Administration committee, thanks for coming by. Rep. Davis thanks for having me. Host joining me with the question is tim starks and judy that covers congress for the hill. Where are we as far as security than in 2016 . Rep. Davis when we were charged of the 115th congress, we worked in a bipartisan way to invest 400 million into our Election Security issues working with d. H. S. To hire more administrators, to fight back cyber attacks, and also giving money to our states so that our state and local officials can work with d. H. S. Hand in hand to ensure the Election Security f every single election. Believe the most secure elections are actually the ones i held at the local level. Host whats the most outstanding issue as of to day . Rep. Davis there is a lot about standing issues when it comes to election infrastructure. We need to look at the next most secure way of voting is going to be, test those new methods. We sat down with folks who are testing somewhat of a block chain type voting to where you can do it on your phone. Its been used in certain elections in West Virginia. Those are the types of innovations that could make our elections even more secure, but we shouldnt just throw off the table like the democrats have tried to do. Host mr. Starks, go ahead. Mr. Starks this week the house had debate over a bill that the democrats sponsored called the shield act. You have your own bill that is counter to that. I wonder if you can talk about what areas you think there might be a chance for democrats and republicans to agree on, where do you think you can find some Common Ground before the 2020 election . Rep. Davis we actually had the bipartisan bill when you look at the numbers from yesterday. As a matter of fact, i think we had three democrats vote for our motion to recommit which is basically my bill, the honest elections bill. One democrat voted against the shield act. The shield act could have been a bipartisan bill. Unfortunately just like with h. R. 1 and the safe act, they didnt include us. They didnt want to work with us. This bill would have addressed some of the things we could agree on. Their attempt to do so was poisoned with other o provisions. We ought to be able to have a disclosure requirement when it comes to online political ads. There should be a click threw so people know who paid for those online social media ads. Unfortunately the democrats didnt have a single hearing so we could ask any social media platforms what are they going o do to make this work for us . Howalready working to insure that are they there arent going to be russian ads paid for in the next election like the 1100,000 that facebook accepted in the 2016 election. Again, my colleagues in washington have failed to really look at the progress that weve made in securing our elections. Congressman, theprovisions in the shield act were bipartisan, either from senate bill with cosponsorship. Youre saying that was not the case . Rep. Davis no, the shield act, really what the democrats tried to do is take a bipartisan bill called the honest ads act that we would have supported. I would have looked at support it if we could have made small changes to it. They then said there is unanimous provisions that they put in. What they put in was the act that passed the senate by unanimous consent. That didnt get put in until the rules committee the day before we actually debated the bill on the floor yesterday. So to put that in at the last hoyer and to claim unanimous bipartisanship is a little disingenuous on the democrats part. Youre pretty critical on the bill during the debate yesterday, saying something about it inhibiting free speech with the language in there. How was it different and how would the democrats, the bill backed by democrats rep. Davis the biggest change we have, we want to empower the agencies that need to protect us and also have the experience and the ability to investigate foreign interference. Thats the department of justice. I want anybody who interferes with our elections, especially any nefarious foreign actors, i want them to be held accountable by the d. O. J. The democrats bill would not have allowed that to happen. One of the most egregious portions of the democrats bill that i think every member of our caucus was appalled by was they were going to allow the d. O. J. And the attorney general to be able to go into any Congressional District and set the record straight if they determined that what is being aired in a political ad is not completely true. Now, i dont know about you, but i dont think i want bill barr coming into my district spending 1 million taxpayer dollars setting the record straight for or against me. Thats not what we should be doing out here in washington, d. C. And clearly thats what the democrats were trying to put in place. That provision alone i think helped us have unanimity on our side against the shield act. The current climate with how tense things are with impeachment that anything can be done on an Elections Security bill or a bill in general given how heated things have been . Rep. Davis its really interesting. I heard a statistic right before i got here that the democrat majority in the house has issued more subpoenas than house bills have been signed into law. Thats really not what the democratic majority promised the American People when they gave them control. They said they were going to fix our broken healthcare system. They have yet to put a bill on the floor that is leaving 60 million americans uninsured or underinsured or having coverage they cant afford to use. We have a bipartisan trade agreement that Speaker Pelosi ut on the floor today it would in the usmca it would pass overwhelmingly in a bipartisan fashion. Its not that the bills arent out there. Sometimes its just that Speaker Pelosi didnt put the bills that are bipartisan on the floor. Yesterday was a prime example of that. Why in the world when you have a bill thats cosponsored by many of my republican colleagues and why wouldnt you just mark that bill up in the House Administration committee and put it on the floor and get a bipartisan win. No, instead they wanted to add other provisions that they knew would result in just a partisan roll call. Related to impeachment, this week, as the Top Republican in the committee, one of your responsibilities is member security. This week there are g. O. P. Members who stormed into the secure house room holding a deposition with their phones in hand and these facilities are safeguards as you know against electronic threats and phones are not allowed inside. What is your response to those who did this . Rep. Davis its a sad way that my colleagues thought it would be the only way to have access o have tell to move forward. If you look at impeachment and i think we have to take a step back and wonder why Speaker Pelosi decided to start what she called an impeachment inquiry. If youre going to begin an impeachment inquiry, precedent set in this country the three other times its happened. Number one, have a bill in the house vote in the house to approve the impeachment inquiry. Lets do it out in the open. I believe it should be held with the judiciary committee. I believe thats where the American People should see what those depositions are and they should say where those depositions are leading. Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi has decided to set new precedent and unfortunately what its going to do, its going to create an environment where no matter who wins an election for president , if the house of representatives is controlled by another party, this may become the new common status quo. I dont think thats right. Some of the rules i understand were set by ongressman boehner when he was in charge and even the what do you think of the Security Risk posed by the members doing what they did. Rep. Davis i certainly hope members dont pose Security Risks. That is the most secure facility we have in congress. I know my colleagues had their phones rounded up and they were taken out. So thats a good thing. In the end, what we have to do is also take a step back and wonder what type of policies do we need to create to stop any of these, any activities within our house operations. I think its i dont think its a coincidence that just a few years ago when my democratic colleagues staged a sitin on the floor of the house and they used media devices when we were clearly instructed that that is not supposed to be done on the house floor. They were not punished for anything. That set a terrible precedent and probably led to the frustrationthat many of my colleagues felt yesterday and, therefore, unfortunately, i think some of them didnt abide by the house rules as they should have. I have heard a lot of republicans take issue with the process the democrats have had with moving forward with impeachment. I also heard a couple that have kind of raised concerns about the substance of what they have seen come out of these hearings. Do you share those concerns . Rep. Davis thats the problem, i dont know what is coming out of these hearings. There are selective leaks coming out of the hearings. I want to hear the perspective of every one of the witnesses. Each witness has their own perspective on what they feel did or did not happen with the issue that theyre in there giving the deposition about. I want to hear from anybody. Lets open it up. I mean as the Washington Post says, democracy dies in darkness. There is no way we some an impeachment inquiry, lets bring it out to the open. If i was chairman jerry nadler, i would be pretty upset this is going through the Intelligence Committee instead of going through the rightful committee of judiciary. Youre in a tough district, the election last time around, the polling has been mixed on whether impeachment will play well for republicans. How do you see it playing out in your district . Rep. Davis i dont look at polling. Data, i look at the evidence of what i see would justify or not justify an impeachment. Yes, i am in a swing district. I won a district that democrats through to elect democrats four terms ago. We have been able to do that by being a bipartisan member. Im the 50th most bipartisan member of the house of representatives out of 435. I do my job and try and judge the issues and judge the votes im going to take based upon the information i have in front of me. And clearly the transcript that i have seen in this impeachment process i dont believe led to any criminal wrongdoing or criminal charges. Thats what im going to do, due process matters, even when you disagree with the president , he and every american deserves due process. We should never have a political litmus test on due process. I think thats exactly the precedent that the democrats are setting right now. One of the organizations that helps administer election that youll have as the elections system commission, again, this is another area where the House Committee has a lot of say, they lost their executive director, a controversial figure, but republicans on the committee wanted to retain him and testified about a miniscule budget. One of the commissioners said there are approximately 8 million budget is less than kansas city spends on potholes every year. Im wondering what would it take to make the commission be its best . Representative davis its going to take leadership on both sides. I think we have to have people in place that are going to be able to Work Together to institute bipartisan security measures. Remember, there was some talk to get rid of the commission because of the dysfunction. T was fought and not successful, but at the time we were able to come up with a bipartisan solution to invest more money into the e. A. C. So whats it going to take for the e. A. C. . Number one its going to take us in a bipartisan way on House Administration to get to the bottom with how to fix the problems on the e. A. C. We had one hearing. That turned into a personnel meeting. The members of the House Administration majority began questioning our e. A. C. Commissioners on personnel issues related to the former executive director. When youre at i hearing in the house of representatives, lets find out how we make the e. A. C. Work instead of sitting there during a public hearing complaining about any one individual, that stuff could have taken place at a conference table rather than a hearing room. So we are no further to fixing the problems at the e. A. C. Because our majority hasnt had a hearing where we can focus on those problems. Host our Newsmakers Program with representative roddy davis, the Ranking Member of the House Administration committee. Mr. Starks, go ahead. Even if the democrats had been derelict in their hearings, do you have ideas of what would work to fix the e. A. C. And the budget that it is administering hundreds of millions of dollars . Rep. Davis frankly, i like the partnership that the e. A. C. Is having with many state and local officials and also with d. H. S. I would like to see who the new executive director is going to be, who the commissioners are going to hire and once they hire that person, i want to see what their plan is. I dont know the ins and outs of the daily operations of the e. A. C. Were the oversight responsibility. I want to hear from those who are on the ground, who are there every day, what their needs are, what resources they might ask for and how theyre going to implement our directives. On a completely different topic, you voted on rebuking the administration on the move with turkey and syria. The president has lifted sanctions on turkey. How do you feel about what is happening over there right now . Representative davis its no secret. I didnt agree with the president s decision when it came to syria. Im frustrated. I dont believe it was the right move. I believe it could have some long term consequences in the region. What really frustrate is our supposed ally, supposed nato ally turkey. President erdogan is a dictator. President erdogan i do not trust. I think we have to start the conversation about whether or not turkey should remain a member of dateo or not. What should congress do . Do you plan to vote for the sanctions vote next week . Rep. Davis i would have to take a look at the bill, exactly what is in it, look at the amendments. I would lead in favor of voting on sanctions for turkey. They are not good allies. Its very frustrating to many of us of here watching the failures of the last administration while we were in congress, they turned their backs on the kurds and watched isis grow. Turkey is not helping us and they need to be held accountable. What do you think of the president s comments saying the kurds arent angels, he is critical on the United States ally . Rep. Davis i disagree with him. The kurds are our best allies in the middle east when fighting isis. They have been put in a nowin situation where they are now etting protection from russia. Thats not where our friend should be. A particular vulnerability in Elections Security infrastructure or a type of attack, what are some of the things that worry you most coming into 2020 . Rep. Davis yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, all of them worry me. Thats what frustrated me about where we are. When we were in charge, again, we actually came together in a bipartisan way and we invested hundreds of millions of dollars to insure that our local officials are working hand in hand with federal officials and Homeland Security officials to avoid any potential threats. Our adversaries are always going to try and attack us for what they believe is our weakest point. If they cant attack us by going into a Voting System and a Registration System like they did in my home state of illinois, theyre going to find out pretty quickly, its pretty tough to hack a voting machine in a precinct in rural illinois. Its not hooked up to the internet. We have to be aware, what are they going to do next . We have to have a debate on chain of custody . Where are the ballots going . Thats something conveniently left out of the debate by the majority party. Ballot harvesting, its a process that is illegal in states like North Carolina and frankly its likely that a republican operative in North Carolina will go to jail for harvesting ballots, picking up a large amount box of ballots and turning them in. I have some problems with that process. Where is the chain of custody of that ballot . Are we sure all of the ballots are getting turned in . California ballot harvesting is legal. We have to have a discussion on that chain of custody because that process can be just as asily disrupted by nefarious actors as Cyber Security intrusions. Who do you think the most nefarious actors are . Russia in 2016 as we know. Will they be coming back . China . Rep. Davis all of our adversaries will do anything they can to disrupt the freedoms and liberties we have in this country, russia, china, iran and i certainly hope none of our perceived allies would do that . Is your state protected . Rep. Davis yes. How so . Representative davis my state has been using receipt sources they have been given by the federal government. By a lot of bipartisan efforts, to create a cyber navigator program. They are working with local officials, local Election Officials in every county are working hand in hand with our Illinois State board of elections who is working hand in hand with the department of Homeland Security. As a matter of fact, during the last year when secretary neilson was still at d. H. S. , we had a secure briefing. I went up to her immediately after that briefing to talk to her about illinoiss efforts. This was before the 2018 elections and she and her assistant who was in charge of these measures could not talk better about illinois officials elections and she and her working with them. Im proud of what we have been able to accomplish in illinois. Thats what bipartisan agreements can do. Thats why we have been successful in washington by investing dollars, stops intrusions, having more people Work Together to identify possible intrusions. That doesnt get enough attention out here, the successes we have had in this arena already. You said you are one of the most bipartisan members in the house. We saw a lot of moderates lose their races last election cycles. And retirements of members with frustrations of not being able to get anything done across the aisle. Is that a concern of yours . What needs to happen to get more moderates in congress . Rep. Davis its not a coincidence that some of the best legislators are lost because theyre in the most even districts. They come in representing their constituency. They are much more of a 5050 district. Those are the districts that are the most competitive elections. Thats the dirty secret here in washington is the ones that the Party Leaders fight to get rid of the most are the most bipartisan members in most cases. You look ahead and what its going to take is a change of how we operate in washington. We are trying to make changes on the select can committee fored modernization of congress to make congress Work Together. It takes a willingness of the members. Its easy, we had a debate yesterday, i stood on the house floor for five hours debating this Election Security bill that the democrats put forth. I debated many of my colleagues, but after we were done, you know, you got to still be able to walk across the floor, shake hands and say, hey, we may have disagreed on this issue. Lets Work Together on finding solutions in the future. That means you have to take a personal willingness to want to be bipartisan. A lot of the moderates are the biggest critic of the president. Is it harder to be a moderate in the trump era and on top of that, i mean, do these criticisms that the president has had of some of your moderate colleagues is that problem matic with leakses moving forward . Rep. Davis i think people are making decisions and acting in a more bipartisan manner because thats who they are and has nothing to do with the president and this administration or any other previous administration. If the president is upset with some republicans, this isnt anything new. Many of my democratic colleagues in the last administration would talk about how president obama might have been upset with them on certain votes. That happens. In the end, what weve got to do is find a willingness to Work Together. Look, were in the midst of an impeachment inquiry right now. I can tell you during the last administration, i had republicans come into see me and they would tell me that there were more than grounds to impeach president obama. I would go through the evidence, no, there is not. The far left will stop at nothing to impeach president trump. I got to have the same discussions but with the other side. The key is, those of us who believe, who know that we want to get stuff done, we have to be able to keep our head down, push good policies forward and hopefully the leadership of both parties will allow us to continue to find those common sense solutions. Host time for one more question. You talked about the modernization. The Committee Recommended they lawmakers should get mandatory Cyber Security training. And they are a target for hackers. That bill, there is a similar bill to that in the senate that has not been able to get to the floor. Mitch mcconnell has other republicans block it. What are the prospects of it becoming law this year . Representative davis if the select committee on modernization, if we feel this is an issue that needs to be addressed on the house side, we dont have to worry about what the senate does. If we feel and the rest of congress feels that we ought to have mandatory cybersecurity training, well get it done. We have been able to accomplish that with workplace rights training. These are the things that happen in a bipartisan manner when we were in charge of the house of representatives in the 115th congress. When you look at impeachment, it sucks all of the energy out of the room. At our last hearing on the committee for modernization. Got a chance to askraymond former member of congress, ray lahood, i ask him how we as members of congress can avoid what happened during the last impeachment process and actually accomplish many of the things that we talked about at that exact same hearing. I was hoping ray would be able to tell me things he learned since he was the guy who chaired the last impeachment proceedings in the late 1990s. Instead ray said avoid impeachment like the plague. You will get nothing done. Nothing will be accomplished. The democrats and their lack of accomplishments since taking over the house of representatives have clearly shown during this impeachment inquiry, they have no interest to work with people like in like me to come up with sken solutions. Host represent iffle now, rodney davis, Ranking Member of the House Administration committee. We thank you for being on our Newsmakers Program this week. Well be right back. We are back with our guest. Tim, lets start with you when it comes to the topic of Election Security, what did we learn from the interview about where we are . There are two points that he made that were striking to me. One was the idea of using technology, something that is very, very controversial with Election Security experts. Theyre trying to take things off line to go analog. There are jurisdictions in the United States, utah is one i believe, West Virginia is another that are experimenting with this, well see how it goes. Its a very controversial idea that he seemed to be willing to somewhat embrace. The other thing he brought up is not so much of being Election Security question, but being critical of the members who walked in that secure facility during the impeachment deposition is and being willing to be critical of them. That was interesting. There have been a couple lawmakers who have responded somewhat sheepishly on the g. O. P. Side that that should not have happened. Some others have defended it. Kevin mccarthy, one of the top members in the entire organization said it was nothing serious. A specific question about the state of our Election Security. Almost everybody agrees with what he said, were better than we were in 2016, better in 2018 and probably better in 2020. Especially if one of the things he did not bring up but hes on record for, he is in favor of sending additional funding, another 100 million to the states to help them get ready or 2020. That needs to happen really soon because its difficult to in the middle of an Election Year improve your election infrastructure. Host same question for you . The comparison to democrats on the house floor using phones there, it will be interesting to see if the democrats move forward with repercussions on that front. His comments on impeachment was interesting. To see somebody who is in a competitive district get their opinion on it was interesting. Host we didnt have time to dive into it but he talked about impeachment what it does to the members of the body. But there are things that have to be done before the end of this year. Where are they surrounding those things . There are definitely some priorities. They need past government funding bill, whether thats going to happen, a shutdown come the end of november, there are a lot of things that i know both sides would like to tackle. Whether that can happen, it still remains to be seen. Host you spoke also about the idea of being a moderate,ble in congress these days. Did you get anything from that exchange . Obviously we saw a lot of moderates lost last time around. I think his take on moderates not necessarily being more critical on trump is interesting. Is teams out of concern, perhaps he could have come out and had some pretty Harsh Criticism of the president. That was interesting. His defense of what trump has said about republicans who disagree with him, that defense was fairly novel because i dont remember even in private hearing about owe wama calling his critics human scums. Scum. His point was interesting. Host he reports on cybersecurity issues for politico and reporting on and julie who reports on matters of congress for the hill. Thanks for joinings us on our Newsmakers Program. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Sit ncicap. Org] today president trumps former Deputy National security advisor, charles kupperman, did not appear for a closed door deposition before house impeachment investigators. This Morning HouseIntelligence Committee chair congressman adam schiff responded to questions about mr. Kuppermans noshow for his deposition. Mr. Schiff good morning, today dr. Kupperman was scheduled to testify as part of the house impeachment inquiry for a previously scheduled deposition and he was a noshow. This is deeply regrettable