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hill reporters about what they will be working on.ss is go >> host: joining with rollcall he ihe's the staff writer also joining us from the "washington post" who covers congress as well welcome and thanks for coming on. >> returning congress has one main aim, no shutdown. >> they have to the end of the month to test the continued resolution. there's a group that would like

to see it go all the way into next year and the senate democrats already helped filibuster that.te a pr of debate -- the odds are about republicans -. >> host: wouldn't you agree? >> guest:. the ranking member in the senate is the chairman of the committee of the republican from the eastern part of kentucky so

you've got these vendors who want to get done before the enda of the year but if you're concerned with the group of house members these are the people you don't like making the law because people tend to want to spend more than you. it's something they will have to deal with in the next few weeks. >> host: what could keep this from happening? >> guest: in addition to the continuing resolution the speaker hasn't been able to figure out the right negotiating

tactic that the group is largel. unpredictable and one of the options as they would like a vote on the commissioner. >> host: the question will be what bargaining chips there are which tells you something that is not related to how much you spend the federal government as a bargaining chip that the other thing that is going to come into play is how much there is an appetite for dealing with supplemental funding in this continuing resolution to. viewers who might not be as

familiar in the process wouldun outline until december 11 orexr whatever it may be that folks should be reminded we still haven't addressed the emergency funding to battle the virus and the cdc and nih and others say they need more money to do that without the need to. there's also the question of the thunderstorms heading so it may come to be needed for this storm cranking up the east coast or the flooding in louisiana.

>> host: senate democrats have a little bit in the fact they are thinking about this.um it is either senator reid was tt senator schumer who noted that it would have to be expanded to include some of these things and that's precisely the kind of thing they are worried about. they haven't been successful in the spending bill and when they mention the spending they fill their hands up and get nervous. >> host: that's the beginning of the conversation before they leave in october. you can ask questions by calling (202)748-8000 by 8001 for republicans and 748002 for independent. i you can post on twitter.

while the process. until this week or how does that run out? >> guest: it seems way too early to have this conversation right now but these aref cong procrastinators. at the most basic level they push things off until the last second and sometimes that is a strategy to convince members they need to go along withs something.al the senate will have the normal lunches tomorrow and in-house proberence meetings as well and

the discussions will probably kick off towards the end of next week. the other thing i wanted to throw in a before a gig. if they wanthey want a resolutit kicks in to try to avoid theis v lame-duck session of and the congress on january 3 under e which a very self-serving priorities that could be enacte and the other piece is whether or not someone like paul ryan can say we are not going to do

the transpacific partnerships and a number of things we want to do in the lame-duck. >> host: i would say that it would be difficult for the senate where you have a number of people up for reelection to go up to voters and say we plan on stopping work once we get the vote. i do think we will see a lot off this agenda setting tomorrowunc, afternoon. m they both have their weekly lunches and the largest group will meet for lunch wednesday so we will see these wednesday into thursday. >> host: i think it's worse we than saying we are coming backra

to the from a concert. >> host: if he were mitch mcconnell and want a chance ils think the chance leaves town. >> host: james you ar were on with our guest. i am so glad to finally, mitch mcconnell's congress. on the last minute i've been under a.

eight years we had thela opportunity to put russia in place. think about it. my dissatisfaction comes congress. that's the dissatisfaction

people pulled so low. the first two years of the obama administration that democrats had control and got through as much as they could with the overhaul and since then there's been a lot of back and forth. hispanic people are dissatisfied as a whole if you ask about an individual member of congressth they are pretty happy. it's difficult if this will bear out in the general election.

>> does this become an agenda item at any point? >> there've been discussions for quite some time.fo i don't know with a calendar this short -- in that time they have to test to continuing resolutions, handle the crisis, they may or may not have a few more regulation issues to deal with. >> host: republican line. >> guest: americans are tired of the whole political process trying to put bipartisan issues.

the last bill is a good example. it's so divisive in this country and in congress. by that owhy do they slow down g so urgent and needed to be putting something so partisan like planned parenthood and also the previous call wasn't satisfied with congress to do tt obama has just disowned the constitution. i can see why he's upset that we are all upset with obama.

there also should be term limi limits. hispanic there was a bipartisan negotiation happening in july and they were participating it pretty aggressively. the talks crumbled in a bit of a surprise an that republicans ine house and the senate put together their own bill in the provision of the plannedone parenthood clinics. that's one of the things they objected to. there's information on pesticides that it could kill mosquitoes and dogs.

at the end he mentioned term limits for congress. that's been a topic of conversation over many years. i know in the presidential race donald trump has been making noise about term limits for members of congress. fair response as a reason that s that it would never have beenvem the same will say we have term limit they are called elections. there's a whole lot of incumbents who've been around ao long time and that makes it

difficult for someone out of a job. >> host: you are on congo head. >> guest: why are they treating social security like their own piggy bank? they stole 150 billion last month from social security. hispanic social security is one of those difficult spaces where it is difficult for lawmakers to think about spending money in the future when it's funded in the current. you see changes in the programs. sometimes it's easier to.

i don't think they like doing it but it's the way they go most of the time. >> host: we had pictured a breakfast that i attended a few months back which i think c-span aired a. he's one of these folks trying to push entitlement reform and for lack of a better term he went off but nobody could come to an agreement and everybody is too scared to come to the table to figure out what needs to be done whether it is raising the retirement age or the level with

which you no longer have to pay social security taxes or what changes need to be made in terms of the cost of living adjustments.nt so that's what popped into my head. app very few have an appetite to handle it. >> host: you did cover that event in the archives on c-span.org. let's go to democrats line. >> caller: i understand adding

on the regulation to the bills used in the method of compromise in the congress and the senate but those days are over. and also the news media is all going hollywood except c-span. it's become exactly what the guy from north carolina who i don't agree with his stuff he was right about the poison pill and that's what it's become. could there be a rule that make say catch unrelated legislation to build a.

of its stand o it stand on its g the public to judge the true nature of the representativesryc vote. i hope you have a good day. >> host: my response and hopefully this is a funny one is that there is a rule airdropping the formal agreements between the house and the senate,th material that wasn't in the house or senate version of the bill and the rule says that's not allowed to be there. now as a reality they bypass altogether and do legislative ping-pong and go back and forthy

until they get a deal or thedo house rules committee can do anything it wants so if you airdrop they will say we will allow that even though it's not supposed to be there. >> host: congress has a lot of rules but they also have as manh that allow them to get out of the rules of. it's been things to helplp congress do its job better. there are so many different things to make themselves function. >> host: clean bills with no amendment is that ever take place? >> when you are watching at 6:30

7:00 at night it seems to be innocuous and sometimes theyme were not it was a deal hatched out and someone made a trade-off to get something else done so even when things seemed to tap into this year or last year there was a case for the bill passing. >> sometimes it takes creating a big piece of legislation.ast. that's been the most effective way to get anything passed.

>> in the special weeks ahead before they go out on theth republican line, thanks. one thing i believe they've been touching on the same topic and in this legislative sausage making, something i learned this democrats have pushed. the republicans are blocking the bill because they don't want to pity that they probably got introduced into that and it's a

mechanism that. they only cost the republicans are pulling out.yo hispanic what do they feel about being communicated topics like this. >> it's more the gop written version that says they cannot specifically get the funds. it's not that it is necessarily do that only always getting money from this but because it's a reproductive issue and their loved to get funding to handlele issues in certain ways and make stand the provider of choice or availability in an area.

>> i think the caller's point was interesting particularly in that conversation might have been different if there were a republican president so at the base level as a standard part of an appropriation there were further restrictions and we might be having a different conversation. this seems to be settled thehasn last hyde amendment has been language barring the use of federal funds to provide abortions but for other purposes they operate health clinics they are able to get money for

reproductive health. what people don't. that's partly why the groups. the government is helping subsidize. both sides of the political reason to change their own narrative of that to get on topic, these people do

-- all they are doing is hurting our country by trying to get back. i heard that money is the root of all evil, so maintaining all these people in the senate and house, maybe give them a dollar more than minimum wage and put them in public housing. you will not have to worry about term limits. when i was a boy, i was told that anybody could become president. however, today, i think it cost billion toround $1

be like hillary clinton or donald trump. host: let me take his point about the accomplishment because especially in the election season, you would want to be a congress that accomplishes something. guest: it is a bit of a double-edged sword, because being accomplished also means being on record for things you , everymay not want single vote they take in the building are there becomes an attack ad in an election year. guest: if you look at what the republicans in the senate are doing, they are trying to focus -- those who are up for reelection, are trying to focus on accomplishments that are bipartisan in nature, that are significant, but not the largest things ever, so you will see if you go to a place like ohio or new hampshire, there are lot --

there was lots of talk about congress's efforts to fight opioid abuse, which is an important problem that is a really serious problem in large parts of the country, but it's also a relative drop in the bucket in terms of what congress does overall, and yet you fully see more positive tv ads about fighting opioid abuse than just about anything else. host: lisa up next, and kentucky on the democrats line. caller: hello. my point is what congress gets done. wasn't it 113 days? how can you get anything done in 113 days of work out of the year? in, gett to rush back all these breaks, try to pass

something and it is ridiculous. would more of congress donate their salary to charity. congressman jorma -- john yarmouth, every cent of his salary goes to charity. we wonder sometimes how the schedule gets anything done as well. i understand completely why voters don't understand what exactly congress is doing. i don't know what the final tally will be and part of this is they may or may not use them. recall that giving time back, which is this strange term with a decide to leave early, and so it is entirely possible that

even the workload that we are expecting to see in september will be shortened or what they can do like to do is they will start taking more and more mondays off so that people can stay at home and campaign or fund raise. a lot of it is fundraising to get to the point of the caller on how much of it in costs. the exact time will be in flux, but it is not a lot. off, fridays,ys too? guest: the house schedule will go in for three weeks and that out in the district working for one and on that first week, they will come in on tuesday and stay through friday and every other week they will be monday through thursday and the last one is usually monday through thursday. host: so they are in for september, how long are they away before they come back? guest: right after the election

or the week after. guest: they usually come back about the tuesday after the election, so literally a week after the election is when things usually amp up and then they will take a week off for thanksgiving. host: then they come back in for a few weeks. they will then stay through december 16. host: our two guests talking about congress's return. dan in maryland, next. ander: my question is this, i call it the elephant in the room, the lies of the republican party, and i think it started with the tea party which were not really republicans, and then as a result of the demise of the publican party, you ended up with donald trump.

party ise democratic that asfar behind from far as being that the people want something else, that the two-party system is passe -- it does not work. people talked about third parties for a long time. i heard an interesting party that if you had -- an interesting point that if you have three parties, the malik even to sections. -- the immediately cleave intersections. part of that will be seeing what happens with this debate station -- debate stage. guest: as it pertains to life on capitol hill, the whole system internally in congress is built for two parties. there are two groups of leadership, and whether you call

the democrats and republicans or they become liberals and conservatives or whatever, it seems to me, and this is complete theory and a shot in the dark, but we have seen from the scares members of the independents that we have had in congress, that they always end up aligning with one of the two parties, so bernie sanders as an independent member of congress would always be in the democratic caucus. when we have people flip around, we had a couple of occasions like jim jeffords from vermont who left the republican party and then immediately aligned with democrats and became a committee chairman, and that sort of situation plays out in a way that they always tend to align themselves, even if they are independent, so i don't know

how much of a wave you would need of independents to offset the operating structure. guest: we have seen some coalitions in the house were they are more powerful than the leadership and there are factions of parties. there is a possibility that there could be informal coalitions holding in that way. host: where are republicans on donald trump? guest: we have been trying to get the answer on that are sometime. a lot of people are reticent to have an opinion. with out in new hampshire a senator who said she will vote for him, but she will not campaign for him. eventence came to do his in new hampshire and i was with the senator baby 15 minutes away from where he was in there was a decision that she would not

participate. for a lot of people in congress, it is a difficult position to be in. guest: that has been my experience as well. when you talk to people or go back to the home states, they are running their own campaigns. i was with john mccain in arizona, literally at the grand canyon during the republican national convention. guest: and you had some great photos. guest: the photos are excellent. democrats, fair, have a coalesced around hillary clinton or are there fractures there, as well? them aree majority of supporters of hillary clinton, even those who were bernie sanders supporters are pretty quick to say they would rather vote for hillary clinton.

thatis one thing politicians who have spent time at the capital are good at, it is cultivating and keeping those relationships. guest: there are a lot of former congressional staffers to, for hillary clinton's campaign. a roster ofat people involved in the transition project and the communications office and a policy -- and policy advisors, there are old hands of capitol hill, in a way that is with, a few exceptions, certainly not the case for donald trump. host: jean from texas, republican line. caller: am i on? thank you. my question was, saturday, they had the today show on, and they had missed nancy pelosi, and

they asked her some questions about hillary and the deal, and this may not have a lot to do with your staff there, but maybe they can answer my question, they asked her straight up, what the people thought about hillary she went off on a rampage, talking about hillary doing this and doing that for the government and she was the greatest whatever and i said -- i sat there and listened but my actuallyis, do they conceive in their minds that all liesngress -- they tell and nobody calls them on it.

they are afraid to say i don't think that is true and i think that is what congress needs to do. many just step up, be americans, nothing to do with democrats or republicans, get the work done and i think our country would be in a much better condition than what it is, now. that one of the things we will be dealing with and it goes back to a pager was trump earlier with donald , the same will be true with democrats with all sorts of questions that they will be peppered with by people like kelsey and i over the next few weeks, about various clinton foundation issues and the e-mail servers and everything else. none of that goes away and we will all be doing with all of that over the coming weeks, and

it is interesting, the extent to which democrats are at least willing to engage on questions , rightly orlinton wrongly or whatever your take is, versus the republicans who just sort of will walk up to the microphone as mitch mcconnell has done and said i'm not taking any questions about donald trump . guest: democrats feel more comfortable clinton because they know her and because they know her on the issues of things like benghazi and the e-mails, it is something they feel has been already been litigated within congress and they feel they have done their job of doing investigations and they feel confident in whatever findings they may have, and it makes it easier for them and when they may not give a clean answer like a losey may not have done or i did not -- or not, i did not

--ediately see the interview i understand why that would be hard for americans to understand. host: joe in cleveland, republican line. caller: i would like to give a different perspective and bring up two points. all the shenanigans in the dancing around in congress and all the political things. this country is sinking deeper in debt due to interest. there is no national debt, that is phony and what brings it on is an older local word in if you look it up, look up usery and you will find out we have a financial problem at the intention of globalization to control all countries through the banking system.

this is a segway point about the absurdity that we are living in. if i were to come up with an and that all kittens puppies should be aborted because we have too many dogs and cats that he too much food, there would be an uproar, but killing babies in the womb is ok for planned parenthood and i thank you so much for your time. guest: i come from a background where i focused on budget and fiscal tax policy. there continues to be a debate over whether something that -- of whether or not debt is something that is necessary for the economy to grow. it is a serious debate that goes on not only in congress, but within there is economic circles and people are thinking about it but there is not an easy answer at this point. guest: one of the things that would, if we go back to the beginning of this conversation,

one of the things that would come up is next year, we will have to deal with the debt limit be,n and the question would if we had a continuing resolution that kept the government from going and pushed it off sometime, next year, we may find ourselves in one of the situations where we are dealing with a debt limit and the budgetary sort of running the government stuff at the same time. that point, and this is probably a critique of the system, but the time at which we worry about interest rates and that surface is when the debt limit is about to be breached, and that is probably, frankly, i conversation for next year. guest: if that does happen, then

we restart the nagging conversation about tax reform. you cannot get into debt limit conversations without someone saying -- asking for another .onversation about tax reform david from colorado, democrat line. caller: good morning. about hownation planned parenthood -- how the issue got mixed in with the zika bill was crystal clear. explanationsclear about how it happened that planned parenthood got into the bill and why the senate democrats project -- objective in the first explanation you gave, you even talked about how

hard the senate works to come up with a bipartisan measure that was changed by house conservatives but yet, you had two republican callers almost back to back and want to blame this on the democrats. propagandized by what they are hearing on fox news that they cannot listen? secondly, what is the hard on of these people have about planned parenthood? they can't fund abortions. it helps with reproductive is an, there clearly intersection between zika and what planned parenthood does. it is something that i cannot understand host: if there is some other angle to put on it? guest: billy thing i would say

is that part of the problem is sensitive issue that people have really passionate feelings about, and that often times of people have passionate feelings about have ang, it is hard to withdrawn conversation and it is hard to deal with just numbers and money which could be part of the problem. , ist: kelsey's explanation was not timing yet, but it took a while, and that is something that we have the luxury of doing on this program, that frankly whether it is fox news or msnbc or cnn, the segments are usually too short to ever get that full explanation out on air before there was a commercial break, anyway. host: a couple of thoughts from both of you then on harry reid, what will his legacy be in the senate and what will he do before he leaves? guest: i defer to neil because

they have a close relationship. guest: one might say that. we were both at harry reid's news conference at the democratic national convention, seems likeo and it he is getting looser and looser with his rhetoric as his final weeks tick down in the senate. his number one priority, clearly is to bash the republicans in any way possible that he thinks will help ensure that chuck schumer who will be his successor as democratic leader is the majority leader, next year and if you are on his fundraising list, he is raising money constantly for democrats in the senate. -- these, his own seat

former attorney general, trying to get elected, but that is sort of where reads priorities seem to be and it seems to be a lot of politics all the time and i think the question we are going to have a newbie kelsey will have lots on this, the question we will have is, how much of the actual negotiating over the next is done byonths harry reid versus how much done by chuck schumer? guest: i think chuck schumer will be the heavy on that. i think he is proud to say that he was an amateur boxer and he has carried that kind of swagger about him around on capitol hill and that is kind of how he approaches negotiations. a will be thought of as

bashing, brawling, get it done kind of guy and also remembered with those people in nevada who care about the disposal of nuclear waste. host: will he stay in washington? guest: he and his wife are planning on some split time, they have moved a couple of years now, they moved out of his hometown, searchlight, which is in the middle of nowhere, to henderson which is a las vegas suburb and they will probably spend a lot of time there. i would not be surprised if they can't the condominium that they have in d.c., which was always for campaign as because it is literally at the ritz-carlton. host: does he have any other jobs lined up? guest: not that i know of. guest: i don't think he will take any formal positions, he is a bit older. host: from maryland, joe on the

room -- republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. in regards to paul ryan and zika or anyegarding other bill, and the various levels of poison pills of varying legality, it was my understanding that paul ryan was going to be running in regular order, is that the proper term, could you educate me on what that is because i thought and i hope i'm right, i thought this was going to be a regular order which was supposed to prevent this tacking on of things. you are not wrong, that was the intent.

i think the political will of paul ryan was abandoned because of republicans and i think the great plan now is to do the things you can get done before they become a tragedy. guest: in a world of regular order, by september 30, the would havehe senate sent 12 at it -- individual appropriation bills. i believe the count is zero. guest: it did go to conference on one. guest: we are sitting with a military construction va spending bill that cannot move because of the zika stuff and the senate is looking to take another doomed to fail vote this afternoon. that sort of regular order met the reality of both the legislative calendar and also if

the senate and the white house don't agree on your view of what regular order should look like, you are probably doomed from the start. guest: regular order in some ways is its own myth in its hopefulness, but the realities and stubbornness often get in the way. caller: i got ticked off twice when i heard that the e-mails were compared to watergate. i lived through watergate. i was there and i was working for a republican congressman, and there is no way that the e-mails even compare to highgate, when people from officials, from the fbi and cia and so on went to prison. e-mailsthey compare the

to that, when it is nothing but a drop in the bucket as far as i'm concerned, because i saw it all unfold. host: how will congress take the e-mail issue of former secretary of state clinton? not much more they can do at this point. they could ask for more investigations or another special committee on investigations. they are ready have one going on planned parenthood -- already have one going on planned parenthood. guest: they could call the fbi director in for another hearing. there are things that you might do if you are a republican lawmaker, particularly a committee chairman in the house, perhaps. there is not much that could be is, thed the question

calculation that republicans will need to make is what -- at what point is it overreach and i'm sure they are doing polling on this, this is the kind of thing that is political as much as it is substantive. host: two guests talking to us to join them -- to talk about congress returning to session.