Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 12032020 20240711

7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independents, 202 7488002. You can send us a text message 3. 202 748800 cspanwj. Since novemberth 3 election and 11 days before electors meet to cast their votes. So far 306 electoral votes for joe biden, 232 for President Trump. The popular vote standing at 81 million for joe biden and 74 million for President Trump. Here is the headline reporting in the Washington Post. Trump escalates election attacks in 46 minute video rant. They say trumps video represented his most comprehensive remarks about the election and came after he spent the month since the election hidden from public view say for a handful of appearances and a call in on fox news channel. Any hope of the president might be coming to grips with his loss and accepting the fact that joe biden will be sworn in as president was dashed by his combative and emphatic tone, which amounted to a call to arms to his supporters. The fight is paying dividends with trumps political operation. Using a blizzard of misleading appeals to supporters to raise more than 170 million since election day. He invariably has throughout his presidency, trump spun an alternate reality. Although his words worked to undermine democracy, he cast himself as the protector of democracy, saying his single greatest achievement as the president would be to restore voter integrity for our nation. Trump released a two minute edited version of the video on twitter, which the social Media Company labeled as disputed it included a link to the 46 minute video on facebook, where the Company Provided a label saying voted by mail is trustworthy and voter fraud is extremely rare. A tweet from the Detroit Free Press reporter who says giuliani tells michigan lawmakers election stolen, offers no credible evidence. Press, trumpree and giuliani continued to peddle baseless election conspiracies. In a longshot bid to overturn the results of the election one by joe biden, donald trump and his personal attorney continued to peddle baseless conspiracy theories of Election Fraud. In a speech trump david the white house and remarks giuliani made before the House Oversight the twoe in michigan, level a number of false allegations about absentee ballots in detroit. The allegations have already been discredited i election byicials discredited Election Officials and in court. That did not stop trump from claiming he won the election in michigan. He lost the state by more than 154,000 votes. Your response to the president s remarks, we will get your calls. We showed you the event just before this program and you can find it online at cspan. Org. Here is just a bit from the president last night. [video clip] have no higher duty than to defend the constitution and laws of the United States. That is why am determined to protect our election system which is under coordinated assault. For months leading up to the president ial election, we were warned we should not declare a premature victory. We were told repeatedly that it would take weeks, if not months to determine the winner, took count the absentee ballots, and to verify the results. My opponent was told to stay away from the election. Do not campaign. We do not need you. We have got it. This election is done. In fact, they were acting like they already knew what the outcome was going to be. They had it covered. Perhaps they did. Very sadly for our country. It was all very strange. Within days after the election, we witnessed an orchestrated effort to anoint him winner even while many key states were still being counted. The constitutional process must be allowed to continue. We are going to defend the honesty of the vote by ensuring every legal ballot is counted and no illegal ballot is counted. This is not just about honoring the votes of 74 million americans who voted for me. It is about ensuring that americans can have faith in this election and in all future elections. Morning, your response to what the president had to say. Republicans,1 for 202 7488000. Independents and all others, 202 7488002 first up is andrew in sterling, virginia. Caller that was the most disgraceful performance by an american president in our history. Those were the musings of a madman. A con man. Antidemocratic a man capable of lying in every word he spoke, seeking to destroy this country, our democracy, our election process. This man is nothing but a con man. Every one of those maga morands that have donated money to him since the election maga morna rons who have donated to him since the election are nothing but a bunch of suckers. Anyone who would want to believe someone who has enriched himself by stealing, by robbing, by cheating people out of their money is beyond me. 73 Million People voted for him is incredible. ,his country, because of trump is going down the toilet. Caller lets hear from host lets hear from jane on the republican line in Center Valley pennsylvania. 202 7488001 good morning caller good morning. I absolutely believe i know there is fraud. I have no doubt about it. There needs to be a reelection with paper ballots, in person, with id, and hand counted. Get rid of all of these machines. I not only think it is the state that are being investigated by several great people like powell, giuliani, greenwood, and janet ellis, but it was done in other states such as delaware, who used usb drives. What they did in delaware, they took usb drives at the end of the night at the different locations, they took all the votes, and they took usb drives and took them to another physical location and put them in laptops, where they then disseminated the results of the votes to the internet. Host you said you know for certain there was voter fraud. Did you witness something in pennsylvania when you voted . Caller i saw windows being boarded up. They showed it on the tv. Wire windows covered . Why were windows covered . The fact windows were covered is fraud in itself. The election needs to be redone just for that fact. There should be full transparency. If people are being shoved out of the way when they are supposed to be observing what is going on, that is also fraud. Forget about usb drives. The behavior in how people were treated, the intimidation is a totalthis violation of our civil rights. Host we go to the independent line. Lady lake florida. We hear from patrick. Caller thanks for taking my call. Fund onyou quote john all of this. Im surprised he has not had any musings. Attorney general barr use the word widespread. What does that mean . There are 150 million votes counted. His widespread 5 . That means there are seven or 8 million . Bit, some guyttle named hayden that produces these Police Training manuals said black lives matter is nothing but a terrorist outfit, used repeated lies, and cspan does not mention that at all. This guy called the umbrella man with ties to the area and brotherhood with ties to the aryan brotherhood in minneapolis. Boys shot up some police station. The fbi said white terrorists are the biggest threat to this country and the police are putting out training manuals areng only plm only blm terrorists . Host the topic for another segment. We are talking about the president remarks. We air come and they are available on cspan. Org. Florence, from the alabama, this is lewis. Claimed he lost, they are predominantly black cities. It is racist to me. He did noten he won, say nothing about those cities. I listen to him last night and just before cspan came in, and the lies and the lies and the lies good it sounds like he is trying to it and the lies and the lies and the lies. It sounds like he is trying to incite a riot. It is hard to listen. The president addresses the nation. He addresses the nation, he addresses all americans, not the people who say this guy is falling, who believes everything he say. Host we will continue with our topic on the president s remarks last night in just a moment. We are joined by senator bill cassidy of louisiana on washington journal. Good morning, senator cassidy. Guest thank you for having me. Host we are seeing headlines in the Washington Times and elsewhere about a potential deal happening. Losey agrees to compromise on nancy pelosi agrees to compromise on a Coronavirus Relief package. A group of senators announced the package on tuesday. What is the status now that we apparently have an agreement or at least interest by the speaker of the house . Guest it is bipartisan, both the house and the senate. Republicans, 25 democrats in the house are committed to supporting it. That is significant. It attempts to address the next three to four months of what is going on, recognize the American People are in a world of hurt. We need to keep those businesses , employers, and the unemployed going. We think is a good compromise and a way forward. How did thist compromise come about just before the 116th Congress Closes in the lameduck session . Guest it has been going on for months. There was ank ago intensification of the work that has been going on for several months. That has formed into this. It has been bipartisan. Someone will say i need this, and someone else will say we need that come and we would work out a way to work together, and now we come up with this package. Host what you think about the logistics of getting this through . Proposal 908 billion get lumped into the end of the your spending measure that has to get past . Guest that is little process oriented. If it is lumped into the end of the year, it still means leadership for democratic and republican parties has to agree with that. The next step are to make sure we have broad enough support to pass both chambers, and if we do , hopefully it will either be in the end of the year package or the standalone bill. The rising number of coronavirus cases in the good news about the develop end of the vaccine and the likely distribution of the vaccine before the end of the year you mentioned you thought this package was for the next couple of months. Do you think that will likely push this thing over the finish line . Guest i sure hope so. We see the light at the end. The vaccine is going to be widely disseminated. Death rates go down, the economy begins to reopen. Ideally, this is the last package we need. In the meantime, lets get people through the Holiday Season over the next two to three months. Host what are your thoughts on getting the vaccine when it is available . Guest i have already been infected. Most likely i am immune but that is not officially been accepted. Most people think that would be the case. On the other hand, if you need someone to go on cspan to take vaccine to show it is safe and some is willing to take it, sign me up. I will be there. Host we will hold you to your word. What you know of the plans of louisiana and your governors plans for distribution . Guest there already places that have been set up to take the vaccine from pfizer. Our plan is to first vaccinate Frontline Health care workers and then vaccinate those in nursing homes, those were most likely to be infected, and those were most likely to die if they get infected after that first tranche, you go to the second tranche, teachers, firefighters, thate officers, then after you are probably risk factor based innovation strategy. Host the Washington Post headline says republican senators dismissed the possible congressional challenge to joe bidens victory. We will spend the first hour asking your viewers reaction to the president s speech. Senator cassidy, what you think joehe speech last night and bidens apparent victory in the president ial race . Ive already said after the certification of michigan that Vice President biden has 270 Electoral College votes. By our constitution that means he is the president elect. I voted for President Trump, but by our constitution that makes biden president elect. Until somebody presents evidence in a court, under oath, that there has been widespread fraud, enough to overturn the election, that would suggest that does not exist. When people like attorney general barr seem to reinforce that bum as much as i regret to say it, it looks like therell be a change of president s. Host senator bill cassidy of louisiana, thank you for your time. Back to your calls and comments about the president s remarks last night. We have aired it several times on cspan. Your lines for democrats for republicans, 202 7488001. Emocrats, 202 7488000 independents and others, 202 7488002. We go to west virginia. Go ahead with your comment. Caller i have seen trump talking about that and i believe he is right. I believe he ought to be declared the winner because what is they caught them cheating already in the one state where he gained 800 votes, that one state where he gained that was, i think enough right there. Host youre getting a little confused with the volume in the back. We will go to massachusetts, bill on the independent line. You are on the air. Caller how are you doing . Host fine, thanks. Caller how does it feel living in a communist country now . Two, china is behind the dominion Voting Machines. Number three, trump has to declare martial law. That is number three. Number four, i would like a democratic response. What happens in 500 years . Another republicans never wins the white house. We will think then this was started in 2020 . Number five . Become acspan democratic leaning program . I thought you were supposed to be bipartisan. You scumbags. Host we will go to steve on our democrat line. Caller that was a good one there. The fact is they said there was fraud. They have 98 or 99 of the ance where paper backed were paper back. There was no fraud. They prove that. I do not understand these republicans. They are psychos. They have to be. Backing on all of the ballots. Host President Trump mentioned the dominion Voting System. Our previous caller had mentioned that. This is the investigation reporting of factcheck. Org. The president stuck to a Conspiracy Theory that dominion Voting Systems had switched biden. Ds of votes to joe a group of federal, state, and local officials refuted such claims on november 12, hours after trump tweeted them. There is no evidence any Voting System deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way said the elections infrastructure government correlating council and the election Infrastructure Sector coordinating executive committees. The joint statement described the election as the most secure in history. To john in salem, oregon. Republican line. Caller how are you doing . Here in oregon, this last election, every tax hike put out there, apparently they all went through. All these people unemployed having no money, how can you say Everyone Wants to pay more money when they do not have money . Me, myself, plus a lot of other people got multiple ballots not going to themselves. That is lots of chances for voter fraud. Do not wantocrats transparency if they are so honest . Is trump is trying to do prove his case. They do not want him to show any of the evidence. That is what i have to say. Have a good day. Host john in new york on our independent line. Caller unlike the prior independent, supposedly independent caller, i want to thank cspan for as being independent as they are. They do not editorialize, liberally or conservatively. Back to fraud. I was recently down in South Carolina at my nephews house. In the mail he got a suppose it ballot from a girl who lived with him 10 years ago. It was sent out by the rnc. As far as President Trump goes, he claimed, and all of his supporters claim, and the prior independent caller claimed that the thing is rate, we do not want this country to be like venezuela. Unfortunately what president and his supporters are doing is turning this country into another venezuela because what is going on, just like the president who was voted out in venezuela, he declared martial law. What is the difference . There is none. Why dont we turn around. Was glad the conversation you directed with with senator cassidy, because that is what this country needs to go back to a pure it needs to become more bipartisan needs to go back to. It needs to become more bipartisan and compromise with each other. Only with the ouster of donald trump can this be done. Host john calling us from new york next on the democrat line. Caller i would like to say there is nothing scummy about cspan. I just want to say that. Somenot understand why people trump and people say he cannot have lost, this was fraud, when he has been nothing but disgusting, repulsive, repugnant, horrible for five years. He started his campaign on horribleness. Biden st when joe won, i am so happy to know there are more people in this country that have love in their heart than hate. That i was so happy about. Hello, you lost. Time to go. This is a tweet. Michigan has thousands who illegally voted. Thousands of absentee ballots, thousands of returned ballots. Thousands voting in other states, thousands voting absentee in person. Here is what the fact checker at the Washington Post reported. Biden one michigan by 154,000 votes. The results have been certified. Despite a significant gap in trump claim sweeping proctoring the coming of absentee ballots and destroyed was responsible in detroit was responsible for his loss and even tried to sway gop state legislators to ignore the outcome, even though they do not appear to have the Legal Authority to do so. The campaign has appealed the dismissal of lawsuit alleging fraud. Detroit is in wayne county. None of President Trumps claims have fared well in court with judges dismissing the claims as being based on hearsay. President trump in his address first posted on facebook. Here is little bit more. [video clip] i will tell you what is wrong. Voter fraud. This is michigan. At 6 31 in the morning a vote 772 votes came in unexpectedly. We were winning by a lot good that batch we were winning by a lot. That batch was received in horror. Nobody knows anything about it. There is your line. This is one of many. Here is what is normal, and all of the sudden, this is normal, normal, even here. All of the sudden. I go from winning by a lot to losing a tight race. It is corrupt. Detroit is corrupt. I have a lot of friends in detroit. They know it. Detroit is totally corrupt. Look at this. Host join the conversation by text as well at 202 7488003. Pam in tennessee says this. In the face of widespread voter fraud it is no wonder voters in georgia see no point in getting up to vote in january and the democrats of already rate the outcome. Thatependent voter says our president has to resort to Facebook Live to give a National Address because it will not be covered by a single news network speaks volumes about our president s credibility. Meanwhile our leader ignores the fact that 20 800 americans died from covid19 yesterday and even more will die today. I cannot speak for certainty on the timing of that. I think that was posted to facebook before the media had an awareness. Certainly it was made available and we got it from facebook after the speech. I am not sure there was a lot of heads up to the Broader Media about the availability of the president s speech. Lets go to alvin in bridgeville, delaware. Caller i will not claim voter fraud. A couple of things do not add up to me. Democratsthat in 2018 gained seats, and the vote reflected that. In this election, what was supposedly a blue wave did not happen. The democrats lost seats in the congress, and with this upcoming special election, the republicans serve in the senate. With those things being true, it does not add up. Lost . He president i do not see how just the president can lose if the blue wave did not happen. I am not claiming fraud, but this seems suspicious to me. I heard some reports that some ballots came in with just a vote for biden. No one else was voted for. I do not vote like that. I guess some people can, but if im going to cast my vote, i will look the ticket over and make my selections down the line. That is not how government works. People do not just cast a ballot again, im not claiming fraud, but those dont add up. From new york city, james is on the democrats line. Caller first of all, cspan, i want to apologize for the gentleman who called. He didnt have his wheaties. You guys are great. Strangeloveng dr. Last night, and i could not go to sleep, so i decided to watch cspan. I watched financials with katie porter and steve mnuchin, and then i decided to see the president s speech. I could not stop laughing. I thought dr. Strangelove was funny, but now dr. Strangelove looks like a drama, and that is a parody, a satire. I could not believe one single word that this man said. I mean, and he was ranting and raving. Whatever happened to being american in terms of when you lose, you shake the other mans hand and you go on gracefully . Speechless, but i had to laugh. I just had to laugh because i absolutely feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for him. Something is wrong with this guy. Anyway, lets stay positive. Hopefully the democrats will get the two senate seats and get this country going. Joe biden i voted for him. Boredom, i want quiet. I want peace and respect amongst us all. So lets just go and continue on, cspan. Dont listen to that guy. He didnt have his wheaties. Hope you get some sleep. Mike and toronto, kansas, independent line. Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Host sure. You are on the air, mike. Go ahead. Caller everybody is mad one way or the other. They are after trump. For me, trump came in and ran as a republican but he treated all democrats like democrats treat republicans. I dont understand how they have been beating on him for four years and then now they say you have just got to take it, you know. What are we supposed to do . I am an independent, but what are we supposed to do if we dont agree with this . Are we supposed to shut up and forget about it and move on when they did not shut up and forget about it and move on for the last four years . Now they say everybody get along now. It seems Pretty Simple to me. It is a big country and there were a lot of people that believe different ways. But if you look at those states, red and blue, real simple to divide it up. We would still have two big countries and we would not have no fights. Thats all i got to say. Host this is from politico this morning, the headline rnc 2024 candidate hopefuls to january meeting and show a few neutrality toward trump. The rnc is meeting in amia their island, florida. Showing that the committee will andmpartial Going Forward not an extension of trumps political machine, even as he openly mulls a comeback bid. Thisce from usa today morning. This is from their opinion page, kind of a group of a number of opinions on what is next for President Trump. The revolution, they are calling it. They are the revolution is up to trump. From victor davis hanson, syndicated columnist and authors. He writes that Donald Trumps american great agenda will be codified as his partys own. He has a year or more whether he wishes to play kingmaker among republican congressional and president ial candidates or run himself for second term, but there is some chance that the country will be turned off by a , left shift by joe biden to the alexandria oak osseo cortez wing of the party. The alexandria oak osseo cortez wing of the party. Fueled by a righteously aggrieved following maggie severance from Political Rights on the trump revolution, in the coming months, trump could use money from his new pac called save america and stage rallies which could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. He could promote candidates loyal to him and make donations to the campaigns. And the trump revolution is devouring its own children. The president is attacking supporters such as governor doug like because they were because they will not toss out Election Results in their states. Another republican needs bodyguards because of the death threats. He will keep going until 2024 and either regain the nomination for himself or handed off to a favorite. This is done on the independent line. Caller hello, good morning. Host good morning, donna. Caller i saw on facebook this morning or on the internet, i was that i believe it was general flynn who posted a full page ad in either the New York Times or Washington Post heterday, saying that believes it should be a complete military, and the paper ballots only. I would like you to pull that up if you can show that we could see it on screen. I am a true independent, thispersonally think was the most bogus election i have lived through, and i am 80 years old. God love tostly to see a complete revote for the American People to believe in our system once and for all. Theuse i have been watching hearings, and i am appalled at what people have seen in several states. I do believe it is a totally corrupt election, and i dont like that, that my vote did not count. Thate pull up something on post that they are talking about that general flynn supposedly ran in the paper. Also, people have been talking about the president pardoning flynn. If you go back, would you pull people how many president obama pardoned in his last month in office . I think you so much. I love this show. I have been watching you since it started. Host thanks, donna. This is not the ad you are referring to, this is the group, though, from we the people, the press release. I did not see that ad this morning or yesterday morning. You mentioned a fullpage ad. We will look for that. But that is the online look at that group. Jacksonville, florida, next up on the republican line. Alberto, go ahead. Caller thanks a lot for taking my call. They have been looking for proof of the problem with the election. I can tell you what the proof has been. They should look at all the Voting Machines that were used in counting the votes. Votingre the same machines used in venezuela and other countries. I am originally from the philippines. Our own air elections are now hiding in the United States because of what is happening with those machines. I am not surprised that the democrats got a hold of them and have gotten some information on how to use those machines toward their favor. Host summary ashen some messages. N our text the first caller seems to ignore that 81 million votes went to biden, so does the country go like water bursting out of the pipes in Fulton County . You would think that democrat line fakers would celebrate the victory instead of defeat in the dwelling on trumps voters breaking all kinds of electoral records. John in gainesville, georgia. To harry in pensacola, florida, you know this election was a fraud, Supreme Court will overturn it. How do you expect the american trustee election system when stacey abrams, who registered illegal voters and then collect their ballots. Vicki from wichita, kansas. About trump claims and i would ask these people are of a pole nts what about the workers who refused to see counting baseless or what about the Dominion Software . Someone needs to remind republicans that states, 50 of them, doing their own way lawfully counted same day votes first generally and mailing votes later. Be more President Trump early and candidate biden later. Even after election day was over, not cheating. 80 million votes take a long time to count. I can talk slower if that helps. From the Washington Post, trump attacks have put staff at risk. The president s allies also kept up their attacks in georgia, attacking Sidney Powell and linn would. Nd they called for the resignation of Governor Brian Kemp and his lieutenant, both republicans, and the imprisonment of camp for excepting the outcome of the president ial election. It has all gone too far. All of it. Joe asked for these patriots to be shot. Noose, sayingit a that he should be hung for treason because he was transferring every port on batches. To a county computer so he could read it. It has to stop. President , you have not condemned these actions were this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. This has to stop. We need you to step up, and if you are going to take a position of leadership, show some. My boss, secretary address isger, his out there. He has had people come onto their property. His wife is getting sexualized threats through his self through his cell phone. It has to stop. Elections are the backbone of democracy, and all of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this. It is too much. Yes, fight for every legal vote, go through due process. We encourage you, use your first, thats fine. Death threats, physical threats, intimidation its too much. Its not right. They have lost the moral high grain that high ground to claim that it is. Host all that a text message froml and elizabeth elizabeth, new jersey. Will he toss up his arms and . Y not me, its not my fault this is sylvester, democrats line, from charlotte, North Carolina. Caller good morning, cspan. How are you doing . Im originally from jersey myself. Somebody is going to get hurt. It is not relevant at this point when you have the most powerful person in the world sitting on the stage for the whole world to see and telling the world that american elections are corrupt. Path,ou start on this what makes the people in these countries the people in our country, what makes them think that other countries want to still hold america in that high regard . When you have the guy still saying that the whole election system in america is corrupt, but then we go around the world telling people this will affect more than georgia. This will affect other places in the world also. Donald trump lost. How is that so hard to understand . I amthe things that 48 years old. I remember when you had gary hart running for president. Just the thought of him being with a woman got him eliminated. You heard out of his own mouth on tape saying what this man would do to women. Three years before he ran for office, saying that the last president was not an american citizen. And if you put them in the immediate that in the Media Outlets every sickle morning it was a if you put them in the Media Outlets every single morning, it was a joke then. The massacre that happened in walmart was a direct link to donald trump and his rhetoric. Kidnap a attempt to legislator and a governor, in 2020. I mean, how far is enough . Ton are white people going speak up about this kind of stuff . There needs to be a million white people march in washington because they are the ones opening their mouth right now. Host we hear from dave in ohio, independent line. Good morning. I just want to say that donald trump said that this election was rigged and he had dead people voting against him. My question is how many dead people voted for him . How many people in the world here got these ballots, three or four ballots to their house, and how many did they fill out and send back in for donald trump . Switchedvotes were from joe biden to donald trump . You know, he doesnt say anything about that. He is always crying fake news, fake news. Im sorry, he is the only fake news in the United States. Host a republican on the line next, steve from san jose, california. Caller thank you for taking my call. I want us all to look at this in light of what happened during hoax,ssia, russia, russia first of all, and then i have two other comments. After two and a half years of ,earing nothing but russia russia hoax, after all the investigations by the house, by the senate, by the fbi, the mueller report, with no evidence found, and when it came time for the impeachment they chose not theo down that path all republicans came to the conclusion that this was an attempted to, thats an coup, thats all it was. Now lets look at what happened on the night of the election. A couple of things that said it all to me is that all the battleground states shut down at the same time, with trump in the lead, ok . You have them, the democrats putting up cardboard in the windows, which was only shown on fox news, by the way. You had mailin ballots coming in with no increase. How do you get a ballot in an envelope with no crease . You have the unwillingness in some states that are run by democrats to hand over the ballot for a complete forensic investigation. You have in some states such as pennsylvania the democrat, the governor, and some of the elected officials changing laws that could only be changed by the legislature. They tried to do everything they possibly could to throw this election in their favor, and the last point i want to say is and please bear with me wayne you have when you have stated goals of the democrats that if they get in power, with these elections that are going to be held in georgia for the two remaining senate seats when you have goals that if they get in power, they will eliminate the filibuster, they will make d. C. And puerto rico a state for four more democratic senators, they will abolish the Electoral College, they will stack the Supreme Court with more justices , they will lower the voting age, and they will make 11 citizens, those are exactly actions of a tyrannical government. That is what a tyrannical government does. Once they get in power, they do things to stay in power. And i cannot believe that they actually have the gall to tell us what they intend to do. Thank you very much. Host coming up on the cspan networks today, some of our life programming includes some capitol hill coverage this morning. At tentacle eastern. Hearingn3, there is a at 10 00 eastern. Over on cspan3, there is a hearing on the crossfire hurricane investigation. That is the Senate Homeland security committee. They do take it later today at 1, 30, the Aspen Institute discussion with Brandon Wales come alive again on cspan3. On yourminutes or so call come out first topic this morning on the presents facebook remarks released last night on the election here on the president s facebook remarks list last night on the election. For republicans. 2027488000 for democrats. Others,pendents and 2027488002. Next caller on our democrats line. Caller i listen to a lot of things and i find it a little bit disturbing when people throw out words like tyranny. What could be more to radical than using the leverages of power to stay in the white house . But nevertheless so im wondering, how many people that actually donate to the save america pac are actually aware that 75 of that money goes directly to Donald Trumps pocket. You know, and that is important. I just wanted to make sure that people were aware of that. I did actually watch the Sidney Powell revival, or whatever you want to call it yesterday, and i was reminded of tammy faye and jim baker, the way that they talk and the things that they do. I would bet my honda that donald trump will not run for election in 2024. I believe that he was doing all of this just to get money. Thats all i have. Susan in longmont, colorado. Caller good morning. Im calling to talk about the actions and the speech of the president in general, and the divisiveness that it has created amongst all of us. Member ia family feel like family members, friendships, coworkers, he has turned against that he has turned us all against one another. My sister has just about turned me out because i am not sufficiently reverential to donald j. Trump. I am just concerned that he has created that he has fueled such you can hear it from the callers, the anger and the rage and the fighting that people do because of all of this. I am wondering if other people feel the same way i do, because it is so isolating, especially with covid raging. Nastinessis kind of foisted upon us from the highest level of our government, i am just saddened and sickened. I guess that is about all i wanted to say this morning. Host appreciate the call. Robert next up in tonawanda, new york, republican line. Caller yes, hello. I wanted to apprise everyone that i currently have a lawsuit against Kamala Harris in the ,. S. Court of appeals in d. C. And basically i am alleging that she is not eligible to be Vice President because she is not a natural born citizen. And of course this goes back to host robert, she is a natural born citizen. Today, in thesa health section. If you have listened to this program, back in april and may, there was a number of anecdotal stories from viewers about their beliefs that they were sickened by something in late 2019 that they thought could have been the coronavirus. There may be some validity to that after a new study in usa today reported the virus may in december u. S. 2019. The Novel Coronavirus may have been circulating in the United States undetected weeks before the first case was reported in 2020. Study authors came to the conclusion after the cdc found evidence of coronavirus antibodies in blood collected in december, 2019. According to the report published monday in the clinical infections journal. Researchers analyzed led donations by the American Red Cross by residence in nine oftes and found evidence antibodies and 106 out of the 7389 samples. Inibodies were also found states that did not report an outbreak take a widespread outbreak at the time. Reminding us the first covid19 patient was diagnosed, january 20, in washington state, according to the cdc. Lets go to one road township in monroesey, and to township in new jersey. Hi there. Lastr i agree with the two lady callers from michigan and colorado. You have to stop and think about the people that are following donald trump. They think the way he does, the great majority of them do. Them that she called the coronavirus a hoax, and now he is calling the election he called the coronavirus a hoax, and now he is calling the election a fraud. The biggest hoax is donald trump. Judges have to uphold the law. The cases that were taken to these judges in pennsylvania, georgia, and the other states they all agree, some that he put in office himself. A highudges are held to standard. They have to uphold the law. People need to look and see what is right and what is wrong, and we all know what is right. Host this is kelly on our independent line in ohio. Welcome. Caller hi. I agree with the last caller. In addition, if there was fraud and they are thinking that the votes were changed from donald trump to joe biden, why wouldnt the house seats and the senate seats have also been changed to favor the democrats . Any sense. Make if you are a democrat you will want to be in control of the senate as well as the house. And the republicans winning all those house seats they are in a fight for the senate seats. The downd have fixed ballots. We would not have the question of who is going to control the senate at the moment. Here is a bit more from President Trumps address last night. Trump this election was rigged. Everybody knows it. I dont mind if i lose an election, but i want to lose an election fair and square. What i dont want to do is have it stolen from the American People. Thats what we are fighting for, and we have no choice but to be doing that. We already have the proof, we already have the evidence. And it is very clear. Many people in the media, and even judges so far, have refused to accept it. They know its true, they know its there, they know who won the election, but they refused to say youre right, our country needs somebody to say youre right. Ultimately i am prepared to accept any accurate election result, and i hope that joe biden is as well. But we already have the proof. We all would have tens of thousands of ballots, more than we need, to overturn all of these states that we are talking about. This is an election for the highest office in the greatest country in the history of the world. Every reasonable american should be able to agree, based on what we have already documented, that we need a systematic analysis of the mailin ballots to review the envelopes. It is about the signature. And if they are on the envelopes, we can only review the envelopes, and that will tell us everything. [end video clip] couple of Text Messages here. This one from hollywood, florida. In 2016 President Trump would have declared the election a fraud if he didnt win. In 2020 if he had one, would that have meant the election did not have fraud . The American People must stand up and protect our electoral system. Maybe its time to implement the 25th amendment p or can stephanie in michigan the 25th amendment. Stephanie michigan. Most people will never see it. It will never be on the liberal stations. Sue in ohio, one more russ in texas. A trump lawyer has declared that word fraud in any court. In tuscaloosa, alabama, catherine, good morning. Caller good morning. I just wanted to say there is no voter fraud. In alabama, by sending something in by mail, i had to order my ballot, and when i got it, i had notarizedd to have it when i sent it in. I had to have a copy of my drivers license, and i had to say where i would have voted if i had voted in person. So all that, nobody could have used my name and voted for me. In alabama, there was no host we lost that one. Here on washington journal, we continue with more of the program. To a defense speak news reporter, talking about the Defense Authorization bill congress has yet to pass and had little time to act on. We will talk about that, next. Later, jamie of maryland will talk about efforts to preserve Trump Administration documents and the ongoing legal challenges to the 2020 results by the team. With a peaceful president ial transition of power in question following the 2020 election, sunday night on q a, two historians talk about two of the most contentious president ial transitions in u. S. History, in 1861 between James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln, and in 1933, between hoover and roosevelt. Several Southern States did not recognize the election of Abraham Lincoln as legitimate. They considered him a sectional president due to the fact that by and large his support came from nonSouthern States. No sooner when he was elected, North Carolina proceeded from the union. Hoover defeated the election on election day and had no choice given the resounding nature of the vote and the way it was presented in the post, but he never conceded the substance of the argument. He continued to believe that the deal, as roosevelt framed it, represented a fundamental threat to the american way of life, so he devoted himself to preventing roosevelt from being able to enacted. Contentious president ial transitions, sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans q a. Washington journal continues. Host we welcome aaron mehta, Deputy Editor and Senior Pentagon correspondent with defense news, here with us to talk about the efforts to pass the Defense Authorization bill. Bill has policies and programs, and how important is it for the funding the programs require . The thenational, national Defense Authorization act is a must pass bill, and this is how we pay members of the military, how many planes, ships and guns we are going to buy, this includes policies such as regarding movement of troops in some cases, overseas exercises, things like that. It is the bill that sets the next year and next five years of the military planning. It is seen in the pentagon as something they need to get done every year. It is seen in Defense Committees as a point of pride to get it done every year, and it is usually passed by the congressional leadership. This you might be trickier. There is a lot of confidence every year that this is a bill that at the end of the day, members of Congress Come together to actually make sure it gets through. Host there are house and senate versions. How far apart are they . Guest there are differences, of course. We just went through the conferencing process. Now, we know there is one version that they have come together to make agreements. As we respect, with a Republican Senate and democratically controlled house, they were issues of contention. They seem to have largely smooths them out postelection. Both of theof committees came together in the fall and clearly said we know that with the election, this is too politically challenging and charged to get through some of these issues we have to work through right now. They kicked it until after the election with two weeks of conferencing, now it seems they have an agreement. Host the headline in defense news is defense bill is snagged in trumps were on social media protection. This is section 230 the president tweeted about. What is he calling for . He threatened to veto over this. What is it about . Guest this is the second veto threat trump has made on the policy bill. The first was about language that would allow the changing of names for confederate generals. He first that over the summer when it was being discussed. Most recent thing, section 230, came out of nowhere for a defense bill. It is something we had talked about for a while by the president and this circle of people. Essentially, section 230 allows at the most basic social media companies, Internet Companies are not liable legally for stuff put out by users and the product. So somebody on twitter comes out and says, i am going to do x crime, twitter is not liable for that, it is the person who said it on twitter. There has been angst in republican circles that this is peopleg this speech, and who are more expert than i said if this got repealed, the himself mightetets be liable to legal action and he might come to regret it. That is the one thing an agreement across the hill is that this is no place in a defense bill, especially since trump tried to force it in the last couple of days as the conference process is basically done and the bill was briefed by both sides. The senate of Armed Service Committee Chairman spoke with him frequently and even said, i want to repealed section 230, i support the president on this, but this defense bill is not the place. That is something we have seen with the national Defense Authorization act a lot in the past, the sense of, look, you do not want to loaded up. Because it is a must pass bill, people try to load it up and the Defense Committee spent a lot of time trying to fight it out and keep it purely defense focused as possible. It seems democrats and republicans agree this is not the place for section 230, and we will have to see if the president follows through on the veto threat. Host you mentioned the president s objection to the language on confederate monuments excuse me, naming navy bases after confederate generals, or does the final language in the bill say . Guest we do not know for sure because we have not seen the final language. They just finished a conference officially yesterday, and they like to delay it and make our lives miserable. It looks like based on reporting that we have seen that it is most likely going to be a situation where the army is given a three year period to study the issue and come up with alternative names, and then the army will have the final say. They will have the final say in terms of what their names actually look like. That is different from some language that democrats in the house have pushed on point, which is basically we are going to rename them all. The other wrinkle is in theory, joe biden could issue an executive order to rename them anyway. Some people said, why are the democrats still pushing confederate base names . We know trump might veto the bill, why not ticket to the Biden Administration . I think this is congress wanting to put their foot down, and in both chambers and in both partys weight essentially saying, it is time to change the names, we have alternatives, but we will do it through a slower process than executive action. Host our guest is Deputy Editor and Senior Pentagon news. Pondent for defense we welcome your calls and comments, 202 7488001 for republicans. Democrats, 202 7488000. Active andare retired military, that line is 202 7488003. Yesterday, the chair Ranking Member of the Armed Services committee in the house, adam smith, and mac thornberry, released a statement, part of which says for 59 years, straight years, the ndaa has passed because members of congress and president s of both parties have set aside their own policy objectives and partisan preferences, preferences and put the need for military personnel and americas security first. The time has come to do that again, given that it is the end late inongress, it is the day for the bill to pass . Guest it is not ideal but it is not atypical. We have seen a lot of to the wire ndaas in the past. In the last years, we have seen a lot of funding bills up to the wire, and it looks like we see that situation again. The ndaa is where the leadership of the Committee Takes great pride in saying the military is an political institution, and we can work our issues out and make these happen. Mac thornberry, the Ranking Member on the House Service committee, former chairman, is retiring this year. He certainly would not let this be the first ndaa that does not get through on his last time going through it. The other readers on the committees understand this, too. It is one of the areas on the hill with the most agreement, most bipartisanship in the sense that, yes, they fight about the policies and there are disagreements, but at the end of the day, it will come together and make sure it gets through. Host you mentioned this is the defense policy bill, setting the policy for the pentagon for the defense in the coming and current fiscal year into 2021 fiscal year budget. What amount of funding does this authorize . About this authorizes 740. 5 billion and that is with a b, free defense spending. 72020 million billion for the pentagon itself. It is thing like troop levels, pay raise for members of the military, and details of how flyers youet buy, and it is the allencompassing defense standard bill. With the Trump Administration and the establishment of space force, how much money does this bill authorize first base force and what other policy changes are included regarding space force . Guest we will have to see the final numbers, but it is expected to increase, which is on the path we expect. If you start something, it is fairly small, but they started to add more people. Graduating classes are going right into space force for the first time. You are seen as people come in and the budget is also going to increase. In terms of policy, there are still a lot of reorganization. With the military, there are space officers everywhere. Every service has had their own version of space. And in the air force, there are a lot of different space offices and you will see through things in the ndaa and it essentially says, there are five offices over here, why dont we bring them into space force and then maybe there could only be two officers in space force, where do we ship the personnel and money . It is a lot of bureaucracy. The space force show did not get great reviews, but when you talk to people, they understood the ridiculous bureaucracy into expanding the military service. I think that is what we are going to see with the ndaa in the next couple of years with regard to that new branch of the military. Host independent house member from michigan tweeted this about the bill, and he said President Trump should just veto the ndaa, not just for the nonsensical reason he cites, but he should oppose more funding for wars, indefinite detention of americans without charge or trial, and corporate welfare for the militaryindustrial complex. Yet, he has not vetoed a single ndaa. If the president were to veto this and he leaves office, what does that mean . Guest it sets up a couple of interesting things. First off, my colleague spoke with adam smith last night and smith said he thinks trump would be foolish if you try to veto it votes forere are the republicans and democrats in both chambers to be able to pass the bills as a veto override, so that would be an embarrassment for the president. If he vetoes it, they would have to go back and tried to rework something with the new administration. Mike that level on this my gu level ont seeking the repeal that gut level on this is the president is seeking a repeal, and the fact that Speaker Pelosi and leader mcconnell have agreed to bring the ndaa to vote is a big sign because mcconnell is famous for not bringing things to an actual vote if he thinks there would be a real veto threat. Just reading the tea leaves, it seems likely the president has a great to not veto this particular bill and republicans will try to get the 230 repeal elsewhere. That said, theres one thing we have learned in the last four years as the president prides himself on unpredictability. We will have to watch closely and see what happens next couple of weeks. Host line for military, retired and active, 202 7488003. Joe in fayetteville, North Carolina, on that line. Caller good morning. I just find that this is a politicalization of something that has not been politicized before. Just like they have been andticizing the judiciary several other things that have never been up for a vote before. What do about this, sir . Guest i think the politicalization of the military has been an issue throughout the Trump Administration, raised by experts, especially those who study these affairs. Member, the military is a civilian controlled organization. There have been issues with, ok, have civilians who are in acting capacity, even up to the secretary of defense right now, are they kind of being railroaded either the white policy issues by officials . I think one of the things you will see with whoever the next secretary of defense is and that is a separate issue we can get into, if you like there will be an effort to reassert civilian control both inside the building and up to the white house, reasserting that the military should not be used as props. The president should not go to the pentagon to sign a policy bill that is not ready to go to the military. We saw the Lafayette Square situation in june, with despair, and with mark esper, saying that they should not have been there. It was on the president who said we should not have been there, so that is an issue that the next administration will try to take on some form. Host you mentioned the next secretary of state, who joe biden my pick. Who are the candidates . Guest secretary of defense are a tricky one. Many it was a lock for michelles porno, a former secretary of defense for policy michelle, a former secretary of defense for policy. She is a respected figure by republicans and democrats and assuming she would clear confirmation because she is wellliked by both parties and respected inside the building, as well. Uploadedle of names out since. Jeh johnson, the former security had for president obama who is appealingead for certain policies. His name has apparently floated up as a toptier contender. The other name that came out last week was a retired army general, former of u. S. Central command from 2013 to 2016. The interesting thing with austin his he would require a waiver, like secretary mattis did, because if you are active within the last several years, which he was, you need to require a waiver from the house and senate. A full majority of both chambers of congress to that happen. That is a tricky proposition given the current makeup, republicans who may not want to throw the new administration a bone, and progressive democrats who may just want to say, why are we putting another general and general in . But also because they want to get out of wars in the middle east which he essentially ran. It will be interesting to see where this goes. Biden is doing interviews this week on some of this. The thought is he will announce soon. It is traditional for the secretary of defense to be in place immediately after inauguration to the point where congress will hold a hearing beforehand, get them cleared, and essentially wait to pass the boat until the president is inaugurated vote until the president is inaugurated, and then have it within hours and they are in the pentagon and working. If you would like to follow that tradition, it is hard to see the waiver fight happening this quickly, especially given the georgia political runoff, where we dont know what the senate will look like until early january. It could get dicey, so we will watch this closely. For into defensenews. Com more on that, and we have some of the candidates up there already. Either way, it seems likely that it will be the first time where it is not a white man running the pentagon. Host aaron mehta, a Senior Correspondent for defense news. Carol is next in minneapolis, welcome. Caller good morning. Yes, i was hearing on the news last night that President Trump is hollowing out the pentagon as much as he can and putting in Young Political appointments, including the isis task force. Is there anything that can be done to stop this . Awaying this just to take the information that the Biden Administration could be getting from these personnel . And just to make it more difficult for biden . Thank you. Guest so, yes, immediately after the election, there was a significant waiver of departures from the pentagon. The most clearcut one was mark esper, who was fired. And then a day later, the undersecretary of policy, james anderson, and the undersecretary of intelligence, joseph kiernan, were essentially a tear below secretary of defense, were forced out, along with parts of their staff. They were replaced by people who are seen as a trump loyalists. One was part of the group that mike flynn brought in very early. One who had been placed in the pentagon after he could not get a confirmation even by republicans in the senate is another. He is now in charge of the policy and acting capacity. And the secretary of defenses chief of staff was replaced by bigtel, replaced by a republican attack dog on the russian probe. These are all people who are very loyal to the president. They are not afraid of that brand either. They would agree that they are very loyal to the president. The president is the commanderinchief, he has the right to fire and higher as he wishes among political appointees. These political appointees will also be gone come january 20. The question we are concerned about is a situation where political appointees are given nonpolitical jobs and are harder to fire. That is something that happened in the obama and bush administration, the clinton administration. There is a theory that the Trump Administration is doing it more than others. I havent seen the numbers to back it up, but it is something people are tracking. We put up a story last week where we did numbers, and 40 of the cited jobs senate jobs are performed in acting official capacity. That is not ideal because when you are the acting official, you do not have all the authorities that the full Senate Confirmed person does, and it means you are not necessarily having as much juice inside the building, which is a giant bureaucracy. Sometimes, you are not able to advocate for your office the way you should. That is a highly unusual number, 40 being empty, that is 60 jobs, so those are not filled with people confirmed by the senate. This has been a problem going back to the Trump Administration. They struggled getting nominees in particularly to the pentagon. In terms of being slow to send the names to the senate and getting through. The Senate Armed Service committee had multiple times told reporters, i want to confirm these guys, the president said he would nominate them, and three weeks later, he still has not sent them paperwork, what am i supposed to do . This has been building a while. At the end of an administration, it is hard to fill the spots. This is just the situation we are in. Host lets hear from darrell on a military line in North Carolina, good morning. Caller hey, how are you doing . What i think our country needs a draft. What that drafters is it promotes people to know other people, diversity and stuff like that. You put two people in a blindfold, they are going to do one of two things, they are going to love or kill one another. The military teaches us that. We need to draft and we need to put it on a ballot or something to see with the country things about it. Lets not just take one mans opinion. That is another thing about our country, we are quick to vote for people, and once they get in office, they do their own business instead of being the country. We need to vote on issues, about issues, not on people. That is all ive got to say. And draft, draft, draft. Host more broadly, how have recruitment efforts been in the military . Especially during the pandemic. Guest recruitment has been an issue the last years, especially in certain skill positions like cyber technology, i. T. Frankly, there is a competition for those skills, and the military lifestyle does not always fit them. We have seen some services trying to change that and say, look, we can hire special people if we do computer skills who may be do not need to be expert riflemen at the same time and be in the best physical shape because frankly, youre at a computer all day and not in the field. We need those skills. Have been starts and stops on that. It has been interesting. Air force retention for pilots has been a big issue for the last couple of decades, but now at the economy being what it is an the airline struggling, there is a higher rate of retention according to air force times that we have seen in decades because people are saying im not getting out right now. Ive got a job, i know im secure, i will sign up for another tour. I do not have the numbers at hand, but i do believe that is seen in terms of attention elsewhere in the military. The question of the draft, i will say there has been talk about maybe a national service. There was a congressionally directed commission that looked at the question of a draft, as some countries do, and military service for two years, or a public service, host i think you are breaking up a little bit, aaron mehta. We will try to get you back as we read a headline from the Washington Times. This is there headline on the chairman of the joint chiefs saying a modicum of success has been achieved after a 20 year fight. Heres what the general had to say yesterday at the brookings institution. [video clip] National Institutions reducing our footprint to 2500 soldiers by the 15th of january, and we are in the process of executing that decision right now. Be up to a new ministrations and we will find that out on the 20th of january and beyond. Right now, our plan and the decision of the plan we are executing is to go to 2500 troops by the 15th of january. That is also in support of the agreements that were signed with the delegate back in february. That is happening as we speak. , the Iraqi Government once the United States government to continue to train through the program with the iraqi military. We think that is an important thing to do. We think that helps contribute towards preventing further aggression by iran in the region. We also think that it is important to continue to sustain a successful defeat in the caliphate so it is not regenerate and come back. The president has also made a decision to reduce our force posture in iraq to 2500, also by the 15th of january, and then further decisions will come from the next administration. Host general milley from yesterday. Aaron mehta, i will ask you to look into the Biden Administration and their potential true plans for iraq and afghanistan. Is the trumping administration has been in acknowledgment that the middle east plans need to change in some way. Fear in thely by a pentagon of a rising china and there are future threat and whether or not the u. S. Is taking their eyes off the ball by focusing in the middle east for so long. It will be hard for the Biden Administration to come in and say, we have to put troops back in afghanistan and iraq. That is a bipartisan issue that we have been in the middle east too long, and we need to bring people home. At the same time, the biden ministrations has to consider the safety of those countries. They have said for years that if we are not there, they construct the homeland, so it will be a delicate balancing act. The 2500 soldier figure is widely acknowledged that it was a number that was between the pentagon and white house. Tricky. Mbers can be you move forces out of iraq and then into kuwait, and you have large numbers of forces in kuwait, and if you need to go back to iraq, you cant. We need to keep an eye on this and see the actual numbers are. The Biden Administration politically, it will be hard for them to come right away and put troops in, but it is hard to believe they will not need to increase force at some point over the next four years. Host back to the Defense Authorization bill, congress has a role in determining policy for the pentagon. How much sway does congress having determining troop numbers overseas . Guest Troop Movement and numbers is something controlled by the commanderinchief. It is not controlled by congress by law. So if the president wants to remove troops, he can pretty much do it. Congress often puts and blocks in their own way saying we request these Troop Movements not be done until there has been a steady, or if you do, we will cut funding over here as a way to control that. Ultimately, if the president decides to remove troops, he can do that. There are no legal considering if there are no legal obligations or treaties and such. Congress post 9 11, a lot of people say congress has abdicated a lot of its responsibilities and authorities terms of forced movement and the use of force and the authorization to use military force, and have allowed the executive to take charge. A lot of people we talk to, even in the military, say, Congress Needs to do more and take more of a handedness. It will be interesting to see if there is a split congress Going Forward with the Biden Administration what that looks like. Host lets go to terry in chandler, arizona, democrats line. You are on the air. Caller good morning. Abouted to ask a question the two planes or the defense are decommissioned or taken offline that worked ing and whether or not the Trump Administration decommissioned or took those planes out of action, whether they sold them or read is that many go . Or where does that money go . Host do you know what he is talking about . Guest he is talking about the open skies treaty, the oc 135s. Essentially, it allowed u. S. , russia and other countries to do surveillance flights over each others territory. They are wellcontrolled and they had to be out ahead of time, with details on where they were going, and they were looked at on the plains and when the russians came through, there were u. S. Observers with them. Essentially, it is a trust mechanism. It was left after the Trump Administration argued the u. S. Does not get enough out of it, which, technically, most people who study this a the u. S. Does not necessarily get information out of it because of the other systems we have, but it is a good trust building mechanism. Certainly the european nations rely on it more than the u. S. They like having that trust building mechanism. The planes so the oc 135s are the planes that do this mission. They reportedly were going to be scrapped by the Trump Administration as assigned, we are out of this thing and you cannot go back in, joe biden, if you want to. I the same time, the base where they are at the same time, the base where they are pushed back and say, the air force has said there is not an active plan to scrap these things. It seemed that report jumped the gun for folks in the Trump Administration. That said, it might not be easy, even if the planes are active for the Biden Administration to jump back into the open skies treaty. Legally, some lawyers say Trump Administrations left in an illegal way, in a legal way, and it might be easy to get back in. Other people say the senate will have to weigh in. Happens, it is unlikely. This has been a popular among republicans for some time. I would imagine there will be legal wrangling in the Biden Administration about this. As of now, the planes are still at the air force base and have not been scrapped. Host it is defensenews. Com for the latest on that story and more. Pentagon correspondent, aaron mehta, thanks for being with us. Guest thanks for having me. Host next on the program, we are joined by jamie raskin of maryland, talking about efforts to preserve trump demonstration records and documents and the legal challenges from the Trump Campaign team. Later, Tennessee Republican john rose will talk about congress andthe Trump Administrations coronavirus pandemic response. Booktv on cspan2 has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend, coming up this weekend, saturday at 8 15 p. M. Eastern. Coverage of the 71st annual National Book awards. Sunday, live at noon eastern on indepth, a conversation with chair of africanamerican studies at princeton university, the author of several books, including again again, james baldwins america, democracy and black, and an uncommon faith. Here we are in this moment after electing the first black president in 2008, the country responded by Voter Suppression laws, voter id laws, and that we elected donald trump. We are at a crossroads. Who are we going to be . At the heart of it all, it has andys been a moral question who do we take these questions to . Host host at nine 00 p. M. Eastern on afterwards, Kevin Williamson and his book big white ghetto, on the politics in everyday lives of white workingclass americans. He is interviewed by a cnn contributor. Watch booktv on cspan2 this weekend. Washington journal continues. Host jamie raskin is with us, a member of the Judiciary Committee and sits on the subcommittee for the Coronavirus Crisis. Congressman jamie raskin, welcome to washington journal guest this morning. Im delighted to be with you this morning. Guest im delighted to be with you. Host we asked about the remarks last night made by the president on facebook. Any reaction to that . Guest well, you are talking about the 46minute diatribe rent on the election . Rant on the election . Host yes. Guest the president has painted himself into a corner. There is a divorce from reality. Hasy election official rejected the president s outlandish claims about there being some kind of systemic or massive fraud. Even attorney general barr yesterday dissociated himself from the president s claims. The scary thing is how many people within the Republican Party are unwilling to distance themselves from these allegations, but they have been rejected in court and nearly 40 cases now. Essentially, the litigation strategy has done nothing other than proved that this was about the most sure, confident and accurate election we have had in decades in america. Host the other story coming up in the last days about reports the president allegedly is investigating and issuing pardons to his family and others , a headline from usa today, can trump pardon himself . The Justice Department says no and the courts have not waited. You are a former constitutional law professor at American University in washington, d. C. , what is your thought on the constitutionality of that . Guest the department of justice has long rejected the proposition that the president could grant himself a pardon. The language of the constitution about granting a pardon or reprieve suggests why it is an absurd idea. You cannot pardon yourself. To no lesserok authority than James Madison, who said in the federalist apers x that no man may be judge in his own case because it would impair his judgment and correct his integrity. That is a cardinal principle that runs through our constitution. No president has ever attempted it before, which is not to say this president would not because everything seems unprecedented about this administration. I think if the attempt is to pardon himself or if he is committed, ultimately, this would be a defense that he would try to interpose a guest prosecution. Ironically, the same people who said, no, you cannot prosecute a president while in office, you have to wait until later, are now saying, well, the president can pardon himself. That comes against the basic principle that nobody is above the law in america. We dont have immunity or impunity for executive Branch Officials that is characteristic of a banana republic, not a constitutional democracy. Host we welcome your calls and comments at 202 7488001, the republican line. 202 7488000 free democrats. And for independents and others, 202 7488002. Representative raskin, one of the reasons we wanted you on the program was to talk about apc published with several other house colleagues on cnn a couple of weeks ago. Was,eadline of which Trump Administration preserves evidence of what you have done, penned by you, congressman ken chastain and others. What is your concern . Guest there is a legal obligation under the federal records of 1950 and the president ial records act of 1978 for the president to preserve all documents within the white house relating to his official duties, and this is now a basic principle of our democracy that the documents that a president creates or the executive branch creates must be preserved because they are not the personal private property of the his lieutenants. They are the public property of the people. That is what it means for us to be a democracy. The people on the government send everything that takes place within it, so we have to have transparency. There are dozens of investigative requests and demands that have been made by house committees over the last several years that have been rebuffed by this unprecedented stonewalling of the Trump Administration, so we are putting all of these executive Branch Officials on notice that they are legally bound to preserve and not destroy, not delete, and not in any way, otherwise impair, documents that are created during the course of the administration, including soughtts that we have unsuccessfully against the Trump Administration as they continued their administrative stonewalling. Host another effort along that line is a lawsuit announced this week on tuesday by the citizens for responsibility of ethics in washington. Trump, kushner sued by white house watchdog to prevent deletion of official emails and whatsapp messages. For some of these things like whatsapp and other apps not officially a part of government communications, how troublesome is that that those things may not be able to be trackable in terms of finding records and keeping those records . Guest electronic records are in the president ial records act, so they may not be deleted, destroyed or disposed of. They have to maintain that they are the property of the American People and the government of the United States, so that is extremely problematic if they are thinking about doing it. Legally, it is very simple. Those also must be preserved. You can go to jail for three years for mutilating or destroying federal records in this way, and we wanted to make sure everybody understands that. We hope that inspectors general within each department are reinforcing the legal duties that executive Branch Officials had to maintain all of the documents of public actions that have been taken. Host one more question before get to calls. You sit on the coronavirus subcommittee and the house, the headline this morning about the Paycheck Protection Program says the bars got a quarter of the money, and the centerpiece of the federal relief efforts. Congressman raskin, what is congress in general going to do on how that money was spent and oversight . Guest we have been conducting aggressive oversight on how the administration sees the distribution of these funds, and will continue to go after these questions. Yesterday, it was reported that kushner trump and jared business entities received ppp money, and now, today, there is the headline you are describing about a very tiny percentage of the overall number. I think it is 1 . Getting more than one quarter of the funds. Up to 10 million. We want to look to see exactly how these funds were distributed, and we want to make sure that Going Forward, and i hope we will be Going Forward with another package of covert relief because our people are desk covid relief because our people are desperate for more unemployment aid, more aid to Small Businesses, and for the Public Health investments first state andocal for local aid, with morgan millions of employees laid off during this economic calamity. I hope Going Forward the money is distributed fairly and in a broadbased way so it reaches the smallest businesses that needed it the most rather than the biggest Small Businesses that are wellconnected. Host on Coronavirus Relief, you mentioned the speaker indicating her support for the bipartisan package announced in the senate, 908 billion package. Are you getting word that make him up as something you could take up before the end of the session . Isst i think there gathering momentum for it. Obviously, it is tough since we are physically not altogether for everyone to speak, but in terms of conversations i hear people having online and on the phones, people are passionate for making this happen before the end of the year. We have passed the heroes act more seven months ago now, and we have been waiting for the senate to act, and the fact that there is a bipartisan effort within the senate to make something happen is good news, and i think those of us in the house are willing to meet again on the basis of Common Ground if it is really getting aid to our people and those who need it the most. Host we will go to calls and hear first from 10in deltona, florida, hear first from tim florida, republican line. Was talkingraskin about you cannot destroy Government Property and documentation, but, kind of frankly, that is what Hillary Clinton did but i guess they forgot about that. What really bothers me is he sits here and talks about this coronavirus at the stimulus bill, ok, i have got family members that own a Small Business in alabama, and they are struggling to make ends meet while you guys sit at claire andington, d. C. , sit up washington, d. C. , drawing your salaries, and victor about how much stimulus and what needs to go to the states. Ok, it is my understanding that if the states are in such financial need, they can go and borrow the money from the Treasury Department and then they have to pay a fact. Ok, that does not have anything to do with helping the American People. You guys have drag your feet for probably the last six months on this, and you guys want to play politics up there when you are playing politics with peoples lives. Host we will hear from congressman raskin. Guest thank you for your comments. Im sure they are directed at Mitch Mcconnell because the house of representatives passed the heroes act several months pppin order to continue the money and the 80 Small Businesses, as well as the 600 a week and Unemployment Insurance we have for the tens of millions of people thrown out of work in this economic crisis caused by covid19 and the administrations recklessness in dealing with it. Now we have a new administration trying to engage in a transition to develop for the first time a nationwide strategy to defeat this disease and to distribute the vaccines. Obviously, this outgoing president is obsessed with his fantasies that he somehow won the election is doing nothing to aid the country as now more than 200,000 people a day are coming we leave covid19, and the world in covid19 case count , we lead the world in covid19 death count, we lead the world and covid19 disinformation and propaganda, so we are going to need a complete reset in terms of covid19 policy, and we have the chance with the divided administration to move forward with the Biden Administration to move forward. I agree with the caller, if he is talking about Mitch Mcconnell and the republicans who have sat on their heads in them to continue aid to American People. Host on the Trump Administration records, a question for michael in portland, who has, it has been noted elsewhere that the president ial records act and federal records after toothless as enforcement relies on proving intent. Is this so . If so, what can congress do . Guest the criminal portions do depend on science or intent to destroy. That is why we are putting everybody on notice right now. They have a obligation to these documents to the extent that they are deleting documents for destroying computers or getting rid of records. Civil event that the obligations, regardless of content, so nobody who is in Public Office now should be doing anything to damage the public records but rather should be preserved every record within his or her custody. Host we will go to steve on the independent line. Caller hey, good morning. One quick comment, one quick question, please. To the republicans calling in you need ag, handkerchief to sen. Paul those tears. Mr. Raskin, handkerchief to sop up all those tears. Mr. Raskin, can you still run a sidential Campaign Guest it is an interesting question. The clause in the constitution says in order to run for president , you have to be a natural born citizen, and you have to be 35 years old, and you cannot have served more than two terms, and if you are impeach trump convicted, you could be prevented from running again. This is a president who was impeached and disgraced in the you came in the ukraine shakedown scandal but not convicted, so he could run again. Presumably, he could run from prison, as well. Host how much do you think the judiciary and the house will do investigations of the trumpet administration once President Trump is out of office . Trump is course donald a oneman crime wave, and the number of investigations he has spawned in terms of abuse White House Personnel Office with multiple violations of the domestic and foreign clauses, the ukraine shakedown, other forms of nepotism, cronyism and corruption, there are legions. Look, when we have a forwardlooking agenda about getting the country out of its economic crisis and getting the country to deal with the covid19 for the first time to get our economy moving again and deal with the nightmare of Climate Change, but, we do have to deal with these systemic assaults on the rule of law and the constitution. I think it is going to be a question for our Committee Chairs and members to decide which of these issues compel our continuing attention to make sure it never happens again . For example, i do believe the original sin of the Trump Administration was the president decided to stay in business and converted his office to an instrument of self enrichment and for profit moneymaking. That is something we have to make sure never happens again. Bothnk that we should disapprove every Foreign Government a moment he has taken since coming into office, as well as demand a return of every domestic payment made by the u. S. Government to the various at maralago, new jersey, at the golf course in virginia, and at the Trump National hotel, only as of dollars going from the secret service and other parts of the executive branch. Those are the things we should demand an accounting for, and we should put him in procedures to make sure it doesnt happen again. Similarly, this president has diverted money that was appropriated by congress for particular purposes to other unlawful purposes. For example, he has taken money that was programmed for certain defense destruction purposes or v. A. Construction and put it into the border wall, which was not authorized by congress and was specifically rejected by congress. We have to prevent usurping the spending power of the congress. Host we will go next to our republican line, minneapolis, patricia. Caller yeah, i am 66 years old, and i voted except for one time my entire life, and i have never seen so much Election Fraud. It is unbelievable. There are affidavits of other people filling in balance. 600,000 500,000, 600,000 ballot drops in pennsylvania and only 3000 was for trump . Spewing on here is [indiscernible] the thing about going for a prison for three years for destroying records, Hillary Clintons master blackberry with a hammer, wiped servers. There is one set of laws for democrats and there is another from republicans. This man should be ashamed of himself. The original sin of President Trump was that he was not part of the deep state and exposed the corruption of representatives like the man you have on there. Host congressman raskin . Guest ok, well, we obviously have a difference in view, but lets start with this, every federal and state judge in the country, many of them appointed by republicans, others by thoseats, have rejected allegations you have repeated from donald trump. There is not a judge in the country that accepts what you are saying. Yesterday, attorney bar disassociated him attorney william barr disassociated himself from that. There is no evidence of progressive Election Fraud in any way. This is why the president has lost every single suit he has brought, in pennsylvania, wisconsin and georgia. This week, we have republican Election Officials in georgia demanding the president stop this ceaseless and baseless attack on the american electoral system, which they say will get someone hurt or killed because of the nonsense and the paranoia that are being promoted, which, unfortunately, the caller seems to be a victim of. There is not a double standard here. Any democrat who violates the law should be subject to the law, just like any republican who violates the law, but what is happening for really the first time in our memory is we have a president of the United States who refuses to accept the honest Election Results that has been certified by every state in the country. He is refusing to accept them and continues to promote this paranoid delusional deep state , look,acy theory, and the president said he was going to drain the swamp. The president moved into the swamp. He built a hotel on it and began renting rooms to dictators from around the world and lobbyists in america, so the corruption, im sorry to say, madam, is at the feet of your president , donald trump. It is he who has been the fountain of corruption in washington, which is why he is spending his final days pardoning people like michael flynn, who have gone to jail for and theiruption illegal conduct as members of his administration. Host we will go next to randy in oklahoma. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would like to ask the guy a question, i do not like being lied to, so i will make a statement, if you will let me. Wow. Where to start . Russia, for three years, and you call us delusional . Ukraine . [laughter] and trump isaine guilty . I want to know all these people who are calling for unity, calm, and get behind our new president and all that stuff, the same ones who continue to collis all kinds of horrible call us all kinds of horrible names, are they going to feel that way when leaves office, and they go to the Supreme Court and they actually follow the law and throughout the votes that were cast legally, activated illegally, and counted after . Is any of that, is any of that going to make you all come together . Are yall going to be nice to us for the next four years . , let mengressman rankin ask you what that has to do in terms of finding the nations differences . Guest there are big differences in opinion. Im sorry some of the callers are refusing to read judicial opinions rendered by republican judges, democratic judges, and any statements made by the secretary of state, a republican in georgia, or the chief election official in georgia, or those in wisconsin and pennsylvania. These are people who are excellent Public Servants and who understand their job is not to serve one man or Political Party or the rule of law, and to render honest counts of the votes. That thereing to me were some kind of paranoid. Out there that the president actually won the election. President trump lost the election, and he lost by 6. 5 million votes it looks like and joe biden has received the exact same number of electoral votes that donald trump got four years ago, which trump described as a landslide, so it will be a tough thing to heal the divide in the country if people are refusing to accept the results of the election. Look, the real challenge here is to deal with this outofcontrol pandemic. We have not had a concerted nationwide strategy to defeat the disease, but we are going to get that with joe biden, with ron klain, chief of staff, who was the ebola czar, and there will be a focus on Public Health and making sure we Institute True Public Health precautions and we have testing in contact tracing, and that we have a coordinated, systematic, federal state plan for vaccination and immunization of the population, so we can get through this nightmare. At that point, we can get the economy back on its feet. It is not all about the stock market but how people are doing in the mainstream, and we have tens of millions of Unemployed People hurting. This new administration has the opportunity to start again by moving the country forward. I do think the vast majority of the American Public will be behind that and do not want to be wallowing in the paranoia conspiracy theories that this president has taken so many people off host on a tangent list. Covid hospitalizations hitting 100,000 across the country yesterday. Congressman raskin, in maryland, what is the situation like . Guest it is dramatically increasing. We are encouraging everybody to stay home. We are encouraging everybody to wear masks, and we are encouraging everybody to stand by our Frontline Health care workers were under the gun here. They are desperate that we have all of these mixed messages coming out from the national government, when the hospitals are overloaded and staggering once again. Nowyou know, we are headed to more than one million new cases a week, which is quite shocking when you think about it. Dying every week from here on in if we dont turn this around. I know some people would prefer you know,ging in, partisan bickering over an election that is over. The election is over. Its complete, its done. The states have certified the election. We have got to unify the country around ending this crisis. The Coronavirus Crisis has been health,are for public the economy, young people, kids in schools, teachers who have had such a difficult time trying to get the kids to even turn on their cameras if they are teaching by zoom. We need to unify the country and act, again, like we are one country and to end this ceaseless, partisan division and the fantasies that have been who hasd by a president very much taken his followers in a dangerous direction. More quick to call here from stan, staten island, democrats line caller . I just want to make one recommendation. Cspan is awesome. There was a book called crisis point where they basically sat down and talked about how we talked with each other. Right . Its a lot of disagreements. You have got different points of view, granted. It was an excellent book about how to get the two parties together to talk to each other. This is something i would recommend. If you dont want to read the book, go to cspan. Its an excellent book that would educate all of the elected officials to talk to each other. If nothing else, talk to each other to try to reach consensus. Thank you. Host congressman, final thoughts . Guest thats a lovely point, i will check out the book, i havent read that. Jefferson said that if i could go to heaven with a Political Party, i would prefer not to go. Look, the party system is the sign of a healthy, functioning democracy because they operate under the first amendment. Theres freedom of speech and association and thought. The parties articulate Public Programs and help organize public opinion. But thats for the election. Once the election is over, that point all of us who aspire and attained Public Office have to remember that we are the servants of all the people, the entire country. If you called my District Office v. A. ,kville for help on pvp, unemployment, social security, we dont ask you if you are a democrat, republican, independent, reform party. Always say is do you live in our district. If you do, we go to bat for you. Thats the kind of mentality we have to have about public service. We are here to serve all the people. We can learn from each others parties. My favorite president was the part founder of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln, who put that together and rejection of nativism, the know nothing party, there nativism and racism. You know, we should learn from each other. There are millions who dont identify with either the democrats or the republicans. Independence and others out there. All of us are journeying together to try to make america better. But what this means is we do have to have a realitybased conception of politics and government. Best, withdo whats reason. If we are dealing with magical thinking, superstition, conspiracy theories, those things are fundamentally destructive to the democratic project and that is a new beenmenon that has enlarged and swollen beyond belief because of the internet. I would encourage my republican friends who called in today, i understand that you think that the election was won by donald trump and is being stolen. I encourage you to check out other media sources and read every decision handed down by federal and state judges alleging these totally abstract and academic claims of voter fraud. Theres no evidence of it, no evidence at all. Host the congressman represents the eighth district. Thanks for being with us this morning. Guest thanks for having me. The caller host mentioned that book, our producer brought it up on the screen. As in all of our programming, you can find it online at cspan. Org, including this program as well. More ahead, next we will be joined by congressman john rose, republican of tennessee, who will talk to us about what may be ahead for a color coronavirus willie package, and testimony yesterday by the fed chair and the treasury secretary. American history tv on cspan3, exporting the people and events that tell the american story, every weekend. Coming up this weekend, saturday at 10 p. M. Eastern on real america, Health Officials prepare to roll out a vaccine against coronavirus and we take you back inside back in time with five all cart five archival films about vaccines. Sunday on american artifacts, tour the Lower East Side Tenement Museum with reconstructed dwellings that showed how immigrant families coped with crowded poverty conditions in the early 19th and 20th centuries. And at six 30 pm a look at president ial leadership during the cold war with william hitchcock, the author of the age of eisenhower. And then a u. S. Constitutional debate hosted by the Colonial Williamsburg foundation with a reenactment by James Madison in george mason on the book of life to slavery. Watch American History tv this weekend, on cspan3. Washington journal continues. Host joining us from capitol hill, congressman john rose, representing the six district of tennessee and central tennessee. Good morning. Guest good morning, thank you for having me on today. Host absolutely. We started the election by talking the conversation by talking about the election. We wanted to get your thoughts on the president s efforts to contest the election in several states and his comments last night. That the outcome is just. I think that that is where this election has probably fallen short. I think its understandable that the president and many of his supporters, including me, have many questions about this election. Frankly, we saw an unprecedented number of changes across the country, many of the procedures not tested before the election. Most of the procedures resulting in a delay in getting to an answer. Now we see a rush to judgment. Despite having introduced untested procedures, questionable procedures in some cases, you might say, now many want to just push past the actual careful counting of the ballots and of the scrutiny that is deserved to make sure that these, this raft of new procedures are implemented in a just way. So, i think the president is justified. I think its for the good of the democracy that we continue to dig into this matter and make sure, as much as possible under the circumstances, that we see to it that every legal vote is illegaland that every vote or inappropriate vote is not counted. Im not sure we are there yet and frankly, im not sure that the current constitutional calendar, with respect to the president ial election, allows enough time to appropriately and thoroughly get to the end of that question. Host i was going to ask you that. In addition to the legal challenges the Trump Campaign is mounting and has mounted in a number of states on that, how do you do that . Verify that to the satisfaction of those who voted for donald trump into the candidate, the president himself . Guest sure. And if the shoe were on the other foot, we would see probably the same hesitation from biden supporters to accept the outcome of the election. They would be justified in doing so. I think we see here illustrated wasraphic terms why it perhaps illadvised for so many of our states to change their election procedures to lower the hurdles that need to be met to make sure that ballots are submitted appropriately from the voter. You know, we have gone down a path of wanting to make sure that everyone who wants to vote can vote and now, frankly, we are in a position we are truck where we are trying to verify that everyone who did vote was supposed to be able to vote and im not sure the government is as good at that as we should be in this case. So, a lot of questions here about the propriety of the elections. Certainly the most compelling things we have seen of a systemic nature are the statistical anomalies that exist that would raise questions about the election. For example, historically we have seen 1 to 3 of mailin ballots rejected. However this time in some states we are seeing that at a very low hundredths of a percent injection rate. So, that raises a lot of questions. We have also probably, we have to relearn painfully some of the things we have learned in history. We know from historical precedent, i would point to our own state of tennessee that absentee ballots and mailin ballots are an area that is right for fraud. We have had congressional races in tennessee that have had to be redone because of Election Fraud. Not so many years ago. That fraud many times was focused on the abuse of the absentee ballot system, essentially. The mailin ballot system. That fraud does happen and it does happen at a systemic level and at a level that has historically require the overturning of elections. That would be unprecedented obviously in a president ial election and i think that if we are going to favor policies that take us down the path of having very permissive voting rules and regulations, we may have to look ultimately it readjusting the president ial, the constitutional calendar for the president ial election so as to allow adequate time for those folks to be counted. Host john rose, reelected to a second term representing tennessees sixth district, how did your election go . Guest thank you for asking, it went very well, overwhelming support in the six this strict. Very humbled to have the support of so many of my fellow tennesseans in the six district. Look forward to the opportunity to represent them in what would be my second term in the u. S. House of representatives. Host congressman rose sits on the House Financial Services committee. Front page this morning about the hearing yesterday on capitol hill, another joust on fed lending measures, Jerome Powell and steven mnuchin. One of the takeaways from that Financial Services committee, congressman, was the explanation by the treasury secretary of why he has pulled back some of the funding in the early coronavirus measures. What is your reaction to that . I think the treasury secretary, steven mnuchin, did a capable job exciting that hes following the statutory requirements of the cares act in taking the steps to comply with the statutory provisions and wind down the program by december 31 of this year. Now, there are provisions in the act that allow existing loans that have been made to be administered and adjusted over time. But the congress did not give the treasury secretary and the administration the latitude to change the law unilaterally. That requires legislative action and i think the secretary did enable job of expanding that to members of the committee, despite some who might wish to. Ee him take different steps thankfully, hes following the law. Host the piece here says that mr. Mnuchin said the programs werent needed anymore and that the money hadnt approved wouldnt be needed and would be better used on another pandemic relief bill. There was word yesterday that the House Speaker has agreed to or has approved of at least a measure that has been proposed in the senate, 900 8 million in pandemic relief. Whats your feeling on that measure . Aest i think that there is need for timely, targeted, temporary additional relief to the economy. Obviously we have seen some additional shutdowns around the country. Thankfully in tennessee the state and local leaders have done really i think better than thange, may be far better average, frankly, in terms of managing the economy and the impact of the pandemic in tennessee. I think other states could maybe copy their playbook and follow the directives that they have set down. So, i think there is unfortunately a need for some additional, timely, targeted, temporary relief. I think secretary mnuchin and chairman powell pointed out some of the areas where that might be best applied and i am supportive of that. Unfortunately, a while back in in spring, we came together a bipartisan set of packages to provide relief early in the pandemic. Speaker pelosi decided as early as may that she wanted to pursue a very partisan wish list of items in a bill called the heroes act that would have provided 3. 4 trillion in additional spending that was not targeted at relief for the pandemic, but was really aimed at achieving very partisan ideological goals that democrats have had and she decided that nothing was better than something, using her own words, nothing was better than something. Thats been very damaging, i think. As i said, i think timely relief is needed in areas and that relief has not come in time, encases cases, with a number of Small Businesses across the country failing because of the congressional failure to work in a bipartisan way. So, im, i guess encouraged to hear that perhaps the speaker now is willing to back off of the extreme views that she has had to. I think she made the decision that it was probably better politically for democrats not to pass additional relief in a timely manner. So, we have left a lot of businesses in the lurch in the meantime. Host we welcome your calls and comments for the representative. 202 7488000 four 202 republicans, democrats its 202 7488000. All others, 202 7488002. Republican mine, good morning. Host i was listening to your caller i was listening to your prior guest and he stated that if you are superstitious or believe in magic if you believe any of these things happened during the election. That there is something wrong with people that see things that are not there but say they are there. Look, im sitting here and representative raskin, who was saying all of that, is one of a very few congressman, just a couple, that when they came into inice, their first actions 1917 were trying to decertify the trump election because they said russian interference and Voter Suppression. We spent three years looking for russian interference and ukrainian things. Voter suppression, not there. This is just ridiculous. We can see videos on the internet or even on the tv where poll watchers are being forced out of a booth and then the people inside are cheering and putting up cardboard so that nobody can look in. Host we will get a response. Congressman rose . Share the callers concern that many on the others of the aisle, the Democratic Party over the last four years refused to accept the legitimacy of the 2016 election and refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the duly elected president. Its a little rich now that they are in a rush to judgment to identify biden as the president elect. Over the last four years we have had to endure a litany of conspiracy theories, almost all of which now have been disproven but have been shown to have been former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton and the 2016ign in election. Unfortunately, they were given life by the obama Biden Administration. There Justice Department, their National Security apparatus, it breathed life into those conspiracy theories and then used them. Unfortunately, fairly effectively, to deter this president and his administration and in some cases delay or stall the them for mentation of the policies of the duly elected president that reflected the values and interests of those who supported him in the election in 2016. So, i think its not, i dont think its too much now, particularly in light of all the issues i already mentioned about changes to election laws across the country for us to take a the careful, close look at questionsand of the surrounding the 2020 election. We, i hear a lot of folks say that there is no evidence. Well, thats just not true. There is evidence. Frankly, its too high of a standard, when it comes to national elections, it shouldnt just be the obligation of the losing candidate to put up or shut up, so to speak. We as a nation have an interest in getting to the bottom of any problems with our electoral process. So, i think we should have our federal officials, Law Enforcement officials, and election folks who look at these things, they should be actively investigating and seeking out truth. We deserve that as a country. Our democracy needs that. The republic needs that if it is to survive. All right, sam, maryland, democrats line. Election . Aud in the there is fraud, all right. The fraud is donald trump. Donald trump is the biggest liar in American History. Donald trump says he won the election. Donald trump said he won the election easily. If thats true, if there is so much fraud, how come every judge who has looked at this has found no fraud . Giuliani and the other lawyers for the president hadnt even alleged fraud when they made their arguments . You are a liar, mr. Rose. Host we will let you go there. Congressman, in terms of the courts, would you like to see something, eventually to the Supreme Court . Guest you know, i dont know that this would rise to that level. Through our constitutional framework we have a federalist system. The constitution clearly sets up the procedures where states decide how the president ial elections in federal elections are conducted in each of the many individual states. That said, obviously, we are choosing the president of this country and its important that those systems and those procedures be reliable and that there be integrity. As i said, that the Election Results not only pick a winner at the end of the day, they have to do so in a manner where the loser in the losers supporters are readily willing to accept that as a just outcome. I might say, you know, americans know that you win some and you lose some. But they are not willing to accept a rigged game. I think there are serious questions here. We ought to get to the bottom of them. Whether we can do so or not in a timely way, i dont know, im a little skeptical about that, frankly, given that the Electoral College date is coming up here in just a handful of days. And so, you know, but that, we will get to the bottom of this, i trust, in time. We have had elections in the past where there have been problems like this. I think of the 1960 election where ultimately we got to kind of the bottom of that issue and found that there were some problems and that they might have changed the outcome of the election. That would be a regretful conclusion to reach, so it would be good if everyone could take a deep breath and allow the process to play out and encourage our officials to thoroughly pursue all the leads that are out there. Again, i think it is too high a standard to expect that just of the losing candidate has to mount all the proof and evidence and make the case. That is certainly the system we have with respect to Civil Justice and criminal justice, obviously the state airs the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Those are too high a standard in the case of elections. Because all the people have an expectation that the Election Results will be correct and adjust and that the process will be done with integrity. We know that there are small cases of fraud. We know that there are irregularities. We have seen evidence of it around the country. The question is, and the question i think we are working to get to the answer on, and we should be, folks like the last caller should worry less about more aboutg and whether the election was conducted in a just way. I might say to those of our listeners that your listeners here today, these techniques are not new. Theres nothing new under the sun here. These things have been used in the past to spark election outcomes. So, these techniques are not new. We just need to find out of these procedures that have been adopted by the state fairly late anthe game have led to amount of fraud and abuse that perhaps changed the outcome of the election. One of the other stories is the increasing numbers in the u. S. House for republicans. What are some of the priorities for you in the minority with larger numbers . Sure. I think the priorities for the republicans in the house of representatives are to get this country back on track and make sure that the Great American comeback happens. Remember back in february . We were experiencing the best economy, frankly, in my lifetime. Im 55 and frankly, we had the lowest unemployment in my lifetime. The best economy certainly in my lifetime and arguably in the history of the republic. The lowest unemployment for minorities and among the lowest unemployment numbers ever recorded for women. The lowest unemployment for individuals without a College Education and at that time we were seeing real wage growth for the first time in two decades. Basically in a generation. The Poverty Level, the Poverty Level for americans was at the lowest level since the late 1950s. Even lower than was ever achieved during the johnson administrations great society. So, republicans will be focused on trying to make sure that policies are implemented, sensible economic policies, sensible Government Policies that help to create jobs for American Workers and help to save our economy from elm from unwelcome Climate Change hysteria and from trade deals and other actions that might limit the opportunities for americans to experience the Great American dream. Top, lets go to rocky tennessee. Judy is on the republican line. Go ahead caller go ahead. Federaljimmy carter, election reform, member him . They went around the world making sure that elections would be fair and legal. The conclusion the commission came to was that absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud. There is an article in the wall street journal this spring about it. I know it doesnt come up often in your reading lists. You lean more towards usa today and New York Times, but you should bring this article up. Jimmy carter is amazingly silent now but his conclusion was that absentee ballots remain the largest source of absentee voter fraud. On that point, the carter statement said the head of the 2020 elections that the Carter Center urges federal and state governments to expand access to vaped vote by mail options and provide Adequate Funding as quickly as possible to allow for additional planning, equipment, and public messaging required. Congressman rose . Guest i share the collars concern, as i have already indicated. Mailin ballot inc. And absentee balloting have been a source of fraud, widespread fraud that has lead to elections being overturned in the past. Many years ago in tennessee, 1962 in fact, there was a congressional race that had to be redone. Imagine that specter at the National Level if for some reason we got to a place where that had to happen. That election in the nashville Congressional District back in 1962 led to a different outcome. The basis for the election challenge that was successful and ultimately resulted in a different outcome in the boss,on was a ward jim james man named Little People jacobs, he flaunted that he was able to get enough absentee ballots to swing a congressional election. So, this happens. The folks who say there is no evidence, you just need to listen a little closer. There is evidence. The question is, can we ferret it out in a timely manner and doesnt rise to the level to change the outcome of the election . While we dont have that evidence at present, it seems, we do see that there are some statistical anomalies that exist with respect to the voter turnout in this election. Those may be explainable because of the more lax mailin ballot thing that was allowed to. We do need to remember that if you lean too heavily towards the side of making it easy for you then have, this problem of not being able to get to the answer as quickly as the American People would like. We are pretty impatient. We wanted to know on election night. Many americans did. Thats whats caused a fair amount of the questions we have seen in this election. We saw ballots being counted in a kind of uneven way. I would suggest, and i would hope many might agree, if we are going to have these various forms of balloting where there voting, mailin voting, ballots are allowed to come in for days following the election, we we might want to counting the first ballot until all of the ballots to be counted are in hand. I know this just from administering elections from nonprofit groups or boards of directors ive been a part of. If you start counting the votes and start counting all the votes likely to lean one way, we saw that happen in many states, where in person ballots were counted first and tabulated and then we had this kind of nondescript or imprecise group of ballots that were not all yet on the table, so to speak, it just seems suspicious when we just keep counting and ballots keep showing up. If we are going to have these types of elections, we certainly need to have allow more time and we need more robust procedures for making sure that there are fewer opportunities for mischief to happen. Next up in cedar rapids, iowa. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Thanks for having me on. My thoughts are about giving reassurance to the half of the with not sure of what happened. I did vote for joe biden. I was reluctant, but i did vote for joe. The 20take a look at million, 30 million extra votes cast in this country, you can do an audit of the people who are voting for the first time, come up, get those statisticians to put together a formula. I agree with the troubling statistics that you are reciting with the spikes. If that is true. So, you do some sort of a random survey and if the statisticians an error00th of 1 of in those 30 million votes is acceptable, or if you see something larger, and i dont know what that number would be, let the experts do that, you say we have an irregularity here. Just throwing that on the table for your thoughts. Thank you. Host ok, mike. Guest i think that is a good and sensible thought. The caller is recognizing the wisdom of what i said earlier, the losers have to be willing and readily able to accept the outcome of the election. I think that the hyper partisanship that we heard from your previous guests is just unfortunate. We need to know that the election was conducted with integrity. Spreadingomehow conspiracy theories to ask these questions, particularly given the evidence and the remarkable number of changes made to the election process. So, i think Everyone Needs to realize that if we are going to have all these changes, its going to take a little while to get to the answer and frankly, if we are going to insist on having these very permissive voting rules that open the door for additional problems like we may be seeing here, like we have seen here, we have got to allow more time for the election to be conducted in the American People are going to have to learn to be patient and frankly i dont know that the tradeoff is worth it. Host before we let you go, do you have optimism or a lack thereof on a spending deal . The current deadline is december 11. Will Congress Passed the overall spending bill . Freshman in my second year, i spent my life in the business community. The way that congress operates reminds me of some of my neerdowell fellow students in college days. They put off all their work to the very last day before it was due. So, congress has sat around all year and we havent gotten our serious work done. Even passed appropriations for the fiscal year that we are in now. Its really shameful. The leadership chose to not even ever do a budget. Imagine if the average family in this country didnt have a budget. Thats where we are as a country. Its really shameful that we put off all the work here and now we are going to try to do it in one week. That is of course when mistakes and less than advantageous outcomes are achieved. We have got to fund the government. We have got to, you know, authorize the defense of our nation. Arguably thats the number one responsibility of the congress, defend the nation. National Defense Authorization act linger until now. Its really shameful that we are here. Not to mention that we have let state governments across the country shut down their economies, putting workers and , and ours at risk students, certainly displaced in terms of their educational attainment. The congress has sat on its hands with this attitude that nothing is better than something that Speaker Pelosi has continued to advance. We have now got to do all that work in one week. Its really indefensible. Rose,congressman john just reelected to his second term in tennessee, the six district. Thank you. Guest thank you. Host perhaps that spending measure is one of your top priorities, Getting Congress to pass that. What else are you interested in in terms of policy issues . We will spend the last 25 minutes talking about that. 202 7488001 for republicans. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independents and others, 202 7488002. With coronavirus cases increasing across the country, use our website, cspan. Org coronavirus, to track the trends, and to watch updates on demand at any time, cspan. Org coronavirus. Washington journal continues. Host piece out of new york victory for cannabis, the u. N. Classifies it as a less dangerous drug, they voted to remove it from a category of the worlds most dangerous drugs. A highly anticipated and longdelayed position that could clear the way for expansion of Marijuana Research and medical use. The u. S. House coming in at 10 00 this morning to begin deliberating decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level. That begins today, legislative work is coming up here on cspan. Live coverage, of course. Your top Public Policy issues, our conversation point for the last 25 minutes or so. For republicans. Democrats, 202 7488000. For all others, 202 7488002. Robert, greenville, go ahead. Caller we should evoke the 25th amendment. We have a complete unstable president. Everyone knows that hes acting like a fool and the only thing he can do is more damage to the country. Whats wrong with this Republican Party . The Democratic Party, why are they not putting this man to the side . Hes not doing nothing but harm. Hes just the worst thing that could happen to this country already. We are continuing to let him do these childish things and act like a fool and hes not doing anything but playing golf, telling lies, separating the country more and more. Host jerry is next on the republican line. Thank you forr taking my call. Independentnother consul nonsense with standards for national elections. I would like to see that. The second thing i would like to suggest is that there is talk about these students getting their loans forgotten. Thats a lot of baloney. I would like to say to the government, just make these loans interest free. All they have to do is pay off the equity. Thats all they have to pay off. Thank you. Upt all right, sue is next on the republican line. Troy, new york, go ahead. Caller good morning. I dont know if it was addressed, but i was curious to find out if you had heard whether stimulus checks would be going out with this new i just lost my train of thought. Congress has not passed a new measure yet. Caller do you know if stimulus checks are a part of that . Host dont know for sure. Caller ok, thank you. Host thank you. A couple of notable obituaries to point out. This one is from the new york. Mes host i will scroll down in particular in case you dont know the story in particular ferut Rayford Johnson ra johnston. He was escorting a pregnant Ethel Kennedy through a crowd host a picture here of him, he was a pallbearer for Robert F Kennedy in 1968. Also, economists from george mason interview george mason university, walter williams, who has been on q a a number of. Imes its a tribute piece from the wall street journal. Just a quick comment from that, america has lost one of its greatest economists and public intellectuals. He died at the age of 84 host you can read more of that on the wall street journal website. Richard, fremont, nebraska. Top Public Policy issue . Go ahead. How are you, today . Im good, hope you are also. Host doing just great. Thanks. Ourer my comment is that president , mr. Donald trump, probably cornered himself very badly when he decided months ago to raise the issue that the upcoming election would be fraudulent, totally illegal. On that, chris krebs sets up a more perfect election process than ever. Basically, 98 of all ballots are double checked by paper ballot. Now we are after the facts. Mr. Trump has provoked the legal system with over 40 lawsuits, 30 of them have been thrown out. What this sets up for us here in is the perfect storm for donald trump on his way out the door. He himself brought this thing to ahead and now has to live with the fact that our government, our legal system, our judges have now certified that all ballots were more or less honest, the election was the best ever, according to mr. Krebs, and honesty and fairness. So think about this for just a moment. After the fact, if donald had never done anything, he could have swore up and down for the next 100 years that the election was fraudulent. Now thats impossible. He by himself has provoked to the system in such a way that it has been proven without a shadow of a doubt to anybody who has got ahead on their shoulders and is a thinking, logical person, it can never be shown, even in any kind of scenario, that the election was even minimally fraudulent. Host all right, richard in nebraska responding to a caller moments ago who asked about the stimulus checks and the pending economic package of assent a Bipartisan Group that proposed stimulus checks. Heres a breakdown of whats in the bipartisan economic plan. Its the next hour media report on fox and the rundown is basically no, the original package had 1200 for families,s, 1200 for and it is not included in this package that has been proposed by a Bipartisan Group of u. S. Senators. Charlie is in stroudsburg, pennsylvania on the independent mine. I have a little combined about cspan. Cspan is supposed to be a nonrepublican democrat opinion. But my problem is you guys are just a propaganda line for the Republican Party. All you do is, how many times have you played his speech last night that he did on facebook and you just played over and over last night, promoting all thiscrap thats going on. Say he overturns the election. In four years is he going to leave . Are we going to have the same thing in four years where he cheats and wins the election . And you promote him and all of his bullcrap. You had that gentleman from tennessee talking about how bad the democrats are. Hes from one of the poorest states in the whole union. They get more benefit money from the government and basically any state in the union and you folks just set here and just prop up donald trump, prop up donald trump. Every time hes on tv, you recorded and played over. Host charlie, i hear your complaint, but thats what this network is all about. We are here to show Public Policy discussions wherever they happen, and if the president , no matter who the president is, the president will get on this network and so will many other policy officials with our coverage of congress. In terms of representative rose, our mission is also to bring elected officials onto this program and have you be able to talk to them directly and hear directly from them without somebody filtering in between. Thank you for your comments and your criticism and we hear you. Heres a tweet from jim this morning, cnn saying this, Anthony Fauci will meet with the joe biden transition for the first time today, the meeting boutique place virtually at 2 p. M. , and other news reports found she hasdr. Expressed that he will stay on at the National Institutes of health. At the white house today, at the hill with this tweet, President Trump awarding the president ial medal of freedom to loophole, the former football coach at notre dame. Indiana, thomas, republican line, welcome. Thank you for taking my call. None of this would have happened if the fbi and Justice Department had done their job in the first. These democrats that were doing this all for four years should have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. None of this would have happened. Thats the whole thing. The Justice Department and the fbi should have stepped in with the dominion Voting Machines and debate in their and stopped it pronto. Now, how is the fbi the Justice Department supposed to be trusted anymore, as far as our voting . I voting. I voted with a marker for the First Time Ever in newton county, indiana. What i put my paper in after i got done voting, it had 100 and 49 votes that went in there that had already voted. It did not even register mine. So, i called down to the Clerks Office and talked to a lady there and with no response call back. Thats the whole problem. When you have the fbi and Justice Department not doing their job, this is what we get. Manwell is next. Brighton, colorado, democrats line. Yes, im concerned about the state of our Public Education. Theas been destroyed by andle who want to privatize corporatized Public Education funds. We have the most serious segregation in the entire and this must stop. Brown visa school board showed. Hat we need to integrate whats happening his moneys are being funneled to organizations to privatize and further segregate. This has got to stop. Have got to start properly funding Public Education. Need that. N what we are doing is seeing further destruction of Public Education, money is going into institutions and private Companies Running schools. This has got to stop. This has got to be a top priority. Thank you. Piecethis is an opinion from the New York Times from Jack Schneider and jennifer berkshire, coauthor of the book a wolf at the schoolhouse door. How divorce may have sounded a started a counter revolution in education, providing a chance for a major policy renewal. Lets hear from that in springfield, virginia, independent mine. In springfield, virginia, independent line. Caller i have more of a general comment. Your second caller, a republican, mentioned his issue with their not being some sort of a National Kind of standard for elections and he also took you know, with forgiving student debt. To me i was just thinking like, i know that there is a huge political split between, a Huge Division in the country right now, but really, both sides probably have more in common then you think. For example i have heard from liberals, from democrats about how they take issues with various different state laws and how its unfair for a Certain Group of the population and they wish there was some kind of federal standard guiding elections so that we dont have like debates or a fight like we did with the current election. And im sure, you know, there are probably liberals who probably would be fine with the idear of Student Loans that are interestfree that you have to pay back on equity. Its just something to think about. We like to think that we are so far apart but the reality is we are probably a lot closer. You just have to sit down and hammer out the details. Host the u. S. House coming in at 10 00, we are asking your top Public Policy issues. James, buffalo, kentucky. Thank you forir, having me on your show. One thing i got to say is the other day i was listening to politicians, they think eventually a lot of states are going to reseed from the union, which i believe will happen eventually. Its just a matter of time. Plus its all these liberal cities that pack these illegals into the cities, now they are starting to have a homeless problem because of the pandemic, they didnt anticipate on that. The country is just falling apart at the seams. There is and theres takers. If youve got more takers than givers, then the system cant sustain itself. But im hoping. Kentucky, idin like to receive. Thats going to happen down the road. We dont need the u. S. Government to tell us that we can do that on our own. Host all right, james. President trump headed to georgia, sparking gop anxiety. Georgia republicans are excited saturdayp is coming on to help david purdue and kelly loeffler, but they are also a little scared, they are not sure what to expect from his first postelection rally or how much that he understands the event is about helping endangered gop incumbents host we will keep you posted on any coverage plans on cspan. We will go to harrison in muriels inlet. Democrat line. Caller hey, good morning. Inlet, south of myrtle beach. Lotta people do that. Host got it. Caller i want to talk about infrastructure but that previous , who was dogging on cspan for being republican propaganda, three times a week my best friend is a republican and you can imagine our conversations over the last couple of years, one thing that cspan does is you put [indiscernible] , you put people up unfiltered and you hear from their own words and my breakfast arguments i tell my republican friend, i say just dont listen to his words. Dont listen to the regurgitated news story that is trimmed, tailored, edited. I say go and listen to his own words. Thats what i appreciate about cspan, you let us hear from people in their own words unfiltered. Along the same lines you allow people to call in unfiltered. Its cringe worthy sometimes, but at least you do that and i wanted to just robot against what charlie was saying there. Host appreciate that. Did your buddy listen to you . Did he tune in . Caller hes still refusing to accept reality, but its good for our conversations in the future. But heres the point i called for, low hanging fruit. The low hanging fruit right now is an infrastructure bill. We hear all the stories that you talk about like no rural internet, like that. I remember hearing infrastructure talk all the way back from george bush to obama. They all talk it, it is such a low hanging fruit for a bipartisan effort and i hope they take it up in the beginning. Host thanks for that, harrison. Hope you call back the Washington Times call back. Heres a story from the Washington Times. First black woman selected for top role at naval academy. My california, hi there, independent line. Caller good morning. All of these battleground states with mailin ballots, they generally have laws that say you have to have partisan witnesses to when the ballots are open, the dates and signatures verified. If that didnt happen, i just am see how the ballots can be considered legal. And i believe they need to be thrown out. Host ok, thanks for that. Anthony, Clarks Summit pennsylvania, republican line, grow it go ahead. Caller thank you for receiving my call. My concern is who is eligible to vote in georgia. This is a november 3 election runoff. I dont understand why anyone who was not eligible to vote in georgia on november 3 of this year would be eligible to vote in the runoff. Im just throwing it out there as a qualification. That would eliminate any influx of outofstate individuals coming into georgia simply for a voting issue. Host i dont know the answer, it would be worth having a Georgia Election official ahead of that primary, january 5, almost a month away. A tweet here from paul, and charlotte, North Carolina. Works 40 hours a week for 11 per hour and is suffering significantly under covid19. He has Health Insurance from his job with a 5,000 did dr. Boll. How can that be counted as fair coverage for a working citizen such as him . James, go ahead, the house is about to come in, but what are your thoughts . Talk aboutanted to the suppose it widespread voter, you know, stuff thats been going on. I just feel like its crazy, you know . The member of Congress Talking previously, he mentioned wanting 1962. Host i have to let you go, i apologize, you will have to call back. Legislative business coming in. We will see you tomorrow at 7 a. M. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] the speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. The chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. The clerk the speakers room, december 3, 2020. I hereby appoint the honorable Henry Cuellar to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives. The speaker pro tempore of the to the order house of january 7, 2020, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. The chair will alternate recognition between the parties. With time equally allocated between parties and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and minority whip limited to five minutes