when it comes to redistricting. host: gerrymandering is alive and well. the coming battle will be eager than ever. rob is in north carolina. what is she trying to say? our country is doing great? we are doing great. host: two that? that? is incomere inequality, there are places like oklahoma and kansas where children are only going to school four days a week because the state government neglected its responsibility to fund schools. you talk to americans, they would say to you and this is true when i talked to my mom in st. louis or my dad or members it's morely, difficult to make your way in the united states. jobs to make it. i think we need a lot of change to make progress. that is the truth of the matter. host: barbara is next in pennsylvania. good morning. i have to say, i did not get a chance to speak when elizabeth was speaking. i want the nation to know that decide if we are going to be a democratic society or run by authoritarians. trump says is leading toward that. he wants to be the head of everything, eliminate the main body of our government. speaking ands are saying they will do this or that, the people you are talking , go back to those areas. just like in michigan with the water, nothing is ever been done about that. , they need things schools and hospitals. go into the communities. do those things. that's all i have to say. we have to be a country of truth. that's all i have to say. we have to step up to the plate. guest: thank you. i couldn't agree more. action at thisof time and there is only so much the federal government can do. great legislation is being passed the house. it's not moving through the senate. what we have to do is elect more democrats. happens, democrats of made movements on gun safety in oregon and paid family leave. in virginia, they have passed expansion to the franchise to make your voters are automatically registered to vote. we really believe in democracy. we need to make sure that people have the essential right to vote, that they are voting in fair districts. in north carolina where 49% of the vote goes to a statewide candidate but only get one third of the delegations, this is not fairly portioned. i agree with you. i've been very impressed i the work about the water in flint. had thisr counterpart to say about your efforts. democrats cannot beat president trump and they cannot take back the senate. they are spending staggering sums in state elections. we are going to stop them by protecting our majorities in states we have held for years. i'm glad he acknowledged that they are heavily gerrymandered district. republicans control all of those legislators going into redistricting. they heavily gerrymandered districts. democrats have a half in the senate and the presidency. offcrats did take their eye the ball in 2010 and did not focus on state legislatures. ingave republicans a decade congress. they dismantled voting rights, collective bargaining, they put abortion restrictions on and that is continuing with a number of states where this is happen. we need democrats to vocus on -- to focus on early infrastructure in the state. $1 million in states like pennsylvania, north carolina, all across the country for us to build up the campaign capacity to win. that will help the eventual nominee for the democrats for president. it will help people get elected to the senate. we have to build the party from the ground up. host: what david abrams was saying, they are gerrymandering the state seats. guest: we don't have control any of the statehouses he listed. we are not gerrymandering how seats. i think you will see that is democrats take over. democrats could exert control over the redistricting process. the speaker supported an independent commission. democrats believe in fairness. democratsee that in run processes. host: could we see more independent commissions? guest: in north carolina, they would benefit. the republican controlled state legislature won't have it. put voters, not politicians in. a few things that happened, the state legislature had tried to defund the commission. 's organization was sued in federal court to dismantle the commission. republicans assault independent commissions. if they believed in fair districting, they would have done it in 2010 and they didn't. they have been struck down by many federal courts. support the independent commissions which they do not. host: good morning. caller: good morning, steve. how have you been? i am slowly recovering. i had my blood pressure up. i know when my blood pressure hits that mark. host: stay healthy. caller: i'm glad you got a civilized person that doesn't lie and steal from people. her, you had a caller from texas on who was 92. i am so glad you are alive and well. i was worried about you. hearing that you are ok. she is just wonderful. host: all of the callers are wonderful. caller: the ones that don't journal on the a journal. you have republicans that linestently violate your that you should be on. they call on the democrat line and the independent line. host: host: let's get to your point is we are short on time. -- because we are short on time. caller: jessica, i am an independent who may switch to throw yourts if you full weight of the democratic party behind bernie. that's where you messed up last time. republicans, the voice of the people elected hillary clinton. i did not vote for her. i would never vote for a republican as a retired union machinist. roadblocks in front of bernie if that's who the democrats want on the ticket. we will win and i will reregister from independent to democrat. i got a letter from my pension fund. it was not a good news letter. host: we've got to move on. thank you very much for the call. caller: i just of like being lied to. i don't like being stolen from. that's what the republicans do. this guy belongs in prison. it's great to hear from a retired union machinists. it's good to engage. we are not really involved in the presidential election. we don't get involved in primaries. we think it's important for voters to choose the candidates they think are best. we help win state legislative victories. whatee with you that should happen is voters in the states should make your decisions. we will be excited to work with whoever the nominee is. any of these nominees are great alternative. host: this is from james in tennessee, a text message. comment is it takes a great deal of money and time to be elected to state legislatures. doesn't it? guest: state legislatures are different. we are in different districts, different district sizes. montana, people are elected with 1500 votes. we do need to make it so people of all economic levels can run for the state legislature. less in states like montana or new hampshire. in new hampshire, the legislative salary is only $100. people might have a tough time taking time off work and they might not be able to run for the legislature. that is a problem with the process in the states. you do have to raise funds to compete. many of our districts in the knockgeographies, you can on doors and talk to people in your community. if you think there are challenges to democracy, people are really engaging in new hampshire and been elected by 1500 votes. host: we will go to kentucky next. go ahead. to plug it in. can you hear me? wish that the president's defense lawyers would bring up the fact that the money to ukraine being held up by the president was released ahead of time. for ukraine for this year. for 2020. host: thank you. from my perspective, it's very clear the president did hold up resources to ukraine. evidence i pieces of would love to see verifies that. host: some background on whatsit what after the census -- is at stake after the census. the democratic party lost nearly 1000 state seats during the obama presidency. -- control 60%ll of all state legislative changers -- chambers. the national conference of state legislatures. next is renee from mississippi. good morning. caller: hello. stein.ted for jill guest, like to ask your you think states have the conductn right to elections without interference? guest: i think many of the rights to implement elections are given to the states. there are federal voting guidelines. you don't need any sort of electoral interference at any point. one of the things we do know is that state legislatures in voting districts create voting laws. in one of the republican strategies after 2010 was to restrict voting and to create voter id laws another restrictions around voting hours. that is something we will take back. another thing people may not know is the right to allocate electoral votes is given to state legislators. we could move forward on an interstate popular vote compact and the national popular vote system. there is so much power inside state legislatures and we need to get focused on that. host: fort lauderdale, florida. good morning. caller: you fit the nail on the head with state legislatures. not in 2014, democrats did come out to vote. republicans always vote. that's why they got that. i hope they don't let any witnesses in. i don't hope they let any new information. , i hope all the republicans vote to keep him in. that makes him look more corrupt. it makes the republicans look like what they really are, his lackeys. they are going to do whatever he wants. i think he's going to get killed in the next election. host: thank you. your reaction? guest: as democrats, we want a fair trial in the senate. republicans have been enabling president trump to their actions. i don't know that we will get a fair trial. seen that signaled from mitch mcconnell in terms of how he has been conducting this. for the sake of our democracy, i hope there is a fair trial and republicans come to their senses and vote the right way after they are able to get a look at the evidence and take this seriously. far, we've seen so been waiting for a brave republican to stand up. that hasn't happened. eithero you sense that lamarr alexander or mitt romney would vote to have witnesses? guest: it's hard to predict actions. they have an ethical standard. i'm encouraged by the signals we've seen. it would be great if there were other republican senators who would put country over party. my hope is we move forward to make sure this is truly a fair trial and republicans don't lay down on the party line. host: david, good morning. caller: good morning. i've got a question. it's kind of an observation as much as anything. game for watching this a while, maybe 50 years. all the teachers, all the media, they are all of one party. that's nationwide. it's everything. they are 95% democrat. when you go to small business owners, i mean small. even 10 employees. they are all republicans. elizabeth harrington would've been a great tennis player. i would have another question. this is about party identification. why is the media so deeply invested in the democrat party? registration, that always concerns me. i see it on a local level. there is a double standard we dossier,steele cambridge analytic. sins on both sides, i understand that. i'm looking at the result of a one-party system in new york. we've lost 180,000 people since last year. the right tire is are leaving -- retirees are leaving. conservativesaid need not apply. they are not welcome here. that's just my observation. why is the media predominantly the democrat party? the great part about this program is we get to hear from we are just here to provide all points of view. we appreciate you sharing your view on this. guest: we are very proud of our chairman. we flipped the new york state 2018. in , a lot of of the forecasting you're talking about is it the result of a single party. we have seen record job growth ,n california and new york there are 243 fortune 500 companies. there is a lot of big business in states that lean democrat. that the press is in the tank for one party or another. i studied journalism as an undergraduate. you take a note to make sure you report the truth as you see it. they are reporting the truth as they see it. i know of a lot of small business owners who are emma kratz. they say -- are democrats. i'm not sure -- i appreciate your observation. i'm not sure that we have as much cohesion or as much of a monolith in terms of the profession. we are proud of the progress that's been made in democrat run states. they banned democratic from gdp.es democrats are the party of opportunity and we will continue to be. we believe an opportunity for all. host: i hope i am pronouncing your name properly. caller: that's correct. i am just north of grand rapids. thanks for taking my call. my first comment would be the percentage of people who want president trump removed and impeached. that is no pull out there says 70% of the people want him out. that is a lie. democratseason regained the house was because scandal about russia collusion. i think the republicans would've held the house. if you're going to speak the truth, speak the truth. there has never been a poll that said 70% of the people want trump kicked out of office. host: a poll from abc news said 66% want witnesses. caller: that could be. the problem i see is now that the house has their fiasco on how to do this impeachment, now they want to be fair in the senate. i find that hard to believe. host: thanks for the call. guest: anyone who has been in a courtroom realizes what happens in a trial is witnesses are called. earlier, they need to make the right decision. we need more focus on the states. there is progress in virginia. they are making progress on gun safety. they are doing incredible things extending the franchise on voter registration. host: jill is in illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. it's very good to finally get on. watch the impeachment. on c-span.hem i will watch more of those this week. i am truly independent. i was a democrat once. united made the most important thing, the democrats , there is nots enough difference. they are all driven by the money situation. knew donaldple who'shas been somebody passed practices, he's defaulted on loans, on small business , that'sors who did jobs been his practice with and buyers, to do the work on his developments. 2016, iwas elected in was more appalled. stein. for jill grip.ed to break their i did petitioning and things for the green party. that is the only option that i see in breaking the overwhelming two parties who ,ave taken over the operation the congressional and presidential activities. host: let's get a response. there areo think significant differences between the values of the parties. we do things like expand health care, extend medicaid. in virginia, we voted to protect srends students -- tran students. we have made so much progress on key issues. i think there is a big difference between the parties. in order for us -- i do appreciate your work and your interest. michigan, you can put things on the ballot as citizens. there has been a lot of progress through that process. i think it's a great way to make a change. spent $30republicans million in state assemblies. our planet to spend more than $50 million across the country. is to spend more than $50 million across the country. investments, we had to scale up our operation going into 2020. that's what motivated me, to make sure we had a better operation and we would fight to make sure in advance that democrats were better positioned. host: were the democrats expecting what the republicans did in 2010? guest: i don't know that we were. they were prepared for the old battles. .ights with attorneys, data we did not have enough resources. $10 million and holdve republicans decade on congress. we won't make that mistake again. on election night in 2010, i was in pennsylvania. we had lost 21 state seats in the chamber. we have to do everything we can to take back these legislatures. that's why we have the organization to do that. host: thank you very much for stopping by. we hope you will come again. guest: it's an honor to be on c-span. thank you. to ask you about endorsements, whether newspaper endorsements or candidates being endorsed by other politicians, do they influence your vote? you can begin dialing (202) 748-8000 for democrats, (202) 748-8001 four republicans. for those in iowa and new hampshire, that number is (202) 748-8002. this is the headline from the des moines register. they endorsed senator elizabeth warren from massachusetts. we will have some more endorsements from iowa coming up. joining us the a skype is a political reporter from the cedar rapids gazette. let me ask you about newspaper endorsements and i would. do they make a difference? guest: i think marginally they make a difference. people have been coming to campaign events, they probably made up their own minds. in,le who are just tuning the low information voters, it may make a difference if they see the des moines register or the sioux city journal endorsing someone. the candidates like to talk about endorsements. amy klobuchar was touting her endorsement by the new york times. it might be the first time they agreed. host: this is the headline on the washington post. she was here for the impeachment trial. she is and i went this weekend with the other senators running for president. thisyou sensed any impact is had for senator sanders, clovis shark? warren?s goers, she caucus talked about that yesterday. she is doing everything she can tv, to do awould townhall conference. she is trying to maintain that contact. on the weekend, she will spend as much time in iowa as she can. she had a house party saturday afternoon. there were 175 people who showed up for that. people are still anxious. host: you mentioned the quad city times. that includes rock island, illinois. the say amy klobuchar is one. how are people sorting through a record field? guest: it's interesting. some of these people had to come to of that's over the last year. you see fewer people showing up. i think health care is probably the most talked about issue with people ask questions. climate change is getting a lot of attention. generating a lot of questions. the economy, there is a lot of concern about what will happen in the economy, even though things are going well now. has their issue that they are most concerned about. those are the main issues people are asking candidates about. host: you are in the eastern part of the state. if you could give our audience and overview of the democratic party demographics where you are situated, including council bluffs. guest: the eastern part of the state is considered more democratic. , ire cedar rapids is located was sitting where the university is located, those are reliable democratic strongholds. area,ou get outside that we have a lot of republican representation in the state legislature. the cities tend to be democratic. that, it'st beyond pretty red across the state. nation,see across the rural areas are voting republican, urban areas are voting democrat. host: what happens at a caucus? they form preference groups. everybody for joe biden will be in one corner, elizabeth moran in that corner. they will physically separate into groups. be have to have 15% to viable. uncommittedo an preference group. when those groups that aren't is a seconde alignment. they can move to another group. sometimes you see bargaining between groups. uncommitted,an that sort of thing. once different this year is in addition to the state delegate equivalent, that is the measuring stick, there will be body counts of how many people caucused for bernie sanders. host: with the receipts of those webers, that is something are trying to wrestle with and how we convey that information to the audience. if a candidate doesn't do well in the second go around, he can claim victory? is that confusing? guest: there are going to be a lot of pointers. the person who gets the most elegant equivalents will be the winner. as you know, anybody who beats expectations will be a winner. the mayor of south bend was rising in the polls. now, bernie sanders is on top. there is a lot of enthusiasm for mayor pete. sanders seems to have galvanized support here. on, supporters from four years ago said they are looking at other people. it looks like they are coming back and he is getting more supporters as the campaign goes on. rallies are attracting large crowds. there are some questions about mayor pete's experience. his lack ofabout support from african-americans are hurting him. that is hurting him across the whole scope of the campaign. host: james lynch, how can people follow you on social media? guest: twitter. joining us from cedar rapids, iowa. we thank you for joining us on c-span. host: the question is do endorsements matter? vote?y influence your whether it's joe biden or bernie sanders, we will go to ingrid in colorado. good morning. good morning. i called in on the democrat line. i am just glad i got through. we are glad to hear from you. is the my main concern question of witnesses and documents. what peoplerstand are so afraid of. don't read act them. -- read act them. host: we are going to focus on the endorsement issue. tom is next in illinois. do endorsements matter to you? caller: no. i do have two other comments. voter. independent he -- host: if you get through, if you could turn down the television. a look at what they call the endorsement primary. this is who has received the most endorsement from party officials. joe biden is leading. bernie sanders has 55. pete buttigieg has 36. john delaney has six. tom steyer has one. good morning. caller: good morning. say i don't rely on media endorsements. i think the media is supposed to tell you it's going on, not how to vote. i think you can count on the press to suppress certain candidates. on way they have ganged up tulsi gabbard like they did bernie sanders last time. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have two quick points regarding endorsements. newspapers, the influence is marginal as your previous guest reported. newspaper is a usa today newspaper. i find that there is a heavy , especially in the editorial column. the influence it has on me is the opposite of what they intend. the second quick point i want to make is regarding something you mentioned with your previous guest. there was an article that said 66% of americans want to see witnesses. the is taken to mean that --ority of americans want are siding with the democrats. 66%e know how many of the are republicans? i am not certain that we can say want -- of respondents they are wanting more witnesses and testimony. host: if you live in iowa or new hampshire, (202) 748-8002. do endorsements matter in your decision? caller: they matter a great deal to me. i am up in the northwest corner of iowa. host: is that your final point? caller: i just wanted to make that correction. the endorsements of media do not matter. i see what used to be impartial reporting become very biased and not just in the opinion pages. the endorsement i look for comes ones, theoiceless babies killed by abortion. which candidate would best have served their needs? it's going to be a republican. it was rick santorum in 2016. that is why i voted for donald trump. endorsements matter to me. i speak for those who have no --ce here and i always point vote pro-life. host: wade, you are next. caller: good morning. host: do endorsements affect you? farmer,as a endorsements from our they wille group and have an influence. you can't just consider your own business. you have to look at the country overall and what things are important to the entire nation. some endorsements have some influence. the ones in the newspaper are one persons own ideas. they don't really have an influence. mayors do. host: will you caucus on fedora third? caller: yes. host: thank you for the call. this is from kamala harris. we were with the former vice president in new hampshire on friday. he talked about the impeachment trial. --as has been written pointed out repeatedly, he is telling lies about me. i understand it better than anybody. me, been trying to smear he's can -- colluded with foreign powers to make sure -- if you're seen a president try so hard to keep someone from being the nominee? you saw it today. his spokesperson said you should nominate somebody else other than joe biden. conway, i appreciate her being against me. they've slandered me. and my only surviving son. i can't hold grudges. host: that was the former vice president in new hampshire. our coverage continues. we were in ames, iowa last night with a bernie sanders rally. elizabeth warren is in cedar rapids. be live withwill tom steyer. he will join us tuesday morning on washington journal. we are live with the caucuses. you can see them in their entirety with no filter and no interruption. speaking of endorsements, the endorsedy journal has joe biden. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing? i'm doing fine. i believe in endorsements. i am 78 years old. joe biden has seen what's going on in the world. he knows all of this. that's the person we need in the white house. host: sandusky, ohio. james, you are next. i do have my own thoughts. i do not believe in endorsements. i vote on the issues. hillary clinton lost the election when she said to a book all the coal mines out of business -- would put all the coal mines out of business. pro-issues.sly i vote the issues. that's the difference between a democrat and a republican. that's my point. host: you are next in fort wayne, indiana. caller: good morning. i'm a republican. nra.a member of the is no way i'm going to ise for any democrat who addressing taking your gun away. i own seven guns. i am going to pass them down to my children when i go away. i am 79 years old. if they are trying to get rid of the guns, i am not going anywhere close to them. iut,agazine the nra puts don't trust them at all. just a crazy, trying to take your getaway. some of these guns belonged to your great great grandfathers. host: thanks for the call. caller: the new york times is endorsing elizabeth warren and amy klobuchar. the des moines register endorsing senator elizabeth warren. this is an announcement from the sioux city journal. let's go next to andrew in new york. caller: thank you for c-span. host: do endorsements matter? caller: i think you have to look at the source. if you look at the wall street journal, they tend to be on the conservative side even though the reporting is balanced. i think you have to take it with a grain of salt. two of your previous callers said they did believe in endorsements. they both beard off into personal interest matters. veered off into personal interest matters. thank you again. it keep up the great work. you, we want to share with conan o'brien had a look inside the c-span control room. -- continue that marlon c-span2. especially big deal for one group of people, the production team over at c-span. this is a huge thing for c-span. yesterday was a big day for them. their inme cameras in the c-span control room to see what the day was like for them. take a look. huge day, senate impeachment trial. this is our super bowl. i need everyone on their game. hands in. i was hoping for a little more energy grid we are live in 3, 2, 1. i love it. keep it right there. largely it until about 2:00 in the morning. you guys can all go home. i think i got this. keep it right there, robbie. >> i'm going to kill myself. this is the real c-span control room with our director. this is our entire staff who produces the washington journal. we should also point out that those cameras in the u.s. senate are controlled by the u.s. senate. they are not c-span cameras. they are directly controlled by the house and the senate. they are all with our great c-span crew. we are back tomorrow morning journal."washington the president's lawyers will continue with the second round of defense against the house democratic managers. the trial getting underway 1:00 eastern on c-span two. newsmakers is next. i hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend.

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