spent time on that because that's what we're spending time on here is to have appropriations bills as much as possible, completed by the end of the fiscal year, which there are only eight days left, as i mentioned. to do so in a way that reflects what we won in the fight. remember, we had the fight. took five c.r.'s for the republican to grasp the -- republicans to grasp that we needed parity in terms of the increases in the allocations. that domestic would be treated the same as defense in terms of the amount of money that would be increased. we would never get to their number because they start way ahead. this is an infusion of resources on the domestic side. i remind that the domestic side, 34% of it is about veterans affairs, the state department, homeland security, and the anti-terrorism activities of the justice department. so it is a strong security piece in the defense -- the domestic side that we were fighting for as well. so with that, i would say this week, that's what's going on, but this week -- that's what's going on in the congress -- this week in the courts the republicans renewed their assault on america's health care once again targeting the pre-existing condition benefit. over 130 million families have a pre-existing condition in their family, and the republicans are taking that benefit to court. oral arguments began for this outrageous republican texas vs. u.s. lawsuit which tries to bring the cruelest parts of the trumpcare bill back from the dead. now, you understand it's texas versus the u.s. you would follow that the u.s. would defend its position, the law of the land, but it has said that it will not defend that position. . if republicans succeed, health are 130 million americans with pre-existing conditions, cancer, diabetes, babies born with a heart defect, anything, pre-existing condition will be xcluded. in an affordable which from having access to health care. sadly it does not stop there. but that's a very prominent place that manifested. another place what's going on in the senate. this week the nation has witnessed a confirmation hearing most radical, anti-health care, anti-choice supreme court nominee in recent history. a nominee who thinks that petroleump is above the law -- that president trump is above the law. recognize the president to make appointment. we have a disagreement over a couple of things -- in terms of issues and values. apparently there is also a sagreement about established law. it is established law. when you go beyond the various cases that come before the court and say the president is above the law and should not be questioned, far too busy to be questioned. he didn't feel that way in contradiction to his proposed questions that he wanted posed to president clinton. i'm sure you are familiar with them. if brett kavanaugh is concerned, roe v. wade, sken sense gun violence, freedoms are all on the chopping block to name a few. if he he doesn't believe in established law everything is on the table. voting rights. civil rights. brown vs. the board of education. r focus has been since his name came forward and he was proposed on health care and roe v. wade because they had such clarity and immediacy of what the american people in their lives and that might be a way to stop this nomination. with their culture, they have a culture now, these republicans, as identified this about them in 2005 and 2006, here they go again with their culture of corruption, cronyism, and incompetence. republicans are selling out the american people to put their special interest friends first. the g.o.p.'s corrupt special interest agenda is manifested in the indictments of two sitting republican congressmen, first two g.o.p. members to endorse president trump. isn't that something remarkable? the first two people in the congress to endorse president trump. indicted. instead of draining the swamp, which is a phrase we used in 2006, president trump high jacked the term and betrayed the mission. instead of draining the swamp, propose to turn washington as a cesspool for special interest and the american people are paying the price. republicans want a government of, birkse and for the special interest. democrats are for the people. democrats are for the people with a bold historic commitment, sharp contrast between house democrats and republicans. it couldn't be clearer. are for the people. agenda is lowering the health care cost and pre-existing -- excuse me, prescription drug prices. of course we're fighting the pre-existing conditions. for the people. lowering your health care costs and prescription drug prices. increasing your pay through strong economic growth by rebuilding america. and cleaning up corruption to make washington work for you. over the coming weeks, house democrats will continue to develop legislation. we don't take anything for granted in the election, but there is a good chance we'll have the gavel on the democratic side and we will be ready. we'll be ready to deliver our commitment for the people, what i mentioned, and we'll continue to be ready to take action that would try to get the republicans to do, hopefully they will, before this session is over, to protect dreamers and advance gun violence prevention. commonsense legislation. we're fighting for the people. we will challenge republicans for leaving families behind. and we will hold the president accountable. the beauty of our constitution, system of checks and balances. all the beautiful other freedoms of the press which i believe is the authority of our democracy came in the bill of rights, in the body of the constitution, from the start. the separation of power and the checks and balances so essential to our freedom. we will honor thefment any questions? yes, sir. reporter: your reaction to the anonymous op-ed published by "the new york times" yesterday, are you concerned or relieved that the president not be in full control of this administration? what do you think it would be prudent for congress to do to explore the issues raised in that article? ms. pelosi: thank you for the second part of the question. republicans in congress have enabled so much of the mayhem that exists in the white house to occur without any comment. the president has to know that when a president speaks, his words weigh a ton. so some in the white house think by correcting this behind the scenes is a consolation, i don't hink it's good enough. interesting, because i have never known "the new york to go perhaps you have, without a source. so this is interesting. the president saying it's treason. his to go, a manifestation of instability. but the -- what was said in there is a reflection of what we hear from many republicans around the country. not in congress. that the party of lincoln cannot survive as the party of trump. by dent of tone, by dent of fiscal irresponsibility, by national security concerns. and also that the republicans in congress are just letting it happen without weighing in, no checks, no balances. as the constitution calls for. we'll see. probably long for us to find out who wrote it. who has denied it already? the vice president. that was my first thought. dan coats? pompeo, they deny they had written it. by process of elimination we'll come down to the butler. probably has the most knowledge of presidents in the white house. it's a sad statement. it is a manifestation of corruption, cronyism. cronyism, just having your friends around you. incompetence of some of the people who are advising him so that others, adult supervision, has to weigh in. it's dad. you know -- it's sad. you know what? it's an op-ed in the "new york times." we're focusing on the well-being, kitchen table concerns of america's working families. the book, the op-ed all interesting. but what people want to know is what are you going to do to improve my life? health and financial security of my family in terms of lowering health care costs and prescription drug costs. increasing paycheck by building an economy, building the infrastructure of america so people have bigger paychecks. again caffeinating all of that by saying we're doing this in your interest, diminishing the rome of the special interest. reporter: how a democratic majority would respond to this? would a democratic oversight committee would do to explore the implications of this? ms. pelosi: what i have asked over time of our colleagues, first i told them when we left in july, end of july, we will own august. our for the people agenda, our outside organizing around a better life for the people. we will own august and we have come out of august very strong. with -- without being presumptuous, we believe we can win and we will be ready. you asked about oversight, but i'll start with -- ask our ranking members what would be our -- to work -- to establish what our priorities would be. following the for the people agenda. lowering health care costs, raising the paycheck, and cleaning up government, as well as recognizing that we have asked the republicans for a bill for dreamers and a bill for gun violence prevention. that would be part of our agenda. at the same time, i have asked them to think in terms of what would be our priorities, in terms of oversight. i don't want this to be scattershot. i want it to be direct. so we have to see -- we can ask for documentation across the board, but how we choose to go forward with that oversight will be determined by our committees and our caucus. i don't have any adocument to make about that. the only thing i will say is earlier in july we asked -- now ranking member, soon-to-be chairman of the rules committee, jim mcgovern, to communicate with members about what our rules package would be on the first day. and how we would have the most open congress, the most bipartisan congress, and most unified congress honoring our founders, eplure russ une yum, from many one. can't imagine how different we would be. but we would strive for unity. what we will do will have that principle of what unifies us as a country. seeks truth, protects our voting system, and the rest. but again, not to just pick a fight but to make progress. reporter: you have only been -- the democratic caucus compared to the republican caucus, this week's primary results in massachusetts. the latest that next year democrats are going to be even more diverse. what's your response to the trend this year? do you think an increasingly diverse caucus means the caucus should take a different approach in terms of what it pushes for next year? ms. pelosi: the two areas i think you are making reference to, one in new york and one in boston, are a reflection of those districts. i'm going to give you a chance to amend michael capuano for being a progressive champion in the congress. on the financial services committee. champion for affordable health, transportation, for job creation, and building infrastructure of our country and being a champion for ethics reform in the congress. we welcome the new member of congress, and he -- his concession speech was done with great respect. massachusetts will do just fine. so we look forward to welcoming her. that's a district like mine. it's a liberal district. the district in queens, the district that joe crowley represents, is also a district like mine. progressive winning in those districts, the votes won't be -- excuse me, so drastic. everybody brings their own why. why they are running, what they want to focus on, how they are going to get the job done. that's the meaning of the congress. in terms of where we're winning in the rest of the country, i think you see an array of candidates who, again, know their whies. they have a vision about our country. they know their subject matter. they plan to communicate, listen, listen, listen to their constituents. and everybody is an independent representative of their district. their job tight and job description, one and the same. representative. they will come representing their different regions. it's not a boilerplate. so and so won here. no, they are different districts and different representatives. it's exciting. when new members come to the congress, some of us have been here a while, for years, we would sit there and say, here they come. the fresh recruits. who among them will be the leader in this congress? who among them will run for -- who among them could be president of the united states? the endless potential that our founders fought. reporter: would you comment on an nbc report which just came out the trump administration announce add new rule thursday that would allow immigrant children with their parents to be held in detention indefinitely until their cases are adjudicated, asylum cases are adjudicated. ms. pelosi: what the president did with that was undermine the flores decision which limited to 20 days the amount of time that the government could hold a child in detention. so this is another inhumane assault on families and children . who can explain what their motivation is. it's a wrong decision that he made. and undermining a court decision that was very specific about the amount of time a child could be held in detention. to 20 days. i completely disagrees what the president has done. again you see the visual of him taking babies away from their moms. then saying we can keep them endlessly, you understand inhumanity of it all. it has no practical value whatsoever. yes. reporter: yesterday leader mcconnell and speaker ryan said they don't want to see a government shut down. yesterday they were meeting with the president and said whatever happens will happens. he said he's willing to do anything for border security. i'm wondering are you going to it it watch republicans work on their own through this appropriations process? and essentially shut down the government? or are you willing to work with the republican leaders to -- in a bipartisan way to keep government opened? ms. pelosi: in my opening remarks i mentioned that we're working in a bipartisan way. again, from the culture of appropriations i know that people understand the responsibility there to find solutions, and especially since we won the battle of the resources going into the committee. so that when we are competing for funds we have adequate funds. but the -- we have been working with them in a bipartisan way. the senate has worked in a more bipartisan way, that's why they are further down the road. when we now join in conference with the senate, i think there can be some improvement in what the house is even-has even produced. i don't think any of us is looking for a path to shutting down government. that's the president. that's the president. some have interpreted his remark that he's going to do anything as a backing away from his command for the wall. reporter: in the background over many months the problem caucus has been working on bipartisan legislation on all the major issues. they haven't had a chance to come forward because of the way republicans are managing caucus house. if democrats take over the house, what would happen to the impetus and legislation and voice of something like the problem solvers caucus? ms. pelosi: we have a caucus that has much diversity in it, and we have a congress that is not as diverse as our caucus, but as i said to begin with, our rules will say that we're an congress. so people can see well in advance what is being voted upon so that they can know how it affects them. time is not just about time. it's about time and information getting to the public. that's the importance of time. secondly, as i said, we'll be marked by bipartisanship. not as a concession but values, principal. how do we work together -- principle. how do we work together to arrive at the third principle, which is unity. how do we unify the country? as we did in the affordable care act, republican amendments will be considered. just as democratic amendments were considered. and some were accepted, some were modified, and some were rejected. it will be a different process. we can barely ever get an amendment on the floor. anyone who has an idea to come forward to subject their idea to the full congress when it is appropriate, there will be an opportunity to do that. we're very excited about it. this has been miserably dark congress in terms of being closed. very hard to get an amendment on the floor. i think sometimes they are afraid that it will succeed, that's why they don't want to give us our amendment. and also just on bills like the bipartisan nature, working on legislation for commonsense background check, overwhelmingly the public supports this, it has bipartisan support in the congress. they won't give us a vote on the floor. same thing with dreamers. overwhelmingly supporting the country had bipartisan support. they wouldn't even give it a chance on the floor. we can find as much bipartisanship, we'll value it. again, this place is a giant clade scope, you named but one -- is a giant kaleidoscope, you named one design. we have reasonable bipartisanship. we have every kind of -- this side of the room may be supporting one thing one day. these are this side of the room. so we're working to prevail. then the next day the back of the room may be working vis-a-vis the front of the room on an issue because of different -- legislation is different. it has regional concerns. the kaleidoscope changes. -- everyone is a resource to all of us in the congress. we respect the people who sent all of us here on both sides of the aisle. and want to have the fullest vitality of thinking. but also to be able to have our solutions unifying and not dividing of the country. when i have -- when our caucus has sent members to any tables my instruction is be agnostic, wherever a good idea comes from, right, left, center, wherever, if it's going to grow the economy, creating good-paying jobs, reduces the national debt, we're open to that. you know the values of our caucus. but that doesn't mean that we will just oppose something because we considered the source of it. we're here for the people. thank you. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> the house comes in for legislative business at noon eastern. before that, we'll take you to the weekly briefing with house speaker paul d. ryan. expected in about 10 minutes or so. we'll have live coverage here on c-span. right now a conversation on foreign meddling in social media. >> "washington journal" continues. host: this is nancy scola, the technology reporter for politico. there is a picture of two people appearing at these hearings -- tell viewers about who was on capitol hill and why they were there? guest: sheryl sandberg, the chief operating officer of race book testified on election security and the use of platforms by foreign adversaries in the u.s. election process. she was joined by the ceo of twitter, jack dorsey. jack then travel to the other side of capitol hill to the house for the energy and commerce committee where he testified so low on the idea that twitter may be biased. host: what is the significance that you had the ceos of these platforms to talk about these issues? guest: it has been a long time coming. the companies are in the spotlight for they didn't do enough in the election by russia. in their own definition they were slow to take action in that. a lot of their testimony was