up our navy and defense forces in such a way that we are never, we never lose face like this again. announcer: sunday night on c-span. here is a look at our love coverage tuesday, white house budget director mick mulvaney outlines the president's budget request before the senate budget committee. at noon house gavels in for legislative business at 2:00 p.m. the senate meets to continue work on immigration legislation. on c-span3, the senate intelligence committee looks at global security threats with the cia director. with michael rogers, and dan coats. followed later by a subcommittee hearing on the defense department's role in protecting u.s. elections from foreign influence. up in 30 minutes, marcela gaviria discusses her recent

pbs documentary about the trump administration crackdown. and at 9:00 a.m., the 50 capitals tour is an arkansas for a conversation with ava hutchison. ♪ good morning, it is tuesday, february 13. the senate reconvenes this morning and the house begins its work week at noon. we are you for the next three hours on "washington journal" and after a busy day on capitol hill, including the budget request to congress and the kickoff to the long awaited immigration debate, we begin with open phones. what are the public policy issues on your mind around the country this morning? give us a call. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000.

independents, 202-748-8002. catch up with us on social media. on twitter at c-spanwj. and on facebook. and a very good tuesday morning to you. we begin with the first half-hour. and as you are calling, we will take you to the fiscal budget request making headlines this morning. proposal,ion budget as usa today puts it, included a massive military buildup. the story noting that donald trump's $716 billion request for defense would represent a 7% increase over last year. the greatest buildup since ronald reagan was president, adding 29,000 soldiers, airmen and marines to the force of 1.3 million, building 10 warships, and increasing production of f-35's and other warplanes. it notes, in all, the budget would add more than $7 trillion

in debt by the end of the next decade. it notes one of the centerpieces of the budget is the president's long-awaited infrastructure spending program, which president trump would be matched with public and private funds to provide $1.5 trillion in investment. that program on the president's mind this morning. he is tweeting. "our infrastructure plan had been put forward and is receiving great reviews by everyone, except the democrats. after many years we have taken care of our military and now we have to fix our roads, bridges airports and more. bipartisan, make a deal, dems? " that was not the only issue on his mind. the immigration debate began must night in the senate. here is what the president had to say about that on twitter. "the negotiations on daca have begun.

wouldn't it be great if we could finally after so many years solve this puzzle. this will be our last chance. there will never be another opportunity." he noted the date in which he said the daca program will come to an end. one of the headlines taking place in the senate from the washington times, the democrats like a plan to protect rumors as the debate began, republicans struggling to find a deal for donald trump, noting that the senate voted 97-want to head off the chance of a filibuster and start the debate on immigration, setting up action today on a variety of proposals. we can talk more about that this morning. in the first half hour it is open phones. we want to hear what is on your mind this morning around the country. gary is up first, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. i am an eisenhower republican, so what i want to do is talk to

my pro-life friends and family. and i find that they are complacent in child trafficking. and i say that, it is a serious charge, and i say that because back in the late 1980's governor george allen and governor gilmore and mcdonald, who they had this ban on talking about abortion for our social workers, so if they had an underage girl, immature, no prospects, uneducated, addicted to drugs or alcohol, you know, that would equal a trip to the clinic. but no, anyway fast-forward 15 years and i go into a section 8 housing unit, 16 unit, and three women offered to let me spend time alone with their children. i was god smacked.

the place was a playground for pedophiles. that was -- host: that was gary. a caller in florida. what is on your mind? it is open phones. caller: what bugs me is why do soldiers have uh, to protect the country that is .oing opium sarahy can't we have sign the dateers dat -- [indiscernible] host: ok. tim is in alabama, line for democrats. go ahead. caller: yes, i was thinking about the daca and donald trump

wants $25 million for the wall. nancydo not know why pelosi or anybody else has not told him, if he wants $25 billion for the wall, let mexico pay for it like he promised during his campaign. what is there to negotiate? let him negotiate with mexico. the other thing about the military buildup, who needs all of these warships and all of these planes? buildup for what? we are not at war with anybody. the lastnot know why, thing, i do not know why they passed this budget that they passed. chuck schumer, he needs to be gone. he is talking about he will negotiate, now he has nothing to negotiate with. he passed the budget.

what will you negotiate for daca now? nothing. they will get all this money and he was going to pay for all this money that is going to be -- money? that is going to be the people. they are going to cut into your social security program, medicaid, medicare, and after 2020, and everybody will be crying about paying for all of this money that donald trump has buried the american people in. host: the president requesting $18 billion in his fiscal 2019 budget request. some other funding requests included, $2.7 billion to detain undocumented immigrants, $782 million to hire over 2000 customs and immigration agents. you mentioned chuck schumer in your comments. here is chuck schumer from the floor of the senate last night

at the beginning of the immigration debate. [video clip] >> the key is to find a consensus bill, largely acceptable to a significant number of members from both parties. the purpose is not to make a point as the republican leader just did, that is easy, the purpose is to get something done. ist is hard, but it really so important. it will not be easy, but it is achievable. the democrats are committed to protecting dreamers and we have long supported effective border security. many republicans are in the same boat. the only enemy is overreach. now is not the time to place, now is not the time nor the place to reform the entire legal immigration system. rather, this is the moment for a narrow bill. and every ounce of our energy is going into finding one that can pass. from the senate floor debate last night as the

immigration debate gets underway. we will be following it all this but on "washington journal" we want to hear your thoughts now with open phones. 202-748-8001 if you are a republican. 202-748-8000 if you are a democrat. 202-748-8002 if you are an independent. joann from michigan, go ahead. caller: yes, this is joann. we need that wall. and we need term limits. yes,cans need protection, they need protection from the dreamers. so term limits. i wish we could have term limits. thank you. host: how long is too long? what would the limit be for the term limits if you had the choice? caller: i would think 8 years. that is all good to me. host: total service in the house and senate?

or 8 years each? caller: yes. that would be easy for me to remember that. host: patricia, long island, new york. republican, go ahead. caller: i was going to speak about the infrastructure budget, but since you are going to be talking about the dreamers, i would rather say something in reference to that. which is, we need immigration. you need to around of these bad people and ship them out. we need a wall. we do not need people coming in and taking over and at that is what they are going to do. they are going to walk in your front door and say this is my house, get out. anthony, new york, line for democrats. go ahead. caller: thank you so very much, robert. you do an outstanding job, as

well as the other c-span producers. that last woman threw me off with what i was going to say. it is very sad we have come to that type of hatred and it is so un-american, it really is sad. the only thing, we do not need a wall, we need to hold accountable the people hiring illegals, those skirting the rules that have always existed and it no longer apply. what i wanted to say was i do believe that we have walked into socialism from the top of the food chain and unfortunately the bailouts for the banks was an example of that situation, when you have the predatory lenders and bankers, and the mortgage hucksters. there is an irony that the president comes from that. they got bailouts, but they still want to throw people out of their homes because they cannot pay the high taxes, which

facilitates this enormous governance of military industrial complex that is destroying the rolled over -- world over. i wish you all a great day and i appreciate c-span. host: illinois, independent, go ahead. caller: good morning, my name is thomas from aurora, illinois. i want to talk a little bit about yesterday's trump announcement that he bragged about that he was to proliferate nuclear activity for all of his nuclear contractor buddies 'profit margin. but first, i want to voice opposition to the person who called in a couple of minutes ago talking about term limits. i want to voice my opposition to term limits, because it is nothing other than a scam to deny people voters' rights. to deny a person to be able to

get into an elected office that we finally trust and keep them. we need to be able to exercise term limits with the borders ballot. that is enough for us to vote them in or out for as long as we want to them. but regarding donald trump rehabbing the nuclear system, that goes beyond military expansion. att takes us into putting us a national security risk of terrorism against the united states and against the people of the world, because there is an accepted reality of what goes around, comes around. or we reap what we sow. for many call it karma. and -- and many call it,. and with -- it karma.

decided to rehab our nuclear system instead of downsizing and eliminating nuclear activity in the world, obama puts us at risk of that nuclear activity coming back at us in a form of a hot bomb. host: that was thomas in illinois. 15 minutes left in open phones this morning, public policy issue that you want to talk about. later in the program, our c-span 50 isitalsource is -- tour continuing and we will be in little rock, stop number 19 on our trek across the country. the arkansas governor asa hutchinson will join us. stick around for that later this morning. about 7:30 a.m., it is open phones and we are hearing from you on the -- about the

issues that are on your mind. shelton in louisiana, go ahead. caller: first of all, i want to say to the lady that came in, that was talking about people that are immigrants here in the united states and booting them out. werenly real people that here were the indigenous people and who has the right to say who can be here and who cannot be here? that is racist. border is with candidate and nothing is being said about putting a barrier up in canada, but you want to scapegoat the brown people coming from mexico. and also i want to quickly say callersg about what the have been saying about the

nuclear arms race that we are about to get into, and you look at what happened in hawaii when the false alarm took place. people, there is nothing, no protection, no plan of how to take care of the people in terms of a nuclear attack. people were scattering and running all over everywhere and calling relatives and a saying goodbye and everything else. ratchet down this military warfare that we have in the world. and we should be looking at people in other countries as our brothers and sisters and to about how we can make the world better. vets, takinging care of vets, stopping all of

these wars, that is my comment. host: you started by talking about immigration. we showed chuck schumer on the floor of the senate last night. here is the majority leader mitch mcconnell talking about immigration and the debate ahead. [video clip] >> a number of my colleagues, langford, cotton and ernst, will introduce a proposal to meet these requirements. i support the president's proposal into my colleagues' l egislation. the secure and to succeed act is fair, it addresses the most pressing concerns, and forms to the conditions of the president. it offers a compassionate resolution for 1.8 million illegal immigrants brought to the united states as children. and in exchange, the solution delivers funding for president trump'ss promise to secure the

border. the reforms to migration and reallocates the visa lottery into a more sensible merit-based system. this legislation is a fair compromise that it dresses the state of priorities -- addresses the state of priorities. it is our best chance to producing a solution that could resolve these matters, which requires a bill that will pass the senate, past the house, and earn the president's signature. host: and that immigration debate expected to continue today. thisenate coming in morning at 10:00 a.m. we will have live coverage on c-span2, as always. this morning, open phones. the public policy issues on your mind. fran in jacksonville, florida. go ahead. caller: this is what i called for, i want to make a comment about mitch mcconnell's

declaration a moment ago. all i could think of is he needs to thank his lucky stars and god that they were not doing the merit-based immigration when his ancestors came to america. what i really called about was presidenthat the now, that he is giving all of these tax breaks to the wealthy, he is trying to find money, which we knew he was going to do, to fund everything else, and he is following kim jong-un's playbook, which is put all the money in the military, all the money into weapons, and starve your people, which is what is happening in north korea. that is what donald trump is trying to do in america. host: you think that is what the president wants to do, starve the american people? caller: apparently he has no

concern for them. somebody else talked about the old people, changing the rules in the nursing homes and they are taking money from medicaid, which is the nursing homes probably get the most of their income from, and these are old and sick people. everything he wants to do is coming from the poor people who did not benefit from the tax breaks, so now they are going to get sucked into the military budget, whatever would have gone to them will go to make more bombs and go to his friends in the military industry, making the bombs, more money, even though they have their tax breaks. host: it was a $4.4 trillion budget proposal that the president released yesterday for fiscal year 2019, that is for both mandatory and discretionary

spending. towardllion would go defense spending, although as the new york times puts it today in the wrapup of the budget proposal, the blueprint is largely a political statement and is unlikely to influence lawmakers who control the federal purse, and who just passed a bill that the president signed, raising spending caps over the next two years. that deal, which briefly forced a government shutdown, increases military spending over the next two years and increases nondefense spending by $131 billion over that time. budget proposal calls for a different approach and says congress should not spend all of those nondefense dollars. the proposal calls for spending $57 billion less than the new defense caps for 2019. tim is in rochester, new york. an independent. go ahead.

waser: i was wondering, i going to comment on the miller investigations -- mueller investigations. it is my understanding that when james comey was under review, he stated he only took notes under donald trump. he also stated he only had two meetings with obama in the timeframe that he was the fbi director. out there was a special meeting on january 5, where james comey and a bunch of other people were involved in a meeting at the white house. rice that from susan 15, thatted on 12- everything was being done by the book, which she was not even employed by the government at that time. her employment ended at noon. host: is it you're feeling that

the investigation -- your feeling that the investigation is to politically tainted? will you trust what comes from it? caller: they needed to -- they to do an investigation on the prior administration. the fact that the previous president knew about the russian interference and didn't do anything about it and some of those people involved in the fbi and doj held the information for 30 days in regards to the copious notes, and along with that the emails held for 30 days prior to being released in october. there is a myriad of things that are going on here. rice, the on susan hill with their story, two republicans questioning susan

rice about an unusual message she sent it to herself on january 20, 2017 on president trump's inauguration day. chuck grassley and it senator lindsey graham question her why she sent a note detailing a conversation she observed between james comey and then president barack obama. that ines us that odd the final moments of the final day of the administration you would feel the need to send yourself an unusual imo -- presidentmenting obama and his interaction with the fbi regarding the russian investigation. they said in a message at noted how obama emphasized during the meeting on russian election hacking, that they want every aspect of the issue handled by the book. the story is in the hill newspaper. grassley and graham said despite obama stretching the need for a proper investigation, questions

have arisen about whether officials at the fbi and the state department proceeded "by the book." democrat.yland, good morning. caller: good morning. i just wanted to comment. there was a lady earlier who had mentioned we need to be afraid of the immigrants, or the dreamers in this case, which i feel sorry for her. i do not necessarily, i do understand where she is getting this stuff. if you look at the right-wing media coverage, like fox news, they do a great job of cherry picking stories to back up this narrative, as you will see things on there where a dreamer or undocumented immigrant committed some crime, that normally would be cover on a local crime beat, but it is given this front page on fox news.com, because it tells the narrative of the dreamer who is

a criminal. going back to what donald trump said about, before the election, about all immigrants being from mexico, being rapists and criminals. trying to make that a reality with a cherry picking of news coverage. they could just as easily do coverage on a story about how dreamers are serving in the military, but they choose not to, so it creates a narrative in the mind of fox news readers and people who are in that bubble, like the woman that called, she legitimately probably is scared of undocumented immigrants or even dreamers, because that is the kind of thing she is being fed, it is a disservice to our country when that kind of stuff makes it to the front page of these kinds of papers. when you look at zero public and look at the republican party like senator lindsey graham speaking out and saying people like stephen miller need to be kept out of the conversation, there are

republican senators who are trying to fight against that narrative, but they get drowned out by fox news and by the other narratives. it is a push and pull. i am not sure that a lot of republican callers know there is a disagreement. one last thing, the same kind of disagreement exists with the russian investigation, where a lot of republican senators are on record saying that we were attacked, cyber attacked by russia, an enemy of the country, it is one of the most serious things that has ever happened and it must be investigated, but you have republican saying let's investigate the previous administration. they are not even aware that their own party, the actual senators serving this country for a long time, are not in agreement with them. but fox news is, that is the disconnect. host: some of your comments about this administration, the message on on documented -- on undocumented immigrants getting

involved with violent gangs, we will talk about in our next section. we will be joined by marcela gaviria, who produced a "frontline" documentary called one gang crackdown" focusing undocumented minors getting involved in the ms-13 gang. that you the caller referenced earlier was from long island as well. we will take a look at that community and what it means for the national narrative, coming up in a couple minutes. stick around for that conversation. may, lexington, kentucky, line for republicans. go ahead. [indiscernible] host: elizabeth, virginia, go ahead. caller: ok. the foreigners that we get, we get some good foreigners, but we need to take the steps to be here legal.

host: go ahead. what are the necessary steps? caller: to go back and come back like trump wants them to. host: ok. is that it, elizabeth? caller: and the taxes, we got people on disability in better health than i am. we have young people on food stamps who keep having kids they do not even want, so they don't have to work. host: to pat in nebraska come alive for independents. good morning. caller: good morning. donald trump has kept corporate media distracted with his disgusting support of sexual abusers and every other scandal that he can cook up, so we do not look at the 8 meetings with russians, including five we only find out about through russian media.

the three investigations have been looking into past collusion with russia to influence elections. i was wondering if anybody is looking at collusion happening right now to influence the 2018 midterms. host: wendy in new york. line for democrats. good morning. caller: hi. they were speaking of obama taking no steps during the trump entrance into the white house, but there was so much stuff going on with the republicans, with the russians prior to this point, and michael flynn was directly involved with russians during the transition period, -- how to proceed was a big issue, because how to you say that we have the

russians in the house, when the person they are speaking to is one of those russians in the house? so michael flynn has been implicated throughout the transition team, donald trump just did a lousy job picking people for his transition team. and then he cries because we start busting them for being who they were. he did not vet the people on the transition team. you cannot, when the truth comes out that they do have russian connections, he blames the accusers. host: that was our last caller in our first segment. coming up next we will be joined by marcela gaviria of "frontline", a producer of "the gang crackdown."

and later we would -- we will be joined by mark zandi. and later on we will talk to the arkansas governor, asa hutchinson, who will join us in little rock, stop number 19 of our capitals tour. that coming up at nine clock a.m. this morning. -- 9:00 a.m. this morning. we will be right back. announcer: sunday night, the author of "crashback." >> first of all, there is a public shaming. and china has lost a lot of face. it is hard for westerners to get an idea of what that means to the asian culture, especially someone that is as big and proud as china. theyey lost face and gained that never again mentality. start thisat, they mindset that we will build up our navy and missile defense

forces in such a way that we are never, we never lose face again. announcer: sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. this weekend, the c-span cities tour takes you to lynchburg, virginia. we will explore lynchburg's rich literary scene and historic sites. watch this weekend, beginning at 5:00 p.m. eastern on book tv on c-span2 and sunday on american history tv on c-span3. working with our cable affiliates as we explore america. announcer: c-span's history series landmark cases returns with a look at 12 new supreme court cases. toh week, experts join us discuss the constitutional issues and personal stories behind the significant supreme court decisions. beginning on monday, fed by 26,

live at 9:00 a.m. eastern. to help you follow the cases, we have a companion guide written by tony mauro. landmark cases, volume 2. the book costs $8.95. to get your copy, go to c-span.org/landmarkcases. ♪ announcer: "washington journal" continues. marcela gaviria is a producer for "frontline" and her film premieres tonight, a look at cracking down on the ms-13 gang. host: what drew you to focus on this story and this place specifically? guest: thank you for having me on your show. when president trump. elected i was assigned -- got elected i was assigned immigration.

and i started looking at what happened on the border in 2014, very interested in trying to figure out what had happened at that particular moment in time and what happened to the unaccompanied minors that had crossed the border. i even shall he found out -- i found out that a lot of the kids actually ended up in long island come around 9000 -- island, around 9000 of them came. what happened was the perfect storm. you had a large influx of minors into a community that was not prepared to take them. and then you had ms-13, which was a gangand that was actuallye gang these children had been fleeing to begin with. that leads to a string of disappearances and murders, and honestly i thought it was perhaps the most perfect story at had ever come across.

all of that coupled of course with the incoming president, with new views on how to do with immigrants in america and that became the focal point, ms-13. host: how much did you know about and how much did you focus on ms-13 before coming to this project? guest: i was born and raised in bogota, colombia, so i was familiar with it just by being a latin american. ms-13 is a so-called transnational criminal organization that has presidents in a lot of latin american countries, so i was familiar with it. but i was surprised by the presence on long island. i think i sort of recalled gang presence in los angeles, but i was not familiar with it in long island. and: who are lisa mickens

-- crevas. ? guest: their parents were at the state of the union just last week. lisa were two teenagers studying at brentwood, a local high school, and these two girls 2016, werer 13, savagely killed, really. they bumped into a group of ms-13, a small clique called the west side sailors and unfortunately they were pretty much hacked to death. it was a very gruesome murder. we describe what happened in the film and we also describe the events that happened afterwards. it really was a sparking moment for long island, where law enforcement kicked in and really

focused on trying to figure out who was behind in these murders and why there was such a string of disappearances. host: that was the gang crackdown, the documentary called "the gang crackdown" and it premieres tonight at 10:00 p.m. eastern on pbs. we are talking with marcela gaviria. an award-winning director and producer of "the gang crackdown" with us until 8:00 a.m. this morning. we invite callers to join as well. special line for educators, law enforcement officers, and for parents and all others. we will put the numbers on the screen. you can start calling in on those lines. marcela gaviria, as folks are calling, why focus on the crackdown side as opposed to the rise of the gang and what led to the rise? yout: well, on "frontline"

will be he is segment called u.s."ise of ms-13 in the but what we wanted to look at was what happened in the aftermath. there has been a crackdown on long island. the law enforcement officials went vigorously trying to figure out who were the killers. what happened after was the teachers, police officers, started focusing on the influx of the unaccompanied minors. during the summer there was a round up, it was called operation matador. and around 400 individuals were apprehended. you should note that law enforcement officials believe that there are 200 ms-13 gang

members, 200-400 gang members on long island and they apprehended 400 of them, a lot of them were unaccompanied minors. it turns out after having spent many months in detention, the was notuled there enough evidence to keep them detained and that the kids had not had due process. so we look at the basically, the events that transpired, why the kids were picked up, what kind of evidence ice had against them. ruled thatrts they were innocent kids put through a run around. host: one of the events that transpired after one of the attacks was the attorney general's visit to long island to focus on the crackdown ms-13 on the -- on the ms-13 gang. here is a bit from the

documentary. [video clip] >> outside there is a lot of protesting going on, and i spoke with protesters who said that this will just open the floodgates for racial profiling, for anti-immigrant sentiment, that has already been brewing in the county paid >> they are -- county. >> they are illegals. in other countries he would be shot on sight. >> we were protesting the fact that these killings were reflective of the entire community. because we said, you cannot use this to promote us versus them, immigrants versus citizens, english-speaking versus spanish-speaking sense of justice. that does not serve our community. certainly, the current administration has done things that has made our job early --

job easier and harder. the rhetoric that is used in immigration context and anxiety is not helpful, because we want individuals to feel comfortable coming to the police. host: marcela gaviria is with us, a producer of "the gang crackdown." it will premiere tonight on pbs at 10:00 p.m. eastern. if you want to join the conversation this morning, special phone lines. if you are a member of law enforcement, 202-748-8000. educators, 202-748-8001. parents, 202-748-8002. 3.d all others, 202-748-800 chris in missouri, good morning. line for parents. caller: good morning. i would like to comment about the ms-13. with a multi-organization, several blacks, asians, several

people within the organization, but my comment is to the mafia that helped during the war to get rid of russian and german -- within our country. now we got rid of the italian mafia and now we have the russian mafia, which does not care about the people of the united states. they are infiltrating our government. they are infiltrating our government through their russian knows thesed putin people and he is letting them run amok in our country. host: we will focus on "the gang crackdown" and the incidents in new york we have been talking about with ms-13. marcela gaviria, your documentary, at the end of it you interviewed the soulful county district attorney and he said at the end that the current

administration has done things that have made their job easier and harder. what was he referring to on both sides? guest: i think that law enforcement has a very tough job. if you look at what is happening in long island they have to deal with an incoming population that does not speak english, that mistrusts the police because a lot of them are undocumented, so they have to investigate all these things with a community that comes into this already distrustful of law enforcement because they fear they will be deported if they go to police. if the rhetoric from the administration makes things percolate in a way that it really just makes them feel even more uncomfortable collaborating, and a lot of people i spoke to in long island say that this is what happened,

law enforcement was having trouble figuring out what was going on because people were not coming forward, because they were afraid of police. so they are in a catch 22. host: we have a question from twitter, saying 9000 miners ended up on long island, where did they live, who sponsored them? minors, ift of these you think about the numbers, there has been around 250,000 inorss that have come -- m that have come into the u.s. since 2011. they are coming to be reunited with their parents who have already been living here for decades. kids, one ofe two them came to be with his father. he came from honduras. and the other teenager came from el salvador to live with some relatives. and el salvador and honduras are

the countries most prevalent among the kids coming to america. that is actually because there has been a spike in violence in those two countries, in what they call the northern triangle of central america. and that spike has pushed all these kids to the u.s. it is really interesting to note that these kids are actually fleeing gang violence and they show up on long island to have to deal with the same gains they were fleeing -- gangs they were fleeing in the first place. host: we have a parent. good morning. caller: good morning, what i want to say is if our government and our politicians, who we the their salary, would listen to the people -- we do not want illegal immigrants here. no daca.

they already have amnesty and it will just go on and on and on. and it is pathetic what is happening to the american people. they are being treated like third class citizens. host: marcela gaviria? iest: well, that is a view heard quite a bit in long island and i think that that is essentially part of the dilemma, that a lot of these kids are coming and taking up resources and it makes the community very anxious. that said, i think it is important to note that under international law these children are seeking asylum here. and that is an international right. you can seek asylum in any country and it is up to the u.s. to determine whether that asylum is granted. most of these 9000 minors who have entered here, they are

going to the immigration process. it is a very lengthy process. it takes many years. and sometimes the courts eventually decide whether they get to be sent home or not and some overstay. it is what happens. host: jim on long island. good morning. you are on. caller: hello? can you hear me? host: yep. caller: i caught a couple weeks ago about this stuff and he pushed the button on me. i live in central brentwood and i can tell you what a mess this is. theschools, they -- marquees are in spanish. we get these houses packed with people and they have landlords that rent out these rooms and put their cars all

over the lawn. you cannot park in front of your house. they have these loud parties. they are so arrogant. host: the crackdown we have been talking about, do you think it is working? have you seen results? caller: i think it is all smoke and mirrors. i go to the town meetings, i go to the police meetings, they have meetings, and you know, oh yeah, we will do this and that. then you get one of these -- ,ook, the two people there now you and your guest seem like reasonable human beings. you could not live here. i do not have the money to get out of here. i own a house here. would you want to live next door to a house where they are blasting the music until 2:00 a.m. so loud that you can hear it a half-mile away? you call the cops and they do

not do anything. they are doing is allowing this to go on. and i am trying to put this into words. host: we got your story. we will let marcela gaviria comment. guest: a lot of the immigrants i ended up meeting, in fact that live in houses that are full of other immigrants, that is accurate, they work many shifts. and that is part of what law enforcement says is the problem, that these kids do not have enough supervision. what ends up happening is there is so much pressure within the schools to join these gangs, these gangs form a social organization for these kids and that is the appeal. so a lot of that, a lot of the kids i spoke with say what needs

to be done is a lot less law enforcement and a lot more social programs, afterschool programs, to keep these kids away from the gangs and give them another sense of community. host: we want to hear more about what law enforcement told you as you were making this film. first, here is the attorney general jeff sessions at the national sheriffs association meeting yesterday talking about the ongoing efforts to crack down on ms-13. [video clip] >> the assistant director of the criminal division testified that ms-13 gang members in el salvador have taken notice of what is happening. they know that hundreds of their members are now behind bars, so now they are trying to send younger, more violent gang members to the united states to replenish. but that is not going to succeed either. we are going to continue to pound them. and i hope that as your people

are out on the street, if you identify ms-13 members, this is the most violent gang, what is it? control is rape and their motto? they are by far the most violent gang, so let's show them that they cannot take over our streets. host: marcela gaviria, you were not able to talk with jeff sessions for the film, but you were able to talk with his deputy, rod rosenstein paired guest: yes, -- rod rosenstein. guest: yes, he was very forceful in saying that ms-13, is their focus because if they do not clamp down on ms-13, ms-13 is directing gang members to come into the u.s. from el salvador and they have to find a way to stop this. and they will use any tools at

their disposal. since the evidence against these kids is not that strong, they will use immigration tools in order to pick them up and send them back to el salvador and honduras. i should point out that there is a lot of evidence and there is a recent study that just came out yesterday, a 90 day report that says that the rhetoric like sessions just used, that we were listening to, is actually helping them, hoping ms-13 -- helping ms-13 become stronger, it emboldens them, makes them larger than they actually are, that this is not a transnational gang organization, but pretty much a ragtag group of teenagers in latin america that are pretty hand to mouth. host: barbara in texas, good morning. caller: good morning.

my thing is the children come up to the border, they are allowed through thep them united states and they do not know where they come from, who they are, but then they take egals, and instead of sending them back, even though they are kids, i do not care they need to be sent back, and instead we ship them through the united states and we put them into schools with our children, and then what? we expect them not to hurt our children? not to act the way that they are, to do the things they were sent here to do? we should just pay for their education and give them all of the food stamps and medicaid and everything that they want, and they will turn around and kill our children?i do not think that is a smart idea. host: when you say the things they were sent here to do, what do you mean? caller: they are being sent from

el salvador and all the other places to join the ms-13 here. and we are letting them in and shipping them where they want to go. host: marcela gaviria? statistics, the point to something very different. i know that people are concerned and i certainly sympathize with that point of view, but i would like to say that there has been 250,000 children that have entered the u.s. since 2011, and only 56 have been proclaimed to tbe ms-13 gang members. those are not my numbers, those are customs and border protection numbers. so i think the reality is a little bit different, but of course law enforcement has to pay close attention to who comes in and have to do a good job of vetting them. host: is the majority of ms-13

members american citizens? the washington post is reporting on the size of ms-13 and has the number at some 10,000, with 7000 in the los angeles, washington dc and long island area. guest: right. that number has stayed pretty consistent for the last two decades. so it is not necessarily growing in the u.s. the fbi, that has pretty credible numbers, says there are about 200 ms-13 gang members in long island and you should note there is about 70,000 el salvador anians living in long island. see you cannot say that every central american in the country is an ms-13 gang member, because that is simply not true. host: california, john. good morning. caller: good morning.

i would like to make the comment that first of all, santa paula went from 30% latino to about 70% latino in the last 10-15 years. and we are the least diversified his city in ventura county. and what has happened to our town is that the gangs have come in, we have a higher murder rate, and i disagree with marcela gaviria on one point. she said they come and they are afraid to talk to the police because they are illegal. that is only partially true. the reason they do not talk to police is because they are related, cousins, brothers and sisters that get involved with the gangs and the mother is not going to rack -- rat her kids. so many times we have a gang murder and the mother will say, he is such a nice boy, he came to the birthday parties and was really nice, but when he gets

out into the world he is a bad guy. so unfortunately, the families have to be broken up. they have to come and get these criminals out of our country. host: marcela gaviria? guest: that is a reasonable point of view. i am sure that is true. a lot of law-enforcement has also said to me that part of the reason that people do not come forward is they are afraid of retaliation by ms-13. clearly there is fear in the community. host: one more call from long island. brad, go ahead. caller: good morning. schoolteacher in the brentwood district and i live within walking distance of where the two girls were found murdered. it has gotten so bad, we moved here in 1994 and it was a very diverse community and the

gentleman who called from central was talking about so many people in the house and he is absolutely correct. both of my neighbors sold or homes. the one side -- their homes. the one side, they have a five people. it is a family. the other side, they expanded the property line and they have about 15 or 20 people in the house. as far as teaching goes, my wife is a kindergarten teacher and she tells me that they actually have to take, a couple years back, they had to take away pendants that the kids would wear. these kids do not have a chance because their parents are involved with this stuff and it is a shame. the majority of people are sweet people, they work hard. a lot of people have the impression that they sit at home and collect checks. it is not true. i hear them at 4:00 a.m. commuting to work. but there is a problem with the

gangs. they are praying mostly on their own people. it is a shame. i see it going on all day. i am retired and i get to see a lot of stuff i would rather not see, but that is what is happening. it is a shame, i do not even know what the answer is anymore. i hope people to in. it's a fascinating program. we spent much of the last six months working on it. i think what people will learn -- the law enforcement perspective and the immigrant community perspective and learn crackdownthe ice affected around 60 unaccompanied minors who spent their last five to six months and attention on allegations of gang involvement that ended up not being true.

that was what the courts decided. ont: it premieres tonight tbs at 10:00 p.m. eastern. thanks a much for your time this morning. guest: thank you for having me. host: coming up next, we will be chief by the analytics executive to discuss this -- the u.s. economy and later on, we will talk to asa hutchinson who will join us aboard the c-span bus in little rock. up atnterview is coming 9:00 a.m. this morning. we will be right back. ♪ c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service i america's cable television companies. continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the and public policy

events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. on "q&a," thet power clash between the u.s. and china in the pacific. shaming andpublic china lost faced and it's hard for westerners to get an idea what that means to the asian culture, especially someone as big and proud as china. they came away with a never again mentality. they thought they would hold up their navy and missile defense forces in such a way that we will never lose face like this again. >> sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern.

" continues.journal host: mark zandi is back with us . he served at chief economist at moody's analytics and is helpful in answering our questions about the state of economy. credit the end of last year, you wrote a column for the philadelphia inquirer that begin by saying this -- guest: i think the correction in the stock market, at least so a typical garden-variety correction in the equity markets. we see that once or twice a year. longer thane bit normal. the last correction was over two years ago but this feels very typical to me. decline, the price prices are just back to where

they were at the end of last year and beginning of this so no big deal, at least so far. host: what are your criteria for good economic times? guest: i think what matters most to most people's jobs. and recruiting lots of jobs, created a couple of million last year, about the same as the year before and the year before that. the american economy has been a job machine since the economic recovery began almost nine years ago. when you are creating 2 million jobs per year, that is more of a growth of the number of people looking for work so unemployment and underemployment continue to decline for stub both are now pretty low by historical standards. the unemployment rate is just over 4%. it will go lower because we will get a lot of growth given the deficit finance, tax cuts and a temporary boost to growth and unemployment will go into the 3's.

for most people it's about jobs and recruiting lots of jobs. host: is there such a thing as too much job creation? thet: as economists say, economy could overheat. unemployment and underemployment could fall to such low levels that we start to see inflationary pressures develop. that means higher interest rates. to a large extent, the recent correction in the stock market is a result of concerns investors are now having about the economy that will overheat as they try to digest the higher interest rates. that means you could get temporarily strong growth and i would expect that this year but ultimately, the higher interest rates will do damage and you get a weaker economy, a more up-and-down economy. that's probably a reasonable scenario. for now, we are on the up at there is a downside as we make art and way into the next decade. host: -- as we make our way into

the next decade. host: the phone lines are open. do you believe this is donald trump's economy? is this still benefiting from obama era policies? guest: it's a good question. i think most of the last year was still the obama economy. it was not until the end of last we passed the tax cuts. other majort any economic policy put in place in 2017 so i consider 2017 to be mostly the result of obama's policies and economy but now this is definitely the trump economy. we've got tax legislation.

he's making changes on trade and immigration and regulation. going forward, this is very much a trump economy. you make a good point. there is a lot of moving parts here, a lot of forces that affect our economy of economic hollis he and the president of the united states is only a part of that. presidents generally don't matter a whole a lot in terms of how the economy is performing except, arguably, in terms of crisis. crisis,the financial president obama's policies were very important to get the economy out of that recession. normal times, economic policy matters but it's not the top of the list factor that driving with going on. host: in the past five days, we've got to budgetary documents out, the bipartisan deal that was signed last week and we've got the president's fiscal 2019 budget request that got to congress yesterday.

to those documents peyton realistic economic visions of the coming years? documents paint realistic economic visions of the coming years? guest: one of the key assumptions is growth in gdp, gross to mystic product. -- grossed to mastic product. it's a broad measure of the economy. product.estic every year for the next 10 years, we get 3% growth, that i don't think is realistic. we have been growing roughly 2% randomly. even given a tax cut in the other policies we discuss, i expect over the next 10 years, we will get roughly 2% per annum growth. think it's very, very unlikely we will get 3% growth. it doesn't seem likely at all. chat with a few

colors, first is washington, a republican, good morning. you hear consistently that the economy is doing real well. your guest commented on what his analysis is on the growth rate. , i'm not an economist, i'm self-employed in i.t. in right now i happen to be between clients. so i am on different job boards looking for clients. is let's say that back in 2007 before the economy fell out, on any given, large metropolitan area like los angeles and in my specific forum for software, there might be 100 per day. this is an average of new job posts. the same forms, if you get 15 per week, we are lucky.

i understand my industry and the medical industry are the industries that are on top of jobs being offered. value, if our industries are not hiring that much, god help the rest of the people who are welders or something that are looking for jobs. i would like your guest to comment on that. host: thank you for the question. guest: it's interesting, i'm not aware of the job posting boards you are looking at. i would say that other statistics would be counter to that. for example. six -- close to 6 million open job positions across the country from the bureau of labor statistics. that's as high a number as there has ever been. if you take the number of open job positions as a percentage of the labor force, that's as close to record high as it's been.

it's across every industry and there are some exceptions. the energy sector has struggled a bit. oiluple of years ago, prices collapsed and that did damage to the energy sector so it's a little soft there. it's a little soft and retailing. brick and mortar retailers are getting hammered by the online retailers like amazon. other than that, every other industry sector including i.t. and health care, there is a record number of open job positions. this is more anecdotal but if you listen to ceos, heads of human resource departments within large companies across the country, including in i.t., they are saying their biggest problem now is finding workers, finding qualified workers. whatot aware of precisely the caller is looking at with job postings and why that would be the case but that is not

consistent at all with other economic data that we have about the labor market. adp which is a payroll processor, a human resource company that processes payrolls. we get data on 23 million workers across the country every month. and getook at that eta lots of information about what's going on in the labor market including wages. wage growth has picked up substantially, consistent with the idea that business cannot find workers. it's particularly in i.t. the wage growth in the i.t. ,ector is stronger, i think than any other sector in the economy at this point of professional services. so, a a little bit less

lot of different occupations and back sector. i.t. is quite strong so another piece of evidence is i.t. companies try to bring in skilled workers from overseas on different types of visas. when times are tough, they don't apply asthma because they can find american workers. the h-1b visa program is oversubscribed right now. the job market is very tight particularly in i.t. i am very surprised and it's not at all consistent with the other that i'm aware of. host: chicago, a democrat, good morning. caller: i think this discussion about jobs is the determining factor of the health of the economy. sometimes, there is a reveal but i have not heard since president

trump got in, what has happened with the infusion of money in financial institutions. we is to have several minority owned banks. now there are none. there is a big glut of access to capital. putting ahe tax bill lid on textus -- reductions on real estate in terms of taxes, i think we will have a major problem for middle-class people who have these government safe jobs. i'd like your guest to talk about the kind of wage stagnation. to theseese people go institutions with the development of the driverless car, many people might be out of work in the next two to three years. host: you have your choice of

questions there. guest: those are all great questions. paint an overly upbeat picture. the economy has its problems and issues it always does. one of the concerns that the caller brought up which i think is the one with credit, the availability of credit particularly for smaller businesses. for big companies, no problem. companies like moody's analytics can go into the bond market and issue debt and banks are willing to extend credit. big companies have lots of cash so no problem there. for smaller businesses, this has been more of an issue since the crisis. it's gotten better in the immediate wake of the crisis,

nine or 10 years ago, small businesses could not get a bank loan at all but that's not the case today. bank lending has been approved but it's very much an issue and goes to the need of support for our small committee banks and smaller banking institutions. really one of the big differences between our banking system and the rest of the world and its key to supporting small business which is very important initiatingneurship, change and offering economic growth. i am very sympathetic to the point of view that was six rest because it's a very important and that goes to the banking that the banking system can extend credit. the other point the caller is an interesting question and debate and i don't know the answer for sure. it goes to driverless car's.

s and technology more broadly and what that means for jobs, particularly in the future. or is a lot of concern about technology taking her jobs and our problem is not going to be unemployment, it will be lack of jobs because of driverless cars or drones or you name it, whatever technology. if history is any guide, don't worry. technology is not going to take our jobs. in fact, i belong to a group of economists where the chief economist of google is a member emily asked hamm and he went back at looked at the new york times back to world war ii and found an article in each decade since world war ii with the title basically saying robots will take our jobs, prepare for that. this is an age-old, never-ending

concern but it does not happen. i suspect things like driverless cars and drones and other technologies, same deal, it takes a long time for them to get out there in the economy. the other thing i would say is these newwe get technologies, it actually increases our standard of living, our wealth. wealthier. we have more money to spend. as a result, we always figure out a way to spend that money on things we cannot imagine today. agoyou imagine 10 years that we would spend all this money on the phones in our hand? we will figure out how to spend that money and when we do, we will create more jobs. i am not worried about that. i don't think driverless cars or artificial intelligence, bring it on, we need this productivity. i would not worry about them

leading to a world where people don't have work and machines are doing all the work. that will not happen, not my view. mark zandi is a chief economist at moody's and is with us to answer your questions about the economy. a view from outside the united states, craig is an independent in haiti, good morning. morning, i was wondering how you factor in the $20 trillion debt and all the deficit. maybe the president and economists are not alarmed enough about this. there was a lot of concern about deficits and the debt but not so much anymore. i think there is not enough attention being paid to this even though there has been some talk over the last couple of weeks.

it seems like we are living in such an artificial economy. the interest rates of been artificially grown over the last 20 years. how do you factor that in with how well the economy is doing. we will eventually have to deal with that issue? thank you. guest: i totally agree. i am perplexed by lawmakers' willingness to run very large deficits and add to our debt load. the deficit financed tax cuts that were passed during the year , under a reasonable set of assumptions, will add one point $2 trillion -- $1.2 trillion to our deficit over the next decade. the budget deal that was just past will increase government

spending again and deficits amassed by $300 billion over the next two years. this is at the same time that the federal reserve is no longer buying treasury bonds. they are allowing the bonds they have to mature. a source oflonger demand for treasury bonds and this adds up to supply and demand. they deficits means the government will have to borrow a lot of money and issue a lot of bonds but the demand is not there to buy the bonds. interest rates are going higher and that's what's happening. it's having an impact. long-term interest rates are rising there's pressure on the federal reserve to raise rates aggressively because of the decision to run these large deficits. when the a time economy was doing pretty well with full employment and underemployment is about as low

as it gets. i completely agree with you. this is really a bad policy at the wrong time. we should be doing the exact opposite. you pick up any macro economic textbook and it would say when you have in economy like this, we should be running a load deficit are working to reduce the deficit to prepare for the next financial crisis or the next war or next natural disaster when we need the resources. instead we are doing the opposite so i totally agree, i think it's a mistake. host: yesterday we talked with viewers about the trump 2019 budget plan not including the traditional republican hallmark of balancing over the next 10 years. today notesl times that his new plan would balance

see0 years, that it would budget deficits until fiscal 2039. i want to get your thoughts on trying to plan out the fiscal -- to plan out to fiscal 2039. guest: good luck with that. we were talking about the assumption of economic growth of more than 3% and that's not happening. i fear we are not going to address these long-term fiscal problems we have. they are clear. we have long-term fiscal problems and will not do it them until there is another crisis s are up against the proverbial wall. it will be plainly obvious to everybody that we've got to make a change here. it's unfortunate we are not taking the opportunity at this point in time when things are going well for us to really

address our fiscal situation. it's a shame that we don't have anyone in congress really championing that idea. republicans were the key to that perspective. it was very therapeutic and important but it's not there today. i think that's a problem. who is to say, we are talking about other things that we are not thinking about. we should be investing in infrastructure but we're not talking about how to pay for it. more to say we will not do to our budget deficit with that? disappointing that we don't have champions in for fiscal discipline. we need it. veronica in washington, d.c., a democrat, good morning. caller: my complaint is that i

am on retirement and i get a retirement check and the social security check and on my retirement check, they take out health insurance. takes 134l security dollars out of my money for health insurance. i don't think that's fair at all. host: any thoughts? it sounds like you are on medicare. is a good program. i think most people like it. it's very costly to provide. if you think our -- about our fiscal problems in the long run, one of the key problems is the cost of health care, the medicare and medicaid program. this is an area where we need to focus on ways of delivering better quality health care at a

lower cost and a lower price. if we can't figure that one out, we will have more folks like the caller who was upset about the cost and quality. it's an area when he to focus on long-term if we address the needs of our seniors and our long-term fiscal problems. pittsburgh, a republican, good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. mr. zandi, just like the other caller, i'm concerned about the national debt. who really finances our debt? americans have to balance their budgets. corporations have balance their budgets. andently, our government our great country does not have to balance their budget. i am concerned about the future

of our country and i think there needs to be more emphasis on the consequences if we don't start managing our money better in this country. thank you. host: thanks for the call. guest: i'm with you. i hear you and i agree with you. i think this is a major issue. if you look who is buying the the one thing you can take solace in, most of it us, americans. we are investors in the treasury bonds issued by the government to finance the government's fiscal operations. we do have a lot of foreign investors that are also buying. roughly maybe 18 billion day -- maybe $18

trillion traded in public debt and one trillion is owned by the japanese, one trillion is owned by the chinese. we do rely heavily on global investors buying our debt. i don't think that's an existential problem. i don't think that's an issue for today but that is something to keep in mind. we do rely on overseas investors surey that debt to make interest rates don't rise to a high degree. pressingl issues are but this is why it's -- it's a difficult political problem. it's not existential to the economy like right now even next year or the year after that. this is a long-term problem that is corrosive on the economy and cuts into our growth over

of time and it's hard to disentangle from the other things going on in the economy. it's a particularly pernicious problem politically to address because not in our face. it's not something we feel immediately and therefore, because we don't, we are not addressing it and the problem will get deeper. i completely concur with the caller. host: just a minute or two left with mark zandi. from florida, a republican, go ahead. ander: thank you, c-span mr. zandi for your input. i have the same concerns that have been voiced by the other callers. any other household person would be concerned if they were cutting their income and at the same time, increase their borrowing. how imminent our credit rating downgrades? credit rating agencies were criticized for being behind the curve on some of the ratings and

the problems that came up in the financial crisis so are we already behind the curve for the downgrade? it seems the policy is so reckless, it might be in order for future downgrades. guest: good question. i'm not in the rating agency. i'm in the moody's analytics which is separate so i don't have any direct input into the ratings process. i don't know what the folks of the rating agencies are thinking about as far as ratings on the debt this year or overseas. look -- first, rating agencies have been downgrading other sovereign governments. you can see that in the case of many european economies during the european debt crisis. fiscal pressure across

the globe. clearly, investors are concerned about that. i want to end on an optimistic note. the u.s. economy is still the strongest economy on the planet. it would take a whole lot of really had policy for a really long time to mess that up. we've got a lot of think -- good things going . we still are theaaa credit on forplanet and the benchmark every other economy because we do a lot of things wrong but we do many more things right. it would be pretty tough to mess that up. host: mark zandi is chief economist at moody's analytics. always appreciate your time and join us again. guest: thank you, john. next, phone lines for

democrats only to answer -- posed byposed former vice president joe biden and address the democratic members last week. he asked them why you became a democrat. that's the question for democrats only for the next half hour. we will ask a similar question for republicans later in the program and also later today, we'll talk to arkansas governor asa hutchinson who will join us aboard the c-span bus in little rock. that interviews coming up at 9:00 a.m. this morning. we will be right back. ♪ this weekend, the c-span cities tour takes you to lynchburg, virginia with the help of our comcast cable partners. we will explore the rich literary scene so watch this weekend beginning at 5:00 p.m. twoern on booktv on c-span and sunday at 2:00 p.m. on american history tv on c-span3.

working with our cable affiliates as we explore america. c-span's history series landmark cases returns this month with a look at 12 new supreme court cases. each week, historians and expert's dryness to discuss the constitutional issues and personal stories behind these significant supreme court decisions. beginning monday, february 26, or i that 9:00 p.m. eastern and to help you follow all 12 cases, we have a companion guide. the book costs eight dollars $.95 plus shipping and handling will stop to get your copy, go to www.c-span.org/landmark cases. "washington journal" continues. host: in this segment, democrats only -- the question for you -- why did you become a democrat?

as we said, we ask this question after a similar question was posed by former vice president joe biden in an address to house democrats at one of their strategy retreats last week. here's what he had to say. [video clip] >> i don't have a doubt in my mind if we can't cut out the time to remind people why we are democrats. thing for meptuous to say to any of you. ask yourself, why did you become a democrat. my guess is because you really believed that everybody is entitled to be treated with dignity and the american people are capable of anything if given a chance. no one is looking for a handout, just an opportunity. and you felt the role of

government is to fight to provide that. former vice president joe biden last week on capitol hill talking to house democrats. the question for democrats only in this segment ofthe "washington journal," why did you become a democrat? in about an hour, we will a similar question to republicans, asking them why republicans became republicans. for right now, democrats only, let's hear your story. bill is up first in east orange, new jersey, good morning. caller: actually, almond south plainfield, new jersey. 21 around the time of watergate. not so much that but the fact nixon southern strategy

and the way that the republicans were turning their back on their historical ties to black america. and the democrats had taken that up through the johnson administration. ail civil rights as being real important, defining issue for america. even though mcgovern had no chance of being elected that year, i became a democrat. i find myself to be more of a centrist democrat. it seems like the democrats are more reasonable about many issues and they are more forthcoming and excepting in terms of areas like civil rights. thank you for the call. ray from gaithersburg, maryland, why did you become a democrat? a long time ind my life because -- before i became interested in politics, when i was 28 so i found god before politics. i'm not talking about religion

but i have voted for the first time and i saw the slander and these things i didn't know about. i thought that i was a republican only because of my belief system. i saw the hate and hatred contradicting what i read. got interested and now i call myself a liberal just because that's a derogatory term. there are zero moderate republicans. [indiscernible] the way that i perceived it is the total burden is the context of mentality and no political angst toward anybody.

[indiscernible] i'm not going to say what i will are won't vote on daca. i may not agree with democrats but i will not stand up .s a human being like paul ryan he is the one with the gavel and he is expected to speak. he cannot answer whether he can put such a such bill together. host: the gallup news organization is sharing their polling on where americans see themselves in terms of party affiliation. they have been showing the trend since 2004. this is the latest polling on party affiliation.

that's who we are talking joined this half hour. why did you become a democrat? albert, delaware, good morning. caller: good morning. i was a to say that lifelong republican until i heard president obama talk about voting against your own self-interest. i'm a union guy. i'm -- i was even a delegate to in detroitnvention however, that resonated what president obama said. then i looked around and i so when he got elected and how the

tea party thing, this racist organization got up because they were spooked that a black man got the presidency. as a republican at the time, i've seen how corporations our government and controller politicians and we need public financing, we need to save our environment, we need to get back to the people and another thing, too, republicans totally blew it with this opioid thing. it was in their district and they paid no attention. with what did you agree with the republican party when you wear i were a republican? caller: i bought all that stuff america, land of the free, equal this, equal that. i believe that all of that stuff and i was a true believer. then i've seen the hypocrisy

most of it through the local chamber of commerce is, the state chamber of commerce is. and the real estate people. thesere all controlled, politicians, they put the legislature in office and then they do the same thing on the congress with the national chamber of commerce and big business at the roundtable. rare breedould be a because switching parties is very rare according to the research done by the pew research organization. their report from last year, partisan identification come about 10% switch parties over the past year. they studied this for 15 months covering the 2016 presidential campaign. about 10% of republicans and democrats defected from their party to the opposing party. democrat in burke, virginia, why did you become a democrat? caller: i was raised going to

church on sunday, a christian, and i was also raised to believe to go and vote, make sure you go and vote when you are of age and make sure you know why you were voting and who you're voting for. i think what i ended up doing a little earlier in life was realizing that, in my opinion, what i was hearing in church on withy when i evaluated it my thoughts versus perhaps what i was cheering in church, i felt the democratic party most truly reflected what i felt christianity was all about. either party is more of a christian than the other but i believe the life of a christian is more followed by the democratic party and i try to live that life and i feel that's sincerely why i am a democrat. was there anybody who

spoke about politics from the pulpit? caller: it's funny, this is later in life but when i moved i would community, when go to church on sunday, it was extremely right-wing. that's when i realized that i was not more towards the middle. it drove me a little toward the left more so than before in life . i realized what i was hearing was very opinionated. and found parishes that you have some folks who are preaching a little conservative, that's fine. it threw me back into what my opinion was. where do i bring them into my life? it made me stronger and stronger a democrat. that's dean in burke, virginia. we will ask the question to

republicans at about 9:30 a.m. this morning, why you became a republican but for now, for the next 15 minutes, democrats only -- why did you become a democrat? jersey city, jersey, why did you become a democrat? caller: it started in 2003 just before the 2000 four presidential election. i turned 19 years old. i had to decide who i would support for president. the country was in a big debate over the iraq war. and ijust entered college found out about c-span. i tune into c-span every day, all day, getting all the information will stop i had gone to older members of my family. advised to register as a democrat and vote democrat. we did not support republicans in our family. i went blue. host: advised by who?

caller: my grandparents, people in the church. most ofall democratic, the minority community vote democrat so i registered and voted for john kerry in 2004. that's how i became a democrat. host: do you know any republicans in jersey city, new jersey? aren't anyre republicans here. they don't hold office, they are not on the ballot and that's the way it works. we are all democrats. host: baltimore, maryland, good morning. i am a democrat. democrats are of the people and for the people, for everybody, not just one particular race.

i have been a military man. nine years in the military. even with the army, the democrats do for everybody. that's my story. host: did you ever talk politics the military? really but inot saw politics. even about the vietnam war. thew a lot of ways that politicians were screwing around with the war. it's not just the politics, they do things their way.

host: has that changed much from the time of the vietnam war to today in terms of what politicians are in it for? uhh, it hasn't changed much. it depends which branches in there. democrats change things. host: what's an example of that? republicansexample, always start a war and democrats stop it. everything they do is for their gain and not the gain of the people. louis, good morning. why did you become a democrat? caller: i became a democrat when jfk became president. difference in how

people treated people, the heart and the mind and the soul. democrats, they are for the people but the only thing about the democrats is that they don't stand strong but i still stand with them. they try to do the best they can even though they are minority most of the time. yet they still stand strong in some ways. they try to help us and try to make the world a better place. i just hope that people will look and realize and see. we are headed for a dictatorship in the united states if we are not careful. hope the democrats continue to be as they are the get some cojones and get

stronger. why do you think it is now the democrats are no longer in charge of the house or the senate or in charge of the white house? they don'tause follow the rules the way they should be. if they acted like republicans -- republicans are very dogmatic and democrats have a heart. they try to lead with tenderness instead of toughness. andg tough and standing up against the republicans the way the republicans stand up against them al. host: here are a few of the headlines from some east coast papers, mostly focused on the president's budget request.

we are talking to democrats only . why did you become a democrat? tacoma, washington, go ahead. caller: i was always independent because i believed in voting for the person that i agreed with of the moment.

until hillary and obama ran. i wanted to see a caucus so i joined the democratic party and i wanted to vote for the first woman president, etc. but then i started watching the parties and the republican party scared me. there are a lot of republicans the individually like in my area , but they are so indoctrinated and so well organized to just follow the party line that i cannot trust any republican based on what i think of him or her because the party line will push them to go where they want them to go. we were world war ii refugees from europe and that is so much with that nazi party was like and so much with the communists

were like. first and party comes it looks like the republicans are doing that. doesn't that come first for democrats? caller: a democrat with a conscience will try to convince the party to go his way or her vote with theot if they, in good conscience, disagree with them. whereas the republicans and this current president is a perfect example of that. for the mostoted horrible man ever. just as a human being that you could have as a politician because they wanted to vote the party line. host: market in new york, good

morning. caller: good morning. i have been a registered republican all my life until the primary between bernie and hillary. i switched to be a democrat to vote for bernie. as far as i'm concerned, the republican party has been taken kochby the billionaire network and is completely funded by them and they are doing nothing for the working man. i am a union man, construction man all my life. as far as the clinton/obama machine, those are the elites on the democratic side. the only choice i think is working people have is with the bernie sanders type group of are doing for the environment, the working man.

host: when you were a republican, what did you like about the republican party? i'm an eisenhower republican back in the 1950's. host: what does that mean? center i'm like a republican or a center democrat. we are so close that you can hardly tell the difference between us. countryback wehner actually worked back in the 50's and 60's. eisenhower did the interstate program and did all kinds of good things for us. justrepublican party now caters to the corporations. host: david in flint, michigan, good morning, why did you become a democrat? caller: my parents were democrats and they told me that was the best thing.

was the bestt party for our working people. my father worked in the shop. i retired from the shop. we believe in unions. i knew that was best for me. i would like to say that i think the democratic party is more of a party of love. and watchpan junkie you every morning since i have been retired. hatred from the republicans. i was always brought up that america was the top country in the world, the best armed forces, the best people but i have been so dismayed this last year here in the people call in and hate mexicans and hate this and hate that. my opinion of our country is really changing. i will continue to be a democrat and continue to help.

whatever i can to make our country better that i have been really dismayed this year. post"" the washington about a story to retake control of the congress in 2018 by democrats noting that democratic candidates nationwide are reaping donations.

if you want to read that story, is in today's "the washington post." francis is next in birmingham, alabama, good morning. reason good morning, the why i became a democrat, my parents were working-class and they were democrats. once i studied the party, they suggested me to become a democrat. dealt, theme and it democrats always stood for the interests of the working class and the needs of the poor. that's the basic reason i became a democrat. they have always been concerned

,bout working-class interests people's interest, everyday people's interests. party, the republicans have always stood for the rich and the elite. their interests are completely different. that's the reason why i became a democrat. the conversation continues on our twitter page as well. one more call from a democrat, scott in alpharetta, georgia, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you?

my family had money, we were pretty wealthy. i grew up with a big family. we were always republican. since this last election with donald trump, everybody went with him. they wanted change, they wanted something new. i said ok, we will try him out. since this guy has been in office, oh my gosh. everyone is so embarrassed. they helped with this. next election the comes around, we will go straight to the democrats will . hillary had a shot but i don't know what happened. they say russia got in there and meddled with the computer system. anything can be hacked. you know that?

what i'm saying is i am a democrat truly now. i hope more people jump on board. we have to change this. the republicans, oh my gosh, it's horrible for everybody. the middle class, there is normal or just there is no more middle-class. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. was created as a public

service by america's television companies and today we continue bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, supreme court and public policy events in washington, koor and arnd /* /- -- around the country. >> sunday night on q&a, michael abbi on his book "crash back," the power clash between the u.s. and china in the pacific. shaming anda public china lost a lot of face and it for westenners to get an means to someone as big and proud as china. with that and never again mentality. after that, this mind set we will build up our build up our missile

defense force necessary such a way we never lose face like this again. >> sunday night 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. >> "washington journal" continues. stop number 19 on our tour across the united states takes us to little rock, arkansas, the city has been featured in "gone and named for a ock formation, well known for brown v on names and board of education, state apitol building modeled after the u.s. capitol and used in films as stand-in and joining us on the that building and c-span bus is asa hutchinson, the governor of arkansas, hutchinson, good morning to you, sir. yesterday you addressed the that general assembly in building and next to you. how would you describe the state state today?

governor: well, the state of booming in terms of its economy, in terms of quality creating businesses and in fact, we talked in your the ous segment about middle class. arkansas is one of three states, lowest r that had unemployment rate and also moved 3%.wage rates by so the state of arkansas, as well, yesterday we gave a state the state address. i did to the general assembly as we kickoff the new budget i want to welcome the bus and c-span to little arkansas and glad you are here. host: wee appreciate you being on the bus this morning and viewers.with the special line this morning for residents, 202-748-8000. all other consist call in during 202-748-8001. governor, you mentioned the fiscal session beginning there at the state

capitol, prou posed $5.6 billion budget, what are you prioritize thanksgiving year? overnor: well, we are prioritizing continued commitment to education, fully funding education. are actually doing something new with we call crisis units, which are centers that treat the mentally in contact ht come with law enforcement, trying to mentally ill from jails into treatment. that is a priority. doing something different in this budget, we're not spending it all, we're creating surplus. we have $120 million reserve fund in arkansas, we're trying add $60 million to additional surplus in this budget, which is a good cushion for any economic the road or it also could serve as future tax cuts which

are important in this state to be more competitive. we presented is conservative, it restrains we have strong public safety program in arkansas, education, which computer science initiative, which is one of the strongest in the country and so good budget, but a conservative budget in terms of spending. of spending, you are planning spend more in '18; correct? increased spending in this budget? correct. that's for example, in education, we're make a court mandate to sure that we provide adequate education across the state of is the right hat thing to do, that has a small increase in funding. medicaid budget, the ational fwroeth rate is -- growth rate is 5%, constrained 2.3%.to

not cutting any essential services out there. the programsunding of our state. but in terms of some of the ofinistrative overhead, some the efficiencies, we have cut back in some areas. importants one of the things as governor that, you know, across the board cuts are not as significant and beneficial as targeted cuts, outlived programs r you have agencys that can absorb a specific reduction in overhead. spending cuts there, but overall, the budget is increased from last year. you mentioned surplus you hope to create in fiscal 2019, s arkansas one of the states you have to propose a balanced budget, at least? absolutely., we don't have a deficit in this state. it's mandated by the balanced on to have a budget, which means we forecast the revenues and we spend that forecast.

and if during the course of a don't meet the revenue forecast, then we reduce spending. incredibly efficient model to make sure even though e start with balanced budget, we will end up with a balanced budget. whiche stabilization law, is a toggle, if you will, it makes us control spending, spending as needed to make sure it mirrors our revenue picture, a few things the can learn ernment from this, it is really a good model. though, overh that, budgeove the balanced say, let's don't spend it all. actually budgeted for a surplus this year, which is conservative tool to make sure we're prepared for the future. host: you've served in congress, you think that model could work for the federal budget? week in which we look at the president's fiscal 2019 it is not expected to

out?nce even 10 years governor: well, i did serve in congress, i've served in the bush administration, so i understand the federal government is different. we have to take some steps to really control the growing blossoming federal deficit that we have. n fact, the last time i was in congress was the last time we had a balanced budget in the station. you can't take arkansas's model and say that is a perfect example of what we have to do but the point is that we have to move toward spending.ng our i believe president trump did trying to hing in increase spending for the military. ut when you look at overall budget circumstance, you see the tock market worrying about inflationary impact, worrying about the bond rates. federally to more

control that indebtedness of the united states and our deficit is something that has to be tackled. host: governor asa hutchinson the c-span bus as part of our "50 capitals tour." phone s residents, the number to call with questions or comments is 202-748-8000. all others, 202-748-8001. we'll start in herndon, virginia. john call nothing this morning. ou are on with governor hutchinson. caller: good morning, governor. want to ask the governor, talking about surplus, surplus because you are cutting people's then thinking the state will gain something? i think, governor, you do know you have to one of the worst schools in america, if you number of the country, where -- school system. talking about the road system, you have one of the worst road systems in the country. still you talking about surplus,

when you going to realize when poor people, the state can do much better. ost: governor hutchinson, give you a chance to respond. governor: well, john, contrary haven't cut , we services. part of, we have arkansas works, which is a part medicaid program that those xtended up to making 38% of the federal poverty level, adopted in a revious administration, we continue that. the medicaid budget provides healthcare services for the poor that are trying to struggle up the economic ladder, hat actually has had increase in arkansas. we have not cut services. so, you can't point to anything budget that we have eliminated or cut services our budget has to grow of public safety in

terms of prison system and education. it and try ntrol to -- these are taxpayer ollars, we want to manage that in conservative way so we're not wasting dollars, but meeting the services that are essential for citizens. people need hat help, they need to have a safety net. but we're putting in, for xample, asking the trump administration for a work requirement for those that medicaid benefits and they are able-bodied and able to work let's have a requirement in there, they can thento training and move up economic ladder, it is not designed to be punitive, but to help people. essential to manage the federal dollars and state an ars that go into important safety net for our citizens. in terms of arkansas, you need here.e we've got grade schools, good ducation system, we're working constantly to improve it, we

have actually put money into had highway improvement plan, we have some of the companies atest located here from walmart to tyson, agricult and you are tourism is leading ndustry in the state, come visit us. host: before we leave arkansas's version of the medicaid how much tell cost in next fiscal year and how much are you responsible for and how uch is the federal government kick nothing for it? of rnor: well, in terms medicaid expansion, we call that put a s works because we work referral requirement in, hope to do more in terms of work and training for those that participate in it. that is gradually reduced, their the of it, where stateville to ultimately pick up 10% of it. 5% t now we're about at share of that medicaid expansion

opulation, we estimate it originally to be 250,000 people on the program, it grew to 330,000. e've reduced that to 280,000, managing the system better, our economy is improving, people are getting jobs in arkansas. in terms of the actual raw umbers of cost, that is probably about $135 million of general revenue that we put in expansion, edicaid the rest is federal government contribution. money or trye save to control the cost, it is not budget, it our state is also about managing the federal investment of dollars, important to us. host: richard in springdale, arkansas, this morning. are on with your governor, asa hutchinson. sir, governor. you know, i live in a fifth-wheel trailer, i got laid years ago.e

63 and on social security. i have two questions for you. number one, why are we still paying grocery tax on something have to have to live? personal property tax, i have a vehicle, i will never own it as long as i live the state of arkansas, taxed.e it will always be i will never actually own that vehicle. know, you guys are taxing us to death and bragging surplus.a host: governor hutchinson? governor: well, first of all, on grocery tax. items,e a 6% sales tax on the grocery tax has been reduced is 1-8th of ak it cent sales tax, the final rigger or something like that, mandated because that goes into and other d fish

priority needs that are set by the constitution. been reducedax has significantly under previous administrations and continued to reduced. in terms of taxes, whenever i we're trying to create a surplus, one goal of the surplus is to lay the foundation tax cuts. i agree we need to do more, i on the individual income tax so that we can lower fact, this state and in since i've been governor, we've owered our income tax by 150 billion and should have impacted you because assuming if you make $75,000 a year, you've benefited from the income tax eduction that we've already had. so there's more to do, there always is. let me assure you, we're working on doing better by our citizens and have competitive income tax rate. minutes left in that segment of the "washington our al," our 19th stop on c-span "50 capitals tour," we're

oined aboard the c-span bus by arkansas governor, asa hutchinson. ofrn in as the 46th governor arkansas in january of 2015. taking your calls and questions that special line for arkansas residents, 202-748-8000. others, 202-748-8001. governor hutchinson, want to ask of budget ng proposals, your thoughts on the infrastructure plan, what the federal government is kicking in, we're hearing in the $200 billion, what does that mean for arkansas and how how could it help you and much are you expected to invest in the plan, as well? governor: well, we've been briefed on the infrastructure president's team. it certainly will be a boost infrastructure, but it has to be matched by state or private sector dollars. waited to see some of the

specific details as to how that's applied. i do like the idea that it's it'ssome for highways, but also for water projects, it could be for rural broadband access, it's very important for us in arkansas and so it allow invest our state dollars, ut they'll be maximized by federal contribution, as well. trillion ot a 1.3 dollar program that's totally funded by the federal weernment, nor should it be, can't afford that, but $200 billion investment that sends a states, partner with us and we can do more. i expect when we see the arkansas will try to utilize that and particularly in areas, such as rural broadband, that we need to to expand in this state. host: dana in little rock, good morning. morning.ood host: go ahead, you're on with

the governor. calling in st because i support the governor long-time democrat, but i think he's doing a great job. moderate and i just really like him. thank you. tell you, we could use that encouraging word. we try to govern. .'m a republican i ran as that, will continue to do that. when you get in office, you work together with anybody who loves the state and wants to accomplish things, that is the in our general assembly. we've been able to pass a lot of legislation from computer education to tax cutos a bipartisan way. butt is always a challenge, i love being governor and i thank you for the word of encouragement. host: why doesn't that spirit translate to the federal level? about the cerned

partisanship in washington, d.c. in the building behind me? i am.or: i've been there and i was there uring what we thought were partisan times and if you look on an individual basis, there friendships across the aisle they can work together on particular issues. one of them is infrastructure, i should be approached in a bipartisan way, it cries bipartisan solution way. just because one party or member proposes an idea, the opposite party instinctively rejects it. i think there has to be some search for common ground, what on together? i know they try, i know there is ingredients, rent

in public discourse, we need to look for bipartisan solutions with everybody to address significant need necessary our country. blares, virginia, debra, good morning. calk caller: good morning, governor. it's a pleasure to listen to what have you to say. -- i think that your plan sounds really reasonable. of usk it is time for all to come together and see that we need to compromise. democrat until this last

election, when i feel i was ailroaded and now i'm an independent and i write to ben moderate and also a i praise him for willingness to compromise and i think that your medicaid is a great idea. i know that bill clinton instill that, to but it was never enforced. my question is, what do you do alcoholics, who you think are able-bodied, but at au want a drunk working job, maybe as janitor? i'm not sure. refreshing.ou are host: governor hutchinson? verynor: actually that's a good question. it, we ever you look at moved 117,000 people off work, higher income, not cutting services, if you identify somebody

hat might have a drug problem or might have a mental health problem, they're unemployed, can is a means in which you get them work ready. you can refer them to services, to overcome them the addiction to get them in pipeline to work if they are able-bodied. hose are most difficult challenges we face. for ing is important

everyone if they are able-bodyd and help them overcome obstacles work. them to host: ellen is in north carolina, wendell, north carolina. go ahead. good morning. i'm calling because you have i wonder e senate and democrat takes society is -- in comparison with governor: we are the richest country in the world, we have most thriving economy, we have incredible entrepreneurs, country because we have a strong rule of law. have for example, they

growing economy and we're bringing a lot of business from manufacturing back to states like arkansas. but they don't have a strong where you system, can have recourse, it gives nited states of america an advantage and so we are unique n the world in terms of the strength of our economy as well as structure that support its because of democracy, commitment rule of law. in terms of our bonded ndebtedness, whenever we have to raise the debt limit, that means we sale bonds to finance the government, citizens by those bonds and they and never been defaulted on yes, we have foreign governments or foreign citizens that invest, as well. we've got to make sure we don't become too indebted, we need the ol on the deficit and debt of the united states, but that we are a country, but any country

can be weakened with too much debt. host: we mentioned in the beginning of the segment, during black history month, can you remind viewers who the little rock nine were? chny or governor: yes. you continue is amazing history is not a bright spot in arkansas history because we were highd to integrate central school with the national guard, it was called out by generalizen hour. but in the end, those nine brave children erican integrated central high school our et better standard for future. if you look at the governor's office in little rock, you will to the little rock nine and the sculpture put of their faces looking toward the governor's office to of nd me, future governors our responsibility to equal all andn, education for

that we need to have a brighter future than those children who their bravery and integrating central high school. statues. mentioned on the ground of the state capitol near where you are, memorial, nfederate where do you stand in this conversation in this country confederate memorials and whether they should be removed? well, we passed a law in last year's general session legislature that did two things. martin luther king a day of recognition to his own, holiday litting that with general lee. but we also said in that king hision, giving dr. own holiday, day of recognition, we said that we have to learn the past and that whether it is our civil war monuments or civil war history, we have to earn from mistakes, we have to learn about the future and i

think that's the focal point of history. and so whether we're reminded through statutes or through books, let's learn from it and make sure that we have a future and for the arkansas that's hopefully the path we'll take. host: just a few minutes left with governor hutchinson aboard bus on "50 capitals tour." oklahoma.d in good morning. caller: good morning. i'd like to make a comment to that we were pleased to hear him today and has some wonderful relatives from ada, oklahoma, and we wish he would move back oklahoma in order to help his republican breathren that have huge is state into a deficit hole. i'll wait for his comment. yes, my -- i have a in ada, at still lives

oklahoma, my parents moved to 1948, i was born in 1950. o we've got an old history of hutchinsons in oklahoma and i lways follow the politics of the state. yes, it's been challenging did some tax ma cuts, the economy slowed down nd so you have to be careful bout tax cuts and you do it in a careful way and recognize there can be downturns in the to omy that you have address. thank goodness the economy is coming back. for always cheering oklahoma in everything, except sports. we hope your economy continues improve. host: have you thought about your next job in politics? know, my next job i hope to be second term as arkansas.of this is an election year, so i'm finishing my first term this running for be

re-election and that is my focus job. hope that is my next host: to mark in west haven, connecticut, good morning. caller: yes, good morning, gentlemen. i'm wondering, if you start work your early years, when you re 15 or 16 years old, like i did. and retirement age is 65, and die in between that time, where does that money go? governor: well, if you're talking about your social thatity, that is in a pool covers everyone else and of course, if you have a widow, the continues to get benefits, there might be some child benefits from it, as well. is the whole design of social security is that everybody pays into a common that will cover people hen they reach retirement age or their dependents. nd so it's similar to an

insurance policy, but it also believe u to retire, i at 62. and so there is some options there. designed as something that benefits all of society and verybody pay intoes a common pool and then receives the benefit as they get older or widower heirs. host: asa hutchinson, republican overnor of arkansas joining us on the c-span bus for this stop on the "50 capitals tour." we appreciate your time this morning, sir. governor: always good to be with you, great calls, appreciate the arkansas.y xhchlt to host: appreciate that. thanks our cable partners, omcast in little rock, arkansas. stay tuned for next stop in oklahoma city, oklahoma, next week. next on the "washington journal," the second part of this two-part question talking to republicans only now, the question: why did you become a republican. phone lines are on the screen, start calling in now. we'll be

right back. >> this weekend, the c-span city tour takes you to virginia, with comcast cable partners we'll explore the rich historic cene and sites. atch this weekend 5 p.m. eastern on c-span 2 and sunday 2 p.m. on american history t.v. on 3 working with cable affiliates as we explore america. >> c-span history series landmark cases returns this at 12 new a look supreme court cases. istorians and experts join us to discuss constitutional issues and personal stories behind ignificant supreme court decisions. monday, february 26th, live at 9 p.m. eastern and to help you cases, we have a companion guide written by tono

morrow. landmark cases volume 2, the $8.95, plus shiping and handling. c-span.org/landmarkcases. >> "washington journal" continues. ost: and an hour ago on "washington journal," we asked democrats only why they became democrats, so the question now why did you s, become a republican. give us a call in the eastern or zone and you're a republican, 202-748-8000. f you're a republican in the mountain or pacific time zones, 202-748-8001. as you're calling in, want to show you some live pictures intelligence e committee, their hearing on orldwide threats featuring the cia director mike mike pompeo, coates, nsa director mike rogers, that is getting underway about now, supposed to

start at 9:30 this morning, if over nt to watch it, head to c-span3. otherwise stick with us, we're earing from republicans only until the program ends at 10:00 today. we want to hear from republicans republicans.ame p first is venetia, from trenton, georgia, good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. morning.good democrat -- i voted when i was younger. my personal experience in life and my struggles caused me to start voting republican. some of those have to do with i really thought the emocrats basically were supportive of, like my brother ill was entally constantly abused by our local police department. up with ars, we put that, finally i figured out a way to go to the public here in we got rid of that

crooked sheriff and most of the not ies that were abusing, just my brother that was mentally ill, but also other community.ur i discovered that you're better off taking up your issues on for a n than waiting government to do it for you. and time ned time again. the time saying why can't we get people to help or these officers are bad. you start at your local level. put your feet on the ground and pray and trust the lord. made me he thing that start seeing republicans do have the right, i don't agree with means, but by no they have the right idea of, if ou want something done, you need the right work ethic yourself, you need to get it done yourself. if you depend on somebody else do it, you will never get there. host: how long have you been a republican now? um, i still actually locally, but most

of the time it is a republican that i wind up voting for, they better policies. or they have the better standing they r community and if don't work out, we immediately vote them right out. that's the thing i think is the being a democrat making sure , it's that you have the person in there that is going to do what they said they're going to do and they're going to actually and if they're doing things or wind up being corrupt or crooked like the been in there 18 years and all the democrats around here were voting him back because they would believe what he would say to them in his little press releases. thanks from trenton, georgia, the caller mentioned switching parties. earlier, this switching parties quite rare his from the pew research center from their report from last year, partisan identification is sticky, about parties over the past period e 15-month

encompassing the 2016 presidential campaign. about 10% of republicans and emocrats defected from their party to the opposing party. we're hearing from republicans this morning about why they became republicans. or pe percentages on republicans and democrats in country from gallup, about 22% responded as identifying as 44% say they were say theynt, 32% polled are democrats, you see the numbers on polling on that, that going back to 2004. hris is in debury, texas, republican, of course, go ahead. caller: good morning. i became a republican when helping a farmer friend of mine crops and he had, we going through his place and

he had homes empty on his property. homes empty?re the it was in the '90s, clinton had to lay people off and cut back on everything ecause of the democrat's tax higher than the republicans and from ore of what you earn you. nd i'm just an independent individual and been a republican ever since i saw that myself eyes working on that farm. i realize, i want to keep more and i i earn for myself have more to give someone to elp them out if they need it through church groups and stuff. i can give more than the government can. neighbors h other, and stuff. t is about independence and being on your own and taking making yourking and own way there is a lot of pride in that, i would rather do that take something from

somebody else. thank you. ed, in ottowa, illinois. a republican?come caller: i became a republican due to the fact i live in democrats here are just gone completely stupid. money, money, s have to vote republican to see any kind of illinois.in if you're voting democrat all time, you might as well just ove because the states just deteriorating. thank you. host: on twitter a few comments. hemiwrites in, i became a republican because the democratic party's aging narrow-minded leadership and attitude toward the middle agenda he media pushes for democratic party to the point more and more democrats becoming republican.

edward in cedar rapids, iowa, you become a republican? caller: well, i grew up in the s, '70s and as a young man, i spent a lot of time in the south. taught, you find out for yourself what it is you know. need to shegrin, i attend someday kkk meet negligence my at h and got a good look liberal values and decided they just weren't for me. family values today nd see decline and i'm fwlad i stayed republican. thank you. host: edward, how do you define values and family value? we werewell, growing up always taught family came first. did for family and i don't see that much anymore. more people just out for

know,lves and not for00ue family. host: what do you think liberal values are today? um, i don't see it as family. up n't see people standing for each other. i ee single parent families, don't see traditional family value. host: to michelle in michigan, republican?become a caller: this is simple, my was in vietnam and richard nixon said he was going to end the war. is why i became a republican and then of course, bill clinton, that just sort of right there. i didn't ant to -- want somebody sleazy coming into office. i think my decision has been a one. good host: michelle, who did you election? the 2016 in the primaries?

caller: donald trump. ost: were you donald trump all the way? caller: yep. and couldn't be happier with the he is. as -- t the same values as mine. what are those values, michelle? caller: forthright. pretty much says it all. i mean, he says what he feels and he does what he feels is right. and it happens to coincide with mine. call.thanks for the some more gallup numbers on and party iation preference around the country. by state from their report from last year. for the first time in three can be ore states considered democratic than republican based on residents 2017 self-reported party preference. 2016 ates up from 14 in

were solidly democratic or leaned democratic, while 16 down from 21 in 2016 were solidly republican or leaned that way. the map that goes along with that report let's you look at of course, the darker red more solidly more darker he blue, the more solidly democratic. the gray states in there, the "competitive" states. that report from gallup. ed more darker is in johns creek, georgia. republican, of course. that way?u become caller: yes, sir. you know, i became a republican years ago, not because the republican party is anything to write home about, but because democratic party for me has shifted so far to the it., i don't recognize if bill clinton ran today for as 1992 democrat, he would be middle of the road republican. for me, the issues i have

with the democratic party is a, have a s allowed to difference of opinion. you're automatically categorized negative way. b, the party's obsessed with and gender identification. it is one thing to expect people respectful, t and another thing to put people down. weak onink that they're foreign policy. if you go to democratic stablishment and say to them, what is more important, iran or a nuke, or getting having transgender bathrooms. hey would say transgender bathrooms. nothing wrong with transgender people should be treated with respect, iran getting a nuke is probably a issue.essing democrats just don't listen. ire in georgia, back in 2004, spoke to a leader of the democratic party. giving me mckinny

as a congressperson and john candidate.esidential do you care about what i think? he said to me, if you don't like candidates, don't vote for them. i said, thank you so much. the way me further on to really not ever voting again.at host: ed, were you considering voting democrat at the time? how many times have you voted past?ratic in the caller: i was already turned off, but trying to let the democratic party know that me, who is pro-choice, cares about the necessary , believe safety net for people, is an immigrant myself and believes mmigration is a good thing if controlled and legal. but they didn't care what i think. you know, they are honest about people like me are marginalized. bills and o pay the to fund them and vote for them and they could care less what i think, they are honest about that. think they have done everything they can to show they could care less what half the country think. where did you immigrate

from and when did you come to this country? south i was born in africa came in 19sfech, grew up a liberal house in new york, my parents voted democrat, i democrat for bill clinton twice and i think because of our south africa, we were extremely concerned about frankly wing, but i think left wing and democratic party is more frightening to me. you like to see from the republican party in this immigration debate ahead week? caller: well, you know, my feel uggest that 10 to 30 million people are here illegally, including the daca people and my mainstream pretty position. i think many of them should be allowed to stay. get citizenship or not is another matter. the ones that have not committed crimes should be given opportunity for a green card at some point. favor for t is not a

the democratic party to give us reform that rs and brings people in based on merit, we have a right to sovereignty, borders and e have a right to have immigration the way people want it, not the way mexican cartel want it or people want it for a voting block. ou know, do i hope there is reform? yes. do i think there are good people coming from all over the world? of course. i respect immigrant? i'm an immigrant, my wife is an are rant, my parents immigra immigrants, my community is half immigrants. it is not okay to decide who immigrants will be, how they what skills they bring. i think that is very reasonable and welcoming position. think just because someone aspires to be here they have the right to be here. for the call.ks bill is in jackson, michigan. good morning, bill, did you become a republican? caller: good morning. ahead.o

aller: i've been republican since ronald reagan's second term. and i've voted democrat one time since. clinton during his second term. the reason, the economy. type of job in manufacturing in michigan and we were put out of work by the carter administration. during ronald reagan's second term, i voted for him in manufacturing in michigan and we were put out of work by and i'v voting republican since. ost: can i ask why not when he ran in the first time for president? caller: no, i didn't. i didn't vote during that election period. during his first term because i think there was anybody in washington that cared about the worker.

host: kathleen in l.a., why did a republican? caller: good morning. when you look at the data and the history, you must during i'm a ee, black american woman. during jim crow, 87% of our family, we had 87% two-parent families. our businesses. after jim crow, we have 25% two-parent families and 7% of our businesses. veryone knows that the family is the most important institution in society. votingmericans have been democrat for five decades. we should have five decades of businesses. it's just not there. the other thing, it will take years for the average black family to catch up to the family.white the at that tima tells the story. for everyimmigration,

10% increase in immigration, 1-3rd of 1% a loses of their wealth. look at the data, most people talk about personalities or characterization of someone's talk ality, they never about the data. they never talk about the history. when you are talking about you got to look at the data. economics, erstand supply and demand, right here in 80% of thes, at least workers on a construction job are illegals, remember democrats always say, oh, you know, jobs, americans don't want. well, you know, i think american en want to work in the construction industry. the other thing, in california, city.ook at any blue or the past five years, homelessness has increased by 76% in california. when you look at the data, you

cannot continue to be democrat. failing policy. they have failed black america. the nother thing, most of people that call in, they can't even distinguish between legal illegal on and immigration. they think everything is immigration. had this level of legal immigration in history of immigration and never had ever.al immigration we have 12 million illegal immigrants, people do not know immigration. also, another thing, frederick douglas, w. dubois, booker t.washington, were against high-levels of immigration for america. host: kathleen in los angeles this morning. about 10 minutes left in our morning on the "washington journal." we'll be taking you afterwards the senate budget

committee. there is a live shot of the budget room where director mick mulvaney will be testifying the day after sent fiscal 2019 budget to capitol hill. ou can watch that here, listen to that hearing on c-span radio. you can watch it on the web, as well. headlines from the president's budget request from "u.s.a. today," trump pitches congress a massive trillion uild-up, 4.4 dollar budget proposed by the president, released yesterday $716 billion for defense, and couple other washington om the times. looking at various aspects of startingdent's budget, at the top of the page of the washington times. their 10 billion to opioid adly skurj of epidemic, article focused on money for public broadcasting. officials call cuts a mistake

say the president's proposal their programming and one more headline from the ashington times on that budget request. with trump, defense spending pentagon 2019, officials say the funds will pay 25,000 new troops. elliot is in south carolina. did you becomehy a republican? many years ago i was a member of the most powerful democratic club in queens. republican because i saw how corrupt democrats were. also learned that over the the that democrats are party of the klan. at bird.ore, look in the north, the unions helped democrats. the south, the klan contact

much. engineer with my bosses, we were able to turn democratic elections. to use the roots es to win the between the democratic party and so old communist party are strong. because i republican horrible -- that's it. bernie, id glen, maryland. why did you become a republican? became a republican because i like everything donald trump has said and done. man, on -year-old disability.ity and

>> i voted for donald trump. message that most resonated to you? everything donald trump has said, donald trump has done done -- tax cuts and he did. he's working with the democrats on immigration. believe everything with

democrats on the immigration policy. i agree with donald trump. i just believe we finally got somebody in there that's people and not all the politics. you talk about what the president has promised and budget the fiscal 2019 request, that was released yesterday, he asked for their 18 the border wall with mexico, he said often on the campaign trail and mexico would pay for that wall. about e your feelings that? caller: my feelings on the wall, be a wall.re should to ask for being the situation in the united states going through, but then again tis something we need. one.is my opinion on that

host: does it matter whether mexico pays for it or not? mexico should pay for it. host: okay. caller: if mexico don't pay for it. i think it should be a deal with mexico to maybe split the cost the wall. host: to charles in woodbridge, virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. really don't know where to just three quick points. irst off, bottom line is, if anybody could tell me one program the democrats have ever reduce, it will be a miracle freduced to take away or taxes, voted for that, please somebody tell me, best of my knowledge, they never have. is one reason. number two, the woman from california who called in is bsolutely correct, please tell me as a black democrat and i'm i black, i can't speak, guess too great for the black community, but as a black the democrats has

done for the black community? housing area and answer that question there. as long as they give them just survive, versus jobs, then you will continue to be a jobs at, i mean, a lot of that are owned in the black by black.s are not host: why did you become a republican? caller: well, kind of basically all these reasons. number one, first all, you got democrats and republicans, as republican, it is lesser of two evils. is. i'm conservative at heart, but i assimilate with the republican party because majority of what they stand for. obama,not vote for barack but i didn't vote for barack obama because he was black. him, i t not vote for didn't vote for him because he was liberal and his ideas didn't line with mine. but, the in the last thing i want to say real quick on the fella just but the

brought up and that is if anybody understands that their by them. not bought a mortgage company paid for it will pay back the mortgage company. that is the concept trump is going after. he will sit there and build the wall and through renegotiation of nafta that money will come the united states, it won't be in a direct payment, of course not in direct payment, will say, you know, we didn't -- they didn't pay for the wall, we did. woodbridge, s in virginia. bring up former president obama, unveiled ial portrait yesterday at the national portrait gallery, along with the former first lady michelle obama. here is the front page story in "new yorkction of the times." taking a look at those two paintings. ceremony, go the back and watch it in its entirety at c-span.org. russellville, tennessee, why did you become a republican? aller: i became a republican

back in 1976. was in the military and i became a republican because jimmy carter was in office at and he was not for the military. host: rick, have you ever looked back since then? caller: i'm sorry? host: have you ever looked back, party, or out changes republican since then? caller: i would consider myself a liberal conservative. and i actually did think about not, g for believe it or hillary clinton on her first ran and of course she didn't make it to the primary and so i didn't vote for her. i did vote republican again. host: that's rick. veteran, tennessee. also our last callener this "washington e journal." mick mulvaney, budget director, has entered the senate budget room.ttee hearing

he will be testifying this morning in just a couple minutes about the president's fiscal 2019 budget. that will get underway soon. tick around for that or we'll see you back tomorrow morning at on the "washington journal."