Potential changes to the u. S. Political system which he writes about in his book. [video clip] for this for ready anything whether it is going to be a breakout of larger proportions or whether or not we are at that very low level and we want to keep it that way. Yesterdayident trump flanked by white house officials reassuring americans about the response to the coronavirus. We want to get your thoughts on that. Republicans, 2027488001. Democrats, 2027488000. Ndependents, 2027488002 text us with your first name, city, and state at 2027488001 or you can go to twitter at cspanwj and facebook. Com cspan. Before we get to your calls, lets begin with more of that News Conference from yesterday. The president rom talking about the state of the coronavirus. [video clip] earlyhave through decisions, closed our borders to flights coming in from certain byas, areas that were hit the coronavirus and hit hard. We did it early. A lot of people thought we should not do it early and it turned out to be a good thing and the number one priority is the health and safety of the American People. Because of all we have done, the risk to the American People remains low. We have the greatest experts really in the world right here, people that are called upon by things likeies when this happen. We are ready to adapt and do whatever we want to if the the level we have had in our country is low and if the country is Getting Better and we think and almost all cases they are Getting Better, we have a total of 15. We took some from japan because they are american citizens in quarantine. They are Getting Better, too. Host President Trump yesterday. Abc caught up with nancy pelosi in the hallways of capitol hill and she had this to say about the white houses response as fromas their request congress to deal with the outbreak. [video clip] proposal, we has a abouto something similar the need to have a professional in place that the president let go years ago. Now they are trying to take the ebola virus money and spend it here. What he his doing is too late to make up for the loss of time, but they will need to have a professional in place that is adequate. Ken in illinois, democratic caller, what do you think about the president s response defending what the white house has done so far . Caller the problem the american 60 of us dont believe anything he says. Isfeeling about coronavirus there will be a lot of panic about it. People are already panicked about it. Chicago miles from where there is a case and i am my son goes toa college that is close here, but about 40 of the students that go to that college are from chicago and they will be going home for spring break and coming back. How can i get from st. Louis to chicago . A College Student and there are several other things i am not straight on and i dont think anyone is. You have to be showing symptoms to be communicable and i think there are indications that is not the case. Host in the New York Times this morning, a couple of things for you, even without showing symptoms, transmitting to others. In china, five members came down after hosting a guest in early january, but the visitor, a 20yearold woman never got sick herself. Some individuals infected can spread it even though they have no symptoms. A symptomatically carriers are carriers are a phenomenon. Picking up on what ken said, that americans do not believe what the president is saying, that is the New York Times lead story. For years, experts have warned mr. Trump has been squandering the credibility he could need at as the of a coronavirus has begun to threaten the United States, mr. Trump could face a moment of the president is required to be a reliable republic public messenger. Cindy, welcome to the conversation. Caller good morning, greta. Thank you. I hope you are doing well. To say aboutwhat this because everybody will say you blindly support trump no matter what. That is not the case. This is an epidemic pandemic, now, and we should not be blaming each other. That is not going to help anything. President trump is not god. He only has so much control over a virus like this when noncarriers pass it to people without symptoms. This will be impossible to contain. I think he helped a lot by closing restricting travel back and forth to china early. That helped tremendously. The fact we cannot produce facemasks here earns me alive. I am so mad about this that we cannot even make facemasks here. To trumps point when he was running for president , he wanted to bring manufacturing back in times of case like this. The fact we are so reliant on everybody else is not President Trumps fault and he was right about bringing manufacturing back here so we can deal with Something Like this. We cannot even make a facemask here . Are you kidding me . Who is to blame for that . Repent andought to asks god forgiveness and pray that god saves us. I hate the politics of this whole thing. Host Laura Mcginley and story. E johnson with the products drugs that may be at risk due to the coronavirus that has shut down china. They rely on raw products out of china. Bernard in washington, d. C. Aller good morning i am an independent. What i wanted to note on this thursday morning, what are the symptoms of the coronavirus . I heard it was flulike symptoms. Is that like when your nose is running . Host why do you ask . What are you getting at . To the because i listen radio. I read a lot about health and things came up on the news. I do listen to the radio and the news in this house, that is why i want to know. Host i would recommend going to our website, cspan. Org. We have covered briefings with cdc officials, events they have held where our nations top doctors are talking about the virus and the symptoms. You can learn more if you go there. Frontpaget journal, frames the story this way, Trump Defends u. S. Response and names mike pence to lead the effort. Here is the Vice President yesterday at the News Conference talking about the coronavirus. [video clip] governor from the state where the first mers case emerged, i know full well the importance of president ial leadership, the importance of president ial leadership and the vital role of partnerships of state and local governments and Health Authorities and responding to the potential threat of dangerous Infectious Diseases. I look forward to serving in this role of bringing together all the members of the Corona Task Force you have assembled. This team has been at your direction meeting every day since it was established. My role will be to continue to tong that team together, bring to the president the best options for actions to see to the changes and safety and healthy wellbeing of the American People. Host the Vice President talking about his new role overseeing the coronavirus outbreak. Brendan boyle, a democrat from pennsylvania tweeting the only qualification mike pence has is caseasme donald trump s. Kissass. You also have the senator from massachusetts, we do not need mike pence, we need a dedicated and permanent coronavirus czar whose only job is handling our response to this crisis and lloyd saying i have as much confidence in mike pence leading us out of this crisis as Kellyanne Conway earned when she tasked with leading us out of the opioid crisis. Some point to donald trump before he was president in 2014, his tweet criticizing then president obama. He said president obama appointed ebola czar with zero experience in the medical area and in Infectious Disease control. Ron, it is your turn. Caller trump bears full responsibility for this disease. To embargo of farm goods china caused the chinese, who are suffering under a pig fever which wiped out there pig population and through the embargo, trump no longer allowed pork to be shipped to china causing the chinese to ramp up consumption of wild meat, something they have done all their lives for medicine and traditional medicines and trump and his policies, they are full responsibility for this disease and it spread and by putting pence, who spread the age epidemic when he was governor, he is only exacerbating the problem. Do you havevidence where have you heard this trade war withe china and the outbreak of the coronavirus . Caller i did not see it anywhere, i am looking at history, the news, trumps policies. One more example, if i may, the republicans are against abortion , but it is ok to starve venezuelan children by putting an embargo on their oil. We are stealing their oil so they starve. That is their policies. Host wisconsin, independent. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. We are listening. Caller my question is what thousands hundred thousand containers who came from china of people who probably had the virus before they knew about it. Sneezing, coughing on stuff and spreading those around the country. Host that was addressed yesterday. We covered a hearing with the acting Homeland Security chief and he was asked about the role Homeland Security is playing because they are the ones at the borders infecting cargo ships. Nd International Flights you can go to our website and find that hearing. Victor in maryland. Aller good morning i thought President Trump was. Ool, calm, collected he took questions for over an hour and i feel very secure we are going to get through this. I will tell you something that really scares me. Some democrat may be crazy enough to spread the virus around and blame it on trump and get it into the general population. I remember the homosexuals did this in the 1980s. Host lets leave it there. Chuck schumer tweeted out this yesterday. He is coming to the table with a new proposal to bring 8. 5 billion in desperately needed resources. E says 1. 5 billion for the cdc 2 billion for state and local reimbursements. One billion for usaid emerging Health Threat funding and one billion for nih rapid vaccine development. Trumps president yesterday talking about this debate over whether to . 5 billion, which he announced he would like to see put toward the effort versus the 8. 5 billion Chuck Schumer is calling for. [video clip] what is your response to Speaker Pelosis comment that you do not know what you are talking about with the coronavirus . I think Speaker Pelosi is incompetent. She lost congress once. I think she will lose it again. She lifted my poll numbers off up. We are doing great. It is almost unfair if you think about it, but i think she is incompetent and not thinking about the country. Instead of making a Statement Like that, she should be saying we have to Work Together because we have a big problem potentially and maybe it will be a little problem. We have to Work Together. Instead, she wants to do this. Same thing with Chuck Schumer, he goes out and says the president asked for 270 million. This is the first time i have ever been told we should take more. We should be working together. He should not make statements like that. Nancy pelosi should go back to her district and clean it up. When you look at percentage down, that was one of the finest in the world. We should all be working together. She is trying to create a panic and there is no reason to panic. Host President Trump on the criticism he is getting from democrats. Michael bloomberg, president ial candidate and former new york city mayor is hitting the airwaves with ads about the coronavirus outbreak attacking the president. [video clip] the deadly coronavirus hitting the u. S. Markets plunging for a second straight day. Health experts warn the u. S. Is underprepared. Managing a crisis is what Mike Bloomberg does. He oversaw Emergency Response to natural disasters, upgraded hospital preparedness to manage health crises, and funding cutting edge resource to contain epidemics. I am Mike Bloomberg and i approve this message. Host anthony in maryland, democratic caller. Your thoughts on the coronavirus outbreak and the handling by the Trump Administration. Caller i thoughts are that President Trump has passed the buck to the Vice President. With the healthcare crisis, everybody said he kept his promises, but he said health care was too complicated. He gave up on the health care plan. I can guarantee you the red states will say he kept that promise, but he did not, there is no health care plan. He tried to undo aca and red states that did not pick it up see their hospitals are closing. When this virus does hit because the said it is inevitable, red states will not have health. Are hospitals to go to cut off your nose to spite your face. Thing,to say one last ezekiel 5 12. That is why all the other world places, japan shutting their schools. They know the third a third of the worlds population will die. In ohio,son republican. Good morning to you. Caller good morning. I amning to these callers, a republican, trump supporter, i agree with him 80 . There is some stuff i dont agree with, but i dont understand where this vitriol and hate comes from. Bush and Trump Supporters get the virus and red states dont have hospitals. Where is this coming from . Statement and some of the other politicians, if we cannot come together on this and actually hope it doesnt spread, come on. We are better than this. That was my comment. Host dave in massachusetts, independent. Caller good morning. How are you doing today . I would like to say one thing, you have covered a few of the points i wanted to bring up over the previous callers. This is the most ridiculous thing about our leadership. It is time to put the bows and arrows down. We have an issue to deal with in this country, it should not be used as a political ploy by either side by the president or by congressman or senators. Some of the responses from our leaders have been ridiculous and to be honest, some responses from the callers have been ridiculous. We need not a budget to go by. We have to say this is what we have to do, get it done and that is what i am asking for. Host want to show you and where john hopkins map you can see in real time where the outbreak is happening across the country. 82,446 deaths on my map. It looks like that one is a little bit less. T is updating as you go total people that have recovered, 33,179. Take a look at the headlines, against italian outbreak because of the European Union and their open borders. There is talk about whether or not they need to close the borders and headline in the wall street journal, you have this, Germany Economy looks to off more contagion. In the United States, many of you probably heard in california, here is the San Francisco chronicle with the headline the coronavirus uncontained is what they had to say in their headlines. The first case in the u. S. From an unknown source is from the bay area. They do not know where this person who has the coronavirus got it from. They did not travel and so that is the first case in the United States. Congressman derailment he represents this area in california and he sent a couple of tweets saying i am aware of reports a Solano County resident tested positive for the virus. I am in close Contact Contact and will pass along updates as they become available. Second tweet, he talks about the importance of washing hands, etc. You can follow him on twitter if you missed that. The president yesterday did address the travel bands he put in place and here is what he had to say. [video clip] towe are not going to listen travel restrictions we would be talking about many other people would be infected. I took a lot of heat. Some people called me racist because i made a decision early. It was a bold decision. I was criticized by the democrats. They called me a racist because i made that decision. We have to Work Together. We cannot say bad things. Especially when we have the best team in the world and we gave it an early start. Host the president repeatedly took credit for barring foreign nationals and imposing a quarantine on imposing citizens. He says he does not plan to lift restrictions. He is not putting restrictions on italy, south korea, and other countries. The Washington Times notes beyond china cases passed the 400 mark and south korea reported over 1200 deaths. Militaryth korean and postponed iran is up to 140 cases and 19 deaths sparking fears of a broader transmission across the middle east. Brazil says a man who travel to italy contracted the virus and so it is spreading and the numbers you can find in the Washington Times. Morning. Ouisiana, good caller i have a couple things. Instead of giving any more money, take the money they have appropriated from the Defense Department and use that money to fight this. When trump went on the air to brief the nation, he already knew about that one breakout. Got in the way and he that could have been working on this ahead of and cutt he fired them for the host centers for disease control, the cdc. Caller yeah, he cut that. This is personal, but i am a says aan and the bible lot about a person that is a liar and i think trump is a big liar and these socalled christians backing him need to check themselves. Host david is an independent. Good morning to you. Caller good morning to cspan and all of your listeners. I give kudos, spot on for the last three callers. I question mr. Pentzs mr. P thes credentials when Opioid Epidemic was at its height and he refused to give whichean syringes, aggravated that situation even worse. I think our country needs to come together and we need to not play this down and make masks available and children in school secondbe taught the five hand washing every time you do something. I really hope the best for our country. Thated people at the helm have turned an announcement as grave as this as a political venue. Host let me show you and others because you mentioned response efforts by the United States, the doctor with the president at the News Conference talked about where we are with the vaccine to help curb the spread. [video clip] i told this audience at a recent press briefing we had a number of vaccine candidates and one prototype one to give you a feel for the timeframe of the vaccine and what its impact might be now. I told you we would have a vaccine we would be putting into trial to see if it is safe and induces a vaccine that would be protective in three months. I think it will be less than that, closer to 2 months and that would take three months to determine if it is safe, which gives us 6 months and then you thatate from a trial involves hundreds, if not low thousands of people to determine efficacy. An efficacy trial would take 6 to 8 months. Although this is the fastest we have ever gone from a sequence of a virus to a trial, it would not be applicable to the epidemic unless we wait a year to a year and a half. Containing as Public Health measures. We cannot rely on a vaccine over the next several months to a year. However, if this virus, which we have every reason to believe it is quite conceivable it will happen, will go beyond a season and recycle next year. If that is the case, we hope to have a vaccine and briefly, therapeutics. There are a number of antiviral drugs. A few days ago we initiated a trial of a drug and the good news about that is it is a trial that is randomized care a placebo standard of , which means we will know if it works and if it does, we will have an effective therapy to distribute. Independent headline on vaccinations from testimony from the hhs testimony says trump official refuses to say a vaccine would be affordable to all. The congressman tweeted out in response to this conversation he hopes es that he said the coronavirus must not be a windfall for pharmaceutical companies. Any vaccine must be affordable and accessible to members of the public. I have urged the president to make sure this happens. We will continue our conversation about the outbreak and we willakowsky talk with Warren Davidson about this as well as changes to fisa court. We will be right back. Isthe South Carolina primary saturday. Join us to hear the candidates reaction to the results. You can listen live on the cspan radio app. [video clip] this november, we are going to take back the house, hold the senate, and keep the white house. President trump speaks at a rally in South Carolina ahead of the primary. Watch our campaign 2020 coverage live friday at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan, watch on cspan. Org, or listen with the free cspan radio app. During this election season, the candidates beyond the talking points are only revealed over time. Since you cant be everywhere, there is cspan. Our programming differs from all other political coverage for one simple reason. It is cspan. We brought you your unfiltered view of government every day since 1979 and we are bringing an unfiltered view of the people seeking to steer that government this november. In other words, your future. Go deep, direct, and unfiltered. See the biggest picture for yourself and make up your own mind with cspans campaign 2020. Nnouncer washington journal continues. Host we wanted to welcome jan schakowsky, men beer member of the energy and commerce committee. The headline coming out of the hearing with the hhs secretary, trump official refuses to say the Coronavirus Vaccine would be affordable to all. What did you hear from the secretary . Guest the secretary said in no Uncertain Terms he could not coronavirus the vaccine would be affordable although they would work to make it happen because we had to rely on the private sector. Pharma. Lking about big i made the point that the taxpayers have really done the research, the bulk of the money has been from every one of us and yet he is saying we cannot assure it will be affordable. Imagine, we are talking about the potential of a worldwide pandemic. We cannot do anything about controlling the private sector, big pharma. Taxpayerhe right if dollars are not being used for that . Taxpayer dollars have been doing the basic research, about 80 and you would think the government would have some control over the price. He says price control will not help us. The priority is to get vaccine therapies. We cannot control the price. Really . The United States of america . This is a matter of National Security, cannot guarantee that and are are therapies vaccine, that it cannot be affordable to the American People . We are under the control of pharma and the profits they want to make . I dont think so. Host could these there please go to the highest bidder . China and other countries saying we will give you more money for what you are developing. Is that possible . Is unclear how it will relate to the worldwide coronavirus. Certainly, they ought to be able to stand up there and say we will work for a vaccine and make sure it is accessible to all americans. One of the big issues in our country right now is the cost of prescription drugs and are we at the mercy of the profits of big pharma . Certainly not in this case. Host we want our viewers to get involved as well. Republicans, 2027488001. Democrats, 2027488000. And independents, 2027488002. Right as andent earlier viewer said that we rely too much on other countries for our supply chain . That he has said from the beginning, we need more manufacturers in the United States. Guest there is no question we have a reliance on a huge percentage, like 80 of the component part of the drugs, the things that go into making the drugs are from overseas. We do not have manufacturing plants in the United States of america. The reliance on china is really great. A lot of it is china. It is not a good thing. The president is absolutely right that we ought to be able to manufacture drugs on our own in the United States to make sure we are not dependent on countries like china where we are seeing supply chains for everything break down because of the coronavirus. Reaction tos your the president appointing the Vice President as the lead on the u. S. Response to the coronavirus . Guest i understand secretary ar was unaware that was coming. He has been part of the team overseeing our response and certainly somebody needs to be in charge. I thought it was the secretary in charge and apparently he did, too. I dont know if in terms of progress. Host faith in california, republican, you are up first for the congresswoman. Caller i would like to say Cargo Containers sometimes hide illegal chinese immigrants and people dealing with that should be well protected. There are comments people cannot get to hospitals and i think Illegal Immigrants always get to the emergency room. They cannot be denied coverage and i think masks are ineffective and when we had that barack guy in the white house to force everyone to have health care for Something Like coronavirus, i think that was communistic. We have to make sure everyone is protected when it comes to the coronavirus because anybody could catch it. If we say we should not provide health care to immigrants Illegal Immigrants on the other hand, you do not want to be infected by anybody who may have the virus. We are checking people. For example, there are no noncitizens that have come from abroad right now being allowed into the United States of. Merica, especially from china we are doing everything we can to protect ourselves from anybody that would bring it with them. If someone is here, we need to treat them regardless of their immigration status. Host should President Trump have travel restrictions from people coming from south korea, iran, middle east . Guest we are checking those people when they come in, but if they are noncitizens, they are not being allowed into the country because of the presence of the virus. We are guarding ourselves in that way. Host glenn in pennsylvania, independent. Caller good morning. On the president , nancy pelosi, Chuck Schumer, theh mcconnell to restore cdc to minimize the major breakout, the cdc would be the go to play. Can we restore the cdc, please. I am calling you to ask the president to restore the cdc. Host restore the funding for the cdc. Guest you are right, we have seen a halloween hollowing out of the agencies that are supposed to protect us in terms of cuts and funding and the amount of money that has been designated now for the coronavirus, 2. 5 million, most of the Health Care Experts think that is too little and half 1 billion was half 1 billion was taken out of the ebola fund and there are still ebola outbreaks. We are putting ourselves at risk again. This is a National Security issue as much as war, defending us through the military and we have to make sure we are cutting back on health care that protects us. I agree with you 100 . Host james in liverpool, new york. A democratic caller. Caller mi on . Am i on . Host yes, you are. Caller i think the travel ban was a good idea. It helped prevent what could have been worse. Contactts have phone over there with people in wuhan and even those people do not believe whatever numbers the president the government is producing are not accurate. My understanding is there is a man company i figured that was perhaps something they would be looking to. The United States needs to look into our own ability to manufacture the drugs we need. This turns out not only to be about the coronavirus and hopefully a vaccine for that, but we rely on china for a lot of the drugs we get and manufacture and so i think we anddefinitely put at risk the United States of America Needs to understand the vulnerability we have when we rely on other countries. Host why does the cdc and the other Health Agencies need more than 2. 5 billion dollars in your let me give you an example of cities and small towns and big towns all over the United States are spending a big a great deal of money and chicago, 100 50,000 a week is into these things. I asked if there was going to be and burstent meant and he said there would be help for states. This is a much more expensive Chuck Schumer called for over 8 billion to be allocated. I think we are going to boost it did not take into account any of the surveillance to make sure we know where these cases are. I think there is consensus in the medical community there is not enough money and to take from ebola is not a good idea either. Host we will go to joel, a republican. Caller good day, maam. I wanted to point out it is democratic policies under the Obama Administration that the exporting of our pharmaceutical Manufacturing Capabilities and that is why we dont have industrial capability at this point. Would she talk about that . Guest lets blame about the Obama Administration that has been gone 4 years. This is not the first time there has been concern about the drugs and the fact that they are manufactured overseas and there certainly has been a long time we have, during the Trump Administration, that big pharma president g the used that term, price gouging the cost of prescription drugs. It is time we all understand we have been under the Trump Administration and we just need now to the need we have. It has shown off the shortcomings in the pricing of pharmaceuticals and the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals. Lets learn from this coronavirus problem and beef up our National Security with the drugs we need and it is time to stop blaming the Obama Administration for the problems we are facing right now. Host what are you hearing from hospitals and Health Care Workers about their ability to respond to patients . Guest i raise that question with the secretary of health and Human Services because we were hearing from healthcare workers they can be protected, that they have the equipment and the masks to be able to keep themselves safe. They are probably the most at wek and i want to point out are in a different situation today having heard about the first case in california where there is no known source. This is not a person who went to that is a disturbing finding. They are looking into what could possibly does this mean we are going to see it spread to people who have not had any connection . , independent, you are next. Caller big pharma having as much power and control as they do over anything and everything as too is a small example other corporations that take advantage of the power they take advantage of. 2. 5 million is what you said taxpayers are paying for and having to put their foot in on this virus or cure or whatever it is. Host what is the actual number taxpayers are paying into research . Guest we know about a billion dollars that has gone into that kind of work. The 2. 5 billion is Going Forward to deal with the epidemic. Of an we know about 20 of r d has been done by the private sector, pharmaceutical companies. You are absolutely right that one of the highest the highest Health Official in the country would say we cannot guarantee you that once we have a vaccine that will be affordable i think that is completely outrageous when the World Health Organization has said this could be an international pandemic, when the United States of america has declared it to be an emergency situation, that we are going to have to depend and we do not know if pharma is going to overcharge us and see it as an ability to make profit on preventing how Many Americans contracting and perhaps dying of a virus. Host tom, go ahead with your question. Caller i think taxpayer dollars should be more than enough to handle that and we should not have to pay outofpocket. In the event of a pandemic on our soil. Taxes foready paying millions of other things ridiculous tax rates just to be told we are going to have to pay outofpocket for something that is lifethreatening. Guest that is right, especially if you have already paid for it because taxpayers are paying for this research and development and then have to be charged whatever in order for itceutical companies is immoral to say we will let them charge what they will. Good robert in maryland, morning to you. Caller good morning. If we are really all concerned about a pandemic, it is a very simple solution. Shut down the border, stop International Flights and shipping. No democrat would do that. For the congresswoman to sit there and complain about our jobs, pharmaceuticals being shipped overseas, she voted for all of that numerous times. She voted against the American Worker to ship these jobs overseas. For her to complain pharmaceutical Companies May make a profit on something the congressman called this problem by themselves and for her to sit there and act like she did not have a hand in it. Take a drink of that. Every time she voted, you are complicit in this. Host lets get a response. Guest i certainly have, all of my time in congress, been fighting to protect jobs in the United States of america and you arecheck my record on that not shifting jobs and the ability to provide us with what we need overseas. In fact, it is the opposite that we have seen countries go to cheap labor places like china factories. Wn our clearly we need to bring not only the products, but the jobs back to the United States of america and when you talk about pharmaceutical Companies Making a profit, that profit for private corporations should not be part of the discussion. We need to be talking about how the United States of america itself and taxpayers are able to prevent some sort of pandemic, epidemic in our country and that ought to be the focus. Not saying now that you have paid for all or most of the research and development, now we if you cannot afford it, what . You are not going to get it . That is impossible. Caller wasnk the referring to legislation like nafta. For nafta. S not here i went public and said i would have voted against nafta. I helped negotiate the current that is notent going to end up like nafta to let jobs go away. Host roger in michigan, republican. Is the clear if i am tong that think she voted for obama Health Insurance they were not entitled to. My mother is 92 years old. Should she have to pay for an Illegal Immigrants health care in the United States . Supported it. She supported all of obamas health care, which hurt the people in the state of michigan including me and my sons. She sits there, drinks coffee, woman inis a glorious the world. With nancy pelosi and provided everyone in america with false health care. Guest high probably voted and would to support the Affordable Care act. Is it perfect . Absolutely not. For the first time, people with preexisting conditions were assured maybe you, possibly your son at some point to guarantee you would not be cut off by the Insurance Company that says you are too expensive and says we are not going to pay for your heart problem or diabetes, you cannot get insurance. There are 135 million americans with preexisting conditions able to get health care. Host how does the aca help in this situation with the coronavirus . Guest absolutely it does. We want people not to be vulnerable to be open to catching the flu or this horrible coronavirus. The accessibility to health care is a National Security help for us to make sure people are not vulnerable. Host democratic caller. Cspan, youks for are a True National resource. The comment and a couple of things is one that we need to get politics as far away from this as possible. You have a 2 fatality rate and percent is 0. 1 0. 1 . Will stressnts that test our governments and hospitals. We need to get a government into place here. I think that is the real comment, maybe we have been lucky to sidestep a lot of this with the political rhetoric we have had over the last 20 years that have discharged and sidestepped the expertise and functioning government, but we will need to get active about that and the wave is coming and people need to prepare for that. Guest i agree with you that this coronavirus has been an we preparedays are to deal with the kind of Health Threats we may find even today and do we have to beef up our systems to make sure we protect ourselves . Holes. Found a number of having said that, it is important to say the president was wrong, it is not 15 cases, there are 60 cases in the United States has been doing pretty well compared certainly to some other countries where we are seeing for instance, in italy, so many cases springing up overnight. It does put a burden on our Health Care Workers and we have to make sure there are sufficient employees to take care of us from doctors down to home care workers are under stress right now. Host william in massachusetts, independent. Overhead with your question or comment for go ahead with your question or comment for congresswoman czajkowski. The congresswoman. Caller you have sars and mers and all these other viruses and infections and the cdc has money and because there is a new name we need 5. 2 million and yet flint cannot get guest we are talking about testing kit. There is a limited number of testing kits around. When someone is suspected of having the virus, i think there are 12 around the country. It was only one because of a lack of capacity of places to test the patient to see if it is the coronavirus. There are a lot of things physically that we have to get ready for just in case, and to make sure we are able to evaluate what is going on. We do want to make sure we have enough health their providers that are hospitals our hospitals are equipped for isolation. This is a very expensive endeavor to make sure we are kept safe. The Health Care Experts are saying that it is some are saying it is more like 15 billion. In the scheme of things, this is the kind of investment that we need to be ready to make. Host are you concerned about a recession . Guest as a consequence of this . Lets face it. The supply chains for so many things including technologies, all kinds of things that we to our country from all over the world, but in the stock from china, market is telling us there is some problem here. Hopefully now because china is controlling the increase is down. We are seeing that china is getting this under control, we hope, so lets hope it is shortlived. Host moodys analytics predicted a 40 chance the virus would glow into grow into a world pandemic that would push the United States into a recession. Jerry, democratic caller. Caller you sound almost as excited as dutch about that you sound almost excited about that that is a shame that. That is a shame. You notice that the people who have the virus are Getting Better, so can somebody tell me how this is happening that they are Getting Better and going home without this new vaccine we are talking about . I am not getting what the panic is. People are going home, so evidently we have a great radical system here. Medical system here. The countries that are having the problem are those that do not have the same medical system. Us over here, we are doing a great job so far. It looks like our hospitals, medical are doing a great job. These people are going home and there are no deaths here, so i do not understand the panic yet here. I understand the global with the trade war and after what trump said yesterday, because he said two things, as far as travel goes, we have a beautiful country so people can travel within our own country on vacation and see beautiful places, and he is absolutely correct. People do not have to go out of the country to travel. Number two, trade, he is trying so hard to make everything in the usa so we are not dependent on other countries for our wealth. Everything he has said has proven to be true so far, to try to get this country to prosper and closing the borders is another thing. He has been right on the money. Host we have to leave it there. Cnn is reporting that markets now are near correction in response to the coronavirus. Guest i certainly agree with besthat we have one of the systems in the world to take pandemic, and to stillt it, but there are millions and millions of americans that dont have access to health care in this country. I am talking about that is sins of the united dates of america who cant afford it, so we do have to do better, but in the meantime i do want to say that we dont need to panic, but we need to prepare. We need to be ready. That are forecasting it could be a problem in the United States of america, we need to be ready to prevent that. Traveling still is a good idea within the United States of america. We have a great country, but our Health Care System still has holes in it. Host congresswoman, thank you for talking to viewers. Guest thank you. Host we will be joined by Ohio RepublicanWarren Davidson. We will get his thoughts on the coronavirus and the expiring fisa provisions. We will be right back. Sunday, book tv features conversations on u. S. President s and race, plus america as a superpower. Starting at noon eastern on indepth, a live conversation with author and White House Correspondent april ryan. I studied for this at morgans University Just down the road, studied for this. This is my vocation, not knowing that i would be under fire by asking questions. I have asked questions of each president , the same question except for one, of each president over the last 21 years, but asking questions now has me fearing for my life. Her latest book is under fire. Join the conversation with your phone calls, tweets, text, and facebook messages. At 9 00 p. M. Eastern, and his latest book, syndicated columnist cal thomas records the rise and fall of nations historically and america as a superpower. He is interviewed by amanda carpenter. We are not each others enemies, as lincoln said if we do not make this great experiment called democracy work for generations, we are going to expire. There is no guarantee. Things are looking great, but when things are looking great it is time to shore up the foundations. Watch april ryan and cal thomas on book tv on cspan two. Washington journal continues. Host welcome to the table, congressman Warren Davidson of ohio, member of the freedom caucus. Lets begin with the coronavirus and pfizer courts as well fisa courts as well. The president has asked for 2. 5 2. 5 billion dollars and Chuck Schumer is saying more like 8 billion. Guest it is easier to go for a lower number and ask for more. Congress is in session plenty of time between now and then, so it is rational to go with a lower number and spend more, but the president signaled, you want to give me more money, give me more money. I am sure he will make judicious use of it but be clear, we are borrowing it. Host what do you mean . Guest we are spending a trillion more than we have. Deficits do matter. Why run up the full death is full balance on the credit card instead of paying for what you need . Host what are you hearing about this coronavirus outbreak . Guest people are concerned about the supply chain and the timing hit as Chinese New Year was going in china. A lot of the supply chain goes back to china and tons of people did not go back to work, so you will see disruption in supply chains. It is also a demand shock because people are checking on public activities in other parts of the world, so what will be the spillover effect . Host what countries have supply chains connected to china . Procter gamble, ge aircraft engines, some of the Big Companies you would recognize are there, and a lot of the downstream supply chains for honda, toyota, gm, and any number of things in aerospace. We just had nasa talking to the supply chain for space, everything from the earth and uavs, and how that will transform into deep space. A strong supply chain there. Sameesence, this isnt the kind of thing they are used to accommodating. There is a good amount of readiness in the health care area, but people are paying attention to it. Host have those companies told you they have been hurt . Guest no, just Early Warning system, and supply chains have been made more resilient because President Trump has made dealing with trade a huge priority for his administration. Supply chains are more resilient because we have had an ongoing trade issue with china, so companies will have to start shifting. I talked with the Company Getting forgings and castings from china and they decided to do will source that and now they dual source that, and now they have three sources to deal with supply shocks. Host could your farmer see and in exportsn uptick to china because i dont know what is in your district, but whether it is wheat or flour or hogs. Guest we have one of the larger poultry districts in the country and when you look at pork, import ismber one pork. Theook forward to seeing progress the administration is making on the trade negotiations so we will get our ag sector back strong. Host what have you heard from Healthcare Providers and hospitals, are they prepared . Guest they are trying to make sure they are, trying to learn everything they can from hhs. Cdc has been responsive. I spoke to someone who said, we talked cdc, did not know exactly how to treat the person, and was relaying something secondhand that has not happened in our district, but protocol. You get someone who is symptomatic, one of the things that is going in now is test kits. When someone does show symptoms, that they have a way to get rapid feedback on the test. Otherher host the issue is these expiring fisa provisions. Can you explain what they are . Guest it is foreign Intelligence Surveillance act, passed in 1978 but massively expanded under the patriot act people will think of these provisions as patriot act provisions. Section 215 is the Business Records provision. It is intended to target foreigners but a lot of americans data, particularly post Edward Snowden was how Many Americans private records were being selected and searched without even having a warrant . And the standard for the warrant. You have seen systematic abuse of this. The fisa court made public a 2018 opinion where they found abuses across the range from the intelligence agent these and fbi they are not agencies and fbi. They are not supposed to do that. Congress said not of this was happening but now we know it is not true, not to mention everything that happened with horwitz and the Mueller Investigation and President Trump. They are looking at this in a different way. Yesterday there was supposed to nadlerrkup and jerry pulled the bill because there was a coalition of conservatives and progressives that were backing a bill, a progressive democrat from california and i had the safeguarding americans tom private records act advocate on behalf of american citizens, and a number of other reforms that safeguard americans private records. Going into that, it was possible that we would be marking up our bill as the bill the chairman wanted, and a number of amendments that if that did not pass, a number of the amendments would have surely passed. Now we are trying to make sure we get a real hearing on fisa and the returns, a bipartisan , a Good Coalition saying we have to reform the system in light of all we have seen. It rehashes a lot of the debate that did occur at the time of the patriot act. Host let me go over for our viewers the other Surveillance Program set to expire, authorization of roving wiretaps, surveillance. The safeguarding americans private records act would reform section 215 of the patriot act, addresses problems identified by the inspector general, encloses secret law loopholes. Can you dig deeper into what you are talking about customer guest talking about . Guest we just authorized a bill that reauthorizes roving wiretaps. Lets take the lone wolf. Under testimony, they say that they have never used it. In theory, you could have a lone actor that is going to do harm in america, but if they were completely alone who would they be coordinating with . Under oath, they said they never used that provision. Now you go to the call records and they have said they are no longer doing the call tracking program. They spent about 100 Million Dollars tracking american citizens phone calls and searching through it and have only had one case that resulted in a prosecution off of it. It is really an assessment of the effectiveness of the protocols they put in place. On the other hand, there are things like were emails your emails that you might have. Just because the server happened to be located outside the United States, people might not know and might not be connected with a foreign power, the standard was if you were going to use fisa instead of a traditional warrant and target an american citizen, that you had to get a warrant. The only way you could do it warrant leslie warrantlessly through the fisa court is if you had a connection to the four criteria that were a bright line test now, test. 2015 reforms it made it so it has the slightest nexus to any part of a crime. It was just tangentially, they might have talked to a foreigner, lets check. Host congressman davidson represents ohios sixth district. We are here to take your questions, republicans, 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independents, 202 7488002. Warren davidson is my congressman and i appreciate everything he is doing. I appreciate donald trump. Theonald trump taking on coronavirus. Gets so much he host criticism . Guest great to talk with you. How are you . Caller better than i deserve. Host do you share his concern that president is getting criticized unfairly . Guest this is nothing new under the sun. You go back under george w. Bush, he was criticized by the media. The history is they are horrible or not. President trump was loved by everyone and then he became president , so we will see where it goes. People criticize the president. First he was overreacting and being xenophobic by blocking people at the airports from china and then it was, you are not doing enough. Every day is a day to criticize the president for some people. Host in maine, independent. Caller good morning. Makee i say anything, you 174,000 to sit here and lie to the American People. The reason i criticize donald trump is 16,000 lies. He is sitting there last night saying, dont worry about nothing. Dont worry about nothing. All the experts standing behind him. Come on, wake up you are on the financial committee. You just said we dont need to put more money here or there. We are 22 trillion in debt because of the tax break for white men only. You set on a jury who took an oath and you didnt do anything to go after the mueller report. You ignored that. 10 obstructions of justice, not for me. Guest god bless america. Thank god we have free speech and i appreciate your opinion. In owner, west virginia, democratic caller. Caller mr. Representative, i want to ask you a question. Did you watch the press conference that the president gave, or watch the clip that , the showed when the cdc chief was talking, and trump standing behind them, look at his body language and face expressions. What does that tell you . Does that tell you he cares . Just look at him. Hurry up and shut up that is the way i see it shut up. That is the way i see it. Guest i did not get that from the president at all and i dont think anyone has a sense that the president doesnt care. He is at a press conference and i think he is looking at a shared age. The front shared stage. The president does not share the stage a lot they are showing a clip in the audience and im looking at part of that clip now. I could see what you are talking about. He definitely seems ready for his chance to come back and Say Something at the mic. To of the things people look the president of the United States to do is to be a steady voice and a time of stress for the country. When you look at how well the United States has responded to past crises, sars, the ebola threat, the bird flu, any number of things, our system in the united date beginning with United States beginning with security at the border, the cdc, look at the response we have had and the track record we have had the president is saying i dont think the president is saying this is not anything we have to worry about he is saying in the United States we are taking it variously and have the resources deal with the problem. When people come on and sound alarmist the president is like, no, you are going against acid. Message. Take precautions, wash your hands. If you are sick, do not get other people sick, but otherwise, get back to normal life. I think that was the message, not that he didnt care. When you hear somebody Say Something at odds with that, he swayed in and said lets get the focus on the right topic. Host regina from norfolk, virginia. Caller i want to ask the representative exactly why the president did not use a fisa warrant to go after the bidens son . I dont care what anybody thinks, fisa is for protection of the individual citizens from abuse for abusive government and it worked for carter page. Why wasnt he held to the same standard . Guest the president has been clear that he believes the criteria used to target him was wrong. People who were trusted to do the right thing abused that trust and targeted him and others. You also see it for example when Bernie Sanders was warned that russia was intervening in a way that would benefit Bernie Sanders. I thought the protocol was you were supposed to begin a spine campaign on Bernie Sanders and all that network. Campaign on Bernie Sanders and all that network. It should not happen in a campaign or to any american citizen, so i believe the president be opposed to moving forward with authorization of fisa without reforms, and the reforms will have to be meaningful for all americans to make sure that their privacy is respected and we follow the constitution. Host ohio, james, a democratic caller. Caller i have a question for the congressman. Do you vote for or against the right to organize the labor union bill . Caller i dont know guest i dont know which vote you are speaking about, but do i support right to work in states, and there was a recent effort to nationalize opposition to write to work, i believe states can have those laws and i dont believe the federal government should say we are going to undo what states have done. Caller do you believe that right to work lowers raises wages . Is it better to have a union or nonunion household . Guest we have both. My father and fatherinlaw are retired teamsters. They ended up with a lot of with lower wages because they put a lot into the Pension Funds and there is concerns about Pension Funds. I have an uncle who is a retired mine worker. On the other, i have family you have worked and saved for their retirement and they kept or takehome pay all through the system and it was not going into the pension fund. Both can be good, and even in a Union Situation you can have bad outcomes because the pension fund can be underfunded. Host maryellen in sarasota, florida, independent. Caller i would like to ask how the democrats that are complaining about the president s response to coronavirus can justify the gest threat and risk of from illegal foreign nationals coming into our country who are not investigated, not regulated. That is where disease transmission can really take hold. Italy is bottlenecked. Ignored italys cries for help. They have massive amount of illegal foreign nationals that have migrated into italy and they are stuck because the eu will not let them i havent helped italy. We have the same risk at our southern border and i would like to know how the democrats can complain when they truly are responsible for unregulated entry into this country. Guest i think it is a fair concern. The president said if you dont have a secure border, you dont have a secure country. That is true. When you look at the response at the border and how we are able to screen people coming in on flights, we can know where they were before their connection, and we have a good system of people coming through border check points, and we can check and assess at the border, are they symptomatic at a very super fishel level superficial level. We do need a secure border and i think this is just one of the a plethora, and abundance of ways highlighting why having a secure border matters. It can be a safeguard, just like the president s decision on blocking anyone from china who is not an american citizen for this period. It is a safeguard although a lot of people said it was alarmist and xena phobic. How can you do it . You cannot do it without border security. Host kirksville, is ore, missouri, democratic caller. Caller why are you so partisan . Ever since Newt Gingrich in the , you havefter clinton been at odds with the democrats on everything and you keep trying to justify it cannot be justified justify. It cannot be justified you are saying justified. You are saying there is a problem and you do not care. Guest that is fair partisanship, and cable news came into time being around the same time. You see a 24 hour news cycle and apparently what cells as is ads ist sells conflict and division. Gingrich, whyat do people so much associate that with ingrid . 40 years prior gingrich . 40 years prior to that, the democrats were a minority. The whole thing was pretty partisan and onesided until the gingrich contract america produced a republican majority. There has been some back and forth since then, so now in the consciousness of people there is a difference between the parties. One thing i love emphasizing, Health Insurance companies are exempt from antitrust laws that would prevent price signaling,arch it market shaping efforts to block new entrance. Antitrust laws are a big deal about making laws work, keeping capitalism functioning properly. Health Insurance Companies are exempt, so in 2017 at the height of controversial reforming health care, republicans and democrats voted on this in 2017 and it passed 4167. It wasnt even close, and i thought as a new member of congress this would be Huge National news, everyone would be talking about it. There was almost no mention. There was a little tiny blip in the New York Times and the hill. People speculate why is that . They dont bring this up in the news and they are not going to bring it up in the senate probably because it would pass. Why . Because some people dont actually want it to pass and there is no emphasis on the things we agree on. Even in may on health care, congress voted 4200 to make it easier to launch generic drugs. They have to vote in the senate and you see almost no mention in the press and you have to ask why. Host bob in victoria, texas, republican. Caller thank you, representative. Back int to throw it the democrats face, tear the walls down and let them come back in with viruses. California is a cesspool. How many of them are working in kitchens in new york and illinois and texas with some kind of disease . Tell them about the restriction on line people over here, all of now theyall bad, bad are hollering, bad. Now they are hollering, we are going to die, we need to put more money in it. The democrats are coming home to roost and it does not look good for them. You have to tell them about this catch and release. If they have a fever, release them into the country. Host go ahead. Guest i look at the consequences of that and while i get presumably you are speaking hyperbole and looking at the irony of the situation, that would be a horrible thing to do. Even if the president wanted to do that, congress would never go along with it. The president loves our country and that will not happen. If you look at the concern, where are people with the disease and why it is so important Public Health, go back to typhoid mary and how we had to quarantine her. She was a carrier carrier but was asymptomatic. Look how far health care has come in the United States since that time. We lead the world in our response. Singapore, you are talking about a little city state. This is a nation of 300 30 Million People with massive borders, the worlds biggest economy and most diverse population, people coming from all over the world, and yet our system has worked effectively so far. Part of the reason is we do not you see thed president and Congress Making a big deal about it. We are be serious and confident we have made the investments that give the United States the ability to deal with threats like this. Host how much are your state and local officials spending in your district or your state on preparing for the coronavirus . Guest that is a question i dont know in terms of response, and it has not reached that level. What are we spending money on, what is massively bigger than fatalities even worldwide from coronavirus . The opioid fatalities. You are talking less than 3000 worldwide fatalities from coronavirus, and granted it is early, but that is not even close to the number of fatalities in the United States from opioids. Ohio is geared up for that. Opioidround zero for the crisis and fatal overdoses. Stillend is down 20 but far too many people dying because of drugs. If you are familiar with hillbilly lg, a bestselling book, jd vance wrote it from middletown, ohio, and highlighted the nature of things that went on. I hope he writes the seek will of how sequel of how great things are now. Last year at the state of the union i brought the Middletown Police chief out and we highlighted the success on dealing with opioids, community policing, getting the community involved, and dealing with the broad array of things pushing people to use drugs. Host steve in cincinnati, ohio, independent. Caller thanks for all you do. Guest thank you. Caller if you know about it, there has been dr. Francis boyle who wrote the bio laws in the 1980s, the Health Legislation bio laws, has come out with an article pointing out five years ago that North Carolina university along with the institute of the military has sold china something that looks similar to the coronavirus. Could you comment on that or please go find out . Please get rid of all the surveillance on American People. It has done nothing and it never will. It is just for surveilling the people. Thank you. Guest thanks for your comments. If you look at the exports to china, one big law that did get past is the reform to export controls to china and Chinese Investment in the United States there is a committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. There was concern in recent prosecution against some whoessors in massachusetts were cooperating to build biological facilities in china using sensitive american technology, so these Technology Transfers are getting attention at the highest levels down to doctoral and postdoctoral students with the intellectual property and the buildings, and using the i. T. Structure to pull private, confidential, sometimes classified and certainly sometimes patented or patent pending, very early stage technology. China has been behind a lot of that. Host congressman Warren Davidson, thank you for your time. Guest thank you. Host coming up next, we will return to ever question we asked you earlier, spawned to the news cant respond to the News Conference yesterday held by the president in regard to the coronavirus. He was joined by the top officials responsible for preparing our country for the coronavirus. Cdc andhem was from the heres what she had to say. Our aggressive containment strategy in the United States has been working, and is responsible for the low levels of cases that we have so far, however we do expect more cases. This is a good time to prepare. Heard, it is the perfect time for businesses, Health Care Systems, universities, and schools to look at their pandemic preparedness plans, dust them off, and make sure they are ready. We have more information on the cdc website on how to do that it is a good time that. It is a good time for the American Public to prepare and what that means for you. The coronavirus we are talking about is a respiratory virus spread in a similar way to the common cold or influenza, through coughs and sneezes. Those everyday sensible measures we tell everybody to do every year with the flu are important here covering your cough, staying home when you are sick, and washing your hands. Tried and true, not very exciting measures, but really important ways you can prevent the spread of respiratory viruses. Host that was the cdc official talking about what the public needs to know. Will get your reaction and your reaction to the president defending the response to the outbreak. The health and Human Services secretary who has been on capitol hill three times this week is back today to testify on a house in means house ways and Means Committee hearing about the budget and will likely be asked about the coronavirus outbreak. You can go to our website cspan. Org or listen if you download the say span radio app cspan radio app. The numbers, republicans, 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independents, 202 7488002. Here he is talking to the message about the public about the state of the outbreak. We have made some good early decisions that were ridiculed early. We closed our borders to flights coming in from certain areas, areas that were hit by the coronavirus and hit pretty hard. We did it very early. A lot of people thought we should not have done it that early and we did and it turned out to be a good thing. From ourr one priority standpoint is the health and safety of the American People and that is how i viewed it when i made that decision. Because of all we have done, the risk to the American People remains very low. We have the greatest experts in the world right here, people who are called upon by other countries when things like this happen. We are ready to adapt and do whatever we have to as the disease spreads, if it spreads. Know, the level that we have had in our country is very low and those people are Getting Better, or we think in almost all cases the better they are getting. We have a total of 15. We took in some from japan because they are american citizens, and they are in quarantine and are Getting Better too. Host that was the president yesterday at his News Conference. Abc caught up with nancy pelosi in the hallways yesterday and she responded, and had this to say about the white houses response to the coronavirus outbreak as well as their request for 2. 5 billion. The senate has a proposal forh will address the need professionals to be in place. The president let go years ago, never place them. Ebola we did 5 billion and now they are trying to take the ebola money. What he is doing is late, too late, anemic. Hopefully we can make up for the but there are sources that are adequate. Using scare tactics for people coming back to our country. Host the speaker of the house the hhs speaker of the house. The hhs secretary will be on capitol hill and you can watch that on cspan. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. He will be there for the fourth time testifying before members of congress. The cdc director dr. Robert redfield and other officials are testifying on the Coronavirus Response before the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee at 2 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan three, on our website, and if you download on your mobile device our radio app mary, radio app. Mary, grand rapids, michigan, democratic . What do you think about the preparedness . Caller i am calling because i feel like this. Care what the republicans are doing and the democrats are doing. Shelter,with Closing Everything comes from china. Some of our food comes off of the ship. Can we eat the food in the restaurant . Can i go out to the restaurant to eat some food . I am afraid to catch a plane. Can you discuss about what we can do, what we can eat, so eating food from china, to buy overseas, china and does it come through with the products . I dont want to hear about the democrats or republicans fault. This is bigger than them. Host listen to this from yesterday. Securityg homeland chief talked about their role in screening people at airports, borders, and also cargo ships. Guest can you kindly clarify what your departments specific responsibilities are when it terms to dust comes to the coronavirus . There has been a Strong National response, but as it relates to Homeland Security, what is in your purview . It certainly is a whole government approach the administration is pursuing, particularly for the department. We are there to support the department of hhs as they outline a medical and to coordinate. The department was involved early on in the funneling of all flights from china to 11 different airports, involved in standing up medical contracts those 11 airports. Individuals that come off those officer will see a cbp and go to contract medical screening that the department has set up in those 11 airport. Benecessary, they will referred to cdc to determine if a quarantine is needed. We do this at airports, land ports of entry and maritime ports of entry. Goods andips carrying also crew, so we have the coast guard involved, cbp involved. It is a whole effort to make sure we are instituting the message instituting the measures the president put into place to make sure america is safe and secure. Host you can find that hearing if you go to our website, cspan. Org. Gary, elwood, illinois. Caller i think we are not considering all of the American Students that are studying abroad and doing internships. I was watching the news a few minutes ago. Those kids are boarding the plane by the hundreds because the program has been canceled, so they are sending kids home. They are returning around the United States to all different universities. While the callers want to blame people who were here, they are not talking about warrantinging the students quarantineing the students. A gentleman called earlier and said in downstate illinois, we have two big universities, a lot of kids from chicago goes to school there. We should be worried more about the returning students coming from abroad. That is all i had to say. Covers thearward who white house for cnn tweeted this President Trump response to coronavirus with acting white house chief of staff, acting until director, acting director of Homeland Security, noting these are not Senate Approved positions. He has launched a loyalty purge. He wants to cut the cdc and nih theet and eliminated National Security budget to safeguard against global pandemics. Jake, republican. How are you . Caller good morning. I have a concern. I work for a car manufacturing plant. Honda and weith had a few people fly in from japan yesterday who came from the affected area. I am wondering, who do we contact for stuff like that . Host when you say infected area, what are you referring to . Infected area of japan . Caller where the latest 200 cases has emerged. Host who what are you asking, who do you contact . Caller who do we contact about that . Why are we letting people from japan flying here . Why arent we shutting our borders down . I get that the economy will probably crash but it will bounce back after this is done. Is worthur lifes more than money. Money will not do good if we are in graves. Rock, michigan, democratic caller. Caller i just wanted to point was askingex azar and 136 million in funding 140 5 million for Rapid Response fund while President Trump proposed a 16 budget cut. Michael bloomberg has a new 30 second ad called pandemic and if you could play that, it would be greatly appreciated because it really reflects the contrast between the two. Host we will do that coming home coming up Trump Defends the u. S. Response names the Vice President to lead the efforts. Here is Vice President mike pence talking about his role. Is a former governor from the state where the first mers case emerged in 2014, i know full well the importance of president ial leadership, the importance of administration leadership, and the vital role of partnerships of state and local governments and Health Authorities responding to the potential threat of dangerous infections diseases Infectious Diseases. I look forward, mr. President , to serving in this role, bringing together all the members of the Corona Task Force you have established this team established. This team has been meeting every day since it was established. My role will be to continue to bring that team together, to bring to the president the best options for action to see to the safety and wellbeing and health of the American People. Host the Vice President on his new role heading up the response preparedness for the coronavirus outbreak. The response on capitol hill the only qualification Vp Mike Pence has is a supreme donald trump kiss ass. It is not surprising he is in response our nations to the coronavirus. We need a dedicated coronavirus czar dedicated only to this crisis. Unfortunately, i have as much confidence in mike pence leading us out of this crisis as Kellyanne Conway earned when tasked with leading us out of the opioid crisis. President trump in 2014 when he was a citizen criticized president obama of the ebola ,zar, saying he disappointed zero experience. We sat arkansas, independent. Retired from the medical field. I was a nurse 34 years. I appreciate you having both congressman on this morning. Living in northwest arkansas, i have seen the cut in our medical field. In the county where i live, we have two hospitals that are now Critical Care access i want to remark access. I want to remark that the president is trying to allay any concern for a pandemic. We have to look to them for guidance, but we as americans need to start in our own household. We need to prepare and be prepared for any kind of calamity or catastrophe that might come, besides the coronavirus. We need to be prepared regardless. Host do you think the president s request for 2. 5 billion is adequate . Caller i would preferred that it be much higher because we dont know i have been trying to follow epidemiologist and virologists following this virus, how it jumps vectors, and we dont know yet what the actual outcome will be. Tosee a vaccine futureutically set aside outbreaks may take up to 18 months. We need to be as prepared as possible. Getting back to american jobs, we have been outsourcing due to corporate greed and big pharma since the late 1970s. , to decide our politics we need to come together and Work Together to the better outcome for this country. Host Chuck Schumer, democrat of new york tweeted out yesterday that he is proposing 8. 5 billion in desperately needed resources to the global spike against coronavirus. He wants 1. 5 billion dollars for cdc, three point 5 billion for Public Health, 2 billion dollars for state and local reimbursement, 1 billion for usaid emerging threat fund, and 1 billion the nih for rapid vaccine development. President trump yesterday was he is asking for 2. 5 billion but proposed cuts to agencies in his latest budget. The cdc, the nih, and the who, a lot today and how these are critical and necessary. We can get money and increase staff we know staff. We know all the good people. Some of the people we cut have not been used for many years and if we have a need, we can get them very quickly. Rather than spend a lot of money i dont like having thousands of people around when you dont need them. We can bring them in very quickly. We are bringing in people tomorrow who are already in this great government we have, specifically for this. We can build up quickly and we have. We have built up a great staff and using mike, im doing that because he is in the administration and is very good at doing what he does as it relates to this. Host the president addressing the concern that he no longer has in place the Pandemic Team from the National Security council in cuts to the budget. Said,revious caller Michael Bloomberg already hitting the president on this issue in campaign ads. The deadly coronavirus officially hitting the u. S. The markets are plunging. Warn the officials u. S. Is underprepared. That is what Michael Bloomberg does. He oversaw the National Response to the response to National Disasters and he is funding cuttingedge research to contain epidemics. Tested. Ready. I am mike limburg and i approve bloomberg and i approve this message. Caller good morning. Vu. Is like deja or 2016 that i called into your show and you had an fbi agent that was dealing with the borders, and i was frustrated because he was saying everyone was fine and they were venting them when they knew they couldnt. That is one of the topics, diseases coming in with them, but you would think it is common sense. Bloomberg, my deal he is 64s he is billion. Citizen gave every more than that, take it to 400 million, that would be a hell of a stimulus. Chicago texted us there are thousands of College Students returning to the United States returning home immediately. France, programs are being canceled because of this virus. Ol in panama city, florida we are ready, says trump. Give me a break. All of those people can stand behind him caller first i want to point out thanks for taking my call i want to point out that indianapolis is a city has always been one of the best prepared places on the planet in, once ay take year the whole indianapolis 500 crowd. They are used to doing what needs to be done. That surge of population into its borders. Youother thing, yesterday had a guest on who talked about the russian cyber campaign. You know, there is another consideration. The russians could very easily blow this whole pandemic thing apart by planting disinformation, by conducting Cyber Attacks against Public Health facilities. Host eater, that headline already exists. Of russia spreading disinformation about the coronavirus. More we consider that possibility, the better. We really need to Pay Attention to that. President trump has placed a lot of emphasis on good relations with china. Apparently he is not seeing global times, which is the communist party newspaper. They have been very critical of the United States. Trying to put people in place with the who team that went to china recently. It may still be there. They were not keen on that. I think we are getting a lot of mixed messaging. Going back to indianapolis, a very good case study in preparation. Host maryland, andre. Virus is believe this an effective Climate Change. They have been talking about this since 1990 on pbs. Scientists said that due to the effects of Climate Change and be comingviruses will out of the woodwork from all over the place. Trump saidhat donald with respect for cutting the budget on scientists who were doing research on this was a mistake. People in the Science Community have been talking about this for years. Host steve, illinois. Republican. Steve, good morning. Lets try that again. That you are, steve. Caller i had a comment about Chuck Schumer blowing the russell the whistle. Inck schumer has yet to sit on any hearings on the coronavirus. It is kind of ironic. I think they are going to use this for political foot wall and they are not interested in solving these problems. Host frank, cleveland, ohio. Your thoughts . Caller i watched the program last night about trump talking. He made some sense, but then he falls back to, weve got the greatest economy, we have the lowest employment he should be talking about the disease. Then he is complaining that the democrats are the ones that called the stock market caused the stock market to drop . Then he stands in the background and looks like he is falling asleep. Then he walks off of the stage before the thing is even over with. I dont understand that. Host mike, spring hill, florida. Independent. Caller good morning, how are you doing . I worked in the Health Care Field and this really scares me. That,s the type of virus if you dont understand it and if you dont stop it or try to prevent it before it happens, it can cause a pandemic. Because peopleis dont have any symptoms that everyday people would associate with this virus. If you have a dry cough, most people when they hear that, they dont associate that with a cold or anything. It can incubate inside of your body and he wont even know that you have it. That can spread really quick among the population. I dont think this administration is prepared for Something Like this. I dont think they understand. I think they are learning from the experts. President s s president is open to what they are telling him. For a realare in serious problem. They had better start putting these politics aside, and they had better get a handle on this. If they dont, they are we are in for a catastrophe. Host what do you think about this headline . It says that five members of a family in china came down with the coronavirus after hosting a guest in the early january. But the visitor never got sick herself. Some individuals who are infected can spread it even though they have no symptoms, according to studies. Caller exactly. It is a virus. A virus can linger and mutate. It is different from anything else that we are usually accustomed to. Coughe a virus you may on the table and somebody may pick it up. Your immune system may defend that, but in some people the virus can set in your body and mutate and they can mutate into something that could be transmittable, infectious. That is what is dangerous about it. I dont think they can understand exactly what is going on, because the coronavirus has been around for a long time. In this country too. Until a straine that is infectious. Now that it is lingering i think that we were going to see cases like this, even for people havent been to china. Host mike, im going to leave it there. Headline, Governor Cuomo announces 40 million to be ready, reacting to concerns about the quickening spread of it. The governor sat the stay put set aside 40 million to fight the virus. Phil, a republican. Caller i just want to say very quickly, trump loves this country. He loves this country. I love cspan. I am so glad i found cspan. Is, the viruses that have been starting began monkey meatla was and the monkeys that were eating bats. Then we had the swine flu, then we had the bird flu. Now we have this animal in china n. At is called a parlingui i heard about it on pbs. It looks like an armadillo. It is bigger than an armadillo. They take the scales off of it somehe scales are used for type of medicinal purposes. They havent eradicated these animals. That is all i have to say. I wanted you to go in depth about the source of this new virus. The actual animal source. Thank you very much. Host danny in huntsville, alabama. Democratic caller. Caller how are you this morning . Host morning. Go ahead. Toler i would like to speak the demeanor of the president and the Vice President during the press conference. It was totally, at least for the president , it was totally off character. Is somed to be there conspiracy theories that are being reported by some people about how this virus started in and is weaponized. And how the cdc might not be doing a good job. The president , usually he takes that kind of stuff and runs with it. He did not do that this time. I think it is his knowledge of the stock market that has some focused on knowing that something has to be done. Being ad up the cdc as good organization, which it is. Turning during a News Conference to the main channels and nobody was showing it. Other caller said, cspan is great. I would encourage people to change the channel from major channels. He might not get all of the news you want at one time, that you get a pure thread of news. I think that is what is good for the American People. Ism thankful that the cdc doing what they are doing. I think people should turn off the major channels and go look at their website. Host if you have missed any of the briefings by the hhs secretary, his testimony, other briefings by other cdc officials you can find it all on our website cspan. Org. When you play the video player on your computer or your mobile device you will see that we have highlighted key moments with descriptions of what they are from all of those events. You can jump along, if there is something specific you are looking for that you want to learn about from these officials. Cspan. Org, you can search their right at the top. Your keyword coronavirus and you will find everything that we have covered. Peachtree city, georgia. Caller i have a few quick points. I have seen this a lot with civilians. The first thing they want to do is criticize another politician. I dont think that is a constructive way to go about this. They are talking about the economy a lot people are dying from this. The economy is not the most important thing. Scare tactics by the politicians, you will see that. Try not to listen to that stuff. 1918, we had the spanish flu. One third of the population contracted that in the world. , especiallyle that with the way travel is going on nowadays, back then we did not have all the planes flying around. It is a much faster paced world. People being critical of how it is handled, if they showed up at our doorsteps and told us we would be leading this effort i dont think we could do any better. When people throw around these hundreds of millions of dollars or billions of dollars like they know how they would spend that, i dont think they do. They need to let these people do their jobs. Also, psychological warfare it a thing. These people are doing their job, im sure they are considering all other options. Host if you are looking to keep iswith where this virus around the world, the New York Times has put together an interactive map that they are updating. It will show you the latest in the United States. Canadare 60 cases, in 11. Andfrica one, in algeria, in egypt as well. Over 400 in italy. See, relate, the epicenter of this is in china with over 78,000 cases. Korea,re also 1700 in 800 plus in japan. As we have been talking about this week, 200 plus in iran with many people concerned about the middle east being the perfect scenario for the spread of this, even the migration of muslims to iran,ites in and out of into iraq. The governments around iran as well. Al in st. Petersburg, florida. Caller how are you doing . I have a concern i want to voice. Which i havent heard talked about. There are a lot of illegal chinese or, anybody, really trade going on in the United States. Believe [indiscernible] if youlec, i apologize are breaking up. We are going to take a short break. We will hear from neil simon, he is the author of schiff contract to unite america. This weekend on lectures in history visit the campus of Utah State University as maria leads her class through the civil war conflict. The guerrilla war is an extremely violent, personal, bloody war. In a way that you dont see on the big fancy battlefields. These are communities against each other. It sometimes devolves into individual people against each other. Lectures in history saturday at 8 p. M. Eastern on American History tv, on cspan3. And listen to our podcast. The South Carolina primary saturday. Join us to hear the candidates reactions to the results. Live coverage saturday evening on cspan. Or listen live on the free cspan radio app. This november we are going to take back the house. We are going to hold the senate. And we are going to keep the white house. President trump speaks at a friday, South Carolina head of the primary. Watch our coverage live, friday at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. Watch ondemand at cspan. Org or listen on the go with the free cspan radio app. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. 1979 andy cable in brought to you today by your television provider. Washington journal continues. Host neil simon is the author of contract to unite america, 10 reforms to reclaim our public. You write in the book, i encountered a rigged system in which independent voters are prevented from participating in the most important elections. Incumbents control how debates work. I found a political system built upon angry fights with little room for thoughtful or civil discourse. Remind viewers of your experience and how that prompted you to write this book. Guest it is great to be with you. I ran for the senate as a moderate independent. I ran against the divisiveness i think americans are tired of. I remember 123yearold saying of his generation wondered why our government was a red team handed blue team. Why isnt it one team working together . What i experienced was a set of me toives that encouraged pick a team. To appeal to the far left or the far right. There was almost no incentive to talk about collaborative solutions. To talk about working across the aisle. The talk about the things that could get done to help americans. I think the system is really broken. I think it is time that we do something to change that incentive structure. Host you ran in maryland, trying to oust senator ben cardin. He took that experience and decided to write this book. Tell us about what is in the book. Guest if you are a rational person running for office and you decide you want to be in the United States congress, the first thing you will do is look at the political landscape. He will see that 90 of house districts are not competitive and 70 of Senate Districts are not competitive. Meaning that one party or the other has them locked up. You then realize that the only elections that matter are the primaries. And you think, what do i need to do to win a primary . The answer is you need to appeal to a small number of people that are active and vocal and that generally represent the base of one of those parties. Then you look at how money works in the system and almost all of the money is ideologically driven. As a candidate how would get questionnaires from different groups asking me to check a line of boxes. If i happened to be a , i come fromperson the private sector but i also think Climate Change is important, i am unable to check that line of boxes. There is not really as much money available. Itis the way primaries work, is the way money works, it is the way ella asset act ill access works. Equally critical of both parties. Guest i am equally critical of both parties. I think there there are people who think their party is innocent and they dont participate in some of the games they believe the other party does. Be amoney used to predominantly right activity. Last cycle it was 54 democrat. 4 leftleaning groups it is pretty even. Same thing with ballot access. I remember during my cycle there was a lot of press attention given to the race in georgia and stacey abrams, who ended up losing. Some democratic voters were unable to register because of the name matching. She had written a piece in the New York Times where she talked about a man named alejandro and how he was unable to be registered. In my state of maryland iran as an independent and i needed 10,000 signatures to get on the ballot. The government officials, largely democrats, do the exact same thing. We submitted 17,000 signatures. Had 11,000 qualified. The 6000 that were eliminated were eliminated for that same name standard that the democrats were complaining about. Both parties play these games. Gerrymandering is another great example. I am in maryland, arguably the most gerrymandered state in the country. Republicans have done plenty of gerrymandering. Neither party is innocent. They are both trying to take every advantage they can. It is time we make the system fairer. Host in the book you have several ideas of reforms. I want to share those. One of them is to amend the constitution to put in term limits. Amend the constitution to put limits on campaign spending. Allow all registered voters to participate in primary elections. Pass a law requiring states to form independent redistricting commissions. And congress would change procedures to encourage bipartisanship. We can talk about the others but i want to share those with our viewers to get their reaction. You can now with your questions. Epublicans 202 7488001 democrats 202 7488000. Nd independents 202 7488002 that wealistic to think could amend the constitution to do anything, let alone turn limits . The there are only two of there is a group of u. S. Term limits that has a lot of momentum around and amendment an amendment. Every reform and then my book is supported by at least 60 of americans. Term limits is the most popular. When put on the ballot, americans supported overwhelmingly. In the 90s there were over 20 states that past term limits for their federal legislators. It was only as the result of a Supreme Court incision that decision that overturned those decisions by the state legislators to have term limits. I wish we didnt need term limits. I wish we had a functioning democracy where incumbents didnt bring didnt when 90 of the time. But we do have a really broken system. I think term limits would do a lot to reinvigorate our system. Host jim up a week rights time bouefice jemmele rights, it is no coincidence that some of the most effective lawmakers in the history,rchitects of ethical bills served for decades, accumulating political and legislative expertise. If voters want to reward a legislator with more time in the office, they should have that right. Forced retirement cuts against idea that voters have voters choose the representative. Host i disagree. The average term in congress has gone up consistently over the last few decades. The average Approval Rating of congress has gone down. The amount of legislation we pass has gone down. The amount of Bipartisan Legislation would pass has gone down further. We are not becoming more effective. We are becoming less effective. I think what they learned when they are in congress is not how to pass really legislation to help the American People. What they are learning is how to pass fight partisan wars. Me, would congress be better off if Chuck Schumer and Mitch Mcconnell were not there anymore and we had two from Party Leaders . I think most americans think we would be better off. Guest lets hear from host lets hear from our viewers. Karen, good morning. Karen, are you there . Let me move on to john in ann arbor, michigan. Independent. Good morning, john. Caller thank you very much for taking my call. I got in the mail this morning from somebody associated with neil simon. Some brief comments. Ballot access is not the biggest and impediment to third parties. It is our system of orality voting. There are some Serious Problems as aranked Choice Voting alternative. Various very serious pathologies. Made for itclaims are bogus. The best alternative to our Current System would be to institute, and federal elections, approval voting. Voters are allowed a single winner election. They are allowed to give one vote each to that candidate or candidates whom they support with the candidates having the most votes winning. That doubles the voting field for third parties. The voting field for third parties. Is it has done nothing to break the political duopoly of two parties in that country. You have to go to a better alternative than ranked Choice Voting. Host all right, john. Guest there are a few things the color and i agree on. Our Current System is not working. It is too easy for a passionate, a small, passionate karate to take control of one party or the other and have an undue influence. It drowns out the voice of most americans who fall somewhere in the medical of the political spectrum. We also agree in australia the system is being used. Their system is not nearly as divided as ours. I do think it is doing something to medicate mitigate the divisiveness. I think approval voting is a good system. Ranked Choice Voting has a lot more momentum. It is used statewide in maine. It was just past in new york city. It is used in the number of jurisdictions around the country. Voters overwhelmingly approve it. It has done a lot to give voters more choice. It has done a lot to encourage civility in the elections. If greta and i are running against each other, im not out there telling the world she is evil. Im saying, we agree on a lot of things. Because i want her secondplace votes. Ranked Choice Voting has done a lot to encourage civility. At the end, voters have more choice and you end up with people elected to represent more of the country. Host other criticism coming from maine, the heritage policy this, rights wrote ranked Choice Voting tells to produce true majority owners because the system exhausts voters ballots. For example, a voter accidentally ranks a candidate as their first choice. In these instances the ballot becomes exhausted. It no longer contributes. Abouthes talking esoteric possibilities that are one in a million events. I think what ring Choice Voting does, in the and he do have a majority winner. The way the system works is that it is exactly what it sounds like. If there are four candidates in the race, you rank them. If your last place if your first place outcomes and last, tose votes come votes transfer to your secondplace vote. You do end up with a winner that has support from a majority of the country. Host we will go to derek in chicago. Caller good morning. What i believe is we need to get the money out of the politics. We have the best politicians money could buy. That is coming from both sides of the. The difference between democrats and republicans is republicans get the same ideas from ronald reagan. Abortion. I lost my thought. One thing thatme the republicans have done in the last 40 years that directly affects will america. Host derek with two points. Get money out of politics. Because we have the same people in there, we have the same ideas. Guest derek, you are right about money. It has a disgusting influence that is completely corrosive. We need to do something about it. Two of the 10 reforms in my book are about Campaign Finance reform. One of them is about transparency. I believe that we have a right to know who whose money is being spent on those negative ads. There are some small states where over 90 of the money comes from outofstate and comes from anonymous sources. Most of that is through super pacs that do not have to disclose the ultimate donors. That has a corrosive influence on our politics. I saw it in my race. The other reform i recommend his about citizens united. That is the one that requires a constitutional amendment. Give our government the right to set limits on campaign contributions. Also, corporations not enjoy the same free speech rights that people do regards to political contributions. I think if we did both those, money would play a smaller role in our political system. Host talk about the groups behind these recommendations. Guest there are some amazing reform groups in this country. One of the heartwarming parts of my campaign was meeting so many people who believe our country deserve something better. There are groups like unite america, american promise, stand up republic, issue one, are all fighting for different changes. A group called fair vote in maryland is fighting for ranked Choice Voting. In the each of these groups you have patriots who are fighting for reform, not because they are after influence if they wanted that, they would join one of the parties. These are people who are fighting for changes that are difficult, but would have a profound impact. Host john, tampa, florida. Caller thank you both for pointing out the biggest single problem, and that is big money in politics. Time, it getsr. Orse and worse for politicians in order to be competitive in the races, that is a vicious cycle that gets worse. It got bad starting in the 90s. Bill clinton was the first democrat now the democrats changed their position. Now they are in the pocket of corporations. Under clinton china was built up as a powerhouse. Centrist democrats are in the pocket of bad actor corporations like republicans had been. Now you have something unusual. You have President Trump, who is not dependent on big money. He has created the Republican Party has been reformed into a third party now, a ross perot kind of party. Sadly, bloomberg and stiers are still numbers of the corporate bad actor democrats. They are going to make things worth worse. We have a president like ross perot, this donald trump, who has turned things in a 180 degrees direction. The whole problem started with ruling77 Supreme Court withequated the big money First Amendment freedom of speech. Thank you very much. Agree on a number of things. Certainly the influence of money in the politics has been corrosive. And has divided us, and has turned our political system into teams played between two that is funded by a very small percentage of the country that is screaming at each other and not helping us getting get anything done. The point about President Trump is an interesting one. He and Bernie Sanders is doing the same thing was able to corral a very small but very passionate minority of one of the parties and use it to take control of a position in our government. That is one of the weaknesses in our system now. Thatally have two parties are running the semi finals for each election. In heres what you have multiple candidates, if you can get a plurality that is bigger than anyone else you can take control that they very small percentage of the vote. A very small percentage of the vote. There is nothing in our constitution that talks about party primaries. There is nothing that talks about money being able to be used to the way it is today. A lot of the reforms in my book are about how do we change that . A lot of people are going to realize, a few decades ago we passed major legislation with a majority of both parties. The medicare act. The civil rights act. We confirmed Supreme Court justices with votes like 970. Think about how we have devolved from that to what we have today. Straight party line votes on almost everything. A completely nonproductive legislative branch. Ot of the changes my book in my book are designed to change that. Host tracy, question . Caller yes, hi. I am a democrat, i used to be democrat, but i moved to independent party. I am in the middle and i have no one to vote for. I agree with you. We need to get money out and we have new stations that are picking the candidates and giving them airtime. Guest you and i are not alone. We are the biggest part of this country now. 44 of americans self identify as independents. That is more than republicans or democrats. More and more of us look at this warfare between the red army and the blue army and are disgusted. So, we are not alone. I think the key to enabling voices like ours to be heard and have more influence in washington are some of the reforms i talk about in the book. But we have all got to be active. The people on the far left in the far right, they are the ones marching in washington. They are on twitter, they are on facebook. They are calling into news programs. A lot of us who dont identify with either of those bases need to get vocal and need to get vocal about changes we think could change the way our government works. Host another one of your forms you write about his allowing registered voters to participate in primary elections. And, whatthat work about republicans participating in order to sabotage a democratic candidate . , a weaker one run against the person . Host guest 30 states do this already. You like aould republican ballot or a democratic ballot . They will hand you do when you ask for. It works well in most of the country already. 20 states have closed primaries. My state, maryland, has completely closed primaries. Unless you register with the party you are not allowed to participate in that primary. But there are a lot of places where the only election that matters is the primary. I live in Montgomery County and you can argue that the race that matters is the democratic primary. But im not allowed to participate in that. I pay for those elections. Like toarties would exclude independent voters like stacy and me, and i think they should either pay for the bections or they should not government funded activities that exclude me, even though i pay for them. I dont think that is fair. Host annapolis, republican caller. Had two questions, but i think you answered the first one. The second one was, i heard Justice Breyer explain the gerrymander as being political because it is about legislative continuity. Putting that together, there was another guest there while ago, i think a blogger from fox who said his reform would be to refuse to allow state funding to go toward party primaries. I think that is compelling. Part of the problem is if you have two parties and an entrenched primary system, then incentivizesthis legislative continuity. One party can bite the time and play off of you know, its perceived difference. Ok. guest your first point was about gerrymandering. I think gerrymandering is an important reform. It only impacts the house. No one is talking about changing the borders of states. 90 of house elections are uncompetitive in the general election. The0 of those districts, only thing that matters is the primary. Once you are in a situation like that, you are more likely to get a more extreme representative. If i am in the house and the only thing i have to worry about is the primary, im going to appeal to my base. Thegoing to move further to left if im a democrat or further to the right if i am a republican. There was a moderate democrat named joe crowley who found himself in a primary against a 28yearold with no experience its the 28yearold man to get 16,000 votes. Less than 5 of the registered voters in the heard district. She beat joe crowley. That is alexandria ocasiocortez. Gerrymandering is not the silver bullet. It is not going to go from 10 competitive to 100 percent. It would probably get it to about 25 , just because of the way we have sorted ourselves. Partyf we didnt allow affiliation to be considered, it to 80still have 75 percent of districts being competitive. That is better than 90 . It makes a big difference, because you see a big friends in the behavior of legislators who come from spring districts compared to the ones who do not. Ones from swing districts are much more likely to be a part of the problem solvers caucus, herbs that are trying to work across the aisle. The ones that are in locked districts where they are worried about their primary tend to behave in a more partisan manner. Host kathleen, dayton, ohio. Caller thank you for your book you for washington journal. You brought up earlier civil discourse. Went toanders supporter a trump rally outside of dayton holding my sign saying, Jaime Sanders supporter, i want to talk to trump Trump Supporters. I spent hours at their having the most imaging conversations with former gm workers and we wend that on many issues share common ground. On health care for all, equity in the education, and fair pay. With our extreme media outlets, do notcultivate, they encourage people to have civil discourse. When you find you have so much in common on an issue that you have a rigged do system. Awant to ask you about uniform Voting System across the nation. Getting rid of the Electoral College. Getting rid of superdelegates. I also want to invite senator sanders here to dayton, ohio to stand with us in front of a hospital that is in a predominantly like neighborhood which has been 20 down by a multibillion dollar profit corporation. Toator sanders, im here dayton, ohio, please. The call. Nks for leadership starts at the top. He talked about a lack of civility. Wehink that in our country are much less divided than it seems in the newspapers. When i talk to people during my campaign, people are starved for us to come together, but we have leaders who are dividing us. Every day they are demonizing the other party. Every day they are reacting to try to win a new cycle. Societyters into our and makes us feel more divided than we are. One of the problems is that once you are elected, there is almost no incentive to do what you are talking about. To work across the aisle, to get things done. Soause our legislators are worried about losing that primary and being portrayed as impure by the far left door the or the far farleft right. It is part of the broken system and the ninth of the 10 reforms in my book is about changing congressional rules to encourage more bipartisan behavior. Asking, instead of term limits we need a ban on congressional pensions and limits on benefits. Guest a lot of people talk about the benefits of congress. I personally dont think that is as big of a deal. Limits, i wish we did not need term limits. I wish we had a functional , where they werent elected anymore. There is too big of an advantage to incumbency. I think term limits are something we need to have a little bit of a political renaissance in the country. Guest we are host we are talking with neil simon, the author of contract to unite america. In wrote that after you ran independent bed. Do youtic collar, what think about performing the system . Caller i think we really need to reform the system. With term limits. Also, i think that there should be a time limit on when you can campaign. We lose a lot of young voters and other voters because it is too long. From january to june, you have to figure out who you are going to vote for. And from june to november you can figure out the party. Whichve time in campaigning goes on causes a lot of citizens to become disengaged. There are countries that limit the time people can campaign. I think all of america agrees with you. All of america would like to see. Ess of the angry lyrical ads political ads. There are a lot of other good ideas i did not include in the book that are sometimes used. The 10 reforms i focus on are the ones i think have the biggest impact right now on changing the incentive structure for a politician. Things that we give our lawmakers and elected officials more of a reason to Work Together, to make progress. Host you also said the american the majority of americans support those ideas. What evidence do you have . Guest there is polling that i cite in the book. The least popular is 60 and the most popular is 83 . One of the problems is that among the minority that dont support it is generally the political insiders of both parties. A lot of the reforms i talk about are resisted by the insiders of both parties, particularly when they are in the majority. Host susan, republican. Caller hi, good morning. I think we should increase our representation. It is so closely held that if i wanted to go see my house representative he or she probably would not even be familiar with my area or my concern. I think we need more itresentation, that way holds more people accountable. Guest this is another good idea. People of talked about increasing the number of representatives. Today one representative has about 750,000 citizens in their district. That number used to be a lot smaller. Of number 535 Members Congress is not in our constitution. There is an ability to raise that. Better job ofa understanding their needs. I think it could be a good idea. Tony, fort lauderdale, florida. Tellr i want to independentminded voters that you can vote for independent candidates. I voted proudly for gary johnson. I knew he wasnt going to win, but i was making my state. You want going to get something to happen immediately. I want to ask the guest a question. He keeps, like most other white guys, keeps talking about money in politics. How does he feel about the influence of organized labor, and other civic groups . Going to shut up people with dollar bills . Are you going to shut up workers . He sounds like a disgruntled loser who didnt when and now he is saying, the system is horrible. Host lets get a response. Guest first, it sounds like you are an independent voter and you voted for gary johnson. There will likely be, particularly if we end up with a choice between trump and sanders, other candidates on the ballot. I am curious to see how American Voters respond to that. There will be a spoiler argument made. That is something always used against thirdparty and independent candidates. The argument that a vote for that third party is like a vote for whoever it is you fear well when. Win. Ill the reason that happens is a lot of it has to do with our election rules. Reforms like rain Choice Voting would change that, would give americans less of a reason to worry about the spoiler argument. More of a reason to vote with their hearts. Host here is to with a text. Stu with the text. A good start would be to allow anyone who has qualified to be in the ballot in the end of states, that it would be mathematically possible to get electoral votes to be in the president ial debates. Guest you have a welleducated writer there. Most people dont focus on the rules around debates. Me as a candidate for senate, i did not know how that worked. Ar the president there is committee on president ial debates. They set a threshold of 15 polling to qualify. A poster estimated that that costs 268 Million Dollars to get the name identification and to poll atthat rate two that rate. Thatnteresting thing is when the parties do that for themselves, they set a smaller standard. Democrats, the initial debate the threshold was 1 . Then it went 3 . During the general election the parties are so afraid of competition that they set a much higher hurdle. The people who are setting that hurdle are democrats and republicans, together. Despite the fact that more americans identify as independent, they dont have a say in that process. As a challenger you are at the mercy of the incumbent. Said hece the incumbent would participate in two debates. The first one did not go well for them. They would never schedule the next debate. We had no mechanism for getting that on the calendar. One of the reforms is around debates, having a commission to andrules for both president Vice President ial debates. Host the president ial debates and the cost you outlined to reach that 15 Mike Bloomberg and tom steyer have that money. Guest they are interesting candidates. If they wanted to they could run as independent spirit with the money they have, they probably would qualify for the general election debate. The reason neither his running as an independent, and the recent Howard Schultz decided not to make an independent run is because they realize the system has been so corrupted that their only path is through the parties. The burg has decided, rather to run as an independent he won twice is a republican in new york city. He could have easily run as an independent. Instead of doing that he is trying to take control of the democratic party. Bernie sanders is not a democrat. He is an independent. He realizes his only path is through that party structure. He is trying to take control of the party. They have almost all given up fighting this two party system. None of it is in the constitution. Envisioneds had people in congress who were largely independent. They fear what we have today. Many of them literally wrote about their fears that americans would develop more loyalty to factions than their country. I think they are probably turning over in their graves right now. Host democratic caller. James, what do you think . Last election trump lost the popular vote by 3 Million People. But because of this thing we call the electoral, he was made our president. Heard your guest talk about anything about doing away with this Electoral College, because of the Electoral College those 3 million votes that voted for clinton went out the window. Sir, i hope you are putting in that book, getting rid of this Electoral College. The madison Constitutional Convention. One place he talks about [indiscernible] fourroblem is that the Southern States are not be able to elect anybody because of the negro. At the Constitutional Convention because we needed states to ratify nine states to ratify, we could not have a proper vote because the four Southern States would never vote for it. Your comments, please . Sure. Guest sure. College, when you talk to People Democrats approve of some change to that system and republicans overwhelmingly do not. The reasons for that are obvious. It is the result for the last few elections. Including a couple where democrat boston election despite having won the popular vote. There are two issues with the Electoral College. Small states end up being overrepresented a little bit. The other is the all or nothing nature of the way that the Electoral College votes are allocated in most states. On the first issue i dont think there is anything we can or should do. That was one of the great compromises in the formation of our government. Some small states do have a little bit more representation in the senate and through the Electoral College. The bigger problem is the one i agree with you there is something we can do something about the all or nothing way we allocate the electoral votes means that, there is no reason for a president ial candidate to campaign in california or new york. They know they are going to win or lose those states, depending on the party they are part of. If we allocated the votes proportionately there is nothing in the constitution that says this is supposed to be done on an all or nothing basis if we did a proportionately i think you would solve 90 of this issue. I think would be a lot better off. Host what are you doing next with this book . Guest right now im talking about the book to people like you and your viewers. I think americans need to understand that our government is not supposed to work the way it is. It is not supposed to be despite it divided and dysfunctional. There are reforms we can advocate for that would change that. Im trying to draw attention to the issues. There are a lot of people who feel the way i do, that we deserve something better. Host neil simon is the author of the book contract to unite america. We thank you for the tim