Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 02092018 20180209 :

discuss the latest on the robert mueller investigation and the dispute over memos. he former served on the house intelligence committee as senior counsel. >> on this vote, the motion is adopted without objected. ♪ it was 5:30 a.m. eastern time when house lawmakers voted to reopen the government. they did so after the senate approved the same measure 71 to 28 around 2:30 a.m. this morning. good morning everyone. the second government shutdown continues because the president needs to sign the proposal into law. at this hour, the government remains closed, the second government deadline, however the president is expected to reopen the government and keep it funded until march 23. also lawmakers agreed to a 2 year budget deal, we will spend this morning showing you how it unfolded last night and get your reaction. ,epublicans, (202)-748-8001 democrats, (202)-748-8000 and ,ndependents, (202)-748-8002 join us on twitter and facebook at journal@c-span.org. it all began in the senate when randa paul of kentucky objected to the 2 year spending bill because of the price tag. $2.1 trillion over the next decade. he sat next to his republican colleagues and asked, how come you were for democrats deficits and now you are for republicans deficit? [video clip] >> we have to have debate over what is the constitutional role, how will we have activated? there not allowed to amend bill, if we are given this the night before, no one reads it. it is done, a binary choice. their favorite word, a binary choice. i have nothing to do with that, i could not go home and look my wife in the face, my friends in the face, i could not go home and look for anyone who voted for me in the face and say, you know president obama, he was terrible, $1 trillion deficit. the republican deficits, they are just a little. the republican side is telling america, $1 trillion deficits are bad when they are democrats but they are ok when they are republicans. bad when the other guys do it but not so bad when we do it. this is the height of hypocrisy. this is maybe the uncomfortableness that this debate engenders, it having this uncomfortableness is maybe why, we don't want amendments. i will talk about this for quite a while and we will vote at 3:00 because they would not let me vote during the day and i will probably not get a vote but i think it is misguided. we should have had 20 votes. there were votes that democrats had that i would've voted no on but i would have voted to let them have amendments. this is a big deal. this is what congress is supposed to do. assess the spending. we're not going to have amendments? it is pre-decided by a secret leadership from both sides who have now clashed pens? we have one? a trillion dollar deficit? the american people are losing by this. host: senator rand paul, republican of kentucky yesterday , republican leadership than continuing to try to bring this spending bill, the stopgap measure keeping the government open until march 23, at the same time, the sides have agreed to a 2 year budget deal, they attempted to bring that forward numerous times. rand paul continued to object. as the senator said, they ended up voting around 2:30 a.m. in the morning. it was approved 71 to 28. what is your reaction? to a second government shutdown in 2018? let's go to chesapeake, virginia, independent. . good morning caller: thank you for taking my call. i am relieved. glad that both the senate and house have passed budget resolutions. i have been hearing people on both sides accusing the other sides of holding americans hostage over this appropriation. ,articularly the military federal workers, those who depend upon federal services. usually the most vulnerable among us. i would flesh that metaphor out. this is not the average hostage situation. depictough we often republicans and democrats as adversaries, they are teammates. this is not cops versus kidnappers, it is 2 parents holding their kids hostage over the monthly budget, employ each other to put the children's needs ahead of their own. if that sounds crazy to anyone, congratulations, you are still sane. host: do you like that they have sides, ather, the two deal hashed out by mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer? they are saying we will not operate under continued resolutions for the next 2 years. and 2019 we have agreed to spending levels for pentagon, domestic programs and we won't do this again? caller: exactly. i am glad cooler heads have prevailed. i feel for the dreamers. if there are losers in this deal -- they are still in the lurch. since thein march, military budget has already been taken care of, both sides can come together on raqqa as well. -- on daca as well. host: what do you make a rand paul's argument? caller: i remember hearing warren and other democrats say the same thing about the tax bill, when that was passed. this is pro forma on capitol hill. that is something we have to work on as americans, being more educated about what we are voting on. host: we will go to cliff in california. up very early in brentwood. republican. caller:. good morning host: did you watch last night? caller: no, i could not make it up that late. i fell asleep and woke up again and called you. host: did you know the government shutdown again? caller: i heard all about it. it looked like much of do about not too much. 2 weeks agounced daca fromuld delink the budget, so it was not going to shut down again. this drama is meaningless, sound and fury. i'm curious that people would buy in and feed this drama. that is washington dc we have just been setting up this dance over daca. i don't think anyone can stop it. america will get a great big win because we will get daca and the wall and the chain. i don't think anyone can stop it. dreamers are not going to get deferred status, they will get citizenship. that is gold. donald trump is offering citizenship to three times as many dreamers as barack obama ever contemplated. if chuck schumer walks away from this daca deal the republicans will pick up at least 2 senate seats on the motto that democrats denied g mertz citizenship because they are scared donald trump wants to make america white again. no, it looked was like they had the votes last night and into early this morning. the john mccain with rand paul objecting to moving forward. hill"is from "the newspaper. republican in leadership warned rand paul back and forth, that he would be to blame for shutting down the government. he tried to set up an initial vote on the budget deal at 10:30 p.m., 11:00 p.m., 1130 p.m., midnight, 12:30 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. but paul objected to each. there is one of those exchanges. [video clip] >> unanimous consent that notwithstanding, 22 at 10:30 p.m. this evening, the senate vote on the motion to invoke closure, to the senate amendment, hr 1892, further amendment. , all post closure time be yielded back in the senate vote on the motion to concur. >> objection? >> mr. president. >> senator from kentucky. >> observing the right to object, it is important that american people know why we are here. washington is broken. we're spending money like out-of-control. this bill will have a trillion dollar deficit, bad or worse as any of president obama's. why are we doing that when we condemned it on the other side? >> i object. >> mr. president. >> is heard. >> unanimous consent notwithstanding rule 22, at 11 p.m. this evening, the senate vote on the motion, concur, hr 1892, further amendment, closure is invoked, all post closure time he yielded back and the senate vote on the motion to concur. >> objection? >> senator from kentucky. >> reserving the right to object. it is interesting how much energy we are spending -- >> order has been called. >> vote. i object. host: the exchange there on the senate floor last night between senator rand paul and senator john cornyn, part of the leadership team from texas there. after that, fox news tweeted out at 11:00, "by rule, a petition to end debate in the senate ripens and is available for a vote one hour after the senate meets in the intervening day. so the senate meets at 12:01 a.m. eastern time. petition right for a vote." 12:30 a.m., "11 spectators in the senate public gallery now as we await 1:01 a.m. eastern time procedural vote on budget pact. 4 senators on the floor, mcconnell talking to rounds. republican chris smith sat in public gallery for a few moments." noting that when the vote happened, it was approved, 16 republicans voted no. mike emanuel for "fox news" noting that there were other no votes as well. all joining republicans to vote no on this, 28 no's. noting that senator mcconnell on the motion to proceed to a shelf bill to tea up immigration in the senate next week. that vote would occur at 5:30 p.m. eastern time on monday." promising after the last government shutdown, he would schedule and immigration vote, he has done so. as long as the government remained open. beginningnate will be the immigration debate on monday. inff -- excuse me, very eastern pennsylvania, democrat, good morning. what are your thoughts on washington? caller: well, about time the government starts talking to the people and not just the government itself. they have to start providing for us, not just them. we need our military stronger, we need reform, we need help. there is too much bickering back and forth. they are supposed to be bipartisan, working for us, not themselves. if they would put themselves in our positions and have to pay the health care, the bills, not get the compensations they get or the extracurriculars they get, then maybe they would find out what it is like to be a real citizen, and have to deal with the real problems. host: since lawmakers who voted for this 2 year budget deal would argue that is exactly what they did by agreeing to this, just from the " washington times." " agreeing to more domestic spending, the bill includes $80 billion in 2018 in defense, $85 billion in 2000 18, spending on domestic side would increase by $63 billion in 2018. within those amounts, the deal allocates $6 billion in anti-opioid grants and law enforcement money, $5.8 billion in childcare block grants, $4 billion to rebuild veterans hospitals, $2 million for the national institutes of health, and $20 billion to repair infrastructure. the package also features a 13 month suspension of the debt ceiling to allow for more borrowing. it also includes $72 billion in net emergency disaster relief money, $70 billion in tax breaks that were left out of last year's tax bill." are they doing what you want them to do by passing this deal? caller: what other going to do about all the illegals coming in here? they are getting free stuff that we pay for. social security might be cut. pay back the money they borrowed from social security, keep it going, it will never run out because social security is paid for for life, everybody pays for it. we give free stuff to free people who come into this country free, allowed to bring families in free. to peopleiving away, who don't deserve it. host: that debate takes place in the senate next week on monday at 5:30. house speaker paul ryan this morning, after they voted on the house side, to keep the government open, he said he was committed to a debate on immigration. another 2 paragraphs from this article. " the tenure budget window, without interest payments, this $2.1 trillionch in additional spending. deborah in new jersey. caller: i just wanted to comment. i thought senator rand paul basically is the conscience of the senate and the house and the congress by getting up and saying, how ridiculous it is that every year we keep on increasing, the spending limit. we keep on increasing the national debt, 20 chilean dollars and taking -- $20 trillion and ticking. yet they wait until the end and do not make the hard policy choices that need to be made to protect the american people. why are we in so many wars? all these interventions, trillions of dollars going into the military-industrial complex at the expense of the people in our own nation. u.s.nk we need more senators and house of representative members that speak the way senator paul got up. it was a few hours in waiting to pass whatever they did last night. the continuing resolution, however, we need more people to do this on the floor. to speak out on these very important spending issues. host: larry in alexandria, virginia, republican, hi. your next. larry? caller: hello? host: you are on the air. caller: hi, my congressman is don buyer. last night i called his office, about this legislation. i was told to refer to twitter. to check his twitter account. that is funny because he is the first one to make a fuss about donald trump tweeting all the time. i'm looking at his account, do you think he has tweeted about how he is voted? not. host: he voted no. local nbc, abc and cbs stations could not tell me that. i wish they would clear that up. don needs to go back to his car dealership. host: for the rest of the folks out there, you're wondering how your congressman voted, you can find the vote tally online. no'sis a look at the 186 including nancy pelosi of california. right before the vote she came to the floor and this is what she had to say about why she was voting no. [video clip] 4 principlesof the with the white house negotiating this legislation. it came our way. no one wants a shutdown. , it does notd bill do everything but it is a compromise. the one thing, the one message to allay fear, to build confidence, to honor the bows of our founders that we could have done, we the united states of america in this people's house want to assure you, we will allow the house of representatives to work its will. let the chips fall where they may. give us a chance to allay the fear in the hearts of dreamers and families, and remove the tears from the eyes of the statue of liberty, observing what is happening here. host: that was the leader of the democrats in the house last night shortly before the vote. she was followed up by speaker of the house, paul ryan. this is what he had to say about the spending deal that they agreed to and also what is next. [video clip] >> a few hours ago the senate passed this agreement with a bipartisan vote. 75% of democrats, 60% of republicans. coming together on a true compromise measure. that is a thing to celebrate. it accomplishes what so many of us have been fighting for, first and foremost, this agreement accomplishes getting resources we need to rebuild the military. long-delayedcludes disaster funding, aid from recovery for hurricanes and wildfires, fighting opioids, extension of important health care programs. this agreement will also allow us to step up this carousel of short-term funding bills that do nothing but hurt the military stop our ability to focus on other important agenda items. most americans, they are not even awake yet or maybe they are just getting up for the first shift. by the time they catch up with the news this morning, they will see one of two things depending upon which choice we make. either congress will have done its most basic responsibility, funding the government, and taking care of our brave men and women in uniform. i believe that is what the majority of the people in this body want to see happen. or, they will see a second needless shutdown in a matter of weeks. entirely needless. morelicans will deliver than our share of votes this morning. i urge my friends in the minority to stand with us on this bipartisan bill. my commitments to working together on an immigration measure that we can make law is sincere. let me repeat. my commitment to working together on immigration measures, is sincere. we will solve daca. once we get the budget agreement done and we will get it done no matter how long it takes for us to stay here, we will focus on bringing that debate to the floor and finding a solution. host: that was the speaker of the house around 5 a.m. this morning right before house lawmakers were to vote on a proposal to fund the government till march 23 any spending bill. c-span does not control the cameras in the house or senate chambers. you cannot see who is in the chamber listening to the speaker or what is happening, the different conversations on the floor. this is from matt fuller. before theyut right a weird feature of this situation is that members stayed on the floor for the actual bill and members are getting the chance to speak to a near full chamber." from reporters who stayed up all noting,ne minute to go, "still more than 100 dems haven't voted." noting that people were sitting on their hands, only 31 had voted at all. from "the washington post." " i wish i could take a picture from the gallery of everyone on the floor staring at the tally board." force dacarage to deal." all of this covered in the bill. the congressman in charge of collecting the votes on the move. approaching the freedom caucus. some of those members voted no. mccarthy, scalise, all leadership seem to be still for the moment." in the end, 73 democrats voted for the budget deal and 67 republicans voted against." paul ryan casts a rare floor vote in favor of the 2 year budget deal. new jersey, republican. good morning. what do you think about what happened overnight in washington? caller: i think it is a disgrace quite frankly. for a person i often disagree with, paul rand, to be the voice of reason? almost scary. here is the thing. where are they going to get the money for all this rebuilding of the military? for the funding, in the billions of dollars, after that major corporate tax cut? is,ou think the military there go to market, just like the daca is the go to for the democrats, how much of that military boost is going to the salaries and retirement benefits for enlisted men and women and veterans? for their health care? for their sheltering? how much is going to be assigned to cyber security in this boost of military funding when it are being fought on keyboards? not so much on the battlefield. we have countries that can take us down with the click of a button. far quicker and more devastatingly than they can with bullets and knives. up there in new jersey, let's hear from neil in silver springs, maryland, a democrat. caller: thank you for taking my call. i like the comments of the previous caller. i am a democrat, strongly for defense but i want it to be smart. i don't understand the combination of a tax cut, diminishing our revenue, and this large military increase. i am wary of increasing this. if you remember, we defeated the soviet union because it became bankrupt over spending on defense. the star wars initiative and all that. something like that could happen over here. it could cause bankruptcy, or spending on defense, we need to be smarter. we have cyber security, the big issue. i would like to comment i am against this wasteful spending on the military parade. host: ok. louisville, kentucky, independent. caller: [indiscernible] 40 million people -- [inaudible] where is -- [indiscernible] whistleblowers, brought him the v.a. in you a little -- the a in louisville -- [indiscernible] host: nancy pelosi, the leader of the democrats in the house, she voted no on this spending measure to keep the government open until march 23. year budget deal that will avoid more continuing resolutions, funding the rest of .018, as well as into 2019 weekend section, opening act, the 2018 winter olympics have begun in south korea. there is a reporter tweeting " u.s. vice president mike pence, in the world leaders whose with kim jong-un's sister, watching the opening ceremony." there is a picture of them in the booth. democrat, susan, back to what is happening here in washington. the government shutting down overnight and lawmakers in the senate and the house voting to open it back up. we understand this now has to go to the president for his signature. what do you think, susan? caller: good morning. a few callers ago, someone said rand paul is the conscious -- conscience of the senate. i wonder where the freedom caucus members were when they voted for the ridiculous tax bill? which put a real dent in the deficit. i find this laughable. all of a sudden everyone is standing up and complaining about more money when they should have done this back in december when they voted for something that was ridiculous. our sad excuse for a president wants to have some ridiculous military parade and spend how many millions or billions of -- wasting our money on that. you cannot have it both ways. if you want to get up there and say, we are adding to the deficit, they should have done this in december. host: listen to reaction from republicans on twitter. kevin mccarthy, the number two "my firm desire that we never again face the cycle of short-term funding resolutions followed by a single, all-encompassing built." marco rubio "great to see so much concern about liberals over debt." "randing tweeting out, paul's latest stunt demonstrates once again he is a self-centered loser." reaction from lawmakers. what is your message to washington as you wake up around the country this morning to a second government shutdown in 2018? randy in louisiana, independent. randy? good morning to you. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. this government shutdown, i am for it. the main reason, when i hear the bill was put out there, no one read it. is that true? host: i don't know who read it and who did not. 625 pages and they got it wednesday night. caller: this is what happened some years back, i think it was nancy pelosi, you have to vote on the bill, yes, if you want to read it. that is foolish. i will read it with a fine tooth home especially -- a fine , especially if the democrats wrote it. you have communists on both sides of the aisle and the only independent is donald trump. host: this is the argument senator rand paul was making last night. we have not read this. listen to what lindsey graham, republican of south carolina had to say in response. [video clip] >> the senator. >> i know what is in it. $150 million over the next 2 years that is absolutely necessary to rebuild the military in decline. if you don't believe me, ask the secretary of defense. some i like in this bill, some i don't. if the president of the united states, our commander-in-chief says he will sign it, if you will send it to him. the reason we are not going to send it to him right now, is because senator paul has every right to object. this is a debate worth having. what is the most important thing for a country? the deficit and that are real. to his credit, senator paul is willing to do the hard thing, like change the age of retirement and increase benefits. that is how you get out of debt. what we're doing tonight is putting money into the pipeline of the military, that has suffered, mightily since senator paul and others voted for sequestration in 2011. enough is enough. the day of reckoning is upon us. every hour, every minute matters to me. what i'm trying to tell people back in south carolina, if you are worried about the deficit, count me in. e, you haveo ther to do something very few will do. senator paul is of the very few. on this i will give him high marks. on national security, not so much. he said tonight on television, the best way to give the military a pay raise would be to withdraw from afghanistan. go to afghanistan before you say that. host: senator graham on the floor last night. this is what he was referring to. defense spending under the budget deal would go to $700 billion in 2018, you can see, 634 billion in 2017 while they operated under continuing resolutions. it would also be defense 605 billionreasing, in 2019. democrats on capitol hill, reacting to the deal, now that the threat of the shutdown and default argonne. -- are gone. " congress should have addressed this months ago." the easy path was to vote yes, even though this is unsustainable. we have an obligation to our children and grandchildren to tackle the difficult issues." "some people have called this drunken sailor spending but as a san diego and i have too much the drunken sailor and i will say it is super irresponsible." there is a large navy base in the san diego area. let's go to cincinnati. caller: how are you doing? i cannot tell you how proud i was of rand paul last night, everything he said. i was absolutely shocked at some of the things he said, that our government was doing with our money. i cannot believe we bought dvds , the gasfghanistan's station over there that they could not use, we bought them cars. that would be nice if they would do that for the american people. we are building schools over there, streets. not for one country, we are doing it for a lot. the democrats and republicans ought to give up their retirement, six months, three months, whatever, they ought to get a paid induction until they do their jobs. see most of them get voted out of office or quit because they are not doing their job. i cannot believe their budget is like it is. the military loses $800 million and no one cares to even look to see where it is? if they found this money and quit wasting these things that rand paul brought up we would have the money to use instead of putting this new money through on this budget. what the senator had to say on twitter, "tonight you could feel the embarrassment growing in congress as we expose hypocrisy. an unholys joining in alliance and spending free-for-all with democrats at the expense of intervals." forill always stand up fiscal responsibility and continue to call the republican party home to the ideas that led to americans trusting us with government in the first lace." -- in the first place." 71 lawmakers including republicans voted yes to open the government back up and continue funding until march 23 and at the same time, they have agreed to a 2 year budget deal. 28 senators voted no. the only absent senator was john mccain, senator from arizona, who is back in his home state fighting cancer. that vote taking place at 2:30 a.m. eastern time. , that they place could vote and they did so around 5:30 a.m. eastern time. 167 republicans supported the proposal. 67 republicans and 119 democrats voted against. there were five lawmakers who did not vote on this budget deal. william in louisiana, democrat, hello. caller: good morning. how are you? host: doing well, sir. what do you think about congress, government shutdown and this debate over budget deficit? caller: there is a lot that needs to be fixed. i have been driving a truck for over 20 years, the trucking industry itself, a lot of trucking companies, the years theys, for 20 have been refusing a program. we have a lot on the books they need to address, not just daca and the military, there are a lot of things. especially the big corporations. they need to take a look into that. a lot of abused money. a lot of things we have to fix to move on. host: jeff in portland, oregon, independent, what do you think? caller: i think the american people forget what made us such a prosperous nation in the first place. it was not free trade. it was the american system. it began with alexander hamilton and went to lincoln. when william mckinley was assassinated, that is when the american system stopped. what it talked about was, country, thee workers, infrastructure, we went from a civil war, the most bloody war in our history, 1865 to the mid-1880's, we were prosperous and had the highest standard of living on earth. how did we do that? we invested in the people. our budget is broken down to three things. entitlements, social security, we pay for that with tax. we should lift the cap on social security. every dollar you make is taxable. that will pay for it. medicare, medicaid, there are other ways -- we could find those things. the fence? -- defense? i remember donald rumsfeld giving a speech in 2001 about $2.3 trillion, unaccounted for. trillion. host: we have covered a hearing recently about the audit of the pentagon and where the audit stands. on www.c-span.org. you are talking about dealing with entitlements, a large portion of the budget, "the thatngton times'noting they can ignore the budget. function hasortant already taken off. without a budget, republicans will forgo the chance to reform entitlements." caller: right. -- weing is, we are given have given defense all that money and they cannot account for it. we need to be spending, improving, our infrastructure. also, think about this. the government is investing in education. say it costs $40,000 to send a person to school to be an electrician. they would have been a custodian if they had not had that money. how many hundreds of thousands of dollars more will the government get on income taxes? get investment, they would hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra taxes. that is not a giveaway. paying for education, it is a long-term investment. we are so obsessed with short-term gains. it is killing us as a country. we don't take a look -- the two years -- the bill we just passed, while. that was a miracle. it is a disgrace. host: we got your point. let's go to kurt in arkansas. sailor,i am a retired for members of congress being referred to as spending money like a drunken sailor, i take offense. host: why? caller: when we are out of money we have to quit spending. host: [laughter] congress should take a hint from a drunken sailor. quit spending when you run out of money. if i can say this, i think this presidentuires the between the first monday of january and the first monday in february. i would ask, did the president do his part of the job? host: the budget is coming next week. the president's budget. caller: he is tardy. did the budget the congress just passed this morning, is that the budget the president, that the president submitted last year? host: no. what they have to do now, is 2018, what washington refers to as an omnibus. all the spending bills in one bill. they will try to pass that by march 23 for the continuing resolution -- before the continuing resolution runs out. they have agreed to spending levels for 2019. "the new york times" has this chart put together for where the 2 sides agreed to on defense and nondefense spending. democrats want more domestic spending and the military funding increased, higher than it has been under these continued resolutions. republicans wanted the military spending up as well. it would contribute to rising deficits and debt. according to preliminary analysis, the debt has surpassed $1 trillion by 2019, not seen since the recession. barbara in pennsylvania, democrat, hi. caller: hello. host: you are on the air. caller: three points. rand paul was on the spot. if they appoint people to check where the money is going out that we don't need, looking for things that don't count, we can get all that money back and pay off the debt. should becomee citizens. the puerto ricans should be able to vote, as they are citizens. this is back almost like slavery. the last thing i want to say, the white house is infiltrated with russians. we are getting ready to turn over to a regime like russia if we keep laying around and not watching what is going on, not speaking up. trump is leading us to that. they can be fools and don't speak up and do what we have to do. we better get out and vote. host: there is part of our conversation on twitter from our viewers. mark stone, "to get things done in the senate, if you want more money for the military, you must give more for social programs." "now thatford says, the tax cuts have exploded the debt, how they justify cutting social programs. hate." alabaster, alabama, independent, you are on the air. caller: hello. host: good morning. caller: good morning. i grew up as a republican. this is a party i don't even recognize. toraveled all over europe several communist countries and lived there. our republican party, i do not see what part of it is family values anymore. they don't care about the needy, the poor, the hungry, the daca children for instance. trump is tearing down everything we have in the united states. he is in office for his self, his family and his rich friends. host: a reminder to you and others, turned on the tv, listen and talk through the phone. john, republican, in new york. good morning. caller: good morning. i think you all need to grow up, acting like babies. i think the money should go to -- military, a better way [indiscernible] our military is the one taking care of us, giving their lives to protect us. [indiscernible] immigration coming in here, we need to stop it right now. john 100% -- i support trump 100%. host: reaction from lawmakers after they voted early morning in the senate and house to reopen the government and fund it for the next 2 years. liz cheney, republican from wyoming, "i voted in favor because after nearly five months operating under continued resolutions, this bill is the only way to immediately provide necessary funds for the defense of the nation." kerry sewall tweeting out, "i voted to pass the budget deal because it offers long-term ,olutions to challenges hospitals, alabama families and every community impacted by the opioid epidemic, this rings relief and support." " unnecessary and unwise spending on nuclear weapons to subsidies for cotton, this continues, the explosion of our national debt. it sentences our children to deficits for years to come. that miss an opportunity to show fiscal restraint and repair a broken congress." janice, good morning, independent. what do you say to washington this morning? caller: it stinks. they always have the budget cut, that is wrong. host: what was wrong? you have to turn down the tv and listen to the phone. al in missouri, democrat. caller: yes ma'am. i know you know this. they passed the bill, social security, tuesday night, at 8:45 p.m. nancy know, the speaker of the house know, never bring that villa. that is where the fight started. they won't bring that built up. that is all i have to say. everybody else, the anon -- [indiscernible] host: cleveland, ohio, independent. caller: my name is jonathan, i have three simple questions. --, who do rio 22 trillion who do we owe $22 trillion to? host: why the u.s. the question -- why do you ask the question? caller: we're trying to settle a budget to pay our government, who are we paying $22 trillion to? when we payuestion, the bill we owe, where are our taxes going to? who is it paying for? host: jonathan's thoughts in ohio. jesse in maryland. caller: hi. [no audio] jesse, you have to listen, i will put you on hold. you have to listen to your phone and talk to your phone. are you ready? caller: [indiscernible] i would give donald trump no money. the way he is acting, -- [indiscernible] host: moving on to david in west virginia, independent. caller: -- host: david? you are on the air. the 23rd, they will wait until the 23rd of march and then debate the funding bill, the omnibus bill. -- to sign whatever those. they will either do a cr for a few more days or sign six months into the year. september, the same boat, they will not have the bill, they will do another cr. it is election year. even though they are great for this 2 year spending agreement they will still do cr's. year this is how the 2 budget agreement breaks down. agreeing to democrats demand, the bill includes $80 billion in defense spending in 2018 and $85 billion more in 2019. the domestic side would increase by $63 billion this year and $68 billion next year. allocating $6 billion to opioid grants, 5.8 billion dollars in childcare block grants, $4 billion to rebuild hospitals and $20 billion to repair infrastructure. suspension for the debt ceiling to allow more borrowing. $72 billion in net disaster money, tax breaks, and the repeal of the obamacare bill that was supposed to real in medicare spending. that would add to the deficit. for a responsible federal budget said the deal would pave the way for $290 billion in new discretionary spending this year and next." what is your reaction this morning to what washington agreed to? caller: here we go again. it is comical. when the republicans are in power, the democrats complain about things like, they are not ending on this or too much on that. when the democrats are in power, the republicans get high and mighty, oh my god they are spending crazy, out of control, we have to take care of the budget and deficit and on and on. the 2 dogs got together and the only one who had courage, integrity, about the truths of this country was mr. rand paul. i salute him and give him so much praise. when we say, the government is going to spend this and that, the question is,, do you have the money to spend? of course not. we will just borrow it from china, print it. the whole thing will collapse. it is insanity times 10 when you think about the military, they destroyed $100 million worth of military equipment because they did not want to bring it back home, that might fall into the hands of the enemy. $200 million in missing money. the whole thing is insane. it breaks my heart. the way it should have been was they should have voted, single bills. do you want to support the military, yes or no? all of this -- you know they came up with a great idea. let's get rid of the budget caps. yay, america express. all americans will pay for it. america will collapse within 50 years and it breaks my heart. host: for you and the other caller who talks about, who owes our debt? $20 trillion, most headlines focus on the united states owing china, one of the largest foreign owners. how does that work and what does it mean? the treasury manages u.s. debt through public debt, 2 broad categories, governmental holdings and debt held by the public. this is the portion of the federal debt owed to other federal agencies, totaling $5.6 trillion. why would that government oh money to itself? itself?oney to by u.s. treasury's, by owning them, they transfer excess cash to general funds. one day they will redeem notes for cash. agencies owning the most treasuries, social security and there is the breakdown. military retirement fund, medicare, etc. debt held by the public, the public holds the rest, $14.7 trillion, born investors hold half and one fourth is held by other government entities. nick in prince frederick maryland, independent, -- caller: short term, the bill was good. the military has talked about concerns, even the air force was talking about a more in division and dealing with cyber threats. i'm sure they are celebrating. long-term there are concerning signs. elder statesmen are retiring, not coming back. we cannot seem to get a month or two down the road without the most basic function of government. in my opinion, america will struggle to define who we are going to be. the beauty of our system is, if citizens rise up and run for office, who we are will end up being defined by the makeup of the house of representatives. we still have that. the matter how bad things seem. the people who listen every day to c-span and know what is going on, if they rise up and run for office, i still think there is hope for us. in california, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. [indiscernible] this is the first time i have been able to get through. i'm so proud for the people who called for me. i think we are all on the same page here. i supported rand paul, when he ran. [indiscernible] to contribute -- [indiscernible] democrats.ia, all anyone, not a shot for opinion -- [indiscernible] this -- i am old. i'm sorry that i am old because my mind is there. i wish i could have more years, that i could do the things that have to be done. [indiscernible] i would not mind running for office but i am too old to run. i'm not that old that i cannot support -- calling the koch brothers, i joined their organization, i'm joining the republican party in the state of california. in my immediate county. marin county. i'm doing what i can and i want to support rand paul and i will continue to do so. in, what folks calling i'm doing -- [indiscernible] i think we can get it together. i'm listening to cnn and all they are talking about is not the budget, they're talking about ron porter, about it just went on for hours. harassment is important, but not as important as our fiscal future. host: i believe that there. let's go to dawn in north carolina, democrat. caller: thank you for all the efforts on c-span. they really helps the public. -- it really helps the public. billionion is mere $17 that you just read that goes to additional tax relief -- how does not get in there after passing such a tax bill and who will particularly benefit from that? host: all those stories are yet to come out as reporters and other stick through the 600 plus page bill. caller: i hope that we the people and not the people that own us. thank you very much. host: "the washington post" does note this about the two-year spending bill. mcconnell hopes to protect to kentucky colleges and there are provisions that will benefit colleges and mcconnell's home state of kentucky. one will not charge tax on endowments and a provision that will protect maria college. billion inuses $1 endowment to cover tuition for students.imately 1600 senate republicans fought to protect the college during the tax deal by revising the definition of applicable educational institutions from those with at least five hundred students to ones with at least 500 tuition paying students. adding those two words exempted this college in kentucky. valerie in brooklyn, democrat. caller: good morning. the republicans in congress only deficitst the debt and when there is a democrat as president. don't listen to what they say. just watch what they do. that's my comment. host: ok. we will keep this conversation going here after a short break. we will come back and talk with sarah ferris who has been covering this budget debate for politico. we will talk to her about what happened in these early hours this morning. later on, amazon, berkshire hathaway, and j.p. morgan chase are their own independent health care company for their employees. we will talk to margo sanger katz about how this merger could shake up the health care market. we will be right back. ♪ >> sunday night on "after words," patrice cons keller's with her book, "when they call you a terrorist: a black lives matter memoir." >> as we created black lives matter, we need we have to get people on board. we also have to interrupt when people try to co-opt black lives matter. we spent a significant amount of the first year ensuring it was not co-opted and challenging people in our own movement and people to not say our lives matter and say other communities matter, but to really focus on black people and be ok and be allies and be a solidarity with black people. then we took it out to the world. words" sundayr night at 9:00 eastern on c-span twos book tv. "q&a,"ay on c-span's "new york times" staff photographer doug mills talks about the photos he took while covering president trump. >> obviously he enjoyed having us around. i really believe despite his constant comments about fake news and the media and so forth, i really feel he enjoys having us around because it helps drive his message. it helps drive the news of the day, which you can do every day and does every day. he is constantly driving the message. having us around really allows him to do that. 8:00&a" sunday night at eastern on c-span. announcer: "washington journal" continues. ferris at our table covers budgets and appropriations at politico. what was the mood in the senate as he were watching senator rand paul continuously object to republican leadership trying to move forward with the stopga p bill? guest: the mood was sleep deprived. you had a lot of senators not used to being up this late and they were really blame rand paul for this. this is something he said he was going to take a stand and do not care about the consequences. he went to make sure that this massive deficit busting package did not get through without a fight. he certainly put on a fight. he was on the floor from 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon until 1:00 a.m. as soon as as time ran out and the senate had a chance to vote, they got through very quickly. it was a very quick pace. they had the regular passage vote all within a couple of minutes. the senators were ready to get out of there. host: so it passed in the senate and went over to the house and passed over there as well. you had democrats objecting in both chambers and republicans as well, but they had the numbers to pass it. what happens now? guest: we finally have the top line spending levels that everyone on capitol hill has been asking for for nearly a year now. appropriators can get to work. they can start writing the trillion dollar omnibus bill that will fund the government. what is important to remember is that the bill that was just past is not a full year spending bill. this is the budget deal that has been needed to get past so they can start to write the full year spending bill. there is a lot important legislative policy items in this bill. that is why rand paul did take a stand. he did not want to forget that there is a massive debt ceiling increase. we do not know how much exactly that will ultimately cost. there is a host of programs that will be authorized, including children's health insurance program, community health centers. there's a whole range of tax extenders both on the medicare and energy side. these are multibillion-dollar packages that were not able to get through on the floor as standalone. there was an $89 billion disaster package, the largest stand-alone bill that congress has ever passed. this is the biggest fiscal package since at least 2009 and republicans did not even vote for this under obama. now we have a majority of republicans in the house and senate supporting it under president trump. host: we had one caller say they are going to wait till the last minute. will they be able to come quickly and pass this trillion dollar omnibus bill? guest: i do think they will wait until the very last minute, but that's because it takes a while to write these bills. you had the appropriations committees in the house and the senate. they are in charge of 12 separate bills and they have not been able to make much progress on those bills without knowing how much congress can actually spent this year. this is a very abnormal year. the house did pass its own appropriations bill on the floor but added number they essentially decided. this was not something confirmed into law. there are numbers that we now see. they have $300 billion above the sequester era caps. appropriators can get to work and say we have this much more money. it's easier to add money then subtract money, so they do think it will be a faster process than it might otherwise have been if they had to do with the sequester cuts scheduled to kick in. now they will need the full six weeks to get to work and get to work on these very large spending bills. a lot of the work has not yet been done. host: at this time every year the president's budget is expected. when will this happen and what will look like? guest: the comes out this monday. there are no plans to delay this. it will be coming out on monday and it will be a massive document that frankly capitol hill is not looking forward to all that much. republicans in the house and senate told me this is something they know will be important to show trump's priorities, particularly in a midterm election year. they know what he wants to do. they heard him in the state of the union address. he has been talking regularly with lawmakers. he does not need a budget he wantsto tell them to achieve infrastructure or a massive boost to the pentagon budget. the numbers in the document will not be as important as it is writing budgets on capitol hill because congress passed a budget with little regard with what the white house is putting up. host: will the president's budget be drastically different than what they just agree to? guest: it will be drastically different because what they agree to was a record level of domestic funding increases. the white house put out a statement yesterday and sourcing this deal largely because of the huge increases to the military spending, which president trump has been asking for for more than a year now. the white house did endorse the deal, but it said the domestic spending level included was higher than it deemed necessary. this is something the white house has already made clear that it does not think that departments like the labor department and health and human services and education department -- it does not think it needs as much money as it got. the reason it did is because it's the key reason that democratic leaders agreed to back this bill. that is why they agreed to support a $700 billion military budget next year. host: will the president sign any sort of omnibus bill that gets passed before march 23? guest: he has indicated that he would could . a lot can happen in the next six weeks. we did not see much about the border wall or border security and the latest budget deal or short-term spending bill. immigration will be taking hold on capitol hill next week. leader mcconnell set that debate up in the wee hours of friday. we will see all of next week consumed on the immigration debate. we could see president trump bringing up the border bill shortly after that. host: 67 republicans in the house voted no. 16 republicans in the senate voted no last night. who are those no votes and are they likely to vote no again on the trillion dollar omnibus bill? guest: a lot of the republicans who voted against this don't vote for the omnibus bill anyway. and the senate, we had a large amount of so-called budget hawks. members who have been trying to get mandatory spending under control for some time now. in the house, you have some of the conservatives you would expect to oppose this. the house freedom caucus took an official position against the bill. a larger more diverse group of conservatives did not take a formal position. a lot of their members opposed it, but they did not require their 170 members to oppose it. this is something we knew a lot of conservatives were going to a oppose. it is hard for them to refuse the military increases when they are hearing on an almost daily basis from defense secretary james mattis that this is something without it that the military would not be of the readiness preparation that president trump has been talking about for a year. host:'s airfares here to answer questions -- sarah ferris here to answer questions and comments. the senate voted 71-28 to move forward on a continuing resolution to keep the government up and reopened. it closed at midnight. also to the budget deal, the house scrambled around 5:30 a.m. eastern time. in virginia, democrat, good morning to you. caller: good morning to you . what you just said about social security being the biggest -- that meansdebt that congress has taken social security money rather than leaving it in the bank and gather interest so they can pay people like me who are retired. they are spending it. rather than pay it back, now they want to cut social security so they don't have to -- what is it? $6 trillion they owe social security? they don't want to pay it back. that's why they want to cut social security. host: let's take up this entitlement reform question. if they have a two-year budget deal in place, one of the news reports today said they cannot -- and they decide not to pass the budget in 2018 and 2019 -- that they cannot do entitlement reform. guest: it's important to clarify here because the budget deal that was passed yesterday was a bipartisan setting up for spending bills. the white house proposal and the republican budgets that we would see on capitol hill would not have any effect except for setting up for the special budget tool that would allow for something like entitlement reform to go through without the filibuster. also how we saw the tax bill passed and the republican attempts to repeal obamacare. that the question is whether republicans will attempt to pass their joint resolution an attempt to do entitlement reform in 2018. from everything i've heard from republican leaders so far, the answer is no, which is something that democrats say is a relief. they were concerned about potential cuts to particular medicaid and perhaps medicare and food stamps. social security and medicare were not so much on the table for this. president trump said from the campaign that he is not looking to cut from beneficiaries. there are ways that republicans are looking to do either provider cuts or other reforms to medicare and social security. it is difficult to do because these are mandatory programs and would require a separate bill and something like a reconciliation bill. you cannot just do this in the regular appropriations process. that's one of the biggest things that republicans are worried about because they cannot actually tackle the growing share of mandatory spending through the already difficult appropriations process. host: in alexandria, virginia, independent. caller: thank you for taking my phone call. i'm just curious about something i heard on another network this morning about nascar being mentioned in this bill. it is just kind of ludicrous that nascar, a multimillion owned byrporation opene private corporation, is mentioned on capitol hill in a bill with a shutdown. it's ironic that one of the major tracks in the nascar circuit is in kentucky where rand paul and mcconnell are located. maybe someone can delve into this stuff and what is going on in this bill that the average person will never know about. host: sarah ferris? guest: that is something not surprised the all. -- not surprising at all. even members of congress have not had a chance to read it. this is a sex hundred 50 page bill and we got it at 11:55 p.m. -- 650 page coul bill and we got at 11:55 p.m. on wednesday. that is why senator rand paul held it up. this is something that combined several dozen tax extenders. these are a lot of tax breaks that were expired and not included in the 2015 package or the bill that we saw december. there were tax benefits in there for horse racing and tax benefits for when credits. pretty much running the game it everything that did not get included last time. it is difficult to piece apart this 650 page bill if you are not looking precisely for what -- if you're not looking at it for precisely something that you wanted in there. host: that will be the next homework assignment for you and other reporters on capitol hill to dig through this 650 plus pages and figure out what's in it. let's go to tom and hawaii, republican. caller: i appreciate you taking my call. the point i would like to make is how inefficient this is for our country. not only is it difficult to plan existing projects that are going with furloughing employees, people on travel and working on projects now have to return home mid project and not complete the work. then to complete the work, they have to travel again to work on projects. it's a complete waste of money projects and have uncertainty on projects that are going on and how to plan for them. thank you very much. host: sarah ferris? guest: the uncertainty is something that members of congress have been complaining about for the past five times the have voted on the short-term spending bill. we have to wait another six weeks to have actual legislation get this through september 30. we have heard the most from military leaders. secretary mattis has gone to both the republican retreat and got up to the white house briefing room and talking individually with members of the there are saying that army and navy departments that cannot start new projects. they are essentially ground to a halt unless they get a full year spending bill. the repeating cycle of continuing resolutions is really damaging to the military. that is something that republicans have hammered into them for the last several months. that is why it was so difficult to back another short-term spending bill that was made easier by the fact that the military budget will now be $700 billion for fiscal 2018 and 2019. that is something that was pretty much the main reasons republicans would vote for the package. host: defense secretary mattis up on capitol hill earlier this week and testifying. we covered that hearing if you want to listen more to what he had to say and arguments for not operating under continuing resolution. schumer, senator chuck the minority leader who cut the deal, praising general mattis and his role in this. guest: democratic leaders have never not wanted to fund the military. the argument that they are making since 2011 and the start of sequestration when both the republicans and democrats saw domestic and defense funding basically on the chopping block and being forced to stave off these funding cuts every two years or so, democrats have said we want boots for the military and a strong national defense. we just want domestic funding such as the education department and the health department and having these larger increases as well. under sequestration, both the mastech and defense have seen cuts slowly over time. it seems like we will have a reversal of that. these increases were far higher than both the 2011 and 2013 budget deal. we are going to see both sides of those ledgers, which have been huge debates of the spending talks in the last year. it seems to finally be evening out for a little bit. host: but skoda tammy in minnesota, democrat. caller: good morning and thanks for taking my call. i have more of an observation. we are about 45 minutes before the government is due to open and trump has this bill on his desk and still has not signed it. it is being reported that he has not signed it because he is waiting for "fox and friends" to get over. host: where did you hear that, tammy? caller: i just heard it on cnn. host: sarah ferris? guest: there is flexibility for workers to avoid urloughed. they can spend four hours at work preparing for a shutdown if they are under shutdown protocol. there is a bit of flexibility so federal workers can still come in. host: charles in tennessee, independent. caller: i don't really have a question for your guest even though she is very knowledgeable. i have a comment. that most of the congressman and senators are egomaniacs trying to feather their own nest and we should have term limits. the government is not supposed to do certain things. it's not supposed to be a profession. thank you. host: glenn in lancaster, california, republican. good morning to you. caller: i'm doing good this morning. here's a good question for this reporter here. we should add up all the money that was put out in quantitative easing and put that into the military and pay back social security with it. could you give us a number on how much money under the obama administration that was put in quantitative easing through the federal reserve bank to prop up the stock market and fluctuate prices for stocks and bonds and how much money was made by other than united states citizens? you can put it into the military, which are american citizens. and you can put it into the social security and payback american citizens. add up that money that was not appropriated by congress. host: can i ask you? senator rand paul was making the argument. republicans not ok with the deficit under president obama that seem to be ok with deficits as long as there is a republican in the white house? caller: the same question could be to the democrats. why was $10 trillion spent under obama with the democrats and they are ok with that, but we don't even mention that? how much money has been spent on foreign-born invaders in the united states, but democrats and republicans? how much money was spent on iran when they only had $499 million? who okayed that money? host: got your point. we will go on to stephanie and highland point, democrat. caller: i just wanted to know. say randall, i want to paul does not have any standing to make comments or complaints about the budget exploding because didn't he vote for the tax bill? the next thing i wanted to say was it is kind of scary because they are ballooning the deficit, but with that said, with the tax bill and the budget deal, what are we talking about? $3 trillion added on to the deficit? does any of that contain infrastructure spending? host: let's talk about that. guest: there's not too much infrastructure spending included in there yet. there's about $20 million set aside for the next two years and appropriators will decide where that goes. it is approaching at least $2 trillion if you take into account the tax cuts and the cbo estimated that would cost over 10 years. the cost of this bill is about $320 billion all things considered. that includes the tax extenders and disaster relief. there are those on capitol hill that note this is two years of raising the sequester, pushing up the spending cuts yet again. that,gress does not do then the costs are way more than $320 billion over a decade and it would be exponentially higher because the spending increases approved would just continue. tos very hard for congress go back and allow for spending cuts after raising for both the military and domestic programs. 2019, do they have to pass another long-term budget deal? or if they don't, does it go back to 2011 sequestration levels? guest: that's essentially right. this whole decades long sequestration effort ends in 2021. we have essentially one more budget deal that is two years long. this is something that affects leadership going back to 2011. we have had some very hard deals cut. this is why former speaker john boehner did not stay speaker. he faced in an internal revolt among republicans. ryan has avoided that under president trump. that means there are very difficult decisions to come. with $700 billion for the much forand nearly as domestic, it will be very hard to reverse those cuts and to not see those costs add up over the next several years. host: matt in new york, republican. ladies.good morning, i hope you are having a good day. earlierthe host speaker that there is $4 billion for the v.a. to help rebuild the a hospitals. being a client of the v.a. hospitals, a new coat of paint is not going to fix what the problem is. the problem is they don't have enough personnel. i use those the and the the v.a. and the private system. i spoke to people in the private system that would've been willing to work at the v.a., but they don't pay what the private system does. at the v.a.,e here the basic thing with the v.a. is the primary care teams. of course it expands to the specialists. v.a.0 years, i'm using the and every couple years, the money goes to a new paint job. instead of personnel. the thing is we had five primary care teams. four.ot cut to now the four teams are handling the caseload of the five. on top of that, to see a specialist, it's hard for them to even higher specialists. host: purge your point on that. -- heard your point on that. $4 billion is included in this, but that does not mean that is it for the veterans affairs department. we will have to wait and see what the appropriators come up with for the veterans affairs department and what they're spending levels are at, correct? guest: democrats have been championing this effort from the beginning. chuck schumer has been on the senate floor talking about how important it is to not only having more money go to v.a. choice and the private health care sector program but also cares the health spectrum for veterans, including mental health care. democrats have said they will make sure this entire budget for the v.a. goes up. we do not know what the breakdown is going to be because we just have the top line spending levels. it is a significant increase in the domestic program levels. you can expect big increases in every department here. host: jasper is watching and bethel springs, democrat. good morning. caller: i was calling and i'm hearing about the budget and all that. well, i got disabled back in 1980. 8. i informed for nearly all my life -- farm for nearly all my life. in the last year i've had two strokes and two heart attacks and three back surgeries. now i'm disabled. draws $160 a month. it doesn't cover her medicine bill. they say that's all she can draw. they're so much money out there wasted and the guy about the v.a., he's right. he is 100%. i'm a veteran myself. don't blame it on the democrats. it's both sides. , why the you always hear about upper-class, middle-class, but nobody ever mentions the bottom class? host: just his thoughts and tennessee. besides this budget deal that was approved, there has been this side conversation about what to do with dreamers or the daca participants. the president has offered his proposal to the democrats. they appear to not agree to that. what is going to be next though? the last thing that seven majority leader mitch mcconnell did on the floor after they approved opening up the government was what? guest: he did allow this debate to go forward and essentially set up the debate to begin next monday evening. this essentially is what democrats have been told for more than a week. he is making good on his promise to restart the immigration debate. what's really going to be key is which built his debated. that is still not clear yet. is it going to be some of these bipartisan efforts that democratic leaders have been involved in? there are other bipartisan efforts that senator john mccain and chris coons have been part of. there's a whole spectrum of bills available both in the senate and the house. in the house, things are less clear on where this thing goes forward. paul ryan has been hesitant about an immigration bill brought to the floor, but he did make an agreement with democrats last night to get the 70 votes he needed to get this bill across the house floor at 5:30 a.m. the other thing to watch is that the immigration debate has been linked to spending. republicans have said they will not consider an immigration debate while it is linked to spending. they don't when i have to vote for something that will increase the military and achieve all these priorities like hell funding if it also means having this uncomfortable and difficult conversation about dreamers, something very polarizing. they went to be separate. is separate and there's more oxygen in the room because the budget deal has finally passed, there will be more of an effort to have some hearings and open conversations versus just various groups meeting behind closed doors trying to come up with a way to get their bill to the floor. there is now a clear path for an actual immigration debate to go forward. host: whitney is in kansas, a democrat. good morning to you. caller: good morning. how are you? host: doing well. question or comment for our guest? caller: mainly a comment. i'm a federal employee and my son is in the military. it's significantly impacts numerous amounts of individuals that people are not even considering. when it comes to appropriations , everyone budget needs to remember we are under a sequestration. lasts 10 years and it will continue to last as long as everything goes the way it is going. everyone wants to blame party after party as to kicking the can down the road, but sequestration is nothing but a kick of the can. we are not paying attention to the actual fact of what's going on. we are paying attention to any of the bills that are on the floor. host: let me ask this. has any lawmaker argued sequestration has not been a bad thing? forcing cuts in spending on congress has not been about the? -- a bad thing? guest: there are plenty of conservatives who have said this since 2011. the cuts were never intended to go through and only one time did that back in 2011. since then, conservatives have been trying to tempt on domestic spending. they have said it has reached levels that are too high. they will point to the mandatory spending making up a larger share of actual federal spending , which you cannot touch through the appropriations process. one thing included in this deal is another one of these so-called super committees that we have seen time and time again as congressional leaders try to sort out therir broken budget process. the task is to get the appropriate process moving you. we saw none of the individual bills come to the floor. the spending bills will be finished up in march. this is several months past the deadline so congressional leaders are trying to have some sort of way to reach the skids on this. the committee has not had a great reception with conservatives and some of them are shrugging it off already, but there are some attempts to talk about the long-term effects of sequestration whether it is worthwhile to continue to live under the budget control after 2011. technically that is still the law of the land. and also larger conversations about what to do about the budget act of 1974. this is the last major bill setting up the congressional budget and appropriations cycle. a lot of conservatives, particularly those who do support sequestration and say that there needs to be larger conversations about this, say it's time to reconsider the budget act. host: our viewers can follow sarah ferris on politico.com and on twitter. she is the budget and appropriations reporter with politico. we thank you after a very long night on capitol hill for coming here and being awake and very alert and giving us good information about what happens there. guest: thank you for having me. host: we will take a short break. when we come back, margot sanger katz will talk about amazon, berkshire hathaway, and j.p. morgan forming health-care system for their employees. and then we will talk about the battle of the house committee memos and what it means for the molar investigation. ller investigation. we will be right back. ♪ >> saturday american history tv , beginning atlive 9:00 a.m. eastern with all-day coverage from the new museum of the bible and washington, d.c. with a symposium of historians exploring the bible and the founding of america. speakers include baylor university history professor thomas kidd, author of "benjamin franklin: the religious life of the founding father," daniel bach, and vanderbilt university professor james byrd. watch live on saturday morning starting at 9:00 an eastern on american history tv on c-span3. c-span -- where history unfolds daily. 1979, c-span was created as a public service by americans ande television companies is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. c-span's history series landmark cases returns this month with a look at 12 new supreme court cases. each week historians and experts join us to discuss the constitutional issues and personal stories behind the significant supreme court decisions. beginning monday, february 26 live at 9:00 p.m. eastern, and to help you follow all 12 cases, we have a companion guide written by journalist tony mauro. "landmark cases: volume two" comes at eight dollars a five cents plus shipping and handling. -- $8.95 plus shipping and handling. announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: back at our table is margot sanger katz, who writes the upshot column for "the new york times." thank you they much for being here. guest: thanks for having me. host: let's talk about your recent headline. "can amazon and france handle health care? -- and france handle health care? " they are teaming up to do what ? guest: we don't really know. these companies have come together to lower health care costs starting with their own workers and figuring out an insight that could be expanded to help more americans. they say it will have something to do with technology and that's about as much as we know right now. there was this huge market reaction to the news that had more to do with the fact that these are big important companies with really smart ceos who have been successful in a lot of other ventures that it is a detailed assessment of what their health care plans are. i'm a health care reporter and i know about these previous efforts that others have made to try to shake things up in health care. my perspective is that they have a difficult task before them. as talented as they are and successful as they have been in other ventures, health care may be a hard nut to crack. host: why would they want to do this? guest: health care a huge cost for everyone. we hear about it in the government funding debates. medicare and medicaid are big costs for the federal government, but health care is also an enormous cost for employers as well. employers and workers together have to pay for health benefits for most people. the more money they're spending on health care, that's less money they can pay people in wages and less money that they can invest in other parts of the company. i think there's frustration among a lot of large employers that health care costs are just too high and keep going up and it's really interfering with their other priorities. host: it is 8:40 a.m. on the east and i just want to note that the president has tweeted out that he signed the bill that reopens the federal government. "our military will now be stronger than ever before. we love and need our military and give them everything and more. first time this is happened in a long time. also means jobs, jobs, jobs!" that is what the president is tweeting out. as yousanger katz come know, your colleagues to cover the budget process, up very late in the night as the senate and house voted to keep the government open. what does it mean for the health care industry as we segue back to our conversation here that government shuts down and opens up again? guest: i don't know if this brief shutdown will have a big effect for the health care industry. i think that the dysfunction that it reveals, that the government cannot do the basic mechanics of passing the bills that usually can pass quite easily is probably worrying because the government is a big purchaser of health care. it's a big provider of health care to older people and people of low incomes. we saw earlier this year and last year that the chip program, which covers millions of young ,hildren around the country which normally has a lot of bipartisan support and is a very popular program, governors run the country really love it -- normally that would get extended easily. in fact the deadline passed and there was a lot of sturman durham about it. ultimately it did and there were not a lot of children hurt idea delay. actually the bill passed last night extends the program for longer. is safer 10 years now, but people in health care were holding their breath thinking, if congress cannot get together and do the things that it usually does easily, what does that mean when other important issues come before it? host: margot sanger katz with us this morning until the top of the hour to talk about the future of employer-based health care. that is what you can call in about. we will take your questions and comments about the health care industry. we have divided the lines by 0,ployers at (202) 748-8000 employees at (202) 748-8001, and all others at (202) 748-8002 . we are talking about amazon, berkshire hathaway, and j.p. morgan forming a health care company? aest: berkshire hathaway owns bunch of smaller companies and each provides their own health insurance. when you think about amazon and j.p. morgan, they were a health insurance program. each of them privately contracted with a health insurance company to administer benefits, but they were on the hook for all the cost of care for employees. that is why they have a big incentive to try to find a way to do it cheaper. they can keep their employees happy and healthy and cost them less money. that will save money to apply to other parts of their business or give to their employees and a form like -- and other forms like wage increases. it is hard and there is his hope that if they band together and hire a ceo and make a big investment in figuring out how to save money in the space that it could be better. has struggledrs to make changes to the system. host: what ways specifically could they lower the cost of health care? guest: there are a couple of different ways they can do it. one is that all together represent around a million employees of the u.s. so that's a lot of people. if you are buying drugs from million people, maybe could get a better discount. it's a little unclear if that will work so well for them because those companies are spread out throughout the .ountry a lot of health care costs come from doctors and hospitals and a lot of those our local. it is not like they can go to an expensive hospital in new york city where j.p. morgan chase is based and say we have a million people we can sense your hospital so give us a good deal is most amazon employees are somewhere else. that is one limitation of them dancing together. another idea is that they may be able to use technology in interesting ways. maybe they can make it easier to commit with doctors and get their drugs with fewer middlemen and friction. there's also possibilities that we can dream up that have not been talked about. they might consider putting workplace clinics at some of their larger offices, where if they feel like they can hire back and take care of people at the place they were, maybe they can keep them out of the hospital and taking expensive drugs or other things like that. there are players who have tried some of the strategies in the past so we have some idea of what they can do. host: if they are successful, what do you think the impact is on the future of employee-based health care? guest: it's really hard to know. they want to test some things out for their workers and see what works. if they do that and find some amazing secret sauce and save a ton of money and decide come you , you know what, we can give our shareholders a bigger return, we don't want to share this knowledge, it will not have a big effect on the health care industry. if they decide that we figured out the secret sauce and what to sell to other people, that is the reason why you saw a lot of health insurance stocks move at the time they made this announcement. there is this feeling that perhaps they will crack the code and sell the secrets to their competitors. there is a potential if they find something that is cost-saving that it could spread wildly throughout the health care system. i would caution that i think there is not a lot of low hanging fruit. h theare not going to slas cost of health insurance in this country. whether they make innovations on the margins, that is an open question. host: i turned to the viewers now with what is your question or comment about employer-based health insurance. let's go to rob in florida. good morning to you. caller: good morning. my comment is i want to know why government is so involved in health care. if we let the free market regulate it, costs will go down. that is a proven fact. we are at the mercy of the insurance companies which we all know government subsidizes. at the end of the day, they don't have to worry about taking a loss. think the employer insurance market is one of the less regulated parts of health insurance. there are some rules, but in general, employers have a lot of flexibility about what kinds of benefits they are allowed to offer their workers and how much they are allowed to charge them and what kinds of arrangements they are allowed to make with doctors and hospitals. it is true that the government is very involved in the provision of health care and that's largely because the government provides insurance to a lot of americans. they want to have control over the how that works. will care act didn't expand the regulation of insurance products that people buy for themselves. didhe affordable care act expand the regulation of insurance products that people buy for the celts. themselves. that is one of the reasons why there is optimism that the employer market might be a place for an innovation because it has some flexibility that doesn't exist in other parts of the system. host: rita in illinois. what is your insurance like? caller: i'm retired, but i think we would solve a lot of problems if the democrats would fight more for the american people and their brother's and sisters in need, not the immigrants that they want to add more to. besides that, we could solve a lot of problems if they would only start drug testing the public aid recipients and put them to work to do cleanups around parks and waterways and just towns in general to make them earn that public aid that they are getting and quit giving them a free handout. host: what are you talking about, rita? .aller: food stamps they get insurance. they get everything to the class --rking they get everything. the working class is paying for everything. host: was available for the poor when it comes to health care? guest: it depends on what state you live in, but the obamacare program expanded so everyone who earned below a certain income threshold, so if you're single person earning less than $60,000 and you live in a state that expanded medicaid, currently you are eligible for health insurance. you don't have to pass any other tests. politicianslot of who agree with the read at that it's not fair that people should be able to get health insurance just because they are poor. maybe they should have to do something else to prove that they are deserving of that care. ,e saw the last few weeks kentucky and indiana, they got waivers approved by the federal government to impose work requirements on those with disabilities that are receiving medicare basis i. the obama administration have been asked by several states to do this before and had told them no, but the trump administration is committed to the idea that states should be able to test these continents of this. people who work tend to be healthier. if we give people incentives to work, this will help their health just as much as giving them a health insurance or part of giving them health insurance. that is a very controversial idea, but it do think the sentiment that rita has identified a shared by a lot of other people and we are seeing it reflected in these social welfare programs. work requirements have been part of the cash assistance program that we have used to call welfare until the late 1990's. you basically have to work in order to get those benefits. work intes also require exchange for food stamps. host: dan is next in corpus christi. caller: this initiative by these three big companies to provide their own health care is really in keeping with what adam smith predicted if capitalism was to that what compensation of them to work or's would have to morph to take into consideration previously taken for granted things. so this health care argues for considering health care as an infrastructure, just like a big company needs a parking lot for its workers to part. it needs them to be healthy to show up. this is infrastructure and it argues for single-payer. host: let's take that point. guest: there is an argument that the employer system that is unusual to be united states is a good system for providing health insurance to people because your employer cares about whether your healthy or not. they want you to show up to work and be happy. because health benefits are part of your pay and they're giving her some celery and health benefits, if the health insurance they give you is lousy and unhappy, you are less likely to work for them than an employer that gives you good health insurance. there is an argument made by many people particularly on the left that this is a weird system and distorted system and perhaps it would be better if the government just provided everyone with health insurance and then your employer to be in charge of your work. this tension gets at what we are discussing with this new partnership. amazon is a great logistics atpany and they are great getting you toilet paper that you forgot the grocery store, but is it reasonable to expect them to be experts at health insurance? not just amazon that has demonstrated an ability to move to a lot of new businesses. if you are an employer and go to different things, but the ceo has to be in charge of the main business and do that well. they are expected to be an expert in health insurance benefits. it is weird and not reasonable to expect that all them will be very good at that part of their job. host: fred and bloomington, indiana. caller: good morning t. let's take a step back before 1793 and before the united states was ratified. there is a fundamental doctrine, the independen declaration of independence, that thomas jefferson wrote that every american has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. it is the federal government's responsibility to keep this promise of preserving our life with health care. another point that comes to my mind is our government is a republic is being of the people and businesses are not. businesses are not democratic. it falls on the responsibility of the government to ensure that every human has health insurance to preserve that right that thomas jefferson gave us in our declaration of independence. host: you write about the history of the employer-based program. when did it begin and why? guest: it seems to grown-up largely in the second world war. there was a waste control program during world war ii that limited the ability of employers to increase wages so employers started to think about someon what other things that we can give so they don't work for my competitor? health benefit plans were one of those things. we cannot pay you more wages, but we can give you the ability to pay for your medical care, which is a big concern for people. thy rest made a ruling that seemed boring but turned out to be important. the irs said that if you give people their fair wages in the form of health insurance, neither the company nor the person have to pay taxes on that. if they gave you wages in the form of dollars, then you have to pay payroll taxes and income taxes on your income. that created an additional incentive for employers to say we give you dollars and you use those dollars to buy health care yourself. you will have to pay taxes on those dollars. we give you dollars in the form of health insurance, you don't have to pay taxes. that cemented it as a normal routine benefit that employers one to give to their workers. host: what is the argument to get rid of this tax benefit? guest: there are a bunch of different arguments. economists love to make them. itt economists feel is that is sort of inefficient to have your employer making a decision about what kind of health insurance you have because your employer's preferences might be different than yours. like the ceo of the company is deciding what kind of health benefits will be available to everyone in the company, and under law and has to be fair and have the same choices. not fair for the ceo to have one kind of benefits and for you to have another. the ceo probably earns a lot more money than you do so he cares about saving on his taxes. you might want to have a lot of money put into the health benefit and less money and wages. a lower income worker might say i'm happy with the health insurance product that has a slightly higher deductible and i have more and take him pay. there are some inefficiencies that way. health care just keeps getting more and more expensive. there's a view that having the employer shoulder so much of the cost of health insurance is partially responsible for that. individual people don't realize how expensive it has gotten and they are not mad about it really. money,loyer has a lot of but there's also a view that is sort of unfair because you are someone who does not get insurance through work like you work at a small business, they are less likely to offer coverage. you don't necessarily get access to this really good coverage. that is part of what the affordable care act was designed to do -- provide better options for those who do not get insurance through work. host: we will go to michael in illinois. caller: good morning. a short comment and then my question. the first fella that talked about the free market, it never works with health care. you cannot shop for health care. you don't know what you have until you really have to use it. the second lady with the welfare -- if you don't give them coverage, they will go to the emergency room and pay higher premiums for that. i agree with the third caller. this is an infrastructure issue. these companies are going to fail because the problem is you have to have a single-payer. you have to negotiate with all these doctors, with all these hospitals, and they have got to take what society can afford to pay them for this. and that's the end of the story. all too many of your callers are just unrealistic, vindictive, and they don't even understand what the real problem is. that is why they make these ridiculous comments when they call in. thank's for listening. host: we will go to randy and indiana. i just want to state a couple of observations. under george bush, my health insurance doubled. under obama, my health insurance doubled. the system the way it is now can't go on. we are delaying the inevitable. there has got to be a single-payer system. the guy before me hit it right on the nail. it, the system the way it is set up, they're going to make you work even when you retire until you reach a certain age and qualify for medicare. host: margot sanger katz, what is the trend for health care costs? guest: i think this is a real trend. health care is expensive and it's growing and historically for decades. the cost of providing health care to an individual person has grown faster than inflation and the overall economy and more than wages. the experience that people have that all my god, my premiums are getting higher and wages are not getting higher, that's a real phenomenon people are expensive, but there is some good news. over the last 10 years, those increases have been a lot smaller than they have been historically. it is starting to look like the increases in the cost of health care look more like the increases in the cost of wages. the increases in the cost of wages. that is not the same as saying health care is getting cheaper, but there is a hope that changes that are happening now may clamp down on this growth so people are not experiencing these increases all the time. host: scott in georgia. caller: i want to make two comments. government represents about 55% of the expense on health care. they are buying health care from the market. they do not negotiate with the providers. say this isws and reimbursement. you have to adjust. the way the market adjusts is medicare will pay one third what the commercial pay is. medicaid -- they do not even pay cost. what happens is that cost gets inflated on the commercial side. the government's affective -- it is a hidden tax that they do not want to admit that they force how much they pay. naturally, they have to make up the dollars on the consumer that can pay. when my child was born, i was in a hospital. there were four babies born. my child had insurance, the other three did not. that was 15 years ago. that cannot continue. guest: it is true different payers pay different prices. medicare pay $.80 on the dollar compared to commercial. medicaid payment rates vary by state, but they are lower. thes controversial that reason why one set of prices is higher is because the government pays too little. it looks like what happens is that all these different parties negotiate separately with a hospital and the commercial payers do not have enough leverage to get the good prices the government gets. a lot of shifting around of dollars in the system, but we should not look at it as the private and public system pitted against each other. theeed to look at it as hospitals and other kinds of providers are new to negotiations and a some are able to get better deals than others depending on how many customers they can bring. host: if you want to stay on top of health care news, you can follow margot sanger-katz, she is the new york times health care correspondent. when we come back, george mason university's law school jamil jaffer will talk about the battle over those intelligence community memos. announcer: sunday night, black lives matter's cofounder with her book when they call you a terrorist, a black lives matter memoir. as we created black lives matter, we knew we have to get people on board. when peoplenterrupt try to co-opt a black lives matter. amount of significant this year ensuring it was not , challenging people to not say our lives matter, to not use it to say other communities matter, but the focus on black people and the allies and be in solidarity with the black people. then, we took it out to the world. announcer: watch afterward saturday night on book tv. york time sunday, new staff photographer doug mills talks about the photos he took while covering trump. >> he enjoyed having us around. constant despite his i feels about fake news, he enjoys having us because it helps drive his message, it drives the news of the day, which he can do every day. he is constantly driving the message. having us around allows him to do that. announcer: q and a sunday night at either -- 8:00 eastern. announcer: washington journal continues. host: joining us from denver is , george mason university's -- from 2011 to 2013. let us begin with the dueling house intelligence committee memos. to theocrats rebuttal chairman's first memo about the russia investigation and possible abuses by the fbi and the justice department. what do you make a given your role of this back of 4 -- back and forth? the challenge we are facing is we are in the middle of a political fight over what happened during the elections and what impact of the elections had on the election itself, on the credibility of our electoral system, and our fisa process and whether that was properly inspected. the dueling memos create a problem. the controversy they were released to creates a problem because it undermines american in the process, defies a process -- the fisa underminest also credibility of the oversight committees, the intelligence committees and that look at this. when the art -- add in a partisan fashion, the oversight is undermined. there is a focused to ensure what the american people see is a credible both sides of the issue so they can make a judgment about what happened. what was your thought after reading the four page memo by the chairman of the house intelligence committee and what he put in does four pages about possible abuses in surveillance. what was in the memo was publicly known. it was not confirmed by the government, so the release did confirm a number of things, like the fact carter page was under surveillance. it describes some of the information that was the basis for that order. the problem was, when that memo was released, we knew the democrats had drafted a memo that responded to that memo and laid out there view of what was in the pfizer application -- fisa application. that is problematic because the american people see this memo allegations those may or may not have merit to them. the problem is they released only one side, the american people are going to assume there is partisanship. that undermines the credibility of the memo. there are things in the memo that are concerning, the idea that the memo might have been principally based on the dossier from mr. steele. that is concerning. bus trip -- is buttressed by the graham letter that raised serious concerns. if the dossier was a substantial of the fisa application, that is concerning. it would not be consistent with my experiences, but if it is, that is troubling. democratic response to the memo written by adam schiff is 10 pages. the washington times report -- washington journal reports -- what would be your experience? -- froms court process your experience, would a judge base that decision on the dossier? it is important we see what is in the democratic memo so we have a fair presentation of the memo. we have the republican staff view of the memo, we have the dossier, and we have the democrat members and their view of the dossier. of what ist a sense going on and can evaluate what happened. the government should release a substantial portion of the sources and redact methods, but the bulk of the application is now in the public record because of this declassification. more will come out if the democrat memo is declassified. at that point, the government has no basis for holding back of the application. , what is in the dossier is a thin reed. when you are filing an application with a court for surveillance, it is important the government is acting on its and behind closed doors, the government has a responsibility of full candor to the court. these are all intelligence materials. when you are going to maintain a court order, you're going to take pieces of information from here and there. from unreliable sources, some from sources with biases, so it is important you put that information into the applications of the court knows the biases and can decide what to do. at the end of the day, it is the decision. the government has a responsibility of full candor in the settings. host: why do we have these courts? are they necessary? absolutely. back in the 1970's, the conducted surveillance with only executive branch oversight. we learned about the abuses in the nixon administration. congress passed a law called the foreign intelligence surveillance act that created these cores. the reason these courts are classified is because if you the targetspublic, of surveillance would know they're being surveilled and would be a lot more careful. as a general matter, these people are already assuming there under surveillance, but you do not want them knowing for sure. if you have access to certain devices or capabilities that have, -- that they have, you do not want them to know about it. we have gone a hugely -- a huge amount of surveillance of surveillance that has protected the american public for the last 30 or 40 years. this is an important process. it does not mean it might not have problems, it not mean we cannot get better at it, but it is important the process be seen as evenhanded. when i work at the house intelligence committee, there was bipartisanship amongst the shairman of the ranking member and the staffs. we work closely together to conduct oversight of the fbi and nsa and all the other intelligence agencies. host: how did you go about the oversight of these pfizer applications -- fisa applications? it is a great question. as a general matter, americans should be skeptical of government overreach. we were born as a nation skeptical of the executive power. result, it is ok for us to be skeptical and have things like the congressional intelligence committee. , the way we to fisa conduct that oversight is every six months, we would get a report from the government describing all the information that was inside, any problems that had taken place, whether they over collected, collected the wrong thing, had to be striate, some mistakes were made, or the like, or there was intentional abuse, which was very rare, ferreted out, and ultimately punished. what the community did was we went through that report in close detail, set down with the agencies, and asked what happened and what have you done to make sure it will happen again. we engage in dialogue with the court, too. the court would brief the committee on how things were going. there is a dialogue between the judges of the court and the executive branch. we also heard from the inspector general who oversaw. there was a lot of oversight, it was very detailed. we spent a lot of time going down lighting byline, did you do this wrong, if you did this wrong, what are you doing to fix it? at that union of the day, defies fisas are about people in the u.s. host: let us get our viewers involved. we will go to susan in arizona. you are on the air. know iswhat i want to known -- goodhas morning. host: we are listening. ask your question. caller: i want to know if he is the surveillance probe on carter page is because he did n espionage case several years back and they had a right to look at him to see if he was getting closer to the government again. what doest to know this do to the ability of the force if legislators can a minority report not be released at the same time? i think susan raises important points. carter page was previously under hissurveillance because of contacts with russian intelligence operatives in the u.s. who have ultimately been identified and removed from the u.s.. he did have interactions with the intelligence quite a while back. he then traveled to russia, gave withspeeches, had contacts senior officials, and he is talking about them on videotape, his extensive contacts with the russian government. there is a lot of material that could form the basis for a fisa application against carter page absent from the dossier. the question we have to have answered is how much of the material that is in the dossier that was on answered -- unanswer ed, how much of the information was in the application. if it was a substantial portion of the application, that is troubling. what is even more troubling is that the government learned mr. not reliable and continued to rely on the information at follow-up album -- applications without informing the core of the reliability. we do not know that is the case. democratee the document, we will know that information. when we see the actual document, we will be able to judge. , i would saymatter this is not how the fisa if that is does work how it was. you want the government to rely on credible information as much as possible. you want them to be fully transparent with the court. by and large, the fisa process works well. the government has a lot of checks and balances. the fbi spent a lot of time working with their lawyers, lawyers of the justice department, all of whom are skeptical of the request to get surveillance. they go to the courts who are skeptical of attempts to -- they would be extremely careful. if the court granted these orders, i have to believe there is more than the dossier. if that is all there was, that is a concern. let me get your reaction to aps in the washington post who is a former special envoy for libya. he says my role in the trump dossier. chairman nunez announced the next phase of his investigation the the events that led to employment of robert mueller will focus on the state department. his apparent area of interest is my relationship with christopher steele and the materials he shared with the fbi. tosays in 2015, he returned the state department, and in 2016, steele told him he learned about tiesion between donald trump and senior russian officials. made it clear the information involved active measures. we met in washington and discussed the information now known as the dos ea. suggested the criminal was behind the hacking of the dnc and had compromise trump. he reviewed and gave it to the state department. in september, he spoke with an old friend. at the time, russian hacking was at the center of the presidential election campaign. while talking about the hacking, reports.sed steele's he showed me notes the alleged the russians had copper my zynga information on trump of a sexual and financial neighbor. -- nature. knowing he was not a professional intelligence officer, i do not share his nose with the state department. i do not expect them to be shared with anyone in the u.s. government. judge the position to information provided by steele. what is your reaction to this? he says the notes from the reporter and christopher steele's sources had similar information. think wert of what i are seeing happen is there is no question the russians were attempting to influence our election. outcome, butly the the faith in that process. they were engaged in a long effort to discredit both campaigns. chaosgoal is to throw into our system, undermine our faith in our system, and if clinton was elected, to suggest she acted improperly to become the nominee, and if trump were elected, that they had helped his campaign. the russians were playing both sides as they didn't in social planning --hey were playing both sides to push americans against each other. this is a covert investigation we are in the middle of right now. it continues to this day, it continues to shape the narrative. we americans have to see what is happening here and that we are in the middle of a process where a foreign state is undermining ability toent's function. this partisanship and the fights we are having over the dossier, it is interesting the dossier had the same information, but it may be because the russians planted that information. we should be troubled that our entire political process has been hamstrung, that the president has made -- been made an official and that clinton would have been made inefficient had she won.l it is clear it is going to come this lays bare the russian campaign to undermine our system of government and how effective it has been and that we have to take a serious look at our elected representatives, the executive department, and realize that in order to address this, we have to put this partisanship aside and identify what happened here and take measures to stop it. caller: i am an independent in florida for jamil jaffer, may i speak to him? host: you are on the air. caller: he did not answer your need to haveg these fisa courts. here comes the smile. my concern is you are right on the nail regarding do we need to pay attention to the next election. that the over and over russians are here and they are going to subvert our elections and that all of our elections are going to be invalid because this is going to continue. please elaborate on how that is going to take place. is when sheto greta read all the information in the newspaper about mr. steele, did he get assassinated, is he dead? guest: i do not know about the answer to the second question. i do not think mr. steele is dead. when it comes to the first question, let me answer the fisa question. a need the courts, they play critical role in the ensuring surveillance conducted by the u.s. government is conducted appropriately with an independent check in the government interest in conducting surveillance and having a federal judge said on the fight is a court for a week at a time and review applications. it is important we have that independent judicial check. here next point about russian influence in the election, i am concerned because it is clear the russian government engaged in a concerted campaign to undermine our faith in our electoral system. now, they are undermining our faith in the white house, undermining our faith in the congressional intelligence committees, undermining our democracy.e they used at own institutions against us. , thewent into social media newest form of press, and thatacted in a way undermined the ability of our citizens to get information from that system. social media company has a responsibility to ferret out these problems. the government should work with them on that. are going to solve this problem as a nation and restore faith in our institutions, we cannot engage in the is fighting , the white house with the fbi, the justice department with the fbi, adam schiff with the president. it is not helpful. it is partisanship, it is sniping. ares not effective when we under threat by four nations who want to undermine our electoral system and who are having a great time watching this happen. we need to come together and solve these problems. if there are problems, let us tear them out and clean them up. partisanship is not the solution. warrant was fisa generated because of george papadopoulos. and gotto australia drunk and told us the russians was trying to interfere. hacking, it was the australians that warned us, and the fisa warned was filed -- warrant was filed because of george papadopoulos. guest: thank you for that point. you are right the application was motivated by the fact that george papadopoulos met with an australian government official, talked about how what he saw going on and that that raised concerns. a stray reported that the u.s. -- australia reported that to the u.s. we still want to know what was in the application and what the government told the fires a court. , having done it conductedutside and oversight, that is not how it goes. fragmentary,ion is yes it can be from biased piecemeal, these are intelligence warrrants. they are not required to be to the same standard as classic criminal warrants. because the government is in court, they have this duty of candor, they have to be forthcoming. it is important we fix that and move forward. if the process is infected or if these allegations that the fbi is fundamentally corrupt or that the fisa court is an apt, -- inept, those are false. that plays into the narrative that our entire system of governance is deeply flawed. we should not play to that narrative. we should ferret out problems and fix those as we need to. host: nashville, democrat. caller: how are you doing? that is one thing the u.s. has to stop doing. we have to stop hiding behind these walls. i have three questions. first, we should not talk about one with that having the other one. let us tied both of those things together. how haved thing is, you got two people working in the white house that do not have security clearance? guest: those are great questions. host: we are speaking of rob porter, which is one point, rob porter who resigned over allegations of abuse. he is make new point how he did not have security clearance. that, he had access to the president, he is close to the president, and there was criticism the administration should have fired him over concern of him getting blackmailed by russians. is that a real concern? claim, i dolackmail not know what the basis for that is. one concern whenever you're granting anybody security clearance is are they sensitive to blackmail. area of long been an expiration for the fbi. if there's something somebody wants to hide in their past, that is a concern. often times, the government will grant interim security clearances. based on ace is variety of factors, including and the priorrk vetting. for all we know, he had interim clearance. i do not know the status of the clearance. do go back to the question about fisa and the memo, i think earl is right to be concerned that we are only seeing one side of the story. the house intelligence committee has generally been bipartisan. i was working there, it was very bipartisan. we never did things where we did not release both be at the same time. ais is not the first time memo has been released with the assistance of the president over the objections of the intelligence agency. back during the review of the enhanced interrogation program, senate democrats conducted an independent investigation on that process. , the ciae a report objected, changes were made, they were not enough for the cia, the cia continued to object, and then obama released the report. there were differences between that and the nunez memo. in the case of the torture report, there were redaction's .ade there were none in the nunez memo. second, the senate intelligence committee did release a republican minority view at the same time. that did not happen here. at least the committee has moved forward, they voted unanimously to release the democrat memo. we will see that if the present grants that authority in the next day or two. if it does not, it will go to the full house. the right thing to do is theorize the release for application, and then we can compare the two and figure out what is actually going on. world, the fbi would release the application. .ost: thank you for your time we appreciate the conversation. guest: thanks for having me. spend theill remainder of the washington journal returning to this story in washington that unfolded overnight. the recent update is that the has signed a bill that keeps -- reopens the government and keeps the government funded until march 23 and both sides have agreed to a two your spending bill with more money for defense and more money for domestic spending, with the president weeding just signed the bill, our military will be stronger than ever before. we love and need our military and give them everything. jobs!eans jobs, jobs, -- sadly, weut needed some democratic votes for passage. must elect more republicans in 2018. what is your reaction to what happened in washington? they missed the midnight deadline, the government shutdown. it is on its way to reopening. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. .ndependents, (202) 748-8002 it began in the senate yesterday with rand paul, who objected to moving forward with this two your budget deal because of its price tag, over $2 trillion. here he is on the floor yesterday. >> we have to have debate over what is the proper role, what is the constitutional role, and how will we have that debate if we are not allowed to amend the bill. if we are given a 700 page bill the night before, no one reads it, and then they say it is done. it is a binary choice, take it or leave it. i am leaving it. home and look my wife in the phase. i cannot look my friends in the phase. i cannot look anyone who voted presidentface and say obama was terrible, trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye could see. the republican side is telling america trillion dollar deficits are bad when their democrats. it is ok when they are republicans. deficits are bad when the other guys do it, they are not bad when we do it. this is the height of hypocrisy. this is the uncomfortableness this debate engenders. having this uncomfortableness is why we do not want to have amendments. we are going to vote at 3:00 in the morning because they would not let me have a vote during the day. i think it is misguided. we should have had 20 votes. there are votes the democrats wanted i probably would have disagreed on, but i would've voted to let them have amendments. this is a big deal. this is our spending. this is what the congress is supposed to do, yet we are not going to have amendments, it is pre-decided by some secret cabal of leadership from both sides who have clasped hands to say we have one, the country has one, we now have a trillion dollar deficit. the american people are losing. early this morning, following senator paul's objections to moving forward, the senate were able to move forward and approve this does thing your budget deal on a vote of 71-28, john mccain not voting as he is battling brain cancer. up house crammed the take he proposal around 5:30 a.m. 240 house republicans and democrats voted to approve the measure that would reopen the government. 186 house republicans and democrats voted no. 56 republicans voted no, 119 republic -- democrats voted no. the president has signed that spending bill and two year deal. it is been 11 months of counteroffers and compromise, starting with march of last year when trump offered this kenny budget-- the skinny leading up to his deal he made in september. then, it has been counter offer and compromises back and forth. last night, at midnight, the second government shutdown of 2018. there is the new york times, the an 11 and turns on months log to a budget deal. now they have to put together an and approve -- bill a before the march 23 deadline. that will cover the rest of 2018 to september when the fiscal year end. then, they will have a deal for 2019 as a. what he or thoughts on this? let us go to michael in alabama. i think trump is going -- doing a good job. host: you have to turn down your tv. terry in illinois. caller: i think this was a great deal for schumer. i say that because of the spending and the military spending. we should focus on our economy, and our spending should focus on our economy, and maybe we did not focus that. host: here is defend spending compared to what the pentagon received in 2017. they're looking at an increased in 2018 and the following year. this is what they will be receiving under this budget deal. nondefense spending went up as well. the president noted they had to agree to nondefense spending increases to get some democratic votes. valerie in indiana. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am aghast. i saw senator randy this morning this morning.nd i do not believe we lost so many .illions overseas if we had oversight on our spending, we could get the budget under control. i would like to start a twitter storm, oversight spending. stop of the stupid ideas getting money, and we will be able to fix our budget. the washington times breaks down this spending this morning. the price of more military spending was agreeing to more demands for domestic spending. the bill includes an $80 billion increase domestic -- defend spending in 2018. domestic would increase by $63 billion this year. be 6 billion in anti-opioid grants. 5.8 billion in childcare grand. $4 billion to rebuild veterans hospitals. $20 billion to repair infrastructure. also features a 13 month suspension of the debt ceiling. it also includes 17 billion in -- breaks there were less left out of last year's tax cut bill. paul in minnesota. i was watching the news the other night and they were talking about how the buses are being pulled over and checked out for people coming into our country. doesn't it seem like the way they did that almost look like we are trying to be fenced in? with the military parade he , it seems like part of that money should have been put towards health care, and i do not think we need to have all that money for the military, or not as much. host: maggie is in orlando, florida. first of all, i am a trump supporter, always will be. i think it is disgraceful the package was delivered at the late time it was delivered to be voted on. .hey knew what they were doing i think we ought to have a mandatory retirement at age 80 for our congress and our house. peoplet understand why want to work after the age of 80. john mccain is a good example. he needs to stay home. host: gary in new york, republican. veteran. am an army be nice if we get a $200 pay raise for cost of living, because living in new york state is too high in taxes. host: do you approve of what they did coming together in a bipartisan way echo -- way? rise --i got a pay raise. host: you are forward if you see a in your paycheck. i am a disabled veteran, so i do not see much of my paycheck. not enough to live off of, especially in new york state. host: tina in milwaukee, a democrat. we spend so much money on the military. we have enough equipment. we do not need any more equipment. i am not sure our soldiers are .etting the care they need we should spend more money on our infrastructure. thing, you did not answer the question about christopher steel, was he assassinated? i do not think there have been any reports of that. in minnesota, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i'm happy to see they got the bill signed and hope to keep the government running. i am glad they had a compromise. military spending is necessary, but i believe the military spending could be combined with the wall. the wall is something we need, because if we do not have the wall, this problem of people aming in from el salvador and south america will continue. we are a great country, and i would like to see us keep it. veterans, my family is five generation military. on the immigration question, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, after they voted to keep the government open and move forward, he made a onion to start debate immigration proposals. he said it would be fair to both sides, they would have a debate over those dreamers that are part of the deferred action -- arrival childhood program. that will begin monday. house minority leader, nancy pelosi, she was demanding -- she stood for eight hours on the floor earlier this week. demanding big a would -- a commitment from republican leadership that they would allow those kids to stay. here she is close to 5:00 a.m. this morning before they voted on the government budget be at that -- bill. i was one of the four principles at the white house negotiating on this legislation. a lot of it came our way because nobody wants a shutdown. this is a good bill. it does not do everything, but it is a compromise. fear,e message to allay to build confidence, to honor our founders is to say that we couldn't -- we the united states of america, want to assure you we will allow the house of reps and there's to work its will. may.he chips fall where it give us a chance to allay the fear in the heart of these dreamers and their families and remove the tears from the eyes of the statue of liberty. host: that was the leader for the democrats. after that, paul ryan came to the floor and said there will be . fix to the daca situation we do not know when that will happen on the house floor. they have reopened the government this morning. what is your reaction? we will go to indiana, independent. believe they've they cannot come to a conclusion on either side, i think all should be fired and somebody that knows what they should --that they are doing should be put into office. host: mike, democrat. you are on the air. caller: thank you for c-span. i would like to make several observations. -- there is only $20 billion for infrastructure in this bill. is offset by another $17 billion in tax cuts. the leadership, constitution article one, puts the responsibility for our money house,y on the people's yet it was the senate the did a compromise bill on this package and send it back to the house. whether it is democrat republican leadership, the speaker, the majority leader, have the roles as well as the four principal committee n to deal with our money. the fact we went through all these resolutions, the first thing they did, they should be working on 2019. wishlist should have already gone to congress and congress should be working on 2019 so that his in place. -- that is in place. they say that is a two your deal, but you know there are going to be adjustments made. i was a contractor for 25 years for the dod. i work as essential personnel through shutdowns and did not .et paid my folks go back to before the revolution. are we all americans? do we hold them accountable? take -- thank you for taking my call. host: we are expecting to see the president's 2019 budget proposal monday. caller: i want to say long live trump and may he feed on the blood of all the immigrant children. missouri,e'll in -- independent. caller: good morning. i wish you would do a program on government waste, like rand paul was talking about last night. i think you could do a whole week on all the government waste. i like his idea about every 90 days, every department must come up with cuts to spending or they get an automatic 1% cut. term limits. resign,cain needs to and the governor of arizona needs to appoint someone that can take his place of the people have a say in arizona. san bernardino, california, democrat. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to say military spending is too big on our military weaponry. need individual pay raises in their pockets. get them off government assistance while they are in the military. individual pay raises, money in their pocket. not missiles and bombs. think democrats should not have agreed to increase the pentagon's budget? right. i think they should have held a little longer and decreased some of that wasteful military industrial complex. host: steve in colorado, independent. what do you think about what happened? caller: i am happy they got some work done. maybe they need to work more together. this daca thing, my parents were immigrants. if you are here 30 years, why haven't you bothered to do the application to become an american citizen? why does need to go through congress? years, youhere 30 have enough time to become a legal citizen. there are processes in place, and they need to be doing it. democrat.ucky, a tony, you are on the air. caller: thank you for taking my call. we love c-span. the thing that is bothering me the wall. -- the war. it is gone on so long, they do not have a mission. i think it is time to bring the boys home. we've been so much time losing over there. the reason the american people do not know anything about it, we do not have any news on it. we do not get to see anything. the reason the vietnam war ended the way it did was the fact there was that little girl walking around with napalm on her and the guy getting shot in by a south vietnamese general. that ended the war. we need to put our correspondence over there and let them see what is going gone. let us see the wounded. that seems to be the only way. thisnly reason they won war to keep going gone is someone needs to be making money off of it. will go to another tony in tennessee, republican. caller: i want to talk about those daca people. i am reading from what i wrote down. let the able daca people build the wall, we will feed them, we will shelter them, we will give them pay for things they need at home. once the wall has been completed , i do not think the american people, the legal american people, are going to grumble that these people who took the effort to build the wall that they want to be americans. host: california, democrats. reaction to the government shutdown at midnight? and now the president signing this reopening of the government, a deal to keep the government-funded until march 23. i am not sure what to think of it. my concern is where all this money is supposed to be going, especially with the opiate money . a lot of the time, the stuff never gets to the state level. they say they are opening things, then it never happens. the other question about money, where does it talk about the lower income social security, disability, mental health care. where is this money coming from? host: entitlement spending, yeah. we will go to south carolina. hello, hank. caller: thank you. i agree withto say the spending bill. .ur military needs more money i've heard several people talk agreethat they do not with the spending bill. how are you going to give the military more money if you do not want the bill? another thing, there was a lady who called earlier and said the president had not signed the bill because he was watching television. at 8:00 in the morning, i'm usually brushing my teeth. host: dave, reston, virginia. final thoughts here on the shutdown last night. think one way to solve the budget/immigration issue is for all the people opposed to immigrants coming to this country and helping build our country, we should trade them and send those people to the other countries well we take care of the immigrants. thank you for your thoughts this morning telling washington what you think about the government shutdown last night and the proposal to go forward for the next two years. that does it for today's washington journal. thank you for watching. enjoy the rest of your weekend. ♪ look at some of our programming on the c-span networks or join us today for a look at the civil war in syria and how turkey's relations with ethnic kurds complicates the role with the u.s. later, and at that looking at congress and the north american free trade agreement or nafta. john hopkins school of international studies is the host. you can see that at 4:00 p.m. eastern and here on c-span. coming up later today, look at how trade policy impacts the u.s. economy. georgetown university's school of public policy hears from public officials from inside and outside of the u.s. you can watch that beginning at two0 a.m. eastern on c-span -- c-span2. at 10:00 a.m. eastern from the west point center for oral history, graduate kenneth carlson talks about growing up in a military family and his service in the win. vietnam.s service in >> there was a viewpoint that you can see on the combat base. and we are seeing them come in. explosions are going often women are scared to death. said, it kind of looks like the fourth of july, and i said, no it doesn't. i said people start dying when those things land. america, wen real are featuring two films. the united states team is carving out plenty of excitement here. they were underdogs, and now they have upset all predictions by winning this game of the russians. earning them the first gold medal ever won by a u.s. team in hockey. >> at 8:00 p.m. eastern on the presidency, scholars explore the relationships between presidents ronald reagan and gorbachev at the end of the cold war. >> if you look back in 1989 when bush comes then, and you look at bush and gorbachev in 1990 and 1991, from gorbachev's point of view, bush is not measuring up to what reagan had been. >> much american history tv every weekend on c-span3. sunday night on afterwards, blacklists matter cofounder patrice with her book "when eight -- when they call you a terrorist." as we created black lives matter, we know -- we knew that we had to get people on board and interrupt what people try to co-opt. we spent a significant time ensuring what a co-op is, challenging people in our own movement, people we love, cannot say our lives matter or other communities matter, but to really focus on black people, and be allies in the of solidarity with black people. and we took it out of the world. >> what afterwards had a night at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span 2's book tv. sunday on c-span's q&a, new york times staff photographer doug mills talks about the photos he took while covering president trump. >> he enjoys having us around. i really believe, despite his constant, you know, comments about fake news in the media and so forth, i really feel that he enjoys having us around because it helps drive his message, drive the news of the day, which he can do every day and does every day. he is constantly driving a message, and having us around, really allows him to do that. >> q&a, sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span. this morning, the u.s. senate approved both the short-term government funding bill as well as a two-year budget agreement that happened after kentucky republican rand paul delayed the vote until 1:00 a.m. eastern. the vote was 71-28. then the house gaveled back into session to consider the bill that they approved after 5:00 a.m. eastern by a vote of 240-186. we will show you some of the debate proceedings, first from the house, and then senator paul's remarks on why he delayed the vote and did not want to support the measure. >> mr. chairman, ideal to myself. >> gentleman is recognized. >> i want to present the amendments of the

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