Update on immigration policy negotiations. At 8 30 eastern, holly harris of the Justice Action Network on prison sentencing and reform. And at 9 00, Darrell Burnett of Education Week on the failing infrastructure in u. S. Schools. Host good morning, this is friday, january 12, and welcome to washington journal. As you can imagine, reaction is pouring in from congress and elsewhere to the president s comments on immigrants from certain countries, something we heard about yesterday afternoon. We want to get to the president s comments on immigration, talk about daca and the immigration issue. If you are a democrat, please. All 202 7488000 republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. And we have a special fourth line to recent immigrants to the u. S. 202 7488003 202 7488002 202 7488003 202 7488003. Front page of the Washington Post. This first reported on the president s comments late yesterday afternoon. The headline todays piece said immigration offer on socalled dreamers fails, but trumps scatological remark rolled talks. They added that immigration talks on the hill floundered on thursday after gop was makers lawmakers rejected a Bipartisan Senate deal from the democrats and President Trump made incendiary comments about people from other countries. As they discuss the fate of certain immigrants from haiti, el salvador, and some african nations, trump became frustrated and made a reference to shithole countries, arguing that america should bring in more immigrants from norway instead. The post writes these explosive remarks from the president roiled the debate as democrats are up in outrage and accused trump upsetting back prospects for any deal. This is like throwing gasoline on to a fire, said one democrat from new york and an immigrant with the dominican republic. It is not consistent with the behavior of the president should be. The New York Times this morning, in folder terms, mr. Trump disparages some immigrants. They show his penchant for theylly tinged remarks left other senators alarmed and mystified. The time goes on to write the comments are reminiscent of ones the president made last year in open Office Meeting with cabinet officials and administrative aides, saying that he hated admitting patients to the country, who all had aids, as well as nigerians, who said would never go back to their hot. On to talk about the written statement on yesterdays comments from the white house. The White House Deputy secretary did not deny the account of yesterdays meeting, or directly address trumps comments. Certain washington politicians will fight for for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American People. Like other nations that have meritbased immigration, President Trump is trying to make our country stronger by allowing them to assimilate into our great nation. That from the white house to the press secretary. Donald trump tweeted just before midnight last night, and he wrote this. Seem to berats intent on having people and drugs pour into our country from the southern border, risking dozens of lives in the process thousands of lives in the process. It is my duty to protect the lives and safety of all americans. We must hold a great wall, think merit and and lottery and chain. Flake same time, jeff wrote this. I have served with the democrats were 17 years, and not one has ever been intent on having people and drugs pour into our country. Your reaction to the president of the comments. Larry, tennessee. Hi, the president is a racist. People keep making excuses for him. This man is a racist, there is no doubt about it. He tried to get those young york, hes in new wanted people to be killed, even though they were proven innocent by dna. This man is a racist, and people keep making excuses for him. I know a racist when i see him, and i know it when i hear him. I know racists by what they say and what they do. This man is a racist. Have a nice day. From charlie, on the line new york. Republican caller. Caller good morning. Being politically incorrect in America Today is speaking the truth. President trump is correct. For the last 50 years, 70 of all immigrants coming to this country have been from third world countries. Host why is that an issue for you, charlie . Caller they are poor, they are poorly educated, we are creating. Slave class in america they are here to vote for democrats and work for the chamber of commerce. We are creating a plague class in america. Comments from charlie. Audrey, macon, georgia. Do you think of the president of the comments from yesterday . Caller first, i think charlie is just as much of a racist is the president is. When he came down the elevator and said he was running for president , he showed us exactly who he was. When a man shows you who he is, you are supposed to believe him. This is the biggest racist there is. And all the people that believe him and are drinking his koolaid, they are just as big as a racist and filled with racial hatred as he is. I feel sorry for the children they are raising. I volunteer with children every day, i feel sorry for the children these people are raising. Audrey to arden, in a north little rock, arkansas. What is your reaction . Caller i would like to be able to start checking the iq of some of these people who call in, like this last woman just did. Host why are you saying that, ardent . Caller pardon . Host why are you saying that . Caller listen, it is all down all the time. This guy is trying to clean this messy country up. Lets try to help them out instead of putting him down. Host in terms of your interest in cleaning up the country, as you put it, how did the president s remarks connect to what you are talking about . He isell, i mean just expressing his opinion on what we need to do to clean the country up, and everybody else is putting him down, especially the democrats. I am tired of. Hearing it. Host mia love is a angresswoman from utah, also republican, and she is a haitian. The president comments s comments are unkind, and elitist in the face of our nations values. My parents came from one of those countries, but probably took a nose of allegiance to the u. S. And took on the responsibilities of everything that being a citizen comes with. They never took anything from our federal government. They worked hard, pay taxes, and rose from nothing to take care of and provide opportunities for their children. He taught their children to do the same. That is the american dream. The president must apologize to both the American People and the nations he so wantonly maligned. That is from twitter. Rene, los angeles. Your reaction to the president s remarks on immigrants . What hei do understand said was a little derogatory, but im an African American and live in a border state. I have seen effect of ilLegal Immigration. I do agree we have to stop bringing in people who are not contributing to our society and our needs. I want to talk to the africanamericans. It is funny how these democrats are yelling and screaming about these Illegal Immigrants, but what about the things that are happening to black people . When the police are killing our men, wind you ever hear them yelling about this and shutting down the government . Understand a little bit what trump is saying, we cannot continue to support people coming over here, getting on our welfare system. I cannot continue to agree with that. D. C. ,monique, washington, democrat. Your reaction . Caller the truth is finally coming out, how certain folks feel about other nationalities. To i try to teach my kids look at everybody as an equal, and not try to tear people down. A lot of times, republicans say we are being harmed we are being hard on donald trump, but they cannot handle it when people dish it back. This is called the United States of america. There are different nationalities that make the what it was, or what it is. And i am tired of the hatred, negativity, i am just tired. And i have five kids. I am trying to prepare them for what is getting ready to come. I am so glad my children are not of older adults. They do not have their mindset. They are more focused on their friends, whether they are white, black, asian, or hispanic. They have mixed friends, and a lot of these older people who call in on Social Security and medicaid, our kids are the ones who want to make sure that we continue to get those benefits. We have got to stop. President trump is supposed to be setting an example for all of us, and he is not doing a good job. Kevin, charlotte, virginia, independent. Hello. Caller hello. Host good morning, how are you . What you think . Caller it seems like everybody is going crazy over what trump said yesterday, and they seem to be misunderstanding what he had atsay, because if you look the country he was talking about, it really is what he said it is. The country itself. He was not talking about the people there. Immigrants that are in this country, i know over the past five president s, they have opened the door for these people to come in, for all the illegals to come in has caused enormous problems for the United States. Think he has been trying to fix these problems. He not only has to worry about the people that are illegally here, but he has to worry about the whole media that is constantly berating him. You know, when he makes a comment, a personal comments , it did not have anything to do with the people. It had to do with the country. You can look at the country and see that, pretty much, is what it is. Whether that is the result of things, your other know, that is to be seen. But i kind of agree with the guy , you know . He is not talking about the people, he is talking about the country. Host lets hear from joe, on twitter. What he says is i do not see how the president can get a way away with such hate speak. Cant handle dems the truth, the president speaks the truth. It is driving the dems crazy. Said all haitians have aids, nigerians live in huts, he called mexicans racists. This is who donald trumps. There is a moral vacuum in the white house. Rissman carlos ghosn congressman Carlos Cabello writes in no way is it acceptable to degrade, denigrate, or dehumanize immigrants. The white house Must Immediately explain the situation and leave no doubt regarding what was said and in what context. , i hope ton hatch get a more detailed explanation regarding the president s comments. Part of what makes america so special is that we welcome the best and brightest in the world, regardless of their country of origin. Conservative pundits brust aside the president s remarks yesterday, writing here that conservative pundits rushed to provide commentary for the president. This does not move the needle at all, said coho jesse waters. Andp shoots from the hit, if your friends some people, fine. There are so many more offensive things. Breitbart says do not ask to describe some of these countries. You might be disappointed about disappointed. Host ted, independent caller. Caller what i dont understand is he is saying about the country, not about the people. He goes fromrea the black people [indiscernible] the democrat conversations did not do anything for the black people. Far inld not go too. Ursing the whole continent haiti, one of the countries who fought slavery, way, way, way back. So he should be very careful. He is claiming something he does not know. We know he has no property in africa. Know africa,o there is looting, they are taking our resources, our oil, our land. We know that. Africans are [indiscernible] our children. They are scoring high in tominations, they are going good schools, and they are producing good work. We are proud of them. He should watch his mouth. Thank you for calling. Pennsylvania, kenneth, democrat. Your reaction . Caller the anger and is over hello . Host keep going, youre on the air. Caller there is more time for anger and frustration, dastardly don has to go. The experiment did not work. We tried, the experiment did not work. And now it is time for all the suckers who voted for the sky to this guy to get on the line and say we made a mistake. Ofgetting the billions dollars he has received from the russian mafia to be successful. Come on people, wake up. Host alan, michigan, democrat. Your reaction this morning . Caller donald trump has a major issue with himself, and he makes everybody miserable. Just his name makes me miserable. He is just like a lame horse. You know what you do with a lame horse . ,e is disgusting and despicable thank you. Oft from the editorial page the wall street journal, a washington mudslide. We can read the whole thing here. They write of the editorial page once you hit the bottom, there is nowhere to go but up. On thursday, the language of politics hit bottom when the possibility of admitting immigrants from haiti and africa meeting witha senators at the white house, President Trump reportedly mused about why we would want to admit people into the u. S. From shole countries. About that time, representative nancy pelosi, the former speaker of the house, offered her thoughts on colleagues who are negotiating an immigration bill what the white house the five white guys, i call them, you know. Are they going to open a hamburger stand next or what . Mrs. Pelosi can cohost a talk at a future date with mr. Trump on espn. , in aw, this mudslide is word, unedifying. The house is number two democrat, steny hoyer, no doubt terrified that his party could become linked to ms. Pelosis use of light which from the fringe of identity politics, said, that comment is offensive. Republicans, who might worry hat mr. Trumps barstool mark, brooklyn, republican. Caller hello, i am an immigrant, but i am proud to be an american. The problem with immigrants is this. They always say they are proud of the old countries. Now, the older people who got offended they are now americans. America is their country. It should not matter, they should be proud to be americans. That is my comment. Host thank you, mark. Frank, West Virginia, independent. What do you make of what the president said . Caller i think it is a little bit crazy. You know, people of all different colors and from all over the world have come to this country and fought in wars for this country. The teske aaron teske airmen airmen. Egee i am half italian, my grandfather fought in world war ii. Thise thought and died for country, and their names on there, there are they black, white, green, or blue . No. Everything this man says is crazy and a lie, he is a liar. 90 of his information is from fox. Have a good day. Host more of your calls, then we will show you the entire interview yesterday with House Speaker paul ryan, it runs about 13 minutes. We will get to that at 7 30 eastern time. We are spending this hour getting your reaction to the president s comments on immigrants yesterday as reported by the Washington Post first following a meeting at the white house with senators. Twitter, i hate trump, but i agree with this caller. He did not make racist remarks about the people, he was referring to the countries. Isther comment, the u. S. Chockfull of racists. Nothing to be done about that, but it is unacceptable to have one of them is the president. Paul, florida. Good morning. Ler memo to donald trump talk like the mic is always live. That is a lesson the newsmen have learned, and you need to learn it as well. As far as his remarks, outside of asia, i cannot think of a single nonwhite successful fact thatespite the minerals, oil, you name it is plentiful in many of these countries. If you are going to comment on nonwhite countries, you are already in a trap. Its the nonwhite people who are coming to this country were certain to vote republican, i can guarantee you that the newspapers and news organizations would not be talking about this anywhere near the same way. I think it is wrong if you are talking about the people from these countries, but if you are talking about the countries you see the problem with trump is not that he lies, it is that he tells the truth. The truth is very few of the nonwhite countries are successful. Thank you very much. Host regina, richmond, virginia. Your reaction . Reaction is utter disgust with President Trump. However, some of the trump s, like the man who just called, they forget that when their ancestors came to this country, they were uneducated and poor. If it was not for the government, who assisted them with housing, it employment, and other things to help amend help them progress in this country, they would not be there today. Also, i am indignant to the fact that africans are highly educated, many of them come here with advanced degrees. But they do not understand that, because you fail to understand or know anyone elses history beside your own. In many cases, many of them do not even know their own history. That is when you make ignorant comments like that, because a lot of the africans that do come to this country are highly educated and more educated than americans. When he made those comments, that was very disgusting and disparaging. And what that gentleman just said, a lot of nonwhite countries are very successful, but they do not take the time to learn about other countries. But then again, what do you expect from Trump Supporters whose comprehension is lower than a sixth grader . Thank you. Host the president is tweeting, saying the socalled bipartisan daca deal presented to myself and a group of republican senators and congressmen was a big step backwards. While was not properly funded, chain and lottery were made worse, and the usa would be forced to take large numbers of people from high crime countries who are doing badly. I want safety and security for our people. I want to stop the massive inflow of drugs. I want to fund our military, not und. Dem def the dems will threaten shutdown, but what they are doing is shutting down our military at a time we need it most. Get smart, make America Great again. That is what the president tweeted in the overnight hours here. Headline, trouble garrity, the daca deal royals. Group, as a bipartisan the senators reached an agreement to give a path to citizenship for the socalled streamers, and make other immigration policy changes. They were presented their plan, but it was met with opposition from conservative lawmakers. The White House Legislative Affairs director says more work was needed. There is a long way to go. The white house and lawmakers in both parties they they want to reach an agreement, but many conservative republicans are demanding a long list of immigration policy changes that democrats oppose. It is unclear whether mr. Would be willing to sign something. Nto law over their objections they also point out that the democrats have some leverage, as their votes are needed to keep the government running past next friday. It is unclear whether they would be willing to force a partial shutdown over this immigration dispute. Tyrone, north carolina, hello. Caller good morning, god bless you. It is a shame and a disgrace that this country is facing what it is facing because of trump. , and a disgrace to america is going to bring the downfall of this country. If we do not get things together, it will get worse. The people who live in the country make the country. The people calling in says the countries are what he is saying, but this would not be a country of people were not in it. Donald trump is a disgrace to america and is the downfall of this country. This world belongs to god, and people belong to god. Donald trump of the Republican Party are a disgrace. I do not care what donald trump says and do, the republicans back him up. God will take care of all of them. Twitter this morning, if you talking about people, he is racist. If he is talking about the country, he is right. And a comment from the republican congressman from south florida, who writes calling haiti a Shithole Country ignores the contributions thousands of haitians have made to our south Florida Community and nation. Lang would like that should not be heard in locker rooms and should not be heard in the white house. Scottrite governor distances himself from the comment, calling haiti and other is being scott, who recruited by trump to run against Democrat Bill nelson, just stop short of a like it enough that of the president s comments, by saying he condemned them if the media reports about them were true. Neither the white house nor a Florida Republican who was in the room disputed the racial remarks. If the report is true, it is absolutely wrong to say or think this. I do not think this way nor do i agree with this kind of sentiment. I represent florida, and we are an amazing melting pot were over 250 languages are spoken. The last couple calls for this first half hour. Ashburn, virginia. Good morning. Caller good morning, how are you doing . Host doing well. Caller all right, i come from one of those shole countries trump was talking about. Some trump voters will have to go out and actually study some of these countries, like ghana, where i come from. Most of us are very educated before we come here. We have a problem with our politics back home, but i do not think the country that i come from is considered what the president was saying. But you know what . We knew this was coming. We know what the man stands for. Most of the Trump Supporters, not all of them, i know some of them. Most of them, this is how they feel. This is how they feel about brown and black people, and we knew it was coming, ok . They can come online and try to himort and make excuses for , but in the long run, im telling you that this is going to come back to bite him. They have to look at the bigger picture. The longterm effect of talking like this, talking about human beings, whether i am black or white. It doesnt matter. Thank you. Thank you. Debbie, troy, ohio. Republican. Hello there. Trump is indonald the 3 of the most smartest , and he is notca prejudiced. He did more for the black people than president obama did, but white people put president obama in office. We are not racist. What is racist is the black people saying get rid of the white man, they all have to die. You are a bunch of hypocrites, and support this president. Nothing but good is coming out of his presidency, and you are all a bunch of losers, and im going to vote for him again and he is going to go down in dgumry as the best da president you ever existed. You are all stupid and uninformed, and im tired of all of these black people calling and saying racist, racist, racist. You dont know the history. Stop taking down those monuments. Deal with it in english first. And i am tired of supporting these beautiful people. Let them go somewhere else if their country is so great. Get out of our country. Debbie inwords from troy, ohio. We will ask folks to hang on for about 15 minutes or so as we take a short break from called and go to some tape, but here is a headline in the nation as we move onto another issued his friday morning. How the tax bill would do republicans this november. House Speaker Paul Ryan came over to cspan yesterday to talk to us about taxes and entitlements, and a little bit about his own political future. This interview runs about 13 minutes. We will show the whole thing to you now, and we will be back around 7 45 with more of your comments. Here is the speaker. [video clip] lets bigger paul ryan, House Speaker paul ryan, thank you for coming. Members of your party are saying the changes need to be made speaker ryan . It is speaker ryan it is good to be back with you. Anytime you do massive legislation like this, this is the biggest rewrite of the tax , thein more than 31 years last big rewrite was 1986. This is more comprehensive than that. Hadnew all along, when you such a massively right of tax laws, you are going to have some technical changes that will need to occur. Four engines for instance, we rewrote our entire International Tax system on how we treat cash flows. We knew that would need some revising. So far, not a lot really needs to be done, other than i would call small things. No republican support for the Affordable Care act, no democrat support for this bill. Speaker ryan i was surprised that not a single democrat voted for this. I think they will be regretful of that, because in 20 days, you families, 2million million workers getting raises and bonuses. You are seeing all these raises being announced, you are seeing Electricity Companies announcing that they are lowering rates as a consequence. In milwaukee, we have a big insurance company. If you must ago, they said because of the tax laws, they were going to move to bermuda. Now, they are staying in milwaukee, staying in american company. You are seeing stories like that businesses staying here, in spending, expanding, investing in capital, workers getting wage increases, bonuses, better benefit, 401 k s, Maternity Leave those things are being announced, and it has been 20 days. I think the democrats are going to regret not having supported this. I think it will do tremendous things for our economy, and unfortunately, we are in a very, very partisan climate, but that does not stop us from doing what we think is right to help this economy grow. Host and leader pelosi is calling all of this crumbs. Speaker ryan i am sad and surprised she said that. At walmart,tarting getting a starting wage from nine dollars an hour to 11 an hour, i do not think that is crumbs. A person working got acktopaycheck 1000 bonus. One company is investing 50 billion in america, in jobs, in expanding across the country. This is not crumbs. The additional Maternity Leave at walmart, the higher 401 k n, small assisted living they Just Announced bonuses to their employees. More than half of americans are living paycheck to paycheck. When they get Something Like a 1000 bonus at christmas time because of the tax law, it is hardly crumbs. I would go back to november 1998, just elected i want to go back to november 1998, you were just elected as the speaker of the house. You appeared on cspan, and here is what you said. Speaker ryan i think the first principle tax reform would be ose on the bottom rung should be held harmless. Get them on their feet before they get whacked with taxes. Lets take a look at our current tax system. We are working toward may 17 in wisconsin to pay our taxes to the government. Our tax system is punishing all of those qualities that make America Great, so we can have a better tax system. Your reaction . Speaker ryan that is what i haircut, and i still have that tie. I have been working on that issue for 20 years, my whole adult life. Jack kemp was my mentor, and i worked on this issue with him, in 20 years in congress. My reaction is it is what i tell my kids, School Students when i talk about civics, democracy, and the republic that we are. If you believe passionately something that will make a big difference in peoples lives, what is great about our system of government is you work, you work, you push, you push, you convince, run on an idea, run for office, and if you get elected, you can put that idea in place to make a difference in peoples lives. That is what these jobs are about. That is what is exciting about what i do, and it takes time, in a system like we have. It takes time. Tax reform has been something i have literally been working on for over 20 years. This country, we have been talking about it for 30 years. It takes time to do these things, but it does work. Is a vindication of the system of government we have, a representative of democracy. If you believe in something, stick at it and you can economist those goals. That is my big take away on this. I can get into the economics and why i think this is a good thing for america, but the takeaway i have is looking back at when i was a young guy pushing this stuff. It takes time to do big things in this country, and this country is a story of big things getting done. A number of states california, new york are looking at workarounds to get beyond that 10,000 dollars deduction. Will you do anything to stop that . Speaker ryan the big idea they lettalking about is lets millionaires and billionaires pay their taxes as donations. That will not work. I cannot imagine the treasury or irs would let that happen. It is beyond reason to think that tax regulation would allow that to happen. Need to even think we prevent this kind of workarounds. Your first appearance was 1995 on a saturday morning, july 1995, and the debt was approaching 5 trillion. This budget debate, what is this about . This debate is evolving into a fundamental difference between the two parties. The republicans, we say we have to balance the budget. We have to pay down the debt. It is interesting to note that the clinton administrations Budget Proposal rejects building of 250icits, an excess billion, adding on top of the debt. We think we have to balance the budget as soon as possible. That was 1995. The debt is no 20 trillion, and the tax bill will add another 1 trillion to the debt. Speaker ryan my haircut was better in 1995 and 1998. If you look at all of our full effort, like the budget we passed this past year, the diane black budget, that had a lot of reforms in it and is a balanced budget. I wrote eight of the budgets we passed since i have been in congress, which are all balanced budget plans. The problem is you have to give these bills to the house, senate, and president to sign them into law. There are two things you basically have to do to get the debt under control. For our entitlement programs. Make them work better, make those dollars stretch farther, and prepare for the retirement of baby boomers, which we are not there for. And the economy. This is one of the most important things we could have ever done to grow the economy. This is a piece of our fiscal agenda which is Economic Growth and regulatory reform. I do not believe this will add one trillion plus dollars to the debt. I do not know what the number is going to be. I think Economic Growth will become immensely helpful for us, and what it will do is help people learn more wages, pay more taxes, more companies will come back into the country, bringing their dollars overseas back in america. We shoulds not to say not be focused on spending. We should focus on the spending side of the ledger. Leader mcconnell said on entitlement reform, that is a nonstarter. We have a challenge in that they have a razor thin majority in the senate, and is extremely hard to pass big things like this. What i regret the most is the fact that we have yet to reach bipartisan consensus on comprehensive entitlement reform when all of us know this is necessary to get our debt and deficit under control. You literally cannot tax your way out of the entitlement problems we have with the oncoming baby boomers. We need to grow the economy faster, this helps us do that. And i am very excited that we have done this. But at the end of the day, we will have to get bipartisan support to fix our entitlement programs. If we do nothing, Social Security goes broke and we get benefits cut. The care is more on borrowed money, and these are important programs that we have to not just forsave this generation, but future generations. That will take bipartisanship. Will it happen this year . Host not what i meant speaker ryan not what i mentioned, but we can help get people from welfare into work so they are getting a better job, better life, and paying taxes. And what about the plan on the white house to wear if you are on medicaid, you have to work . Host we passed that back in may in the house. President is also suggesting that earmarks should come back on capitol hill as a way to grease the skins . Speaker ryan i was one of the guys who altered the ban on earmarks. There is a frustration among many of our members that the constitutional responsibility of the article one constitutional powers has been exceeded to the executive branch too much. There is a legitimate argument to be made there, but i do have oncerns about the old porkbarrel earmark process that i helped stop. I think there is a concern about having more legislative Branch Oversight on how the executive branch spends money. We have to make sure this does not we have to make sure we go porkbarrel back to spending. Im worried it could lead to bad government. It was said earlier today that republicans say the democrats will take back the house next year. Speaker ryan i cannot speak for that. Republicans do not tell me that. Final question, in regards to chairman ed royce. Should you readdress the issue of term limits . Speaker ryan no, i would never have become the chairman if it was not for term limits. I think we should have term limits on congress itself, but given the constitutional amendment, we have not been able to produce the votes for that. In our own control, we should control our term for chairmanship. You are seeing the chairman retire now, and we are having a number of them because we operate in the Republican House with a sixyear term, meaning three terms, six years total for a chairmanship. Chairman wholot of are coming to the end of their chairmanships this year, which is why they are retiring. But what that does is give younger, newer members the ability to move up into the ranks and take these chairmanships. It brings fresh turnover, new perspectives. Sh what is the biggest challenge for you in this job . Speaker ryan getting big things done. What i am excited about . We ran on a very specific agenda and we came around we all got consensus on that agenda. We called it the better way. And now we are executing it. We passed more bills this past year in this president for the first year of office than reagan, bush, bush, clinton n, obama. We passed their bills, they did not go all the way through the senate. We still have 400 bills that have not been moving through like the house has, so getting these not just through the house, but into law, is the biggest challenge, giving the fact had the filibuster in the senate with a narrow majority, and we are so partisan. I am hoping we can get some more bipartisanship this year to break those logjams and get some things into law, but that is the hardest thing. Not passing the house, but getting them into law, beyond houses control. Host and you intend to be speaker in 2019 . Speaker ryan that is something my wife and i discussed in the spring. We have this customary conversation before filing deadlines in wisconsin. That is the conversation we will have been, but i have no plans of going anywhere right now. House Speaker Paul Ryan, thank you very much for being with us. Speaker ryan thank you for having me back. Host speaker of the house paul ryan joined us yesterday. You can watch this interview anytime at cspan. Org. This evening at 6 40 5 p. M. And 8 45 p. M. Eastern time. On taxes and walmart breaking news, the business section of the New York Times today, good news and bad at walmart. The nations largest private employer waded into the bumpy waters of partisan politics thursday, announcing it will use savings dating and the new tax bill to provide increased wages, bonuses, and expanded benefits to its hourly workers. Receive, as other Large Companies have done in recent weeks, mark provided support for claims by the r thetration, but walmart had undercut its triumphal message when news leaked it was closing 63 of its sams club stores. That is a retail chain offering memberships, and Senate Democrats seized on that news. They question walmart motives and criticize the tax bill as failing to protect lowwage workers. More there about taxes. In the last 15 minutes of washington journal, we will continue with your calls, your comments on the president , from the president on immigrants. He tweeted in the last bit of time here that the language used by me at the dock a meeting was tough, but this was not the meeting used daca was tough, but this was not the language used. What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made a big setback for daca. Thomas, republican. What is your reaction . Caller sometimes, he does not watch what he says too good, but i think his heart is for america. About illegalalks and the cost to the american taxpayer. Some estimates are up to 2 trillion a year it costs the taxpayer. Politicians on other subjects, and they do not look like they work for america, or government does not, because the democrats come up with something that is good for america, and the republicans will not vote for it. If the republicans come up with something that is good for america, i am talking about the people, the democrats will not vote for it. Whatreally forget about they are up there for, and that is to help the people of the United States. Im a Firm Believer in the preamble to the constitution, of thefor we the people United States, and the constitution dont mean nothing until you go by the preamble. Mel, georgia, independent caller. Caller i am glad i got behind that woman, but first of all, i have been participating in this program for over 20 years. I have not called for a long time, but the comments trump , he is a racist. Both of those have come out and he has set a pattern. But i want to respond to that woman who called. First of all, let me tell her this country was built by african slaves. There would not have been any country for immigrants to come to if it had not been for african slaves. Im an African American, i am a veteran, i participated in the cuban missile crisis without my freedom. , the mostind her Patriotic Group in this country are africanamericans. We have fought in every war this country has ever had. The first person to die for this country was an africanamerican, christmas at x we fought in world war i, world war ii without our freedom, we fought in the korean war without our freedom. Even though it was not legal, we fought in vietnam without our freedom. We was on we were on those beaches on dday. When they realized they did not have enough medics to go ashore in the first wave, they went and got africanamerican medics. Got ashoree medics and saw the carnage on the beach, and he saved over 300 white troops. What people need to do you need to get on the telephone and call your congressman, your youtors, and let them know do not agree with this racist guy in the white house. Racism iseing what bringing when it raises its ugly head again. When people call in and accept him saying those kinds of words about people coming from that country, not the country, but people coming from that country, this guy needs to be removed from office. Thank you. Joe, san francisco, independent caller. Your reaction . Caller hi. The guy before me said it better, but basically what i am saying about this is he is a white supremacist. The comment he made about countries. Hey was the first country to get their freedom. These were african slaves who had fought off colonialism. That might be why he is commenting like he is, and this country does what they do to countries like haiti, because the colonialist tactics are stopping these countries from becoming fullfledged, a, and they do everything in their power, the to Colonial Life these countries and stop them colonize these countries and stop them from reaching their full potential. But trump is a white the president white the president white supremacist. That one gesture he does, that is a white supremacist gesture. His father got arrested for marching with the clan. This country has a long way to go. It has a long way to go, it was formed on white supremacy. He is trying to bring it back. That attitude, the whole mentality, and it is a shame that he is dividing the whole world up. Some think should be done about him. He is awful. Host a call from joe in san francisco. The center fox, former president the former president of mexico, who has had his act and forth with president years, commented donald trump, your mouth is the ole in the world. With what authority do you proclaim who is welcome in america and who is not. Americas greatness is built on diversity, or have you forgotten your immigrant background, donald . Jersey, diane new jersey, diane, republican. Good morning. Caller yes, good morning. , iman African American getting so tired of people calling President Trump a racist. When these africans and haitians and the people on these islands come over here and look down on africanamericans, they push them out of the jobs, threaten them and things like that, they think they are better than us. I have even heard them say that americans are stupid and they hate us. They come over here and they use us. I am experienced, and im going through Something Like this right now, and i am so sick and tired of these things that President Trump is a racist, because he is not. He has been around and knows whats going on. I am just so tired of it. They are using this to get votes , saying that he is a racist. He is not a racist. He knows exactly what is going on. So do i. I could write a book on the stuff i have experienced here in my state. Host diane, thank you for calling. A few more minutes for calls left. We want to get a little more news in there. The senate is moving ahead, writes the Washington Post, on reauthorizing a surveillance tool. Theyre planning on sending this to the president s task desk next week. Despite opposition from privacy advocates and mixed messages from the president himself, who questioned his administrations support for the program on thursday morning. The house passed the bill yesterday after defeating an to the bill, the senate wound up voting 6926 to start debate on this bill, which would extend for six years the nsas ability to collect from u. S. Companies, emails, and other communications. The houseboat is a sign that lawmakers intend to move swiftly, and we expect the senate to act on this next week. Talk about senator rand paul here, who said he intended to do everything in my power that including filibuster to delay the vote next week, but that is unlikely to block its passage. The house efforts to amend the bill would require the federal government to obtain warrants before searching for americans thursday. N failed on part of our newsmakers program, which will air sunday at 10 00 a. M. , and begin at 6 00 eastern time. He was reacting in the q a to reporters to the president s contradictory tweets. Here is a look. [video clip] of it,e could pivot talking about the unorthodox presidency. We were talking about how that might have been the best of the president. This morning on friday, we found what might have been the worst of the president. He tweeted out criticism of a , the intelligence reauthorization bill that the house passed, and he came out against the bill his administration had endorsed less than 24 hours earlier. What was your reaction to that, and what does that say about the president and his grasp of the policies he is promoting . Frankly, i think this is the dangerous aspect of this presidency. Unfocused, unreliable, in , whichspects, leadership changes its use pretty much on a dime from time to time. In this case, the administration sent down a statement of administrative policy supporting , tointel recommended bill revise section 702 of the foreign intelligence act. Sometime this morning, the president sent down a tweet or sent a tweet out, which appeared to contradict that statement of Administration Policy and opposed the legislation that was under consideration. Two hours later, the president then said no, we would be foolish not to support this bill. He said be smart, pass this bill. Very troubling aspect of this presidency, because not in thisrely on country, and our allies around the world we rely on some degree of stability. Stability in the administration, and knowing where the administration is, what policies they are pursuing, and what advice they are giving. When you have that changing from hour,wohour, hourto it is not good for our country, allies, or International Space ability stability. Host newsmakers in the 10 00 a. M. , and again at 6 00 p. M. Eastern time this sunday. Todd, baltimore, maryland, democrat. Your reaction . Caller thank you, cspan. I am clearly disappointed in this president. He has definitely showed his hand, and this is nothing in comparison to good leadership. It is really time for the world to take the seat away from america at the united nations. Im disappointed in the more ofans, for not them coming in calling this president out. If they want a horrible country, that is the road we are on. This president is acting like a dictatorship, and im not putting too much blame on him, because it is the republicans that are allowing this, this no good congress, and it is hurting all of us, dividing us, and it is no good for our children. I am clearly disappointed in this president and the republicans. That is my comment. Tony, washington, d. C. , republican. Hello. Caller hi, i would like to say that i totally support the president , what he is doing. He is doing a great job. One thing people do not fromstand is that people people coming from other countries, south america, central america, and all the removetrump is trying to out of the country that are here wereally, their ancestors former slave owners of africanAmerican People, and they have not changed the people from these countries, they have not changed. They do not hire americans, peri od, africanamericans or white americans. We need to know that you are unamerican, they will not hire you. They try to act like they dont understand the language, what givenre saying when you application. I have tried it through the years. Please, donald trump is doing the right thing. Get the dreamers, get them out. The parents, get them out. Host one last call, ed from maryland. Democratic caller. Your reaction . Caller yes, thank you for taking my call. Basically, we are looking at the Second Coming of a dixiecrat. Look at the history of Woodrow Wilson. Haiti, the reason it is hated is the crap of beat napoleon out of napoleon, who planned to secede louisiana and attacked the colonies. Instead, he was so embarrassed by being beaten by haiti, that they offered to sell the louisiana territory and mississippi, which allows us to go from east coast to west coast for 15 million. Thomas jefferson gets credit but it was because the haitians take crap out kicked the of napoleon. When Woodrow Wilson came along, what he did was say, ok, we are going to show that these black people can be beaten, that these n words canng be taken. They attacked the black wall street, inspired the rise , and they didnds everything they could to hurt africanamericans. It did not stop the United States. They went to haiti. They occupied haiti for 19 years. That is why it is a dustbowl. They killed 15,000 people who formed a resistance. Basically, proving these black people who were proud could be conquered, so basically what you are looking at is a second wilson and hisow wife, who were extreme bigots terms ofe racists in their treatment and hate mint and inspiration of hatred towards africanamericans and people of african dissent around the globe. Host thank you for your thoughts and everybody who called in this first hour. We will leave this segment with a couple of other tweets and let you know what is coming up next. Bill kristol writes that two weeks ago, a 26yearold soldier raced repeatedly into a burning bronx building, saving for people, for he died in the flames. His name was private Emmanuel Mensah and he immigrated from donna, a country donald trump apparently thinks produces very subpar immigrants. Also, a concept explained, a country so messed up that most citizens are trying to run away officially qualify as shitholes. And fewer scope francis if we fail to suffer with those who suffer even those of different religions, like witches or cultures, we need to question our humanity. Coming up, we will talk about immigration more. More broadly speaking, there is lots of discussion about legislation. Alan gomez will join us to discuss the latest. He is in miami. Later, holly harris will be joining us to talk about prison and sentencing reform during the Trump Administration. In the meantime, while get our first guest set up, cspan continues with a profile interviews with key members of the Trump Administration tonight cspan. P. M. Eastern on you can see our sit down with the Energy Secretary rick perry. Here is a portion. [video clip] rick perry as the former governor of texas for 14 years, what was the biggest learning curve you had to take to become Energy Secretary . Working for somebody. For the United States air force when i was between the ages of 22 and 27, and i worked for my dad for a short amount of time, and other than that, i have been selfemployed or an agency head or the governor, so learning and lets say you know about texas or you may not texas does not have a government to when you are the lieutenant governor, you are elected on your own, so you are responsible to the folks, but you dont work or somebody. I came to washington, d. C. , and i am working as a cabinet member. That was a learning curve for me. Management is management, whether running the 12th largest economy in the world, as the state of texas is, or at the doe with 100,000 contractors and 30 billion budget, in the grand scheme of eggs, that is not of things, that is not huge, but you are working in the cabinet for the president of the United States. A little bit of a change for me. Why did you take the job . You havehought to remember, i wanted to be president of the United States. Iran added a couple of times i ran at a couple of times. That was not gods plan, but i was comfortable i still had things i wanted to get to my country. Honorablevices very both advocation and location, but it is also my father was a county commissioner, my dad was in the United States air force. Those experiences prepared me for the line in Public Service. And in rather old good health, and still care about where my country is headed, so i felt very Donald Trumphat and the men and women into United States congress could use a 14 year governor and the experience i had to bring that to this town to help try to direct an agency and direct an administration in a particular direction. Washington journal continues. Host joining us from miami is alan gomez, a reporter at usa today, and specializes in immigration very good morning. Guest good morning. Host i wanted to start with the president s comments from yesterday. There was a headline in the and you know there may be one million haitian immigrants in the u. S. , how many are in south florida and what has the reaction been like . Guest there are about 300000 and about one third of registered to vote and become important as we move ahead. You can imagine the reaction. Everybody down here is besides themselvess. Themselves. The president addressed the haitians specifically and talked about being there champion when he came to washington, and obviously, a lot of them are very upset with what has happened that we have heard the haitians have summoned the head of the u. S. Embassy in portauprince to meet with the haitian president today to explain the president s comments as best he can. In the something community. Little haiti outside of downtown miami is a longstanding community and there is a lot of people upset now. Host in addition to the immediate reaction, what do you think the impact will be, if any significant, on the ongoing immigration talks in washington . Guest that is the hardest thing to figure. The president throughout his presidency, there will be ongoing negotiations and he will make comments that a lot of people are not happy with. This one would reach another level, but at the end of the day, i do not know how much this changes or if all of a sudden the white house and republicans in congress feel pressure to provide relief for the people from haiti, el salvador, and african nations that have been shut out from the temporary protected status program. The Trump Administration has eliminated temporary protected status for haiti, el salvador, nicaragua, and sudan, and they still may cut off protections for more countries. Now maybe they feel pressure to reinstate those in some way or protect people from those countries, but when we talk about the overall bill to deferredreamers, the action for childhood arrivals, that ended several months ago, i do not know how that changes that. T blasted democrats on twitter for what he called a terrible proposal they pitched to him yesterday during that meeting, and he is in assisting on this order while and other issues related to Border Security. I do not know how much this moves the needle. We will be talking about it and there will be a lot of anger over this comments at the president but i dont know if it changes the innerworkings of the negotiation. Host phone numbers on the bottom of the screen for alan gomez. Lines for democrats, 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. And a separate fourth line for daca recipients, 202 7488003. Alan gomez is in miami, specializes on immigration negotiations and that entire issue. The finder points about the negotiation is happening in washington. Remind us, what are the main sticking points now and what potential path forward do you see on these issues . Guest basically, the way they are approaching the negotiations is you have democrats on one side trying to reinstate some kind of deportation protections for roughly 800,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children. That is what they are fighting for. On the other side, republicans are pushing for a long list of demands in exchange, including funding for the border while, more Border Patrol agents along the southern border, more agents in the interior of the country to arrest undocumented immigrants in the u. S. , intimate place the implementation of everify to check immigration status of job applicants. They want a crackdown on sanctuary cities. They want an end to chain migration, the ability to bring an extended family into the country. They want to end the visa lottery. There are more demands they are pushing for but that is the broad outline. What they are trying to do now, what we do they had agreed to during a meeting earlier this week at the white house was a more narrow approach with a focus on daca and protecting those youngsters, and on the other hand, ending chain migration, the visa lottery, and some form of Border Security. The president said the proposal thrown at him yesterday somehow made things worse and insufficient, so that is where we are. They are far apart in these negotiations, so that is what these groups of senators, people in the house are working on this, all trying to crack the solution that the pieces the democrats and is not giving away too much but satisfies the more conservative base in the house and ultimate and decide by the president. Host before we get the calls, in california this week, a judge made a ruling regarding daca. What did he will and what is the potential longterm impact . Guest ever since the president announced in september that he was he ended daca, he gave a sixmonth phase out and they have until march until it ends, and what the judge in california rolled is that the Trump Administration ruled is that the Trump Administration made that on incorrect points of law. The Trump Administration argued obama was wrong to create daca and it was illegal and he should not have been able to do it very because of that, they were ending the program. The judge said, no, it is legal. The president was within his rights to implement the program. The reasoning you are using to end the program is flawed, best, you should not have done that the, you need to restart program. A lot of people were excited about that. Even immigration advocates are saying it may be shortlived and the survival of daca is not to the courts. It is temporary and the next good strike it down. So they are saying the great victory, this is wonderful, but we need to focus on congress because these dreamers need longterm protection. They cannot stay with this program and i think everyone agrees the president is within his rights to end an executive program. Gomez,irst call for alan beth from texas, good morning. Caller mainly what i wanted to we, asi think that americans, a lot of americans are missing the bigger picture. To support donald trump and change my mind at the last minute. I need to tell you, yes, donald trump is a racist, but more importantly, people need to wake up. Doing putinss bidding, his money, the deals . Come on, people. Wake up. He is destroying our democratic institutions. Donald trump and the republicans. I left the Republican Party because the Republican Party now is controlled by racists. Trump once the rule america like trumprules russia, and helped get him elected and he is trying to get people he wants in every country elected because putin wants to rule the world and donald trump once to rule this country like putin rules russia. Host alan gomez . Guest it is interesting because we have heard the term racist in the last 24 hours more than we have in any point in the last year. This comments especially is one that has gotten even members of congress, who in the past have been hesitant to take that leap to accuse the president of being an outright racist, and whether that is two or not, i think that is not for us to decide but it is interesting because on the one hand, it has gotten people to that point where they feel more comfortable accusing him of that. At the same time, what he is doing, a lot of people have defended his comments about these african nations. When you look at his president ial campaign, he made no secret he would last immigration from foreign countries. He started his campaign saying people from mexico are racist, drug deals, and all that. This should not come as too much of a surprise to people to see the president taking so many different steps by ending temporary protected status, daca, chain migration, that he was going to try to limit immigration into this country. I guess we did not expect them to use this language well doing so. Host steve from california, republican caller. Caller how are you guys . Cspan, great, great show. I have been watching for 40 years now. Just wanted to make a quick comment. I am a black man from california. There are millions of us. Trumpof us support donald. A lot choose to stay in the shadows. I am bamboozled by these wild stories donald trump is some kind of braces. Ofm almost 60, kind racist. I am almost 60 and i have never seen a racist bone in his body. Patients comes to america. They do not like us. Africans from every part of africa come to america and they do not hang around us. They do better than us. Mexicans, guatemalans, hondurans, they all come here and do better than us. Arabs, they are winning. They dont do no work. They just come to america. You dont see them in the streets building no buildings are nothing. They get hotels and motels and a crowd the black people in these jobs, give them welfare, and take the same money for the United States to send it back to the country they depended on so bad. Host do you have a question for our guest . Caller basically, i wanted to make a comment. Host fair enough. Reaction to the comments . I do not even know where to start with that. Every single way of immigrants has come into this country and pretty much done the same. They get here, they may not know the language initially, but they work there butts off, they learn the language and assimilate. I can sit here and throw you stats about an economic conjugations contributions but i am i do not even want to respond, im sorry. Host some of the writing of reversal, a antiimmigration groups are hoping to a deal to let the 800,000 dreamers estate. What are you writing here . Guest that was a story from earlier this week, which seems like one month in d. C. Time, but that story made the point that what you have is republicans on the hill, conservatives, and hardline groups that oppose any amnesty deal are open to a doctor deal. For the first daca deal. For the first time for the years i have covered immigration, they are saying, i can deal with this one. The reason is they might get so much in return. Before, we used to talk about Immigration Reform has some legalization for all of the 12 million undocumented immigrants. In this case, democrats are only asking for legalization for 800,000 of these undocumented immigrants. The republicans are still pushing for their laundry list of demands. Unbalanced at that negotiation and say, we are only giving up less than 10 of the undocumented population but we might get all of this in Border Security and limit ilLegal Immigration, so that is why you hear republicans on board with pushing something that would provide something that cries amnesty. That is why these hardline antiimmigration groups, who have some immigration efforts in the past that flooded all these republican offices with phone calls, mobilization efforts and political efforts. They are not really putting that pressure on this time because of how much they might get back. Host we have monique from West Virginia, republican caller. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am a young black republican from West Virginia and i am for removing the dream field. These immigrants came over, a legal. Whether or not they were babies or know their country, that is not a factor. The fact is they came over a legal. It is not about race, racism, bigotry. It has nothing to do with that. It is about Illegal Immigrants came over to legally, so they do not legally should belong care. They have been educated, given welfare, taken care of, they can go back to their countries and support the countries and help build up their countries. America has changed so much to the point they do not assimilate. That is not true they assimilate. There are many immigrants that cannot speak our language so jobs are forcing americans to learn how to speak the languages. Some jobs do not hire you if you cannot speak another language, so it is not a true comment to say they all come over and assimilate. I think some politicians are playing the racism card to play on americas the motions and slate americans sway opinions. Can what is your was you give more detail about these 800,000 folks . Who are the dreamers . Give us a profile. Guest just to respond to one point, this is something we hear about quite a bit over the last few weeks. Undocumented immigrants do not receive medicare, medicaid, Social Security, even though many pay into the systems because about half of them pay taxes. Cominga that they are here and soaking in welfare benefits, i have no idea where that comes from. As an undocumented immigrants, you dont qualify for that. What they do is they come here, especially the dreamer population, to qualify for the program you have to prove you graduated from high school, attending school, are joined the military, which is about 900 enrolled in the military, and securityto pass a background check, which means you cannot have committed a felony or misdemeanor. Dacaa this population, one of the reasons conservatives consider getting a protection, is they are the most clean. They have applied to the federal government, provided their identities, addresses, people who make a living in the shadows and tried to hide but all have stepped up and applied and handed over their personal information to prove that they are educated, working, and that they are in the military. Their profile, they got here before the age of 16, that is a requirements, but it has been several years so most are now well into their 20s and 30s and some older than that. It is a broad range all over the country. L. A. ,re concentrated in florida, chicago, and bigger cities around the country. They are all over the place working for universities, tech , and i wasd. C. Talking to the center of immigration studies, one of these groups that opposes amnesty advocates for lower levels of ilLegal Immigration was telling me that this is a different population. This is a group we should work to protect. These are americans and everything but paperwork. That gives you a broader idea. Host brad is calling from maryland. Republican caller. Go ahead. Caller hi, mr. Gomez, how are you doing . Guest good, how are you . Caller good. I can tell you cannot answer any of the actual facts. The black gentleman who called good points. Donald trump has hired tens and thousands of African Americans. When he said mexicans are rapists, he is talking about the Sexual Assault incidents, immigrant women coming across the border. I know these facts are your brain andurt your the hard to wrap it around, but hole donald trump says s countries, if you go to liberia, these people literally go on the go on the a hole, beach, these are not the best and brightest. There talking about getting best and brightest. He has done nothing racist. It seems you cannot debate the facts on merit so you invent racist the only thing democrats rely on. Host brad, lets get alan gomez a chance to respond. Guest i will provide a simple fact, watch President Trumps speech when he announced he was running for president. At no point did he mention what you throughout t threw outs, and did he mention he was talking about illegal aliens. He declared mexico is not sending their best and brightest, that they are rapists and drug dealers, and all of that. At no point during that speech did he mention any certain population or subgroup of mexicans. He said he was talking about all of them, so your comments about africans, again, i do not even know where to start rate i will not even respond. Host another headline from california, a federal agent sweep, nearly 100 7eleven stores under an immigration investigation. What went on there and what messages the federal government sending to folks who work at 711 and other places . What message are they sending to employers of the folks . Guest that was the first highprofile example of what we are going to see from the Trump Administration when it comes to worksite enforcement. If you go back to the george w. Bush administration, if you highprofile raids of plans and poultry plants were they would workers working at these plants. It is hard to get undocumented immigrants at these big factories. Under the Obama Administration, it turned into an auditing process focused on employers and trying to identify employers hiring and helping them forge their paperwork, so they focused more on employers. 711 showsaid of the is the Trump Administration is going to take all of the above approach. They initiated audits of all 98 elevens but also arrested 21 undocumented immigrant workers who were working at these stores. The directors said recently it is going to be a strategy moving forward. He wants to get the employers and employees to send the harshest message possible that if you hire undocumented immigrants or you are working here, that ice may be coming to get you soon. Showed what that raid us they are trying to go after, the employers and employees. Host honk to, william on the democratic line. On two william, houston, democratic line. Caller i come from a generation of africanamerican men. One of the things i realize growing up in arkansas, spending time in the military, i am a 20 year veteran, that most people and i learned this in i diversity class most people theypower do not realize are down the the line. Racist should not be defined on s. E word it is your actions. No one knows your hearts, but your actions will show you the internal feelings. That is food for thought for anybody who calls and that say they know this or that. Forget your actions. It shows who you are. Host to our guest. All i can do is provide all the information possible and as you mentioned, he watched the actions of the president , administration, you make your own judgment on whether they are. Oing in the right direction enough americans in the election agreed to a lack 10 president and now it is a question of what happens now . , have anyave a tweet democrats been specific on what theyre willing to compromise on with daca . Guest we got broad outlines of what the proposed yesterday. Yesterday, there was the legalization component for the dreamers, and what they did on the other side was it sounds like the Border Security package they proposed was going back to it President Trumps initial request for border while funding was, 1. 6 billion for the border while. I forget the exact number, but another 1 billion or so to add more agents and technology along the southern border. He worked eat increased it to is whereion, which the gap is. The president asked for an antichain migration and the democrats came back saying we will eliminate a specific category of chain migration, which is the u. S. Citizens ability to sponsor their brother, sisters and children, and take those visas and redistribute them in other directions. Same with the visa lottery. Basic just a ship and the program but take those visas and redistribute them same with the visa program. They would take those and redistribute them. So far, the response on twitter is we do not want to redistribute them but eliminate them. It sounds like democrats are trying to maintain as many as possible for Legal Immigration and the republicans are saying no. We went to reduce the overall number of immigrants coming into the country. Host lets go to laredo, texas, democratic caller. Seneca, we understand you are a daca recipient. Caller hi, my name is actually senena. Point, i domake a not understand why america is open welcoming of immigrants when we are hard workers. Right now, i am getting ready to teach at a high school from 8 00 to 5 00 and sometimes later to contribute to the success and our students. I also wanted to comment on how we should stop creating this shcountries, why do we go and create wars and supply and things . Hain of illegal my other points are this is a democratic war. The border is being constructed on some mexico border and the u. S. My other point is the chain migration, the lottery tickets, those are the only tickets to freedom for many, so we have to consider all of these when we. Re taking actions we have to use our power wisely and not just use degrading terms. What i we teaching our kids . Host thanks. Several points there. I wanted to touch on the proposed border while by the president. He is going to california after the state of the union this month to look at prototypes. Where are we with this issue of a border wall and how much of a wall it would be, how much it would cost, and the future . President has backed off on his insistence of having this great big deal for wall from sea to shining sea. Proposinghat they are is 18 billion to expand and replace a lot of existing walls. Right now, it is a 2000 mile border. About 700 miles already has some form of barrier. The president is proposing to add 350 miles to that. Us to about half of the border. What he is saying is after examining the issue, realizing there are areas with mountains and valleys, they are difficult places to get to, so writes, maybe we do not need a wall on the entire border. They are looking at a scaledback approach of expanding from 650 miles to 350 miles. They would then make an exception and start going along the border from california, arizona, new mexico, and california to determine where the wall would help. There are places. San diego is a good example where instituting what they have their, it looks like a t militarized zone withw militarized zone with two separate fences and you have a room for Border Patrol to travel in between. Here is incredible lighting, radars, people always manning an and that is important in area like that because san diego is against the wall and tijuana, so you need that wall to make sure people do not slip in. There are places about the border where you dont need that much. Right now, we are entering a phase where theyre looking at the border and identifying areas where they can expand and it would be helpful in class at places where they dont need anything. Host caroline is on the line from massachusetts. Republican. Caller thank you for taking my call. I would like to ask the questions. How are the Illegal Immigrants housed, fed and clothes until their kids were school age . Where did they get their income . Did they come with a stash from mexico or wherever they came from . And what does the american citizen get out of this agreement besides the 329 billion bill that will be for the future. That does not count what it cost to have them here for the decades they did not wait to improve this status. Please explain that. Host thanks. Here, mostn they get undocumented immigrants across the border are not showing up with 10,000 in cash. They can support themselves in the beginning. It is very expensive to pay across, soget you usually they dont have a lot of money but they get to work. 11,numbers, there is about 12 million undocumented immigrants according to the Pew Research Center and 8 million are in the workforce. It is not like they come over here, and they do not qualify for federal benefits. It is not like they can get an unemployment or welfare check. They come here because there is work, and that has been the driving force of ilLegal Immigration are all these years. If you look at any chart represents what our economy looks like and you compare it to charts showing levels of ilLegal Immigration and the number of undocumented immigrant in the country, i have heard people refer to them as an amazing indicator for the economy. When the upcoming, it is because there are jobs. When they are not coming, it is when they know there are no jobs to get there. Providing fort themselves, their families, and their children. Host i wanted to ask as we wrap up, two groups of people, one of whom may be needing to leave the United States per decision of the administration, what would country ofct to this those folks leaving . Guest well, that is 200,000 people from el salvador who has in here, living here under this temporary protected status as a program created by congress to allow foreigners to stay in the United States. If the country has been affected by war, natural disaster, hurricane or things like that. Have been heres el salvadorans have been here ever since a hurricane arthur country. This is a population that the cell the dorian and the sea alvadorian embassy working. That most are the biggest industry they are working in his construction, so it is important to note that there are a lot of s alvadorans that worked in louisiana to help them rebuild after the hurricane. There are a lot in texas helping them rebuild from hurricane harvey. Same in florida as they recover from irma. Most arestly working and the u. S. Chamber of commerce issued a letter to the department of Homeland Security urging them not to and temporary protected status for them because of the economic hit it would get to our economy. About 100 Million Dollars a year in property taxes. The center for migration studies half aes they pay about billion dollars into the Medicaid Program each year and they will leave and never reap the benefits. Their contributions are broad, but it is mostly in the Construction Industry that we are going to feel a hit if they are forced to leave. Since you are in florida, i want to ask about several hundred thousand strong now, already americans, but coming to the mainland in great numbers, the Puerto Ricans following the storm. What is the impact to florida of that influx . Guest well, florida is a big state. It can handle a lot of people coming in. We are used to waves of people from the caribbean, latin america, so i dont know how much of a strain there has been on the infrastructure and Government Services down here. What we are watching for closely as to see what effect those Puerto Ricans are going to have on the upcoming elections. They are flooding into orlando as conditions in puerto rico deteriorate. Ofer seeing the performance fema, the federal government, President Trump responding to hurricane maria, and as many Puerto Ricans will tell you, not responding as well as they going tove, that is possibly there is an expectation that that is going to drive a lot of Puerto Ricans to florida and vote democrat come the next election. Florida has 1000 different components going on. There are tons of people from the north who are settling down here, a lot fewer registered as republicans, so there will be balancing over the next years, but that will be a big number of Puerto Ricans coming here. The majority of which are expected to be democratic voters. Miami, usaomez in today reporter, thanks. Guest thank you. Host we have two more guests on this friday in addition in a moments. Holly harris will be here with the Justice Action Network. We will talk about prison and sentencing reform and the possibilities during the Trump Administration. Also, Daarel Burnette of Education Week will be here to talk about the state and condition of u. S. School buildings and efforts to invest in new infrastructure. Plenty more of your calls, coming up. We will be right back. This weekend on American History tv, on cspan3, saturday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on lectures in history, College Professor James Broussard on the lead up to the american revolution. Thingsill have a tax on and that the comes imports, and it is, glass, collected at the port and nobody else has to be bothered. Big surprise. More anger, and more fear. Reelday at 4 00 p. M. On america, assignment ironic, a 1960s film. To disdain himself in recent reaches of the jungle. Above all, he knows the ultimate by the specialed forces man in action, adjust or die. At 6 00 on american artifacts, a preview of collections for the u. S. Diplomacy Center Museum set to open next year. Arthur lee, america is first professional diplomat under these two treaties, and this one theted france mostfavorednation trading status, and the french were excited about being able to get into that economic trading war with great written after the war was over great britain. It remains in effect for several years after. History tv, every weekend on cspan3. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. Createdas apan was Public Service by americas Public Television companies and brought to today by your cable or satellite provider. Washington journal continues. Host at the table now, holly harris, executive director of the Justice Action Network. The topic is prison in sentencing reform. What is the Justice Action Network . Whether its goals . Are you a what are your goals and are you partisan or bipartisan . Guest i consider it to be the final frontier for bipartisanship, where democrats and republicans are really still coming together. Our work is unique. It is the largest eye partisan organization working at the tote and federal level reform our criminal Justice System, basically reducing prison populations. We are throwing nonviolent offenders in with dangerous criminals. What is happening . They are becoming better criminals and not citizens. That is what we seek to address with the reform. Host here is a headline from a meeting the president was part of yesterday in the washington times. Trump embraces Prison Reform, faust to help break this vicious cycle. I want to get your take on the meeting because your urbanization was part of a coalition there but heres the president on what he said yesterday. [video clip] President Trump we support our Law Enforcement partners, and we are working to reduce crime and put dangerous offenders behind bars. At the same time, we went to ensure that those who enter the Justice System are able to contribute to the communities after they leave prison, which is one of many very difficult subjects we are discussing having to do with our great country. The vast majority of incarcerated individuals will be released at some point and often struggled to become selfsufficient once the exit the correctional system. We have a great interest in helping them turn their lives around, get a second chance, and make our community safe. Many prisoners and upper turning to crime, and they end up returning to prison. Peoplerds of the 650,000 released from prison each year are arrested again within three years. We can help break this vicious , verythrough job training important, job training, mentoring, and drug addiction treatment. You know how we are focused on drugs pouring into our country and addiction. It is a big problem, even as we speak of this subject. We will be tough on crime that provide a ladder of opportunity for the future. Host holly harris, your takeaway . Guest a great plot twist of 2018 here in washington, d. C. I will tell you the vast majority of republicans and democrats in this country agree with every word President Trump just said. Look, he is addressing something critical of the federal level, which we have a lot of individuals serving time, lengthy sentences, and are not preparing them to reenter society. 95 of those individuals serving time behind bars are getting out some day, and who do we want to return to society . Better citizens are criminals . That is what Prison Reform is about. Host the u. S. Has the largest prison population in the world. And it isn currently a 1. 9 million increase since 1972, that from the southern poverty law center. We have the phone numbers on the bottom of the screen. Democrats call 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. E have a separate fourth line if you have experience in the criminal Justice System, whatever it is, give us a call. We would love to hear from you. 202 7488003 is her number. Back to holly harris of the Justice Action Network, with all of this, what concrete repose owes are you all talking proposals are you talking about and have heard from the president that have a good chance to become law in this congress . Guest the vast majority yesterday was focused on Prison Reform. There are different aspects of criminal Justice Reform. You have sentencing reform, Prison Reform, back end reforms, reentry programming, over criminalization issues. Yesterday, they were talking Prison Reform. What is that . Congressman collins from georgia and punishment jefferies are working together and filed the Prison Reform act. Backand reforms, so for individuals serving time currently behind bars, this is recidivism reduction programming, the type that if these individuals completed successfully, data shows that these individuals are far more less likely were far less likely to recommit crime in the future. We are talking programming like jobtraining, treatment for addiction issues. We are not addressing the core reasons what a lot of these people turn to crime to begin with, and what happens when they get out . They are going to return to addiction. They often returned to crime, prison, and that is the cycle of failure. Host more of the details, one of the ideas out there in an act would allow certain prisoners to serve the end of the sentences in halfway homes and require the attorney general to determine a assessment system for criminals getting them incentives to lower their risk. For lowlevel nonviolent offenders who successfully complete the program can earn tom perez which means it can get time off their sentences to save tax dollars, as well. Time off ofan earn their sentences to save tax dollars, as well. If you have a better impact on our Public Safety in general. Host there is also the sentencing reform and correction. Allows the overhauls, it more judicial discretion during sentencing, introduced by the judiciary chair and a bipartisan group. Guest leader mcconnell has said he expects the house to vote first. The process as we see it moving forward is with the collinsjeffries bill will likely be the foundational vehicle on the house side. Right now, they are meeting in person with advocates on the right and left. You know how rare that is in washington, d. C. I believe there will be a compromise struck. There could be first up sentencing reform in the Prison Reform bill. Bail reform could come up, and issues related to incarcerated women. That is the hot topic now and criminal Justice Reform. I think it will be the collinsjeffries bill and im hopeful movement is in it. Host to our calls now holly harris as you look at this headline from the washington examiner, criminal Justice Reform poised to take off in 2018. Kenny, you are first term florida. Caller hi, good morning. Curious, of the entire prison population, what is the percentage of illegal aliens in the system . I heard it is bloated. I do not know what it is but i heard there is a lot. Number two, i agree nonviolent criminals should not spend so much time in prison because it is a Graduation School for higher crimes. I understand that. Having said that, you said to educate these kids i doubt they got education in high school and Elementary School, growing up throughout the United States . I will hear the answer off the phone. Guest there were several issues. He started talking about illegal aliens. I am not sure about the percentage serving time at the federal level. There have been a lot of issues with the enforcement of the law in terms of those who have been convicted of crimes and what happens with deportation. That a lot of individuals conservative on immigration policy, like, for example, mike lee, and those individuals, are supportive of criminal Justice Reform and i do not want to conflate those issues. It is important to note criminal Justice Reform is an issue that impacts every american. One in three American Adults have a criminal record, which is shocking. I would say if you go to church sunday, but tear left and right, and one has a problem in the inner Justice System. The fastestgrowing segment of the prison population, yes . Take a guess. Host i do not know. Guest women are the fastestgrowing segment of the risen population. One of four entering are either pregnant mothers to children under the age of one. Again, sometimes we are conflating a lot of the hot issues of the day and we do not understand how broad the reach is with respect to who is going into our Justice System now and it is impacting every level of our society, and it knows no boundaries in terms of race, gender, or how much money you have. I think it is important to look at this issue with something impacting every family. Host when and why did the trend begin with women . Guest addiction issues. Women are most disproportionately impacted by addiction now. The vast majority of women serving time behind bars are there for lowlevel, nonviolent offenses. Many who are there for violent offenses actually committed violence against immigration who violence violence against those to committed violence against them. We see trauma and a lot of those individuals at a rate higher than the male side area there are issues side. There are a lot of issues we are not addressing out. Im hopeful that we talk about them more, we will have legislation filed across the country that is tailored to women. My home state of kentucky, we are going to see legislations louisvilleiled from and im hopeful it will address this practice of shackling pregnant women while incarcerated. Host holly harris has been a litigator with more than one decade of legal experience. Staff and chief of other senior policy roles for gop policy officials. Ed is calling. You are on the air. Caller basically, i feel the Justice System is find a way it is is fine the way it is. Adults have a lot going on inside the prison as far as education, so once they are released, they have a good head start. Most people do stay out, but i believe the president wants to add on a lot of extra things and it is fine the way it is if you ask me. Guest well, i personally do not believe that when you are seeing two thirds of listeners who are coming out of incarceration recommitting crimes, i do not think that is a very good for Public Safety. We can do much better. In fact, i want to give you statistics over the last decade that are most significantly reducing population through the reforms. There was a 14 drop in crime rates, conversely the most 10 states that increased their prison populations through the old tough on crime status quo system that the previous caller was talking about, only saw an 8 drop in crime. I think if we can have i think that if we care about Public Safety and in the polls we have conducted with the vast majority of the American Voters on right and left care deeply about it and support them. Host lets hear from my in maryland. Mike in maryland. You have experience in the criminal Justice System . Caller i worked 18 years in the criminal Justice System. Host what was your biggest take away if you could drop 18 years into a single thought or statement about the system and how it is operating . Caller it is interesting basically to hear peoples comments, and you can tell based on their comments they have no idea what the system is and what it does. Closely with prisoners and the prison population. For the most part, in fact, to enact adequate change, it has to start before people are arrested or have a criminal sentence. And when detainees get sentences, they had trouble getting adequate work. The work they get does not pay which does not pay to does not pay a suitable wage, and when you look at drug treatment within the facility or outside of the jail, it is inadequate and a sickly basically goes to the lowest bidder, who can offer a service to the state for the cheapest fee . And people who offer the service do not have to rehabilitation in mind. It is a process. When you look at the families impacted by these men and women who are incarcerated, it starts a trend and it is more like a generational curse and continues and continues. One of your caller asked the question, how many Illegal Immigrants are incarcerated . With the exception of this year due to the recent round up of all these violent ms 13 not, not member many. The majority of the prison population are low income africanamerican men from city areas who lack education, opportunity, and who in their minds do not have other alternatives other than selling drugs or doing public crimes. Host thank you for your observations. A question for our guest . Caller i am impressed by your guests resume. Be, in your would opinion, what steps would be taken to persuade the generation coming up not to follow in the guest first of all, amen to everything you just said. I want to congratulate your state of maryland. Moved a very recently package of reforms that i think is going to go a long way of making maryland a much safer place. For those that think that these issues are not good for politics, governor hogan, who was very supportive of these reforms, we have seen polling numbers come out that were outrageously good. To address some of my points, it really is amazing. Individuals coming out of prison have a tremendously difficult fact,inding jobs and in when you go to apply for jobs you often have to check the box that says, do you have a criminal history . A lot of employers, just in order to filter through resumes, they will just toss those resumes aside. In some cases, some of the most talented individuals in the country. It is not good for these companies and it is certainly not good for these individuals, as when i cannot find jobs and support their families and get education, what are they going to do . Return to crime, returned to prison. We are throwing good money behind bad. You have individuals who have been incarcerated and make 40 less in their annual pay than their colleagues. Again, that is really a problem that we have got to address. Otherwise, these individuals will go back to a lifestyle that is not going to be good for our community. Host from west paris, maine, independent color. Caller how can you talk about reform for prison when we have an attorney general who thinks the equivalent of harrow when heroin is marijuana . I am not a marijuana smoker myself, but that seems like a blatant disregard for facts. Who getnt of people thrown in jail for marijuana is ridiculous. That is my time. Host thank you. Guest certainly, then senator sessions was a real obstacle to reform over on capitol hill. Ow he is our attorney general however, the policy of the white house is set by the president of the United States, who i think sent a clear message to the hill and the people of this country and he brought in kentuckys governor to be the star of the show. In yesterdays roundtable. Attorney general sessions was there. I know quitens who well, is probably the most aggressive advocate for criminal Justice Reform in this entire country. He passed an aggressive felony expungement bill with a fiveyear crying fee crime free waiting. Waiting period. It was a really good first step reentry bill, but again, we believe it will lead to a decrease in recidivism in kentucky. He has done just about every executive action as you can do. In job training and education for individuals who were incarcerated. He will be working on bail i think by putting him in that room, President Trump in a clear message to capitol hill, you saw the statement of the president. This is what the white house believes, and that is the signal we have been waiting for to move these reforms on the legislative side. Host back to attorney general sessions, are you concerned that his reforms that he wants to do with marijuana laws are at odds with the Overall Mission we have been talking about . Guest what really frustrates me about the attorney general, and i come up like the caller, the legalization of marijuana, lets put that aside. What really frustrates me is that we are spending time and energy and resources talking about marijuana use and we have an Opioid Crisis in this country, and people are dying. We have seen mass shootings, domestic acts of terrorism. Dont we have bigger fish to fry than people smoking joints . I am deeply disturbed and i understand the law right now as it stands at the federal level, attorney general sessions say he is there to enforce the law, and i get it. But part of effective governing is using your time and resources wisely, and i do not think the vast majority of republicans and democrats and independents across the political spectrum agree with me on this point, it is not an effective use of our resources to be spending our time and hundreds of millions of dollars in valuable taxpayer resources fighting the marijuana epidemic. Again, people are dying and this is not a game anymore. Host david, levittown, pennsylvania, democratic caller with experience in the criminal Justice System. I am a handicap and was ever since 1974, so i always had a job for janitorial work. I had a job at the steel mill, the high school, the courthouse. Now after a while, things got really bad. There was no jobs. I ended up selling marijuana and only selling marijuana, no other kind of drugs. I ended up getting busted, went to jail, did my time. When i get in dish out of jail, i tried out of jail, i tried to get other jobs. Cannot get a job because i got a felony. Once you got a felony, you get no jobs. They look on your paperwork and you are not going to get hired. That is basically what i wanted to say. The attorney general, does he have stock in prisons or anything . He wants to lock up people, it seems like. Host lets hear from our guest. Guest the caller underscores exactly what we have been talking about. We always talk about being tough just locknd lets them up and throw away the key. 95 of the individuals who are currently incarcerated are coming out someday, and the caller illustrates what a lot of these individuals are facing. We expect them to come out and remain crime free, expecting to get jobs and get off the taxpayer dime, and yet we throw up obstacles to these individuals doing that. It just makes no sense. We are supporting policies through the Justice Action Network that will break down those barriers, policies like expungement, clean slate, the automatic sealing of criminal records like pennsylvania is doing. We are very hopeful that people will start to see that putting these individuals back to work is not just good for them. Lets put them aside. It is good for our communities, for our children, because these people are far less likely to return to crime and return to prison. Taxpayer dollars that we can save can go towards education, economic development, infrastructure improvement. Places where if we were investing more resources to begin with, perhaps we would not see as many people entering the Justice System. Host we read that your groups game is to incorporate civil Rights Groups, victims Rights Groups into this debate. How hard is that and how do you bring them together . Guest a lot of those coalitions came together organically, and they all had different perspectives. A lot of more progressive groups are very concerned about the Racial Disparities in our system. Groupsf the faithbased are very concerned about the breakdown of the family, and what happens to children, the collateral consequences and their parents go to prison. The children of incarcerated parents are fine times were likely to enter the Justice System themselves. This is becoming a generational epidemic. You know, of course the business groups, it is really interesting. Some of the most intellectual business voices in this country are now saying, we have got to break down barriers for the formerly incarcerated so that we can employ these individuals. We are a strong proponent of ban the box, of liability shields that would incentivize a lot of these companies to hire formally incarcerated individuals and individuals with records. Family of michigan wrote a beautiful op ed on his support for criminal Justice Reform. We have had some of the most influential business voices in this country, from the folks over at starbucks to coke industries, koch folks with very diverse political views that all the great agree on political Justice Reform. Host the justice at action network, thank you so much for your time. Guest thank you. Host we will be right back in a couple minutes with our final guest. He will be Daarel Burnette, state policy reporter for Education Week. The topic will be infrastructure in the schools, and more of your calls. We will be right back. Sunday night on afterwords, law professor pedal edelman looks at the way the court utilized the poor through excessive fines and fees in his book not a crime to be poor, the criminalization of poverty in america. He is interviewed by georgia congressman hank johnson. Terms overty and the in terms of the war on drugs or the victims of the war on drugs, how did poverty play into that . Men around, what happens to families . What happens to the men who have been locked up and all the collateral consequences, so they cannot get jobs, they are not allowed to live in public housing. Country,ws across the collateral consequences of one kind or another, it destroys somebodies life. If they were not poor when they went in the prison, they are definitely povertystricken for the rest of their lives. It is totally connected to poverty. Sunday nightrwords at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on booktv on cspan2. A,sunday on cspans q and author and wall street journal continue contributor with his book the accidental president s, various s truman and the four months that changed the world. Roosevelts funeral was saturday and sunday. Truman was terrified to give this speech. He laid in his bed and prayed to god he would not mess it up. He climbs the stairs to the pulpit, looks out and sees his wife in the crowd, and she is crying. She is crying because roosevelt ,s dead, the nation is in shock and she never wanted to be the first lady, never wanted her husband to be president , and she is frightened for him. Meanwhile, he has to get up and inspire confidence in his administration and the whole world. Whole world has to understand that america will continue, the war will continue. Q and a sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Washington journal continues. Host back at our table is Daarel Burnette, state policy reporter for Education Week to talk about infrastructure. Week released a special report on School Facilities and their conditions and what is needed. Guest what we found was that america spends about 99 million on School Facilities every year but most think there is about an 8 million bill 8 billion to 8 million gap between what we spend and should spend. There are several schools that are in dire conditions, collapsed roofs, no heating or air conditioning, and this is starting to impact the day todays goingson day to day goingson of schools. We saw this in baltimore last week with the cold, and West Virginia a year ago where there was literally a roof that caved in. Luckily, students were not in the school but this is causing Political Warfare between state and local governments of who should be paying for this. Host a roof that is caved in in a test a serious and extreme advantage example, but how is it gauged . What are they looking for . Guest there is really no standard here, and this is sort of a problem and that when you are driving past a school, it may look fine on the outside but on the inside, there are several deferred Maintenance Costs that superintendents are not paying for such as they may not have updated the boiler in a while, or the paint is falling apart. We saw in flint, michigan, and st. Louis that the lead piping had not been replaced in a few years. You can talk about the exterior and basic infrastructure of the school to what is not operating. Host are these state issues alone, or what is the connection with the federal government and those federal dollars when it comes to infrastructure in schools . Guest this kind of goes with k12 funding in general. There is a big battle over who should be paying for these costs, the state, federal, or local government. 82 are being paid by local taxpayers, and that is what happens since we have such an aging population and such a taxwary populace, most people when they go to the polls and they are being asked whether to vote for a bond levy or not, they do not want to be sacked with debt for the next 10, 15, 30 years. There has been a big push for the federal government to provide some of these funds, but it would cost billions of dollars and the big question is if they are going to do that. Host phone numbers on the bottom of the screen for Daarel Burnette. Teachers call this number, 202 7488000. If you are a school administrator, 202 7488001. Would like to hear from parents as well, 202 7488002. And everyone else it is 202 7488003. Daarel burnette has covered news and minneapolis and has been here before. There are 84,000 Public Schools in the country. The average age of School Buildings currently, 44 years old since construction. 12 years since major renovation, according to Education Week. The majority of schools surveyed by the National Schools were either in good or excellent condition. Then you go down the chart here and its a sizable percentages said key facets of those facilities are fair or poor. Tell us more. Guest i think one of the most startling things for me was the fact that we see just why disparities between communities. Because we have such concentrated poverty in schools, this is sort of the effect of segregated schools, you can go to one part of a town and have a brandnew facility with all the bells and whistles, technology, open classrooms, etc. , new football stadiums. You can go to the other side of the town and have a school in disrepair. This is sort of the thing that i think a lot of parents are concerned about, their Childs School but not necessarily the community nextdoor. Funding,e pay for our is america willing to share the pot of money . Host as we get our calls set up, one more pie chart. How facility spend compared to other states. You can see states are spending 32 of their money on highways and by far the second largest expenditure is k12 education at 24 . But those two pieces together. This is sort of the big question in k12 costs in general. Americans spend 650 billion a year on education, and you go into some of the schools and only 10 to 15 of kids are meeting grade level proficiency. K12 is a very big cost. A lot of people argue it is a worthwhile cost. I think because we have so many because we think have so many kids there are going to be a lot of School Buildings, so these costs just sort of built over the years. Host here is the statistics from the American Society of ivil engineers who give a d when it comes to infrastructure. Is there evidence that all of actualpacts the childs education . Guest there is research that shows this affects the morale of the school. Teachers are less willing to stay at a cool that has less facilities. The retention rate is low because most people do not work in conditions with no air conditioning or heating, where lead pipes are bursting or resting. There is evidence that this impacts the education of a child, that again, it is a want to pay for these costs or not . Host chris is up first, from michigan, a parent. We are talking education infrastructure. Thatr i think i do agree may be a lot of the funding should come from the federal side of it, because there is a lot of people, Property Owners not wanting to pay higher tax. On the same token, they should of theot more educational agenda back into the School Boards hands. That way, local people can be in control of the agenda and they would be willing to pay for it. Guest this is, again this is a constructionwith also. Who should be making these decisions . If the federal government does decide to pick up more costs for education, i have seen this in a lot of states that have decided to pick up more costs of facilities especially. Then you start having this question as to how they spread those costs. Which communities get which dollars . Who needs more money . That goes back to whose parents have the most political power to get those dollars. A lot of these states such as West Virginia, texas, maryland now, rhode island, which has picked up the majority of facility costs, there is a big battle as to who should get that money. No matter who the decisionmakers are, you will over what school gets repaired. So many schools are in need of infrastructure. This could be a tough question for communities. Host one of our viewers is tweeting, and i want to ask tellis us the story about baltimore that you talked about. Lawmakers call for fixes to help schools. There has been a cold snap. While hogan blasts baltimore mismanagement. Guest in baltimore, it is a question of whether the state or local officials should be paying for these costs. The state claims that they gave Baltimore City schools 60 million in order to put hvac systems in the schools and said that money was mismanaged and needed to be returned to the state. So you think that this is sort of like a simple thing, but what is happening is that because the operation of the school, with teacher salaries, inching costs, construction costs, as these costs go up, a lot of superintendents are deciding to pay for those costs rather than infrastructure. I covered a district in memphis in which the deferred Maintenance Cost ran into the tens of millions of dollars, and that is just because you talk about immediate concerns versus longterm concerns. These are just some real challenges for local superintendents. Host matt from plano, texas now. Good morning. Caller thank you for taking my call. I wanted to make a comment and ask the guest question. I am fortunate to live in a fairly wealthy property tax district with good schools. Andbig rub is that more more of our dollars are being sent to the capital, to the state to help equalize the funding formula between property wealthy districts and poor districts. What the wealthy districts are saying, we are going to keep more money here by building big, High School Football stadiums because those dollars do not get shared with the state. When i wanted to ask, there is this big debate about what is the proper funding formula between the wealthy and not so wealthy School Districts . I wanted to ask, what have you seen across the country that seems to be getting traction, a fair funding formula so that School Districts who need more resources can get the resources they need to upgrade their schools, but make it fair to the wealthy or tax districts that do not want to see hundreds of millions of dollars my School District alone, they are going to send 160 million to the state of texas. Host matt, thank you. Guest this is a part of american exceptionalism, in that we do not like sharing our dollars with our nextdoor neighbors. It is also the product hyper concentrated poverty. As our schools become more students,ed with poor the cost accelerate. There are all these funding extras that kind of show once you have a school that reaches this crux of 70 poverty, you will start to half start to have to pay for wraparound costs and excel are special education costs. Most states are repelled are controlled by republicans and they want to cut tax dollars. There is less money to go around , so you have what this caller is describing, communities trying to board their money. This is just sort of the product of fact that we just do not like sharing our resources. From camphe line hill, pennsylvania, orson is a teacher. Caller i come from a pretty wellfunded area in pennsylvania , so we do not have many problems with tax dollars that i want to ask you about educational funding. I have seen a lot of students, even student seniors, they go online to Digital Learning platforms. Sometimes i wonder if the federal government will ever make the initiative to put more of these learning experiences online, perhaps as a way of saving tax dollars. I know you study a lot of infrastructure and the building falling down, the roof caving in, but how much have you seen in that way of digital Educational Initiatives through grade school and high school . Host thank you. Guest we have done a lot of reporting on these online schools. One of the things that researchers keep coming back to is the fact that a teacher in front of a classroom is the most effective way for a child to learn. The classroom is one of the most earliest inventions in the world. It is just, it works. If we are talking about quality of education, we are talking about the value of schools. Facilities will not go anywhere anytime soon. Host we found this piece in the Washington Post, students are suffering for it. One of the points made in this piece is problems in School Buildings are not exclusive to high poverty cities. Thee are also reports of schools in montgomery county, maryland, one of the most affluent areas in this country have malfunctioning boilers. The piece goes ons to talk about action in congress, or the lack of action. Stimulus deal that senator Susan Collins needed, argued that School Facilities or local responsibility. Where is that debate now on congress . Is it changing at all . As we start to hear rumblings about an infrastructure bill that they might want to work on, how significantly when a bill like that, if at all, work with schools on infrastructure . Guest that is the reason why we did this report. There was word there would be a big infrastructure bill coming down. There is no telling if that is actually going to happen. ,hat would help tremendously but again, this kind of goes back to maintenance versus new School Facilities. Districts want to just upgrade their schools, some want to build new facilities, and these costs vary. In many cases it would cost more to upgrade a school than to build a brandnew facility, but taxpayers, in our findings, taxpayers are much more willing to upgraded facility rather than building new facility. As i mentioned before, it is about an 8 billion gap of how much we need and how much we would spend and where we would spend the dollars. Air, timinois on the is calling. Caller good morning, thanks for taking my call. On caller from texas talked the very point i hope to bring up, and i hope i am not too redundant. It has been long, my observation, and at least opinion, that the worst possible is you could fund schools property taxes. I wish property taxes were utterly abolished. I wish i mean, at the risk of sounding like a socialist, i am a conservative republican but i look around me and i see the results, and they are not good for america longterm. I dont know what the answer is, but i think i know what the answer isnt. I wish we would get away from taxes. Liance on property if i had an answer beyond that, i would give it to you. Thank you for your time and your guest. Host thank you for that point. You had a recent piece with this costs this headline. Tell us more. Guest i just moved from memphis and the entire Housing Market collapsed. This is an area with a large portion of black, middleclass homeowners. Their foreclosure rate was sky high. That all sorts of had a trickledown effect on the schools. Areare right, most schools most School Funding is tied to property tax, and this is relevant with School Infrastructure because you are taking a bond which tends to go is paid for with property tax dollars. This we will be talking about with equal access. Even if a School District, low income School District decides to pass a bond, they do not have as many dollars to pull form as Property Values are so low. That is where you have the have and have not system in america. Largeper that has the property tax base, they can take out a large bond. For a low income community, it will cost a lot more. It is a poor tax, essentially. Texas,iane from harford, is a teacher. Caller i am a former teacher and i did teach in connecticut. I am now retired. I want to speak to the fact that he is right now, with the failing schools, i taught at an Elementary School for many years. Our school had leaky ceilings, very uneven heat the further away from the boiler you were. Times osha in many because of teachers coming down with cancer and such. It was a neighborhood school. We had many children from that were from minority families. The parents, many of them did not have cars. They walked to school. They came to conferences, they would walk. T year, the town decided by the way, i taught in a very diverse community. Part of the community was very wealthy. They had their own homes and were highly educated. Last year, the superintendent decided he had to take a school and disband it because one of the schools used for childhood ed was being loaned to the college, and the college wanted that school back so they had to find a place for these little children. They took our school, took away the children, sent them all over town, and remodeled this school that i taught in. It was funded by the government. Someone said to me, you have to see the school, it is gorgeous. They took away as best this, and , and i said,estos i do not want to see it. They could have done it when we were there. Our school would not have been eliminated if the parents were taxpayers, because many were not. If the parents had more voices, if they went to another school where the parents were very vocal, where they had the money and the votes, they would never have dared to disband that school. These parents know, i dont know what has happened how they get to conferences. I dont know what goes on now. It was just so traumatic for me to know that the school was gone. And these parents, they were very faithful. They came for conferences and concerts, and i do not know what they do now, how they get to where they are going. It bothers me that this would not have happened to any other school in town where the parents have more of a voice. It is a democratically controlled town, but the vote, it is very important for these leaders to have the vote. They knew they would not get the vote. Host thank you for calling. Guest one of the things that i was really surprised by is just how much superintendents and School Board Members have become political. Some states ban superintendence from campaigning for new construction dollars. In states where that is not the case, superintendents have launched entire political campaigns, rallies, super pacs, in order to get taxpayers behind bond levy issues. What the caller is referring to, the superintendents, their tenure is shorter and shorter and one of the most challenging parts is raising dollars for School Interaction projects and redistricting and closing schools. While we see these facilities that are in severe disrepair, we have to remember that schools are the center of these communities. Instances, it is the only facility in the town. It is the largest employer, etc. You shut that school down or close it too early, you will get a Real Community backlash. This is a tough choice. Host who oversees School Infrastructure in the general sense . The schools themselves, the district . The others come in and oversee and point out problems . Guest West Virginia set up an entire board rate of state and of statemunity made and local Community Representatives who decide where those dollars are going, which is real Political Warfare. In many instances, because School Infrastructure is such a locally controlled issue, it is school board issues and the superintendent making these decisions. As americas poverty rate grows and they have such little political power, you see a real divide between where these costs are going. One of the interesting things that i think will happen under the every Student Succeeds act, we will have to start giving up School Spending so people divvying up School Spending so people can see how much they are spending compared to your Childs School. What schools are getting more dollars for teachers, more dollars for construction, etc. I think there is more to you,. Come. Host talk more about parents. What is their role and the role of teachers unions in this discussion . Guest one of the trends that is happening in recent years is that parents are starting to organize. This kind of comes out of a neighborhood association. Parents are starting to organize and say, we have this pta, this neighborhood association. Lets create a foundation for which we are starting to pay for the basic infrastructure of schools. I have seen parents paying for stadiums,football signs outside of the building. ,chools become more segregated concentrated poverty. We are already seeing a big divide, even within districts. This is not just between districts. Within districts, one school having all the bells and whistles and another does not. I think this is sort of a real question as to we see in some communities in which states and superintendents are starting to intervene and say the pta can only pay for these costs, i am not sure what the answer is. These are some difficult questions. Host host where is all of this going . Host what would you be looking for in the month ahead . Peoples spending requirements in the every Student Succeeds act of 2019, we will see states divvy up between school much is being spent. If there is a big federal ,nfrastructure cost coming down and then again in some states like rhode island and maryland, and you should look at your state of the state to see if they will start spending some of these dollars on School Infrastructure. There is a lot of money that is needed. There is a lot of needs in the schools. Host our guest has been Daarel Burnette, state education reporter for Education Week. Thanks a lot for your time and thank you for coming back and joining us. Guest thank you. Host we have about 20 minutes left. We will take a break and then we will do some open phones. You can talk about anything. Here are the numbers, democrats 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. You can comment via twitter and facebook. We will be right back. Newsmakers will feature steny hoyer this weekend, the democrat from maryland, minority whip. Newsmakers is at 10 00 a. M. And 6 00 p. M. Aswill show you a short clip congressman hoyer talks about the midterm election. Elementsu seeing the of intellectual wave coming, and what it a disappointment at this point if democrats cannot retake a house this year . I expect us to retake the house, the majority, and i do so because i think the environment is such that the American People are looking for some stability, again for some focus on the issues that they care about in terms of jobs, education, health , and ine environment terms of our national security. I think they view democrats as being able to provide some stability to our country, and very frankly, also to a proper systemnd balance to our when we see a president who is has trouble creating stability within the white house, much less within our government. I am very positive. I think we are going to take back the house. We see all over the country a real enthusiasm and energy in the democratic base. We see a Republican Party that i think in many respects, expects to lose control of the house of representatives. I dont think any of them would say that. In private conversations with some of my republican colleagues and friends, they say you guys are going to take back the house. We have excellent candidates throughout the country. Charlie cook says there are 91 districts in play. When we had two retirements this week of republicans, charlie cook was one of the prognosticators but a bipartisan and very concerned about the rightness of his judgment, says that both of those districts that republicans are retiring in are now going to lean democratic. We need to pick up 24 of those 91 seats, and i think we will pick up more than that. We see not only members retiring in higher numbers on the republican side than we have seen in the past, but we have also seen in those districts, a tremendous interest by Democratic Candidates running. Washington journal continues. Host open phones for just under 20 minutes. Here is the miami herald front page. Part of the story that burst out into the open yesterday afternoon about the meeting the president had on immigration with the senators. Here is what the president has tweeted most recently. He says i never said anything derogatory about haitians, other than haiti is obviously a poor and troubled country. Never said take them out. Made up by democrats. I have a wonderful relationship with haitians. Probably should record future meetings probably. No trust. Jake tapper sent a set of tweets based upon what he is hearing. How and why is President Trump denying the remarks that he reportedly said . I have some clarifying reporting from a source familiar with the meeting. It might shed some light. He tweets that the president did s refer to haiti as a hithole country although he did say that out countries in africa. There was confirmation of two different remarks by the president , talking about temporary protected status as part of the immigration deal. It was mentioned that salvadorans, hondurans, and haitians have that status. Haitians, the president said, why do we need more haitians . Take them out of the deal. Jake tapper tweeted in a separate part of the conversation when they were referencing the diversity visa , president lottery trump referred to people coming from africa as coming from shithole countries. You can talk about immigration or anything you would like. Richard from minette, alabama, republican line. React to your to last guest about the schools and infrastructure. I have always felt like the biggest resource this country has his children coming up. Is children coming up. If we cannot take care of them by giving them all equal education, then we will be in bad shape. I believe it is the governments part, the federal government, duty, really to make sure the schools are up to code. And they should finance these schools, especially on lower income levels areas, because that is where the majority of your crime comes from when these kids cannot go to school. You give them a school to go to, they learn, and maybe the cycle is broken there. The federal government should be responsible for these schools. Host thanks for calling. And he in owensboro, kentucky, on the democrat line. Caller good morning. I want to talk about the education. I am a bus monitor and i have been a custodian. Feel like the downfall of our schools across the nation prayer andy took the the 10 commandments out and the discipline, that is when our schools went down. We need to get the prayer and 10 commandments back in, get discipline back in. To me, washington needs to get out of trying to tell our schools what to do and they need to turn that back over to the governments,cal because our board of education in our state and local, they know what our kids need. We need it takes everybody. It takes the family and the schools, the teachers and everything to Work Together. If we all Work Together and get prayer back into schools and the 10 commandments, and get discipline back in, then we can help our kids to come up to where they should be. Host you said you have worked in schools and talked to people. We were just talking about infrastructure. What can you tell us about the infrastructure where you worked or visited . What was the condition . How often were things repaired and replaced . Caller i know like for instance in owensboro, they have good schools and the teachers are very dedicated. They work hard with the kids and everything. To me, i think that needs to be like all over. Host thank you for calling. Robert is up in randolph, massachusetts, republican. Caller thank you for taking my call. My comment is this i just think that it is the president , how he divides the country from using the word he used, and he should know better. His wife is from slovenia, and Eastern European country that is poor that is not a shining city on the hill. His wife is a dropout and she is doing a great job. But because she understands but a guy who has an autocratic impulse and shows mental and hess for the job, bought the stereotype of haitian and africans, people who come here, 43 are phd graduates, doctors. Low in to stoop that bringing that kind of subject when we should be talking about infrastructure, as Ronald Reagan said, anyone can move to france or any other country. America. N come to how can we as a country stoop that low . This is where we are at. You do have people that are calling who do not understand. This is not the kind of example that we should have in the white house. Some people were saying, i vote for him because he is a racist. He is a chaotic president and chaotic man, and this cannot continue. People should not because like you said, if you sleep with dogs, you get fleas. Notust wake up and we must stop the parties, because this is killing us. Host more of the followup to what we talked about earlier, the president denying he used those words about haitians. Dick durbin, one of the Democratic Leaders on the senate side fires back at denials. He said those hateful things and said them repeatedly. You can go to the hill. Com to read more about that. Anthony in vegas, good morning. Caller good morning. I want to make some comments about the situation and puerto rico. In puerto rico. They wrote an article a couple of days ago that was a bombshell. And it looks like donald trump had to send in his government officials into an armed standoff with the puerto rican officials because they were denying the people what they needed to restore their electrical service. I read this article and i thought that was a bombshell. And you guys were just talking about that story that all those people were imported into florida, and they were primarily democrat voters. On the surface, that looks like a ploy to turn the state blue again, but that was a bombshell story. Host where did you read that story . Caller the intercept. That is greenwalds publication, so we know it is not fake news. They call out both sides of the aisle. As to corruption. Host what does that story mean to you . You call that a bombshell. Caller it means the party i voted in my whole life purposefully made people suffer. I am a lifelong democrat. When i read that story, and you guys were just talking about it a few minutes ago, you said those people were imported into florida. Those are hundreds of thousands of democrat voters. That is not a way to turn a state blue. The way to turn a state blue is to have a good message, have a message about equality. You have a message about jobs. You dont make people suffer to turn a state blue and to possibly call the president racist. Host that was anthony. Anna is on the line from philadelphia. Toler i would like to reply the people who wanted to know how donald trump had the right to determine who came into this country. [indiscernible] congress in 1952 passed a law to entry to any class of aliens considered to be detrimental to the entrance of the United States. I would like to make a second point. In mexico, the general law, a population up to 2008 states they will deny entrance to any foreigners if they upset the equilibrium of the national demographic. In other words, if it changes the racial composition of the country. In order to emigrate there, they have to have sponsors. I feel that somebody ought to look into the wall that they have with guatemala and the human rights abuses. Donald trump, like any american, has the right to speak and they want to moderate his diction. Lets get it into the open and see the hypocrisy of some of these other countries. Host thank you for calling. President trump aching a lot more news today. He is having a physical, so we will hear more about that later or over the weekend. The New York Times headline talks about iran. President is set to unveil today his latest thoughts. He stops short again, they write, for reimposing sanctions on iran. Congressected to give and european allies a deadline to improve the deal, or the u. S. Will pull out. Post, aashington little bit of news about his previously planned trip to london. Trump blames bad deal for london cancellation, something he announced last night, but brits think they scared him away. Many londoners today offered their own reasons for the president canceling a trip. He was nervous about the expected protests that could greet him. It seems he is finally getting that message, wrote the mayor of london. Aump said he was canceling trip to the british capital because he was not a big fan of the real estate deal that had the u. S. Selling its embassy and moving to a shiny new building in south london as an area the location. D an off i am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in london for peanuts, only to build a new one in an off location. A few more calls before we have to wrap up. Tina in indianapolis. Caller thank you. Good morning. Three quick points. I think people need to stop insulting folks from other countries. We need to remember that they are human beings just like us, and they come to the u. S. To look and fulfill their dreams. Lets stop the insults, number one. Number two, i think dreamers should be allowed to stay in this country. They came as kids. They were innocent, let them stay. I think we need to have an absolute no tolerance for immigrants going forward. I feel very much that america is a very diverse country. We probably are the most diverse. We have everybody from everywhere. With that said, as the immigrants come there is such a thing as wage compression. If we look at the Construction Industry where my brother in law used to work, a white male, it is difficult for him to find a job in the Construction Industry now because of so many immigrants coming to the country and being exploited and making less wages. Stop, going lets forward, no more immigrants, let the dreamers stay, and stop insulting people from other countries as we do not know if they might be the next whomever. Take a deep breath, and thank you. Host roslyn from wilmington, delaware up next. Caller i just tuned in. You are covering so many subjects. I have to answer the woman who just called. I and my brother ended up in an orphanage, and my dad was highly educated. He came from poland to escape pogroms and all that. Our whole family was wiped out in poland. Luckily, he got into this country. So i believe in giving people refuge who need it, and as far as haitians, donald trump has to be very careful the way he talks. Surplus ofhave a College Educated people. They cannot get jobs. And so it might be good. You cannot say, just let the College Educated in. We need people to help with houses and all sorts of jobs. Thoroughly vet them, donald trump is right about that. I used to be a democrat. I voted for republicans once or twice. Now, 65 of americans consider themselves independent. I am going to vote for the person, not for the party. When it comes to infrastructure, why arent we hearing more about this in the news . We are not getting enough foreign coverage in the news. I want to know what we are doing in syria. I do not trust us whatsoever. I was in college during vietnam. I remember korea in high school. Really, as far as controlling nukes all over the world, we have invaded most of the world. No wonder why they want the nukes. Host we do have to wrap up and remind you that the cspan bus is back on the road as part of our 50 capitals tour. This kicked off in september and will visit all 50 state capitals by this coming november 25, the anniversary of the bus program. Our next stop is raleigh, north carolina. The state attorney general will be a guest on our program that morning. For more information about the 50 capitals to work, go to cspan. Org. We have a gust this from of justice from georgia augustus from georgia. Caller i am a democrat and i think the Democratic Party does not understand what is going on in america, and i am a black american. I was talking to a lot of black americans and a lot of them decided not to vote because we have not forgotten what bill clinton did with the crime control that resulted in millions of black americans being incarcerated. I think that to take and hold up the government of people that are not american citizens, and we have so many issues over here in america that affect americans who have inherited this country from their fathers and grandfathers going all the way back to the foundation of this country, is just wrong. When the next election comes, i am not going to vote for donald trump. I am just not going to vote. Host thanks to everybody who called during this washington journal. We are back at 7 00 a. M. Eastern as we are every day. We have to go to the floor of the house where they are having a brief pro forma session. There will be no business so they should come in and out, but look for a busy week next week. The house will be in order. January 12,. C. , 2018. I hear your i hereby appoint the temporary on the state, scientology ryan, speaker of the house of representatives. The prayer will be offered by Chaplin Conroy gracious