>> 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 it is like -- what is it 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. i would like to see the seats stay 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. my first election, i lost in 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. eorge 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 ampaign 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. i have five children and 16 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. i go home every night. 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 fly back. 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 amily. the cats in the cradle, harry hapin. 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. if you are from california, 2:30, 3:00 in the afternoon, you catch a flight and head to california. back and forth and back and ourth. i want to remember on a saturday afternoon watching across with 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. they really are away from their families for a 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. 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 ids. 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 is dad?" some of these numbers, how hard they work and the 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 is changing it. i think in my first campaign i spent $25,000. i forget. my second, my winning campaign, spent $250,000, $350,000. television, it is changing and 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. i have not announced this, we are also going to give to wounded warriors. we're going to give to a group out in blue mont, virginia, that 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. ow did that get started? >> i was elected in 1980 and came in in 81. you look at my newsletter, there is no mention of human rights. congressman tony, my best friend, we had been in a group or 32 years. he asked me to go to ethiopia during the famine. and i went 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 amine. i got in a camp run by world vision and the embassy did not want me to spend the night and i spent the night and a guy from world vision said that if you spend the night i will spend the night. next to the camp was a camp run by mother teresa. it was a life-changing xperience. people died. that trip, in 85, tony took me o romania. it may not remember him, evil, bulldozing churches, people persecuted for their faith. those trips were bookends. human rights, the poor, the ungry. >> 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 fn to romania. president reagan saw fit that they did not by 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 create the religious freedom, he u.s. commission for religious freedom. those two trips, ethiopia and romania world life-changing trips. >> sometimes 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 erspectives. 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. 119 buddhist monks have set themselves a flame because of what the chinese government has one. 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 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 o do more. i will find out. >> can you say who the we is? >> we haven't gotten together with them yet and when we do we will file with the ethics committee 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 uddhists in vietnam. and this place is relatively silent. in the middle east, before the war broke out in iraq, there were 1.5 million christians. more of biblical activity took place in iraq than any other country in the world other than israel. we went to the site of abraham's village. jonah, babylon. aniel is buried there. and now they are down to roughly 200 or 250,000 hristians. the baha'is are being persecuted in iraq. there 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 nixon's opening of china and they have changed radically. what is your thinking of that country and the opportunities for the rest of the world and the challenges? >> i was opposed to granting mfn to china and i was more in the reagan camp in the nixon camp. i think that unless china changes the chinese government will collapse. they have bishops in jail. i 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 hurch, the protestant churches growing tremendously in china. china keeps cracking down, i think 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. more chinese citizens come 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 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 all. >> 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 mass destruction. i think mistakes were made and the iraq he army should not have been disbanded. econdly, 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 15,000, we see isil coming back 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 he 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 thina 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 bring back general petraeus. he knows iraq like the 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? >> 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. so the family is paying. tough stuff. >> across those 34 years, the votes to go to war were most significant. are there any votes you regret having taken? >> 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 airplanes 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 helping 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, sadam 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 -- it is the edmund burke theory. it is a national issue, you have to do what you think is right and what your conscience tells you. if it is bringing rail to dulles, you vote your district. i will 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 the end of my life, i will stand. 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. i am wondering about which, in 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. reagan 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. there is nobody in my mind like reagan, i think. the others, i liked president bush. but i think no one in my mind, and that is just for my own perspective. keep in mind, you lose in 76 in human and 80, and that was reagan. reagan literally pulled me across. and so, reagan. >> you also served with seven speakers from tip o'neill to john boehner. 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. 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. i like them all -- liked them 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 day, 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. i 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. what is 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 into economic decline and i think we are facing moral decline. part of the economic thing is if you read the paper, the article about defense. i never signed the grover norquist tax pledge. i am not a big taxer but i never signed the pledge that i would never do anything even if the country was facing a disaster. defense is dropping every time 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 but there are a lot of good people who care deeply. we need more bipartisanship. i am a conservative and he is a moderate, let me put it that way. but we like each other. and we still like each other. i think you will need to find a little bit more. but these are difficult times. and i think the american people are unhappy and the media is not particularly helping -- not c-span, but everything is so fast, so hot, so instant. sometimes you have to reflect and think and now it is just, too immediate. >> our time has gone by so quickly and there is so much of your career that we have not touched on, but my closing question will be, what will you miss the most? >> the people. i have made some great friendships over the years on both sides of the aisle. a lot of people that i know one like and respect are here -- know and like and respect are here and i will not be here because i am not coming back on the hill day after day after day. part of the reason i have been able to do a good job are the great staff. i was a staff person here. and so i think the people. >> thank you very much for your ti

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