book tv newsletter sent weekly is upcoming authors and book festivals. and american history tv news letter givler gives you this. visit c-span.org/connect and sign up today. >> as we wait for the top of the hour, and that live coverage of the ninth circuit court of appeals live argument, we'll bring you a portion of this morning's live journal. >> served under the obama administration from 2014 to 2017 and joins us live. good morning. >> good morning to you. >> what brings you to washington d.c.? >> today i'm here to deliver remarks at the cap ideas conference, talking about exclusive politics going forward. looks like a great program. so i'm excited to do it. >> you delivered several remarks

over the last few months. and one of the headlines from "washington post" was talk about a presidential run or at least a possible presidential run. is that in your future? >> you know, i've been fairly straightforward about t i said i'm going to work on helping other candidates who are running in 2018. obviously we have an election in november that is the most important thing. to that end, i launched an effort called opportunity first to help young progressive democrats get elected in the 24 congressional districts that we need to win back the house and build a bench for the future. but after november and before the entd of the year, i'm going to make a decision about my own future. so haven't made a decision yet but i'm going to do that before the end of the year. >> what compelled you to at least think about it? >> what we can see in washington d.c. is it a vacuum of leadership. this president is taking the country in the wrong direction. and i have always had a positive vision for the future of my

community and of the country. and that's why i'm thinking about it. >> so what elements contribute to that positive vision? what would you like to see come out of that. >> i think the goal of the united states in the 21st century is to be the splart es, the strongest, and ts safe es nation on earth, and that today more than at any other time in human history, all of those things run together. we are living in a world in which brain power is the new currency of success. we get stronger as a country the smarter we get, the more we invest, and the skills and ability of our people. we get stronger and safer the more that we exercise our soft power and not necessarily our military power. so all of those things go together these days. and i don't see an administration right now that is moving the united states ahead

in the 21st century the way that it needs to. i think it's making us less safe. i believe that it's doing a great injustice to the potential of so many people in this country. and i'm very blessed to have lived my own american dream, and i got involved in public service because i wanted to make sure that other people could also reach their dreams. and so i'm going to think about it and make a decision before the end of the year. >> our guest will be here to talk about this and other issues until 9:00. if you want to ask him questions, 202-784 for democrats, and 8001 for republicans, and 8002 for independents. you can tweet us questions. one more question. looking at potentially a possible run, what did you learn from the 2016 election? and what to do or whatnot to do if you are considering a run yourself? >> i think that's been, i think that's been andalized so many

times. but hillary clinton got 2.8 million more votes than president trump however he got more electoral votes. so more work they need to do in 2018 and 2020. i believe that whatever happens in 2020 in terms of who runs, i believe that the democratic nominee is going to be somebody who has a vision to unite the country instead of dividing it. who is focused on opportunity for everybody instead of as president trump is, picking and choosing who gets opportunity and who doesn't. somebody that it has a vision for the future instead of trying to take us backward the way that this administration is. and someone also that tt american people feel like they can trust. someone who fundamentally has integrity. all you need to do is go on the internet or turn on cable news on daily basis to see that this is the most corrupt administration that we have had in this country in a very long

time. and i don't think that fundamentally the american people support that. >> when it comes to campaigning itself, do you see this picture of trying to get out a message versus being described as negative or critical or overly critical in sending that message out particularly if it deals with this administration? >> you have to do both of those things. i this i in 2018 they'll be two messages that the democrats should put forward. number one, how are we going to create opportunity for everybody. what stt vision for the future. and then secondly, accountability. i think no matter whether you are independent or democrat or republican, you can see it's not a good idea to have the same party in charge of washington d.c. and not holding this administration accountable. the only way that you are going to get any kind of accountability in washington is to put some sort of balance into this system. and that's why i think the democrats are at least going to take back the house in november. >> all right.

our guest served as mayor of san antonio, also secretary and housing and urban develop. from sitting in that position at hud, would you would you gauge the current holder of that position, ben carson, and particularly policies dealing with house sng. >> i'm sure secretary carson is trying his best. however, that department and this administration are going incompletely the wrong direction when it comes to lou'sing policy. number one, it hasn't been a priority. they originally proposed cutting the budget by $6 billion of hud. most recently they announced that they are going to raise the rents in some cases triple the rents of folks who live in public housing at a time when a lot of folks are struggling. it's the wrong thing to do. they also have had essentially scrapped a plan to help to further desegregate communities throughout the united states h something that was a signature

accomplishment of the obama administration. and i believe would create more opportunity for people of all different backgrounds. so they are going in the wrong direction. instead of creating greater housing opportunity. they are limiting housing opportunity. and that means that it's going to fall more to governors and to mayor's out there to be innovative to invest resources to get creative and work together to boost housing in the community. >> secretary carson says you stay immeshed in those programs. does he have a point? >> it's interesting. i get the idea. i get the argument. you don't want folks to be living in public housing forever. however, there is data to back up how long folks generally live in public housing. and that's five to seven years. so yes sometimes you have folks that are multi generation of housing but however that is not the norm. i would also say i have never

believed that just because somebody is poor, that they don't want to work. in fact, 43% of the households that have working age individuals that are hud assisted, people are working. so it's a misnomer. it's in corre it's incorrect to suggest that a lot of people getting hud assistance are not working. they are not lazy. and a lot of the ones who do not have work, they are ged program, they are pursuing some kind of higher education so they can get gainful employment. we should be done in this country scapegoating people just because they are poor, making that kind of assumption about them. i don't buy that. >> we have calls lined up for you. our first one is from clark county nevada. darlene, question for our guest castro. go ahead. >> caller: good morning, mr. castro. are you, sir? >> i'm doing well. thanks for calling.

>> caller: such a deal. i'm envious. i'm having a lot of problems. you are familiar with such cfr? >> you'll have to refresh me what the sections are. >> 24 cfr is that really cool little rule that was started according according to wikipedia under hud. and what it is is demanding all residents who live in public housing that, like me, are physically disabled, unfortunately i have a multitude of chronic conditions that we are now required, i'm also not permitted to smoke due to disability and the medications this i'm on require 25 feet from the house. do you know what las vegas summers are like?

>> yes. thank you for the question. so this is actually something i'm very proud of. during the last year of the administration, something that we did was to implement a smoke-free housing rule in public housing, and we did that because across the country over the years we heard complaints, especially from senior citizens who were dealing with health issues, with illnesses that were exacerbated because folks were smoking right around them, and it was making their health worse. there were at the time about 612 different housing authorities that had already gone smoke-free or were on their way to doing it, and you know what surprised me about that process was that we didn't get more pushback. i was surprised because when i was mayor of san antonio we had gone through the process of implementing smoke-free restaurants and bars and so

forth, and back then we got a lot of pushback, but it seemed like the folks living in public housing were ready for this, and after we did it, we got a lot of folks that said how happy they were now that they didn't have to inhale all of the smoke right in their home because they couldn't get away from t.at the same time they also made some reasonable accommodations for folks who were addicted for housing authorities to work with them. some of the housing authorities, for instance, set up particular areas of their housing complexes where folks could go if they needed to to smoke because we didn't expect that somebody literally from day one to day two is going to all of a sudden magically quit smoking. we knew that that wasn't going to happen, so we also engaged folks to work on smoking cessation for people that wanted to quit. the idea being that you could help ease folks into quitting if that's what they wanted to do.

if not, they could not smoke in their unit, in their home anymore, but there was a place away from where everybody was living where they could. >> this is from newark, new jersey, john, independent line. >> caller: hey, mr. castro. >> hello. >> caller: how are you today? >> i'm doing well. i'm doing well. >> caller: well, i'm an 82-year-old black korean veteran. i've been through presidents from theodore roosevelt until donald trump. when barack obama got into office, the black community was very happy that he got there, and they were looking for things for him to do for the

african-americans. however, a lot of african-americans don't feel that obama showed up to them, that he was business as usual. my question to you is how do you feel about african-americans, and what will you do for them other than just take their vote for granted? the republicans don't take their vote for granted because of the fact that they know that african-americans are not going to vote for them. but democrats take advantage of the african-american vote. they don't even show up in their neighborhoods, in their counties or anything, so what are you going to do about this if you become president? >> john, thank you. well, number one, you know, i never believed and still don't believe that president obama took the african-american community for granted. let me just give you an example,

for instance, from the work that we did at hud and really the push that came from the white house to make sure that several cabinet agencies worked on this which was to do our part with regard to criminal justice reform and specifically giving folks an effective second chance after they had been incarcerated. as you know, and the history of this country and even today, african-american men are disproportionately tied up in our criminal justice system, disproportionately incars rated, and once they have done their time and they try and get out and get a job and get on with their lives and be productive the way that they want to. one of the first things that happens is they try and go out and look for a job or they try and get housing, and oftentimes they are x'd out of that even though they have served their time. the obama administration pushed very hard and made real gains to get communities across the

united states to bang the box so that employers would actually consider the merits, the acts of somebody who had been incarcerated. at hud we worked with housing authorities to say that just because somebody has a criminal record doesn't automatically mean that they should be x'd out from being able to live in public housing or get hud assistance, and so that's just one example of a concrete way that the president and that his administration was focused on the needs of all americans because, of course, people of all different backgrounds have been incarcerated and deal with those issues but also disproportionately impacts the african-american community, and we made meaningful progress on that, and i believe that this administration, the trump administration, is going directly in the other way, whether it's with regard to access to housing or jobs or any

number of other things. >> from maryland, democrats line. andy, hi. >> caller: hi. good morning, secretary castro. >> good morning. >> caller: president trumpch pulls out of the transpacific partnership, and during the 2016 campaign he was very against free trade deals. senator sanders was very against free trade deals. i was a big supporter of the tpp, and i think one of the biggest mistakes that hillary clinton made was that she was not -- there was no one out there really talking about the benefits of flow trade deals. she sort of demured away from that position. i was wondering what your position is on these type of trade dealings. >> thanks for asking that it. i can understand the frustration with a lot of these trade doles in the sense that folks believe out there that many of these trade deals have been -- have been agreed to or entered into

with the concern of the big corporations first instead of the american worker and employee first, and i believe that it makes sense to renegotiate agreements like nafta. i believe that it makes sense to strengthen the labor and environmental protections on the other side when we get into these trade agreements and also to ensure that there's a greater enforcement capability in these agreements. i disagree with folks who think that -- that we should just completely scrap our trade agreements. i think that they do have a place. my hope is that they can be strengthened. it's been interesting to see donald trump now backpedal and talk about perhaps a tpp-like agreement. what's happening right now is that children is about to eat our lunch, whether it's with

agreements with other asian countries or with latin america. the united states needs to make sure that it both benefits its employees, its workers first but that also it maintains its dominant position in the world when it comes to trade. we absolutely cannot leave our dominant position in the world, and that's what's happening under donald trump. >> two things related to that. the president sending out a tweet when it comes to trade with china saying this. the trade negotiations are continuing with china. they have been making hundreds of billions of dollars a year from the u.s. for many years. stay tuned, and then the papers highlighting the special position of the president concerning telecom giant zte. put that into perspective. >> donald trump is operating under this idea that he can say whatever he wants as long as he seems straightforward about what he's saying, and what he's doing is that he's counting on your skepticism about politicians, that you believe they are never

going to tell you the truth, they will never be straightforward with you but here's the thing. what good does it do if somebody is straightforward one day and seems straightforward the next day and says completely something different? yesterday his tweet about zte was about the need to create more jobs in china. i thought our concern was supposed to be creating more jobs in the united states. that's a complete reversal, and it might have something to do, as some folks have suggested, the fact that he may be personally benefiting. there's some write-up on this, maybe personally ben figure or one of his companies from potential investment that the chinese are making, i don't know, but that's quite a reversal and quite a different way to look at trade. i think what we need to do is that we need to take the longer view. we need to understand, number one, that, yes, we should put our american workers first, but

secondly that there is mutual benefit to be gained by ensuring that the united states does robust trade around the world, and when and if we enter into agreements -- >> we're going to take you live now to the ninth circuit court of appeals for oral argument in regents of the university of california v. department of homeland security, a case concerning president trump's decision to end the daca program. live coverage now here on c-span. >> yes, your honor. michael mongen from the state of california. we'll be dividing our minutes, 14 minutes for the state, 8 minutes for the regents and 8 minutes for the individual plaintiffs. mr. davidson will be arguing for the regents and mr. rosenbaum for the individual plaintiffs. >> 14, 8 and 8. all right. you may proceed.