2027488001. We welcome your comments on twitter, of course. Cspanwj and on facebook. Well speak to one of the reporters on that article that came out on friday. How washington learned to love debt and deficits. Political support for taming federal debt has melted away and the u. S. Is testing just how much it can borrow. They write that william hognland has engaged in every budget deficit battle in decades. He brought a sensibility he learned growing up on an indiana farm. You have to balance the books over time. He feels like a voice in the wilderness now. The story says that theories about debt and deficits and whether they matter once widely shared in washington and wall street in academia have fundamentally changed. Writing that Political Support for taming deficits has melted away with republicans accepting bigger deficits in exchange for tax cuts and democrats making spending promises around 2020 global election campaigns. Global demand for u. S. Treasury assets has displaced the bond market vigilanty mentality of the 1990s that scared washington and they say that leading scholars and a mini revolution hitting academia are debating whether large debts and deficits might be tolerable and theyre also not a top concern for voters anymore either. Looking forward to hearing what you have to say. How concerned are you about the u. S. Debt and deficit . 2027488000. If youre concerned. 2027488001 if youre not too concerned. Part of the reason we ask this question, because the house and senate beginning the work on the fiscal year 2020 spending measures. That fund the federal government. They have to have them done by the end of september. This is the wall street journal today, about that particular fight. Budget talks shrink, partisan gulf is their headline. A political a handful of congressional leaders are quietly working across the aisle to stabilize the governments finances. Away from the headlinegrabbing recriminations over whether to impeach President Trump, senior lawmakers in both parties are focused on smoothing the path for congress to open government, to keep the government open for two years after its current funding expires on october 1. Along the way they are trying to avoid a bill derailing debate over abortion, prevent a debt default, and give lawmakers a modest pay raise. Thats part of the story from the wall street journal this morning and more broadly, our topic this morning about your concern over the nations debt and deficits. 2027488000 if youre concerned. 2027488001 if youre not concerned. Lets go to al in green belt. Good morning, youre first up. Caller good morning. Scale ofrned about the the debt and deficit because usually the ability to go into deficit spending is helpful when you go on the wrong side of a business cycle. Like such as when the economy goes into recession. But if were in serious deficit right now when the economy is strong, were not going to have that cushion once the economy goes south. Which you never know when that could happen. Host youre calling us from your car. Do you work in the area of federal spending . Caller i do. Host given the experience of the man mentioned in the story, this William Hogeland about deaf and deficit over time between different parties, whats your saysment as a political issue in terms of how people feel on capitol hill and elsewhere about the issue of debt and deficit . Caller my assessment is that people have been hearing about this for so long and to be honest, theyve been hearing exaggerated warnings for so long that folks have sort of started tuning it out. Im not saying that the warnings were incorrect, they just were more dire than they should have been. Debt and deficits should be viewed as not a heart attack issue, but more like gum disease. You can still die of it, but its something that if you manage it properly, youll be fine over time. Host thanks. Sounds like als in the washington area. Cspan available on cspan radio at 90. 1 f. M. New york, mark, youre concerned about the deficit. Tell us why. David because i as a young person, i realize that our liabilities like Social Security and medicare are being depleted. And theyre not going to be around when im going to be older. So thats why everyone my age needs a really to really work and get replenish the fund in order for it to still be there when i grow older. Host we go to worcester, massachusetts, and hear from robert. Your thoughts on the story were reporting on from the wall street jurnled , the nations the wall street journal, the nations debt and deficit. Caller first of all, the National Debt is something that [inaudible] for our nation. When you talk about the National Debt, were talking about the centrist bureau. Thats talking about we have to take census. Donald trump is talking about right now, we have to tyke a census so we have we have to take a census so we have voting. Voting is a right. But [inaudible] this is one thing we need to talk about. The census. Every black american in this nation, think about the Census Bureau that donald trump right now is about ready to do. Very black american, latino, gay, lesbian, everybody across this nation right now ought to be talking about the Census Bureau for 2020 and on and on. [inaudible] host thank you, robert from worcester, massachusetts. We certainly have talked about and will, in addition, as the Supreme Court gets close to a decision on that particular issue. This piece in the wall street journal by john and kate, Kate Davidson joining us on the phone. Were talking this morning about your story with john. How washington learned to love debts and deficits. Tell us, first of all, this picture, one of the pictures that accompanies the story, of Vice President al gore, president bill clinton in 1999, and zero federal budget deficit. Why is that tell us why thats important to this story as a starting point. Reporter sure. Thanks. So that was a really interesting moment in the u. S. Economy. It had been at that point 30 years, 30 or 40 years, 30 years since there had been a surplus in the country. And there were a number of reasons why that happens. President clinton had worked with republicans and democrats in congress, there was a big bipartisan effort to bring deficits under control. It was also a moment where the economy was really booming in the late 1990s. An episode that some economists host i think we Kate Davidson, i think i apologize, i think we just lost you there. I apologize. He wouldle well get Kate Davidson back on here momentarily. In the meantime well go to mike in richmond, virginia. Mike, go ahead. Youre on the air. Caller good morning. Ive been very concerned about the deficit and the debt for a very long time. The reason is that there is a link, although a lot of people dont see it, theres a link between the purchasing power of the dollar and the amount of debt being carried by the federal government. The reason weve seen our purchasing power being eroded as fast as it has is strictly because the federal government doesnt know how to live within its means and it effects the value of dollar as its been traded on the currency exchanges. Really, if we want to see fiscal sanity, we have to do something that absolutely nobody is willing to face up to. Host which is what . Caller which is the fact that were borrowing 40 of what we spend. In order to get our house in order, spending has to be cut by 40 , really more, across the board. Or we will never, ever catch up. I look back at what ive read through history, the last time that i see that there was a serious attempt to pay down the National Debt was in the years following the civil war and going up through the Grover Cleveland administration, because grover leaveland was dead serious about paying cleveland was dead serious about paying down the debt. Host well let you go there, were rejoined by Kate Davidson. My apologies. I think i hung up on you and didnt mean. To you were talking about 1999 and the balanced budget at that point, the zero federal budget deficit, getting toward the end of the clinton administration. You write, you and john write in this piece that it really is the concern now in terms of the i should say lack of a concern or less concern about budget deficits and debt is on both sides of the political aisle. Reporter thats right. What weve seen is in the past several years there have been agreements among, on the one hand republicans and democrats agree to a very large increase, a budget deal that would increase spending in 2018 and 2019 for the two fiscal years. In 2011 after the financial crisis, when the deficits were very high because of the recession, there was a lot of Government Spending going on to stimulate the economy, we of course had the Tea Party Movement, kind of in response to that. A bunch of lawmakers came in and said they were really concerned about the fiscal outlook, wanted to rein in those deficits and that was something that there was agreement at that time. A lot of folks shared that concern. So they imposed these spending caps. But every couple of Years Congress votes to sort of give a little bit of relief from the caps. Have spending be a little bit higher, they dont want it to be too tight. Last year the deal was much bigger than previous deals had been. So thats one factor thats pushed deficits. Of course the other one is the tax come. Although the administration said it would pay for itself over time, thats not happening yet and thats not what a lot of economists expect to happen. So those two things combined are really pushing up deficits and are projected to add quite a by the to the bit to the debt in the years to come. Host you also said economists didnt expect the falling rates of the 10year treasury yield to alltime lows and yet the chart right next to it, the projection for the federal debt rising sharply in the coming years, tie those briefly together for us for our listeners and viewers. Reporter right. Its a bit of a conundrum. Interest rates, even separate from issues were talking about with deficits and debt, rates have just been low for some time. This is something that started happening in the 1990s. Economists, we talked to several who didnt really notice that this was what they might call a structural change, something fundamental about the economy that was changing. Interest rates were much lower. Now that people kind of come around to that idea, they think that its time to rethink the way that we think about fiscal policy. If rates are low, perhaps that means that we can tolerate higher deficits or higher debt. Of course the flip side of that is, plenty of folks are still worried about, is that Interest Rates really could rise at any time. They havent risen theyve been low so far which means that interest costs on the debt have been pretty manageable and maybe even masking some of the potential problems with rising deficits and debt. If they at some point go up or markets just reevaluate their view of the safety of u. S. Debt, that could lead to an Interest Rate spike. And all of a sudden the debt becomes a lot more expensive to service. And that could be a big problem. Host the article on rising debt and deficits by caved davidson and her Kate Davidson and her colleague available at wsj. Com. Really appreciate you joining us this morning here on washington journal. Reporter thanks for having me. Host we look forward to your calls and comments as well as we spend this first hour talking about debt. And the effect on the budget debates currently going on. How concerned are you about federal debt and deficit . 2027488001 if youre not that concerned. 2027488000 if you are concerned. We go to roberta in michigan. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you doing . Host good morning. Im doing fine, thank you. Caller i was calling because i feel that our deficit makes us is our only really, really, really weak link and if we dont get it fixed, it could be our down fall. I know in 1983 i heard on the 100 countdown when i was in germany, stationed in germany, they talked about it would cost us 600 a person to pay off the debt. Then in 1987 i heard on the news it would cost 1,000something to pay each person in america to pay off our deficit. And so now i cant even imagine what it would be, having it be so high. So i invented this project, pennies to pay off the american deficit, the actually pennies, loose change and bottle return money to pay off the american deficit, which teaches our children how to pay down debt. From little children on up. Everybody. But its strictly on a volunteer basis. Where people can give their children can fill in those little animal packets that have a dime or a penny and help america and they can save it when theyre an adult and say, i helped america. So they can donate money and it teaches children how to pay down the deficit. Even though its a penny at a time. But then some people would give 1,000, some people might give 1 million, other countries. I dont know. Host we had a caller a couple callers ago suggested 40 cuts acrosstheboard spending. Do you think some Government Agencies could not survive, some programs could not survive at that level of cuts . Caller i dont know about all that. Because i couldnt really listen to them. This was my first time calling and im con foosed about all the confused about all the host glad to have you on. Caller they need to implement a program to start paying down our deficit and teaching our children how to pay down the deficit would really help. Host well go to steven, lawrenceville, georgia. Caller hi. Great show. I have a quick question. In nuremberg, the jews were paid reparations. Trumps getting back all this tariff money and its overdue. Martin luther king made when he went to washington, d. C. , he said, we came for our check. Reparations is overdue. The world is watching. We have to look at the past problems of the world, when nations go ahead and falter. Because they dont do good by the people. When the people have to go up against nations like that, they tend to fall, crumble. This country is in the same situation where theyre going to make a mistake by not doing right by people. They should learn from their past experiences of history. I just want to leave that with you. Reparation is overdue. Host thank you. We mentioned the importance, the issue of the debt, deficit coming up in the discussions over federal spending for fiscal year 2020. The house will resume debate on that on the floor this week and it was much part of the discussion last week. I want to show you some comments from members on that. Starting with jim banks, introducing, offering an amendment for acrossed acrosstheboard cuts to programs. This is from the house floor. Take a look. With 22 trillion in debt and trilliondollar deficits for as , it is he eye can see long past time for congress to make the difficult decisions necessary to balance the budget. If we do not confront this problem, we will condemn future generations to higher taxes and a lower standard of living. As a father of three daughters, this is simply unacceptable to me. Madam chair, my amendment reduces the funds made available for each amount in division a of h. R. 2740 by 14 . This would reduce total appropriations in this division down to budget control act levels. As chairman of the Republican Study Committee task force on budget and spending, i am proud to have worked with eight of my colleagues on the only serious effort in this congress to confront our debt crisis. The result was a budget that cut 12. 6 trillion in spending and balanced in six years. An important part of the budget was bringing nondefense Discretionary Spending down to commonsense levels. And my amendment before the house today would help make those reductions a reality. Adoption of this amendment would show that we are acknowledging our spending addiction and are taking the necessary first steps to address it. Host republican jim banks on the floor of the house last week proposing an across the board ud budget cuts. This was the response from californias congresswoman barbara lee, democrat barbara lee. The sponsor of the amendment cites the National Debt as a reason to cut funding for programs that benefit working families. But i note that he did vote for the republican tax scam which added more than 2 trillion to the National Debt by cutting taxes for big corporations and the wealthiest families. My republican colleagues dont object to adding to the debt when it benefits corporations and the wealthy. They only object to it if it means providing opportunities for hardworking families. I strongly oppose this amendment and i reserve the balance of my time. Host how concerned are you about the nations debt and deficit . If youre concerned, 2027488000. If youre not concerned, 2027488001. We go to staten island, steve. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you . Host doing fine, thank you. Caller ok. Im a little upset about the republicans and the democrats arguing all the time because every time a republican comes in, they cut the taxes and then byebye. Host are you still there . We lost sorry about that, steve. You were fading in and out. We go to compton, california. Say hello to eric. Caller good morning, america. Ive been sitting around watching this situation for a long time. And i believe if we as a nation united and just wiped out all the debt, some student loans, rtgage loans, all of it, and we would strive as a nation, it would bring people together. If we did the jubilee like were supposed to, release people out of prisons, turn the prisons into hospitals we afford it as a nation. That debt is owed war debt. If we continue to hold it, we need to split the budget and put the debt on the senior citizens. People over 50 years old need to pay that debt off and then start a new budget for the younger generation. We can do this as a nation. As united. Get rid of all the debt and start all over as a nation like were required to. We havent started over like were required to as a nation, as a people. Start over. Do the jubilee and it well have a great time. Celebrate. Celebrate what weve been blessed with. Host heres dollar figures in terms of what congress is facing this year and more broadly in terms of the 2020 budget and spending caps. Without Congress Action this year on the spending caps, the pentagon budget would be cut by 71 billion. Domestic programs would be cut by 55 billion. The president s 2020 budget request, that number is 4. 75 trillion. The mandatory spending part, thats Social Security, medicare, etc. , thats 2ds. 8 trillion. The discretionary, what congress can decide to spend, is 1. 4 trillion. And the interest on the u. S. Debt projected to be nearly half a trillion at 479 billion. To pennsylvania, we hear from peter this morning. Hi. Caller good morning. Ive just very interested in the debt. Ive been following all my life. I said, were doing very well when clinton was president. He got down to balanced budget with paying off the debt. Then bush got in, the republicans right away, the first thing they did was pass that tax cut. Wonderful they made everybody richer again. Except the government. Now, we keep cutting taxes. Trump gets in, the republicans get in, cut the taxes. Obama was trying to drop the cost of it, trying to keep the spending low, but all of a sudden we got back in with trump, we increased the military budget, we increased spending all over. But cut the taxes again. We cannot keep cutting taxes and starve our government of money and expect to do everything we want to do. We either need to pay more taxes and do everything we want to do, or we balance it a fair way. Not taxing the small working people. The multicorporations that have so much money they dont know what to do with it. But why do what do we do to our government . We keep taxing the poor and the rich get richer and the rich get away with tax cuts. Host peter touched on historical context, as did Kate Davidson too. From their piece in the wall street journal, with john, they write that a Political Movement to tame deficits prove shortlived after Tea Party Republicans poured into congress in 2010 decrying debt. They pressed president obama to cut Discretionary Spending. He got republicans to accept increased top tax rates. Deficits began receding but neither side could reach an agreement in the long term. Former senator Allen Simpson says, quote, im the master of lost causes, he said. In 2010 he coheaded a commission, mr. Obama created, to make deficit reduction recommendations. Mr. Obama didnt endorse his proposals and none of his recommendations saw congressional vote. Quote, everyone out there just began to pick it apart, he says, of his plan he cowrote with democrat. To maryland. Go ahead. On the line for those of you not concerned about it. Caller hey, hows it going . Thanks for having me. Im not as concerned about the debt because its a manufactured problem. Its not something that we just got ourselves into. The Federal Reserve keeps giving us money. Its like carrying somebody from a drug addiction by giving them more drugs. Its not working. This is the same thing that weve seen in greece and what do they get to do when they do that . They get to take our natural resources, they get to they get to control things that they wouldnt otherwise control. Even our Foreign Policy. So they can control our Foreign Policy now because were in so much debt, we owe them money. I think that thats the big problem. Host ok. Get to portland, maine. Hear from paul next up. Good morning. Caller good morning. Im concerned about the debt. Im shocked if someone is not concerned about it. I dont think they grasp the gravity of the situation that were in. The only reason were not venezuela or greece right now is cause u. S. Currency is still the currency used to buy and sell oil in most of the world. If we lose that status, we instantly become venezuela or greece. Back in december, december 12, the House Financial Services committee had a hearing on this exact subject, the deficit and the debt. One of the congressmen thats been in congress for 10 years says that that hearing was the first time that they had discussed it since he had been in congress. The chairman of the committee id nonchalantly, how convenient that well all be out of office by the time this comes to fruition. They had four other nations top of the nations Top Economists testify before that committee. And i think that theyre opening their owing comments were all four of them opening comments, all four of them used the word dire, dire situation. They said americans should be made aware of how serious the situation is. That ur economists agreed by the year 20 30rks i believe, Social Security will be completely bankrupt. People should go on cspan. Org or whatever it is and just listen to the opening comments that the economists made at that hearing. It was december 12, House Financial Services committee at the rayburn building in washington. Just listen to their opening comments. Thats all you need to hear. I think we should all be very concerned about that debt. And where its leading us. They said wed have to cut spending, i believe it was by 4 billion a year every year for the next 30 years just to keep the debt where it is now. Basically thats all i wanted to say. Thank you very much for your time. Host appreciate that. Folks can google hearings or Google Search hearings like that on our website at cspan. Org, as paul was mentioning. Your thoughts on the mounting deficit and debt and how concerned are you . 2027488000 if youre concerned. 2027488001 if you are not concerned. Go to florida. Go ahead, ned. Caller good morning, sir. First of all, i would like to take history as debt information. The people [inaudible] for rich people to be tax over tax. What happened to rome . It came down because the rich people are the ones creating jobs. Who are creating jobs . It is the rich people that gives out jobs. Rich corporations create jobs. Now, slicked. In california, californias bankrupt because the governor is illegals, not to taking care of our americans. The labor people, the blacks dont have any jobs. Theyre giving health care to the illegals. And where is the money from . From the governor to all the democratic politicians. Host thats ned in florida. Issue of spending coming up again on the house floor and in committees. The house resuming debate on 2020 spending. This package of spending that started last week, what theyre calling a minibus. Its called that because its not an omnibus. A big package of spending about. But four separate Appropriations Bills. Theyre starting with labor, health and Human Services. Defense bill, state and foreign operations and energy and Water Development you can see the numbers on your screen. The total for that package. Fairly substantial piece of the 2020 spending. That thank got started last week. The chair ppings Appropriations Committee nita lowey introducing the bills on the floor of the house. Today we bring four bills to the floor that reject the slash and burn approach of the Trump Administration and instead chart a new course. One that increases investments in American Families to make up for lost ground, one that gives every person a better chance at a better life. With these bills we are investing for the people. We invest in education and in the health of the American People. In infrastructure and in the environment, in our National Security and in the needs of Service Members and military families. And let me just say, because, frankly, the administrations misuse of government funding should concern both parties funds should concern both parties this bill includes necessary oversight provisions to prohibit the administration from misappropriating funds, including for a border wall. This Hallowed Institution must not be a rubber stamp for president ial pet projects. Host by the way, debate on that measure resuming in the house this week. Of course live house coverage on cspan. They return for legislative work tomorrow. Your thoughts, your concern over the nations debt and deficit. We go to bloomington, minnesota, and hear from tom. Caller hi, bill. Host good morning. Caller good morning, sir. The goatee looks good on you, buddy. Host thank you. Caller i know. A little compliment. Listen. I am starting to feel im an ld im almost 70 years old. Waiting to start my Social Security, so it builds up as high as it can. Which is crazy, but thats the best thing for me. I dont think theres much hope on this issue. I voted for a guy named Ronald Reagan back in 1980. Im a life long democrat. Voting for him made me a little sick but i thought he would balance the debt. Well, he ran a bigger budget deficits percentagewise that barack obama, apparently. I just dont think that the way we look at things in our country, the people realize how that people realize how the cost of living is affecting, is being affected by the debt. For years weve had increasing costs in everything. And people just keep paying more and more. As the value of the dollar erodes. I dont know if theres any answer to this. People just dont think or care about the debt because it hasnt come to roost, the problems. Host you pointed out the piece of it that may come to roost for you and for many others is Social Security. Is medicare. That piece of mandatory spending we talked about that has to happen. Why havent we been able to address that . We say politicians, but its really those of you us who elect politicians, right . Caller it makes me tear my hair out. High brother, who is a conservative republican, me a moderate liberal democrat, ive always, as i told my brother and everyone who talks to me knows, im for balancing the budget and debt, that is. The whole thing. The american i think the real truth is people the reason one of the reasons donald trump won the election is because we have a problem in our country with people not being able to make a living here anymore. It used to be first a man could make laveg alone because the dollar a living alone because the dollar. Just a husband working. Then a wife had to go to work instead of being able to raise kids at home. Little by Little People have accepted these changes. Kind of like the frog inside the pot where the where its getting near boiling. Sooner or later these Interest Rates will creep up a little. And they have a little bit. Maybe it will take decades. Maybe it will take months, years. And we and other countries will hit some sort of a debt crisis. Thats all i was trying to say there. The second point, that the trump election is because the average american cant live on in america anymore. In the middle of the country. And theyre good people. I believe most trump voters are good people. But they are just in big trouble. And even on the coast theres a lot of good democrats and republicans that are in trouble because we cant afford to to live here anymore. Host let you go there. Marlene, with us from north carolina. Caller good morning. How are you . Ms. Haley fine host fine, thanks. Caller im going to be 75 years old. I listen to some of the phone calls coming in. One of the worst ones i hear is there was a balanced budget under bill clinton. If there was a balanced budget under bill clinton then why did the National Debt increase every year he was in office . People dont understand money. I was a book keeper. People have no idea about money. Right now you have central bankers worldwide controlling the money. Interest rates you get 2 at the bank on your money. In the bank. What happens when Interest Rates go up to 4 . That National Debt payment that ou showed goes from 475 billion to almost 1 trillion a year. Just for interest. Our country, if all you have to do, if you know anything about history, is look at the roman empire. They were a familyoriented civilization, father, mother, family. Then they got big for their britches. They got very successful and they started expanding around at that time would be the world. Host we wont go that far back but thanks for your point on the clinton administration, etc. , and picture of course that accompanied the piece in the wall street jurnled on the federal deficit, not debt, the 1999 deficit, they write in the story that the federal government has run deficits in all but four of the past 50 years. Budget deals during the george h. W. Bush and clinton administrations, which included tax increases on high earning americans and spending cuts, plus economic growth, put the budget in the black in 1998 for the First Time Since 1969. Again, this is a oneyear budget. Smaller deficits meant lower Interest Rates that stimulated spending and investment, yields on 10year treasury bills fell from nearly 9 in 1990 to under 5 by 1998. The Congressional Budget Office projected annual surpluses at that time for the next 10 years. But, they write, recession hit in 2001, republicans cut taxes and america spent on wars in afghanistan and iraq. A financial crisis and another recession starting in 2007 led to bank bailouts, Safety Net Program spending, and hundreds of billions of dollars in fiscal stimulus. Publicly held debt swelled to 76 of the Gross Domestic Product in 2016 from 32 in 2001. How concerned are you over debt and deficit . We hear from linda in staten island. Hello, there. Caller hello. Im not really concerned about any deficit. Im just concerned about basic survival. The new York State Attorney Generals Office had already stated in 2016 that the Human Resources administration in the city of new york is a 9 billion operation. So for me this is where the problem lies. I really think that the federal republic should sanction the Human Resources administration, the human rights and civil rights abuses. Host we hear from mac next, augusta, georgia. Good morning. Caller thank you for the opportunity to talk to you this morning. Im very some very interesting conversation. Host you bet. Caller i have what i think might be a solution to the problem. But you got the circus of the politics that make it very ifficult to solve any problem. I think we should institute a 1 rule. So if a 1 rule. So if last year there was a deficit, next year theres going to be a 1 reduction in spending and theres going to be a 1 surcharge on your income taxes. And if that doesnt do it, the following year then its 2 , until the deficit is in balance. Then we could start looking at the National Debt. No ifs, ands or buts. Thats the rule. You have to pay 1 more until the deficit is disappears. Thank you. Host all right. Couple comments on twitter. cspanwj for your thoughts. This one says host we hear from bill in syracuse. Syracuse, new york. Hi, bill. Caller hi. One of the problems is when we talk about were talking about Something Different than National Debt. The government is in charge of the supply of money. When its too big, then we have some inflation, then we can cut it back. Rye now were not having a problem with inflation right now tpwheert having a problem with inflation were not having a problem with inflation. We are having a problem with children in our country not getting enough to eat, not getting food. We have people on all the interstates around here, theres always somebody there with a sign saying, im homeless, please contribute. We need to take care of that problem first. Then we can start dealing with an imaginary number which is something that we can work with. We dont have to get all tight about a National Debt as he would about a personal debt as we would about a personal debt. Host ok. A couple other stories this morning. This from the associated press. A story happening in iran. Iran saying it will break its uranium stockpile limit in 10 days. Theyre reporting theyll break the stockpile limit set by tehrans nuclear deal with world powers in 10 days. The spokesman for the countrys Atomic Agency said that warning while iran could enrich uranium up to 20 , just a step away from weapons grade levels. Also in the middle east, a story in the the Washington Post this morning, netanyahu unveils trump heights, israels newest town. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took his first step sunday to express his gratitude to President Trump, unveiling an especially convened Cabinet Meeting a plaque marking the spot where israels newest town, trump heights, will sit sit. The new community is located on the occupied Golan Heights which in a highly controversial move the up end that up ended decades of u. S. Foreign policy, President Trump recognized as being part of sovereign israel last month. The establishment of trump heights is another sign of the flourishing political relationship between the israeli and american leaders whose political rhetoric and actions often appear to mirror each other as they lavish mutual praise. Another one from the u. S. A. Today this morning about the latest on the boeing 737 max jet. C. E. O. Admits 737 max crash is a mistake. Saying sunday that his company made a mistake by failing to communicate the problems it was having with software aboard its 737 max aircraft. Speaking to reporters in paris ahead of the air show there, he said that boeings communications on the matter were, quote, not consistent and that the approach was unacceptable. The statement is the most direct apology yet by the seattlebased airplane manufacturing giant which came under intense scrutiny by regulators after two 737 max aircraft accidents. A ribian air crashed in october in indonesia, claiming 189 lives, and in ethiopian afrles airlines crash. And one more. By the way, the president on that story on the trump height, the president yesterday saw that and tweeted this in terms of Benjamin Netanyahu saying thank you, mr. Prime minister. A great honor. Back to u. S. Politics for a moment. Latest on trade from wall street journal this morning. Ahead of testimony this week from the trade representative, Robert Lighthizer. Years in motion for possible new tariffs, is their headline. The u. S. China trade conflict is moving closer to home. Consumer items, largely spared by existing tariffs on chinese imports, would face 25 levies under the Trump Administrations plan targeting 300 billion of chinese goods that havent been taxed, havent yet been taxed. Today the office of u. S. Trade representative is due to open seven days of hearings on the new tariffs, to solicit Public Comment ending on june 25. Mr. Lighthizer due for testimony on capitol hill this week as well. Back to our calls and comments on the u. S. Debt and deficit. How concerned are you . If you are concerned, that line is 2027488000. Not so concerned, 2027488001. Go to terry next in illinois. Good morning. Caller hello. The only thing i was thinking was when it comes to the last no taxes for the rich, the reason why most of those people wanted to vote for that, they cant show you the books. If they show you the books, theyd see all kinds of gaps in the paperwork. Im not cutting down certain people, but when you pass a law that says in the bush administration, old bush administration, it said very plainly, when a person that is really rich dies and passes on, if theyre really rich, they dont have to pay no inheritance tax for their kids. If thats true, what i was told, i cant quote it, but then if you look right down at it, theyre making laws, and i hate to say this because ill probably get a lot of people would say im right and a lot of people would say im wrong, for most people, not all people, it seems like were being robbed right down party lines. Theyre making laws that really most people really dont want. During the Obama Administration he wasnt too bad as a president. But morally he would tell the South Carolina people that if they didnt let transgenders into their public bathrooms where their children go to school, they wouldnt get no school money. And then they make socialist health care to where it directly takes money out of the treasury rom peoples Social Security administration money, never gave them the chance to vote if they wanted to go into a big pool, and if you really look at a lot of these hospitals, theyve really added on. Theyve added on and added on a lot of expense on Peoples Health care and you still get a bill from them. Host the story of health care is making the front page of the New York Times this morning. Eporting by peter baker, trump revives feud on health. As allies wins. The president is vowing to issue a plans within a month or two, reviving a Campaign Promise with broad consequences for next years contest. Nervous republicans worry that putting out a concrete plan with no chance, the democrats with no chance of passage would only give the democrats a target to pick apart over the next year. The hard economic reality of fashioning a plan that lives up to the promises mr. Trump has made would invariably involve tradeoffs unpopular with many voters. Quote, obamacare has been a disaster. Mr. Trump told abc news in the interview that aired over the weekend on abc. His own plan, he insisted, would lower costs. Youll see that in a month when we introduce it. Were going to have a plan thats subject to winning the ouse, senate and presidency. Also too, the president officially kicks off his 2020 campaign and thats coming up tomorrow in orlando, florida. We will have live coverage of that coming up tomorrow night on cspan2 in orlando. The president joined by the first lady. Also Vice President pence and karen pence tomorrow night. Back to calls on the debt and deficit. Nick is in illinois. Welcome. Caller good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Im not concerned with the debt because everyone always thinks democrat or republican, its always been used as an election tool. The debt in my opinion is just a justification for taxation. Because if the federal government has no debt, theyre making money. A lot of people calling on here say the tariffs hurt the people. Thats kind of true. But only when the tariffs hurt is when inflations high. Now, when we made money as a country, when we first founded ourselves, it was through tariffs on other countries, preferably with United Kingdom and france, but taxes also go up when other countries, like the president has mentioned, dont pay their fair share. Everyone, if you turn on the debt clock, all you pay atext to is the attention to is the 2ds1 trillion or 70 trillion or the 100 trillion. I Pay Attention to the currency and Credit Derivatives which is over 400 trillion. Thats how much other countries owe us. We own over 400 trillion of global debt. As the president rightfully points out, when other countries dont pay, thats when our debt goes up. Thats when the government has to tax the people. Thats how other countries get away with it. We seem to do a lot of work and dont get paid for it. Like going over to germany and protecting them. They dont pay. The United Kingdom dont pay. Countries like poland or estonia, these poor, hardworking countries who get very limited protection host you mean they dont pay in terms of nato . Youre talking about what President Trump has called their fair share of military spending, is that the particular area youre talking about . Caller it talks bevering. If we own 400 everything. If we own 400 trillion. Think about that. Turn on the debt clock. Currency and credit drevetives is debt on currency and debt on other countries host well let you go there. Go to bill in columbus, georgia. Bill, welcome. Caller yes. Thank you. Very much, for 40 years of cspan coverage. Id eliminate the Federal Reserve and federal money and charge interest on our own money. Thank you. Host ok. In port charlotte, florida. Hello to dawn who is concerned about the federal debt. Hi. Caller good morning. To make a an idea, point that hasnt been made yet. Last ched thes iy awards night izzy awards last nye which was a journalism awards ceremony. They had a gentleman on there that wrote that article about the pentagon and how its inauditable by design. They have a 3 trillion slush fund. And i remember that being an issue back in 9 , right around 9 time too. And nothings ever been done about that. Thats one area 9 11 time too. And nothings ever been done about that. Thats one area we could focus on other than just the social programs. Thank you. Host thank you. A tweet here. Based on the growing popularity for free stuff, parently Many Americans arent the least bit concerned. The National Debt is one more way Foreign Countries have control over us. The money was borrowed, the war is put on a higherinterest credit card. The rich get tax cuts and Congress Gets a raise. Mike says host not sure exactly what that refers to. , one res that debt clock of our viewers on twitter talked about in his tweet. The u. S. Debt clock with the u. S. National debt ticking away at 22 trillion in that view. Back to calls. A few more calls. We hear from kansas. This is diane. Hi, there. Caller hello. I am concerned about the National Debt. One of the earlier callers suggested that there was a report that said wed have to reduce it by 4 billion a year to he next 20 or 30 years achieve some decent reduction in the debt. And ive been reading several articles about the credit, the tax credits that are given to Illegal Immigrants that are claiming dependence dependent, children that dont even reside in the u. S. There is a report or several reports out by the Inspector General that oversees the i. R. S. Asking them to do something about this, that this tax fraud is rampant and it amounts to billions of dollars a year. And i think this is just one area that should be given some attention. But i think that tax fraud in general is over the top in this country and needs to be looked at as well and would help reduce our National Debt. Host on a related story, thank you, to what diane was speaking about. A breitbart report from this morning, the feds actively working on a trackdown on welfare dependent immigration. They write that federal immigration officials at the United States citizenship and Immigration Services are actively working to enforce president Donald Trumps recent crackdown on welfaredependent Legal Immigration to the u. S. In a memo last week, acting uscis director said that staff would, quote, develop and implement guidance on trumps president ial memorandum signed last month that mandates american taxpayers must be reimbursed when a legal immigrant uses public welfare. This is myrtle beach, South Carolina. Nick, go ahead. Caller thanks for taking my call. This might be a little bit of a curveball but i guess i just really want to say, i dont really im not too concerned about the National Debt. Im more concerned about our citizens and the welfare of the nation as is. Weve got a bunch of people going out there, getting basket weaving degrees, not basically earning any money, being a doctor, being a lawyer isnt so profitable anymore because theres so many of them and yet you have people out there making and playing video games and theyre making a lot more money than these people with degrees are. Our nation is in a state of despair. However, were so focused on the National Debt, if we were more focused on our own problems like solar energy and things of the sort, we could start to resolve those problems, but instead it seems like the United States is stuck in their little ways of going for gas, sticking for that stuff when theres a much major deeper crisis going on. I feel like the youth is doomed in the United States. They have nowhere to go. The money isnt circulating within them. You can get rich quick by making a video game or even playing video games and that almost seems absurd. Especially for someone thats their age as well. I dont have too much to say over that other than, that but i think its a start that we need to start looking at other problems other than looking at the debt and how to quickfixes on how to amend that compared to the deeper issues like the solar energy and the fact that there are a bunch of degrees and people going to college and cant even afford it. Host okful well hear from mark in ok, well hear from mark in tampa, florida. Caller hi, how are you . I just wanted to mention, they need to rewrite the tax code altogether. I am concerned about the debt. But the tax code, with all the loopholes that Large Companies get, the burden of debt on the small taxpayer, the individual citizen, and even individual a tractors, you know, as contractor a lot of people, a lot of my fellow contractors are be,nst having the insurance what do they call it, social or insurance for all, whatever they call that. Host quickly, you say youre a contractor. What agency, federal agency do you contract with . Caller im an air conditioning contractor. Host ok. I thought you were talking about being a federal contractor. In terms of bottom line for you, because we tied this partly into the 2017 tax cut. Halls the tax cut in general been beneficial for you has the tax cut in general been beneficial for you personally or your business . Caller not really. I dont see it either way going positive or negative. People, when they feel they have. Re money, theyll spend more typically the more people are in debt, usually when people need to buy Something Like a mange thing like an air conditioner, major thing like an air conditioner, they have to finance it. Not very many people pay cash. They always finance it through a credit card or through another financing agency. Host has that increased lately with the low Interest Rates and such . Caller yes. Many more people are financing their purchases. But one of the things i wanted to point out was, when it comes to taxes, it has made a lot of difference with us. One of the biggest costs for a contractor costs for a insurance, Health Insurance for our employees. Is 1000 toge, it 1500 per employee for a small contractor. I think if we had to restructure the tax code, i would see a lot of people we pay so much on our sales and everything we do. Taxes two andles three times on purchases. Like i buy an item, i have that tax on status. Host right. I will let you go there. We appreciate your calls. Four morseus in on pacific area on the budget and capitol hill on a more specific area on the budget and capitol hill. We are joined by Steven Nelson and zach cohen to take a look at issues coming up. Then later on washington journal, James Schultz, a former associate counsel in the white house, will discuss the legal and oversight battles between the white house and congress over the Mueller Report. On theht communicators, we are on capitol hill talking to exhibitors from ces on the hill, animate that an event that gives congress and staffers and advanced look at new tech products. We are in a changing world where technology is moving so quickly. All of this Amazing Software which make the difference in how we learn, work, and play. Congress has to be aware of it so they can make a difference and tackle issues like privacy or other issues involving competitiveness, because we are with otherbattle countries, especially china. Watch the communicators tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan 2. Oh, do i look forward to running against them. Tuesday, the president hold a rally in orlando, florida, officially launching his rent for a second term to watch live at 8 00 eastern on cspan 2. P. M. Online on cspan. Org. Or listen live on the free cspan radio app. Their reviews are in for cspans the president s book. One of because a milepost in the evolving and everchanging repetitions of our president s. Makes a fast, engrossing read. Historianse note it rank the best and worst president s. Shaped the events that our leaders and the legacies they left behind. Ispans the president s available as a hardcover or ebook today. Washington journal continues. The a week that promises launch of the president s 2020 campaign. We are joined by Steven Nelson, White House Reporter for the Washington Examiner, and zach cohen, Senate Reporter for the National Journal. We will start with the white house. We read a story early about iran enrichment. We heard from secretary of state mike pompeo in terms of further action against iran and what direction they may be heading in. Guest i would expect a lot more tough talk this week. As we know, the president is ined inclined to disincl to intervene militarily abroad. There was talk about pompeo really beating the war drum bolton as well. The president has been warning iran but, at the same time, saying he does not want war. I imagine we will be trying to tell iran to basically knock it off and attempting to cut this short. National journal lotsr the out look going on. Foreign policy and defense dominate the senate. On iran, you talk about senator rand paul introducing language and the of Iran National Defense Authorization act that the senate will begin to take up this week. Guest right. Bill the defense spending that congress considers. It is supposed to get a procedural vote sometime this week host in committee . Guest no, the full house floor. The house passed it out of committee i believe last week. What senators, including rand l, tim kaine, bill udall they want to make sure any spending that happens on or in buffern an attempt to them against any sort of military action, has to go through congress, essentially trying to make sure that the white house does not try to use to try to preempt congress and act militarily without congress sayso. Host it is a bill that sets the policy for the next year. Tons of hours in committee, marking it out. Will we see significant changes in defense policy now that democrats are in control of the house . Defense spending tends to be more bipartisan than other issues on capitol hill. There are questions about total numbers. And all of these spending bills of the house is working on Appropriations Bills as well. That is happening before the topline numbers set. You can talk about that later. But democrats in general would like to spend a little less on defense. Republicans tend to want to spend a little more. Host thats get to politics in the white house, or orlando for the president launching his campaign in orlando, florida, the 2020 campaign. We over the weekend was the president had fired some of his pollsters. This was announced just sunday, reported in several organizations. Why did this happen . Guest when the president does not like polls, he says if the we can be fake, polls can be fake as well. He presumably did not like the results leaked that showed him in trouble in certain areas. The launch event tuesday will be remarkably different than four years ago. It is almost four years to the day when the president announced in 2015 he was running for president in trump tower, and people thought it was a nonserious joke. They thought it was some sort of business ploy. He came down the escalator at trump tower to the cheers of paid actors, giving 50 to support the president. Here in orlando, he will be having tens of thousands of people show up. I believe he has said 70,000 people wanted to come. There is going to be an arena with 20,000 seats. It will be a packed house, very different show than we saw four years ago. Issue leading up to the launch of his campaign is the potential impeachment proceedings on capitol hill. We are seeing headlines in the New York Times liberals want impeachment. Some freshmen say lets engage where the issue is. Where is the issue in the house, understanding you cover mainly the senate . Guest i imagine the president will bring up impeachment when he is having his rally in florida. It is something that gets his supporters fired up for the election. Most of the 2018 elections, we did not see a lot of talk about impeachment either from candidates or voters. There was more of discussion about Kitchen Table issues. In the house, nancy pelosi and other moderate democrats are saying lets focus on investigations, making sure we can do proper oversight on the then administration, and you also have a vocal aggressive wing in the house and nationwide that are urging the house to take up impeachment and potentially send over impeachment charges to the senate, where it would more likely than not fail, because republicans will not remove him from office. Host a couple of comments from the president on the rally he tweets big rally tomorrow night in orlando. Looks to be setting records. We are building large movie screens outside to take care of everybody. Over 100,000 requests. Our country is doing great, far beyond what the haters and losers thought possible. He also tweets only fake polls show us behind the motley crew. Looking good but it is far too early to be focused on that. Much more work to do. Make America Great again from the president. We are joined by Steven Nelson and zach cohen, talking about a week ahead in washington, on the hill, and politics. 202 7488001 for republicans. 202 7488000 for democrats. For independents and others, 202 7488002. We will get to your calls momentarily. Steven nelson, there was talk last week that members of the senate had come to the white house for discussions on ways forward on 2020 spending. I will ask both of you, starting with you, Steven Nelson, we know if there will be additional meetings in the white house on that . Guest no. We can certainly imagine that some of these meetings are not scheduled or if they are, they do not have the full list of names in advance. I imagine we will be hearing a lot more on spending. With the president , it is the details work themselves out on capitol hill. Meticulousesident is in every facet of this it is more outsourced. Republicanu think leaders are trying to button things up before they go to the president and go to him with something that has been ironed out between the appropriators in the house and senate . Guest right. The main players have not actually been the president hid from the white house, has been steve nguyen, mick mulvaney. Been are folks who have meeting with congressional republicans, who are desperate to avoid another shutdown, as to what happened last year. So these talks are ongoing to try to find Common Ground between the white house and republicans and house democrats, to set both budget line numbers and find a way to raise the debt ceiling. All of this needs to happen before the end of the quarter to avert another shutdown. Host and they have not agreed on spending because of the mandated budget cap speed they had to break those to come up with a budget. Guest right. These cap swear in place to tackle the deficit and the debt. Essentially, if a deal is not reached to raise those, the automatic sequestration caps to the fence and nondefense it is something both sides would like to avoid, because it would hurt programs a government is finding now. We will have to see whether these three parties can come to an agreement in the weeks ahead. They are only about 20 session days before the august recess. That will put a stop to any momentum, if they do not come to a deal before that. Host zach cohen covers the senate for National Journal. The one hasn is reporter for the Washington Examiner. 202 7488001 for republicans,. 202 7488000 for democrats. 202 7488002 for independents. First, we hear from michael in imperial beach, california. Caller good morning. I was wondering if they could update us on the security clearance issues. I called in about this before. But after seeing that kushner interview on the axials network , i was wondering if you guys could explain to us, are we ever going to get to the bottom of who has security clearances, how they got them, and if you could just update us on that . Thank you. Guest sure. Came up, saraht sanders, who no longer does briefings and no will not have a position for much longer he told a group of reporters that they would not be discussing who has clearances and will not be dissipating in inquiries into them. Her justification was discussing this would jeopardize everyone else who has security clearances. Basically, a security clearances should be secret and handled confidentially. Of course, that limits the oversight and potentially create issues. The white house, over time, has had many different issues with staffers. Some have credit card bills. Two of theiry beat exwives, and that was problematic. Certainly, this will not go away. There will be continued issues over transparency. Host i would imagine, focus back on the issue of iran and comments made over the weekend, by the secretary of state, the headline in the Washington Times is military hit on the table as response to attack on the oil tankers. We want to play the comments of mike pompeo and follow up with a question on that. This is yesterday, fox news sunday. [video clip] the last 40 days, we have seen a number of activity, including for other ships challenging the International Norms of freedom of navigation. We have briefed the president a couple of times. We will continue to keep him updated. We are confident we can take a set of actions that can resort deterrence, which is our mission. Use a full range of options for does that include a military response . Of course. We doesident he said not want iran to get Nuclear Weapons. The regulus om wheat withdrew from the movingous jcpoa and are towards a set of policies that like ake iran move regular nation. They are trying to run up prices if they need customers, why would they attack them . Because iran cannot sell their crude oil. We have stopped them from doing it. We have put stations in place that had taken them from one Million Barrels per day. Syncom lease this video purporting to show and revolutionary guard removing a mice mine from the whole of the ship. How sure are you that this is corps . N revolutionary this is the real data. We have shared it with allies already. You have had the chance to see it. I made a bunch of phone calls yesterday and will make more today. The world needs to unite against this threat from the Islamic Republic of iran. Host mike pompeo on face the nation on cbs. On has the president s ear this issue in particular and or more and broadly in Foreign Policy . Guest mike pompeo and john bolton both have reputations for being real iran hawks. Both, in particular, are widely considered to really want a war with iran and to have regime change there. The president seems to be pulling in the other direction. He is instinctually against a largescale military intervention in the middle east. He talks a lot about iraq and the experience there. The threat of military action here i suspect we will hear more of it. As with venezuela, the president said repeatedly that all options, including military, are on the table. Last time iran heated up a couple months ago, john bolton put out a statement that was very bellicose. The president had reporters in the oval office and said i would love for iran to pick up the phone and call me, and we will make a new deal. I imagine that the president will be the good cop in this scenario. Host on the republican side of the senate, does the president have support of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and other republicans, on iran in particular, realizing that it is a fairly new issue in terms of this most recent issue. Do you think they would have his back . Guest the whole senate was briefed on the iran situation a few weeks ago. That was important when these tensions started ramping up. Senators were saying we are not entirely sure why these escalation attentions were taking place host before the mine incident. Guest that is right. There have not been calls for war or anything along those lines. Senator tom cotton did say that there should be action against iran, following on evidence from the cia and that my pumpingreleasing. I think they will continue to push the administration to talk to them and make sure they are all on the same page, should any sort of military action take place. Host democrats line from kansas city hello. Caller how are you doing . Host fine, thank you. Caller i have a comment and then a couple of russians. I joined the military in 1989, when the first bush was in office. People you know, they talk about the military a lot of these guys are 19 years old. So you joined because you had no other options. Youre not going to college cannot afford it. That is why i joined the army. But you get sent to places to defend, basically, oil. And you do not realize that, as a teenager. But that is basically what youre doing, defending oil. As far as spending and all that kind of stuff, i have seen, with my own eyes, as far as immigration there are a lot of people in this country that are not from mexico, they are from europe, india, everywhere else. Wrong concentrate on the perspectives of immigrants, which built this country, and our debt will never be paid off. Ever. It will never be paid off. So i do not even know why we are even talking about that. Trump, both of his last two wives were not from here. First lady now got over here illegally and worked and got paid. Nobody even things about all of that. Host we spent the first hour talking about the debt and deficit. But on immigration, because there is still a push for border wall funding from the white house, is that likely to be a sticky issue as i tried to resolve a final budget deal . Guest right. There is a two track plan going on. The senate Appropriations Committee is meeting this week to markup legislation that would requestthe president s for emergency supplemental funds that would go towards that humanitarian crisis at the southern border. At least 3 billion for humanitarian aid is what the white house has requested. That is shelter, beds, personnel, essentially taking care of the migrants coming over the border. The problem is that republicans will use this opportunity to also play pay for Law Enforcement and the physical barriers and technology that would stand the tide to the point that they would see in a more comprehensive bill. So while that shortterm effort is going on, it presages the effort for a longterm spending deal, which of course will include immigration and border spending. Just the white house announced a new legislative liaison last week. Can you tell us anything about him . Guest youre talking about the legislative Affairs Director . This is someone who has already been in the west wing. He will be taking on their legislative efforts. Of course, that office has a little bit of a diminished profile now. Publicans are already in control of both houses. Inave the ability to the ability to past legislative president ial parties has diminished greatly. He is also joined by mark short, over at the white press Vice President s office. Host the logistics of this is the headline we are seeing john yarmuth, our guest on newsmakers over the weekend. This says one Year Spending cap cap option gains momentum. Are you hearing about that . Any potential one Year Spending deal . Guest i have not heard that in particular p there is interest in getting a longterm spending deal, because that tends to make it a oneyear deal with putting it right before the president ial the full house of representatives, and one third of the senate it would make it a more lyrically combustible situation. Host lets hear from michigan. Cne i miss your old scenery of the old what is going on in washington. I was just wondering when i going to get back to the other there is too much there. But i also would like to know who took the picture of the boat taking the mine out of the ship. Where were the cameras . When we see a long shot of that explosion, you do not see any boats in the vicinity, so where is this picture taken from, and why is it not identified . Theres just so much going on that you cannot keep up with it. Host good question. Do either of you know . I think the secretary said something in his comments, in terms of the veracity of the video we are seeing of the iranian mine being picked up, but i do not know the source of that video to answer your question. T inill hear from ned nex huntsville, alabama. Caller good morning. I would like to talk about the iranian situation. Hitn said that the ship was by an air object, not from the water. Nobody inpan said their right mind would go into the water right next to the ship to get a mine out. So when Something Like this happens, you want to understand first of all, you want to ask who benefits from that. Who benefits from that . The protagonist in this area are the following United States, bolton and pompeo, and second, the arabs. Third is israel. Nobody talks about israel. The president said we do not want the war. He said he is not going to go to war. Arabs all assets are across the water. 100 miles from iran. Any crude missile from iran would devastate their own assets. So the arabs, although they would like for the United States to hit iran, they are not going to instigate the war. Ok. any commas on his take on iran . Guest generally, with events that seem to induce the United States to military all assets are across the water. Action, there are questions about the veracity. The apparent chemical weapon that attacked near damascus that seemed to cross obamas redline to intervene, there was a u. N. Investigation that was unable to conclude what happened. There are a lot of questions that remain pure the reason is that the history of past u. S. Involvements, iraq, intelligence turned out to be incorrect, so people are cautious. Host we want to turn to trade and the wall street journal, they are writing that the office of trade representative Robert Lighthizer this week is opening hearings on new tariffs, potential new ones come on chinese goods. Your reporting that the secretary will testify this week what will they talk about . Guest right. He will talk about the new freetrade agreement between the United States, mexico, and canada, which would replace nafta in its current form and potentially lower taxes and have a new free trade deal between the three north american countries. Pressats will want to their trade representative on issues such as labor, the environment, enforcement mechanisms, all things i would like to see added to the deal, either in terms of implementing a gestation that needs to work its way through congress in exmouth and a half or so, and lighthizer will make the case, likely, that some of these unable to bebe added and would require reopening the deal and talking to mexico and canada, which would be a much more, gated deal than most other negotiations on capitol hill. How close are they getting it to the house floor for debate and vote . Guest Speaker Pelosi set up working groups with her members to talk with the administration to talk about what they would like to see if lamented, and then you will see changes to consider, but that will be after a lot of negotiation, both with the white house and democrats and republicans in congress. Host michael from new york city on our democrats line. Caller good morning. I want to ask you, how are we to believe this administration that has absolutely zero credibility . There is nothing that comes from the president or from this administration that has any credibility. There are too many lies. How am i supposed to believe these people . Steven nelson, i will askt with you and then about the aftermath of Sarah Sanders departing as press secretary. Are there plans in the works to have somebody step in . Guest the White House Communications director position has been vacant several months now. There is no apparent momentum to find someone. But the press secretary job, you need someone to be the spokesperson, and right now, with Sarah Sanders announced departure coming this month, it has opened up something that kind of resembles the president ial primaries. There are a lot of people who want the job. Theres a lot of talk about who is in, who is out, who the candidate is, who is leading it is unclear now how that will actually shake up. Certainly, there will be someone who replaces her. That search in scramble and competition is just getting underway. Reporter, white house how difficult is it to get information, in terms of the way we see officials now in the so driveway stake outs. How predicable are they and how reliable are the in terms of your work in getting information and stories from spokespeople . Actually moree similar than some would say. They are generally shorter, but they happen more frequently. Generally what happens is Sarah Sanders or Kellyanne Conway or another spokesperson or prominent official goes out to the tv tents on the white house driveway, do their fox news or cnn hit, then they come back, and there is a group of reporters waiting for them with microphones, and they stand and talk for five minutes Kellyanne Conway can go 20 minutes. They talk about the news of the day. At times, they give information or statements. Sarah sanders mentioned the last call was put in putin there. Host on Kellyanne Conway, are we anticipating any congressional hearings or follow up on the findings of the office of special counsel robert mueller, overseeing the hatch act, in her alleged violations of the hatch act . Guest i have not heard anything to that degree. Its whatever mines we how congress functions, to add to Stephens Point where we can ask them various questions. It tends to offer some transparency in the middle of things. Let me go back to the callers question briefly and add that there are members of the emaciation who are more trusted on capitol Hill Mike Pompeo does have some clout with members there and lend some veracity to these claims, with the caveat that all of this needs to be taken with just a dose of skepticism to make sure that everything is accurate as we move forward. Int independent line, bill florida. Hello. Caller good morning. My question is this how come the iranians do not have a Nuclear Weapon . In other words, we developed a Nuclear Weapon in a few years during world war ii. How is it possible that they do not have a Nuclear Weapon . Which feeds into my question preventiran deal to them from getting a Nuclear Weapon or was it to alter their behavior in the middle east . What is going on now, has this altered their behavior . What does it have to do with preventing them to get a Nuclear Weapon, which i believe they already have . Is it behavior or a Nuclear Weapon . Host ok, we will hear from our reporters. Any thoughts . That, i would say obviously, the Iran Nuclear Deal was a major achievement for the Obama Administration, something that the president backed out of a few months ago. That is something that there are still talks on capitol hill, exactly how to either get a new deal or whether to expanded to include other countries this has been going on since the state of the union, i believe. Generally, Nuclear Proliferation is something lawmakers take seriously. There is a dedicated caucus to talking about these issues. I will be curious to see if that gathers more momentum over the next few months. Host and the additional story from iran, iran saying it will break its uranium stock mile stockpile limit in 10 days. We go to marlon calling from tennessee. Go ahead, marvin. Caller good morning. Thinking back on the comment made earlier, about the trust and the people we are dealing with in the white house, and giving the American Public the correct information about certain weapons of, once again, mass destruction, using these weapons against the United States i do not think the World Community does not know that any sort of electionyear will bring out these idle threats in yellow and all his own. The tremendous has a lot to do as to how they report this type of information and these fantasies coming out of this it idiots mouth and the white house. I do not think they understand how the American Public is constantly put in jeopardy by individuals that are native to some of their countries. Especially the arabs. I will give an example. Detroit, in michigan, is surrounded by arabs that have 30, 40to their city years ago, that have camped out there and are sucking all of the resources in the inner community. Every Grocery Store in the inner city was owned by arabs host and you are saying they should not be there . Caller i am not saying they should not be there. I am saying they have a tremendous amount of influence in our communities. And when they get to stop and go back to their jihad philosophy, that is born and raised in them, the black community, specifically the inner cities, are at risk because of the things they need and control. Tot all right, we will move augusta, georgia, and hear from ralph. Caller good morning. There are two points, one on their previous call and one i have for myself. Number one, they did not respond to the fact that their ship that removed a live landmine the other is the japanese say that they saw a project out the air. They did not respond. My thing is trump may not want to go to war right now, but he he did not negotiate. And if you got your two Main Advisors keep bumping into you that a reason to go to war, he will give in. Ive been in that situation, where we make a recommendation to the commander, and then a decision is made. Would you please answer those questions . Host we are joined by Steven Nelson, White House Reporter for the Washington Examiner was quote and zach cohen from the National Journal p or coat Foreign Policy is not your forte, but nelson, White House Reporter for the Washington Examiner and zach cohen from the National Journal. Foreign policy is not your forte, but can you comment . Guest the president is so nded by hocks bolton has some degrees in the National Security council, rotated out old people and put in his new, so there is concern, especially among the president s supporters, that his advisers are pushing towards war. Of course, the president is independent minded, and he speaks to a lot of people who are not in his administration, so there is that counterpoint. Guest this is a concern shared on capitol hill. The relationships between the staffers and some of the around dennis extending, and this is something that has been going on for a while now. This will certainly be a job for the new legislative rector for the white house to find a way to bridge some of those gaps. Part of the problem is, over the years, congress has increasingly seen its authority on ceded its authority to the white house, giving the commanderinchief more control over the armed forces. So it will be interesting to see what, in the short term, congress can do to rein in any push to military action or any longterm action to change the laws. Host in your reporting of what is coming up this week, you are writing that the Foreign Relations Committee Held a hearing for kelly knight craft it has been sometime since we have had a permanent u. N. Ambassador, since nikki haley left. This comes up who is she . Guest she is the former ambassador to canada, a kentuckian, so somebody that Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell is very interested in seeing. So anything that Mitch Mcconnell wants to happen in Congress Typically can at least get some attention. Because nominees are a big party for the senate oneadays nowadays, one of the few things they can do without consulting with house democrats, i imagine that would be a priority for the conference going forward. Host house and Senate Democrat have been hammering the Senate Majority leader for his attention on nominees. Speaker pelosi easily famously had a chart that showed Mitch Mcconnells grave of legislation that passed the house but has yet to be taken up in the Senate People we see legislation outside of budget stuff, where there may be some sort of work in the senate . Guest there does seem to be optimism about it create trade organization with mexico and canada. There is talk about an infrastructure deal. But it is more difficult when youre talking about a spending package that large. There are talks about lowering health care costs, targeting pharmaceutical drug prices. That is already working its way through the senate, from democratic senator patty murray, so there are certainly ways to bridge that gap and find Common Ground. Line, el paso,n texas. This is steve. Caller good morning. I absolutely trust the president. There are some questions about that. I believe what is behind all of this distrust is it started as wrongdoing during the Obama Administration, where they were using the fisa court and spying on a president ial candidate a bunch of lies and innuendo came out. This was kept up by democrats by for two years. Hopefully, there will be a report from from the people investigating the investigators that will exonerate total exonerate trump. I think he was exonerated in the Mueller Report. A lot of fake news going on. You gentlemen, as part of the media, need to help to get the truth out. Also, i believe trump is gods man, and whoever god is for, who will be against it . He sought happened before and you will see it happen again in 2020. Host thanks for your call. What are the stories from your side we talked about the president s launch tomorrow. One of the main stories you are focusing on this week . Guest youre putting me on the spot. It will be interesting to see. Ater in the week justin trudeau, the Prime Minister of canada, is coming to it it will be interesting to see exactly what he says and whether he will be able to smooth over tensions with the usmca. Is a bit of a liberal icon i am certain democrat so the whatever he has to say on the trade deal. Host and what are you looking at . We talked about some of the hearings coming on the floor, but what are you keeping your eye on . Guest the other angle of the iran question we have not talked on is senators are working on potentially privileged resolution that could make its way to the senate floor that would lock the Trump Administration from selling arms to saudi arabia and the united arab emirates. It is yet to be seen whether those will get a final vote, but that is something democrats and republicans alike would like to pass whatever he has to say on the trade deal. Host and what are you looking at . Essentially, the Trump Administration claimed an emergency and said in light of aggression from iran, we will expedite sales to these middle eastern countries, and a lot of senators are not pleased with that and what congressional say on where those arms are eventually going. A lot of this goes back to the murder of Washington Post journalist jamal khashoggi. Host this is richard, democrats line. I have twod things i would like to talk about. One is the ships getting bombed over there. The gulf of tonkin if you could our cia being the ones doing this or israel or some arabs that want to get us going to war . We have to watch this real close. The other thing is, in the lette mcconnell will not anybody vote on any of the bills if they do not get a chance to vote on what we want or not, how will we know what our senators will do . Will the senate this week the largely focused again on nominees . Guest yeah. They have a couple of votes, starting tuesday, one on an executive nominee and another on, i believe, strict or Circuit Court nominees. The senate hasng been focused on peer there are a lot of empty seats in the judiciary. To the callers question, i believe he was referring to Election Security bills there was a push by democrats, unanimously passed a gestation, that would have made a requirement to report foreign contacts to the four Election Commission or the fbi, and that was blocked by senate republicans. Most Election Security ledges agent has not passed the senate so far, except for one, that would make election interference a crime punishable by deportation or blockage from entering the country in the first place. Host lets hear from robert, plattsburgh, new york. Caller good morning. The gentleman from texas answered most of my questions. I am for the president. He is doing a heck of a job. He is about the only president we have had that will protect our country. I hope the attorney general does find out that the democrats and president obama and Hillary Clinton is behind all of this stuff and get to the bottom of this and prosecute them for treason. I am sick and tired of hearing negative things against our president. Because he is doing a great job. Up news media needs to step and start helping out and making the facts straight instead of being onesided for the democrats. If not, we are going to have a civil war on our hands. That is what i see coming. I appreciate you taking my call. Thank you. Have a nice day. Nelson, wen mentioned the president to florida to kick off his campaign tomorrow. We have any indication of what is ahead in terms of rallies, a plan for the campaign in the next week or so . Guest not so much in the next week or so, but you certainly will expect a lot of rallies. They are the president s opportunity to give himself the platform for 90 minute speeches here, there, and anywhere. His campaign does strategically picked the locations pay depending on where he want to perform better the next time around, he certainly sees a priority in the rest out states and in traditional swing states. Florida is a choice for the kickoff that is not by mistake. Florida is a very important state for his reelection. Certainly we will see a lot more of this. Host in one of the issues the president will run on, the planks or success points, is the passage of the tax cuts in 2017. But your reporting on the house side get ready for another round of tax extender drama. The ways and means is set to take up new legislation that restores or aspires republican tax writers are not happy with what democrats have in store. We have seen some of this in terms of debate on the house floor, on appropriations. Republicans decrying the increasing of the debt or deficit, and democrats responding, saying some of them saying it is partly due to the 2017 tax cuts. Is there an area that democrats may find success in repealing a piece of the 2017 tax cut . Guest the deficit ceiling is the leverage point democrats have been looking for as a way to potentially rollback or reform some of these changes that went into law over the last year or so. I heard this months ago, when we started thinking about what are some of the big legislative fights coming up. Lycra publicans you the debt ceiling to tackle spending, democrats can now use the deficit ceiling, essentially that cap on how much the federal government can borrow at any given time up to 22 trillion, i believe they can use this opportunity to say if we bring up revenue and tax more than we can afford to pay for the programs that we think are important i can imagine you will see both smaller parts of the tax code looked at. There are fixes to the original tax code that Congress Wants to get through, including the goldstar family loophole that made its way through, and there will be bigger debates about the tax cut and jobs act as we go forward. Next from georgia, republican line. Had a question about immigration. How are the officials in sanctuary cities and all able to circumvent better rolloff and not have any recurrent hessians federal law and not have any repercussions from it . Guest there is legislation in congress to tackle sanctuary cities. The governor of florida signed legislation to ban sanctuary cities a few days ago. I do not see it making a lot of headway on a national level, although we could see action on the statebystate level, even as her publicans republicans are losing seats in state legislatures. We will see if there is more piecemeal action on that. In the meantime, each municipality will decide how it wants to handle its own Law Enforcement. Host we have about 10 minutes left with our guests. Steven nelson and zach cohen. We welcome your comments. 202 7488001 for republicans. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independents, 202 7488002. Robert on our independent line. My question is i am 40 seven. Finally register to vote. The most disturbing thing ive seen has been in my own country. The people that are running the how i do not understand they can make decisions when we just keep asking our government to take care of us. Us. Lose clothe the more the government does, the more we are into the government. The more taxes we pay, the more everything all of these programs we pay for. If the American People take care of ourselves. We do not need government to tell us this and that. My question is how can we trust our government, when we have seen everything they have done . How can we trust what they say . I love my country, but i am questioning the people running it. Thank you. Host thanks. Guest more than swings between republicans and democrats over the last few cycles, you have swings against the parties in power. There was an interest in outsiders, not only in the presidency but inside and house races. There is a lot of interest in bringing in new actives to washington. I imagine you will see a similar message play out over the next few months, both from the president ial race and down ballot races. Because spending does tend to increase under both democratic and republican administrations and congresses. It will be interesting to see what a democrat accounts, Republican Senate and republican white house, how that disappointment with washington manifests itself. Host any thoughts . Guest it will be an interesting election, with trump trying to maintain his outsider persona while competing against joe biden, who is presumably the Democratic Front runner right now, who is quite an astonishment figure. We will get your calls momentarily. 202 7488001 for republicans. 202 7488000 for democrats. Independents and all others, 202 7488002. We have talked a little about the appropriations process getting underway in the house. There were a couple of late sessions in the house last week. One maneuver was, on the republican side, by encouragement from texas, calling on both on almost every amendment coming up, slowing down the process considerably, raising the issue of Border Security spending in 2020. Whether that tactic will be displayed this week . Guest my colleague that cover the house seems to think this will happen again. Much moree house is a busy legislative chamber, it does tend to allow members to bring up these various procedural votes, unlike the senate, where a lot tends to happen by unanimous consent on the floor level. I imagine, because republicans would like to see more border spending, and the disaster package or in previous spending packages, things they are upset by i imagine they will continue to do so. Congressman roy was the same one who blocked disaster spending. This is something that took a wild to get through congress. There were obviously blocks to that before, that spending package, that would help states recover from disasters in 2018 and 2019. But this is something that i imagine House Republicans will continue to do. Is speaking later today at an event the cspan networks will be covering today. There were a couple of incidents where ted cruz and reppo tentative alexandria ocasiocortez, particularly on lobbyists and postcongress careers whatever happened to that . Was a movement on the two of them working on legislation together . Guest i had read the staffers are working on legislation that congresspeopler to enter lobbying orderlies have a coolingoff period. It usually does not get too far, generally because members of Congress Like the sea and offramp if they decide not to run for reelection or lose reelection, and obviously lobbying is a lucrative business nowadays. And it does bring up a valid first memory concerns. That of the lobbying happens is registered in the form of consulting, so where do you draw the line between consulting and speaking your mind on an issue if you are a member of congress that was a chairman of a Major Committee on an issue . They are still working on legislation. I cannot imagine it will go far. Host mike on our republican line from atlanta. Caller i have a question on your guests. I am a black guy for the first time i voted was for trump, the first time he ran. Supporthink trumps with black voters have gone up . I think you will get i did not want to get beat up saying i am a trump supporter in an urban city, but i think immigration is a major issue for black americans. Guest immigration is something that the president clearly thinks is an opportunity. He also talks about the black Unemployment Rate being low. Then we get chris criminal justice reform. It was talked about for years and years. It was actually passed under president obama under President Trump edie called on Mitch Mcconnell to call on a vote when it was not clear he would do it. He get some credit on that. Also depends, the president share of the black vote, depends on who it that she is running against. If he is running against joe a history biden has of social a Bernie Sanders supporter who said that if biden gets the nomination, trouble get of blackmajority support. Anst South Carolina is early voting state, so i imagine whoever comes out of that primary, whether it is former Vice President joe biden or someone else, they will certainly have a strong contingent of support among that community. Republicans continue to bring up the economy is something that could help the president. It is going decently well. The Unemployment Rate is low. He continue to see job growth, although at varying levels. If that continues through the 2020 election, that could be a boon. And if it goes south, that would obviously hurt his chances, not just among african immigrants but all voters. Host you can barely do your job without bumping into a president ial candidate at capitol hill. Does the fact that they are candidates and have speeches and rallies and events, does not legislate interview with them and able to do their jobs as members . Guest there are seven senators running for president. They are not always in every vote. They do to attained to skip votes in order to go to campaign events. The partisan divide in the senate now is such that folks can miss a few votes and it will not actually change the outcome. So we have not seen the president ial contest really change the way the senate, at least, is functioning, other than maybe them hopping onto more progressive pieces of legislation to things like medicare for all and weighing in on immigration. Call. One more louisville, we will hear from susan on our republican line. Caller good morning. I would like to address the comment about the iran deal that obama made. Anyonet believe that thinks that is a good idea. Continually that it hates the jews, hates israel and seeks its destruction. Obama circumvented congress to go around and make this deal. , if he is a christian, which he states he is, he knows how iran feels about israel. That would be like the United States making a deal with hitlers, knowing how he felt about host we will end it on the issue of the middle east peace reportedly being developed Jared Kushner they are. Guest there is the bahrain and talk coming up about giving money to the palestinians. The details of the kushner peace is the not out but one investment in the territories to mprove the situation economically and seeing that as part of it. Issue is the israeli and ions then ramadan continued turmoil in israel. Will come remains to be seen but there will be a conference. Thanks for being with us this morning. A lot to report on and we look this week. There is more washington journal. At we will xt who will James Schultz talk about the legal and oversight battles between the over house and congress the Mueller Report. Who do i look forward to against now. Donald trump has a rally tuesday a second his run for term. Atch live 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan 22 and on line at radio app. The hughes will be in the order. Ill be in cspan has been providing congress, coverage of white house, Supreme Court and Public Policy events from and around the country created by cable in 1979. By the s brought to you hole cable or satellite provi r provider. Your unfiltered view of government. Washington journal continues. Ramificationslout continue from the Mueller Report. We are joined from philadelphia in rmer associate counsel the Trump White House James Schultz. Tell us about your service there. Don mcgann, th right. Guest i did. Served from the beginning of the administration until the end f the first year as senior associate counsel and special handled ethics and compliance and trade and infrastructure and we all in as it related to the confirmation process. It was a great experience and i glad to be nd im back in philadelphia with my family. Ost as you watch from the sidelines you see your former perhaps more than anybody in the Mueller Report that camp out and the calls out and calls for don mcgann to testify what are your on that . Guest i think the democratic the First Congress thing they want to hold the in contempt, al subpoena don mcgann and subpoena i think there nd is overreach going on. White house is saying no, no, no but theres good reason. Look at the democrats and a broad scope from when don mcgann was counsel to the campaign as a private sector lawyer straight through white House Counsel. There are privilege issues all place. E if it was a more narrowly might see quest you more accommodation. Ut if it is so broad i think that it is the same. And tell me your thoughts the explanation for the white ouse rationale for preventing mr. Mcganns testimony although er will be f er testifying we understand. Guest i think that testimony if limited serves me is to her time on the campaign not a white house aide in the official capacity. There are is executive privilege issues relating to the president s deliberations and in the white house as it relates to policy decisions and any decisions. Encourage the president to rely on his staff and make and not ear think that congress can come in nd stomp on the executive branchs ability to have tphrblt in what they are trying to accomplish. Has been a long established and ard by the courts constitutionally founded. I think that the democrats in are speaking out of both sides of their mouths. During priorortant democratic administrations on fast and sues whether furious or the clinton administration. Ow executive privilege it is not so important. The important thing to note is the trump ust about administration or donald trump. It is the institution of the obligation of lawyers to protect it because to have ward you want the president to have the bility to communicate unfetterred with his or her staff. You were on the legal team the Republican Convention in cleveland. Muelleralking about the investigation, more specifically responsibility of Congress Versus the interest of the white house and executive issue. Ge we would like to hear from you. For for 2027488001, democrats is 2027488000 and or independents it is 20274880 2027488002. A private is now citizen. Is he obliged to follow the for him to not testify because of executive privilege . Until a court of competent jurisdiction or the may testify s he about things he communicated with the president about he is testify. O hes still a practicing lawyer obligations hical in connection with being a practicing lawyer and part of are maintaining attorneyclient and executive privilege in the white house and the campaign. So unless a considerate orders him to do unless a court to do so and that could go to the Supreme Court or thatresident releases him, is the president s and executive nch branchs information. Host we heard the description counsel as house serving the office of the president. E is not the president s similar. During your time as associate ounsel to the president was that clearly defined . Having it different from an individual client as an attorney, correct . My experience i was john counsel to the governor of is similar to what don mcagain served it the mcgann served and it was something very clear. Team the and our collective we served the white office. Not the president in his capacity as a personal lawyer. He had personal lawyers to handle the matters coming in his capacity and continues to have private lawyers. What the s most of White House Counsels Office was deregulation, judges and legal policy issues s it related to the executive agencies and executive branch of government. Host there were several where the president was quoted as saying he western liked something quote more cohn. Do you think he got the difference between his personal white House Counsel . Did you ever feel like were serving more of the president the office . Guest i never felt like i was serving anything but the office presidency. And the president in his capacity as president. That is pushing forward his agenda and working judges rade issues and and pushing the agenda. He wants fighters in that says ty and the fact he where is my iry cohn he was askg fighters to push his agenda. S it relates to private sector he had private sector rudy working on of them the issues relating to the Mueller Investigation on behalf personally. I think that i know there was never a line crossed on the part of the white House Counsel relating to that because there was a clear delineation responsibilities and our responsibilities. Host now that you are back to being a private attorney and out of the office of white House Counsel you look at what is termsing in washington in of the Mueller Report. What do you think all of this testimony terms of efore congressional committees and what democratic committees are looking for from witnesses . First i think it is important to note that the ttorney Generals Office and the attorney barr and his staff are working closely with the accommodate their requests and turn over documents are not est that subject it is funny because asking for s were grand jury information. Hat is a basic principle, you know the Justice Department is ever going to turn over 6e grand jury information borrows the grand jerry is so important the grand jury is so important to conduct criminal skwrpbundermine we tell people wont want to come ta talk to the prosecutors. Everything from Violent Crime and fraud cases. Important to preserve that. I think there was a lot of grand and what you are seeing ow is reasonable accommodation s where the appropriate clearances are in place in the especially as relates to intelligent committee. So i think you will see some of because the senate and to e have an entitlement certain documents but not the 6e or grand jury information. I have a caller but finish your thought. It relates to witness testimony it is important to that. About i believe there was significant overreach on the part of the to crats in congress immediately ask for don mcdan or donaldson the deputy counsel to the president chief of staff to mcgann. Is important to note i think democrats characterized her as taker and ote errands. Trained lawyer and to subpoena her testimony the fact she is this highly accomplished lawyer ho was serving as deputy counsel to the president is irresponsible. James schultz in philadelphia former white house associate counsel and now the regulatory claihair law firm in philadelphia. We welcome your thoughts. To phyllis in kansas city on the democratic line. Good morning. What i have a question about, schultz, dont you think he collected evidence from trumps perform lawyer and to personal lawyer and to me whatever evidence he had unlawful and, why shouldnt the be able to see something that was gotten place . Lly in the first guest an investigation was conducted by mr. Mueller and he grand jury to conduct that investigation. By the anctioned attorney general of the United States and while the former general abstain interested that, Rob Rosenstein attorney general oversaw that investigation. The investigation itself as it russian interference with our election was something by the sanctioned Justice Department generally. And they had subpoena power they can request information from private individuals, Government Agencies, so on and forth. Hat material in most times is secret information an what is not secret grand jury that ation is information can be turned over to congress because they have an interest in the intelligence issues and oreign interference issues and rightful rightfully should be turned over appropriate security clearances. So it is appropriate for request some of this information, just not all of t. From doris on the democrats line from arizona. I would like for kwhychultz to explain to me he information received shouldnt be shared with. Merican people totally if the president has nothing, is not guilty of anything, why cleared he want to be they can tely so that get on with the business of country. He host go ahead with your comment. Guest that is a very good question. Just because government into ces are put investigation doesnt mean it becomes public. I was talking about the of grand jury secrecy. If there is an investigation drug and gun crime in a neighborhood and the Justice Department wants to testify witnesses to before a grand jury so they fear for their lives it is important to protect that afraidny so they are not to come forward. Grand ent we turn over injure information grand jury then it becomes into jeopardy and we cant be shortsighted. This were the normal investigation where politics and world of washington didnt factor into it, i dont think ever seent would have the light of day. But it is important for the American People to have was going on in the Mueller Investigation and host finish your comments, James Schultz . We lose your connection . Can you hear us . Shuttles, are you hearing us . Take a phone o call and see if we can reestablish that with philadelphia. N sofia in bronx, go ahead with your comments. Schultz, are you back with us . Guest im back with you. Host we lost you for a second an audio breakaway. Sofia in the bronx, republican line. Caller good morning. Assignment. R this m very satisfied with. R. Robert mueller [inaudible] the 46 gave us trump tower million for taxpayers. To hear so nt have e spent 30 million, 40 million. That is one. The second one, mr. Mueller came in on the 29th of may, on my birthday, confronted william ba truth. The nd cspan 3 gave us from 12 00 in the morning no midnight the whole report. Of you who do not read the dont report, please follow all the tphaonews media. Cnn, i watch fox. Much. Hank you so keep up the job and also the reports, be strong. Host how much of the report re you able to read, angels skwraels schultz . Uest i read it cover to recover. I dont think that the general public is reading the report cover for the most part. I think that the News Coverage opportunities for pundits to discuss it helps it frame the on both sides of the aisle. So a robust discussion about the the news channels is a good thing and doing things like this today is beneficial. Host lets hear from leo we westminster westminster, california, democratic lean. Talk about d to i wanted to talk about the washington journal it is a good for rank and file people to communicate with their officials and president. I just wish that when you put that you numbers up ould always put democrats, republicans, independents and too, i wish that you would like e age of the caller 77 years old. Im ost some good suggestions there, leo. For jamese a question schultz . Caller no, i wanted to get that on the call because i appreciate that. Host we appreciate your input. To mike in belton, on the independent line. Caller one thing i want to ask about he obviously believes in security clearances brought them up several times for the senate. Would like to ask him why Donald Trumps soninlaw didnt and that security pass donald trump ordered him to have first thing. The second thing i want to say [inaudible] the only criminals will not answer a subpoena. Or will barr you what im talking about. Only criminals refuse to answer donald trump is definitely a criminal. Securitypoenas and the clearances is the question. I will talk about security clearances generally speaking. They are something there is a goes through the white house through the office of security where an conducted and s that determination makes its way Decision Makers in the white house. The f. B. I. And folks doing the nvestigation are essentially acting as private investigators on behalf of the executive they are going out and doing these background check investigations. Facts. Ather they did make judgments. The White House Office of as rity makes the judgment to whether someone deserves a security clearance. A lot of them are year people ultimately the judgment as to whether to grant or not grant based on clearance tpef ts the february develops lies with the president and it is his rerogative to grant security clearances. What was the other issue . I think helogize but was talking about the mueller eport guest subpoenas. Lets talk about subpoenas a answering them. We are talking about congressional subpoenas. Long been a push and pull between the executive branch and congress whether democrat in the white house and republicans in the congress or vice versa. About executive support versus the power of the always and Congress Wants more and requesting information and the white house on the ly pushes back subpoenas or requests for information. A lot of there is times a compromise and if there re no compromises in is a way to handle that. That is the court system. The courts will then allow the fight out the subpoenas in court. It happened in the harriett fast and furious investigation as it related to eric holders information. Talked about you served as the Legal Counsel to pennsylvania for a stretch and came to the white ouse as deputy counsel, associate counsel under don mcgann. Steep learning curve in taking on the duties of that office . Always a re is learning curve when you come into an office like the of the e Office President or white house. Misadvising the viewers if i said otherwise. Ut the job that i did in pennsylvania certainly prepared me for the position. Throughout00 lawyers the commonwealth government and andled issues similar it the federal level, domestic issues. The difference is the and just nal issues the environment in washington is much and fast pace d defend than the state but i was prepared to go and enjoyed both jobs. Ost you supported the president. You worked on the legal team of levelnvention and did the of partisanship when you came here surprise you . Not at all. Washington is washington, right . During isanship we saw the election cycle and it got moean really quick and i think you are seeing more and democrats moving farther and farther left and i parts start enever oving right or left and that seems to be what is happening in washington, it is tough to get agreement. Of that comes back to who is being elected and i pretty u saw some moderate democrats go down in and that makes it more difficult to have compromise etween the two parties in washington. You saw the same with the Tea Party Movement in the Republican Republican Party started moving farther to the incumbent that were moderates were being taken out conservative folks. In lets go to david florida. Republican line. Yes. R host you are on the air. Go ahead, david. David, you are on the air. Good morning. Is it that we why had the Mueller Report and on the y is excited democratic side and why is it hat he fell short on fully going after people with this supposedly russia investigation . And i dont hate people, i hate my issue is , but with the clinton and democratic rather obvious they are wrapped up in this a ot more than trump with ever think to be in. So how is it you pay a man like take about he y saved money because he took the different peoples money and it cost anything. It seems like if he went after on the f the people other side he would be making more money instead of the away atic Party Getting with all they have gotten away overr is it just something time [inaudible]. Guest i think that the question boils down to scope and what was the investigation. It started as a counterintelligence relative to the interference of the the interference of russians in our elections in 016 and there were a number of things that came out of the investigation. Russians were indicted. Private citizens in the united as as suffered indictments result of this investigation. I think that is what you are asking. Extent there are other issues relative to the other side how the investigation for instance, the attorney general has been very into those ooking areas. The inspector john is looking them as s looking into it is the formation of what aused the investigation to get to the point where they felt it was necessary to do so. Were the fisa warrants appropriately, was the appropriate information given to the uphill on those and to and what werehose some of the agencies doing as it elated to this initial stages of the investigation. The undertone was a person or not partisan . I think it remains to be seen. For the sake of our country, we hope that it was not. We will hear more from the Inspector General and the attorney general very soon on those issues. Is on ournext call democrats line, new york. You give examples of any other Administration Official who dismissed lawful subpoenas the way this Trump Administration has done . And with all the proof of from thisterference president and him sitting there and saying he would take that information again. Thet on the subpoenas, important thing to note about what you said is the lawful subpoena. Whether these subpoenas are lawful or not, within the appropriate scope, asking for information they are permitted to ask for, remains to be seen when it relates to tax returns of the president and the information some of his staff may have. There are executive privileges, which protects a lot of that information. As i relates to the tax returnst, it is and clear. They have asked it is unclear. They have asked for tax returns for a number of years before the president was elected. I do not believe the law was to have a president or Administration Official produced that information as it related to the time before the presidency. That goes back to a scandal in the 1920s where they wanted information related to potential payoffs. The law in question of all of this was passed after that scandal. That was Congress Response and a way for congress to get a hold of information relative to payoffs while someone was in office. You werees schultz, working in the white house when james comey was fire in fired in may of 2017. Looking back on it, did you have concerns on the decision . Guest i cannot discussed anything i worked on. Ethically, i am prohibited from discussing any of my thoughts, anything i worked on while i was in the white house. But what i will talk about generally is the dismissal of james comey. It was well within the province of the president of the United States to dismiss the fbi director. To appoint his cabinet constitutionally and appoint the fbi director and for the senate to confirm that individual after he nominates them. So this idea that he could not fire the fbi director is, quite frankly, nonsense, in my view. He had every right to fire james comey and had the right to do so from day one. In collins,next mississippi, independent line. Caller good morning. I remember when nunez was working on the first investigation about the situation, and he was taking information back to the president and someone contacted him to get documents and take it to the president and some of his people. Were you involved in that . Do you know anything about it . Sooner or later, there will be an election. Now, of the thing going on it is not just the president that is the problem, it is the Republican Party trying to protect themselves and follow the president rather than follow the evidence. 2020,0, if this goes into september of this year, there will be a problem about the people voting, because this should have been evaluated and looked at. When you keep putting roadblocks , it is host lets get a response on representative nunes, who was chair of the Intelligence Committee in the house. I think that is what he was talking about. Guest i cannot get into anything that was going on inside the white house when i was at the white house or confirm any information relative to that. But talking about the roadblocking, this is an ageold issue between congress and the white house on a lot of oversight issues. There are always disputes over what information the executive branch has to turn over to congress, and it is nothing new at all. As it relates to 2020, look, this is why we have elections. Factlks are happy with the unemployment is at its lowest and more people are working than ever before and gdp growth is outstanding and we are Getting Better trade deals with countries, they will have to make judgments as to the successes of this administration. I think the president is up for that challenge and up to the task no matter who he has on the others. Host i want to ask about the issue of impeachment. Usatoday. Com,n most americans want the president to comply with subpoenas, but impeach him, not so fast. What do you think is the likelihood of the house proceeding ahead on impeachment proceedings against the president . Guest that is anyones guess. There is incredible pressure on nancy pelosi. You saw her come out the other we can say she would rather have this investigation continue or not impeach and beat the president in 2020 and then see him jailed. I think that that was her reaction to the extreme left and calls to impeachment, trying to placate them a little bit so that she has some air cover as it relates to the echo chamber that goes on in washington. But i do not believe that congress will move forward with impeachment proceedings. I do not believe they will do that, just by virtue of the fact of the information they are asking for and the overreach they are making. Toy seem more interested in stumping the bully pulpit then getting to the bottom of these issues. Host a call on our republican line in levittown, new york. Democrat,am a former now republican. The democrats are hellbent on impeaching the government, impeaching President Trump. But then how would democrats deal with pins taking over the presidency with pence taking over the presidency . Guest i agree that there seems to be a group of democrats in congress that are anxious to begin impeachment proceedings, that is the pressure that has been put on Speaker Pelosi, something she will have to deal with. I do not know how they democrats would react to a president pence. But i think we will have a President Trump for the foreseeable future. T dottie next in georgia donni. Guest first of all, he did not answer the question asked about any of the president , just talking about anybody who ever worked for him. And if anybody else had got a subpoena and they refused to answer it, they would send the police over to their house and arrest them. Said that nobody had the right if they were going to court about his tax returns. Englishsays in plain they shall turn over the tax returns. They did not say you got to have a reason. It says, he shall turn over the tax returns. I heard it. Everybody heard it. So what they really trying to do is block everything. He is sitting there saying, well, we have to have this well, they have the right to have oversight. How you going to have oversight when the president s sitting there telling everybody who ever work for him host we will get a response. Guest you have to understand the difference between the general public has to have an understanding. Even in a judicial subpoena context, there are mechanisms for lawyers to quash or fight the subpoenas, even when issued by a court. You go before a judge and there argued. Congress, same thing. You have an ability to negotiate the testimony, and if the parties cannot come to an agreement on the scope of the testimony, whether they will testify or not, that is when you go to the judicial system. That is how it gets sorted out. It has happened time and time again throughout multiple situations. I go back to the eric holder situation during the Obama Administration during fasting for years. It was looking at what information could be produced out of the inquiry. Host quick thoughts on the issue that came up from the office of special counsel on kelly conway and her alleged violation of the hatch act and political tweets or comments, et cetera. President gets looks at policy issues every day, and it is a fine line between policy and politics. Respondingonway, her andhose policies in kind making a counter argument to his opponents, i believe it is necessary, appropriate, and within her First Amendment Constitutional Rights to do so. I think there was overreach on the part of the special counsel on this, without question. I encourage folks to read the white House Counsels remarks on that. Host James Schultzs government , formerlatory chair associate white House Counsel. We thank you for joining us. Guest thanks for having me on. Washingtonwrap up journal, we will go back to our original question. We noted the story on debts and deficits. How concerned are you . Heres what you do. If youre concerned about the growing federal deficit and the growing debt, the line is 202 7488000. Not so concerned, that is 202 7488001. And we will be back in just a moment with your calls. [video clip] i looknt trump oh, do forward to running against him. The president officially launching his run for a second term. 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2, on cspan. Org, or listen on the free cspan radio app. The complete guide to congress is now available with lots of details about the house and senate for the current session of congress. Contacts and bio information about every senator and representative. Plus, information about congressional committees, state governments, and cabinet. The 2019 congressional directory, order your copy from the cspan online store for 18. 95. Tonight on the communicators , we are on capitol hill talking to exhibitors from ces on the hill, an event that gives members of congress and staffers and staffers an advanced look at new tech products. We are in a changing world and our technology is moving so frequently and so many policies are affected, whether it is intelligence, robotics, or drones. All this Amazing Software will make a difference in how we learn, work, and play. Congress needs to learn about this so they can tackle issues like privacy or issues involving competitiveness, because we are in a major battle with other economies, especially china. Tonightcommunicators, at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. Washington journal continues. Host i want to ask you about your response, your concern over the u. S. Debt and deficit. Were looking at an article the wall street journal published on friday with the headline of how washington learned to love debt and deficits. New bottom line, a record law of economic expansion in the u. S. Testing how much you can borrow. A former budget advisor said in this article that i thought it was time to botch up all these budgets surrounding me and forgetting about all of it. Hawk thinks the rising red ink will end badly. Part of the reporting on the issue of debts and deficits. If you are concerned, the line is 202 7488000. Not so concerned, 202 7488001. Nottingham, maryland, this is evan. Caller good morning. I am a 29yearold millennial. I have been watching politics since i was a wee little kid. I remember times when we got out it waswar with iraq, and frowned upon, bringing up the deficit. The political discourse has transitioned where it seems we have had one Political Party not so concerned as they nearly used to be. Host barbara is next in dalton, georgia, on the not too concerned line. Caller hello. Good morning. Host go ahead. Caller well, i am not concerned about it because i realize now our government is not going to do anything about it anyway. Just everything is thrown up in the air. And the people are not stupid. The government thinks we are or the Republican Party thinks we are, but we are not. We can see what is going on, so why be concerned . Nothing is ever done. Stall,lways stop and everything is great. And the middleclass did not get a tax cut. The rich people got the tax cut. So why should we worry . It is going to all fall down anyway. Host next call is from brooklyn. Caller the last caller was right about the gop tax cut. The problem with the debt cutting entitlement programs, and they dont look at we have the lowest texas for corporat ions and the well thing in modern american history. If you look at the Eisenhower Administration and the tax brackets, and you look at amazon paying zero taxes. Host on twitter, mary says that we are told to care deeply about debt and deficits whenever a proposal is made that benefits the greater good. Kathleen is next on our concerned line in indiana. Go ahead. I am concerned. [indiscernible] no breaks. Concerned for our kids. Host we will hear more this week about debt and deficit as the house continues its debate on the 2020 federal budget. Four spending bills are being considered by the house. Continuing the baits from last week. This is the headline last week from the washington journal. Senate gop leaders met with Top White House could officials white house officials last week, looking at raising the government Borrowing Limit known as the debt ceiling. Those negotiations are expected to resume among top congressional leaders and senior white house officials this week, although a date has not officially been locked in yet. Thetreasury secretary and majority leader have said they hope to raise the limit as part of any budget deal. The Treasury Department has been using extraordinary measures since march 2 can serve cash, but the government could begin to miss payments by early fall without a debt limit increase. That is from the wall street journal. Mike is in orlando. Caller good morning. Know, since 1984, i saw when Walter Mondale brought up the debt, and at that time it was 4 trillion, and things have gone way out of balance since then. Everybody is going to suffer because of this. Mike from orlando. Orlando sentinel with the headline, why is President Trumps campaign coming to orlando . It is key to winning florida, experts say. A reminder, we will be covering the president s opening of the 2020 campaign tomorrow night, and that will be on cspan2 tomorrow evening at 8 00 eastern. Live coverage on cspan2. Joy is next, savannah, georgia. Caller yes, sir. I am not really concerned about it. There is a radio talk host in georgia to listen to, and a few years back a guy asked him when we were on the downside moneywise, he was concerned about taking his money out of stocks, and his clark howard said, why would you do that . That there, he said is no reason to do that. He said, you know why . The man cannot respond. Clark howard told him, because we have the money. I heard that with my own ears. And i heard president george bush also saying that he was not concerned with the deficit. So i respect clark howard and what he said, so im really not concerned. Here thatlated tweet says, when obama wanted to raise the debt limit, republicans had a cow. Now trump wants to raise the debt limit, and i see no republican cows. Go figure, he says. Southtle beach, carolina. Caller yeah, i would be kind of , because i dont know if you remember a year ago when we pass the budget, it was, well, we have had this much defense spending, now we have to have this much social spending. That was the call of the democrats. If we can kind of control it, you know, it needs to come down, because who controls all this debt . A bunch of globalists, a bunch of foreigners. Next thing you know, were going to be in the globalists hold again and will be owing somebody. We will have to fight a war with europe again probably. Yes, i would be concerned about it. Another thing, Social Security. There are 10,000 People Per Day retiring on Social Security, and that will continue until 2030. After that, those people will start dying off. We will eventually be out of that hole. It will take 60 years or 100 years, but we do need to be concerned about it. We need to tighten our belt. It nobody seems to think because everybody wants to be part of the global society. I am all about globalization, but it needs to be u. S. American global society, not europe society. This is the proposed budget from President Trump for next fiscal year, fiscal year 2020. 4. 75 trillion. Mandatory spending, Social Security, medicare, medicaid, 2. 8 trillion of that. The rest is discretionary where Congress Gets to decide where to spend, 1. 4 trillion. Interest on the u. S. Debt is nearly half 1 trillion for the next fiscal year. North carolina is next. Caller yes, i have very concerned over the National Debt. Look at ouryou Economic System in the United States, we are based on a debt system. The budget, for example, the entire economy would collapse, because there would be no money going into the economy to sustain the economy. In other words, if the United States government quit borrowing money, then we would not even have the money to repay the interest, because that money does not exist anymore. And the only way that we could get it would be by having a trade surplus with the world. And now we have such a trade taking that we are only money out of our economy and putting it into china and other countries. And as long as we keep borrowing if we that will sustain can continue paying the interest on the money. Host are you in support of tougher tariffs against china . Ofler i am totally in favor doing whatever is necessary to keep china in line, because we all know that their moral system is completely different from ours. Host a couple more calls. Massachusetts. Hello. You are on the air. Is this jim . I think we lost you. We will go to another call for massachusetts. Chris is next. Caller hello. Talk briefly to about foreign aid and the importance and the National Budget as a whole. There is a lot of talk about concern over the National Debt and more defense spending than ever before. We spend more on our defense and every other country combined. Meanwhile, foreign aid makes up less than 1 as a whole. We are seeing more foreign aid equates to more safety and security for the entire world and also helps our economy. We are aimed at securing more here toaid, and we are ,upport that through acts including one that just past and is going on to the senate. That. Appreciate it more calls. 202 7488000 if you are concerned about u. S. Debt and deficit. 202 7488001 if you are not so concerned. A different sort of immigration story in this mornings New York Times, a new migrant surge, this one from central africa. Months, thet for alamo and downtown san antonio has been packed with central American Families. But in recent days, they say hundreds of migrants from other parts of the world are causing city officials busy, scrambling on a new and unexpected surge, men, women, children from central africa, mostly the democratic republic of congo, showing up at the u. S. Southwest border after embarking on a dangerous, monthlong journey, they write. There arrival at the border and two cities, san antonio and portland, maine, has surprised and puzzled immigration authorities and overwhelmed local officials and nonprofit groups. To turnrompted portland its basketball arena into an Emergency Shelter and depleted Assistance Funds meant for the groups. Officials in both cities have had to reassure the public that fears of an Ebola Outbreak were unfounded, while also trying to find interpreters that speak their language. Nytimes. Com to read more. 202 7488000 if you are concerned about the federal debt. 202 7488001 if you are not so concerned. The front page of the Washington Post this morning. We talked a bit about the issue of impeachment with our earlier guests. Here is the headline, pelosi stalls efforts to impeach. It says a prominent liberal in the house is impatient with Nancy Pelosis opposition to impeaching President Trump, and there seemed to be a major breakthrough last month when they keep a low cli, a key ly was looking to join the pro impeachment movement. There was a late night meeting where a plan was hatched. Six Party Leaders speaking in unison to make clear to the chairman why impeaching trump was a terrible idea. You can read more at washingtonpost. Com. The president has tweeted about this issue, as well, and commented on it. It is reported that the Trump Campaign will purge posters after leaks of dismal results. The president officially starts his campaign tomorrow in orlando, florida. One more call. Go ahead, brad. I am not worried about the National Debt or deficit. I could not imagine an entity that is going to call us on our tab. It . that thanks. All your calls, we appreciate them. Moorehead on washington journal tomorrow morning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] later today, here on cspan, a discussion about a china, 5g technology, and Artificial Intelligence with senator mark warner, vice chair of the Intelligence Committee. Speaking at the council of Foreign Relations at 12 30 eastern time. Health and Human Services at the statex azar leader summit. That live at 2 00 2 15 eastern. I look forward to running against them. Tuesday, President Donald Trump holds a rally in orlando florida, officially launching his run for a second term. Watch live at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan 2, online at cspan. Org or listen live on the free cspan radio app