role of the federal government in the civil rights and the ferguson this is an. -- ferguson decision. all on "washington journal." >> this thanksgiving weekend, we continue our afford a book tv and american history tv -- our four day book tv in american history tv programming. g onaturday, jonathan ei the history of the birth control bell. on sunday, bill nye the science guy on why the teaching of creationism is not only wrong but also dangerous. the new george washington and benedict on old on saturday. -- and then george washington and benedict arnold on saturday. let us know what you think about the programs you are watching . call us, e-mail us, or send us a tweet. conversationan thread like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> after more than 35 years in congress, virginia representative frank wolf is retiring. prior to congress, he served as deputy secretary interior secretary from a 1974 until 1975 and was in the army reserves. in an interview with c-span he reflects on what he will miss about congress and the state of the u.s. economy. congressman frank wolf, we are talking to you at the start of what will be your last day in congress here. i am wondering how you are feeling about reaching the end of a long career? >> i am ready to leave. you want to leave when you are able to do those things. i will miss the friendships we have had but i am ready to leave. -- what is itlike like watching people vie for the seat that you left behind. >> it is interesting. i endorsed barbara's comstock who was a staffer for me but it is interesting. i hope your -- i helped her when i could. >> is it like an out of body experience? >> i have known barbara for years and i am connected to what she is trying to do. seatsd like to see the .tay in the republican column >> the whole city has changed so much over the past three decades . i was the district changed and how was it reflective of what has happened to washington? >> dramatically. , i lost inection 1980 because of ronald reagan, not because of me read.i grabbed his a coattails and he pulled me across the line. now i have fairfax, great falls, centerville. the shenandoah valley. one of the most historic areas in the nation thread. george washington's first elected office was in winchester, to the house of burgess. it has changed dramatically. at one time it went down and touched harrisonburg in the well . the transportation's unchanged red when i got elected -- transportation's have changed. when i got elected i may have been one of the first people to campaign at a metro stop. now, the silver line is going to go all around. there have been some dramatic changes. >> what effect has it had on you and your family that you are able to commute home every day as opposed to so many of the members ? >> it has been a blessing. and 16five children grandchildren and i would not have stayed so long had i not been there. i'm in the same house i lived in when i was a government employee at the house of interior. night.me every it has been a blessing. i have a policy. i do nothing on sundays so that my kids are able to say -- or even just watch the redskins game or fall asleep on the couch. but i have a normal life. the same house, the same coffee cup, the same kitchen table, the same church, my kids went to school. i do not have to run to the airport and flyback. it has been really tough for some of these members and i really feel for them but my life has been very normal because without traffic, a half-hour after the congress is out, if we go to dell 7:00 or 7:30, i can be home by eight -- it got. it has been good for me and for my marriage and for my family. the cats in the cradle, harry chapin. i wanted to make sure that this job did not result in me losing my family but it has been a blessing for me and has enabled me to stay here for 34 years. >> for so many it is a real strain on family life. i wonder what your perspectives are on the political family and what really we ask of people who take these jobs? >> for me it has not been a strain. i do not want to attend that it has. >> but you have many colleagues. >> it can be very tough. ,f you are from california 2:30, three caught in the afternoon, you catch a flight and flight to california. -- 3:00 in the afternoon, you catch a flight and had to california. back and forth and back and fourth. i want to remember on a saturday withnoon watching across leon panetta, a congressman who was on his way home to california. coming back on monday. so it is very tough for these members and i have great respect. theireally are away from families for a long. of time and i could not have done that. -- long period of time and i could not have done that. that has allowed me to stay and my constituency has been very good. i have not than a political event on a sunday since 1981. i saw a film series. cats in the cradle with a silver spoon, little boy blue and the man in the moon. that is by henry chapin. i cried, i saw the film. i went home and i told my family. right there, i have a telephone line that rings on my desk. the only one that has that number is my wife and my five kids. if the phone rings, i know. and so i really made it a priority. i have always been very grateful. i saw jim dobson did a film series called where his dad. is dad?" "where some of these numbers, how hard they work in the difficulty. difficulty. >> did a thing that has changed is the cost of running for congress. i wonder what your perspective is on the enormous requirement for raising money? it.t is changing i think in my first campaign i spent 25,000. i forget. campaign,my winning twittered $50,000, threaded thousand dollars. -- 250,000 dollars, $350,000. andvision, it is changing it is not good and i do not know what the answer is. i voted for the campaign-finance bill which may not have been a good bill. you're taking money out of the political process and putting it in political groups and the cost has been really very high. >> are you leaving with a campaign of your own? >> i will give everything away. i have maybe $80,000 that we're going to give to a food bank. the shenandoah valley food bank. not announced this, we are also going to give to wounded warriors. we're going to give to a group , that blue mont, virginia has a retreat for people who have been wounded. we are going to give it all away by the time i walk out of there. each and every dollar will be given to basically food groups, food banks, the salvation army, or veteran's groups. >> you talked about going to spend more time on the issues you are care about. one of those is human rights. how did that get started? >> i was elected in 1980 and came in and 81. 81.nd came in and you look at my newsletter, there is no mention of human rights. my bestman tony, friend, we had been in a group for 32 years. he asked me to go to ethiopia during the famine. up to appropriations and asked if we could go to ethiopia and he said, sure. you may not remember the famine but it was a very bad famine. i got in a camp run by world vision in the embassy did not want me to spend and i and i spent the night and eight guy from world vision said that if you spend the night i will spend the night. next to the cap was a cap run by camp run bymp was a mother teresa wa. it was a life-changing experience. people died. in 85, tony took me to romania. evil, not remember him, bulldozing churches, people persecuted for their faith. those trips were bookends. human rights, the poor, the hungry. >> other people were on that trip with you and did not put it into action. >> tony, tony was with me on the romania trip. it was his bill. the other one was chris. it was our bill to take away from romania, which president reagan, god bless them, president reagan wanted to give msn to romania. president reagan saw fit that they did not buy the head of the romanian secret police, reagan changed. they were important events. they periodically come back. if you have read my newsletters, 81, 82, 83, 84, nothing about it. transportation employees. 85 you see the change. i go to sudan a lot, i went to sudan in 89. but i still do transportation. it was my bill to bring the silver line out to dulles and i still advocate for those issues. but human rights, my bill to freedom,e religious the u.s. commission for religious freedom. those two trips, ethiopian romania, were life-changing trips. worldiopia and romania .ife-changing trips >> sometimes these giuseppe what odds with your party and the president. how is that for your career? those put you at odds with your party and the president. how was that for your career? did you pay a price? >> nobody has ever threatened me here. i have ever wanted to run to be the leader or anything else so i think members respect that there are different perspectives. a lot of this is what i believe, my faith. i do not think i have had to pay a price. >> what exactly will you be doing when you leave congress and i also want to ask you, in congress you can make change. are you worried that you will not have as much influence? >> no, i am not. i am actually convinced i can have more. what we are going to try to put together is a major group to work on human rights and religious freedom and advocate for the persecuted church, for christians, for the buddhist in tibet. i snuck into tibet a number of years ago and have always cared deeply. -- 11919 buddhist monks buddhist monks have set themselves a flame because of what the chinese government has done. to advocate for different groups, not just christians. as a christian, i think i should advocate for this group in that group and not just my own group. we helped to put together a major group like that. -- hope to put together a major group like that. we cannot do that until we leave here because of ethics reasons. in some respects, i may be able to do more. i will find out. >> can you say who the wie is?\ >> we haven't gotten together with them yet and when we do we will file with the ethics but i have been very concerned. there are catholic bishops that are in jail in china and nobody says anything. there are protestant pastors in jail in china. look is what is taking place to the catholic church and the buddhists in vietnam. in this places relatively silent. -- and this places relatively silent. in the middle east, before the war broke out in iraq, there were 1.5 million christians. activity tookal place in iraq than any other country in the world other than israel. abrahamto the site of village. babylon. daniel is buried there. and now they are down to roughly 200 or 20 50,000 christians -- 250,000 christians. the baha'is are being persecuted in iraq. is more persecution taking place today than any time in modern times. >> i want to start talking with china. not all that long after that you got elected not that long after china andening of they have changed radically. what is your thinking of that country and the opportunities for the rest of the world and the challenges? [applause] i was opposed to granting msn to china and i was more in the reagan camp in the nixon cap. i think that unless china changes the chinese government will collapse. they have bishops in jail. fund of the fbi and have seen the list of companies that are hit with cyberattacks. the chinese are stealing jobs and everything. christianity, the catholic church, the protestant churches growing tremendously in china. china keeps cracking down, i one of the things he took before he went down is a he left his playbook in china and they are reading is playbook. i think the chinese government will collapse. comechinese citizens through here than any other office on capitol hill. there are all believers, all people who want human rights and religious freedom. lawyers with given their lives to defend. i see chris kennedy and human rights rising up. -- christianity and human rights rising up. this government does not change, it will go down the same way the soviet union went down. so i am optimistic because there is a cavity inside people. dignity, human rights. i am pretty confident that we will see the dramatic change in china or this government will fall. >> let's talk about the war. you voted originally to authorize but your position changed over time. i am wondering about the trajectory of that. talk to me about your thinking about the war, how we prosecuted it as a country and what the consequences are. >> it is easy to go back and criticize. i did vote for it, i believed in a strongly. we were told that there were weapons of wes mass destruction. i think mistakes were made and the iraq he army should not have been as banded. been disbanded. secondly, i think the obama administration could of gotten a status of forces agreement to keep american soldiers there, trainers and different things. those two things are, i think, the critical ones. lack of a status of force agreement. young men and women gave their life. and then we just pulled out. as a result of the failure to get a status of force agreement whereby we could keep 10 or coming backee isil and al qaeda reconstituting and we see brutality in the pictures -- i have a lot of, not just the ones you see, but beheadings and a fellow from the one who came in and told me that they are tying christian women up and the jeeps are running in opposite directions. it is a genocide. and so i think that was a mistake but also for disbanding the iraqi military. they had no place to go and nothing to do. i would, frankly, and this is not an original idea, i saw geraldo on television, i would --ng back general to trias general petraeus. he knows iraq like the bes back of his hand. so i would bring them back. you want the best doctor, you want the best dentist. i think there were some mistakes made and now we have a situation. christianity has gone from 1.5 million. christian women left there went to damascus and now look at damascus. i just had a report from a person we are in touch with in syria, they are worried that isil is coming and that is not good. >> our time is going to run quickly but to count that vote on authorizing the war is among the most significant you have taken in your career? [applause] anytime your vote risks men and women going to war, yes that is. in afghanistan, the same way. i have great respect for the men in the military the give their lives and their families, because i bumped into a fellow for my district who had eight deployments. eight deployments in a period of nine or 10 years. family is paying. tough stuff. >> across those 34 years, the votes to go to warmer most significant. are there any votes you regret having taken? -- go to war were most significant. >> i published my entire voting record online so people can see. i do not think that i have always cast the right vote, but for the time, at the time, it seemed like -- but i cast votes for -- i voted to ban smoking on rplanes in the state of virginia got mad at me and people dead because of tobacco. i thought that was right at the time people said you are not .elping jobs i do not really regret any votes. that does not mean that every vote was exactly right but at the time you gather all of the information and you put it together and if there were weapons of mass destruction there, sedan was not a good m was not a good person. i did not have a perfect voting record, i am sure that i will be able to go back and reflect and say i would have done that differently, i would've done that differently. but i did make it promised that i would publish every votes of the people can come and see and say, why did you do that? why did you vote that way? based on the time, this is what i was thinking, and this is why i -- is the edmund burke theory. -- it is the edmund burke theory. you haveational issue, to do what you think is right and what your conscience tells you. bringing rail to dulles, you vote your district. be the best advocate for the people in my district. will add another lane on route 66, fight those gangs. on international matters, i get to do what my conscience -- at standd of my life, i will . laughter do what i really think is right. -- so i have to do what i really think is right. and be ready to pay the price. >> you have referenced present reagan. you served under five presidents in your years in congress. which, inring about addition to present reagan, you think have been the most effective leaders? >> my three favorite presidents. one, george washington. we just passed an amendment to make his birthday in national holiday again. we will see if we can get that through. secondly, abraham lincoln. he freed the slaves. second inaugural address. and then reagan. my first time down at the white house, the class of 50, we were called the reagan robots. [laughter] i thought it was good. they invited my class down and we had a picture of all of the members there and reagan was wearing the brown suit. one member was raising a hand and reagan was taking questions. the member said, mr. president, you are the only man i know that looks good in a brown suit. they can said that the words in the constitution and the words in the declaration of independence were a covenant with the people, not only in philadelphia in 1776 and independence hall, but a covenant with the entire world. reagan, tear down that wall. trust but verify. like is nobody in my mind reagan, i think. others, i liked president bush. but i think no one in my mind, and that is just for my own perfect of. --p in mind, you lose and 76 just for my own perspective. mind, you lose in 76 in human and 80, and that was reagan. reagan literally pulled me across. and so, reagan. also served with seven speakers from tip o'neill to john boehner. less than the most impactful on the institution? >> -- who has been the most impactful on the institution? >> i think they have all had an impact. the congress has changed but it is changed because of the media. because of c-span and the internet. they all had an impact at different times. the speakers for different times. -- different speakers for different times. when i leave congress i will not be criticizing. if you want to say something critical, you should have said it will you were here and not when you are leaving. but i am not negative. liked them all -- all and they all treated me with respect. second of all, they could have done something to me -- let me give you one example. i like them all and they were all fair to me. i voted against seating newt gingrich. there were eight of us. i had not seen the report. as you know, on the first they, they call your name out. and dan coats, who has been a good friend of mine, kind of stood next to me. when they called his name out, i voted present. newt gingrich never punished me. i had people saying that you are finished. was disinvited to the republican national committee events. newt gingrich, to his credit, never punished me. he wrote me a nice letter, actually. they have all been good. >> you are leaving the institution with public approval ratings at the lowest point in modern history. that has got to be painful for someone who is spent most of their adult career here. the prescription for restoring public faith in congress? >> doing the right thing. i, personally, think the country is in deep trouble. i think we are going to economic decline and i think we are facing moral decline. thing is ifeconomic you read the paper, the article about defense. i never signed the grover norquist tax ledge. i am not a big taxer but i never e that i woulddgh never do anything even if the country was facing a disaster. every timedropping the world is becoming more dangerous so you will have to fix the entitlements and do something. i think doing the right thing will be the best prescription. there are a lot of good people here who work hard and care deeply. but i think doing the right thing -- we need to save this country. economically. we need to get control of the debt and deficit and there are tough votes there. i was the supporter of the simpson bowles commission. the longer you put it off, the tougher it is going to be. these are difficult times for the congress that there are a lot of good people here who care deeply. --

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