this morning to explain russia's relationship with the united states and how it got to the point it is today. >> from boston now we're joined by former u.s. ambassador to russia, michael mcfall, he's currently professor of political science at stanford university, author of the new book "from cold war to hot peace, an american ambassador in putin's russia." we appreciate you joining this morning. how should a u.s. ambassador define success in their efforts to represent the united states overseas? >> well, it depends on what era you're in. if you are there at the end of the soviet union, the collapse of the soviet union when ambassador matlock was there it's much easier because momentum is in your favor between the united states and the soviet union and it's all a very cooperative time. when you are there when i was there at a period of increased confrontation between the united states and russia, when vladimir putin came back as president,

you're mostly playing defense. you're mostly trying to take the edge off of a lot of bad things that happened. so context matters a lot and one should never overestimate the role of a role of a u.s. ambass much bigger factors are at play than what one individual can do at any one time. >> in the end, would you say you were successful as u.s. ambassador to russia? >> of course. how could i answer otherwise? well, for me, i was a rather unique ambassador. let me underscore, i was a political appointee, i'm not a career diplomat. i worked three years at the white house for president obama. he asked me to go out and do this. i do think we accomplished some important things. we reduced, for instance, the time it took to get a visa to below 30 days. it's creeped up to around 300 days now. and i think biggest thing i did that was unique was, i engaged with russian society in a very

aggressive way. i was told to by my new boss at the time, secretary clinton. and right before i went out, she said look, your job is to engage with the russian government, work with them on issues of bilateral interests, so we did that. and most of those were difficult issues, like syria. that was a big issue that i dealt with. the iran nuclear deal. that was another issue i dealt with. a success i might add. put that in the success column. but she also said engage with all aspects of russian society to explain to them what our policy was, so what the obama administration's foreign policy was. but also what america is. because at the time that i was ambassador, there was a lot of misconcessikoconceptions about america is and a lot of miscorn sep -- misconceptions what we were doing in the world. i speak russian, i lived in

russia many times before i became ambassador. i was one of the first ambassadors to be on twitter. i engaged on all kinds of different media, traveled a lot. and by the end of my time there, i think i did touch a lot more russians than your average ambassador would do. >> the book title "from cold war to hot peace, an american ambassador in putin's russia." you right, the hot peace tragically but necessarily seems here to stay. so define a hot peace, and why do you see it as here to stay when it comes to the u.s. and russia. >> yeah, i deliberately used this phrase "hot peace" to echo the cold war but not say it's world war 2.0 like a lot of analysts are doing today. it's not the world war. there are some things that are similar. there are other things that are different. for instance, we no longer have a quantitative nuclear arms race like we did during the cold war,

but we have a qualitative nuclear arms race, which i think is more dangerous. we no long very an idealogical struggle between communism and capitalism, and that's a good thing from my point of view. but we do have an idealogical battle or idealogical struggle between putinism and western liberal democracy. and most certainly putin believes he has that. he thinks he's the leader of the conservative, christian, orthodox world against the decadent liberal west. and he's investing many, many resources, i would say billions of resources to help propagate those ideas around the world. and then even some things i think are more dangerous in the hot peace than the cold war. in the last decades of the cold war, for most of the cold war, there was never annexation of territory. that ended with world war ii.

it's back in the hot peace. vladamir putin in 2014 annaeed part of ukraine and crimea. i think it's going to get a lot more dangerous. and sanctions. throughout the entire cold war, the united states never put major political figures or economic figures in the soviet union on the sanctions list. that's happening today in the hot peace. >> putin is in the title of your book, he's a character that overhangs a lot of what you talk about in your book. when did you first meet vladamir putin and what was your first impression of him? >> i met him a long time ago. i met him in the spring of 1991. at the time, he was deputy mayor in st. petersburg, leningrad at the time. he worked for a democratic reformist. i was there with an american non-governmental organization

called the national democratic institute. and we were there to help them educate them about how, in a democratic society, city counsels ratify and approve a city budget. pretty boring stuff. i don't have a strong impression of him. i would have never, in a million years, have said after that meeting, that he was going to be a president of russia. he did not have that kind of charismatic personality. and we did debate, there was already rumors back then that he had worked for the kgb. and i remember us debating, has he changed his views, and now is working for this democratic reformer, or is he there to spy and watch what he was doing? at the time, it wasn't clear. i think in retrospect, it was probably a bit of both. >> why are you banned from russia? >> well, after russia annexed territory in ukraine and

supported separatists in eastern ukraine, the obama administration put on a series of sanctions against russian individuals and some russian business people, so they responded. and they put some american officials and americans -- non-officials like myself, because i was already a professor at stanford. so that's why i'm on the sanctions list. the last ambassador, by the way, to be on that sanctions list was a man by the name of george kennen, so i'm in good company, but it's tragic company, because for most of my adult life, i've been going back and forth to the soviet union and russia. i've lived there many times. i used to do research there. so it was important for me to go there. and now i've been out of the country for four years. that's the longest i've been outside of russia since 1983. >> former u.s. ambassador to

russia michael mcfaul with us. getting your calls and comments. ambassador mcfaul joining us from boston this morning. >> glenn is in lancaster, california. glenn, go ahead. >> caller: good morning. i would like to talk about the last administration, which you worked for, pretty much a tyrannical government. in russia, you guys worked -- you got -- you worked with loretta lynch to get a special -- a special visa for the russian lawyer to help try and subvert an american election. to go against the american people. you're being real flexible after the election, correct?

you worked with the russians for years through probably the clinton foundation to help set up that thing of there in russia where you guys could make money over there, and do all kinds of different things, give our secrets away, our internet secrets, all this and spy on americans. >> got your point, glenn. let's give the ambassador a chance to correspondent. >> yeah, i think glenn's referring to the lawyer that met with the trump campaign officials in june during the campaign. i don't know how she got a visa. most certainly that would not happen at my level. but that's a good question. we should know how she got a visa. but let's be very clear, nobody set up those gentlemen to meet with her. they received an e-mail from one of their intermediaries saying that she had some very interesting information on

secretary clinton. and they said, donald trump, jr., said that's fantastic, let's meet. nobody forced them to meet with that russian delegation. they all thought they were getting some very important information to help them win their election. and most certainly president trump -- president putin wanted candidate trump to win, for very rational reasons by the way. because candidate trump said things during the election, he hasn't delivered on them, by the way. he said things that were of interest to vladamir putin. he said, for instance, he would lift sanctions. he said he would look into recognizing crimea as part of russia. he was very tough on nato, music to putin's ears. and he never spoke about democracy or human rights during the campaign. whereas secretary clinton said the exact opposite on all those fronts. so i think it was rational for

president putin to want to see president trump win. but then he went much further and took many measures, i would call it a comprehensive strategy to help candidate trump win. whether it mattered or not in the margins, i don't know. but the intention there, i think, was clear. as to the question were we giving secrets to the russians? of course that's categorically false. no american, democrat or republican, who works for the united states of america, would ever do that. that's called treason. that's called -- those are just things that neither the obama administration did, and i have full confidence that the trump administration is not doing that with russia today as well. >> before we leave glenn's call, he made reference to the more flexibility comments by president obama to medvedev in 2012. can you just put that statement in context and explain what they

were talking about and why the president would say that? >> yeah, i was there. it was a meeting in seoul, south korea. and at the end of it, they had a one on one, and at time, the russians wanted us to cooperate on missile defense cooperation. they wanted to work together with us on missile defense. and the president said, i can't -- i don't want to engage on this until after my election. and then that was supposed to be a private conversation, by the way. it got picked up by a microphone. interestingly, there were two things that they talked about in that private conversation. the other one was him telling medvedev to stop messing around with me personally. at the time, they were attacking me with a lot of disinformation, fake news, things that americans have heard about now, i was the target of that. they were accusing me at the

time of trying to overthrow the putin regime, and they were saying some very nasty things about me. a one-time video circulated suggesting that i was a pedophile. so the president was pushing back saying stop being so belligerent and saying these false things about my ambassador. unfortunately for president obama, that comment didn't get picked up, the other one did. >> what's the russian television series "sleepers" about? >> well, i confess i haven't watched it. i've seen snippets of it. it's kind of an echo of our television show "the americans," if you've ever watched that. by the way, i helped give birth to that program, because i was part of the team that did the spy swap back in 2010, when we gathered up all of these sleeper cells as we called them, of russians that were living in

america undercover, pretending to be americans. they weren't spying, they were getting ready to spy. they were penetrating our society, and the idea was, later in their careers, they would begin to report back home. and so the sleepers is a kind of play of that. but inside russia. and the american ambassador, by the way, looks like me, has blonde hair. i'm told is pretty blunt that they want to echo that was mcfaul, because that was the role they assigned to me when i was the u.s. ambassador, somebody inside the country trying to run spies and give money to the opposition to overthrow the regime. >> bob is in massachusetts. line for independents. go ahead. >> caller: good morning, mr. mcfaul. i guess my question for you would be, you worked for one of the worst administrations we

ever had, ever. i heard somebody on this show the other day saying that mr. trump is the worst president we've ever had. how could that be? your president was in there for eight years, and accomplished no thing. not a thing. he destroyed all of our relations with everybody. i mean, come on. he created isis. it was his problem. he made them happen. he pulled out our soldiers and then isis happened. i mean, even with the iraq war, everybody was they didn't have weapons of mass destruction. democrats held up any kind of inspection for the guy for more than a year. he had plenty of time to dump all that stuff into syria. >> so bob, what's the question? >> yeah, what's the question? >> caller: you worked for -- >> calling on the independent line, that's interesting. >> caller: your next person was not a very good person either. and you make it sound like you guys accomplished something. you really didn't accomplish anything. you didn't help the people over

there in crimea when they got attacked. >> got your point, bob. ambassador mcfaul? >> that's the independent line, huh? bob, we disagree. i radically disagree with the idea that president obama was the worst president ever. if we had more time, we could go through, i think, some great things that we did on the domestic side, including health care reform without which we would be in a much worse place. including takes us out of the brink of disaster. remember, when we came into the white house, we were in an economic recession, deeper than any time since the depression in the 1930s. and it was president obama and his economic team that took us out of that, and handed to the next president the incredible economic growth we have today. but on foreign policy, let me remind you of a few facts. didn't accomplish anything? in 2010, we signed a treaty with the russians reducing by 30% the

number of nuclear weapons allowed in the united states and russia. that's something, that's what i did in 2010 with the president. we put in place the most comprehensive sanctions against iran ever, democrat or republican. it's called u.n. security council resolution 1929. look it up. and that then created what i think is a great deal for preventing iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. we expanded supply routes to afghanistan, which then reduced our dependencies on pakistan and allowed us to kill osama bin laden. we did that. president bush did do that, we did that. and with respect to isis, i'm sorry, you're just wrong about that. isis was created once the war in iraq started. we didn't start that war. president bush started that war. and when isis came roaring back, it was president obama that started operation inherent resolve. google that.

look it up. know that it started in 2014, not under president trump. president trump, to his credit, and you're going to see, i'm going to be able to say to his credit when i talk about donald trump from time to time, expanded and continued operation inherent resolven't but it was started under president obama. he led that war against isis, and we basically have now defeated isis in iraq and syria, as a result of that decision. >> can you explain the rational behind the russian reset? >> yeah. it was a very simple idea. it was my idea, so -- it was a team process, though, it wasn't just me. the idea was very simple, that with respect to russia, we're not going to have any concessions. this language of concessions is not really -- doesn't happen in diplomacy. we're not going to check our values at the door in dealing with the russians.

we're most certainly not going to give them our secrets. we never did that. but we are going to look for ways to cooperate with them when it serves american interest. america first, i'm sorry, that's not a trump idea. every president of the united states, democrat or republican, always puts american interests first. and so did president obama. as a result of that idea, we achieved a bunch of those things i just talked about, where we believed it was good for the united states, and we reasoned that president medvedev, he was the president at the time, would not agree to new sanctions on iran or expansion of the northern distribution network if he didn't think those were things that were in russia's interest, as well. so that was the concept, pure and simple. it ended when putin came back as president. and he was not interested in looking for win-win outcomes

with the united states. he sees the world more in zero sum terms, whereas medvedev thought of them more in win-win terms. you know, in diplomacy, it takes two to tango. you can't instruct another country to cooperate with you. so tragically in my view, the reset ended in 2012. >> rick is in leesburg, virginia, a democrat. good morning. >> caller: yes. ambassador, it's a great honor for me to be able to talk to you. i'm wondering, do you feel that the russian intelligencia don't exist anymore as a critical mass in russia, that it's fragmented and disjointed, and that would be after the last 100 years of

trauma that russia has experienced? and maybe as a result, russia is not nearly as interesting to study anymore, and that most of the russian immigrants that have come to the united states have been americanized. and become americans. something that's gone out of the joy of studying russia. >> yeah, it's an interesting question. i do think you're right that the traditional notion of the russian intelligencia that you're talking about was decimated during the soviet years, and was much harder to be an intellectual and to do those things in the soviet years, because so many things were not allowed in the artis and literature because of communism. there has been a bit of a renaissance over the last, you know, 20 years. and so there's been a rebirth of literature. there's been a rebirth of theater. and there's been some creative things happen musically.

but i don't think it's the same as it was before. i think you're right about that. and to your point, a lot of what they call now the creative class, many of them have emigrated to find new opportunities. in fact, where i live in the silicon valley, we estimate that there's as many as 50,000 russians that have come to the silicon valley because their intellectual talents, and remember, this is a country that has tremendous intellectual capacity, especially in math and sciences. and the soviet union preserved that part of it, by the way. but it's hard to do your startups in putin's russia. so they have emigrated, and tragically for russia, there has been a big brain drain. i think that has big negative consequences for the future of that country moving forward. >> berkeley springs, west virginia. carl, republican, go ahead. >> caller: good morning. sir, what do you know about the

sell of 20% of our uranium to russia? as you know, there is a kickback. bill clinton went to russia when it was being discussed and they paid him $750,000 for a 30-minute speech. and then in return, this russian oligarch -- >> pretty good fee, yeah. >> caller: -- kicked back $140 million to the clinton foundation. why would we be selling 20% of our uranium to russia? >> ambassador mcfaul? >> yeah. so i was in the government when that decision was made. i was not part of it. but it's a process through an interagency organization. seven different officials view it. different parts of the government, excuse me. it's at the assistant secretary

level. there's no way that secretary clinton would have been involved in that decision. it's just not a decision that goes up to the secretary. i was involved many times on these issues, because i dealt with russia. i was at the national security council when that decision was made. and there's no way -- i've been involved in other -- not this one, but others i know well -- that the people that make that decision have american national security interests at the top of their mind. and these are proud patriots, people, i want to emphasize, most of the people that work in the u.s. government are not democrats and republicans. they're just americans that serve democrats and republicans for over the course of their 30-year career. what they work for the cia or whether they work for the department of defense. those are the people that made that decision. and i have no doubt that american national security interests were not compromised. and if they were, i ask you a very simple question -- if it was such a bad decision, why

hasn't the trump administration reversed it? they've been there now for a year and a half, my friends. if it was so bad and so awful, why haven't they put the kibosh on it? it has nothing to do with american national security. now, to your point about mr. clinton, president clinton. those are hefty fees. those are great speaking fees. i wish somebody would pay me that much to give talks like that. but that was with a private bank in russia, and this connecting dots that aren't there, because he spoke for an investment bank in russia, that deal was done. that's a conspiracy that i just wish we would put to bed. it's just not true. >> just after 8:00 on the east coast, talking with michael mcfaul, the former u.s. ambassador to russia. currently a professor of political science at stanford university and author of "from cold war to hot peace, an american ambassador in putin's

russia." taking your calls. steve is waiting in milwaukee, wisconsin on the independent line. steve, go ahead. steve, are you with us? [ inaudible ] we'll go to fran from jacksonville, florida, line for democrats. >> caller: yes, john. i heard a story in the last few months about some russians that had been expelled or not allowed in the u.s. coming in, you know, like one night, more than one of them, meeting with some trump administration people, and i wanted to know if mr. mcfaul knew anything about that, how these people got in, and what were they here for? i was just interested in that story. >> fran, before you go, where did you hear that story? >> caller: actually, i heard it on the rachel maddow show.

>> it's an interesting question, fran. and there are russians that come to america from time to time in strange ways. on different kinds of visas. so one prominent russian who has been in the news a lot lately, a billionaire, and oleg darepaska has been on the travel ban list to the united states for many, many years, and was on that list when i was in the government. i remember that because the russian government, and their foreign minister, serge lavrov, would lobby our government, secretary clinton and secretary kerry, to try to get him off that travel ban list. and now i'm on one of those travel ban lists in a tit for tat way because we put so many on their list. but he did something very clever. he got a diplomatic passport, and then he became formally a

member of the delegation to attend a multilateral organization called apec, which has their meetings every year or so somewhere in the asia-pacific region. so he would go to that meeting, he would attend as an official of that delegation. but that would give him a window of opportunity to travel in the united states on that special visa that he had. and most certainly in 2016, he came to the united states in that special way. so that could be what you're referring to, and that's a very curious way that he came. but he did that. so he's formally on the travel ban, but because of that diplomatic passport, i know that he -- for a fact, that he came in 2016. >> whether it's the russian investigation or other stories out of russia, we hear a lot about russian oligarchs. who are they, what's their relationship to vladamir putin,

and how many of them are there? >> yeah, it's a great question. i think it's just right now too oversimplified. let me say a couple of things about it. first of all, the word "oligarch," you know, that came out of the 1990s. they prefer to be called business people by the way. call them corrupt or not, but they're all in business. the original group of oligarchs made their money in -- mostly in a rather i would say, you know, quasi corrupt way in the '90s when everything was privatized. soviet union, all land and property was owned by the state. in the '90s it was privatized, and the most valuable companies landed in the hands of these business people. mostly oil and gas and mineral companies. that's how they became billionaires during that period. but then there was another wave

of oligarchs, if you will, under the putin era, where he took some of the assets from the oligarchs who had made their money in the '90s, and gave them to his friends. so the largest oil company in russia, the original oligarch that controlled those assets for that company, t the time, he was worth over $40 billion in the '90s. putin put him in jail in 2003, and then took his assets, and they eventually ended up in a company that one of his close, personal associates now runs that company. and so i think it's important to distinguish between the putin inner circle, people like mr. sechen, and a group that made their money more recently, and make their money is not even the right phrase. were allowed to make money as a

result of their connections to putin. and then some of these older oligarchs, who became wealthy in the '90s. for instance, mr. darepsaka, he made his money in the '90s. victor vecklesburg, he gave michael cohen $500,000. crazy in my view. why were they doing that? i think we need to know a lot more about what was going on there. but you all should know that vecslesburg is not one of putin's close confidants. some of his employees were just arrested in russia, and he's somebody who has been trying to divest his investments in russia and move them out of the country because of his rather complicated and difficult

relationship with vladamir putin. so it's just a much more complex story. by the way, i would underscore russia in general is a lot more complex story than we often times give it credit for. and that's why, you know, you can't just talk about it on twitter or on tv. sometimes you have to write a 500 page book and get into the meat of it. and that's why your listeners need to buy the book. >> about ten minutes left with former u.s. ambassador to russia michael mcfaul. anita, st. louis, missouri. independent. thanks for waiting. >> caller: thank you very much. ambassador, i really appreciate being able to have the honor of speaking to you about some of these subjects. i'm concerned about the fact that we have a current president who constantly talks about the wall, but nonetheless owns property in mar-a-lago, where we

are told that russian women come over and have their children, and then go back to russia. so we have people who could be legally spying in later years in the united states. and legally entering our country. i find that far worse than illegal immigrants and wondered what your thoughts are there. >> well, anita i think was your name. you're right. that happens. rich russians, and not just russians, but rich people from all over the world do exactly what you're talking about. they come to america for, you know, sometimes just a few weeks, few months, give birth here, and as a result of that, their children become american citizenin citizens. and i think some greater

regulation of that practice is in order. >> sherry is in louisiana, republican, go ahead. >> caller: yes, i grew up a democrat but switched recently. i'm just wondering, there are thousands of stories that i've read over the last year about the collusion on the election. which basically it seems to me amounts to memes on face bob bod a couple of poorly protected passwords. but what i have been reading is that the russians have been trying to undermine our energy development, and in the uk with the whole anti-fracking movement. they funded this -- i don't know, this one group, i think it was -- i can't remember what the name, but they will give money to green peace.

what i can't understand is why that doesn't get any attention from the media, or even the previous administration and this administration. >> ambassador mcfaul? >> yeah. well, two things. first, on what the russians did during our elections, and choose or no -- and collusion or not, i'll leave that aside. but i want to be clear about this, did the russians intervene and violate our sovereignty in the 2016 with the intention to influence the outcome of our elections? the answer to that is absolutely yes. and i don't care if you're a democrat or republican, this is a national issue. this is about american national security. not republican security. not democratic security. and in my world, there's no such thing as republican and democrat security.

we all live in this country. we should all want americans to decide who should be the president of the united states, and not have outside influences. and, you know, they hacked, they stole data from both sides, by the way, published on one side through wikileaks, designed to influence the outcome of the election. they used their propaganda tools, both the ones -- their media tools, and then their bots and trolls, to try to influence the election. when sputnik, which is a government controlled news organization, controlled by russia, circulates on twitter #crookedhillary, you don't have to have a ph.d. in russian studies to understand what they're trying to do. and third, they sent their emissaries to meet with the trump campaign to provide

information about secretary clinton that would help their campaign. and then fourth, they got on our systems, and they, you know, and at least two dozen states and maybe more, where they were on our systems. these are now facts that we know, that they were looking at our systems in terms of our electoral roles and how we count the vote. that is extremely dangerous to me. and because we're having a polarized conversation about it, between democrats and republicans, we're leaving out the national interest. i just want to remind our republican friends why do you think they might not do this against you the next time around? putin is out for putin. he's not out for america's national interest, and remember, you know, i just wish we could do some basic things and agree that we should have better cyber security, more resilience, and that americans should choose our presidents would this foreign

interference. now to the second point. do the russians have a vested interest in stopping fracking? the caller is right. and they are paying individuals and ngos and running a public relations effort around the world. it's not just in america or the uk. to propagate and promote the idea, i should use that word instead, that fracking is dangerous. the reason is very simple -- because of fracking, the price of energy in the world has gone down, and that hurts the russian economy. and so they have been running these kinds of operations for years now. so the caller is right about that. >> to your first point, a reminder to viewers and something we might be hearing more about after the meeting, c-span's craig kaplan noting the house is holding a closed briefing for all members on election security ahead of the midterms. that's happening today.

it's being led by the department of homeland security. briefers include the homeland security secretary neilson, director of national intelligence and fbi director wray. >> that's important. >> a few minutes left. drew, scottsdale, arizona, democrat. go ahead. >> caller: hi, it's good hearing you speak this morning. and i had a question for you, because you've said something that's a lot different than the narrative i heard a lot of other democrats that have been talking about. you were saying that you believe that the russians were favoring one candidate over another one, rather than to sew division and you listed some reasons on why you believe that they would favor a trump presidency over a hillary presidency. but i haven't heard any democrats talk about that. they talk about trump wanting a strong military, didn't want to be the world police. he wanted to pump out energy and

get the american economy revving again by getting rid of regulations. those are all things putin wouldn't like. clinton on the other hand, you mentioned crimea, but that's kind of a problem because hillary was part of the administration who did nothing when crimea was going on. it wasn't just trump talking about it. so how can democrats message that better instead of just saying they were trying to sew discord. >> ambassador? >> so they're also trying to sew discord, and the idea that they're only trying to do one objective is mysterious to me. they were trying to do both, and i think the evidence is just overwhelming that they mangled to get into both the democrat side and republican side, but only publish the e-mails from the dnc, and that had, you know,

just remember, you know, what happened that the chairwoman of the democratic party had to resign because of that, and we were talking about dnc e-mails and john podesta e-mails right up to the election day. that was a very effective campaign in my view, that the russians did. with respect to crimea, just to be clear, secretary clinton was not part of the administration when vladamir putin annexed crimea. secretary kerry was there. but what you're alluding to there, there should have been greater pushback at the time from the obama administration. i also had left the government. i had left the government right before that happened. but i agree with the caller, that we should have had a more robust response. we eventually got that robust response, but i think it should have happened sooner rather than when it did. >> former u.s. ambassador to russia michael mcfaul, author of

the book "from cold war to hot peace," and a professor of political science at stanford university. i know you have to catch a flight, so appreciate your time. thank you so much. >> thanks for having me. really enjoyed it. get me back again. >> this afternoon here on c-span3, we'll bring you live coverage as small business administrator linda mcmahon will discuss the state of small business in america. our coverage gets under way at 1:00 p.m. eastern. in primetime tonight, some of today's congressional hearings. directors from the national institutes of health testify before a subcommittee on the president's 2019 budget request for the research centers. they discussed recent research advancements. that's at 10:00 eastern on c-span. also coming up tonight, transportation security agency officials who testified today on the agency's prevcheck programs.

that begins at 10:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. a look now at the trump administration's trade policy with a wall street journal reporter. this will take us up to live komp coverage of small business administrator linda mcmahon. >> william baldwin is back with us, joins us as congress and the white house bump up against a key deadline in the nafta negotiations. sort of orient us to where we are, what are these deadlines happening this week? >> that's right. it's a bit of a soft deadline by paul ryan, he kind of made it a hard deadline today. he wants to see a deal on nafta by today, or these be notified of one if congress is going to consider that this year. that was a major goal of the administration. you always want to get that kind of thing squared away in the first half of your first term if possible. t