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tv   Washington Journal  CSPAN  October 31, 2017 6:59am-10:04am EDT

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judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism. on wednesday two hearings live on c-span3. how select intelligence committee. senior vice president and general counsel for google. watch all three hearings on c-span3 online at c-span.org or listen live on the free c-span radio app. live today at c-span, washington journal is next. at 10:00, fema administrator theght long testifies on federal hurricane response. at noon the u.s. house returns for general speeches. at 2:00 p.m. the house takes a bills on the national forest system and natural resources conservation. coming up in an hour, role kohl's nathan gonzales gibson
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early outlook for campaign 20 82. georgetown university law on theor jonathan turley indictment of former trump campaign manager's. ♪ good morning. it's tuesday, october 31 3017. special counsel robert mueller revealed charges yesterday against three advisers to president trump's campaign. for more campaign chairman paul manafort and long-term business associate robert gates pled not guilty in federal court yesterday well documents showed that former trump foreign-policy advisor george papadopoulos pled guilty earlier this month to making false statements to fbi investigators. the announcements and guilty plea represents first criminal allegation and guilty plea in the growth of russian interference in u.s. elections. he will spend our first hour on
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washington journal getting your reaction to this story. phone lines are open. .epublicans 202-748-8000 .emocrats 202-748-8001 independents 202-748-8002. good tuesday morning. you can start calling in now as we spend a good part of the show today discussing this story. here are some of the headlines from the front pages of newspapers. the washington times today. mueller's first strike is the headline they went with for the front page of usa today. russian inquiry takes dramatic steps forward. former trump campaign chief and associates are indicted. to the front page of the new york times today, malingering unveils charges and a russia link. in terms of those charges the washington post has a breakdown of the 12 counts in the indictment facing gates and
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manafort area they include charges of conspiracy against to united states, conspiracy launder money, failure to file reports of foreign bank and calendarsaccounts for 2011 three 2014. seven different counts involving that. agent of unregistered a foreign principal. false and misleading registration act statements and other full statements. when it comes to george he was arrested over the summer. he pled guilty to making false statements to fbi investigators were asked about his contacts with a foreigner who claimed to have high-level russian connections. we will talk about all of it this morning and get your reaction. here's the reaction at the white house briefing room yesterday from sarah sanders. >> this announcement has nothing to do with the president. has nothing to do with the president's campaign or campaign activity. the real collusion scandal has
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everything to do with the illusion gpsign's and russia. there is clear evidence of the clinton campaign colluding with russian intelligence to spread disinformation and smear the president to influence the election. we have been saying from day one there has been no evidence of trump russia collusion and nothing in the indictment today changes that at all. >> it is specifically about the campaign. nothing to do with the activities of the campaign. it has to do with his failure to tell the truth. it is the clearest evidence yet of ties between the trump campaign and russian officials. >> there are no activities or official capacities engaged in these activities. most of these to place will before the campaign existed. host: getting your reaction to those indictments yesterday. paul manafort, richard gates and the guilty plea that was announced by george papadopoulos. phone lines are open.
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jacob is the first in west virginia. line for republicans. good morning. i just want to say you guys do a great job. i am 26 years old. i'm a young guy. i know you are a nonprofit. i wish you could somehow target the younger audience like myself to just get the straight news i'm not the fake news which is pretty much what most of it is. democrats havehe figured out how to literally circumvent the laws because if the russians call you and say we've got some information that says your opponent has committed a crime, that is apparently treason against the united states. type spyt a james bond
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from britain to infiltrate the russian government and then he gets russian information back to that time. i just don't understand how it makes sense. that's jacob in west virginia talking about the steel dossier. getting your reaction this morning to the story that sent shockwaves through d.c. around the country. thomas is in atlanta, georgia. line for democrats. good morning. caller: morning. -- i would like to say that trump he just keeps saying this story is a hoax. this is not a hoax. the is trying to shift the blame over to hillary clinton talking about she made a uranium deal 10 years ago and the uranium they did the deal with was some low-level -- something else.
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trump keeps getting caught in all his lies. eventually it's going to catch up with him. he has been dealing with the russians way back a long time ago. and they put sanctions on the trump won't even approve the sanctions they put on the russians. onre is something going there. mueller is going to get to the bottom of it good if you try to fight mueller is going to end up getting impeached. if i were him i wouldn't try to do that. on there. last the president's tweet, 20 hours ago. after the news of the gates and manafort indictments came out. sorry, but this was years before the trump campaign. why aren't crooked hillary and the dems will focus? also there is no collusion.
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this is the time of day he often does tweet. we will know if and when he does. independents.r good morning. forer: it's a sad day america. a sad day. i just can't understand how people get on tv. they know they are lying to the american people. the american people know they are lying. the republican party is sitting here letting this go. back in the day there is nowhere in the world we should have this much influence over the united states. these people are absolutely ridiculous. it is shameful. the nine states is a disgrace to the whole world for what's going on today. we are running around trying to police everybody about their democracy. look what we got here and we got a moronic in the white house. terms of reaction on
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capitol hill, here's the washington post reppo. republican leader strategy avoidance, noting republican leaders either -- eager to move past the news avoided further inflame tensions with trump and -- to use their powers to protect molars probed from interference by the president. they also avoided discussion of filedarges that mueller that were unveiled yesterday leading democrats down different notes. they said, should respond to the news by swiftly passing laws to protect mueller from any retaliation from trump. in terms of some of that reaction from democratic leaders appears a few tweets. , the special counsel's probe is ongoing. as serious way the rule of law is paramount and the
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investigation must proceed unimpeded. he also tweeted that president trump must not under any circumstances interfere with the work in any way. if he does so congress must respond swiftly unequivocally and in a bipartisan way. throughbe taking you the other action on capitol hill. nancy pelosi writes the indictment of paul manafort and rick gates underscored the need for an outside independent commission to follow the facts. that's outside of the mueller special counsel probe. she's talking about a congressional independent that president trump could not fire or have any influence over. on on thehat going democratic side of the aisle. we want to hear your thoughts this morning. phone lines are open. 202-748-8001 republican. 202-748-8000 democrat. 202-748-8002 independent.
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j is a republican in baltimore maryland. go ahead. caller: good morning. i became a republican. beingyed listening to and part of the united states that included john mccain. watching trump is an embarrassment. as a republican. he's is a disgrace. surrounding himself with awful people. done far more to show he was strongly against foreign nations in our government election process. he has done nothing. and he has turned the white house into the -- a reality
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television show. host: did you vote for him as a republican? i held my nose and voted for him. holdingve to start other republicans accountable. this guy is out of his mind and nobody in the republican party first. republicans first. standing up and telling the sky the facts. period. here's one of the democratic senators on twitter yesterday. chris van hollen. the news about manafort underscores the importance of as a nonpartisan independent special counsel. every single member of, should support legislation as to prevet trump from firing mueller. at the white house press briefing yesterday sarah sanders was asked about the possibility
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of the president hiring more -- firing robert mueller. >> the president said last week there is no intention or plan to make any changes in regards to special counsel. you throughl take some of the other parts of the other parts of that press briefing which mostly focused on this topic as we continue to hear your thoughts. barbara in anderson island, washington. for democrats. go ahead. >> thank you for taking my call. i want to say that it is time we stop calling this collusion and start calling it a conspiracy. all of the americans that were targeted to vote for donald all played a part in this. every republican that voted for this guy. every independent the voted for this guy. every democrat voted for this guy. were part of the conspiracy.
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they were used and that's all i have to say. host: when you say americans that were targeted, targeted how? caller: with facebook, twitter. you name it. the russians were very effective. vote.pressing the against hillary clinton. all of her emails were released within hours. all the democratic dnc emails ofe released within hours the access hollywood tape. the fact that george papadopoulos was actually sitting in the room with jeff sessions, donald trump, everybody else and actually answered to jeff sessions. so i don't know. time to clean house. that's all i have to say. host: you mentioned sitting in
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the room. here is a tweet. this is a facebook post from the president's facebook page that several reporters pointed out of thisy in the wake news noting that papadopoulos was in a meeting with president trump on march 21 less than two weeks after he met with a russian professor who was promising dirt on hillary clinton. papadopoulos at the table. the president at the table as well. saying he was meeting with his national security team in washington 2016. mentioned twitter and facebook. executives from those media companies will be on capitol hill today and tomorrow answering questions from the congressional committees that are investigating russian interference in the election. c-span is going to be airing
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those meetings. we will be talking more about them later today on washington journal. heroes this from the washington post. facebook planning to tell lawmakers that 126 million of its users may have seen content produced by russian operatives. many times more than the company had previously disclosed about the reach of the online influence campaign targeting american voters. it had previously reported an sawmated 10 million users the pages. internet research suggesting it andseen by far more users ads were seen as well. that's a the front page of today's washington post. we will hear more about it today and we will hear more from you. in this first hour of the washington journal today we are focusing on this story that is the lead story in almost every major newspaper today.
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three charged in the mueller russia probe. want to share your thoughts. in paterson, new jersey. for democrats. caller: i would say leave hillary alone. president no longer or anything like that and she tried to save us from ourselves but we wouldn't listen. we listened to all the lies that donald trump said what he was going to do. he is not going to do nothing but make his family more richer. seesepublicans, the world what you are and it's a shame. i am so sorry for the united states. thank you. host: you don't feel the need for an investigation into the so-called steel dossier? the revelations we heard last week about the hillary campaign funding the attorney that ended up hiring the research firm for that? that's not something you think needs to be explored? caller: they can explore that.
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they are only putting that out to take the heat off donald trump. explored the. they already know what it's about. explored the. they already know what it's about. this is just another scam to keep everybody's mind off of donald trump and it's only the republicans. the democrats know and the independent nose and world knows. the world is looking at us and laughing. this is the united states? give me a break. you have a good day, sweetheart. board at thetorial washington post noting that the democrat fusion russia story requires as full investigation is the question of trump russia collusion. all the more so given the fbi may have used the steel dossier to begin investigate and trump campaign and seek a warrant from the foreign intelligence surveillance court. the one problem with the special tosecutor is that they exist prosecute someone somewhere for
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something more than they shed light. the latter should be congress's job and the members should keep pressing to tilt the complete story. that's the editorial board today from today's wall street journal. on the line for independence, go ahead. caller: good morning. both sides do with the russians. what we have seen is mueller coming in and his friend was the gentleman who got pushed out, comey. a bunch of convoluted -- it's just a mess. worked with both these people as a lobbyist. here's the thing. hillary lost. and she just went right for what she knew. and then with the dossier, she knows what she did.
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she helped fund that. they need to look at her, but they will never lock her up. they will never lock that woman of it she's bad for politics. trump for all it's worth, i am an african american. he is a political outsider. this is what everybody needs to pay attention to. when you're a political outsider , i don't care what party. you are not welcome. have a nice day. savannah, tennessee. line for republicans. go ahead. for taking my call. i think i need to either get rid of mueller or have mueller investigate the democrats because hillary, the clintons and her whole rodeo you to be roped up and thrown in jail. the rest of the democrats is crying, you need to give them some pacifiers to shut their mouths up because they don't know what they're talking about.
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just jealous because they lost the election. they need to get over it because it's done. it's finished. trumps the president. they need to get over it and do what is right the better of the country. host: gruver in virginia. for democrats. go ahead. need to wakereally up and start smelling the roses. if we keep on listening to putin and trump, that's putin jr.. in lake forest, illinois. i would like to know how he was able to do that. in shawnee, oklahoma. independent. go ahead. caller: i am a senior citizen and i have been watching the stuff go on and on.
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i wonder how many people just can't have in his pocket. he has done some awful things and every time he does something he switches it over to obama. to draw the attention off of him. i have never seen them allow a man of his status to go this far as he heads and all the lies they have caught him him. what is this world coming to? he has nothing to say about what he's doing for senior citizens. and it has only just begun. tonorth korea, he needs leave them alone because he thinks this is a videogame. he thinks those bombs is something he is playing a game with. trump needs to leave that young man alone and focus on what he has done and what he's doing here in america. that's all i have to say about that. here's a focus on some of the conversation happening on twitter at c-span wj.
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writes this morning that there's probably more coming. liberty predicts that president trump panics and fire small and -- fires mueller or pardons all of them. have would charge against hillary clinton clear him? said i thought they were investigating russia commander fearing with the election. not something done before the election. the insanity of it all. we will talk about the scope of the mueller investigation, how far it can go, how far it is expected to go. we will be joined by jonathan turley this morning and her 9:00 hour. he was able to join us by phone yesterday. jonathan turley, gw law professor. face toy a familiar plenty of c-span viewers will be in studio to answer some questions in person today in our 9:00 hour.
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we will talk about some of these legal angles with him. we are getting your reaction to all of this news yesterday. three charged in the russia probe. one guilty plea. don henderson, nevada. on the line for republicans. go ahead. there goes that crazy media again. they put out enough fake news. now they are putting out the charges and blowing it all over the country on the three republican workers. now, podesta and debbie wasserman schultz are being investigated also. the biggest thing that i wanted to bring out was hillary clinton selling and allowing 25% of our countries uranium to be bought
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by russia. now, podestanotwithstanding thet moscow andn went to gave a 20 minute speech and received i believe it was $400,000. not to mention his global millionve received $140 .rom the oligarchs in russia who do you think is getting all of that uranium? we got thereon, we have north korea. has nuclearalready missiles. iran is working on it. trump is trying to stop everything and he's confronting the main problem of hillary
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clinton. host: let me ask you. all of this today, you say this is the fake news that the media is focusing on. when the media focused on the steel dossier last week that you were just talking about or the uranium one stories, why is that real news and this is fake news? it was just -- i'm not saying this is fake news. if the gentleman that are charged are guilty of breaking the law, they should be tried and taken to court like they are. problem is nobody on the republican side is being tried and taken to court. notwithstanding the fact that mueller and rosenstein were on thecommittee that approved uranium sale to russia and hillary approved it also. check the facts.
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i watch enough television. most of it is baloney. there is some facts that are presented. host: how do you separate the baloney from facts? from different sources. host: all right. david in bowling green, kentucky. line for democrats. caller: you make the news, you make money. when you report the news, you may be broke but you are doing the right thing for the people. i am a vet. i used to live in europe and stuff. i love my country. i don't think trump loves his country because he is not a professional politician. nowhere near. how he got in the white house boggles the mind. charge hillary if there is something she has done wrong.
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charge her. that's all i have to say. host: david mentioned he served overseas. this story was received in at least one country overseas in the ukraine. the news of paul manafort and dimon on monday elicited cheers in ukraine where activists and politicians seeking to root out political corruption had seized at the political operatives council of the cuts trees ousted leader, viktor yanukovych. tens of millions of dollars working for describing leaders and their allies in countries such as the philippines and congo. caughtk in one country up with him on monday in a criminal indictment describing the listed earnings, offshore bank accounts and lavish expenditures funded in part by nearly a decade of work for ukraine's party of regions and you covet who fled to russia after his regime was toppled by protesters in 2014. georgetown, massachusetts.
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line for independence. go ahead. good morning. thanks for having me on. i just want to give my opinion about this whole thing. i try to look at things logically here. it seems as though we got one deep set inside the displaying a really long game. and you have regular american working day byre day trying to do things. we are on two different playing fields. i think what we are witnessing government which we should be responsible for as american citizens is we are looking at the results of years citizens, let's say power they have with the constitution. and being able to hold our government accountable.
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now we are witnessing a rogue government that has given itself enough power to lie to us by resending this -- they lie to us through the press. in totriot act, giving all sorts of power. i could go on and on. over the years the government has assumed so much power over that it canhip basically just walk over us citizens and now they have the media on their side. host: what is the citizen to do? caller: i will tell you. pro bono for me over the years. radio stations, tv stations. i have called into your show for
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years since 9/11. it took me a couple years for you to actually take my calls. now you do regularly and i appreciate that. point i felt physically threatened because of all the reaching out i was doing, questioning things basicallyhappening, since 2001 when things became blatantly obvious. i have been to our local police station, interview with detectives. i have talked to as many people i can that if i go missing, i am giving them a reason why. that was my only safety. i have backed off over the years. i have a family. i have felt threatened directly by the overwhelming power of the overreach, and the that they can do and the laws
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that they have on the books. they can detain any one of us for any reason, without telling anybody without representation. host: is that why you are an independent? i would love to get on your show sometime because i have a lot to say. ever since i was a kid, i knew things were messed up in government. i can listen to tv. i would talk to my dad. i have always been an independent because i knew that being a democrat or republican, there was something wrong. things going back and forth in the clinton administration. i have only really opened my eyes completely to government after 9/11. to me, it became blatantly obvious what was going on. host: it is just after 7:30 on the east coast. we are talking about the story that is the focus of most
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front-page news stories, most lead stories today, most major news stories, the charge in the mueller russia probe. we want to update on some of that now. president trump likely to nominate to rome powell as the next chairman of the central bank -- to nominate jerome powell as the next chairman of the central bank. ands a republican centrist may be open to using presently using regulations on banks. it has not been announced. the announcement scheduled for thursday. he would represent powell, a middle ground pick for trump. he was also considering janet yellen, as well as john taylor, former fed chair.
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a federal judge, in federal court, blocked president trump's ban on transgender service measures -- transgender service members, allowing transgender troops to serve openly. the order of u.s. district -- of the u.s. district judge prevents the pentagon from enacting the band. president trump announced it in a tweet in july. the court found that trump's band likely means the plaintiff -- the transgender troops had processghts to do violated. here is the front page of "the washington post." three trump campaign officials charged. this is leading our coverage this morning. we are getting your thoughts, your reactions.
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david, flint, michigan, line for democrats. caller: good morning, c-span. i think robert mueller is doing a good job. i glad he is getting to the bottom of this. i agree with some of the other callers that have called this morning. i think putting trump in office is an embarrassment for this whole country, and i think other countries have to be wondering. we have the best professors, the best colleges, the best skilled minds in the world. this is who people pick because the republican party has taught all their supporters to hate government. they hate the u.s. so to get back at the u.s., they put somebody in there that hates everything the country stands for. applied to you think it is ahatred, david, as opposed to
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disagreement with the last administration or democratic policies? i hear theause when republicans talked, they never have nothing good to say about government. they all say government is broken, no good. the tea party -- government is this. i thought all americans really loved this country. my people have been through more than anybody. i cannot understand why they hate the government so much. host: does loving the country mean the same thing as loving government, david? caller: they do not have to love everything about the government, but to think everything that has to do with government is the worst thing in the world -- look, trump supporters -- i believe president trump, which one of my friends talked when he first got it, is not really a true republican, that maybe we would have a chance to have a fair government now. but when he put all those billionaires in their -- in
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there, i said, no, he is not going to do nothing good for this country. it turned out to be that way. host: hunter is waiting in louisiana. go ahead, hunter. to calli'm not going this morning with too much radical right for you. . am down the middle i have never seen anything quite like the spirit what i mean by that -- when the and got into got into- when nixon trouble and we had a lot of celebrity figures -- jim morrison, janis joplin -- clearly in those years, it was clear he was perhaps behind some of this. for this reason, no matter what he accomplished -- host: who was behind this, hunter? caller: richard nixon. host: behind their deaths?
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caller: people thought so. the point i am trying to make -- this issue, this time of it is the strongest resistance, i will call it that, that i have seen the left put up, and i am sitting in the grandstands watching the football game, is the feeling i am getting. it is a real fight. the thing that worries me the most -- and i look at this from the standpoint of trying to be moderate -- we live in an atomic age. s response totin' obama was. it was not friendly. if you put too much liberal -- you might have power in new york and washington, but you still have a world community out there. -- they doin europe
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not see the world through your eyes, and you are not going to tell them what to do. this couldfear -- lead to world war. the difference in ideology is so the rejectiona -- of obama was bad. i do not care how smart your schools are, how much you think you know, but when it comes to someone like russia -- i saw what russia did in world war ii with the tank bottles -- with the tank battles with the germans. -- that has been covered a million times. morally they were corrupt. but militarily, germany was way ahead of its time. -- today we look at it with the einsteins and
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weaponry, there is not going to be anything left if we go to war. host: on the line for independents -- on the story from yesterday, paul manafort and rick gates charged, pleading not guilty yesterday in court. foreign-policy advisor george papadopoulos of the trump campaign pled guilty earlier this month to making false statements to fbi officials. josh from leesburg, virginia, independent. caller: thanks for taking my call. first ireface this saying that trump is not my favorite guy. i will then go on to a gentleman who called in earlier. he stated -- i think he was an independent. said. echo what he trump is an outsider, a
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political outsider, and he is just not welcome. i agree with that. say the goal is not about mr. trump and the people who surround him. i think it is to prosecute russia. get rid of a political outsider in the interim, that is great. when i look at this whole , it is quite amazing. whichve wikileaks, crew,y clinton and cutting the ledge out from under bernie sanders with the dnc, that is un-american. it is not democratic. you showed where they were
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colluding with the president, the podestas and so forth -- take a look at this article, tell me what you think, let me feed you some news. then we have this question about russia and their involvement. from what i can tell, at least what is available to me -- i am just a citizen, but it sounds like propaganda. if i am too stupid to parse out propaganda from what is good for me as an american, then, geez, you know. -- iem to triangulate guess if i asked somebody enough questions, they will perjure themselves. buts just kind of strange, i will just leave it on this note. am, being the person i looking around -- and you do not hear this in the news, but
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actually, trump, for all his warts, he is leading where obama did not. china -- this is a thing that is cooking that we as americans do not smell. it is the answer to the military-industrial complex as a political -- rather, an economic stimulus package. 2%, 3% gdppaltry growth over 12, 15 years while 13%, 16%, 17%ng gdp. they are partnered with india. host: we will try to stick to the news yesterday -- we will try to stick to the news. yesterday people wanted to comment on it, including artie in new york, on the line for democrats. good morning. go-ahead. caller: i am not saying this is
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the fault of the republicans. i think it is the fault of the republican electoral commission, whoever is in charge of that. i think in normal times when you add a candidate -- when you have a candidate who gets up on stage and encourages a foreign enemy to get involved with the , can you imagine -- host: you blame the party apparatus itself for allowing president trump to win the nomination? is that what you are saying? caller: absolutely. if they did the right thing from the beginning, we would not be going through this right now. host: what would have been the right thing, not allowing him to run as a republican? caller: the man coached a foreign enemy to attack our constitution. that is the problem. this is a wake-up call for anybody to rely as what the hell
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was going on. host: what would be the right thing for the party to do? caller: they have an apparatus. they have ways and means -- they got ways and means to wash anything that is not powerful. they could have did this but they did not. can you imagine if there was a democratic candidate that caused isis to get involved in our elections? rtie in new york this morning. we are going to talk about the impact of this story on the 2018 elections, what the parties are doing to prepare for the 2018 elections. in 15 minutes we will be joined by nathan gonzales, editor of -- a stafferan with rollcall. he will be on and we will talk
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about how the 2018 election is shaping up and how this story will play in the weeks and months. here at one week to come, we are 53 weeks away from it election 2018. in terms of the dual announcement yesterday of the guilty plea and the charges announced against richard gates and paul manafort, "the wall street journal" takes up the timing of the-2 announcement yesterday. some say that robert mueller did not want the first public move to be disconnected from the trump campaign. they believe he chose to unseal simultaneously the pop at opelousas -- in terms of the strategy, we the 9:00 talk about in
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hour, we will be joined by jonathan turley of george washington university, legal law professor to go over some of these issues, the strategies sherry, on thes line for independents. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would encourage americans to do two things. follow the fact in the timeline of this case. do not depend on and repeat verbatim what you hear on any particular news station. how we are going to learn and how we are going to know what happened is to follow the facts and the timeline. i would encourage us to be americans first. .ot democrats, not republicans but america first, not your party. those are my comments. host: here is an example of one
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of those charges. indictment --und a 12-count indictment. this was released by the court yesterday. paul manafort and rick gates generated tens of millions of dollars in income as a result of their ukraine work. gates laundered the money through scores of united states and foreign corporations, partnerships, and bank accounts. the associated press noting that manafort could face potentially up to 80 years in prison, according to the federal charges have the relevant statutes by the associated press. gates faces 70 years in prison. that is the associated press review of the 12-count indictment. bob, on the republican line.
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go ahead. caller: good morning. and a question. i agree with the lady who came on and said about following the facts. you read the "washington post" headline, that three trump campaign officials were indictment -- were indicted. the indictments against manafort and the other fellow were not related to the campaign. leads, andgton post" it generally slants stories very liberal. i wanted to make a point with congress. foreign gets lobbied by officials all the time. you can have senators, congressmen that are lobbied, and we do not know. when you think about it, if anybody related to any campaign gets lobbied, the entire congress is lobby.
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basically, it does not matter who wins, republicans or democrats. they will be connected with russia or some other foreign entity. host: when people do lobby members of congress on behalf of foreign governments, should they with the make clear united states government who they are working for? caller: absolutely. the person in congress should take it known. a lot of what we have been discussing about sessions having a conversation with russian -- with a russian diplomat, that is common practice. yet the news media makes that out to be something bad because they have an agenda. here is my question. basically, how do you personally feel about how long this is taking to come out? would lay out what he has, the generalities of what the american public, letting
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them see what it is, if there is a link between the russians and the trump campaign, we would know and it would be on the table and people could work on it. host: you think this is being drawn out for a reason? caller: absolutely. it is to make the governing of the republican party, trump and the republican party, ineffective. -- don'td other people you want to see this thing come out and be over, or will we go for another three or four years? we will have this going on. we will be talking about this another 10 minutes in this segment, but also we will have time later in our program to talk about it as well. i want to hear from as many people as we can, including irma, from california, the line for democrats. good morning. good morning.
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i think the investigation should continue. i wish there was more emphasis on how to present this from -- on how to prevent this from happening. i feel even as a democrat that if there is something behind the investigation involving hillary and the uranium, that should go through. i do not care who paid for the dossier. if it is true, let's investigate it and find out what is going on. politiciansopinion, at one time or another will get caught with their hand in the cookie jar. inch -- host: in terms of personal opinion, we will show if you are the opinions that came out in today's papers, from various op-ed pages. times,"ay's "washington "a lot of noisy ado about nothing much yet."
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the lead editorial of "usa are focusing on this today. david french, a senior writer at conservative "national review," predicting that mueller will not shake donald trump's base. and from the new york times, asking, "is the white house scared yet?" we want to hear from you on this topic. jason is from gaithersburg, maryland, a republican. caller: thank you so much for c-span. i am glad to see justice served. i am disappointed to hear the disrespect that we have for our fellow americans. on this facebook story, i really think people overestimate how much these ads on social media affect the election. i see an ad, i do not go out and
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buy it. if i see a political ad, i will not go out and vote taste on what it is telling me to do. it is disrespectful to think this has a significant effect on our election. of thosewe said, some officials from facebook, google, and twitter will be on capitol hill today and tomorrow. p.m.,ow, at 9:30 and 2:00 with the house and senate intelligence committees, we will be airing those on c-span3, on c-span.org, and the c-span radio app. that is in the senate judiciary talkinge, so we will be more about that later on in our program. we want to hear from jim, in illinois, the line for independents. jim, go ahead. caller: i think you guys do an
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job, and i wonder if anyone has accused you of being fake media -- i think you guys do an excellent job, and i wonder if one has accused you of being fake media. many investigations did they conduct at the time of hillary clinton and gaza? how much did it cost the american taxpayers? they keep trying to use her as their foil. i am just curious if you can answer that from your archives about all the investigations she has already faced. the: the great thing about archives is that you can go back and watch those hearings. we aired almost all of them on c-span3 or one of our other platforms. you can check them all out, whether it happened yesterday or 30 years ago. the c-span video archives are there for you at c-span.org. you can type your query at the
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type -- at the top of the page and get lost in the archives. go ahead and do it. you can look back on some of these questions. john, costa mesa, california, line for democrats. thank you for c-span. it is a great platform for the american public to voice their opinion. i hope this is the first domino to fall, and much more to come. arraigned, and there are going to be questions and people are going to lawyer up and all this. i believe this is organized crime. the russian mob and whoever else is involved with them. if it involves hillary, so be it. i am a democrat. everybody complicit in this thing should be pulled out. i hope more is revealed.
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what better scenario for a mob, for organized crime, to have somebody take the white house? i do not think donald trump is the head of the mob, but the organized crime likes to draw people in, and they do not all have to be members. host: to our line for republicans, richard in alabama. go ahead. i am really confused about what is going on. -- i would like to know if the comment from the press secretary is true, if hillary actually exchanged money with the russians. i hope trump is not involved. as far as him not being a weitician, it is about time have somebody who is not a
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politician. thank you. host: richard in alabama. we showed you some of the white house press secretary's statements yesterday from the podium in the briefing room. the president has not tweeted for about 21 hours now. we will show you his tweets if he does. posttory in the washington focuses on what the president is doing at the white house yesterday as the news came out. this is their look at the president's two day based on 20 different interviews with various officials. write, "separated from most of his west wing staff, president trump clicked on the yesterday and spent playing fuming media critic, legal analyst, and crisis committee case and strategist.
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he called his lawyers repeatedly. he listened intently to cable news commentary. with rising irritation, he watched live footage of his one-time campaign advisor and confidant, paul manafort, turning himself in to the fbi. it is the inside the white house story by -- in the washington post. ,im, clarksburg, west virginia independent. go ahead. caller: when you have fox news, rush limbaugh, alex jones, and you end up with donald trump and his supporters, they are son of a bitches. host: we are going to keep our language and check. for this conversation. james from massachusetts, line for democrats. caller: i would like to make a
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couple of quick comments. first, it involves the censorship of the news that everybody is receiving. if we go along with msn with their comments, you do not get a discourse of what people think so that you can shop around and go to these different sites and try to get a balance of what is going on. i think it is a shame what is going on with the media because it is like this show here. we are calling in to give an opinion. with the media, they are just giving an opinion on the front page of the paper and everyone is taking it for gospel and that is not what is going on. everything these reporters are saying is serving their own purposes, the self paper -- to sell papers and ads on tv. it is not what america is all about, and the censorship on the web is unbelievable as you cannot have a discourse.
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true and says this is you can't go and fish what is right. i am a democrat, i have been my whole life. i am very disappointed in my party and the democratic party better hope that john podesta and his brother and everything he is that his company was involved with manafort, because of they are, that is a problem. thank you for letting me talk. host: larry in california, independent, go ahead. caller: good morning. i would like to say that i am very thankful for c-span. i have listened to you for a number of years. very astute callers, this morning and i appreciate the fact that you have balance republicans and democrats and independent callers, with concern for all parties and their candidates and some of the things that they have done wrong.
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i would like to say that the cia -- i thinkwas called he had it right. if they follow the money, that will turn up a lot of these indiscretions and a lot of corruption and the things that are going on. one last thing i would like to say. positiondent is in a to fire the special prosecutor, mr. mueller. i am more concerned with him being in a position to potentially fire nuclear weapons and i would like to thank you for your program. host: that is larry, i will last caller in the segment. we did want to show you this story. the caller previous, mentioning tony podesta, democratic power lobbyist county podesta,
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stepping down from the firm that bears his name after coming under investigation by special prosecutor robert mueller. he announced his decision, monday morning and is alerting clients of his departure. the story and politico noting that his decision to leave the firm came on the same day that former donald trump campaign aides were charged, indicted and it was revealed that one pled guilty. if you want to read that story, it is in politico. that will do it for our first segment. coming up next, we will discuss how they russia probe, debates over health care and taxes all play into the 2018 congressional elections. we will ask election -- inside elections founder nathan gonzales. later on, we will talk with jonathan turley about where the russia investigation goes from here. ♪
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>> representatives from twitter, facebook and google testify before congress today and wednesday as part of the investigation into russia's influence on social media and the 2016 election. live coverage is available on the c-span networks. eastern, livep.m. on c-span three, general counsel from twitter, facebook and the director of law enforcement and information security from google testify before the senate judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism. wednesday, two hearings live on c-span3. the house select intelligence committee. hear testimony from twitter, facebook and the senior vice president and general counsel for google. watch all three hearings on c-span.org ore at
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listen live on the free c-span radio app. weekend forhis booktv, live at the texas book festival in austin. coverage begins saturday at 11:00 eastern, and includes liza mundy and her book, code girls. kevin young, author of bunk, the rise of hoaxes, plagiarists, phonies, and fake news. book, thellen and her life and times of michael a. and ellen kullman, author of life in code, a personal history of technology. our live coverage starts at 3:00 p.m. eastern with carol anderson and her book, white rage, the
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unspoken truth about racial divide. -- authors of violet, exposing rate at yale university amid college football, sexual assault crisis. in texas book festival, live saturday and sunday on c-span2's booktv. continues.on journal host: a year and a week from today, voters head to the polls for election 2018. joining us to discuss how the elections are shaping up, nathan gonzales, founder and editor of the election race publication, inside elections. oversimplification, a oversimplification, a
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year and a week out? guest: normally, midterm elections are a referendum on the sitting president. the history is on the democrat side, but president trump is not like regular presidents and right now, if you were to ask a majority of people, is president trump the leader of the publican party, he would say no. they view president trump as his own brand, so when you start thinking about if voters disapprove of the job the president is doing, it is not an automatic connection that the voters are going to throw out republican incumbents and vote against republican candidates, because they don't necessarily see trump as republican. there arecorollary is those republicans who are most loyal to the president or loyal to the president first, but they don't believe republicans in congress are doing enough to pass his agenda, then what do they do in the midterms? host: you mentioned the history of elections.
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can you talk about the history of midterms, amid a special counsel probe that is now the trunk campaign, with indictments and one guilty plea? how has that impacted past elections? guest: we are in uncharted waters in a lot of different areas. the thing i am watching as far as the investigation goes is -- i think it needs to get closer to the president in order to have an impact. we are still in this tribal politics where if you did not like what the president was doing before yesterday happened and manafort turned himself in, then you are still not going to like the president. if you were supporting the president before yesterday morning, you will find an excuse or a way to explain what happened. until it gets closer to the theident, or closer to campaign, i am not sure it will ultimately have a huge impact. host: what do you think voters
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ballot, more at the health care, tax reform or robert mueller's investigation? guest: i think it is going to be more about health care. andt down with 16 democrats they were not that interested in talking about president trump. they were laser focused on health care, specifically republican incumbents that had taken votes on health care, and i think that is where the election is going to go. it is a year from now. the breaking news is going to help determine what the conversation is going to be. host: to remind our viewers. house republicans have a 241-194 majority in the house. between the house and the senate, which one should republicans be more concerned about losing? guest: even though the majority in the senate is small, i think the fight is going to be in the
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house. democrats need a net gain of 24. the president's party has lost seats in 18 of the last 20 midterm elections. the average seat loss is 33. history is on the democrats' side. we go back to the point about president trump not being a typical president or necessarily republican and does that connection get made? host: recent history is on , coming fromside the special elections, this year. guest: they replacements of some of president trump's cabinet. the big one in georgia and republican say all of this hype, and look what happened. think the next race is in virginia, the gubernatorial race. that is the race to watch, a week from today. democrats need to win that one because it could explain away
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how they lost in the specials because donald trump won each of those districts and states. hillary clinton won by five and a half points. to pressure is on democrats show the momentum we are seeing on tv, the marches and parades, there is something to that. host: focusing mostly on the congressional races in 2018. any other elections to watch in the off year? guest: the virginia gubernatorial race is thursday, along with new jersey. jersey does not get a lot of attention because chris christie , the outgoing governor's approval rating is about 14%. easilyinton won jersey -- hillary clinton won new jersey easily. the biggest race is going to be december 12, the alabama senate special election to replace jeff
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sessions. you have roy moore against doug jones. is a polarizing figure, even within his own party. he has the advantage as a republican in alabama. the race is not over. doug jones has been on tv with his own ads, by himself. he is able to define himself, in his own way and republicans are going to do their own messaging. host: who is doug jones? guest: an attorney who helped prosecute the birmingham bombers from years ago. nominee.redible caught fire like a democrat in the georgia six special election did. enough republicans who do not like the brand that roy moore brings to the table, he could be there to take advantage. ratings,you like race if you like taking a look at the big picture, i you like some of
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the analysis we will be getting into. a great place to go, insideelections.com. inside elections with nathan gonzales. map is the senate race showing the total seats in play, in 2018, a tossup seats. we will be talking with nathan gonzales for about the next 35 minutes. republicans, (202)-748-8001. democrats, (202)-748-8000. --ependents, matt: independents, (202)-748-8002. any questions you have a where the political winds are blowing. line for independent, good morning. caller: good morning. what of the questions that i have is -- one of the questions
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sot i have is why are we russia, when i just spent one month in europe. i just came back and i spoke to many everyday people. i also spent some time in amsterdam and vienna. they are sort of laughing at us. instead that we should be worrying about the opioid epidemic that we have. health problems we have. and in social security six years, we receive a three dollar increase in social security. why don't we concentrate on this problem? instead of the stupidity and mccarthyism. host: it sort of speaks to
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nationalizing or localizing an election and this issue we have discussed before, on how these races are run. guest: even though the opioid crisis does not get a lot of attention, but i hear candidates talk about it. when i met with those democratic candidates weeks ago, they were talking about the crisis. that is something republicans ,nd democrats are talking about a of the investigations and health care questions. localizing,g versus i think democrats are trying to find a balance between carrying the momentum from president trump being in office and what that has done to the democratic realizing that just attacking president trump is not going to be enough to win elections. they are to make specific cases against individual republican incumbents to get folks to fire them. minnesota's second
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district listed as a tossup in your rankings. what is going on? lewis, then republican incumbent coming into the 2016 elections, he was viewed as a that will trump candidate because he was a radio show host who had said some inflammatory things in the past. democrats were very excited. as theira woman nominee, a former executive at st. jude medical and she was a great candidate. that race was complicated by a third-party candidate who siphoned off the votes and jason lewis won with less than 50%. now, democrats are hoping that third-party candidate will not run. as you crackle fully learned from her campaign a little bit and they are focusing on jason lewis. thoughtrace, immigrants
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hillary clinton was going to win that district because it is kind of a suburban district. donald trump ended up winning the district and so they are looking back and saying some of the messaging was off. this is a tough race to watch. this is the type of race that democrats have to win. host: happy to focus on your district, the races you are watching. robert in alabama, one for independents -- line for independents. caller: roy moore will win the race in alabama. he is way ahead in the polls. nationalmoney that the people put into doug jones' campaign, the more the alabama people are going to turn away, fitted with luther strange. the alabama people do not appreciate people from outside the state trying to influence elections that have nothing to do with them.
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donald trump is very popular in alabama. yet even though he backed luther strange, the problem was luther strange's campaign was manyfold but the main reason that a lot out here rejected him was because the republican national committee,the senate mitch mcconnell were all pumping money from outside and alabama. alabama people don't appreciate it. we don't need somebody from washington telling us who to represent us. polls, roy moore does not have a huge lead right now. i believe he has a narrow advantage although the undecideds in the poll probably 1 -- probably want to vote cap -- republican. spending, point about
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i think democrats are trying to find a way to help doug jones without getting too involved because it becomes a national national,t becomes roy moore and republicans are going to win that type of race all the time. you are not going to see a lot of outside influence on this race. we are still over a month out. i think that roy moore and the republicans need to get out his message. as someone who looks and handicaps races, whatever one side is selling their side of the story and the other side isn't, i think that has a chance to change the fundamental dynamic of the race and right now, doug jones and the democrats are the ones getting out their message. host: when we talk about outside influence, we are usually talking about outside spending. the caller brought up party committees. when it comes to the senate committee, the senatorial
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campaign committee, they raised $19 million in september. they are outpacing the republican senate committee and the same thing is happening on the house side, as well. the house campaign committee outpacing the republican committee by $9 million. what do you read collusion numbers -- make of those numbers? there were some democrats that did not believe donald trump was going to get elected president. now that he is president, there is a new level of activism around the country. people saying i need to donate to candidates, come a candidate. the fundraising is reflective of the idea that they are looking for the next battle and looking for a way to take on president trump. host: square that with the republican national committee having $44 million in the bank compared to just $7 million for the democratic national committee.
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i think the dnc is still recovering from eight years of president obama. , then senator obama started his campaign, that became, evolved into the defective dnc. that became the national party on the democratic side. over his eight years in part -- in office, the dnc was largely irrelevant because the president had his own operation. now that president obama is not on the stage, the focus goes back to the dnc and it is still recovering and trying to regain its footing, in this new chapter for the party. host: ohio, always a battleground state. toledo, democrats line. caller: i am actually a republican. i called in to say what is going on is so important that we should all be aware of the issues and get informed and keep an open mind because when you
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vote, you not only vote for what your belief system is, but you vote for what america stands for. i have to consider my neighbor, the person i work with. they may be of a different opinion, politically, but overall, what is this candidate saying? are they representing the united states of america? are they qualified? politics, everyone can live, anybody can be a bad person, but we have to investigate, as human beings and citizens, we have to take that right to look at all sides. host: will you be doing that for the senator running for election in your state? caller: yes, and i want to speak on the larger issue. americans,r a lot of it is about investigating the
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facts and realizing that when people say fake news and put that in the minds of people, that when you put that in the minds of people, you can discredit the messenger and the message. you can't go by what other people say. everybody has to take the time to investigate the facts and look at it objectively and say what is my core belief system, what are we saying as people that are supposed to be united? host: got your point. guest: i think she is trying to inspire people to do their own homework which is healthy. the question becomes, where are people getting their facts from? on whichdisagreement issues are candidates should prioritize. healthng it should be care, something it should be justice or national security. -- some think it should be health care. some think it should be justice for national security.
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i think she is correct in the respect of blaming the messenger. what do you think the focus is going to be, in ohio? guest: ohio will be like many of the races around the country, i think health care is going to be a big part of the conversation. this could take one event or two events and we will have a national security election. last cycle, when republican senator rob portman was running for reelection against former democratic governor ted strickland, the portman campaign did a good job of targeting -- going regionally. someone in toledo might have proceeded different message than perceived columbus -- a different message than someone in columbus. it is going to depend on where the voters live, and what they care about. host: the republicans with a
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majority in the senate. 2018.are 32 seats up in inside elections currently predicting no net gain for the republicans. how often does that prediction change, a year out? guest: it is a work in progress. let's put ites in, this way. there are a lot of scenarios. state,damentals of the look at the candidates and the campaigns. as the cycle progresses, a lot of it is going to be about polling data and we think we might know how the races are playing out. the ratings could evolve and change. i don't know that they will play, the seats in dramatically but the seeds that were already focused on, there could be significant movement. tossupse focus on those
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or leaning seats in the various race ratings that you can check out. insideelections.com. nathan gonzales with us for the next 20 minutes to focus on the 2018 outlook. don in maryland, republican. (202)-748-8001 got it -- caller: i've got a couple questions with respect to the trump voter. do you think the rize silent group of voters that does not -- thered and -- hold is a silent group of voters that does not get polled? a movementhere is building in the government about actions taken by the prior administration? the apology that the irs gave any settlement they gave for targeting conservatives, the recent capture of the guy that headed up the benghazi attacks,
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the possible collusion by the podesta group and maybe being investigated now by mueller. you see a lot of things out there that may have a cumulative effect that cannot even be seen yet that may influence the election, a year out. host: the silent voters that don't get polled. do you think they are mostly trump supporters? how would you describe those people? caller: that is an interesting question. i think there is a group of voters out there, that is so fearful that they will be attacked because of their politics, and because the other politicshad a identity has taken over. they say i don't want -- i don't want my politics to be known. i will vote to i want to vote
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for -- vote who -- vote for who i want to vote for, and then they show up in droves. i don't know if that is the case or not. guest: let's take the questions one at a time. the silent trump voter before the 2016 election, i would often get asked this question and i would say if there was a group of silent trump voters, they would be a large -- they would need to be a large number of them in key states for it to matter and that is part of what happened in 2016. they were not being picked up in the polls, maybe it was because they were not frequent voters and so pollsters were screening them out, saying if they had not voted in recent elections that they will not vote this time but because of president trump, they decided to vote. i think that group exists and i think it is up to pollsters and these party operatives to find out who they are and how they
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are going to vote in 2018. the second question about the prior administration, i think a lot of that has the potential to rally the republican race. if you bring up the investigation into paul manafort , thee trump campaign president's supporters are going to bring up the prior administration or hillary clinton and what her campaign did or did not do. that has the potential to keep republicans excited in a 20 -- in 2018, while they might not be excited about what republicans on the hill are doing. it is still a rallying cry for the party. host: alexandria, virginia, line for democrats. say we i am calling to are getting ready to vote on tuesday, and i usually vote doocrat and so i am going to
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the same, because i think our working on abeen few policies that could help. giving felons a second chance to be part of society, which is what america is about. last week, i met a guy at 711. i was about to give him some money and he told me i don't need your money, i need you to help me get a job. that is why i would encourage our people in virginia to look for the democratic policies, to see how they are able -- able to give people second chances. to the trump supporters who keep talking about or blaming the media and forgetting about the great work that the media does, i want them to know that it is not the media's fault for donald dimock in disabled gentleman. i don't know if they have special needs kids, the stress
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they go through taking care of special needs kids, so for the president to come on and say things like that, that is not american at all. host: we will let you pick up on a couple different issues. guest: the gubernatorial race that he brought up, the governor who cannot run for reelection because of state law in virginia, he is popular. that is another reason why the lieutenant governor has an advantage in the race, because more voters in virginia believe that the state is heading in the right direction, so they are less likely to make a change, jobs and theon economy, so even though health care is a side issue, our elections tend to come back to jobs and the economy because as americans, we want to feel secure. people want to see that their brother has a job or their cousin and that other issues
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tend to float as long as those are in place. host: the president focusing on jobs and one of his three tweets over the course of the past 15 minutes. the president has been tweeting. the first two, focusing on the stories that we focused on in our first hour, the mueller investigation. the president tweeting out the fake news is working overtime. few people knew the young low-level volunteer named george papadopoulos who was already proven to be a liar. i hope people will start to focus on our massive tax cuts for business. the middle class in addition to democrat corruption. issue, cuts, the jobs how important this tax cut push it comes for republicans,
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heading into the 2018 calendar year, and what that will mean a year and a week from now. guest: the tax cut legislation is critical. republicans have been promising voters that they are going to do certain things. this comes before donald trump came on the scene. candidates went around promising voters that they were going to do something when they got in office. thethat they are in power, reality that they have not delivered on some of those, health care, they have not repeal the affordable care act and so there is more pressure on delivering increased tax cuts believeblicans in town these middle-class tax cuts are something critical that incumbents can go back to the constituents over the next year and say you put us in office, here is how we delivered. if they don't have that, they have -- they come in,
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empty-handed and they just start talking about hillary clinton this or that and there is the risk of a apathetic republican base that does not turn out to vote in 2018. if republicans do not pass a significant piece of legislation, that i think more seats will be in jeopardy. host: 10 minutes left, talking with nathan gonzales of inside elections. you can call and talk about issues of the day -- how issues of the day or month or year or going to impact the 2018 elections. republicans, (202)-748-8001. democrats, (202)-748-8000. independents, (202)-748-8002. barry is republican -- a republican. caller: thank you. longerly and i are no involved in identity politics. we are no longer involved in demonizing people because they
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are deplorable. we learned from hillary, who keeps going around the country saying the same thing over and over again, that they are the saviors of what? she went to west virginia and told coal miners that she was going to get rid of their jobs and get rather industries. she did not go to any of the rust belt states. they did not care, they just kept telling us we are racist, islam of phobics, xenophobic's -- islam a phobic -- islamapho bics, xenophobics. real-life issues we have to deal with, and as long as the democrats have gone over the edge, this is not the democratic party of my family and for a generation.
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we won't vote democratic. host: got your point. what barry is talking about, democrats are in the political wilderness. whenever a party does not have the white house, there is not a clear leader. everyone thinks they have the path to get the party on the right path. democrats are wrestling with that. does the party go to the base and try to rally the base or does the party go to the middle and try to figure out what is going on in indiana? in order for a party to be a majority party in this country, you need to have an excited face and you need to have that appeal to the middle. figurets are trying to out who are the best messengers, going forward. i'me are parts of 2016 that not sure the democratic party has come to grips with.
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there is a lot of blaming going on and not as much soul-searching. host: barry from florida take us map.gh a walk the election guest: the place to watch is going to be south florida. this is a seat that has been democratic by the numbers, but that is the type of district the democrats have been trying to target for years and they have not -- have not been able to do it since she is there. a real --lso republican congressmen in the miami area there was one of the most honorable members of congress and also one of the younger, newest members to the republican caucus. democrats need to defeat people toe him, who is trying strike a more moderate tone in his first few years in office.
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that is what the initial focus on the florida map is. host: let's go to nashville, tennessee. troy is a republican. caller: i wanted to respond to the guy who lived in northern and tell the guy it is very idealistic of him to think that way, but it is not the public in verses democrats. it has become washington versus everybody else. he is not -- the governor is not giving felons the right to vote because he is a good guy. he is doing for votes. he is talking about the guy trying to look for a job. washington has been anti-protectionist for so long now and they need to protect american jobs and that is why donald trump won. troy'sit sounds like
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kids are going off to school. host: and he still got a comment out. we have to start off the morning right by calling into c-span. host: he said washington versus everyone else. that sort of mentality. how is that playing out in some of these races on the ground? guest: that he of the government is disconnected from certain and ians is a threat think it is part of what is going through the 2018 elections. it is up to the candidates and the parties to help voters understand why does this race matter? look at turnout, in general. 60%ends to be in the turnout, midterms drop into the 40's. they are often the most important elections because the
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seats are either safely democratic or republican. until voters believe or understand how government impact their everyday life, turnout is going to be low and i think that is something that could increase as people start to take a look at what is going on in the capital. host: who would like to see increased turnout in 2018? who do you think that would benefit? guest: democrats. most recent elections, democrats have suffered in midterms from a lack of minority voters and younger voters turning out. those voters are not all democrats, but they disproportionately vote democrat and president trump might be able to do something that president obama was not able to do and that is to get those people to turn out in a midterm, not because they are voting for him, but because they feel this sense that they need to vote against him. even though he is not on the ballot, this is about voting against -- going for more people
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whom i put a check on the trump administration. democrats are trying to boost turnout. host: roy in georgia, independent. go ahead. caller: it is not roy, it is troy. host: another troy, go ahead. isn't it a bit ironic to say you are a democratic strategist considering the state of -- of the democratic party? host: who are you talking about? caller: there are so many of who titlele themselves democratic strategists and look at the state of the democratic party. their strategy is not working very well. host: what do you think of the state of the republican party? caller: a whole lot better than the democratic party. host: you are calling as an
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independent. caller: i tried to tell everybody i am not a republican or democrat, i am a american. i tried to vote the way to make this country better, not to make the party better. that is the biggest problem we have, anyway, parties. independentse of in 2018. aret: independents arche -- key. my colleague wrote a column about independent voters, specifically in midterms and how they are acting and reacting to the president and he said that they are going to be key. the term, sometimes it becomes this -- disproportionately center-right because there are portions of the republican party
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who do not like the direction or leadership of the republican party. but they are not the only thing. it is about base turnout and getting those voters in the middle. host: are there any independent candidates that have a shot for congressional seats? guest: in theory, it sounds like a good thing. i assume we are not talking about incumbents like bernie sanders. the numbers, the math is difficult. in order for independent candidate to win, you have to have the collapse of one party. one of the reasons why bernie sanders continues to win in vermont is because there is no real democratic nominee. when joe lieberman lost inc. in the get and then he ended up forming his own party. there was a republican nominee but he was kind of irrelevant factoeberman got the de legal -- republican nomination.
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you have both a republican nominee as a democratic nominee, you do not have enough space for a independent nominee. have you sat down for interview that has been memorable, this cycle? nott:. this cycle -- guest: this cycle. have your own infrastructure or are able to draw on your own if you structure as a independent candidate. host: and that usually means wealthy. guest: or access to considerable fundraising. one of those avenues is a must to get your foot in the door. that you cang is get a lot of people together to say i don't like republicans or democrats but then when you sir talking about what you are for as an independent candidate, things start to fray because anybody has a different idea of what the tax care -- what the
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tax policy or health care policy should look like. a positive agenda is more difficult than what you are against. host: last call from the line for independents. marshall has been waiting in pennsylvania. has been waiting in pennsylvania. caller: obamacare was simply a highlyd put onto a dysfunctional health care system that does not work. there was no way you can just put a band-aid on a huge gaping wound to stop the bleeding. it is a shame our health care system is what it is. that goingmment is saidall of -- is that -- 40 years ago that there is one
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political party, the money party and it has two branches, republican and democrat. america has unlimited potential to be the best, but we are not doing it. guest: there is a bit of optimism about what the country could become. what is remarkable to me about the affordable care act is how the conversation has shipped did. when democrats passed that, back 10 -- 2010,g of 20 you could not really get democrats to talk about it and defend that vote unless necessary. now because we don't look inside propose an alternative that has not been popular, democrats are defending it in a way i have not seen in years. that is a remarkable turnaround. the point about money. as long as the supreme court has upheld that spending in
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campaigns is a form of freedom of speech, any changes we make in the law as a country on hill are just changing how the money is spent, not how much is spent in the reality is it to be the best candidate with the best message, that if you don't have the money to introduce yourself to hill voted get that message out, then you are not going to win. host: nathan gonzales is a publisher at inside elections and insideelections.com. we appreciate you coming back and talking to us. guest: always a pleasure. host: up next, it is open phones on the washington journal. phone lines are open for any public policy issue you want to talk about, whether it is yesterday's charging of three trump campaign officials or any other stories taking place around the country. lines for republicans, democrats and independents. we will be right back. ♪
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>> representatives from twitter, facebook and google testify before congress today and wednesday as part of the investigation into russia's influence on social media. complete live coverage is available on the c-span networks. today at 2:30 p.m. eastern, live coverage on c-span three. general counsel from twitter and facebook and the director of law enforcement and information security from google testify before the senate judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism. on wednesday, two hearings. the house -- the house elect intelligence committee speaks to twitter, facebook and the senior vice president and general counsel for google. watch all three hearings on c-span.org,ine at
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or listen live on the free c-span radio app. c-span, where history unfolds daily. 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. >> washington journal continues. host: open phones for about the next 20 minutes or so on the washington journal. any public policy issue you want to talk about, the phone lines are yours. republicans, (202)-748-8001. democrats, (202)-748-8000. independents, (202)-748-8002. you can call in as we show the front pages from around the globe, focusing on this story.
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yesterday, three trump campaign officials charged, one guilty plea in the molar probe. canada, trump fumes after key strategist charged is the headline with a picture of paul manafort leaving the u.s. district court in washington, d.c. the front page of the new indian the spot on the top right, trump's friend campaign had charged with conspiracy is the headline. the front page, this morning of uwatieighty times -- k times. one more front page, from the asian age, also making to the front page. just a few of the headlines from papers around the world. phone lines are yours.
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we can talk about this story or any others. brandon in fayetteville, north carolina. line for independents. caller: how are you doing? host: doing well. caller: i want to talk about them,and mueller and all the administration stuff going on. one thing i think was going on, i don't think that donald trump had to do with as far as russia, to russia made an attempt make a threat to see if hillary clinton would have won to see if she could get the election, she would probably cause trouble which means russia would cause trouble with the united states. i don't think that donald trump and then of his members nor his family has anything to do with that. if we read our bibles and learn how to figure out what is going
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on. the bible tells us what is going on, moment by moment. we should pray for our nation and that we should pray for our president and our leaders, the same as if we go to church. north carolina, republican. theer: i want to talk about last will of josh and -- of george washington. he freed his slaves. he could not free them during martha's lifetime because martha's people, her husband had died and the law was his property went to his children. martha george could not free them. meantime, if george had freed his people, the law in virginia was they had to leave within 30 days. not only that, but the point is in washington's will, he required that all of his people
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be talked to read and write and he also said i expressly prevent the sale and transportation of any slave that i possessed under any pretense, whatsoever and i would be most pointedly and salome upon my negatives hereafter to see that this clause respecting slaves -- host: why do you bring it up, today? guest: it has been in the news about that church taking down washington's -- host: the plaque in the church in alexandria. caller: that is correct. the point is that washington, from the time of the declaration of independence wanted to free his slaves. toworked very hard to try get virginia to come up with a plan of compensated emancipation. that george
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washington worked extremely hard to do this and the thing is that martha washington was the one who actually freed his slaves in december of 1800 because she would nothis heir do it because of the clause regarding reading and writing being considered illegal in virginia. was -- in colorado. the debate hangs around monuments. the president's chief of staff, john kelly spoke about the civil war and this debate that is happening in the united states and his appearance on laura ingraham's new show on fox news. there is the chief of staff, john kelly from last night. >> robert e. lee was a honorable man. he was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state,
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which in 150 years ago was more important than country. it was loyalty to state first. now it is different. the lack of an ability to compromise led to the civil war. men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience have their -- have them make their stand. host: open phones for the next 15 minutes or so. any policy issue you want to talk about, the phone lines are yours. caller: good morning. ,n regards to the constitution we should remember the first three words, life, liberty and .he pursuit of happiness the democratic party says if you do not believe in abortion, you .o not become a democrat
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my goodness, where have we gone how many million people have been slaughtered with abortion? does anybody know? host: chris in kentucky, line for republicans. caller: good morning. i reluctantly voted for donald trump. when you run a business, you don't have your partner do your taxes and i think the country and ilot of problems think a lot of republicans sold themselves out when they signed on with donald trump. i was just watching cnn and i was -- i think this investigation is a necessary thing and it should go until in it -- follow until it meets it sends. -- its ends.
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this reminds me of these westerns i would watch and there would be this little yahoo! in a town -- a little yahoo in a town stirring up the crowd in -- and ended up in jail. that is what i see the press doing to the administration. i think it is disgraceful. they are doing it for political gain. they should sit there and follow .he investigation what they are doing is outrageous and very divisive to our country. host: you say you are a republican who believes this investigation should be seen to its end. a few tweets from republican numbers of congress that would agree with you, starting with congressman mike gallagher, from wisconsin, tweeting yesterday, as i have said, russia is no friend to the unit is a and we must pursue the truth in these investigations wherever it may lead. to more broadly, we need to
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vigorously defend our interest at home and abroad. jim banks from indiana, two tweets. other ago, i and many republicans vowed to support mothers investigation and allow it to work its way through the process to get the facts. in light of today's indictments, we must continue to support the process to work. one more member of congress, adam kinzinger. the said from day one, american people deserve answers, transparency and allowing miller to do his job. as comets coming of the day that some democrats are calling for new legislation to protect robert mueller's investigation from injury -- any interference from the white house. certainly an issue that will likely continue to play out in the days and weeks to come. pennsylvania, on the -- harry, in pennsylvania, on
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the line for independents. caller: i was a coal miner back when i was seven years old. we did open skirt minor in northern pennsylvania. mining in northern canada -- pennsylvania. when hillary clinton said on national tv about the problem down to virginia with the coal industry is coal not what it was back in the 60's and 70's. that is when i was doing coal the 60's.stly in was she said on the debate that the coal industry is dead. it is not going to come back.
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seek onethat she would he billion dollars for west energy, the not only wind energy but solar energy. host: what do you think the future of the coal industry is? attention to what is being said. host: ok. don, in sacramento, california. democrats. caller: i am watching this program. i have been watching for hundreds of years. this is really weird. all these republicans. what is wrong with them? they can't tell when someone is lying.
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we know that donald trump is the biggest liar that has ever been in the world. i ain't never knew nobody to lie like is whole thing is for white supremecy and i don't blame the putting up with whi supremacy. he is fighting for white folks it, he ain't fighting for nobody, but white people. why the black folks don't see that and other races, exicans calling in talking about they vote for donald trump. host: got your point, don. pause from quick open phones to let you know a
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little bit more about a very hearing taking place on capitol hill, a series tomorrow.s today and google and twitter and facebook xecutives are coming up to testify before the senate judiciary and the house and senate intelligence committees. for more, we turn to kelly cohen, criminal justice reporter examiner, ashington joining us by phone. what led n, remind us these three tech giant executives to come to capitol hill today? yes, facebook, twitter, google, they all were -- not over, but pro-kremlin put ads and videos all sorts of things across platforms. youtube, which is part of google, sought to cause chaos and confusion throughout 2016 election. host: and we're hearing today of russian of the
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ontent, far wider than first reported. bring us up to date the news as into the high-profile hearings today. guest: today, this afternoon is tomorrow isttee and house intelligence and senate intelligence. told us out, facebook 470 pro-kremlin accounts put out 80,000 posts between january 2016 and august 2016, that million people. that is not one person, that is 126 million people in our country and instagram, part another ok, they had 120,000 pieces of content. it wasn't something small you can click out of when you go to 100 website, it was a million people. host: are the executives from ed to face scolding members of congress, informational hearing? expecting?ou guest: i think it will be a
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little bit of both, we saw that fter -- twitter gave a presentation to senate intelligence in september and mark warner came out, the vice was like, he's a democrat, they gave a really poor presentation. mightk tomorrow's hearing be a little more contentious, but today in front of senate tis a subcommittee, it might be more questioning. upset, people to get this is following yesterday's news with special counsel robert indictments, i think people are finally, if they were not paying attention efore, they are definitely paying attention now. i think it could get contentious today, something to watch this afternoon. as we show our viewers the promotion for today, the images who will be testifying for twitter, facebook and colin stretch and richard salgato, explain who the are not the top faces of the companies. names right, those are that might not be household, if
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you are not into that kind of stuff. in the big nging guns. it is kind of a little bit for me, damage control. facebook, twitter, google, they are big names, names when you think of tech giants, the three biggest general nging in counsel and top officials and solutions. we apologize for 2016, we kind of messed up, there are and through ing up intelligence committee that russia is not necessarily going to back down. be damage is going to control and hey, here is our are notchos, people who the everyday so-and-so names of the accounts, these are big have a lot to do with the tech giants. it is like bringing in the big do damage control and really, when you have to answer to congress, it's a big deal. onhen, you have been following this. has one of the companies taken a proactive approach when it
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comes to trying to prevent foreign influence into u.s. elections in the future? can you talk through what you're xpecting to hear from the companies and explaining what they are doing? guest: yes. i think they have kind of taken proactive approach since this all came out. it's only been a few months bulk, even the yesterday we find out 126 million people on facebook. said they will ban russian accounts and create ransparency center so people like you and i can see who are buying ads, how much they are pending, who they want to target. facebook said, we're going to give more information, not just are ads, let you know who they are from, what they are like. in my is kind of one opinion, not necessarily being the most proactive, they said more ill turn over evidence to federal investigators, they are doing a little bit more behind the scenes. all three have met with congressional investigators behind closed doors. open setting, the
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this is where they'll start to get proactive and start to say, we kind of messed up in 2016, here is what we'll do to make sure this never happens again. host: kelly cohen, with the washington examiner, appreciate morning. this guest: of course, thank you, have a good one. host: reminder for viewers that the three hearings over the next two days, taking place today at 2:30. showing it live on c-span 3, you can also see it at listen on the c-span radio app. omorrow senate intelligence committee hearing is 9:30 a.m., with executives from the three companies. house intelligence committee is 2 p.m. the two hearings happening tomorrow. it for our open phone segment of t"washington journal." we'll be joined by george washington university law to essor jonathan turley answer questions about where the mueller investigation goes from here. start calling in now and we'll right back.
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>> best-selling author, whose books have been adapted into award-winning movies, michael lewis will be our guest on in depth. >> what almost all the books have in common from a market ngle, their characters, interesting characters to me in interesting situations. the trick is that, if you could attach the leader to the beginning of the book, they'll follow that character anywhere. is no one in e america who would want to read collateralizedof debt obligation, but you realize lives of people you have come to turn on knowing what that is, you want to know. is very powerful vice that s, you know, the origin of
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literature. >> mr. lewis is the author of "liar's books, including poker," "moneyball," "the big undoing nd "the project," during the live three-hour conversation, we'll ake your calls, tweets and facebook questions. watch in depth with author lewis, sunday, live from noon to 3 p.m. eastern on book c-span2. >> representatives from twitter, facebook and google testify and e congress today wednesday as part of the russian influence on social media in the 2016 election. live coverage is available on the c-span networks. 2:30 eastern live coverage on c-span3. colin stretch, general counsel from facebook salgado, information security from google, testify
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before the senate judiciary crime and e on terrorism. on wednesday, two hearings live c-span3, house select intelligence committee hear estimony from shawn egett of twitter, colin stretch of facebook and cat walker, senior president and general counsel of google. watch all three hearings on online at c-span.org or isten live on the free c-span radio app. >> "washington journal" continues. host: george washington niversity law professor, jonathan turley, preeshlt y -- appreciate you being here after busy day at the mueller investigation. the white house believes that conclude igation will soon. is that realistic? where do you think we are in investigation after what you saw yesterday? of t: that may be a case
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hope springing eternal. it does not look like it will end any time soon. if you take the trajectory of the charges, just those could level, 2019.to absolutely. these are cases that often superceding indictments. accounts against manafort and be the charges they face, they may face double this number. can go back utors to the grand jury, find new indings from the grand jury, and bring out superseding indictment with additional ccounts, that is not uncommon and they have to anticipate that. extend their case alone, this far. this is the first round. we have live torpedos in the right now. fl flynn, and questions about whether he is cooperating or might be the next
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round of charges. host: can you explain the scope of this investigation? thatd a couple callers say the charges that were announced yesterday seemed outside of what the thought the scope of mueller/russia interference in was.016 campaign guest: yeah. i think both sides are correct. when the white house and the andident came out yesterday said, wow, the mueller, the mueller charges against manafort gates are removed from the .ampaign, that is correct look at complaint, very little in the complaint has reference the campaign, the center of gravity there is over on the business transaction of manafort and gates. plea of the success of guilty to false statements by figure was aign solidly within the wheel house campaign. now in fairness to the white tose, he was pleading guilty
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his own lies, wasn't pleading guilty to crime committed by the campaign. sides have legitimate things to raise. host: are there any guidelines mueller has to stay in between? guest: no, the mandate for quite broad, even in the context of other special i first saw his mandate, i thought it was reathtaking, it's basically looking at anything to do with he russian controversy and any crimes or matters that come up in the course of the investigation. he has read that as broadly as anticipated. look at manafort and gates' charges, those are not related o the campaign and mueller is signalling that he will charge nyone for anything within that mandate and the mandate is really broad 67. brought up the papadopoulos guilty plea and you
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up the gates partner is why?hreat to trump, guest: that is immediate threat. look at the indictment that came gates, a manafort and lot of people have been focusing on manafort and saying, well, is going to have manafort flip as a witness? criminal lly is a defense attorney is less likely matinee anafort is the defendant, so far the prize of the prosecutors, they might not go higher than manafort. they are not likely to trade can those charges unless he bring deliverable, something that implicates a much higher including the president. gates is different. secure plea asily agreement where he could avoid the time if he could seal gace against manafort or implicate others, he is not that
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critical. you explain the strategy here are announcing these things at the same time going after somebody so high up, paul manafort and george apadopoulos, who seem relatively low in the campaign? guest: well, of course, both sides tend to spin who these people are. suddenly the white house barely papadopoulos's name and says he's minor. the critics of the white house ay, wow, there is pictures of the president and the future attorney general with this guy, be that low lying fruit. that clearly part of the timing was driven by the statute of limitations. some of these are filing crimes where statute of limitations was running sxout they needed to file. i don't think that is the only reason. hese types of moves are done with a purpose, tactical purpose. message nk it sends a to other witnesses, particularly people like flynn.
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one of the charge system for the foreign agent registration act. host: what is that? been: it is a law that has prosecuted like seven times in its history since redesigned by congress. not a law that prosecutors ave viewed as really worthy of prosecution, except in a handful of cases. mueller is signalling that he's to indict people for everything short of tearing a label off a mattress, i mean, going to read his mandate broadly. could t fara violation easily be brought against others, like general flynn, or podesta, y po who registered as foreign agents. host: jonathan turley with us until next 45 minutes the program ends today. here to take your questions, nswer what you want to know about this investigation, to the best he can. 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents 202-748-8002.
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kathy in utah, good morning. hello.: host: you're on with jonathan turley. caller: hi, thank you. a question i have for you. it is evident our decembers being challengeed with this presidency and i'm looking at is unfolding with the atest indictments and i have a , is congress ou protecting mueller so he doesn't get fired because of this investigation? firing by the president. you is how can the president be held accountable by not pardoning people that are being brought to justice as he did
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arap aho. guest: that is my favorite place on earth, i've gone hiking with sons. my your question is twofold, let me parse it out a bit. all, in terms of firing the president could do that, it won't be easy, if he have to do it, he would get people like rod rosenstein it and unlikely he would. he would probably force trump to resign. or he would host: why do you say that? guest: this is what happened in nixon. officials arement fire special o counsel at demand of a president, we saw with richard nixon. to go along with it, it. are tainted by b borrick pulled the trigger during the nixon administration.
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you to find a bob borrick and that might not be as easy as justice ggest at the department. most would say, i want this cup to pass from my lips. that, congress could pass a law that essentially rings back the independent counsel act, but i don't think this is likely. i think everything you are white house and the president himself, he will not fire mueller. a firing mueller would be moronic mistake, meaning we are here because of determination of james comey. some of us expressed, including myself, expressed doubt as to existence of crimes in the ru ussian allegations and so we were not certain about a special counsel. i changed my view when he fired because then i felt the american public had a right to expect an independent regardless of whether there are crimes or not. you don't want to repeat that mistake. if you fired mueller, it would be a hundred times worse than
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james comey. with host: going back to calls for congress for law to protect can congress pass a law to keep the president from firing somebody within the branch?ve guest: right. that has been the long-standing constitutional question. people like bob borrick played his role in the nixon serious ation, he had questions about the issue you raised. of congress to do this, courts held largely in favor of congress and ndependent counsel act that allowed them to do that. independent counsel act is not allow because congress today to lapse, congress could bring it back. the courts supported their do so and that ould certainly add a certain degree of armor for mueller or his replacement. doubt seriously that would happen or needs to happen. i think president trump to fired he's not going mueller. host: the other option, nancy
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pelosi, one of those calling for independent congressional be stigation or to appointed, can you talk about how that would work and the if l options available congress were to take that route? guest: congress has oversight authority through committees. the committees can investigate or create special committees and have the inly authority to investigate any of hese issues, whether it is president trump's firing of comey, russian dossier, they right to do that. host: how is that different from three congressional probes we following? guest: not much and i think that is the problem. eople are trying to show they're being active and reactive, we have a lot of the field ons in right now and for the large art, democratic and republican members in the investigations seem to be working together fairly well. this is not been an effort to obstruct from what i
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the ee for some of investigations. so i don't think there is a real need right now and the mueller shows things are progressing on his side. denise, brick, new jersey, line for independents, go ahead. a ler: hello, yes, i have question. thank you for taking my call. my question is this, with all the probes from congress and all the subcommittees and versights, nobody is ever held accountable, never goes anywhere. i believe that we're just against one know, another and conquer and divide that it's own put ally been very much there for its purpose, to divide confusedry and keep us and divided. united we stand, divided we in the in objective oldest check in the book. why since nixon, since the is nobody ings, why held accountable on both sides? guest: i think you are right to
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be skeptical. right to be particularly skeptical about congressional investigations. it is a standard technique in diffuse scandals by creating special commissions or investigations that go a long time and the assumption is that shorterican people have a attention span. and i got to tell you, i think this is a certain contempt for voters in washington, they believe that voters are so,racted by shiny things. you're right to be skeptical and now the special counsel is a little different, that guy is going on course and he's likely going to want to show a series budget es, support this and to his effort. to note, there is one aspect of this that i and that is the recent questions raised about
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manafort that also involved tony john podesta, john podesta, actually is quite valuable. no idea how much russian money and money from are swashing s around washington, they have no dea how much monsemade from influence pedalling on both sides, both republicans and democrats. actually have an investigation into that aspect, i think the american people are outraged.e absolutely host: the caller's question isn't anybody held accountable, we saw indictments yesterday for manafort and penalty th a possible of 70 to 80 year necessary jail, ccording to the associated press study of those indictments. when it comes to congressional probes we three followed, what is harshest sanction that they could levee end of their probe? guest: yeah, congress really doesn't levee sanctions, unless
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in contempt of congress and even then they have to vote and give the matter to the department. we saw that happen during the clinton administration when they general eric holder in criminal contempt and obama administration simply the case. prosecute now in terms of the sentence receive, i rt could just want to have a caveat, there is a lot of reporting on that. little bit deceiving. federal census go through guideline, recommendation given court, if you are convicted. and, for a first offender like looking at 's not decade necessary jail, most he would be looking at under around 10 s probably years. the prosecutors can ask for what departure and d the grounds for the upward eparture would be size of the money they are alleging was
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laundered or hidden from the government. the guideline for those crimes, the size of the money crime is an he is called. as it if you look at this, you probably advise manafort he's in scenario, in terms of realistic scenario, years. at about 10 host: james in walker, louisiana, line for republicans, go ahead. good morning, john, mr. turley. is up in the vapors over papadopoulos thing. what did papadopoulos do in reaching out to russians for campaign dirt that d.n.c. didn't do through their law firm and million dollars reaching out to dirt?ns for campaign is there a difference? why is mueller hounding one attention ot paying to fusion gps? guest: well, it is unlikely going to focus on the dossier. into ld conceivably move
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that area. some of us take the view of all.tigate them the quite frankly, i would love to see everyone investigated and to have a full record of ll of this involvement of russian sources. it is true that the dossier involved going to foreign national, paying him money and he received some information rom what is believed to be russian intelligence sources. t is also true that papadopoulos, if you look at his ndictment, there are some damming aspects there. this mysterious professor with was found by mueller to be interested in him solely because of his role on campaign. they strongly suggest in the indictment that the russians offering dirt, presumably from hacked sources. so that could be serious depending on the timeline.
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f you look at the indictment, it seems to talk about existing e-mails, but also we know that were hacking efforts after those meetings. people of those skeptical about the existence of a crime in the russian controversy, i'm still collusion is not a crime and people need separate what is a politically important issue from niezable legally kog issue. way you cross that bridge of criminal code on the timeline, is if we hear out of mueller that indicates in those initial eetings, whether the russian professor or not, that there was they were ion that told there would be a hacking effort. hen you're beginning to get into something that could potentially be a crime. otherwise, i think we're still -- crime under collusion? conspiracy.r
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host: it crosses this? guest: it crosses there. it s people are crossing, could be dangerous. suggestion you could treat the information being given by the the trump officials as something like a political contribution. the desire to nail trump by some critics are blinding them to implication. if you start to treat information like it is a that cal contribution, definition could sweep within ngo's, academics, you would criminalize exchange is nformation, that dangerous to bring into the criminal code. hollan up : the caller brings george papadopoulos. "u.s.a. today" who, is george ign aid, papadopoulos, 30-year-old self-driebed oil, gas and policy onsultant, foreign policy advisor for president trump's presidential campaign, before team, pop trump papadopoulos was advisor to
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carson's campaign. papadopoulos as "an energy consultant, excellent "u.s.a. t story in today." joey, las vegas, nevada, line for republicans, go ahead. caller: hi, jonathan. intelligence. being with a third grade degree n, i have every you could get street wise. is it a crime for the same crime is n knowing a being committed and during that which is felony, 11 people get killed and he knew could have prevented it, is that a crime to get somebody? on host: what are you referring to, joey? to sitting rring congressman bob stupeck who knew being paid off with money, prostitution and
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vacations, which he admitted show.on television on a host: jonathan turley, is that something you -- uest: i haven't looked at it, obviously if you are aware of a crime that is about to occur, whether a question of you could be viewed as an ccessory, i haven't heard that type of allegation raised, so i'm not too familiar with this. sewell, new jersey, jerry, democrat. go ahead. turley, i really appreciate you being on today. watch you often on different shows and i'm really impressed with your knowledge. forve a couple of questions you. one is i've heard you often say collusion, which is what they're really going after trump crime. not really a i kind of heard you touch about this. something that i can't get over, that they're cnn, ing it and everybody,
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msnbc is not cover thanksgiving not each end, it may be a crime. i don't get it, i really think hurt trump during his being president, but the other question i have for you, i heard touch on that you don't think mueller will go after this dossier, but you got podesta who from his law firm and it looks like he's part of this manafort thing. going to nk that he's be brought into it and are you going to start seeing democrats brought into this? guest: well, jerry, the first of collusion, i have expressed skepticism for the allegation of a crime here. it is not a crime to collude to a foreign government, receive information from a foreign government. there is a crime of conspiracy, question is conspiracy to do what. far,e is no indication thus
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certainly no supporting charging document that indicates that knew of the mp influence of that the russians these e had on some of people. you would need even more than that to establish any type of crime. right now on this record, i on't see how he would be a serious target of criminal investigation. that can change. has.n't know what mueller clearly he has at least one witness in this recent plea. podesta group, they were mentioned obliquely in the second indictment, with the conviction. by george papadopoulos. there is a reference to two the podesta ding group, that were seeking to this russian/ukrainian manafort.effort of
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possible nk it is since mentioned in the charging documents, tony podesta and the group could get swept within mueller's investigation. whether mueller will go further dossier is a very good question. mean, the charges against manafort really are quite emoved from the russian collusion allegation, so going after the dossier allegations be any more a feel from that. politico noting tony podesta stepping down from the works at iant that he amid the mueller probe. headline we showed earlier in show. before we leave, the definitions you have gone over collusion, can you explain obstruction of justice? ow that is defined, how one would be found guilty of obstruction of justice? guest: yeah, this is another
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rather loose talk about what constitutes a crime of obstruction. saying, people loosely now we have obstruction, the president fired james comey, for example. obstruction is made of a lot sterner stuff than that. are very careful to hone these cases close to the riminal code, they don't want obstruction to be brought by prosecutors for anything, that could result in considerable abuse. usually viable obstruction case nvolves obstructing something specifically more often the case, a grand jury. hen trump fired comey, there really wasn't a very good necks us to grand jury, there was one field, but in the more importantly -- host: would it be different if he fired mueller? with mueller, i think there would be a possible claim or obstruction, even then it would get caught up in constitutional authority of the president. hat i think would happen with mueller, is that congress would not only move toward independent
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adoption, there would be call for impeachment m they could argue as political matter, obstruction there. james comey, the deputy attorney general the reason as not trump fired james comey and i think the white house acknowledged that, i think the acknowledged that. at that same time, when comey was fired, rosenstein said a memo, he should be fired. many people in washington, agreed withmocrats, this position. there was an independent basis to fire comey. think that ense i the president could have to something like this is that if watch comey's testimony, two things he said would help the any allegation. he said the president agreed with him the russia go forward n should to natural conclusion. noted, the thing he president was upset with him because he wouldn't go public to
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congress, so old the president has been upset for a long time, when he heard from that comey ongress went to them and said, trump's not a target. view is, at trump's look, you went out and cleared hillary clinton in a press conference and you're telling i'm not a target, this is hurting my administration, why don't you do it for me? now having said that, i think it was grossly inappropriate for the president to have this conversation, but i think those are viable defenses. left witht 20 minutes jonathan turley, g.w. law professor, he's answering your questions, in 20 minutes we'll go to the senate homeland security committee and affairs hearing on the 2017 hurricane season. federal response and versight of that fema administrator brock long will be at that hearing in 20 minutes. until then, phone lines are yours to talk to jonathan turley. philip, republican, go ahead.
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caller: c-span, thank you for having me on. i enjoy your show. i really feel you do fair reporting. make just a comment .n mueller i think he should follow this investigation everywhere it way to the very end. have no doubt trump will not fire him. head of the f.b.i. he was the director. a person in that to the , to be leaking pre ress, would constitute firing by itself. to investigation needs to go trump's dossier, it needs to be thoroughly as he is doing the rest of the
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reaching ion and far find.can the american people need to know what ussia is able to do, they did do, then we can find it for.did they do guest: philip's point about leaking, we should put into context. irst of all, i think there was grounds to fire comey, but the president should have done that office ne xhshgs into and fire comey. timing is everything in ashington and to fire comey when you are complaining about the russia investigation, when the investigation is hitting its apex at that time, was not a really good thing to do and i a lot of what happened afterward can be traced to that rather poor decision. it does not mean there wasn't comey, that was not the time. as far as comey leaking, i've
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of comey being critical. he is a leaker, guidelines, .i. taking material from the f.b.i. and leaking it to the press. pretty that the f.b.i. much indicated they viewed those memos he took as f.b.i. material. i do think he's legitimate point of criticism. of nt to note in favor comey, that did not occur until after he was fired. relieves him of any responsibility, he was the person who was in charge of leakers in the administration, things went bad, e became a leaker and i think that is legit nat criticism. brings up the r dossier again, whether it is that or meetings at trump tower can you ian officials, explain where the line of pposition research is in campaign and where it starts to get into legal trouble? we've heard this defense on both sides now. guest: yeah. you know, you've heard president
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people would have taken that meeting in the trump tower. pposition research and common in washington. that is not true, not a meeting like that. a little more sophisticated. the trump administration has in how her ham-handed they dealt with this n. fairness to the president, would they information from that meeting? would most people have gotten the information some how? probably. would have used more sophisticated way of doing it, research is n life's blood in washington, that is what a lot of people, talking dollars, in doing. and it gets a bad wrap, although defendso be the one who opposition research particularly at this time, but this is finding on, people are information they believe which hange voter's minds, information make its relevant. that is not necessarily on the face bad thing. but when you s, have a foreign government coming e-mail to ey sent the
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trump jr. and said the russian help ment would like to you and they have dirt on hillary clinton. ending back, i love it, is not a smart thing to do. even if most people would have oved it, but they certainly would have never taken that meeting. host: to michael in washington, .c., line for independents, go ahead. caller: hi, there, hey, g.w. alum turley, here. guest: great. this, : my question is being the manafort investigation is really seem to dug in what be quite significant money laundering type activities, just wondering what thoughts are as to how that investigation might expand to and himself, his family his property and what the implications of that might be? guest: well, that's a really question, not just because you are one of our graduates. the the -- there is a concern in the
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white house that there is going mission creep from mueller president's the transactions. we saw with manafort, it took little of investigation to really sense some elitis conduct in his transactions. rump's portfolio is many times bigger than manafort and there is always a concern as criminal attorney, if you someone doing international work, you put enough spotlight on that, reporting problems with other errors, it is not clear how much mueller is getting into that, he picked up a bunch of eople whose specialty is finding money, following the money trail and international transactions. concern for trump should be the congressional committees. to grab d easily move his tax records and other things as part of their investigation. the republicans lose the
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ouse, then this is a game changer, you could expect that a emocrat controlled house would go after trump with hammer and tongue and open up investigations and the first subpoenas to go out would likely be for financial records. host: would those investigations just start over under a or cratic house or senate whatever happens in 2018 or pick up on the work three committees senate are and doing? guest: they would inherit the work, the committees would be would have new members. for democrats to take the house, seats flip, e 25-30 so some of the committees will be reorganized, they will have a a ocratic chair and democratic majority, and that would be a perfect nightmare for we know how sensitive he is about people finances, his business arrangements. to have one house of congress, and hostile ority majority, that would very likely be the end of the day in terms
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legislative agenda for donald trump. the thing to remember about these e had lots of presidential scandals, but none like this. maturedmuch earlier and faster than any other presidential scandal in modern history. you see this toward the end of the first term and likely a o the second term of president tochlt see this unravel and have indictments within nine months, that is like a nascar pace and it is going to e dysfunctional for the administration until the end of the first term. host: josh, rock martin, georgia, line for republicans, go ahead. caller: hi, thank you for having really appreciate it. this is great, nonbiassed, very got good nal, information. -- special saying counsel prosecutor and the scope iven to him, and the second point i would like to just mention is about with this whole
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do -- russia, isn't this what russia would want? all of us, if o you look at the press, everything, we're all completely and it is h other worse than ever before. a lot of it, most has to do with russia. so that is my question. guest: yes, first of all, second question. only guy laughing in all this is vladamir putin, laughing his head off. host: is it worse than ever before? guest: i think it is. russ succeeded. one tofs have influence on the u.s. election. and the other was possibly finding an ally, according to his latest indictment, someone in the trump campaign. it is not clear that the in ians really succeeded reaching to trump himself or this.rump knew any of so we're still at a stage that hasn't really materialized in of that allegation. ut i do want to say one thing
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and that is there is another history of intervening in foreign elections and far greater than russia and successful, that would be us. for the russians, they're not just laughing, they are pointing out certain hypocrisy, we didn't hackedck our enemies, we ur enemies, and allies, people li merkle. fair amount of finger pointing at the united states. pretty much were the leader ecessary intervening and hacking around the world. so as many of our congressional expressed revoltion about what the russians are doing, i continuing is fair to we have history of our own when it comes to other countries. al is in castleton, go
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ahead. caller: good morning, c-span, turley.ning, professor the caller from washington, of your graduates. he actually stole my thunder. could ondering if you elaborate a little bit more on circumstances would donald ally would trump's income taxes become part chess game of i don't want to say legitimacy of his office, but fact he was chosen by of rity, that ticks a lot people off. i think he is traditionally epublicans have, they are not going to throw this guy a rope if he starts to sink. i can see it coming. guest: maybe an anchor. terms of know, in
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those records, mueller may have some of them. the mueller is looking at russian influence, he's not just for criminal charges, he will produce a flpt all likelihood to congress on what has found. even if there is no criminal charge, the white house could be fairly damming report, there is a lot of people in the trump administration with context and a lot of democrats and these types of candals are sort of like saturn, they devour their own in the end. hat democrats are being uneasy about is that it is expanding to include people like tony podesta john podesta, by extension. they acquire records? yes. the question is, was there russians over the trump campaign, as well as the election? if president trump has financial
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handsest, that were in the or could be influenced by russian figures, that will be a concern. there is not, we haven't seen any evidence like that. in the second indictment that we saw, you had guilty it was remarkably light in terms of connections to trump or actually concrete steps that had been taken. here was a lot of interest expressed, but notably very few x visions that said and so happened as a result. much had cause, but not effect. host: a minute ago you were in ing about the interest this story around the world. here is a few more papers, front ages of various pages from around the world this morning. from one paper in sweden, a paulre of president trump, manafort and vladamir putin on the front page. to dubai, the story there with picture of manafort and
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papadopoulos, mueller probe nets english aide voozor, language paper from dubai. taipai paper from jared pictures of kushner, donald trump jr. and paul manafort and front page of from colombia, story from the bottom of the page russia gate shakes the white house, that's out of colombia. interest from papers from around today.rld guest: right. this is quite damaging, because there is a big international interest in this and the president is about to go on a very important foreign trip. types of trips, you really have to convey that position aking from a of strength and the way he's viewed right now is something in his first ck year, which is very odd for a with.dent to contend
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host: mobile, alabama, bill is a republican, good morning. caller: good morning. two quick points. one, just came up during the discussion. as far as foreign governments intervening in other government goes back all the way to the romans and greeks and erhaps before that with egyptians and jews, it's happened throughout history. palmerston, that lord palmerston came to southerners, who were unhappy united states government and promised british assistance if we would rebel and civil se that led to the war. the queen victoria decided to palmerton had done. host: what is lesson of history today?uld take caller: all i'm saying to try to normal ize perfectly international behavior is an absurdity. every government throughout history has provided information
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about foreign leaders, that is to say, trump shouldn't have asked for dirt on hillary clinton. dirt on ying to get everybody. host: what is the line, bill, that should be there? campaigns should take financial contributions? caller: i don't know about that, a question that should made into legislation and a book should be written on it so campaigns know exactly what they can do. certainly many foreign interests, look at the interest mexico, guy down in carlos slim, has by owning the as york times," you know, far as influencing elections. host: bill in alabama. can talkturley, if you through this. guest: i think bill raises some interesting points. should note, already is in the law, you cannot accept foreign contributions in a election, it is a crime. but the really difficult thing,
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hich we talked about earlier, was how far mueller might be willing to stretch the definition of contribution under law. i'm one of those that throwing up red flags saying, we have to very, very careful. if you start to include money, tion, like it is that is going to sweep in a lot of people under the criminal give information to campaigns and you also don't want to intimidate information give to campaigns. you know, if the information is these are e sense real communications or real issues or real problems, we to cut off avenues of information. now we don't want foreign russia has do what done and i think there is a lot of focus on that. we should be very careful before start to change the criminal code definition. ost: a few minutes left before the program ends today. i want your reaction to paul manafort's attorney, kevin came out yesterday, fter those indictments were
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released and paul manafort was at the federal courthouse, and talked about the charges. is what he had to say. >> i think you all saw it today, donald trump was correct, there is no evidence manafort, the trump campaign colluded with the russian government. manafort represented pro-european union campaigns for ukrainian and in that he was to further democracy and o help the ukraine come closer to the united states and the .u., those activities ended in 2014, over two years before mr. anafort served in the trump campaign. today you see indictment brought by an office of special counsel, that is using a very novel theory to prosecute mr. manafort, regarding a fara filing. the united states government has
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that offense six times only resulted in one conviction. the second thing about this that i myself find most ridiculous, is a claim that accounts tooffshore bring all your funds into the nited states as scheme to conceal from the united states government is ridiculous. you. host: jonathan turley. guest: well, first of all, it is thing he the first would say is that there is no evidence of the president colluded. not really his client, that struck me as being odd. need to focus you on your client and the charges, he's perfectly right, the implicate the 't president. host: was he trying to rally the candidate or his trump supporters around his client? i think don't know, but that is not -- i've stood there
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n cases in front of the media and you have to really think seriously of what you want to put out there. carry a very small part of it. they did carry that, but it benefit your client very much. his last point is more eneficial to his client, signalling, my client had foreign accounts, a lot of people have foreign accounts, that like eating effort of money laundering or effort to conceal funds. valid point and might have a case there to make. as far as fara, he is absolutely prosecutors have not viewed fara as something that is prosecution. people retroactively register as tony podesta, in his case, nd others, and handled administratively. that is legitimate point to raise of wow, you know, hundreds thousands of people have had this type of problem and yet charging my ally guy because he's it. do on the ion, one
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cover of "time, requests next day doing time. a matinee defend, you are hitting them with other stuff eople have done and not been charged. host: couple more phone calls. eugene, line for democrats, waiting.r caller: thanks for taking my call. mr. turley, i think this is a pattern with the administration that the real estate that he sold in price with the russian florida and we look at the pattern that people think that, know, he's a liar as far as the way he lie. these type of t pattern, i think people should the waytiate it between that all the people that implicated are saying never been the russian or anything like that, it is a with ent ball game that the trump administration. we say why in my church,
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that, they said that a lie, when devil lie constantly, the is a liar, hais why i do not republican, y the we should be -- first, not party i just think that there is a problem with mr. trump -- you, eugene. eugene think its is a credibility issue. might be a credibility issue, we need to be careful, gotten ahead of our ski when is to alleging crimes like obstruction or whatever collusion might be. dangerousal code is a thing, if you just use it opportunistically. isn't any real evidence right now of a crime committed y president trump, it's not even clear he's a principal target of the investigation. these indictments really don't critics. ball for but certainly those types of allegations that were raised, he might have sold property at hiezer price to russia, yeah,
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special counsel could look at that and i expect he has. ost: we have a minute or two left in fredericksburg, virginia, what is your question? what is the domino effect? who planted the seed? corrupt?ry clinton was the obama administration the most corrupt administration here thanks for taking my call. guest: look, the moral high washington has been measured in millimeters, when ou have all of these politicians in washington expressing disgust about the conduct of the other side, you sort of sit back and take a second look at that. what i think is good about all is the american people are getting a very good glimpse washington.ens in and it's sort of disgusting. there is a lot of influence dishonesty, lot of a lot of hypocrisy, and i think callers of the earlier said it right, all the stuff
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investigated. i'm in favor of ripping off the scab on all of these things and the it is up thing is if to politicians in washington, they're going to control the do, e, that is what they they manage scandals, they try the important thing is, if it is up to politicians in washington, they are going to control the damage. they manage scandals. they tried to defuse against themselves. the problem are not the investigations, it is whether they will be held accountable on both sides. the hearing on the 2017 hurricane season, oversight of the federal response, witnesses include brock long, a federal emergency management administrator. that includes in just a minute here on c-span.
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[inaudible talking]
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>> good morning. this hearing has come to order. on the one hand, it is nice to my senator carper acting as ranking member. senator mccaskill's husband is in the icu.