roulette, the inside story of vladimir putin's war in america and the election of donald trump is co-author with michael isicough. his other books are blind goat and showdown. watch in-depth with david corn sunday from noon to 3:00 eastern on c-span20's booktv. >> our washington journal author series concludes with chris mcgill. 's book is american overdose, the opioid tragedy in three acts. good morning. you open the story of the american opioid crisis in wilmington, west virginia in the mid-1990s. why there and why then? >> when i was researching the book, one of the things that was most surprising to me, the book came out in my reporting for the guardian, i am talking to people in west virginia which is a crucible of the

epidemic and remains the epicenter to the extent it was by far the highest overdose rate in the country. one of the things that are striking to me with the number of people i spoke to the talked about being sworn into addiction through prescribing in the late 90s and early 2000s, i was struck by the fact that this was an epidemic begun under bill clinton's presidency and had run through george bush george w. bush and barack obama and here we were finally at the end of the obama presidency into the trump presidency before getting the kind of national attention that it needed. i decided to go back and look at where it began. west virginia really calculated a lot of elements of the epidemic, but one of them was the prescribing, the beginning of the prescribing, very

powerful drugs for routine pain which helped draw people into addiction. the other reason to look at williamson was it became not only an area in its own right where there were a lot of people who became hooked on these drugs but it became a distribution center for a whole part of appalachia and beyond, as you see the establishment of one of the biggest pill mills in the country. that came out of an individual named henry vinson who was appropriately, and undertaker. he had just come out of prison he had been in prison serving four years for running a gay escort agency in washington dc but was busted by the secret service and the federal government. he was sent back to williamson by his parole officer and gone to school there and he sees a business opportunity in setting up a group of doctors in an

industrial warehouse, technically a pain clinic prescribing drugs to just about anybody who wanted them provided they could slap down the cash. you see williamson become the place to go for a while. for a decade doctors in this pill mill, williamson wellness as it was called, was prescribed thousands until today. without really consulting a patient. you pay $150 you pay up reception. >> american overdose is the title of the book. you are a british reporter for the guardian newspaper. and the american crisis as you described it. wikipedia >> guest: one is the scale. the world have you seen the scale of death that we have

seen over the past 20 years. nobody really knows the numbers because particularly early on death from opioids were not recorded because of stigma or they were not recognized. the cdc says 350,000 people dead, the real figures a lot higher. you are not seeing that in any other country. the everything that makes it unique is how it came about. this is the result of an accident. it was described by the head of the fda as one of the greatest mistakes in modern american medicine. it really isn't a mistake. it was a strategy by the pharmaceutical industry to co-opt medical practice,

particularly in treating pain, and ensure these opioid pills became the first stop for treatment. they were very effective in that. they managed to get on board not only medical institutions, they got on board, regulators like the food and drug administration, the regulators of the hospitals, they got on board state medical bodies and they got on board the medical profession in a big way and that perhaps comes out, the fact that in the united states medicine is an industry and most underdeveloped countries it of the service, health service that to some degree or other is run publicly or very strict we controlled by public bodies and in the united states it is an industry and that is what this opioid epidemic was driven by. >> host: when talking about the

opioid crisis in america we usually have phonelines set up differently. if you have been impacted by the opioid crisis, 202, 748-8000 is the number to join this conversation. dollars, 202-748-8001. we are talking about your new book american overdose, opioid tragedy in three acts. a minute ago you were talking about the numbers of this epidemic, this from the washington times, showing deaths from opioid overdose since 2000 47,600 us up from 8000 in 2000. you put the overall numbers in perspective over the decades you study the crisis. >> they were in hundreds of thousands. most of that time the single largest number of deaths were from prescription opioids and in the past 5 or 6 years we have seen that change with the

rise of deaths from heroin and that has been driven by the fact that people found mass prescribing has filtered through the medical profession and is been a greater control on prescribing in three states. you have seen a shift towards heroin simply because it was available and cheaper than prescription drugs, though for a long time that prescription drugs were the easiest option and more recently we have seen the rise of sentinel -- fentanyl which was introduced to strengthen heroin, but more particularly recently a lot of people using it directly or without their knowledge. it has been used to fake opioid pills, prescription pills, now we are in a situation where it

is estimated in 2018 60,000 people died of opioids and about half of those would be fentanyl and 15,000 would be heroin, 14,000 would be from prescription opioids. the thing about those, fentanyl has become a very large number the numbers of people dying from prescript and opioids have not dropped that significantly. it has been overtaken by heroin and fentanyl. >> host: one other chart to show you from the washington times, on america's opioid addiction, this map showing opioid epidemic across america, drug overdose rates in each state per 100,000 residents. you can see the epicenter. 57.8 drug overdoses per 100,000

residents with 46.3, pennsylvania with 44 and elsewhere around the map. chris mcgreal, taking your calls as we talk about the opioid crisis in america, phonelines for those impacted by the opioid crisis and all others kevin is on the first line in indiana, go ahead. >> caller: good morning. i've had three) die throughout the years, several high school friends losing touch after college. it could have been impacted, 37 years old and seen how it affects people. i don't know if it is so much in epidemic or an enforcement issue. it seems i was involved with some local police officers, they went out and started

busting people and the sheriff tells them slowdown. ms 13 and the mexican mafia coming back and arresting people that are selling drugs. i don't know if there is a solution but until we stop the supply and have the right stuff our cops to do their job, i don't think this is ever going to go away. >> >> host: chris mcgreal, your thoughts. wikipedia this is taken on a criminal element particularly with her when and fentanyl and that is a law enforcement issue. but what has driven this, what created this and the reason it is american rather than a global epidemic is the mass prescribing that took place in the united states you had two things, people who because they

were prescribed these drugs, what were relatively low levels of pain along periods when they shouldn't have been they were prescribed in large doses. we have seen significant numbers of people become dependent on these drugs or hooked on demand then they seek to top up because they can't get everything they need from prescription on the market or doctors cut back on their prescriptions because they are concerned about that. you have mass prescribing. the prescriptions of fallen by 20% from the peak. you still have large numbers of prescriptions in this country. you are still drawing more people into addiction, but you do have the criminal element smuggling of heroin and fentanyl across the border.

i think as a theme, i spent the month in huntington, west virginia where one of the worst hit in the country, they were quite effective bringing down the overdose rate, in part through law enforcement. and a lot of other elements including cutting back on prescribing but getting people who are addicted to these drugs, access to treatment, breaking down the stigma of drug addiction is one of the biggest issues around getting help to people that really need it many of whom don't become addicted because they began by experimenting with the drugs. they took these drugs as prescribed. >> host: the subtitle is the opioid tragedy in three acts. the cycle you went through the three acts you talk about? >> essentially i look at the

origins of this epidemic, and looking at why this went on and has gone on. and and one of the things, and who are deeply disturbed, they -- one is doctor jane ballantyne. she was head of pain management at harvard university and its associated hospital, massachusetts general. she bought into the idea that patients needed these drugs,

these drugs were safe which is what drug companies were saying, there was a stigma against them and they could be used. she began to see in her patients that many of them were becoming dependent, some were becoming addicted, but above all, long-term, opioid prescribing wasn't working for many of her patients, they were still in pain, they needed more drugs and also hearing from families that they were not the people that they were, the personalities were changed, they were constantly spending time and money on them. she wrote a study in the new england journal of medicine in 2003 which should have caused

industry and regulators paz and say to themselves and say these drugs are not what they are promised to be. she expected that to have a real impact and it didn't. other doctors found the same thing, charles lucas a surgeon senior surgeon in the 1960s detroit general and he was saying patients after surgery who were given large doses of painkillers were starting to die. what you see happen in the early years of the epidemic. instead of the conversation being about whether these drugs were the right thing to be prescribing for most people even though there were definitely people who need them the industry shift the conversation to paint the people who become addicted as abusive, to blame the victims. and to say we have these

abusers who shouldn't be allowed to take drugs from the innocent pain patients who need them. they have become -- prescriptions and become addicted. the industry turns this conversation into good and bad black and white. for many years, this is an effort to keep the doors open to mass prescribing and selling the drugs. this keeps going until about 2010-2011 when the cdc stand up to this, we have an upcoming on our hands. >> host: for those impacted by the opioid prices, james is waiting on that line from kentucky. go ahead. >> caller: this year is one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on the american people, this opioid epidemic.

i am in my 70s suffering colon cancer and i have to take and go to the doctor every month. you have urine tests and blood tests to see if you have them in your bloodstream. i have never had a problem. i took less drugs before all these laws went into effect but i have to keep them in me now or i will become off. even though i have a legitimate thing, it is a cash cow for the police officers and all this. look at how we militarize the police force and everything, people are treated like animals. if you have to have a pain pill, you show certain little areas like west virginia and all that, the reason that is, people have been cut off and instead of pain collection they draw people from miles around to come to those areas because they have gone without it and these people, i have seen drug addicts. it is on the needle and everything. they were the same people i

knew in the 60s, went after every drug they could get a hold of. >> host: your thoughts on that? >> guest: that is the kind of person that does -- they are designed for people who have cancer, who are grappling with that. one of the problems that has evolved here is the medical profession isn't in charge of pain medicine management. it is controlled by the industry and politics of it because of this epidemic. if you look at how opioids came to be prescribed in america, because there had previously been an epidemic after the civil war, after the 20th century, there is a severe crackdown in the country on the use of opioids in that situation for 50 years continues to see the hospital movement emerging in the uk. that is used for end of life

care for cancer patients. that comes to america, and doctors in america safe you can use it for cancer patients for end of life care, why not for all pain patients? that is the kind of person that should be getting this drug and should be given them according to what his doctor thinks he needs but i would disagree with them that this is just about the police. obviously this epidemic has been on for 15 or 20 years, long before the police got involved. it is clear this was a pain management issue. it was driven by an industry that wanted to sell drugs. it hasn't been artificially created by law enforcement. >> host: alex in virginia impacted by the opioid crisis. >> caller: thank you for having this discussion on c-span.

the opioid epidemic and everything, i have been personally affected. i'm only 22 years old and have a couple friends pass away this year. they are my same age because of drug overdoses. i just want people to understand it is not only happening in rural areas in america but also happening in wealthier areas. the richest counties in the united states, there is an extreme drug problem, and the younger generations like the one i belong to are moving more towards benzodiazepine as well like xanax. in terms of the actual clinical name. i went people to understand it

is not only happening in rural america but wealthier areas. >> host: got your point. chris mcgreal. >> guest: the cdc has the map and you see the beginnings of the epidemic in the mid-90s. west virginia, kentucky, and gets deeper and deeper and spread across parts of that region of the country and the red dots pop up everywhere else. by the mid-2000s partly because mass prescribing meant large numbers of pills going to people, whether they needed them or not, it is not just the number of people getting these drugs. it was also when it was prescribed for two or three days of treatment they got 30 days of pills, those pills

factor in the medicine cabinet and a couple things could happen. one was basically got passed around in the family as these are good pain pills, why don't you take one? or other people in the family, younger people who start to experiment with their drug supply. the scale of the prescribing, the numbers of of people who have gotten them, meant a lot of these pills were floating around. in wealthy communities, pretty much across the country. by the mid-2000s it is a national epidemic. >> host: james on the same line, go ahead. >> caller: i suffered a spinal cord injury that left me

disabled and in a wheelchair. i had been addicted to morphine while in the military, and had little experience with it. i don't think opioids, when i was in surgery, i had a back made of titanium. i found i don't have to have opiates, haven't taken them in years. herbal medicines come meditation and a little will will do it. i think it is a scam, we pay the highest drugs in the free world and probably in the entire world and we have pharmaceutical companies doing the same things tobacco companies potentially addicted and over prescription and payoff doctors to prescribe it. it is a horrible thing, horrible way to treat the american citizen. my answer is i suffered as much pain as any human being can suffer.

i'm not out of pain, i'm not a junkie with my tongue hanging out. >> guest: it is interesting to hear that. when you look at how this epidemic evolved in the actions the pharmaceutical company's, one of the things drug companies do is studiously avoid any in-depth study on whether these drugs are affected long-term and what the long-term consequences are. no clinical trials because they are not really interested in that answer. they pushed the idea of pain as a fifth vital sign. the concept was your heart rate, your blood pressure and they can all be measured.

you should also have to address pain, doctors should have to address pain. to give an example, one of the areas was a body called the joint commission hospitals need those licenses in order to get federal funding. the joint commission essentially got into a financial relationship with various drug companies, setting up regulations that require doctors to treat pain is a priority issue and the drug companies end up writing manuals for the doctors. it is one of the reasons you see:-)is in hospitals and clinics. between one and 10, those are a result of the joint commission requiring doctors to address pain and the drug companies write the manuals for the

doctors in effect, the maker of oxycontin wrote those manuals to a joint commission and distributed them. what is striking about those is they all push the idea of opioids as the answer. there's not much talk about the alternatives, other means of dealing with pain. whether it is dealing physical therapy or through stress or the kinds of medicines and that is about selling pain pills but other parts of the industry have an interest in that as well. and a cheap alternative for physical therapy and doctors came under enormous pressure to prescribe from hospitals. and an easy way to go.

and the medical industry bore some response ability, it pushed the medical profession, the idea that people could live pain-free. the fact is particularly when you get older or injured, a lot of doctors tell you you have to learn to manage pain and find ways to manage it. and the pill -- >> in your book american overdose. and with mass prescribing of opioids and cdc stepping up to the plate, when was that lost decade.

>> in the early 2000, and giving a warning on the journal of medicine the article appears. and the former head of the cdc doctor tom friedman in 2011, there's an epidemic in this country. in the decade of the 2000s, the epidemic could have not only been reined in but actually prevented. of those early warnings had been heard the industry happened so effectively, by co-opting not only congress because it pays vast amount of lobbying and pain can't -- campaign contributions but to be honest, regulators like the fda, which essentially was compromised by its relationship with the industry.

in that decade you see a missed opportunity to assess the effect of these drugs and terrain in the sheer scale of the prescribing. >> host: you spent a lot of time in west virginia, kelly is waiting. >> caller: good morning. prescription drugs, a smaller problem than the ones drug dealers are pushing on people, but now there's a push in this country that drug dealers get to talk to the first time, a smack on the hand because we don't want to put them in prison, but they are forgetting the lives they may have killed or put people into situations they can't get out of and instead of just giving a smack on the hand we really need to

look at it and say you may have been doing it for years, even if it is the first time, you got caught and to me it should be you are going on trial for murder because that is what you have probably done, you probably killed people. to me there shouldn't be a push in this country to let these people off with a smack on the hand. if you made it stiffer, maybe they would think twice before pushing those drugs on the american people. >> host: chris mcgreal? >> guest: there are those pushing the idea of a murder charge. the defense can show they knew nothing about an overdose death. there are law enforcement issues in somewhere like west virginia, speaking to the

police chief in huntington, they don't have the resources to lock everybody up. there's a distinction to be drawn between the people that are dealing because they are users and addicted and have been given down a path they wouldn't have chosen to go down and those people doing it for money. and the nature of prostitution would be different in those cases. the doctors that have been prescribing it on a grand scale, those doctors i put in the warehouse in williamson west virginia, one of them, doctor katherine hoover, was prescribing more pills in the 2000s and west virginia's biggest hospital one of her fellow doctors, and only 6 months.

and a lot of doctors get off very lightly. and there's some sympathy for some of the police. some of these people never had an opportunity they got dragged into this whereas doctors who have been involved in this had every opportunity. a chance to go down this path. >> host: chris mcgreal, the author of "american overdose: the opioid tragedy in 3 acts," taking your calls this morning. sandra in east point, michigan with those who have been impacted by the opioid crisis, go ahead. >> caller: for 50 years, osteoporosis of the spine and she can't even stand up anymore and she had breast impacts, and

and and and all the pain makes it bearable so she can stand it. no cool about -- no cool at all. my neighbor, she has a friend on pain medication through 6 years. he had a problem too with his back and he was taking pain medication through six years, the doctor was afraid to give them anymore. she took them off of pain medication and committed suicide because he could not stand the pain. there are millions of people taking pain medication, my sister-in-law had cancer surgery four months ago.

she had enough pain medication for 10 days. after that she suffered terribly. these people who were abusing drugs are hurting people who sincerely need to take them. >> chris mcgreal, respond. >> guest: people these drugs work for. it again, these policy medical policy has been driven, essentially by greed. it is correct, swinging back and doctors have become fearful of prescribing because of the consequences and the political climate because they fear there

might be some form of sanction against them. one of the shocking things in researching this book was to discover many primary health care doctors in this country get very little training in pain management. they might get two or three days and four years of initial medical training, we haven't little information on which to base their decisions. they don't know how opioids work or very much about addiction. frequently they were getting their information for the drug company salesperson coming in and telling them how these drugs work and how they should prescribe them. the medical -- american medical association for a long time resisted that kind of trading, said was an inconvenience to doctors when two members of congress, how rogers and mary,

introduced the ryan creedon act which would have required doctors to have training to prescribe opioids. the a.m. a opposed it. i feel sorry for those people who need these drugs and find themselves struggling to get them but again it is because the medical profession is making these decisions and that happens, the medical profession needs to take control of this healthcare policy rather than industry or politicians or anybody else. >> host: carl, good morning. >> caller: i am calling because, a recent operation for trigger finger. i was out of the hospital in a short time they gave me 30

tramadol opioid pills. i did not take a single one of them. and they are good for a year. and i took a wet rag and shaped into my hand and put it in a freezer. when my hand got stiff i took the rag out and held it in my hand until the swelling went down and put it back in the freezer for later and the amount of pain i had on that operation was minuscule and one thing i want to leave you with what they do is they ask me for a routine check, you got any pain? i got pain, i am 74 years old. occasionally i work too much in the backyard. it went into a spasm for a day and goes away.

the point i wanted to make, they tell you, rate your pain between one and 10, they are giving the doctors response ability for the patient so if you are a drug addict and you say 10, they get a prescription if you don't one them, you will say one. most people can deal with a small amount of pain. they have made it too bz to get these drugs. i'm surprised because don't get me wrong, the va is great but i'm surprised, with giving me those pills, it really surprised me. >> host: thanks for the call. >> guest: the number of pills people get is part of the problem. the cdc came up with recommendations in 2016 saying for acute pain which you had after an injury or operation really shouldn't get more than three or five days worth of pills.

carl got 30 days. that is because after five days there is a sharply increased risk of addiction. it is about the convenience not of the patient but the doctors in this case. the ama proposed a reduction in prescribing by saying it is inconvenient for doctors to renew prescriptions, the insurance companies don't want to deal with the paperwork. and so it is back to money, convenience rather than good medical practice. >> host: the final 60 seconds. how did this book change you from the process of researching through getting families to tell their stories about addiction? >> guest: getting people to tell their stories about addiction was not as difficult as i thought it might be. for a couple reasons. one is people in west virginia

that i was talking about are angry at what has happened to their communities. these drugs have devastated communities. they feel they were duped into taking these drugs. doctors didn't want them. they weren't protected. a lot of people in those communities take the pain of middle-age labor working and lumber, and their community would be devastated and they feel duped into this. the other group of people who have been very open with me are those who tried to break down the stigma. their children have become addicted and they see the stigma around heroin. their kids might have begun taking these drugs because they had a sports injury, they end up on heroin or they end up dead and the end are being blamed for their own death by the communities and by the drug

companies. a lot of people out there are keen to break down the stigma. it is one of the biggest changes over the past few years, the courage of people who have come out and talked about what these drugs have done to their families. >> host: the book is "american overdose: the opioid tragedy in 3 acts," the author is journalist chris mcgreal. appreciate your time on washington journal. >> congressional leaders are meeting with donald trump at the white house to talk about the government shutdown now in the 14th day. the house and senate are gone until next week but before leaving, the house passed legislation to extend current funding levels for the remaining agencies except the homeland security department which would be funded until february. while negotiations continue over the border wall. the house plan does not include border wall funding. c-span's capitol hill producer reports legislation to provide backpay for federal workers

impacted by the government shutdown was fast tracked to the senate calendar for future florida -- floor debate. the senate passed a similar bill last month but it expired at the house did not take action on the measure before the 115th congress ended on monday. is what the senate republican and democratic leaders had to say about the shutdown earlier today. >> mister president, later today, i will join donald trump, the democratic leader, the new speaker of the house, and our congressional colleagues at the white house. the meeting represents the latest in the president's ongoing efforts to persuade democrats that appropriate funding for border security is a better outcome than persisting in this partial government shutdown. i would hope this time around, my friends across the aisle will come prepared to engage much more seriously on the issue at hand. we may have entered a new

congress since our last meeting, but the basic steps that are needed to end this unfortunate standoff haven't changed at all. we are in the same place. i have said on several occasions, the administration has affirmed, any viable compromise to carry the endorsement of the president to oversee the vote, in either house of congress. under these conditions, mister president, the package presented by the house's new democratic leaders yesterday can only be seen as a time wasting act of political posturing. it does not carry the support of the president. the administration indicated yesterday the president would actually veto it. it cannot earn the support of 60 of my colleagues over here in the senate. my friends across the aisle understand the ground rules perfectly well. they know that a solution will need to be palatable to house

democrats and senate republicans alike. they know making laws takes a presidential signature. we all learned that in grade school. in fact the democratic leader himself insisted, quote, the president must publicly support and say he will sign an agreement forget to vote in the chamber, the democratic leader said that. everyone understands what we need to move forward and successfully make policy instead of staging political theater. everyone should understand how urgently the situation on our nation's border demands our attention. the situation has been accurately described by the commissioner of the cvp, border patrol. as, quote, a border security and humanitarian crisis.

this shouldn't be taken lightly, should not be viewed as an opportunity for the house democratic majority to prioritize political performance as an art form ahead of the public interest. i urge democratic colleagues to approach the meeting with a willingness to join the administration of the men and women in customs and border protection, in working to protect the border and bring this partial shutdown to a end. >> as we near the third week of the shutdown, the impact on the american people are getting worse with each passing day. nearly 400,000 federal workers have now been furloughed. food safety inspectors vital to our health and safety are

working without pay, with limited resources. american farmers can't get loans from the usda, working families trying to buy a home are finding out their fha loans are on hold. we just heard from a constituent of mine in the capital region near albany, fire police dispatcher his wife is pregnant, they closed on their first house joyously last week but now their loan is delayed until the government reopens. that story can be repeated over and over again. our federal courts are running out of money. our national parks are suffering. we have seen the piles of debris and garbage in these beautiful places. maybe most ironically of all as the president is talking about making the border more secure, his shutdown is making it less secure. border patrol agents are going without pay, e-verify is

off-line immigration cases are on hold, new immigration judges are not being hired. so with all the talks the president has about making the border more secure, the trump shutdown is making it less secure. we have provided a way for him to continue to debate this wall issue but keep the government open. all of this means we should be doing everything we can to bring this trump shutdown -- excuse me -- all of this means we should be doing everything we can to bring this trump shutdown to a swift end. my friend, the republican leader, quoted me this morning. let me now quote my friend, the leader. he has said repeatedly, quote,

nobody likes a shutdown. leader mcconnell has shown himself to be an adept negotiator during previous shutdowns. why is he advocating his response ability now? why is leader mcconnell shuffling off to the sidelines pointing his fingers at everyone else and saying he won't be involved? probably because he realizes this president donald trump, is erratic, unreliable, and sometimes even irrational. donald trump is a terrible negotiator. given the unfortunate traits that reside in our president i understand leader mcconnell as reluctance to get involved. in truth, they are all the more reason for him getting involved. america needs leader mcconnell to get involved to stop this shutdown. he can't keep ducking this issue. left to his own devices donald trump can keep the government

shutdown for a long time. the president needs intervention and leader mcconnell and senate republicans are just the right ones to intervene. fortunately, we have a way to end this shutdown with the help of our republican friends in the senate. last night, as expected, the house of representatives passed two pieces of legislation to end the trump shutdown. a 6 bill package to provide appropriations for eight shattered cabinet departments and a 30 day continuing resolution for the department of homeland security. both bills received bipartisan support in the house. the logic behind these two pieces of legislation is very simple. we have disagreements on how to best secure the border.

donald trump wents and expensive and ineffective border wall. he promised mexico would pay for it but now demands american taxpayers foot the bill. democrats believe a border wall is an up to this public policy and we have much better, more effective, less wasteful ways of securing the border. and we don't have eight government cabinet apart and close why we support our differences. and and that is why we split the bills in two, one to reopen the government and the other to keep short-term discussions to continue about the border. neither piece of legislation should continue to be controversial.

the house majority, leader pelosi credit, went out of its way to avoid controversy. they didn't send over a bill with lots of poison pill riders, lots of things that our colleagues wouldn't like. they send the very bills that republicans crafted and voted for. the majority went out of its way to avoid controversy by choosing the legislation crafted and supported by republicans. the 6 appropriation bills passed by the house last night are the same bills, the very same bills, they have not changed a bit, that republicans here in the senate drafted, they were in charge, and approved. four of them have this chamber by more than 90 votes. the other two passed nearly unanimously in committee. leader mcconnell voted for every one of them and spoke

glowingly about their passage last year. there is nothing, i repeat nothing in the six appropriation bills that leader mcconnell and senate republicans oppose. there is nothing, absolutely nothing, i repeat, about a continuing resolution for homeland security. .. leader mcconnell and senate republicans refuse to put on the floor because those were -- that was leader mcconnell's idea. he put it on the floor. it passed the chamber unanimously last christmas. so now we're seeing some real cracks in the republican wall. some real cracks in the republican wall. some of my friends and the senate on the other side of the isle in this body, to their credit are already saying we should take up and passed these two bills. seven house republicans newly elected under huge pressure not toed voted with these bills. every democrat voted for the bill. there's no dissension they are.

but a handful of republicans did, too. so it's time for leader mcconnell and president trump who is the ultimate reason we have to shut down, it's time for leader mcconnell and president trump to support this package of bipartisan legislation and we opened the government. in a short time, speaker pelosi and i will head to the white house to meet with president trump and congressional leaders about the government shutdown. i'll be joined by my very able colleague, senator durbin, senator mcconnell would be joined by senator thune. senator pelosi will be joined by leader hoyer and of course, leaders mccarthy and scalise will be there as well. at the meeting we democrats hope to convince the president and leader mcconnell to take up and pass the two house passed bills, both of which have

already been approved by senate republicans. that's the quickest, least controversial way out of the trunk shut down. it separates the fight on the wall from the government shutdown. president trump is holding hostage, using leverage, hundreds of thousands of federal workers, and millions and millions of other americans like the gentleman and his spouse in albany who can't get theirn fha mortgage approved. and that story in many ways can be repeated over and over again. so i say to my republican friends, don't let president trump hold hostage all of these fine people who have done nothing wrong themselves. don't let him use the government shutdown to try and get his way because that's not how it should work and that'sow not what's going to happen.

instead, let's reopen the government start paying our food safety inspectors, our park rangers, our air traffic controllers, our federal courts, and our border patrol agents so they can do the work they are supposed to do for the american people. all we have to do is take up legislation the senate republicans already support. >> congressional leaders are meeting at the white house to talk about how to resolve the government shutdown. president trump says congress must pass more than $5 billion for a border wall. house speaker nancy pelosi says they won't approve the spending. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell says no bill is coming up on the senate floor unless the president is willing to sign it. the house and senate are out of session until next week. >> u.s. employers adding 312,000 jobs in december.

even so, the labor department says the unemployment rate rose slightly to 3.9% due to a surge in workers getting back into the job market. average hourly pay improved 3.2% from a year ago. >> this weekend c-span cities tour takes you to santa monica, california without of our spectrum cable partners, we highlight santa monica is literary life and history. saturday at noon eastern on booktv a visit with a journalist author and professor saul rubin as he describes santa monica culture economy and more. >> santa monica is an aggressive southern california beat city, and its a major tourist destination. most well-known for being a place where people might come to enjoy the day and be a tourist and also know it is a popular place for young tech startup

companies. >> and on sunday at 2 p.m. eastern on american history tv, santa monica pier historian jim harris author of santa monica pier a sentry on the last great pleasure pier, shows the history of this iconic landmark. >> we see almost 9 million people a year come to the pier and that's people of all walks of life, all income levels, all interests. there's almost as many different reasons to come to the pier as people who come to visit. if you walk down the pier today on any given day and ask what brought them here you would get a different reason from each one of them. >> watch c-span's city tour of santa monica, california, saturday at noon eastern on c-span2's booktv, and sunday at 2 p.m. on american history tv on c-span3. working with the cable affiliate as we explore the american story.

>> coast guard commandant karl schultz now on the strategic priorities. during before the navy league of the united states, admiral schultz also addressed force readiness and arctic operations. this is 45 minutes. >> good morning everyone. if i could please get your attention. good morning. good morning everyone. it is my pleasure as national president of the navy league to be with all of you here this morning. it is a privilege to welcome our special guest today the 26th commandant of the u.s. coast guard and navy leaks good friend admiral karl