hearing with nancy pelosi who is holding a weekly briefly, and we will join it. it start ad couple of moments ago.

it appears that we have technical issues fix and so we will go live to capitol hill to hear from the house minority leader nancy pelosi with the weekly briefing. >> that purerjury is a crime. there are consequences to it. it are remains to be seen what the investigation and what else the investigation will lead to. but perjury by an ordinary citizen is punishable in the courts. how much enhanced is that accountability for the top the law enforcement person in our country. so, let's see an investigation. i don't know what the problem the republicans have with the

truth? they don't want to know the truth about the russian connection. they don't want to tell the truth about their affordable care act bill they have hidden in a basement some place, and reject the idea that we will remove it from congress, and have an independent commission outside of the congress connect ed to the russian connections which are about hacking and undermining the democratic system, and we should have that even if hillary clinton had won the white house. so from what you said and i did not see the statement, but he was stating fact, and investigation will take to us the next place, but an investigation of those charges, of those actions is definitely warranted. definitely warranted. i remind you that this congress impeached a president for something so far less having nothing to do with his duties as president of the united states.

yes, ma'am? >> why is it important that you see the cbo scores and have you gotten any understanding why they are not ready yet? >> i don't know if they are not ready yet or just secret, we don't know. but we have not been able to proceed of legislation of this magnitude without seeing the congressional budget office score and thep republicans have been a very much a part of and we have both been insisting on that to know what we are doing, and the impact of the budget and especially if they are doing this under reconciliation, and the impact on the budget is essential to go forward, and in terms of what they did outside reconciliation, it is still essential that we know what we are doing. >> and what kind of score do you want to see and what do you expect? >> i want to to see -- well, i don't even want to see what they are doing, because what they are doing is to are reducing benefits, are reducing access and costing more from what we have seen. again, what it is in a basement

someplace, and maybe the second act of houdini, it will free itself somehow, but you know that they have conflict within the caucus about it. so you are asking for the regular orderer and we have to know what it will cost, and we have always said that our goals as we said earlier that the goals have been to increase coverage and lower cost and improve benefits and expand the access. if they have a bill that does that, we are happy to talk about it. but i doubt it from what we have seen so far, but they have tremendous unease in their own caucus about it. yes, sir? >> what can the american public expect of the house intelligence committee looking into the connection to russia during the campaign, and is it adequate? >> well, yesterday, i don't know, has it been release ed d the press? well, it was released to the press that there were a proposal of scope for what the look into

the russian involvement in our election. that is a step forward. it is not giant step forward, but it is a step forward and in a bipartisan way that the chairman and the ranking member have signed this letter of -- is that whole thing in the public domain now? that is the agreement, okay, but the agreement goes into different categories who they would call in, and that is something. i would hope though that in the scope document that they have that it means that they would follow any trail, that they don't shut it down, because it was not listed in that primary document. i'm not impressed quite frankly, and i believe it is progress that should not have taken this long. both the house and senate committees should, but it takes time. you want to see the documents and i respect that.

i am an intelligence person myself and you want to see the documents and take the time, but we want to know that there is a path, and not just an avoidance of it by killing the time instead of using time. but we will see. but as i have said, the while it is important for the house and senate intelligence committees to investigate this, what we also have to do is to have an outside independent bipartisan commission to look into broader than what i have just said the impact of the russians on the election, but the personal, financial and political conk in shun between the trump organization and the russians. yes, ma'am? >> what does it say to you that many republicans, and some are calling for the senator session s to are recuse himself, but are stopping short of calling for a special prosecutor? >> well, in all of this, a all roads are leading to the republicans in the congress.

what are they afraid of? they have been after raid of the truth every step of the way. they don't want to see the president's tax returns when every president since gerald ford and every president in modern times have released the tax returns and candidates have released their tax returns. so what is it? that is a key indicator of their interest in the truth. so the question is to them, what are they afraid of in the tax return, and what are they afraid of in the investigation of the russian involvement to undermine our democracy to repeat that in other countries to combat it and come back here to do it again? what does it say about them that the chief law enforcement officer, the top cop in the country lied to his colleagues in the senate and to the american people, a prn who himself knows about prosecution and knows about the law and knows about perjury and its penalties. so what is it about the republicans that they want to

hide the truth from the american people? i call it stonewalling. i call it stonewalling. and you have to ask them though why they are stonewalling and what they are afraid of. yes, sir. >> and the trump administration this week called for big budget cuts of almost 25% of the epa and what if anything can the democrats particularly in the house do to push back against those cuts? >> everything is about the public. how many times have you heard me say public sentiment is everything. abraham lincoln, and the public has the know what they are doing to our future. we all agree that we want to have the military that we need to protect the american people. we take an oath to protect and defend the constitution, and the american people. but our strength is not only measured in the military might, it is measured in the health, education and well-being of the american people. as a people, because not only our inventors and the family,

and the people who grow family and community and build our country, but they are also our soldier, and so, we see again a budget that is supposed to be a statement of values. and what the president is doing is quite outrageous. he is throwing out the window, years of compromise in terms of parity, and similar amount for defense as for the domestic, and at the same time, it is important to note that the defense is defense, and domestic is also veterans, homeland security, and the state department, and all that is involved in our security and soft power as well as weapon sales and the rest of that are in the doe mmestic side of the budget. so hon moring the camp david commitments and that the all on the budget side. and so saying that he is going to be making the cuts if he in fact increases the defense this

way, what is the mission? what is the mission? tell us your security mission that would justify this? what is this? more contracts for contractors? more -- what is it? what is this money for, a. b, how can you possibly take that much money out of the domestic side and so then they say, well, we are not going to be -- we will hold the veterans and homeland security and we won't cut that. well, if you are holding them harmless, then you have less to unvest in education, are research and development, and 100,000 kids kicked awe of the head start and 3.5 bi$3.5 billi from the national institutes of health, and that is probably 1,000 grants to scientific research that we won't be able to do for example if they did it 10% cut across the board. the list goes on. it is tragic. really. and again, budget is supposed to be a statement of the values and

how we honor the responsibilities of the people to protect them, and to be number one in the world in terms of the economic growth, and president also said that when he was saying this, that he was promising clean air and clean a water, and he is going to can cut the epa and does he not know the connection of protections that are in it in environmental protection agency and the air our children breathe and the water they drink and the safety of the food they eat. and the protection of their neighborhoods. what is he going to do to the justice function and the law enforcement function in the budget, because all of it is going to be subjected to cuts according to what he has putting forth. we haven't seen a budget. we have seen -- what are they called the outline, blueprint. minnie mouse, mini me budget. there is no there-there yet. and so what we have seen so far

is scary. very scary, and in every respect, whether it is protecting the security and not pa pandering to vital not, and flirting with with not lifting the sanctions on russia for their aggression in eastern europe and not looking at the treatise on nonproliferation are and the rest, what do the russians have on him? and then to turn around and say, our strategic opponent here is russia, and i'm going to undermine our intelligence collection on russia, because of what? we just don't know. we don't know a vision. we don't know a judgment about what works or any of the knowledge associated with it. and we don't know a strategic plan, and all we know is a sales job. and so we have to make sure that we make those distinctions, but

we will have that time, because during the appropriations season. i'm an appropriations and intelligence person and the appropriators always try to come together in a bipartisan way to get the job dope for the american people, but, et it remains to be seen what the republicans will do to those decisions, and if the allocations of resources to certain subcommittees that deal with health, education, jobs and our justice system, and the transportation, housing, reser research and development and energy and science -- it remains to be seen where we will be making the fights and take them to the public inspired by abraham lincoln. public sentiment is everything. that is the public has to be vigilant, and very, very vigilant and more vigilant than ever. thank you all very much.

>> thank you.

live on c-span3, we recovering the hearing on capitol hill today on transparency at the tsa, and the hearing by the house oversight committee is now in a break. which we expect to end fairly