tax reform and its impact on your state and local taxes. that's the "washington journal" tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. "newsmakers" is next. thanks for joining us on this sunday. hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend have. great week ahead. >> "newsmakers" is next with democratic senator chris van hollen of maryland. after that, we'll show you the swearing in of senators doug jones and tina smith this past week. followed by senate leaders mitch mcconnell and charles schumer discussing the congressional agenda. and later, a look at the federal government's role in infrastructure spending.

>> this week on "newsmakers," congressman chris van hollen, a democrat in maryland and one of did you thank you for being here. we have kevin robe lar who is with "politico" and sean sullivan with "the washington post." it looks like there are some other interesting races. the democrats -- will democrats win the majority back in the senate this november? >> so this was a great week for the senate. for alabama and for the country with the swearing in of doug jones who ran a campaign based on kitchen table issues.

and a lot of this affectsed republicans. and i believe that the steps that the republicans and congress have taken are going to make things a lot harder for those republicans, including the passage of this attack which is a total giveaway to corporations while millions of middle class taxpayers, you're going to see their taxpayers go up. >> senator, when you are making priority i, your priority going to be defending these 10 democratic senator who is are up for re-election in these trump states? or are you going to go on offense and win races like nevada, arizona, texas and tennessee, where you have?

senator chris van hollen: we hink we can do both. you've good lot of battle-tested incumbents and the reason they've been successful, sometimes in splitly -- politically difficult state is they always focus the people in their states. we're going to work very hard to help them and knowing what to do in their states. and we'll look for every pickup pportunity that are out there. no state is safe for a republican senator. >> so following up on that, where do you think you can expand the map beyond the races that have already started erging and establishing? senator chris van hollen: we've obviously got to work hard make sure they continue to succeed.

and then there are eight republican seats. alabama, of course, was a seat that we recently picked up. and all of those eight are going to be in play. we have candidates today and every one of those eight seats with the exception of mississippi which we're talking to some very strong candidates. all of them are strong potential states. now, having said that, obviously, state of nevada is a big pickup opportunity for the democrats. arizona, very much in play. but i wouldn't discount any other states. we have really good candidates. the governor of tennessee, always governed, based on a pragmatic governing approach. trying to address issues that were important to people regardless of party.

>> what's the one state that you're most concerned about? >> i'm not going to get into ranking the states here today. we take nothing for granted. more importantedly, our senators take nothing for granted. sometimes that means fighting with president trump. sometimes it will be working with president trump. again, their goal is to make sure that they have as their top priority, the people in their state. so there are lots of competitive states out there right now. but we also have incumbents who are really strong positioned. >> in some of these state, we're seeing democratic primaries unfolding. the biggest one is california.

could also be general election with two democrats. there are some other states that we're seeing incumbents get primary challenges. how complicated does it make your task this year as you look at some of these merging democratic primaries? sen. chris van hollen: the story of this election is how few democratic primaries we have, at least on the senate side. i expect dianne feinstein will do very well in california. t in other states, we have really, very few primaries whereas on the republican side, you have lots of very bitter primaries in a whole range of tates. >> in recent years, we've seen some case where is republicans,

the republican campaign committee has had to spend money on the republican prime troy protect their incumbent. do you anticipate where they need to go into california, which is a very expensive zpate help out senator feinstein? sen. chris van hollen: we strongly support senator feinstein but we also believe she's really strong position both in terms of her record and fighting for the people of california. and the campaign that she will run. so, i don't anticipate having to invest any funds in the state of california. >> zooming out a bit talking about the messaging, a lot of democratic activists and some lawmakers have expressed some serious concerns about the president to the point where they have said there should be a move to impeach president trump. who questions. one, do you think president trump to be impeached, do you think congress should be moving in that direction and what sort of messaging mean on the

campaign trail, especially in some of these red state where is president trump is very popular? sen. chris van hollen: so i think the focus for people who want to make sure that we uphold -- hold donald trump accountable is to win the 2018 election in the house and in the senate. and that should be our focus. and that means fighting on these issues that are important to people in all these states. so we saw the country rally in opposition in the effort to eliminate the affordable care act which meant millions of americans losing access to the affordable care act. you saw them rallying to fight that. rural hospitals were very longly opposed to that effort. that was the first signal that donald trump and republicans weren't really out there for the forgotten americans. in fact, they were targeting forgotten americans. and this tax bill, you tell me the big corporations are the real forgotten americans. they do very well in the united states congress and now they have a big tax windfall.

millions of folks in the middle will see their taxes go up. foreign stock holders in 2019 are going to see a $48 billion windfall. foreign stock holders. how is that america first? so there's a whole lot here to talk about on the issues that people care about and that should be our focus. >> does it make it harder than some of your democratic colleagues and activists when they're talking about impeachment? sen. chris van hollen: i don't think any of our senators or senate candidates are focused on impeachment. they're focused on the kitchen table issues. that's what doug jones did in alabama. he really focused on issues that people care about when it comes to income security, job opportunities, pay, pensions. those were the issues in his campaign and on election night, he talked about protection the children's health insurance program. those are the kinds of priorities that folks will be focused on. >> it was report that

psychiatrist that traveled down from connecticut to d.c. she worked at yale to talk to members of the senate and members of congress about president trump's mental health. i think some more questions about that came out after his tweet regarding the button in comparing his button to kim jong-un's in north korea. is that something that you have any concerns about and something that you think that is the type of thing that could potentially lead to impeachment? sen. chris van hollen: i have said he is unfit in my opinion. that is why it is very important that people hold him accountable. people in red state, blue state, purple states want members of the senate who are going to hold the president accountable. and again, that means fighting the president where the policies that he proposed are bad for their states. where he proposes policies that

are good for their states our members have been willing to work. we've been willing to work on a bipartisan basis. we laid out early on this tax debate a number of principles. if you're going to have a middle class tax cut, everybody should have a tax cut and nobody should see their taxes go up. we said that folks at the very top should not get a big tax break. in fact, steve mnuchin, the secretary treasury said that folks at the top, we're not going to get a tax break. well, at the end of the day, folks get an average annual tax break of $70,000 a year while corporations get a permanent tax cut. so we're going to be very focused on those kind of issues and our members have been always willing to work on a bipartisan basis when it's in the interest of people in their state. >> some of your republican colleagues were over at the white house today to talk to the president. -- talking about immigration

that's going on in congress right now. would you be willing to vote for another spending bill if it comes up later this month for around january 19 if a daca solution is either not included in that bill or has not been resolved before that time? sen. chris van hollen: so there are a whole lot of items that we need to resolve before january 19. we need to first of all, to make the adequate investments in our country, in our national defense, yes. but also in our kids' education. right now, we've got republicans proposing to dramatically increase defend spending and cut that portion of the budget that we invest in our kids' education, being innovative research. if we want a strong country, we need a strong economy and we need those investments. second, children's health insurance programs. doug jones talked about this on his election night. we need to resolve that. make sure community health centers have funding. we need to do with pensions. there are some folks who put

their money into pension plans. we need to make sure they're strong. and before january 19, one way or another, we have to deal with the daca issue. i mean, these are kids who were brought here through no fault of their own. they've grown up in our schools. they've always pledged allegiance to the american flag. we need to resolve these issues. and frankly, you know, mitch mcconnell promised senator jeff flake that we would address the daca issue when he voted for this tax plan. so we hope to be able to resolve all of these issues. we can't be kicking the can down the road. >> specifically on this daca legislation, the dreamers, if it has not been dealt with in one way or another before the spending bill is brought to the floor, how do you vote? sen. chris van hollen: so i want to make something really clear, which is that donald trump is the only person who's tweeted about a government shutdown. republicans now have majorities in the house and in the senate and they control the white house.

so they need to work with everybody to make sure that we don't have a government shutdown. and the extent that they're unwilling to work with everybody else to resolve these issues which have been around for a long time, then they're going to have to shoulder the responsibility for any kind of government shutdown. the funds in the budget that will be voted on are some of the money that donald trump wants to use to report the daca recipients in march. we need funds to make sure we educate our kids and invest in our schools. so this has got to be a negotiation and it's got to make sure that we deal with these priorities. so we've got to address all these issues by january 19. whatever form it's in. maybe there's a freestanding vote on the daca legislation. maybe it's part of the budget. but all of these issues that we're talking about need to be addressed and resolved by january 19. we can't keep kicking the can down the road.

>> do you think it's good politics for some of these trump states, senators that are facing re-election to draw a line in the sand on daca? some of these people, senator tester for one, voted against dream act, i believe, in his first term. do you think it's good politics for them to now draw a line on the sand saying we're not going to continue to fund the government unless we get a solution? sen. chris van hollen: so, first of all, i make it a point never to advise my colleagues as to what's best in their individual states because they have obviously, a much better sense of doing that. right now, our entire caucus is in support of the dream act. how we resolve those issues and how each member resolve those issues is something that, you know, they're going to have to decide in the context of what's in the budget, what's in other legislation and, again, always focus as they have been on what's best for their state.

>> this week, we saw the department of justice take a step to reverse a marijuana policy that had been put in place under the obama administration. what is your reaction that move? and secondly, is this a decision that you think could affect some of these campaigns across the country that we're seeing unfolding? some of these senate races that could decide the majority? sen. chris van hollen: it could. let me first say with respect to the decision. i think it takes us in an absolute wrong decision. we should be focusing our federal law enforcement resources on going after violent criminals, not locking up people in federal prison for marijuana use, especially in states where the people of those states have decided to either decriminalize marijuana or to legalize marijuana. in my view, we shouldn't be locking people up for marijuana use in any event. so that is a bad use of federal law enforcement resources when

we have so many other challenges here. i would point out that corey gardener from colorado, a republican senator, sent out a tweet this week indicating that the decision was a total contradiction of what sessions ad told him. again, that is always a decision to be made by the senator representing the particular state. >> do you support the full legalization of marijuana and considering that marijuana legalization is now extremely popular, more popular than it's ever been, pretty overwhelming majority of americans support it now, why haven't democrats fully embraced that issue as part of their political platform?

a lot of people suggested it's a good way for turnouts. sen. chris van hollen: these decisions have to be based on the policy merits. and not the politics. and my view is we should decriminalize marijuana and leave the states to make decisions with respect to legalization of marijuana. you've seen that in certain states like colorado, washington state, now california. i really think that in this case, we need to make sure that the states have an opportunity to sort of weigh in on that. we should at the federal level watch closely. i don't think we should preempt decisions made by states. one way or another. but i do believe we should decriminalize across the country marijuana laws to the extent that we can. i do not think people should be locked up the united states of america for, you know, possession of marijuana. that's not right. and it's certainly a bad use of

federal resources to go after that kind of activity. >> we've seen some campaign, melding in republican primaries in a way that's advantageous to democrats. you mentioned mississippi which is a state where there could be a pretty intense republican primary. maybe some other places. are you open to perhaps spending money to try to dictate the outcome of a republican primary that's here in a way that would help the democrats? sen. chris van hollen: in this cycle? republicans are doing a very good job themselves of beating each other up in these republican primaries. so i don't anticipate us getting involved in those republican primaries. obviously, that's, you know, a decision for people in the states going forward. but, you know, there is clearly a situation on the republican

side, a very anti-establishment mood, which is complicating things for for the race. >> do you think that presents any opportunity that anti-establishment mood in republican primaries? do you think there are case where is democrats are going to be facing weak erkan dates than hey might otherwise? >> all i know is as of right now, you have a whole pile of republican primaries in a lot of these states. how they will resolve themselves, i don't know. and i do make it a point never to get in the middle of a republican civil war. but it clear is a factor. we've heard republicans talk about this battle between mcconnell forces and the trump forces and the bannon forces.

so you've got all of this going on. but i think at the end of the day, the big issues in this campaign are going to come down to questions of are you standing up for people's economic opportunities? are you there for people on these big issues? if you look at the republican budget, which included the green light and the structure for passing this big corporate tax giveaway, it also calls for almost $500 billion in cut -- and cuts the medicare. it calls for $1 trillion cuts in medicaid. every senate republican voted for that budget that calls for those cuts. so it's going to be very hard for them to explain how they voted for a tax plan that had a big giveaway to big corporations. and it's part of that same plan. they called for cutting medicare for seniors and medicaid which people discovered and debate over the repealing the affordable care act which helps

a very broad sector of the american population. >> who is the leader the democratic party? sen. chris van hollen: you've got senate, chuck schumer is the democratic leader. and in the house, nancy pelosi is the leader. but one of the, you know, good things about both the house and the senate is you have lots of voices that are at the table and participating in addition making. obviously, we have tom perez at the d.n.c. who is also the conversation. we have very good collaboration between the d.n.c., the democratic cravaack senatorial ampaign committee. we have very good coordination and collaboration. and again, on the -- we obviously don't control the white house.

2020 will be here can't get here soon enough in some sense. but i think you've got those, obviously, those leaders of house and senate. >> time for a few more questions. senator, when does a democrat, one of the democratic names in the party need to emerge on a national stage for you to be competitive in 2020? sen. chris van hollen: oh, goodness. i'm so focused on 2018, right? the midterm elections are the opportunity to make sure that we hold republicans accountable. it's an opportunity for our senators in each of these states to talk about the issues that are important to people in their states. you're going to have obviously, a long line of candidates going into 2020 on the democratic side. and that process, obviously, will takes it seem to sort out. and i think let's get through the 2018 elections and then we'll figure out where to go after that. but these are really important

elections for the country. and i think that's why you saw so many people mobilize to come out in alabama. that's why we saw in november, huge turnouts for democratic candidates in virginia and many other states around the country. and it wasn't just that we won the governor's race in virginia. it was the margin of victory that was very large and the depth of the victory. in the house, the delegate races and others. so what we saw in november and then in alabama is a very clear sign thatoff got a lot of energy among the democratic side joined by a lot of independents who want to send a message that they want sensible government and republican, moderates, who have come over to support democratic candidates. >> you earlier mentioned the republican tax plan. you noted that it does increase tax on some members of the middle class. however, lots of independent

analysis found that the overwhelming majority of americans in the middle class and out of the middle class would receive a tax cut under this plan. the republicans said this bill would be more popular and could turn around their midterm fortune. what do you think that analysis wrong? sen. chris van hollen: for a couple of reasons. first, there are millions of americans in the middle class who will see a tax increase both paul ryan and mitch mcconnell, many, many months ago said that their plan would not raise taxes on anybody in the middle. they both had to reverse their statements. it does. secondly, those cuts for, you know, folks in the middle, they're relatively small and they're temporary while the cuts for corporations are huge and permanent. so when this plan is fully in effect, actually, folks under $70,000 will see a pay, a tax increase when this is fully phased in. whereas the corporate tax cut,

they're forever. this whole idea of trickled down economics ran into a brick wall in the early 2000's with the bush tax cuts. the big winners are corporate executives and folks who are going to benefit from stock buybacks. and i can tell you that every four or five months, we're going to ask workers around the country whether they've gotten their $4,000 a year pay increase. that is what president trump promised. that's what republican senators promised. they had big charts on the floor on the senate. you're going to get a pay increase. not a one-time bonus. a pay increase of $4,000. that was their trickled-down prediction. i hate to say that it's not going to happen. and they're going to have a lot of explaining to do why they gave these big tax cuts to the folks at the top. we could have made sure that nobody in the middle, nobody had a tax increase. but they decided to raise taxes on millions of folks in the

middle. phase out tax cuts for other americans and give a whopping big increase to corporate americans. and one third of the stock holders, the value of the stock in these corporations is owned by current back hold -- stockholders. they make out like bandits. in 2019, they get a $48 billion foreign stock holder paid for with tax increases from millions of middle class americans. that is not a winning formula for our folks no, matter where you are in the country. >> senator, we have to leave it there. senator chris van hollen, thank you very much. sen. chris van hollen: thank you. > appreciate it. >> and we are back with our two reporters. shawn, can they take back the majority? are what are the numbers looking like right now? >> they're looking very difficult and i think we saw that reflected in his answer.

he was very kickoffs tiff. he was not willing to say. the best news for the democrats is they picked up a seat in alabama. but they still are defending a lot of seats and the biggest thing is they're defending seats in states that not only donald trump won but he won overwhelmingly like north dakota, west virginia. these are going to be very, very difficult for democrats to hold. and if they do hold, they still need to find a way to pick up a couple of seats elsewhere. so the climate politically has gotten better for democrats and it's encouraging but if you look at the map, it's still a pretty daunting map that they're facing. >> kevin, you say which one state kept him up? is that the answer if nevada? which ones are look the most uphill? >> the one that i hear democrats express the most to worry about is actually florida. the senator right now looks ok

but that's because he doesn't have enough opponents. his most likely opponent is rick scott. and the real fear is scott is both a trick fundraiser and personally wealthy. and he could put a lot of money into this race and democrats would even between -- the resources from outside groups wouldn't be able to compete there. it's a situation where republicans feel that if scott does get in, it's a sure pickup for them. but if scott doesn't get in, nelson is probably safe. but right now, we're worrying about whether or not rick scott gets into florida would be what would keep me up at night. >> and the four governor's approval ratings and how is he handling the hurricane? is he doing well more? are yes. he's pretty consistently have lower approval ratings. it's been in the past year or so that his approval ratings have come up quite a bit. >> you make a great point. you know, when you have somebody who has pockets as deep as rick scott does, even if at the end of the day, scott comes up short

and nelson is able to win, well, democrats are going to have to spend a lot more money there. and that's money they're not spending in states you mentioned like nevada and arizona. others that they're hoping to pick up. at a minimum, it makes them make investments that they would be making elsewhere and that puts a big strain on their overall strategy when they look at this map this year. >> go ahead. >> and i do think it was interesting that van hollen made a point of saying that they think they can put every republican held seat in play. that's really a remarkable statement to make when you think of where some of these republican held seats are like in nebraska. the one he mentioned was mississippi, which is another deep red state where trump is very popular. the d.s. this year and past year has done a good job even in deep red states finding sirius candidates, people who can't just immediately be laughed at or shuned to the side. but i still think it's a big

uphill to say that you're really going to start putting nebraska or mississippi in play. >> on the legislative agenda, the senator talked about all the items that need to get done, including a spending bill to keep the government running past january 19. what is the time line for getting this all done? they're not in. they were not in this past week. they do come back this week coming up. but how is it possible? and what are the negotiations like right now? re they happening? >> yeah, it is very difficult. there have been negotiations. the democratic and republican leadership in various staff have been meeting and talking. there was a meeting in the capital earlier this week but a lot of these issues that need to be resolved in order to come to an agreement to fund the government remain unresolved and immigration is one of the biggest ones. and, you know, democrats

continue to say we need to find a solution to extend daca protection to individuals were brought to the country. you know, illegally as children. and republicans are saying, well, we want to deal with that but we're willing to separate the two. the question for the end of this month is how many democrats are willing to take a stand and say we're not going to vote until daca is resolved and senator van hollen wouldn't say but he's trying to deflect possible government shutdown. but there is a growing energy in the democratic right now to take a firm stance against republicans and say we may even be willing to not vote on the government if you guys don't meet us at the table and find a way to deal with immigration. greta: there were reports of protests in capitol hill. they were upset that democrats did not take that stand before they left for the holiday.

politically, could there be fallout for democrats in 2018 if they don't make this a big issue and tie to it the spending bill? >> yeah, there could be. when you look at the map that the democrats are facing, to pick up seat, they will need pretty heavy hispanic turnout. to the best places are nevada and arizona. we just mentioned florida. it is another state with a big latino population. there's the possibility for some political fallout for democrats if they don't deliver on this when it seems that they have a pretty clear path to at least hold their ground. and so it's definitely possible. but it's still, we're not quite at the point writ looks like it's going to be a major political price shift. greta: did you hear from your sources that some democrats thought it was a mistake that they didn't hold their ground this first time around? >> absolutely. and when you look at the energy in the democratic party that we've seen growing and there's no doubt when you look at these

special elections, when you look at only of the rallies that democrats have organized, there is an uptick but activists say they don't have an backs on an issue that we really care about. tear not willing to go. that's something that could affect turnout in all of these states that the democrats need in order to have a chance at taking the senate majority or prevent themselves from losing ground. this is a difficult issue for schumer, for pelosi. what do they do? what are they willing to show voters? how far are they willing to go? the risk is, if they do go that far, do they get blamed for a government shutdown? greta: yeah. thank you both. >> thanks. >> great to be on.

>> for nearly 20 years, "in-depth" on book tv has featured the nation's non-fiction writers for live conversations about their work. we're featuring best fiction writers for our in-depth program. .oin us today at noon eastern our special series "in-depth fiction edition" with thor david ignatius live at 3:00 eastern on book tv on c-span2. >> as the second session of the 115th congress got underway this past week, the senate swore in two new members, doug jones of alabama who takes the place of luther strange and tina smith of minnesota who replaces al an