host: are you ready for all the political attention your state is going to get? caller: i sure am. host: independent line. caller: i wanted to call in and howi think it's incredible i agree with how these campaigns are being run is ridiculous. i was voting for bernie sanders. reading up on all these things. i've never really been interested in politics except the obama campaign. even with both of his campaigns i never did canvassing, i never went to train stations to push out turnout. i've never done anything like that and i don't see the same kind of return coming from hillary clinton's campaign. they are in the same old same old information. what is the purpose

of us going out to go vote and try to get our friends to vote if every year or four years we come out and the same stuff is going to happen? foregoing cap fracking and corporations not paying their share of taxes and move overseas. you know what, if all this stuff is happening, then i don't need to be a part of this. on the 29th of july i will resend my membership to the democratic party. i will become not affiliated. bank in his airlift has some good voter laws so i can -- thank goodness maryland has good voter laws. i don't think i can vote for hillary clinton with a language that is put forward. that -- thank you everybody that participated in today's program. we will be back live from the national constitution center in philadelphia. lots of live events today from the democratic national convention as a gets underway tomorrow. thank you for being with us.

♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] >> here on c-span, newsmakers his next with republican congressman greg walden of oregon. then we will focus on the national convention in philadelphia with a news conference at its delegates supporting 36 -- bernie sanders. that's followed by the mayor of philadelphia talking about decorations for the convention. later we will hear from rnc chair reince priebus and donald trump's campaign chair also in philadelphia.

greta: this week we have the chairman of the national republican congressional committee, congressman greg walden joining us from inside the quicken loans arena on the last day of the republican national convention ahead of hearing from the gop nominee tonight. at our set of the skyline financial group we have with us emily gooden, managing editor of real clear politics and 80 gonzales, publisher of the rothenberg and gonzales clinical report to ask questions. let me handed over to emily for the first one. emily: thank you. -- i haduestion about a question about your nominee donald trump. house democrats are running against him pretty hard. wondering if you're getting to members and freedom to distance themselves from the nominee or do what they need to

do, and how much of a drag is the nominee going to be on the house ticket? rep. walden: thank you, emily. i would say there are two candidates running for president. they seldom if ever embrace their own and acknowledge the problems that hillary clinton brings to their ticket in their house races. let me give you the data set. in the competitive races nearly every case hillary clinton's numbers are worse and donald trump's in these competitive seats. we are running in individual districts, not statewide or nationwide. incident predicated on the democratic side trying to tie a member to donald trump. it is easier to type democrat the hillary clinton and the failed policies of this last administration than it is to say one of our members or candidates is just like donald trump. everyone knows donald trump has his own brand and has set a new

course for the party. i think our members make up their own minds based on their districts. best why we are successful the house and they are successful in their elections in their districts and we had the biggest majority since 1928 in the house. we have work to do and they are doing their work at home. nathan: mr. chairman, how do you think the division we saw in the quicken loans arena on the floor on monday and tuesday, very visibly during senator cruz's speech on wednesday, how will that impact house races and how concerned are you about disillusioned or disaffected republicans, the never trump crowd not coming out to vote and hurting house races? rep. walden: we are a party that has a lot of voices. you heard that at the convention. i think going forward you will see those voices get unified behind a common nominee that makes clear or is a choice here.

which way do you want to go? a continuation of the status quo under secretary clinton, who has been part of the obama administration? or go in a new direction. we have supreme court seats at stake going forward. the next generation is on the line. we have issues about who will defend the constitution and follow the law. you will see us even more unified going forward. i feel good about where we are. i look at the data from the battleground states, from our districts. our members are working hard at home and our candidates are working hard. i feel pretty good about where we are at. i know you have said you don't see evidence of a wave. what will you be looking for specifically in your polling and the days -- in the days and weeks ahead to see that it ends up developing? rep. walden: that's a good question.

as you know because you watch this very intently and effectively as well, we watch all the time. a poll is a snapshot in a review near. trying to look backwards and then look forward and say what is happening. we will be watching for it. there was a wave that developed in 2014 but i would argue our candidates were doing everything they needed to do to maximize the outcome in that election cycle in 2014. you look at john cap go in syracuse it was down several points about august at this time, maybe early september and ended up by winning -- winning by 20. now we have 13 bills passed in the house and two sign in the law and a strong campaign. he has both going for him. you look at the lease up in upstate new york. receipt we took back from the democrats. she has had a terrific legislative cycle so far right a

great campaign. we look at how our members are doing individually. are they getting work done? if they are an elected member in the congress, are they getting things done for the district? -- of my favorite headlines she does and she has and she has results talk about. democrats really missed out on the recruitment side of things. many cases their hand chosen candidate lost. in new jersey, and the see john macarthur holds, their nominee hopeful ended up losing to a guy who had $400 in the bank and going three miserable bankruptcy himself. they are not in the right position in these seats. they couldn't attract a candidate in most cases to run effective campaigns. i feel very good about where we are at. emily: mr. chairman, speaking of the polls, and the presidential

election year it is different in an off cycle year. we are seeing hillary clinton the in these polls. studies show voters tend not to split tickets. she will have that drag effect on her to bring a democratic voters who elected democratic candidates. how worried are you about this, about not splitting the ticket? rep. walden: those are the kind of things we've been looking at for some time. when you 2016 would be a different turnout battle. it is a presidential turnout. let's go into the data set again. if you look at some of the recent national polling, it's always in the margin of error. some shows donald trump tied or a pointer to ahead, some show hillary clinton up. there is no readily going on. and we get down into these individual districts where our battles are fought, we see donald trump beating hillary clinton. donald trump's numbers better

than hillary clinton's. voters in these districts juan you for a republican when asked them generically if you want republican or democrat in the house. they say we want a republican in the house. when you add on the name of either our candidate, incumbent or challenger, it's even better for us right now. again that's why we go back to you have to take this thing down to the granular level, which is the house level and look individually. not just the nationwide numbers. they don't make the case when you get down into the local districts. no crossover voting. housee 26 members of the on the republican side in districts that voted for barack obama. there is clearly crossover voting. it will occur in this election and if their whole campaign strategy is based on voters can't tell the difference between a king -- residential nominee in a congressional nominee, so be it.

emily: getting down to the granular level, are there some house races they keep you up at night? rep. walden: of course. cycle you have probably got 10 or 20 house races in play. it does narrow down to a handful at the end. we are not there yet. it is july, not the middle of october. i sleep fairly well at night. we have got primaries yet to play out where we have some opportunities, like in arizona 1 to take up a seat that had a democrat in it. she is not running against john mccain. that is a district that is voted for president for george bush, john mccain and mitt romney. only two of those left in the country. that one and one in minnesota. arizona 1 is a seat we are very much engaged in. we think we can pick up the seat that the former head of the d triple c held.

terrific state senator in his third term. every effective legislation. comes from the more democrat side of the seat and is running a very effective campaign. i think we have some opportunities for pickup. we will have others. we have lost a couple of district is a court-ordered redistricting. florida and virginia. that hurts right out of the gate. we -- we have if developed an advantage over the dccc, i think we have a good message. if you have to run this time as an insider party, you can't get more traditional insider status quo than hillary rodham clinton, former first lady, former u.s. senator, former secretary of state. she has been at this for 30 years. this is a debate about status quo, insider versus outsider change, it's on our side.

nathan: you mentioned democratic recruiting. take us behind the scenes on recruiting. specifically my home district is the organ fifth. you are familiar -- oregon fifth. that district used to flip back and forth between the parties. now democrats have had it for over a decade. they have struggled to find a good republican candidate, even though the district is still fairly competitive. you can use the district as an example. one of the conversations you had the potential congressional candidates and what goes on in those. rep. walden: first of all for the rncc standpoint, we don't spend money in the primaries. i have met with all three in the district prior to the primary. they have to run their own races. wilkes ended up winning

in the primary. a sharp young man. he will run an aggressive race. of bests a sort probably a d+ one district. when we look at districts we also have to go and look at candidate the candidate on fundraising, on how they are building up their races and meeting certain metrics. he now has to go raise a considerable sum of money to get to the next level. the primary just happened a month or two ago in the middle of may. now is the time when he knows what he has to do to go put together the kind of campaign that loosen up the rankings. he is doing a good job. he was in washington recently meeting with a lot of our colleagues and some of the groups that will support him. i think he is building on that. there are other races around the country where you will see a battleground play out.

in arizona. go up to the iron range in duluth, stuart mills. pushed upwards of ticket. he had a lot of down ticket push. i think he came with about 1.3% of winning that seek. you have hillary clinton putting miners out of their jobs. that does not sell well in the iron range in minnesota. stuart is back running a much better campaign. he learned from last time a doing a great job. i think there are opportunities out there for pickups certainly. nathan: for those potential first-time candidates, what are the most concerned about as they contemplate running for congress? is it with her family is going to go through, being attacked, how much money you have to raise? putting your job on hold? what the you hear most most potential candidates? rep. walden: the answer is yes, yes, and yes.

it is all those things. it depends on whether they have run for office before. if you run for the state legislature in a been elected, county commissioner, assembly or whatever, it's a different discussion because they know a little bit about what this is like. when you get to the congressional level it is much different. higher intensity, media scrutiny. states there was that it districts have more people and bigger boundaries in the congressional district. other states like oregon, there are 12 health members and six senators in each district on average. it really depends district to district. my discussion -- i never try to break the army get them to run. they have to want this end own heart and stomach. they have to understand what that means. it's not a part-time effort. they have to be willing to make a full commitment or they should i make any commitment. if they are not full-time, they

will not be successful. they will lose a year of their life that could be better spent. it is about how you structure a campaign to reach out to voters with an effective message. what it takes to do that. which means you have to raise money and have a good team. that team to be good, solid volunteers and you can build from that. you have to be able to raise money, communicate effectively, and frankly a dear friend of mine who passed away, dave frohnmayer, these to sit down and write a paragraph about why you are running for office. one paragraph. not a treatise. handu can't in your own explained to yourself why you are running, you will never explained to an audience. i think that was always really good counsel. you have to know what you are running. this is not just a job, this is service to the public and you have to know in your heart what you are doing it or you will

never be able to answer that question effectively to the people you are asking support from. all that adds up into messaging, finance, organization, commitment. you can't add time to the clock. every day you give up as the day you never get back. greta: we have about 10 minutes left in the conversation. apologies, chairman. i will go to emily for the next question. emily: image in the gop has the largest majority since 1928. that happened last year under your watch. the regret not going out on that high note and riding off into the sunset? any second thoughts about taking on this responsibility? rep. walden: yeah, thank you for that. i heard that a lot from some of my friends and colleagues who said what are you thinking? you know next year is going to be harder. was it wouldn't be fair

to the conference to grab that prize, the biggest majority since 1928 in what likely would be an easier election year for republicans than this one is and ride off into the sunset. andld my staff at the nrcc, it's exactly what i believe. the last cycle was a big win, but this is where you earn your spurs. this is when you know it's going to be tougher you stay on and ride again. this is the one that will really make history if we maintain our gaines and pick up a few. i'm not saying we will suddenly get to the next level. but if we run the next race -- best races we can with the best candidate and incumbents doing their job and we are there to help them every step of the way, this is where it matters. we have such a great team at the nrcc last time.

michael was cute together, move forward, and build on the successes that we started eight years ago. tom cole had a tough cycle. we have all tried to build on the successes of the past, learn from each other and keep this thing going in a productive way. i have got to tell you, i don't want to serve in the minority. it's no fun. i did that for four years in congress in two years in the oregon legislature. i want to get things done for my district and for the country that i think are positive. that's why i agreed to do it, because i thought it would be easy to ride of and say see you laterf and had a tougher cycle the somebody else. i thought it was better to stay around and get this done. emily: is this your last one part are you to take it on the wartime? rep. walden: you stop that. this is it. generally speaking chairs do not go with into cycles anyway. it is an enormous time

commitment. i knew that when i agreed to do it. for an, i think it's fun organization to get new blood in a the top. they will build on what we have done. i have terrific people involved. hudson and richard steve stivers has been at this for a long time. i want to people who understand what the nrcc does and how it operates. it's a big, business big budget, terrific, hard-working folks. i think we have some people in said he, steve stivers will run again. they will take over and grow we have put together. i feel good about the future. nathan: chairman, you mentioned it's not fun to be in a minority. maybe some of your on people feel it's not fun to be in this republican majority. 12 or 15you lose

seats but you still in the majority, what does that do to paul ryan's ability to get reelected as speaker and how does that affect the republicans ability to pass registration -- legislation? rep. walden: we won't know the outcome of all of this until we know the outcome of the election. then we will know who is there, it was not there, and more importantly who controls the senate. chuck schumer or mitch mcconnell? and he was in the white house. -- who is in the white house. i think if we are able to hold on to the senate, and it feels more likely that will be the case with sen. rubio: again -- running again, you are seeing them strengthen up right now. if we hold the senate, we will hold the house.

if we have donald trump in the white house and mike pence, as a house member former house member in my self as the current one, mike is a good friend and terrific leader. i think you will see us coalesce around paul ryan asked speaker. he is an idea generator. he is a policy wonk, and i mean that in the right sense of the words. we need to get america back on the right track. look at the polls. 73% of americans think the country is on the wrong track. how does that happen? ,e can do better on the economy security, all the things talked about at this convention. youhat'll come together, will see a unified conference to move forward to where we have to get to. greta: we have got time for two or three more questions. emily: we have mentioned about house speaker ryan governing with is expected smaller, more conservative gop majority. when he became speaker he famously said he wanted weekends

to go back to his -- wisconsin and be with his family. are you getting him out of the road on the weekends and what else has even doing besides fund-raising? rep. walden: when paul was considering running for speaker or taking it, he never went out and ran for it. that was not his goal. we talked about this. i said speaker banner like to play golf. a lot of that took place on the weekends. we don't need you on the weekends very often. do, someome events we retreats we do and he will be at those. but that is not where the big work gets done, certainly fund-raising. during the breaks for we are out that is what we need you on the road. he has performed incredibly well. you got it right away and understood what this part of the business is about. his life in congress has been spent strictly -- pretty much on the policy side.

the ways and means committee on tax reform, entitlement for all these things. he has never really gotten over to decide of the real campaign apparatus. the is a quick study. partnership is terrific between our teams and between paul and me. we were both elected in 1998 and known each other a long time. he has delivered record sums of help, not only for the in rcc but also our members and also financially. his policy agenda, which is been inclusive in the conference to develop alternatives on the key issues americans are concerned about. not only do we have the finances that we need to run effective campaigns, but we also have the platform to go talk about this positive. nathan: i want to ask you a couple of specific districts. betweenumented tension

iowa congressman, david jolly with the nrcc. what should we expect from the committee in terms of involvement, spending as they race tough reelection battles? rep. walden: we don't ever forecast what we are going to spend in the district. beyond that it's done to the independent expenditure arm of things. let me say this. we have worked closely with him over the last couple of years -- year and a half he has been in office. he is now part of the patriot program. he is a dues paying never to the nrcc. we want him back in the house. i talked to him on a regular basis. he is talking to our team on a regular basis. we are in a good partnership. david jolly that the congress to run for the senate. he has now come back. the district changed under redistricting.

it made his district and much more difficult challenge for any republican. he has decided to come back to that district. we look forward to having conversations about kind of race he intends to run. emily: one last question for you. oregon to washington is quite the commute. you have to travel a lot for that job. how many miles of the trouble this year, how many states visited? when was the last time he slept in your own bed? rep. walden: those are all good questions. those are all good questions. i'm not sure i have the answer. i can tell you this because i keep track of this. hibernate 500 40 -- i have made 548 roundtrips to my district. did a paradeall, in some other meetings in baker city. drove four hours, picked up my wife and spent the night in a hampton and in portland institute convention on sunday. the week before i was in three counties.

i don't know the other. i'm on the road a lot. i can tell you that. the points for the hotel chains i stay in, i can probably set a record. i know the seats ever for virtually every aircraft known to the airline industry. you get to see the country. you are out. you to meet some incredible americans from different backgrounds that just want to go serve. that has been a terrific part of this opportunity to serve as the chair. i have got to be on the road a lot. the last time i slept in my own bed was maybe a week ago saturday night, i think. it is not as often as i would like. greta: we hope you get to use this hotel points and get some relaxation next year and get some -- give back to your home soon. we want to thank you for being this week's newsmaker. rep. walden: thank you. it's been a pleasure to be on

the show with you. greta: let me turn to our to reporters at the table. let's first talk about the other side. the counterpart for chairman walden. what are they saying about their chances for picking up seats in the house? nathan: they are trying to find a balance between doing the best that they can. they don't want to set expectations too high but when a as many seats as possible. they are trying to get recruits for districts so they can take advantage of it. you look at polling. most republican incumbents are doing ok. butters are making a distinction between trump andy's house gop candidates. i looked at 2006. another wave year.

a lot of incumbents in late august and early september were still polling ok and in the bottom dropped out. thatw a national wave swept up people at clay shaw. the house is kind of discounted as not being in play. there is time for the dynamic to change. you have division from the other side. what is hurting their chances of picking up most of those seats? as if your numbers? emily: they have to pick up 30 seats and that's a tall order in any year. and also redistricting hurt them. it favored republicans. i liked what chairman walden said about donald trump's own brand. a lot of people really don't identify donald trump is a republican even though he is the nominee of the party. greta: let's talk about money. nathan: they are raising millions of dollars.

money is important. it helps to define the conversation and the debate. house races can be more difficult. you can be more difficult to cut through. there is not a lot of overlap between house races and presidential races. thatave u.s. senate races will be flooding the airwaves with ads. i think at the end of the data will be a couple of races where it will be decided by money, but most it's just about the message, the quality of the candidates, the campaigns, what's happening at the top of the ticket. those are almost bigger factors. greta: will house candidates, incumbents, the campaigning with donald trump? emily: i think that will be rare to see. there are not a lot of senate candidates here in cleveland. they are really getting the message that i am my own person working for my district. ills,rida and