[applause] >> thank you, mr. grassley. [indiscernible crowd noise] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> shortly after this town hall meeting, senator grassley spoke with reporters about issues that were brought up. he also talked about the possibility about holding additional meetings with constituents. >> i wanted to ask you about -- you set up four big meetings this week. what are the takeaways? sen. grassley: concern about what is going to happen as a result of repealing the affordable care act, what is going to take its place.

the other one is immigration, and the other one is general dislike of what trump has done to this point. >> what do you think -- there was a question about steve bannon's comments at cpac. i think he said his vision is destruction of the administrative state. do you think that is the right vision? sen. grassley: i think what he is talking about is just those things that administrators do beyond what the law allows. for instance, in the case of waters of the u.s., epa ruling. that is being held up by the courts in ohio, i guess. nationwide as well. then what the president did on legalizing 4.5 million people that he figures he can do by administrative orders. the courts have said that is illegal.

before scalia died, the last opinion he wrote was on the epa rules on coal. he did not say the rules were wrong but you did not go through the administrative process you were supposed to. you have to go back and do it the right way. i think it is nothing but administrative overstep that they are trying to bring within the law and within the constitution. >> so maybe not as frightening as some people would make it seem? sen. grassley: well, after all, you heard me out here, the president proposes, we dispose. they can't get away with anything the law says they can't do, and the courts are a check on the executive and legislative branches of government. >> you might have already answered the question, but it seemed to me that a lot of questions that you had changed over the years of being in congress. what are your thoughts on that?

sen. grassley: i presume most of this audience come from the 36% of the people that voted for my opponent. you might expect that from them. where i really don't like to hear it is from fellow republicans. i have not heard it in a long time from fellow republicans, but if you go back to the tea party era of 2009 and 2010, i heard it more from republicans than i did from democrats. back then i was getting praise from democrats and the republicans seemed to take exception to the stance. the bottom line is chuck grassley has not changed. >> thank you. >> senator, you have seen a lot of outrage in town halls this week from your colleagues. are you concerned about the terms and how the trump

administration may affect others going forward? sen. grassley: i think after 33 days it is too early to make a judgment about that. i think that you can't test a president after 33 days. except, it is very clear that this is a president who wants to do everything he promised in the election that he can do without having to change laws and then going through congress, he wants to do everything he can and that is what he has proceeded to do. i think considering how cynical the american people are about a politician running on one platform and serving on another platform, i think that people would be satisfied that a president said what he is going to do, he actually does it in office. beyond that, it would be difficult for me to make judgment. six months from now, the question would be more appropriate. >> you mentioned executive

orders. does that concern you? sen. grassley: most of these executive orders have come in the way where they are trying to reverse something that obama did. if obama had the legal authority or constitutional authority to do something by executive action, this president has it. this president needs to be warned about doing that the same way there has been 50-60 court that in the eight years obama has been president that the court said he acted against the law, and even in one case on a 9-0 decision said he violated the constitution by appointing people to the nlrb. so you have the checks of the court and i think the president needs to be cautious the same way that obama was not cautious. but if he is doing everything that if obama could do it legally, this president can do

it legally. >> there were a lot of questions over the last two days about immigration. you emphasize the need to remove dangerous criminals from the country. but from what i have read, the administration's plans might go a lot further than that. is there a line or something that you would take in terms of when an activity might go too far or when the president might be enforcing those laws too robustly? sen. grassley: if you expect this to be a law, a nation based on the rule of law, you can't hardly make any exception to it. if you start making one exception, you are going to have to justify why other people have to obey a certain law. so that is the principle of our country and constitution and society and everyone respects it. if you did not respect it, we

would have a chaotic society. there is a practical answer to your question. it is called administrative discretion. you can have any number of prosecutors. you got a say what are you going to enforce, what are you going to prosecute first? obviously, you are going to prosecute those that are most dangerous. it is the same way for deportation. or don't have the resources desire to remove everybody, so in the end, you will prioritize. but dougherty is criminal aliens and people who have been adjudicated that they could be deported. that is where the emphasis is. let's see after that is done what else is effective. >> can you talk about might be coming in forms of legislation? sen. grassley: yeah.

i don't think there will be any comprehensive immigration reform. i believe there will be some small pieces of legislation dealing with agricultural workers, unskilled workers and professional people like engineers, i believe there will be some legislation to make mandatory sentencing for people that are deported and come back into the country. criminal alien to have been deported and back into the country. in iowa, we have sarah's law that we are trying to get passed. some of these regulations, in one way, helps the sarah law goal that her family could not get any information from the government. this is to make sure the information gets to the family. let's see. line, i better leave it at that.

there may be more. plans to have any visit the higher populated towns in iowa?/ sen. grassley: of course. i had 30 q and a's with different groups of people. i have interaction just like i do here with constituents in the big counties all the time. in face, i'm surprised i don't get more criticism that i don't come to the extremely rural counties of iowa more than once a year sometimes. >> do you hope to change her mind on policy? what do you hear from people? sen. grassley: i think the thing that has been emphasized to me ofthe medicaid aspects obamacare and the importance of people that are not

covered by the private insurance within obamacare. i think that has been brought home pretty strongly. that does not mean i have a policy i can enunciate as a result of it. it is getting much more consideration not only to chuck grassley because of iowa towns, but it seems to the from other town meetings as well. yesterday was an example. week, you said you support consumer protections and the taxes to pay for this, with the subsidies and exchanges. upongrassley: it depends if we had a replacement immediately when we have with repeal, then the new policy will take care of that probably

through refundable tax credits and tax credits. orwhat i am speaking about, to answer your question, if there is a. of time, maybe two years between repeal and replacement. during that time, we made it clear we will keep in place changes and the subsidies that go with it. thank you all very much. senator, i was waiting for everybody else. you have been doing this kind of thing for a long time. have you ever seen a reaction like this? regardless of republican, democrat, what did this show time, maybe two years between repeal and replacement. you? what did you take away from this? sen. grassley: that people think congress is not acting fast enough. i don't expect you to know what

happened in 2009 and last year -- these are relatively quiet town meetings compared to 2009 people on the lawn of the dallas county courthouse. a lot of other lawns as well. also, compared to march, april, may, june of last year in regard to garland. it was relatively quiet. regardless of how contentious it gets, why are you still have ing -- sen. grassley: i will answer your question in more than two words. those two words are representative regardless of hos government. if you are going to have representative government, you have to have dialogue with your constituents. meeting i start a town of five minutes of what i am telling you now. i didn't want to take time away from a big crowd like this.

representing of government is i am one half of it, you are the other half. you are going to have dialogue with constituents. if this was the only way we did it, i would not have much contact. . we answer on paper and that is how we keep it up when i cannot be in parts of iowa and keep it up every day. >> any big takeaways you will take back to washington? sen. grassley: this will be a repeat of what i said. basically, the real concern about the affordable care act, how much time there is between repeal and replace that, an emphasis upon my audience that doesn't want much light between the two. did they can be simultaneous, it can be. the other issue is immigration

issues and the third one is medicaid as it relates to the obamacare extension. >> that is all the time we have. ,d.c.ding to washington for the annual winter meeting. the event includes a discussion on cyber security with google. live at 4:15 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> tonight at 8:30 p.m. eastern on book tv, author david horwitz whitees the firings the house should worry about. of republicans going off in their own directions. i'm worried about the congress. i'm worried about people who don't understand people in the republican leadership who don't understand the political battle.

>> sunday at 6:45 p.m. eastern, david discusses his book about the civil wars. >> there is something atrocious about it. it's fraternal war because it is conducted within a common political unit and because both affirm andbsolutely deny this common unit. >> go to booktv.org for the complete we can schedule. -- weekend schedule. >> at the white house friday, president trump signed an executive order that directs federal agencies to review existing regulations and recommend those that should be repealed. the president signed the order in the oval office alongside the ceos of several u.s. companies.