2017. in your documentary tell us what is the most urgent issue for the new president and congress to address in 2017. our competition is open to all middle school and high school students, grades six through 12, with $100,000 awarded in cash prizes. the grand prize of $5,000 will go to the student or team with the best overall entry. the remaining cash money will be awarded in shared between 150 students and 53 teachers. for more information on our student competition and contest rules, go to our website, studentcam.org. c-span, newsmakers is next with republican congressman mark walker of north carolina. that is fully by the house and senate meeting in a joint session to certify the electoral vote ballots from the presidential election. then look at city preparations ahead of inauguration day. at 8:00, our conversation with

rosemary stevens on human day. -- q and a. susan: "newsmakers" guest this week is congressman mark walker of north carolina. it is not yet a familiar face, you will be seeing lots of him this year. the 47-year-old legislator and former baptist preacher is just starting his second term in the house of representatives but was recently elected by his colleagues to lead the 170-member conservative republican study committee. thank you for being our guest. >> thank you, susan, it is our privilege. susan our reporters will be : asking the questions. scott wong, congressional reporter for "the hill." and lindsey mcpherson who covers congress for "cq roll call." scott, you're first. scott: congratulations on your chairmanship. it seems like republicans after they received a visit from mike pence on capitol hill this week are on the same page when it comes to repeal. but there is a lot of

differences of opinion when it comes to the replacement portion. we still have not seen a lot of specifics on the timeline, how long it is going to take, when we are going to see a bill. and also, how long the transition will be. can you help shed some light? how do republicans get on the same page in these next coming months? rep. walker: i believe there is a genuine desire to have a unified government. to the administration, the senate, and the house. i don't believe this is in name only. starting on that premise, how do we begin to move forward? obviously, according to a gallup poll recently, over 80% of the population believes obamacare , the affordable care act needs to be overhauled or replaced entirely. if that is our premise and foundation, that will be something we are able to come together and find a path forward in repealing it. the first part of your question

was timelines about repeal versus repair. speaker ryan said it best when he said repeal is relief. the amount of small businesses and individuals, even stories from our friends across the aisle have people calling constantly saying we need relief. that is first and foremost. how do we unravel some of these mandates, whether individual or federal mandates? that is something very important to us. in that timeline, we have several different things. yesterday, the rsc rolled out the number one legislated voted on the republican side, the most co-sponsors on the american health care reform act. dr. phil rowe from tennessee, who better to draft the policy than the gentleman who employed hundreds of medical professionals and understands the industry as a whole? those are the things we want to take to the forefront. is that particular legislation the end-all? no it is not. , it is round one of the 15-round heavyweight fight to

make sure we are pushing back on the narrative that republicans do not have a plan. as far as the final piece of your question, as far as the timeline on replacement, i believe that is still premature to nail that down. i think the consensus is sometime this year to have some kind of position to move forward. i've heard two, three, four years. i believe in following through with our promise to the american people in this calendar year. scott: you mentioned the rfc repeal and replace plan you laid out yesterday. can you explain the biggest difference with that plan versus the one speaker ryan and the leadership laid out? rep. walker: they are very similar. i believe there is a -- the primary difference would be the tax deduction versus the tax credit. i believe the families under the health care reform act it would

allow individuals $2500 as opposed to tax credit. another minor difference, we are making sure we are doing everything we can for pre-existing conditions. as long as you are staying on a plan that you are not out to pasture as well. those are very important things. nobody is planning on pulling the rug out from anyone. that is something important to us. but let me also say this, scott. sometimes the narrative -- if you look at even the most centrist polling, 15% have benefited from obamacare in some aspect. the 25%, not quite double have , had some kind of harm or premium spike. the thought process republicans all of a sudden have to have a replacement plan that covers 40% in the 25% and 15% is unfair knowing obamacare is failing on a daily basis. pushing back on some of the narrative there is this perfect magical plan, that is the only way we can replace obamacare, is

a fallible argument from the beginning. lindsey: a bit about the timeline, my understanding is the rsc plan does include provisions for transition with some exceptions for things that could be replaced earlier. will replace -- can you talk a little bit about the position? is the rsc generally in favor of a two-year transition? is that where the conference is headed as well? rep. walker: i think there are several pieces of discussion going on right now. our goal is to maintain in that year when it comes to replacement. i will add this. we want to make sure we are able to follow through on the budget reconciliation. the deal we were able to work out last year, to make sure we get the cloture 60 vote threshold. if too much is added to the replacement, it would violate according to the senate parliamentarian. we want to make sure as we

repeal that we stay within the threshold. lindsey: you mentioned the senate. it seems like there is some division in the senate. senators say they want to put up replacement at the same time as repeal. the house is not moving in that direction. have you talked to your counterparts in the chamber about this and the plan and how you move forward? rep. walker: the house and senate are not always on the same page. however we want to make sure we , are clearly communicating where we want to go with the repeal of obamacare. question, yes we , have talked with mike lee and others fairly frequently. not always just about this issue, but making sure we are trying to be united when it comes to once again that unified approach. question, yes we scott: this past congress, we saw the rise of the freedom caucus. this is the band of conservative lawmakers, many of them your close friends. they have gotten a lot of attention.

they have sucked up a lot of oxygen in the republican conference. they have been credited with forcing out speaker boehner in the last congress. tell me a little bit about how you see your organization coexisting with the freedom caucus. there is been some concern maybe these are redundant organizations. criticism from people who have left your organization that the rsc is not effective enough in moving policy to the right. can you talk a little bit about that? thatwalker: i would push saying it is my organization. the republican study committee founded in 1973 historically has been an incredible policymaker when it comes to overall conservative legislation. i believe about the time we came into the 114th congress, the freedom caucus was launched. i don't know that we have an adversarial problem with the

freedom caucus. in fact, many of them voted for us in the recent chairmanship race. i believe we have an opportunity to lead the republican study committee because that is our approach. as i told the rsc running for this position, it is not anymore just about good policy. there are three components. policy, the right approach, and the right voice. in fact i even dug out the old youtube commercial from 1990 kellogg's where the new englander is eating cornflakes. there is a line at the end that really helped kellogg's corn flakes turn it back in the maturity face. it says this. "taste them again for the first time." i feel sometimes conservatives, i like to think about hearing us for the first time. because our challenge is not to continue to take the message to the base. that is the easy path. that does not take much discipline.

what our goal is if we truly , believe we have a message for upward mobility and economic opportunity, if we truly believe that, and the guys i serve with do, the real burden or challenge or opportunity to take that to new communities and new generations. with doing so you have to be careful using worn out rhetoric. it takes energy to go into different places. sometimes you are outnumbered. sometimes you are in the minority being a conservative. but that is the real thing i enjoy about all of this. you get to go new places and talk about these things. but it has to start with relationships. hopefully, it will begin to get some traction. from day one, one of the reasons i ran was because over the years, as a pastor for nearly two decades, we have been able to work in places like cleveland, new york, and baltimore. not just those communities, but also younger generations, different student groups and

college age kids talking about what is important. where do you see yourself in 25 years? is it the entitlement mindset of a federal government to make decisions or to have full control of your lives? sometimes when you talk about it, even from a faith perspective you are created with , unique opportunities and skill sets. to develop those skill sets is a wonderful fulfillment in life and purpose. that is one of the things we are trying to take and incorporate in the republican study committee. susan: scott's question about the two caucuses sometimes being at odds with each other does not even take into account that both have been at odds with conferencein the from time to time over the past couple of conferences. i wanted to ask you about the opening day kerfuffle over the ethics rule change and what kind of footing you think that gave the republicans in congress for the brand-new session. and also what you think about what it might have done to the speaker's leadership and how it is viewed by the public.

rep. walker: i think one of the things that speaks strongly is -- taking the latter part of the question first if you look at , how many votes paul ryan received on the floor the other day, i think that says a lot. i believe all but one republican voted for the speaker. i think it is rare you have that kind of support for the speaker of the house. i do believe there is a certain level of confidence in speaker ryan. as far as the o.c.e. part of the ethics bill, i believe sometimes even members of congress go through the different emotions. you go through different things. there were several testimonies shared at that conference about how different members have been charged hundreds of thousands of dollars without a chance to face their accuser. even saying that, i do believe speaker ryan did the right thing saying "not now." if you think back a couple of months ago, it was kind of the same argument on earmarks. even if you are willing to make a constitutional argument or can

make the point it is within congress' wheelhouse to bring back earmarks, sometimes you have to ask yourself, just because it is lawful, is it the right thing to do? here we have a new president and new administration coming in who has run on draining the swamp. the american people said this needs to happen. if that is your mindset, you need be careful bringing back congress to do their business and i believe speaker ryan made a wonderful decision working with this administration of saying let's rethink this thing on o.c.e. maybe there is a time for that conversation, but it certainly is not now. lindsey: earmarks is something i want to ask you about. when you tabled the discussion last year, the speaker said it was something they would revisit in the first quarter this year. where do you fall on that discussion of whether earmarks should come back in a limited form? if you believe they should come back, what is the appropriate avenue for reinstating them?

rep. walker: personally, i believe the position of the rsc is against earmarks. historically, we have seen where there is not only corruption but abuse when it comes to it. i know the other argument is the army corps of engineers gets to where this money goes for different projects, does not always get to a red state so i understand the frustration. i believe if we are going to continue to try to say here is what we are trying to accomplish with congress, here is the honesty, here is the transparency, i believe this is not the time for earmarks to return to be able to have the members being able to specifically designate where the funds go. scott: you mentioned donald trump's motto, "drain the swamp," and how the osc action and possibly earmarks might fly in the face of that mantra. we saw donald trump weigh in on twitter on the ethics issue earlier this week. sort of putting that issue over the top, and forcing republicans

to back off and rethink that issue. talk a little bit about this new age and era of donald trump and his communication by twitter. how has that caused republicans on capitol hill to rethink things they are doing and approach things differently? rep. walker: if you look at the context of looking at the numbers, and i believe this number is correct. i am trying to pull it off the top of my head. since 2010, i believe close to 70% of the members of congress are new. if you look at that that means , 70% have not even served with a republican president, specifically in the republican party. it is a transformation or transitional thinking perspective. instead of being in an adversarial position pushing back on the current administration's policies, instinctively how do we work? there are some growing pains with that.

obviously the twitter age we live in, i thought about ronald reagan's ability to talk to the american people. donald trump has his own way of talking directly to the american people. so far, it has worked well for him. i will add this as well. there may come a time the administration maybe has a different position than the legislative branch. i don't know everything will be pollyanna or pie in the sky. there are times we will have to have real discussion as far as which direction we may be wanting to go. as of right now, i think it is incumbent on congress to do everything we can to work with the new administration. this is the president the people have selected. scott: the rsc this week engaged with donald trump on twitter responding to one of his health care tweets. is this something we will see more with the rsc? rep. walker: i think so. and here is why. a former chairman of the

republican study committee was mike pence. nearly a decade ago. having someone in the white house, the vice president-elect, who has served in the same role, really opens up the lines of medication when it talks about the agenda and the legislation. we want to take more of a position where we are proactive rather than reactionary. lindsey: you mentioned there will be areas where the president-elect and congress might disagree. one that people predict my cause trouble is the infrastructure package the president-elect is proposing. lindsey: you mentioned there is there a way to spend $1 trillion in a conservative way? rep. walker: i don't know that we have settled on $1 trillion. i commend the president for coming in and saying these are where we have needs. it is our job to say this is as far as we can go as part of it is not paid for.

i believe it is our job to not necessarily push back but sometimes share these are our concerns in moving forward. like i said earlier, i don't know we can anticipate specifically what areas that might be. if it is $1 trillion on infrastructure, we may have to say there is a portion we are not comfortable with and come back to the table. as a legislative body, that is still our job. not for want of spite or trying to be overly aggressive in pushing back on the administration. i am hoping before it gets to that place, we have an opportunity to work with mike pence and others, the own be -- omb director to make sure it is fiscally sound as we move forward. and on the overall budget with items like infrastructure. scott: you mentioned the former chairman with the incoming vice president. there is been some scrutiny this past week. there were reports saying he had

bought and sold some health-care related stocks as a member of congress. does that raise any red flags for you at all? i know democrats today held a press conference and called for an ethics investigation. is that something you believe is warranted at this point? rep. walker: no. i have not read through all of it so i have to be careful speaking on it. but i can speak personally from who i know is tom price a , surgeon very involved in the health care industry so it would not surprise me he had investments there. i will share this quick story. three years ago when i drove up to washington, january of 2014, nobody really had time to meet with us as we were looking to run for congress. but there was one person i wanted to speak with that made time for us. that was dr. tom price. from a personal standpoint, i have seen how he reaches out to all communities. he certainly has 100% of my full support.

lindsey: understanably obamacare is getting a lot of attention now first out of the gate. there is a second crack at budget reconciliation. that is coming up later in the spring. we are hearing a lot about a -- tax reform has a possible for that. speaker ryan said this week democrats are saying they want to work on that if that could be bipartisan. are there other more conservative policies that reconciliation may be a better candidate for? oars tax reform the best approach? rep. walker: i think right now, tax reform is crucial. even in my previous vocation, how many times have we heard part of congress' job is to do something with the tax code? now 75,000 pages long. this administration has added another 8000 to 9000 pages. people are frustrated being targeted by the i.r.s. kevin brady is aggressive doing something here, genuine tax reform. whether that is six months or a year, i believe that is

something specific to your question. that second reconciliation opportunity we have, i believe there is a lot of momentum. maybe this is an opportunity as we talk about bipartisanship. i believe our friends on the other side of the aisle , the democrats understand we need genuine tax reform. susan: five minutes left. scott: i wanted to switch gears for a to russia. second as a member of the house homeland security committee, do you believe the analysis from some of the top u.s. intelligence officials that russia had hacked into the email systems in the united states and tried to interfere with the u.s. election? rep. walker: i believe there is a big discrepancy between what the c.i.a. has said versus the f.b.i. but for me to pick or choose which is more accurate is not something i feel is my right to do.

we want to make sure if anyone, russia, china, or anyone is trying or attempting to interfere in our elections, we need to do everything we can to exhaust every possibility to hold whoever it is accountable. i am not opposed to thinking they would not try to do that. if we are getting tens of thousands of attacks, cyber attacks from china and russia daily, whether they are state-sponsored or private sponsored, it is not outside the realm of thought these countries would try to damage any aspect of our democracy. yeah i think we need to do due , diligence. i don't think we need to jump to conclusions and say this was russia, this was putin and this is why he did it. at the same time, i think you can take the other extreme and say it could not have been russia. we have to make sure we are being diligent and are not swayed, which is our security. specifically the f.b.i. and the c.i.a. have always been bodies that were not partisan. youreason why is because

can't have skewed thinking when doing these investigations. i have no problem looking to see if there was. i want to make sure we do not jump to conclusions and put all of our apples in one basket blaming one person for the election result. susan: you talked about coming in as a unified government. do you foresee this as an area where congress will have a very different opinion of russia than president-elect trump? rep. walker: i have read some things as far as what donald trump, the president-elect has said when it comes to a different opinion of him. i have heard him say there is a respected leadership component as far as strength. but when comes to relationship, i have heard him say there is no personal relationship. when it comes to congress as far as serving on the committee of homeland security, we have to be skeptical of any outside influence on not just the elections. to give an example we have many

, attacks on our grid that controls everything on the east coast to the mississippi river. it is hit thousands of times a day. we want to make sure what is a priority when it comes to looking at the threats we have. this has caught the media attention. we will do our due diligence on this. right now, i think it is a little premature to say who is responsible for what. lindsey: switching topics again, one of the things you talked about doing early is looking at the debt ceiling and ways you can come up with a plan. where do those discussions stand? what ideas are you figuring out? rep. walker: we are wanting to make sure we are getting beyond the adage that the train has left the station. i think the american people are frustrated saying, how can you back up the train far enough for you can take a different direction? we have meetings scheduled in

january and to talk about how we february get to the place where this is not an automatic to raise the debt ceiling. this may be an issue as far as some opposition with the administration. this could be one of those items. i know put myself and the rsc will take strong positions when it comes to raising the debt ceiling. i hope we are able to get a long-term solution. what i realized in washington is if you wait until the time to vote or deal with something, most of the time it is way too late. whether that is intentional or not can be debated. we have to back up far enough or be proactive enough that we are able to push back on things like the debt ceiling. susan: 30 seconds. final question, scott? scott: a lot of times we forget members of congress are people with fascinating backgrounds. you are a preacher. how will that impact the way you approach your job and health care? rep. walker: my wife is a nurse.

we will add that later on it. it.ayer on dealing with people from all walks of life has provided me a chance to get moving quickly. because when you deal with people from different socioeconomic backgrounds and different educational backgrounds, it allows you to listen more. then always being the one leading with the ideas. we have seen that in our community work. we have seen that where prominent democrats have endorsed us for congress. we are excited about bringing in a new hbcu president in february. there are a lot of former relationships we have been able to bring to the table and we look forward to continuing that work. susan: we covered a lot of the issues with you this week. thank you for being our guest this week on "newsmakers." "newsmakers" is back. we just talked with congressman mark walker. he is just in his second term in congress and was elected as the incoming head of the republican study committee, the 170-member

conservative caucus inside the house of representatives. scott wong and lindsey mcpherson are our reporters. so everyone is waiting until , january 20 to know the direction. from what you have seen so far of the republican congress, what can you discern about the direction? scott: i think you are starting to see the faultlines form. everyone has been preaching on the republican side about g.o.p. unity since the election. but at the same time, you are starting to see little cracks emerge on various issues from infrastructure to health care. we saw it this week with the ethics reform issue where republicans tried to push through an overhaul of the independent ethics office, really try to gut that office and water it down. donald trump tweeted right back at them saying this is not what the american people told us we should be focusing on, and that ended that.

so i think we are starting to , see these cracks appear. susan: lindsey, you talked about the two big caucuses inside the republican conference. that is the freedom caucus which has given speakers trouble in the past couple of cycles, and the much older established , republican study committee. the election of a freshman member of the house coming into a sophomore term, what is the rsc signaling about the direction? lindsey: well, mark walker ran against a senior caucus member for the position. it was an interesting race in that regard. andy harris said if you were chairman, you would have made the need for the caucus obsolete by the end of his term. i think the choice of walker, who is the and more inexperienced member, shows they are looking for a change.

it has nothing to do with conservatives i don't think. i think a lot of people respect him as a person. he is willing to work with various caucuses and across the aisle. and his character. we talked about his experiences as a preacher. he really played that up and i think people really respect him. susan: he has talked about working across the aisle. is there an appetite in the new congress for working with democrats now that they have a unified government? scott: it does not seem so from the democratic side. the democrats have looked to the republican playbook when president obama was in power and seen how republicans obstructed the president at every turn. i think democrats are going to try to do the same thing with a republican president in power with donald trump. it remains to be seen. it does not look like there's a whole lot of issues they agree on right now. we heard a little bit about earmarks today from mr. walker.

i have heard that is one possible area where the two sides could come together and agree on something. but again, that will be a steep climb. susan: were you surprised to hear he has been talking with senator mike lee about legislative priorities? lindsey: no. mike lee is a conservative in the senate in line with rsc ideals. i think he made it clear he would try to build those relationships. it is not surprising. obviously it is encouraging given that one of the big things we need to see play out for republicans to enact their agenda is cooperation between the house and senate. that has not existed when obama was in office. susan: what are we learning about the senate and its willingness to play ball with a republican majority in the house? scott: we saw an interesting paul walking across theay withd

capital to meet with the house freedom caucus. he was trying to rally the freedom caucus guys against the republican budget, saying he thinks it will be spending too much money in that budget, so you know, i think, given that we have a republican president, republican house and senate, there are going to be all sorts of conversations happening throughout the capital and in washington. it is going to be difficult to keep track of it all. susan: as we close out, we still have a couple of weeks to go until the new president is inaugurated. what will congress look like in the interim? lindsey: they will focus on getting the budget resolution through to get to the reconciliation process so the repeal bill will be ready to go. in addition to that, they are slowly starting the process for regulatory reform. markerse laid down some in some bills in the coming

weeks to tamper down on regulations. after trump gets here, they will start the congressional review process. they are still figuring out what congress needs to do to roll back some of obama's regulations and what trump can do on executive actions. susan: on the senate side, we will see confirmation hearings getting underway pretty quickly and a lot of attention on president trump's selections for these cabinet positions. thanks to both of you for being our guests. please come back. thank you for being here. scott: thank you. >> when harding became a person, he appointed to a job he did extremely well. wrapped into the bigger veterans bureau and forms bes was raised up to be director of the v.a.. >> rosemary stevens, professor

emeritus, discusses her book "a for,of scandal: charles r warren g. hardingbes and the making of the veterans bureau." >> it with a big scandal in the the early's, so 1920's, in the harding administration, but at the time, the veterans bureau of which charles forms was the center was equally important and yet, this man had come down in history to the present as a crook. i got intrigued by this. tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. ♪

>> the presidential inauguration of donald trump is friday, january 20 through c-span will have live coverage of all of the day's events and ceremonies. watch on c-span at the span.org free c-spann the pr radio app. the result of the presidential election were certified friday by congress when the house and senate met for a joint session to count the electoral vote ballots as required by the constitution. vice president biden presided over the counting, with trump receiving more than the 270 electoral votes that were necessary for him to become the next president. a number of house democrats objected to the validity of the votes, but were unsuccessful in their challenge without the support of a senator. this is 45 minutes.