where you can learn more about the authors of the book feature. healthy democracy doesn't just look like this, it looks like this where americans can see democracy at work when citizens are truly informed, a republic thrive, get informed straight from the source. on c-span, unfiltered, unbias word for word from the nation's capitol to wherever you are because your opinion is what matters the most, this is what democracy looks like. c-span, powered by cable. >> joining us this morning is zach owen, congress reporting, talking about week ahead in congress, zach, let's pick up where we just left off in the washington journal. for the first hour we have been talking about what was negotiated behind closed doors

from what many call the hard right freedom caucus and the moderate mainstream caucus. what to we know about these negotiations? >> so late last night the house freedom caucus which as you mentioned is more fiscally conservative, hard-right part of the conference that not just wants slash government spending but oppose mccarthy speakership hythis year. they reached deal with mainstream, they came together on this framework and quickly put out legislative texts, nearly 200 pages that would essentially slash nondefense spending by 8% for the next 31 days, starting at the end of september which would give negotiators more time to come up with full-year government funding bills. the september 30th bill to fund the government is start of the government fiscal year and absence some sort of legislation that passes either stop-gap

measure or fully government funding bills which seem increasingly unlikely then the government would shut down. >> what has the speaker said about how he would bring this deal to the floor? what happens first, walk us through the week. >> so i believe the plan is for them to bring up this bill on thursday the way the house typically works is they will come back later tonight for 6:3. they call bed-check vote to make sure everyone is in sentence. is house rules will meet today to mark up the continuing resolution, a cr, although normally a cr would keep government funding levels flat as i mentioned, this actually decreases spending. so it's more of a stop-gap measure, if you will. and then over the next couple of days there will beng a vote, procedural vote to set the terms of debate to, you know, pass a rule for debate on the house floor which tee up potentially final passage of this bill and send it over to the senate which has its own host of obstacles.

>> zach cohen, is the rules committee the first hurdle of potential deal and if so, tell us why, is it because of the makeup of the rule's committee and is that related to, you know, speaker mccarthy's position as the leader? >> any legislation that wants to get through the house that etdoesn't have wide bipartisan support needs to go through rules committee first. sets the bar, simple majority for the house to pass something and because the stop-gap measures unlike through attract democratic support given cuts of defense spending and border measures, they will need republicans to carry the bill. mccarthy's allies for the most part make up the majority on this panel. i believe it's 7 republicans and four democrats. the four democrats likely to oppose it but also two members of the a house freedom caucus on the rules committee and so they could vote with democrats to make it a very tight vote in the house rules committee which could glop it and so therere ar3

steps over the next couple of day that is the stop-gap measure would need to clear. first the rules committee and then the rule on the floor and finally final passage for it to be sent over to the senate. >> we read some conservatives, we read about five of them. i want to show a few of them to our viewers who may have missed it and get your reaction to this. here the matt gaetz from florida, interference is a betrayal of republicans, we must do better, referring to just funding the justice department. marjorie taylor greene, there are no policy writers, she notes that. it's all the policies from last year's democratic appropriations with an 8% cut plus the border bill but not e-verify. she says i'm no because there's no money for ukraine.

>> time to stay in dc, no breaks until we pass all appropriations bills. i will not be supporting cr and this week is no different. cr is nancy pelosi's budget and joe biden's policy. we were sure in january that we weren't going to use the democrats' gimmicks to fund the government. what do you make of just those four and there's a couple out there, does speaker mccarthy have the votes right now? >> seems like the answer is know which makes difficult week for speaker mccarthy and democrats are likely to oppose the measure given border measures and nondefense programs which democrats tend to support as well as the defense programs that republicans tend to also like to keep flat. the issue here is that mccarthy only has a four-seat majority.

it was 5 seats but republican congressman chris steward of utah resigned on friday due to family challenges and so that seat is vacant and one less room margin for error for mccarthy on the floor. whether they find some way to get some of the folks that are now no's to become yes' or they change the bills to get to a yes but certainly what we saw last night isru not the final story. >> so even if the speaker were to get this through the house this t week, what about the senate? what are they saying they want in any continuing resolution? >> the senate has said for a long time that they -- for one thing, the senate appropriations committee which is marked up all 12 of the regular appropriations bills at higher level than what the house has done, they don't have some of these deeper cuts especially to defense spending. they are closer to the debt dealing agreement reached by speaker mccarthy and the white house earlier this year that avoided default on the debt and

set statutory caps on spending across all categories. and so they are going to look at this bill and they are going to say, you know, the cuts are a problem, the lack of any of the supplemental aid that the white house has asked for for dealing with natural disasters in places like florida, hawaii, the wild fires there or aid for ukraine. ukrainian president involve volodymyr zelenksyy will be in washington this week as he battles russia. >> so if this were to pass the house and the senate were to -- to pick up their own continuing resolution or just refuse what the house has done because of what you just said, then there's only 8 working days left as we noted in the first hour of washington journal, what happens? >> as we talked about, there's very limited time to get this done. it's going take a couple ofry ds for the house to pass their version if they do come -- if

this version does come across the floor from the house and goes over to the senate and then the senate usually takes longer than the house because the role of the filibuster and longer debate time and something that could go to the 11th hour and if the senate kicks it back to the house with amendments, there's less time and potentially goes past the september 30th deadline and then we would be in shutdown territory. it's not unusual for -- if a bill gets down to the wire that there's technically a shutdown for a couple of hours, temporary furloughs for a couple of employees or stop-gap that lasts as couple of days so that it eventually gets to the white house for president biden's signature. there's verye little time for them to reach a deal and there's going to beth very tricky procedural hurdles to get over. >> we will invite our viewers to join us in this conversation. we will take your comments.

democrats (202)748-8000. republicans (202)748-8001. independents (202)748-8002. text us as well include your first name, city and nate toon (202)748-8003 and join us on facebook. bill, independent, you are up cohere first, good morning to yu go ahead. i have to push the button. sorry, start over. >> i've lived through many shutdowns and they never help anymore. we have a party that feels that holding everybody hostage is the way to get things done, they make, they drag their feet throughout the year to get it to

this point or come up with some novel thing to shut it down to achieve what? absolutely nothing. >> zach cohen. >> yes, certainly a government shutdown there are two classes of federal employees, one is quote, unquote essential and quote, unquote nonessential. and then there are members of the federal government that are considered not essential that can go on furlough without interruptions to government operations and those folks might include this caller who would then go home and wait on furlough and not get pay until the government reopens with really no grantee that they would get that back pay unless congress decides to do so. and so certainly there are vast implications of a shutdown.

the last time we saw one was 2018 to 2019 right in the middle of the trump administration over border security and we might see a similar shutdown over a similar issue given that border security is included in the stop-gap measure. it's really just a question then once the government shuts down how long it lasts. >> zach cohen, is it a full shutdown, partialal shutdown? >> technically a full government shutdown because none of the appropriations bills have passed and signed into law. and so those agencies continue to operate while others were shut down. and so the 2018-2019 shutdown was the longest in american history -- >> thank you for taking my call. i would like to ask if there's a place where you can get some

clarity on how shutdowns of the government affect regular people like myself because it says that they are talking about the government workers and they are talking about other agencies but as a regular american citizen i do not understand how it affects me and i'm a retiree and i receive social security as well as pension and i don't know how these things affect regular citizens like my daughter has children in school and these things are day-to-day living and we want to know when shutting down the government, what is that threat to us. >> got it. we will have zach cohen respond. >> surely social security checks will two out in a shutdown. schools will stay open because

they are run by states municipalities. federal government provides grants obviously to schools but doesn't run them necessarily. and so those would continue to ooperate. the best way for folks to keep track is as we get closer and closer to a potential shutdown on october 1st, as various government agencies on dotgov would pose as to what a government shutdown would be. some of the determinations haven't been made. office of management and budget, the hr company for the federal government will start making determinations on what exactly would shut down the event in of funding lapse on september 30th. reports, the white house and some lawmakers would like an additional 20 billion for ukraine in any sort of continuing resolution. you mention that the president of ukraine mr. zelenskyy will be coming to washington, talk about that dynamic there, what will he

be doing here in washington and is he likely to make the case and get enough support for funding? >> zelenskyy is arguably the best advocate that ukraine has for security spending in washington. he's popular among democrats and republicans alike. not so much, though, by members of the especially the house republican conference and a couple of senate republicans that are kept school of this aie and, you know, how it's being spent. mitch mcconnell likes to point out that this funding doesn't necessarily go straight to ukraine in the form of bags of cash but also gets to replenish stockpiles that the u.s. already produced and so that means jobs of weapons manufacturer across the country. zelenskyy's job is to thank the united states for aid that has ogiven by invasion by russia of ukraine and ask for more aid at

the critical juncture as it launches this counteroffensive against russian forces. >> zach cohen, he is one of our viewers in a text, he wants to know why members of congress who did not want fund various discretionary government spending do not use the normal processes of congress and simply accept majority rule? >> this is the process of congress for better or for worse. the way it works september 30th comes up, that's the end of the fiscal year and each year congress has toe sign off on appropriations bill, all 12 of them in order to keep the agencies funded and so obviously we have seen lapses in the past land normally such shutdown wod be avoided with something like a stop-gap measure but the real issue here as we have been discussing is that the stop-gap measure contains parts that certainly democrats won't support and it looks like right now not even all of republicans

support. there's been talk about changing the way government is funded over the years, maybe moving to a two-year appropriation cycle so that way these fights don't happen everyry year or every couple of months, you know, once the stop-gap cuts into the fiscal year but there's been really no movement on those sort of long-term reforms that would be needed. >> as this debate plays out, zach cohen, what is happening with the potential motion to vacate the chair for speaker mccarthy? >> the motion to vacate the chair is essentially a move tomo fire mccarthy as speaker during the -- the balloting over the speakership in january folks might remember that there was a deal reached that a motion to vacate could be triggered by just one member of the house. now, itd would still require a majority of the house to actually change leadership of the house but actually forcing a vote which could be politically embarrassing for mccarthy and his team only requires one member and that is one reason

why mccarthy has, you know, bent over backwards to try to please not just the -- the far right of his conference but also more moderate members of his conference that are up for reelection in heavily democratic states and he has wide conference that he needs to keep them on board and just one of them gets upset to the point of wanting to trig they're vote, you could see a repeat of what we saw in january, a week of balloting of the speakership without any work being done in the house. >> what did theei speaker tell s conference members about the potential threat behind closed doors last week there were reports of colorful language that were used? >> that's right, i'm not sure that i'm allowed to repeat on air. a just frustrating couple of months for mccarthy. news is nominated by the internal fashions, the

disagreements worked out behind closed doors but certainly have been much more public than is usual and so he took to a private meeting that's quickly leaked out to my colleagues and others that he was upset with some of the members, bring this motion to the floor if you're going to keep holding it over my head but asre you mentioned much more colorful language in the process and illustrates the heightened tensions in display with the law obviously at stake. >> democratic caller, good morning to you. >> good morning. yes. when the republicans are out of power, they talk a lot about deficit, but when they are out of power, they don't care about the deficit. the jump up the deficit a

trillion dollars. why they don't blame trump for the deficit? >> talking about when they are in power, zach cohen. >> so the house appropriations committee which the equivalent of the senate appropriations committee basically wrote these fullyier funding bills, not the ones debating this week. there's no time to get agreement on those. on funding bills they do cut spending and i think it is indicative especially house are concerned about trajectory but generally republicans, yes, want to try to cut government spending and we are seeing in the stop-gap measure as well which seems toat have the majory of the house republican conferences support. the tricky part, though, as you mentioned in -- in emergency cases like covid pandemic, yes, the deficit was ballooned over

-- under republican relationship. republicans controlled the senate as well as obviously the white house. and so at this time where the economy is not in a recession and the inflation is cooling, it's not surprise to see lever of power to reduce the deficit. >> it was announced in recent days by the speaker that there would be an impeachment inquire question into president biden, how would that play out? >> right now not much has changed on that front. it got a lot of headlines. in actuality the three committees that have been pursuing allegations of crime in the biden family, some of which we are obviously seeing playing out in courts against hunter biden which we can talk a little bit about but the house house judiciary have

been potential nexus by president biden. one is legal. it allows house republicans power in the course to be able to make the case that those subpoenas should be answered as they seek more information about hunter biden and his business and any potential relationship it had with then vice president joe biden or former vice president joe biden. .. .. woman came out and set a ready to support. as the deadline to fund the

government gets closer and closer mccarthy thought this might be an opportunity to create some more support for a funding bill. at least in the short term but certainly that's going to be more complicated than initially expected. ohio independent. >> good morning. i just want to say i am a retired federal employee. i was always brought in as essential because i worked the national security area. thi have been through at least a dozen of these periods and i just want to say i have never t seen and all the times i was working in all of the other federal employees had vacations congress always voted to reimburse them for staying at home it really used to upset us

we were working twice as hard because a lot of the people did not have to come in. those of us that did have to come in had to take up the slack for all of the people who were nott there. >> zach at cohen? >> guest: there two classes of federal employees reportla from two of them so far today. i should thank them for their service in certainly there are members when they are furloughed if that got the savings to go on vacation as a color mention that's within their right. but theree are other families o rely on that pay to come in. they are a single income householdus certainly then reimbursing for the time or they would have been working. but were not getting that pay that something congress has done on a fairly regular basis but you are right it does create a two class system we've got some

members -- maxim federal plays continue to work while others are on furlough which can create economic hardship for those not getting that pay. >> also happening this week on capitol hill the attorney general merrick garland will be testifying. where will he be testifying? and what will he be asked from of thelawmakers? looks at the house judiciary committee i saw him in the senate last week it's possible he was there as well but i have not exactly been following that. republicans have been bringing attorney general garland before them on a whole host of issues. the justice department has a very wide ranging portfolio. surly members of congress are interested on a very regular basis. >> it is related to these negotiations of a potential government shut out aesop marjorie taylor green heart referring to the weaponization of the justice department. they do not want to include funding for the justice

department. >> that isun right. there is some language on the house republican spending bill that would cutul funding for things like these investigations into the trump business and as he faces multiple federal indictments. and house republicans where the first things they did when they took power earlier this year was quite a subcommittee on weaponization of the federal government of a subcommittee of the house judiciary committee which is led by congressman jim jordan of ohio for. >> attorney j general will be before the house judiciary committee this week on wednesday 10:00 a.m. eastern time is when you will hear his testimony. you could watch it on c-span three, on c-span now are free video mobile app and on our website c-span.org. zach cohen hears eddie from tucson, arizona mccarthy knows his impeachment inquiry is doomed will hurt him politically but not doing so will cause him

even more pain from the right flank. your thoughts? >> this is the struggle i think mccarthy has had over the last couple of months. we have it he has two competing parts he needs to contend with. there are members of the more moderate wing the folks that are in the more dozen districts that were elected as republicans and house districts that also voted for president joe biden in 2020 and will need to continue the bipartisan outreach. we hear all the time from those folks they are not ready to move forward with an impeachment for they have not seen the evidence or any evidence of biden doing anything that would be tantamount to a high crime or misdemeanor that be worthy of impeachment or even an impeachment inquiry. there are those who voted provided would like to see him reelected in 2024. side you've got members and much more republican districts who are really only concerned with winning a primary

when the general election is a foregone conclusion. so it mccarthy has had to straddleis these two issues fora long time. think the reason why the house is not voting to start official impeachment inquiry as mccarthy himself requested during the impeachment of former president donald trump is there simply are not the votes there to start one. he is taking this initial step to ramp up the probe of the biden family without putting any of its members on notice or on the recordre in a way that would hurt them politically. >> allots a file this weekend congress but you can do so by following zach: on x at zachary underscore cohen. at d guv.com as well. the website and also x is their handle. zachary: thank you very much for the conversation. >> her thing. ♪ c-span is your unfiltered view of government.

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