" continues. host: this is mike lillis of the hill, senior reporter, here to talk about congress returning from the august break. let's start with the brick itself. any significant changes when legislators were back in their districts and how does that translate to coming back to work

today? guest: all of these mass shootings had began just after they had gone home and that drove the debate are a couple weeks and democrats hope that momentum, something that can be done legislatively will be done in september. all of that ball is up in the draftedls are being with some markups, but the wildcard is what is mitch mcconnell going to bring to the floor? he made it clear he is not going to bring anything up to a vote without president trump support. trump has been all over the board. you go back to decades and two weeks, he seems to contradict himself on what he supports. he used to support assault weapons bans and background checks and all of these things, and sometimes he says he does not support those things anymore and seems to be adopting an ra points, claiming mental health and violent video games and all of these things. the white house is putting together a package on all of these things. we will have to see what will be in there.

democrats will say that is insufficient and of course nancy pelosi and house democrats have passed a background check bill and they are trying to keep the pressure to bring it up for a vote. if it does come up for a vote, pelosi and charles schumer another letter to mcconnell. they will have hearings and press conferences on all of this stuff this they will have hearings, press conferences on all of this stuff this week so amplifying that message but mcconnell's not going to do anything unless donald trump supports it. >> those letters you talk about, one went to the president . could you scope out what hr 8 will do? >> it's a universal expense and a background checks before you buy a gun. if you go into a federally licensed dealer, walmart, any

major gun store. this is the brady bill. just to tech check to see if you are prohibited, so felons, domestic abusers, and those of us who have been adjudicated to be severely mentally ill. those just selling on the internet or a gun show or something like that and are not federally licensed, there's the loophole. if i'm a felon i won't go to walmart because i know i failed let test so i can just go to a gun show or go online. that's the loophole that it would try to close saying everyone has to go through this screening process.

what we saw in odessa was a suspect who failed a federally licensed background check in texas, wasn't able to buy the gun but for this shooting was able to buy one from a private seller and of course killed people >> he mentioned walmart, a store you had last week. their decision on guns and ammunition, it's a heavy sway on how they might make decisions on this. >> that's the hope of gun reform supporters. think think corporate america getting behind these will change the dialogue. even if it doesn't lead to an immediate passage of some of these bills it's changing the culture and the conversation. things have shifted this month. it was a long list of

corporations starting to take internal steps and at the same time, pushing congress to do something. the victims and the advocates have not had a lot of sway product degree. nothing has been done for decades but they are hoping corporations have a little more voice. a couple of these have happened now in texas and what you saw last weekend was the lieut. gov. coming out for beck and checks which is an enormous ship. things are changing on the ground, in the states, and corporate board rooms. there's a lot of public rusher. not to give too much credit to these corporations for trying to do this stuff because i think they are worried about their bottom line and what is that going to do? are the second amendment folks going to boycott their stories? we saw dick's sporting goods after the parkland shooting

stop selling guns and 125 stores and there is this warning of your really going to take a hit. instead, overall sales sales increased and i think other corporations looked at that instead of there's no financial risk we might as well do it because it's a good pr move. >> senior reporter for the publication, you have questions about congresses returns and the issue they will take. before we move on to some calls, impeachment. a lot of activity last week. could you spell exactly what happened this week? >> the big thing that will happen is the judiciary committee. he's well-positioned to be the guy presiding over this issue.

there's been this talk, are we doing impeachment? are we not? a lot of outlets out there including newspapers keeping these lists of democrats who are supporting impeachment, putting pressure on nancy pelosi to do something more aggressive. they are playing this semantics games saying we are in an impeachment investigation or inquiry but not going to vote on anything to do so. that's a change from the inquiries of the past, watergate and surrounding bill clinton's impeachment where they had to have a vote. now they are saying we don't have to have a vote because they changed the rules of the judiciary committee. they are trying to protect the moderate and conservative

leaning seats. they are playing it both ways, using impeachment as a tool to get information from the courts. all of these investigations, really the subtext is do we want to bring in impeachment articles and make the decision hoping courts will side with them to release documents to dispute some of this witness testimony. so there will be a series of rules that will govern all of these investigations. it seems to be leading to some more informal. it will broaden the scope of things and grant more power to conduct investigations which are all tied up because the white house

is not been cooperative. >> we've seen speaker pelosi being--. >> the semantic art of it is yes, you can call it an impeachment investigation, and inquiry, whatever you want and use this language in court documents you are filing but we won't bring a vote until the public is on board. only 40 or 42% supposed support this. she was around during watergate, on capitol hill during the impeachment and knows it doesn't go anywhere without a look support which would perhaps republicans to get on board. if it is a bipartisan it goes nowhere and only hurts democrats. >> she wants to keep the house, that's her number one goal? >> aggressive oversight over the white house.

>> how many democrats are pushing on with impeachment? >> it's tough to gauge because even our list is one long list. we try to bring out some of the nuance within the comments but some people want to impeach him yesterday. these already are drafted. that's a small minority of democrats who think we are there already. there's another group that does want to bring a vote on an inquiry to give democrats more legal tools to govern investigations and get to the bottom of some of these things and get witness testimony being stonewalled by the white house. then there's a third group that says we are fine calling it an impeachment investigation but let's continue to investigate. we don't need to vote if we find something impeachable. then there are dote those who

don't want to talk about it. those in districts who don't want to go back and have to explain to voters that you are accusing them of being on a witch hunt and try to overturn a president who was democratically elected. >> carol you are on with mike lillis . >> i'd like to go back a little bit to the gun registration. it is my understanding that there is really no central data bank for any of the gun registration and the rule itself prevents a central data bank, and that there are files and boxes. when police are looking at information it sometimes takes days and weeks to get it. is that true? do you think congress would do anything to change that if it

is true? >> it is true that there is no federally mandated registration of firearms when you buy them. what they do have is a list of prohibited buyers being run by the fbi and that is a screening of those who cannot own guns. they don't have a list of-- it's and complete. it's a little difficult to gauge because every state has a different set of laws. some are aggressive and some do require registration but from a federal standpoint there's just nothing that requires gunowners to register. that is something that the nra has been a post to for many years and republicans on capitol hill's would not do that. >> this is kenny. >> thank you. has there been any discussion in congress? here we are going on third-year with the trump

administration. it has been $7.25 an hour since 2008. here we are later in the federal minimum is raised. i'm looking for them to get back to discussing the raises. i don't know where we are on that. thank you. >> the answer is the house has passed the bill to raise the minimum wage. they sent that to the senate and it's not going anywhere. it's just not a popular idea with mitch mcconnell and republican leaders in the upper chamber. democrats heading into 2020, it pulls high but the democrats have not found support for the other side of the aisle. until it has that it's not going to go anywhere.

>> 21 days until money for the federal government's operation runs out. what has to happen? >> they hopped a hurdle in july and trump signed a budget deal into law in august. what this did was set the stage to prevent a government shutdown. this is a big deal to get done because it's the type of thing that can spoil the entire process. they raised caps, prevented an automatic spending cut that we called sequestration from happening, and $20 billion about what that would have the. it takes us beyond the 2020 presidential elections and both paving the way to present preventive shutdown.

step two is now we have to pass the appropriation bills, 12 of them the senate has not passed any. they aren't even pretending they have enough time to put all of this together and fund the government for the entire fiscal year 2020. they will do what's called a continuing resolution, a stopgap spending bill. we aren't sure how long it's going to be in the date november 22, it's a kick the can down the road. what we are hearing from senate democrats and republicans-- republicans, i'm sorry, who want to pass the defense bill for example that runs the entire year. some of it would just kick down the road and some would be for the full year.

we are waiting to see what happens. the appropriation is going to vote which includes the defense bill combined as an enormous chunk of domestic spendings. they are hoping to take those bills and pass them for the full year. weather pelosi and house democrats go along they seem to be thinking about all the appropriation bills and see what happens. they had a 35 day shut down. no one wants to do that again both sides get beaten up every time there's a government shutdown. nobody wants to do that but it was triggered by his insistence on wall money and that issue is certain to come up again because the democrat hills are

not going to have a dime for border wall spending. that can be one wildcard and snag we have to be watching out for closely. trump by declaring a national emergency-- can begin building a wall, their hopes among senate republicans that that relieves pressure on congress to put money for the wall into these bills. >> we will go to pittsburgh pennsylvania. thanks for calling. >> good morning. i've noticed a lot of stuff being discussed but i haven't noticed anything being discussed about our labor unions. the act passed by congress before the break, hopefully the senate will pass this when they come back this week or in the

near future. they are showing their homes. this is millions of people taken and affected. one guy lost 70% of his pension that he worked his whole life for. i served my country, worked 34 years and all of a sudden what we thought was a secure, nice pension at the end of our careers is being cut. it would be nice of congress, not congress but the senate would pass this thing. >> we will let our guest respond. >> the house has passed this will. he has been present the whole year and the thought was it did help them in the 2018 been terms.

pelosi has been pushing on it hard and the question is is he going to do anything with it? i have to claim ignorance on what the senate is doing in particular. i know it's not on the calendar for this week coming up whether or not they have plans to do anything on their own. they try to unite them in a conference committee or bounce them back and forth until they can find a deal. i don't know how much interest there is on the republican side of the aisle but it's another one of those messaging things they're going to be pushing. labor unions have historically been on the side of the democrats and that hasn't changed at all. >> mike from springfield massachusetts. >> it seems like a lot of

americans have been more into politics, do you think it's almost pseudo-intellectualism where we think we are going into it but it's putting more pressure publicly on policymakers instead of letting them do their jobs? >> certainly what we've seen is a tribalism and probably a lot of causes for that. certainly the media landscape and how quickly it was managed, it does allow for the conversation to happen without a lot of nuance. if people are screaming at each other in 240 characters you are not digging into any issue or any kind of depth. i think that's a problem that everybody recognizes, particularly those of us in the media. how do we write these stories and tell them with more context and nuance, and deliver

something that is digestible but gets to the meat of the matter? i don't think there's any way to answer that question. some people are checked out and totally involved and know the policy details. >> let's talk about people leading congress. 12 announced resignations with three on the democratic side. how does that number track in the mid-term of presidency? >> it's not unusual. we were looking at 2012, the same situation for the democrats that republicans are in. they just lost the house and looks like they weren't able to flip back. people who have been around a while or even people who haven't, there's not a lot of power in the minority. tom davis men-- davis is a

former congressman and said you do two things as the minority. you fill the quorum so that there's enough votes for the body to work, and you collect a paycheck. people used to holding gavels and having all kinds of sway on capitol hill and suddenly use it get disenchanted. everybody has different reasons. some of them have promised self- imposed term limits. we saw that in texas when he won who said i won't be there forever, this is not a career for me. he has been here a long time and it's time to retire for him. we do hear grumbling off the record, in private conversation that a lot of these guys are getting tired of questions about trump. so many are dictated by what he

has tweeted this morning or some scandal, something happening. it is taking up the discussion and a lot of these guys are tired of having to defend the white house. >> in a general sense, will it stay in republican hands? >> i don't know the answer to that. >> i think the math is looking good but i have not followed that closely enough. everybody thinks the democrats will keep it but the polls were wrong in 28 team. certainly wrong in 2016. >> your town virginia, independent line. hello. >> i was in korea and i love the internet.

i think it provides the opportunity for people to speak up above the constitution that is totally violated today. i believe the gop has been cowardly and submissive to a president to a president that doesn't do anything but harm the country. impeachment will be coming. we will see him go to prison and i believe in karma. thank you. >> she speaking for a lot of democrats there who would like to see the president impeached or put in prison but that is a long ways away. until that happens again, he's not going to do anything with. it would tweak quite a damning revelation for republicans to get behind any impeachment and inquiry. we are a long way but

she is speaking for a lot of democrats frustrated this isn't happening faster and more aggressively. some think the more report was the instruction revealed and plenty. >> he was on fox talking about the issues of impeachment. >> at some point i would go between feeling sorry for the democrats at this point. they have portrayed themselves in a terrible way and keep digging the hole going after things because they hate the president so much they don't want anything to happen. but then just being infuriated. i'm tired of the chairman doing away with our house decorum, house rules, making it up as they go. one day they say the more report is everything, and then the chairman is asking others to find impeachment material.

even jamie said the more report is a small piece of this. this is pathetic. they are trying to chart new ground when they don't want to do what they know they have to do. they have to bring impeachment to the floor. this is a show, it's a travesty and frankly they should be ashamed. >> the republican approach will be that of procedure and decorum? >> this is what we are hearing from all of his defenders on capitol hill. this has been a witchhunt from the start, they have no interest going after the president because they don't have the support or votes to get rid of them so they are using it as a political legend to damage the white house so he can't get anything done policy wise. this is the frustration that you are hearing and it has been

consistent all along so no surprises there. as far as the shifting sands we saw for a long time that we have to wait for the more report to come out, and now we have to wait for his testimony, and other testimonies done so we have to wait for court documents, it is an evolving process. a lot of these are released and a lot of the testimony is not been given. they say it's incomplete until they get-- but they are not going to give up. is there a political element? of course. if he base once the president impeached, part of the credit job heading into 2020 is not to deflate. they have to prove they were elected and will be an aggressive check on this white

house and that's not going to stop. >> we will hear from kevin on an independent line. >> this lewis said one thing they agree on is to increase the budget. that's one thing they agree on, that they don't want to look incompetent. if that was not so pathetic it would be funny and that's all that i have to say. >> certainly when it comes to government spending, both sides of the aisle are supportive. during campaign season they talk about skyrocketing deficits, skyrocketing debt. it's a good campaign tool, wins votes and was certainly effective in the obama era when

annual deficits jumped above $1 trillion. what happens if they get elected and realize that cutting these programs doesn't win any support both sides of the aisle have done this. they talk about spending but there's really no appetite or political incentive to do so. even in a booming economy, this budget deal certainly did not help that with $20 billion in new spending. the tax cuts that republicans passed, one and a half trillion dollars will be added over the next decade. what they say on the campaign trail and what they do when they get to washington are often different things. >> the hill.com is where you find things he has written about as he covers congress. independent line, matt, go

ahead. >> i'm actually at the world trade center. i want to get a couple of points across. i got sidetracked while i was on hold and as far as the judgment i think back to we are no longer in the days where we can depend on government as leadership. everybody needs to start taking an active role in smaller towns in that community and that's where it starts. there has been gratification when it comes to-- control but this impeachment stuff is getting really ridiculous and i think back to the party of hubert humphrey's and the decision today, opportunities are changing. theodore

roosevelt, still powers up-- that come from silicon valley. you start at the train tracks in american electric still powers all of their devices. >> thank you. and there's a lot of frustration with congress in recent years that they can't do anything at all. they proved that they couldn't do it last year, that hurts the economy and there's a lot underlying all of these debates , what can congress do? how can bipartisanship return? what happened to the art of compromise. president obama ran on i will

be a post-partisan president, trump went on-- the deal, and both struggled to unite these parties which defines this town over the past decade. the question is when is the pendulum going to swing back? i don't know how the pendulum swings back or if it does swing back but we are in a place where the parties don't agree on much but there's more political incentive to fight than to get along to accomplish some of these big things meaning immigration and they all talk about what they are wanting to do but what they can do is government spending and come up short sometime. >> when it comes to the topic

of guns, on the sunday show yesterday sen. -- worked on coming up on some type of framework and we will expand more on that. >> pat is a republican senator from pennsylvania in august we lost 50 more americans in mass shootings. dayton, el paso, odessa. the odessa shooter failed a background check and the bill would make sure state law enforcement is properly notified when someone fails a check. i've been talking about this over the recess. i'm hopeful pres. trump will actually lead, take a position and stick with it. the american people deserve no less. >> we've talked about how the debate has shifted because of the shootings and one of the major shifts was not just

corporations, but mitch mcconnell's openness to bringing some of these to the floor. he has been a big second amendment guy and opposed these things. the red flag will would have empowered local enforcers to seize guns i though who have been day-- deemed. we are waiting to see what lindsey graham is going to write. there's a red flag law passing through judiciary. the thinking is because just democrats are writing that when

it will be a little stronger and a more liberal bill. if trump supports it, and if the democrats would support it or think it was watered down because it was written by lindsey graham. he's working with richard blumenthal and there's a lot of hope on the democratic side that it would be a bill that had teeth and something the democrats could support in the end. this bill is another one.-- had worked on the bill and came in 23rd team, and came five votes short of what it needed for the republican filibuster.

they are working on that bill once again. that's an expansion of that grand checks. it doesn't go quite as far as hre which you mentioned earlier but would get a lot of bipartisan support. if he supports it mcconnell would bring it to the floor and whether it has the votes to pass we don't know. there were only 4 editors and only two of them are left on capitol hill. the other two, john mccain is deceased and mark kirk. is the more appetite for that idea in the week of these shootings? we don't know. >> republican line. >> what i'm waiting on is the judiciary committee get into this russian collusion. he

signed off on-- to spy on an american citizen and they didn't find anything. the man has not been charged for anything so i'm wondering if this would cover when the really get into that but telling us he's a russian agent, i'm wondering if your paper will cover that. >> we will be covering it. there's plenty of focus from the center of republicans. digging into the origin of that, james, is a big part of it. a new internal report from the fbi was very critical of james comay and his handling of everything and how he some of that information through a

friend and not directly. he kind of sidestepped a legal loophole. plenty of criticism and there has been plenty involved. graham is looking into it democrats will look into that as well. that's a big part of it these days. and i don't know, outlet not covering it. >> any sense of when that would come down, the one that's being considered? >> the inspector to report on the basis or behind the scenes of what happened to the collusion issue. >> step one of all of that, are there going to be more reports? >> reportedly earlier on. >> that will be well watched.

you can guarantee there will be a lot of interest. >> republican line, harry, hello. >> really i called to talk about the budget. the main thing they have to do is cut the spending with the department of educated, they've never educated anyone and it keeps going up and up and education has gotten nothing but worse. talking about the labor bill that is introduced, and companies that mismanage funding, you can't keep rewarding people for bad behavior and bailing them out if they've made that investments and put the proper money into pension funds. we've got to stop bailing everyone out. i've never heard everyone say they have enough money no matter what they need, but they don't have enough money for

senior citizens, they don't have enough money for veterans, and i think it's a shame that senior citizens have to pay taxes on social security which was never meant to be taxed. a lot of states tax it and the government does. they have to get back to bases and cut a lot of stuff cut the spending on illegal aliens in foreign aid. a lot of departments are too big and unnecessary and the department of education should be at the state and local level and they will do a better job than what they are doing today. >> this isn't just an issue of how much money is being spent but an issue of. a 4% raise for the other domestic programs across the board, everyone goes

home and says look what we did for our constituents, interest groups, and all of that. this is not going to go away, it's not going to be solved in this is a question of your these. it's a question of which program should get how much money and what is the role of the federal government ensuring these programs continue and have some strength? or as the caller said should they be eliminated altogether? a lot of people think the department should shrink considerably if not disappear and there are those who think they are underfunded and that's the reason they are underperforming. this is just an ongoing debate we are having. as to the illegal immigrants, that is another part of this. i mentioned the wall is probably going to be a big part of the debate but also treatment of migrants at the border.

immigration judges are going to be a big issue because the backlogs are so long. and the health and hygiene reports that we've been seeing for the democrats who want to put more money there for the care, its initial priorities and they are divided on so many issues. these are the fights we have over and over again. the politics creep in because everyone is looking for a little bit of leverage that would allow them to sneak some of these provisions into these big spending bills. that's what we're going to see the rest of the year especially if there is a cr and we will have this debate again heading into the break. there's plenty of room for another shot down even though nobody wants it >> one more call from christina

in new york, republican line. >> how does that look from that angle, you know what i mean? is that the appropriate-- like this guy is talking about the wall street journal. >> caller, if you want christina from new york, or if you or someone else, do you have a question? >> i went on youtube and video recorded myself, two minutes and 30 seconds just on the fact of email responses on institutions websites. >> we will keep it there. my lillis, before we let you go , will congress consider that before the end of the year? >> we don't know. this is one of those ongoing debates. nancy pelosi is very much involved and very much wants to

get a deal. she's heavily invested and was able to win this deal with steve mnuchin who is the treasury secretary. it's on her priority list. certainly trump once it, pelosi wants it, anytime they want something badly enough they can get it done but there are details to be ironed out. you are hearing the same concerns over and over again and they won't sign off on anything that doesn't have strong environmental protections. you are talking about new drug price revisions and labor protections not only here but abroad there are a lot of points to be ironed out but it's not impossible. they've done hard as before and anytime they are invested as much as they are things can get done and pretty quickly if they

want to do it. it depends on where the pressure points are and it may be a distraction and tough to get something as big as a brand- new trade deal. there's a lot of pressure to get something done. >> he writes that the hill.com as he reports on congress. here to talk about the week ahead, as always, we thank you for your time.