smerconish from serious xm and joins us fromg florida to discuss the shooting at his school and the discussion to address gun violence. host: good morning. congress is back this week after the president's day's recess. no votes for the rest of the week. in the rotunda of the u.s. capitol, the reverend billy graham will lie and honor wednesday and thursday. privatee first citizen since rosa parks to be accorded that honor. the nation's governors continue their meeting in washington. among the headlines this sunday

from "the new york times," a forceful defense from the fbi under attack by the gop. the democratic memo bus republican charges. we will turn to that in 45 minutes. inside today's "new york times," and donald trump, evangelicals have found the president. david brody joins us in the studio. thanks for joining us. guest: thanks for having me. host: tell us about your book and why evangelicals trust donald trump. guest: do we have six or seven hours because there is a lot to unpack? i think there is a culture. they see a culture warrior and donald trump. i know that sounds crazy to folks, but it's true. donald trump is a guy that paints in bold absolutes. when you put the two together, they like the fact that he is a fighter. he is fighting for traditional judeo-christian principles,

which is shocking to many, but the truth of matter is that it shows that god has a sense of humor for sure because he, as in god, will send evangelicals donald trump of all people for judeo-christian values. as we dig deeper into the book, when you're born in 1976 and you are 71 today, he grew up in a different time in america and those judeo-christian values are different than host: today. ho today. host: how could evangelical leaders go behind trump? picture of a a mentally unstable reckless president who is reckless against all humanity except white people with modest incomes and out of date values. after interviewing schools of evangelical leaders, i have developed a different perspective. guest: in the book, there are some of the different stories of a personal relationship that donald trump has with these

evangelical leaders, and more compassionate side they have specifically seem. normally politicians want to show you the more compassionate side in public. donald trump is the exact opposite. he does not want you necessarily to see that side. it's a much more private side. it comes from his faith roots and we can talk about that in a moment. they have seen that side and there are stories in the book. there's this one book story of tony perkins from the family research council, donald trump, and mike pence and a car. it was louisiana august twice 16 during the flooding. as they are riding along and they are seeing the devastation, he is blown away by how franklin graham has done all this work in louisiana. he looks at franklin graham and says i need to give your ministry some money. the bottom line is that he writes a hefty six-figure check

to samaritans purse, but before he can go to samaritans purse, franklin graham says give it to tony's church. no cameras around. donald trump has this other side to him. yes, he wrote a check and a lot of folks might say he wrote a check. for donald, that's part of his compassionate side. host: the book, "the faith of " so let'strump, drill down aspects of the book. you write a lot about norman vincent peel. you say the following, "he was one of trumps mentors and friends. the self-help aisle of your bookstore may not exist without him pioneering the industry and he was a theological simpleton at best and at worst theological fraud, and yet he had a profound influence on donald trump." guest: he did. when donald trump want to norman vincent peel's church, it was later in his life. it was the power of positive

thinking. that attracted donald trump to e wasnorman vincent peal preaching. later on -- oret i wouldn't say regret, but at least he realized he wanted to speak more about jesus plus nothing and it got more into the power of positive thinking. there was a bit of regret on his part. on donald trump's golf course in california, i had a conversation with him about norman vincent peale. he said he was the greatest or tour that he has ever seen. we have seen that in donald trump today not necessarily in the twitter feed, but the campaign rallies. by that, he is able to captivate an audience and stay positive. everything is positive. we are going to do this, we are going to get it done. norman vincent peale is very much a positive influence. host: you write, "while donald

trump has opted to vigo and believes that he can get any job done, he does not leave god out of the equation. he knows god is bigger and better than him declaring to me, god is the ultimate." guest: it was september 20 15, 3 month or so after he declared his can see for presidency of the united states. i remember it vividly. and hein los angeles looked around at the pacific ocean and said god is the ultimate. he built all this and god is the ultimate builder. that is what he was talking about. this you say it like mike pence or an evangelical christian who is going to church for 30 years in that evangelical way? , no he doesn't. -- no, he doesn't. a lot of people get lost in the verbiage of how donald trump speaks and his new york personality. they don't see the underside of what really going on.

that is what this book explores and we found some interesting anecdotes and conclusions. host: does he go to church regularly? guest: i would say this. you have to ask him about that because i'm not with him every single sunday. maybe he is doing things privately. as president now, he's not doing anything privately. what we know -- and want again i'm going to be clear that this book is not an apologetics book for donald trump. when i talk about church attendance, i'm not defending him about going to church are not going to church, but i do want to be clear that god does not look at our church attendance record when he gets to heaven. he is looking about a personal relationship with him with a capital h. does that let donald trump off the hook for not going to church? absolutely not because god wants us to be in community with fellow believers. host: "while the mainstream media was looking at past blemishes, they are missing the

cultural link they had with the past. it was a solid union made possible by two willing -- aicipants mega-billionaire and evangelicals hoping to recount rekindle the culture they once knew." explain. guest: when you hear donald trump talk about general patton and the wonderful times in the 1950's, what he means by that -- remember 1946 is when he grew up. he remembers her time -- a time when there was bible reading in school and prayer in school. that was stripped away in the early 1960's by the supreme court. you put all that together and this is an old-fashioned type guy. americabers a time in where he believes it was a lot more patriotic back then than it is today. evangelical christians see culture slipping away in the last 10 years or so. they are frustrated and willing to take a chance and they took a chance on donald trump. host: our guest is david

brody. his essay is in "the new york times." the book is called "the faith of donald j. trump." 202 is the area code. for republicans and (202) 748-8000 for democrats. you talked about the conversation he had with freight alliance -- frank wants. here's the next it. [video clip] >> i'm protestant. i'm presbyterian. i go to church and i love god and i love my church. lee great norman vincent pea was my pastor. the power of positive thinking. he would give a sermon and you would never want to leave. sometimes we have sermons and every time we think about leaving a little early even though we are christian. wouldrman vincent peale

give a sermon. i'm telling you that i still remember his sermons. it was unbelievable. realhe would do is bring life situations, modern-day situations and to the sermon. and you can listen to him all day long. when you left the church, you were disappointed was over. he was the greatest guy. he passed away, but he was great. he wrote "the power of positive thinking," which is a great book. >> have you ever asked god for forgiveness? [laughter] >> i'm not sure i have. i try to do a better job from there. i don't think so. if i do something wrong, i think i just try to make it right. host: david brody, that was an extraordinary exchange and it continues to come back to you and others as you research donald trump. guest: i was there for that event in the media was blown away. they said that was the end of his candidacy. i guess it wasn't. there is so much to impact in that statement -- unpack and

that statement. let me add that roughly a month and a half -- that was in mid july or so. in late september, i interviewed donald trump once again on that golf course and asked him about the forgiveness line. he said i do ask for forgiveness. i do it with communion and other different ways. he doesn't know how to express it, but he did say to me and you can google it. put david brody and donald trump forgiveness and you will see the clip come up. he does say it. that wasn't necessarily a moment that was maybe relatively enjoyable for him, but having said that, it was authentically donald trump. i think that's an important point to point out. what i mean by that is that donald trump cannot pander -- a lot of people think he is pandering to evangelicals. he would not know how to pander to evangelicals. i remember in the book and at 1 april 2011 interview, i've done

16 or 17 interviews with donald trump. that first interview i asked him about his church attendance and he said i go to church on easter and christmas and maybe a couple sundays. i thought to myself i'm interviewing him for the christian broadcast network. probably not the best answer for the christian broadcast network. of the christian broadcast network, he was not going to give me some line about how saintly he is when he comes to church attendance. that is pretty authentic and that's part of the reason why got elected because of that authenticity. it can get him in trouble, but it also got him elected president of the united states. host: mike is joining us from south carolina, democrats line. good morning. caller: i don't know if this guy is really serious or if he is a comedian. donald trump is not a positive person. he belittles, attacks, and criticizes people. he uses extremely crude light which frequently. he has no moral compass that he

shows. he criticizes people because of where they were born, what they believe. i just think this is the most comical thing i have heard. is ordon't see that he models the kind of moral behavior that we want. look at his life and the way he has interacted with women, the way he was so proud on the bus to talk about how he approaches women. i don't see this private kind of christian faith or anything like that. guest: not the first time we have heard that. once again, the title of the book is "the faith of donald trump" not the sainthood of donald trump. i know that title is provocative and there is a lot implied there, but i will say this.

it could be called the faith journey of donald trump or the world you/faith journey of donald trump, but that does not make a great title. it is not the sainthood of donald trump you. for everyone out there, this is not an apologetics book of donald trump. we go through the 1970's, 1980's, 1990's. do we harp on it? no, but we bring it up. one of the main takeaways from the book is that he is definitely on a spiritual voyage like we all are. in the last few years from what our research and reporting says in this book, and we are talking about 100 folks or so that we interviewed are not just close to him but have also been critics of his as well have come to realize a different side of him, but went than that, they .ave seen some growth not just behind the scenes, but we can talk about that publicly as well. there's a little bit more than meets the eye here. i think mike has got some good points for sure, but i also

think if you read the book, you will see that this is not an apologetics book at all. host: i want to come back to the book and just a moment, but they focus on reverend billy graham. he will lie in honor and u.s. capitol, the first time that has been according to a private citizen since rosa parks. he died at the age of 99. what is his legacy? guest: there's so much to unpack with billy graham. i will say this. his legacy is one of likability, civility, bipartisanship offer jesus christ. in other words, he was able to preach the gospel of jesus christ unashamedly but do it in a way that was able to bring others into listen to the message. very difficult nowadays. he was able to do it. he was in a different time in america for sure, but i think civility and bipartisanship is all part of that legacy and there's so much to unpack.

host: he met and counsel every president since harry truman. he was particularly close to richard nixon, george h.w. bush, and barack obama. guest: in 2013 as we talk about the book, donald trump was invited to his 95th birthday party. also in the book, i actually asked president trump about billy graham specifically. his father was a huge fan of billy graham. donald trump remembers watching with his father in the 1950's those crusades and sermons and everything whether it be television or radio. him and his father would watch billy graham sermons back then. billy graham was touching young donald trump back in the day, which i thought was interesting . his father went to one of the new york crusade back in the day. host: we will have coverage of his body arriving in washington, d.c. and the ceremony inside the rotunda of the u.s. capital that

will take place on wednesday and thursday. funeral services scheduled friday for billy graham who died last week at the age of 99. andrew is joining us from alexandria, virginia. good morning. caller: first, love c-span. mr. brodie, thank you for writing this book. as a christian, i want to add the following because i support president donald trump. 2016,e first announced in how can i get involved and help get this man elected? here's why. look at what he did with his business. he built this tremendously successful business. then i listened to him at liberty university, a christian man. i used to be in construction so he has rough language, but when you look at what he has accomplished and you look at his children, i was so impressed at his children. jerry falwell and jeff sessions an endorsed him. you look beneath the surface and that's what i looked at.

i don't care about his wrestling with. i look at what he has accomplished. thank you for what you are doing. guest: for sure. there is the twitter donald trump and then there is the behind-the-scenes donald trump. we try to explain that here. i also think it's important to understand that -- and this is the underlying theme of the book. grace abounds. what i mean by that is that god's grace is unlimited. that's right. donald trump and anyone who turns to jesus can be saved until you breathe your last breath. he wants everyone to be with him in heaven. yes, donald trump. it doesn't matter if you have one sense or $.30 or a million since. in or 30

sins. you can be saved by grace and they are fortinet grace to the president. host: harvey is joining us from indiana. good morning, harvey. caller: thank you for taking my call. i listened to mr. brody. with all due respect, just imagine for a second that donald trump has a son. he has three sons and he has a son that underage at like 13 years old. you talk about bullying and the way that donald trump talks about people and thousands of people, if this is what the evangelical faith is all about, god bless you. i think this judgment is just trying to sell his book. host: thank you. we will get a response. guest: a couple different things. all, it's definitely not about selling a book because i had 17 interviews with the president of the united states

so i'm standing to talk about it. i think people need to understand that this is a guy that is a work in progress for sure. he is someone that is not a choir boy and he understands that. people understand that. i will say this. evangelicals are looking and voting in the macro. this is what i mean by that. the understand that president, a man or woman doesn't matter, they are sinful. they are going to fall. that person will be majorly flawed. the other question to flawed candidates. in this case it was donald trump and hillary clinton. what do you do with that? you vote in the macro. in other words, they are saying we believe the moral choice here and we are doing the morally right thing to vote for weatherby judges or the life issue of the moral macro society issues. that is how they get to donald trump. host: donald trump sees mike

pence as a spiritual person and that translates into a belief that it's good to be around people like that. chumps christianity unlike other elements of his life and career does not play out in a flashy way. guest: true. he grew up in a mainline presbyterian church background. we go into that in the first part of the book. basically his father was lutheran german. that's the roots on his father sides. on his mother's side is that scottish presbyterian braveheart , that john knox protestantism of scotland that came to that area. that is where his mom is from. you see all that and donald trump. that is the dna of donald trump. i want to point out that this book, you need to understand that if people would read the book, they would understand that this is a deep dive and well researched book by my co-author. he did a lot of research in this book to point out not just that

religious dna that shaped donald trump, but the behind-the-scenes that a lot of people don't know. the way i like to say in television terms is that if you second sound bite and television, we have heard 12 seconds of the soundbite. that is twitter and russia and all the stuff that have been issues for the president. this book is the other 18 seconds or at least other half that you can get the full picture. walter cronkite said that in seeking the truth, you want to have both sides of the story. this is the other side of the story. host: valerie is next from ohio on the republican line with author and reporter david brody. caller: good morning. thank you. this is the first time i have been on. i wanted to say that i'm very happy for billy graham right now. it's his best crusade ever. he's very happy right now. i think donald trump is a great man. i think you can tell a great man by his children. look at his children.

i just think he's a great man. thank you. host: thank you, valerie. guest: we thought about that when writing the book. he has got these pretty good children here as it relates to how they interact and the world today. they didn't really get into trouble at all morally and all that. what was going on there? but we did find out is that indeed donald trump -- it's really interesting. he is so much different behind-the-scenes. he really is. it's with his children and others. it's a completely different side. it's not because he's trying to necessarily be something that he's not. it's just that he doesn't feel comfortable with that side of him in public. why is that? just like anything that has to do with his faith, mainline presbyterian -- he doesn't wear it on his sleeve. these is with all evangelical, full gospel folks around him better preaching to

jesus plus nothing sermon. it is not that you are saved by the blood of the cross and all that. it's not about good works. this is all new dam. he did not hear this growing up. that is starting to seep into his life more and more. i will give you an example of that real quick. look at the national prayer breakfast. you remember the first one he did and it was all about "the apprentice" ratings. what it do this time around? much different this time around. it was less about him and more god centered. much more humble and even "the new york times" saying a humble and contrite speech. we are starting to see some progress in public at times, but remember donald trump, the greatest showman if you will, he loves to project that law and order persona, which is what he believes, but he is more comfortable doing that in public than showing where the private side. host: what his relationship like

what the vice president on a personal level based on mike pence very clearly being an evangelical christian and talks about his faith publicly? guest: extremely close and i may be understating it by saying extremely close. we can put that in all bold and 18 point font. this is a very close relationship from everybody around both of them. they will say that. the vice president said that and the president said that. how do i know? i interviewed them for the book. twice with mike pence, i interviewed him twice for this book. they talk about this very close relationship. mike pence talk about this one time -- there were a couple different stories, but one is where mike pence was in new jersey during the campaign. i want to say was late august. donald trump says, hey mike, can we go to church? mike pence goes, sure.

you know what church around here? we have this beautiful place down the street. the bottom line is next day when the pool cameras or whenever the media was there, they all see mike pence and donald trump going to church. everybody figured mike pence is in town and donald trump is going for the photo op. no, it was donald trump's idea to go to church. what is the deeper dive on that? he likes to be around people that he believes are deeply religious man. he feeds off of that. a rain of hands on him in the oval office. this is fascinating. have we ever seen that? i don't think we have. aheadnot ashamed to go and pray in the oval office and let that be what it is. which i think is kind of neat, but back to mike pence. they have a very close relationship and it goes to something even broader.

because he has a deep relationship with mike pence it's really about clergy as well. mike pence is a deeply religious man and i will say this. we've talked to many people that when he is in the room with clergy, he adopts the position of a lesser rather than greater. it's a much different donald trump. host: the book is "the faith of donald j. trump." we welcome our listeners on c-span radio and also channel 124 on serious xm. all the programming is available on the free c-span radio app. we go back to your calls. good morning. caller: thank you, steve. i talk to you before and i told you my supernatural encounter. host: i remember that, yes. caller: anyway, anytime i see this guy he is with pat robertson and it so much like watching the fox news show. -- is almost like watching the fox news show. he listens to family. he listens to rush limbaugh and

all these guys and they have divided our country. if you want to help the millionaires and billionaires. that's all fine. but i'm not fooled by it. it's not for me to judge whether you are a saint or not, but i'm not fooled by it. i think god wants you to help the poor and care more about your fellow human beings rather than how much money i can make. you ought to look at the 10 commandments. there's 10 commandments, not to commandments. fox news preachers and i'm so sick and tired of all these huckabee's and all of them. i will let go with that and thank you for taking my call. thank you, steve. guest: i agree with steve when it's not my job to judge someone's final salvation. guess what? that's what we say in the book.

if you want to come to some sort of conclusion about donald trump's faith or anyone's faith, that's not my job at all. i'm a journalist. i'm not going to get into starting to judge someone else's faith. jesus whoomeone named will do that for donald trump. he will do it for you and me and the entire c-span audience and everyone here in this world. that's the point we are trying to make. this is not a lamb's book of life. that's a different book written by different author. host: you mentioned a contributor on the fox news channel who wrote the following on this book and donald trump. "the injunction to let he who without sin cast the first son is an important one -- stone is an important one, but it's now clear that evangelical christians that hold up unix about lying, cheating, and adultery don't care about the word of god when it comes to donald trump." i mention that because tony

perkins was on a podcast on politico and was asked about donald trump's indiscretions in the past. let's listen. >> evangelicals did not vote for donald trump based on his moral qualifications but based upon what he said he was going to do and who he was surrounded himself with. now that was in the context of a general election when you had hillary clinton, who embraces abortion, the whole homosexual agenda, and herself is not have a christine background with some of the stuff with her and bill. that is the context. you have to put in that context. >> that's totally fair, but i would say that's 2016 and the decisions made in 2016 are done. now it's 2018. does this give you pause at all? -- i think the

president is maturing as president. said earlier,e from a human being standpoint and from a spiritual being standpoint, he's maturing as well because of the people he has been around in the influences he has brought into his life. evangelical support is not unconditional. if the president were to all the sudden revert back to some of that behavior as president, the evangelical support will not be there for him. we kind of gave him -- you get a mulligan. you get a do over here. >> and mulligan for 70 years of his life? [laughter] >> this is what he is committed to. as long as he commits to that and continues on that, he will have the support of evangelicals. podcastvid brody, that with tony perkins is available at politico.com. the reference to a mulligan, a golf term when it comes to the prevalence sexual encounters --

president's sexual encounters, is that a fair analogy? guest: i know he gets to the mulligan, and ran with it, but -- host: which is why we ran the longer speech and not the twitter version. guest: he said overall that this is a president who is maturing. that's the word he used. that is what the book is saying. there's a spiritual journey that he is on. that, tony mentioned mauldin, but the truth of the matter is that evangelicals see a president delivering time and time again. becomes whatthen do they do with that? are they able to wrap themselves around a candidate, a democrat candidate who is for partial-birth abortion like hill he clinton? they're not going to go there. it leaves them with either sitting on the sidelines or voting for someone like donald trump.

why did he get 81% of evangelical vote? very simple. this culture has gone haywire in their view and therefore they did not want to sit on the sidelines this time. we need someone who's going to be bolted he is bold -- who's going to be bold. he is bold. not necessarily going to agree with him, but he is bold no doubt about it. the most evangelical friendly united states president that evangelicals have ever seen bar none and that includes ronald reagan, george w. bush. why? not that there was anything wrong with what they were pushing for, but donald trump has been far out in front and bold in bringing evangelicals and if feeling like they are not being marginalized anymore. george w. bush in 2004 ran for reelection. a big turnout from evangelicals is said he was with push the federal marriage a minute and then karl rove drop it like a hot potato.

beinglicals were tired of played as a political pond in the game. you know what, republican party? we are to go with donald trump and see what he can do. guess what? my goodness gracious, amazingly he has delivered for evangelicals. new yorkhen you times" runs with headlines on other things, but in an evangelical world, this guy is doing pretty darn well. host: jeff, you are next. thanks for waiting. caller: i three comments of a question. the first comment is that during the last nine years when obama was in office, it literally was like the children had taken over the school and that finally the andnts had corralled them the school is now back in order. donald trump is being dissected

just like his program is doing that barack obama was never dissected. dissectnnel did not reverend wright and the connections obama had with him. obama -- anddent we all have to think president obama -- we would not have our greatest president, donald trump. host: i just want to jump in so we can set the record straight. we spent a lot of time focusing on reverend wright and barack obama so your statement on that front is completely false, but continue with your question. are you still with us? i guess he hung up. guest: i will say this. what he said about barack obama rings true and here's the part that rings true. when he talked about in essence that there would be no donald trump as president of the united states without barack obama, 100% he is right. he's right.

evangelicals were so frustrated in the last eight years during the obama administration that that combined with a republican party that seemed to have lost his way a little bit, you can find all the. of it and it was the perfect storm. along comes donald trump is a cultural warrior. he talks about the idea that i'm going to bring christmas back and everyone laughs. donald trump is speaking in -- how do i say this -- code. you know what that means? what does that mean you're going to bring christmas back? here's what it means. judeo-christian principle and not being ashamed of talking about christmas or jesus or god in the public square is going to be ok. i'm a president of the united states is going to be ok talking about it. that has given cover and quite frankly empowered quite a few evangelicals to be a bit more boulder themselves. host: karen is next for florida

on independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. david brody, evangelical -- what percentage is black or any other in evangelicalism?ous a you said like to 40's and 1950's was a great time. was that a great time for? what people? guest: i never said that first of all. let me be very clear. when michele bachmann said donald trump has 1950's sensibilities, right after she said that to me she said, i want to be clear. we're not talking about racism. we are not talking about how this country was in the 1950's as it relates to race and that's

not what she's talking about with donald trump. she does remember a time when you dressed up for church and you did not get a church in baggy sandals and pants. he's a traditional guy when it comes to that old-fashioned -- he 71. donald trump in 1975 is not getting elected president of gannett states. -- of the united states. 71, on a time, spiritual journey of the last few years because he has been surrounded by these jesus plus nothing. pentecostal preachers that are preaching something into his life that he is ever heard before. paul a white talks about how he is 100% a believer in the lord jesus christ. please understand the attribution. that is paula white saying that. journalistically sound. we are quoting others saying this about this president. host: you the book right the following, "what do we mean when

we write the face of donald trump? he is most certainly not a secular list, someone who lives his life apart from his religious belief or practice. he did not fight the label billionaire playboy. trump could be described as a pleasure seeker or materialist. he is a product of the american culture." guest: i think that sums it up. a lot of people say he has no faith. well, actually, there is a fifth story to tell of donald trump, 300 pages and all, and it comes from that religious dna that he has from his mother and father. please understand that he was not brought up in a church that was preaching any sort of gospel message that evangelicals would be accustomed to or he would even understand. that's important to point out. i will say this. liberals have enjoyed trashing the book.

i can guarantee you they have not read it. i think that's pretty much for sure. on twitter, it's funny they would say i just received in advance copy of the fifth of donald trump and put a blank page up there. seth myers talked about our book at one point. he said it was the first book that could be printed on a , but we clock in at over 300 pages and had to leave about 5000 words on the cutting room floor. host: how many interviews with the president and vice president? guest: for this book, one with the president of the united states in the oval office late august of 2017, two with the vice president. host: from taxes on the democrats line, carol, you are next. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span and thank you for taking my call. thank you to mr. brody for being your guest. i just wanted to make this comment and say something. i've not read your book, but i

want to let you know that we do not elect a preacher or a pastor. we elected a president. we have the focus now on actual things that donald trump has done in office. you it really want to ask about is all the misleading statements he made. talenteds campaign he -- touted i'm a businessman and i'm going to appoint the best people in my cabinet and they are going to do the best job. most of his appointments to his cabinet have been disasters. they are enemies of the departments of they have been selected to run. i think it has been a tremendous if he said he's going to appoint the best people. the other thing is i'm not interested in donald trump's faith anymore. if you are supporting this guy and evangelicals are voting as a block and supporting this guy, i question the faith of the evangelicals. my understanding about the faith

and the faith that iowa's believed in his that -- that i his thatlieved in christians are always judged by how well they treat the weakest among us. if this is the guy you are going to support and this is the guy you are going to attach all these values to that he clearly y'allot exhibit, i think need to read a few books about your faith and what your faith is and what you are putting your faith in. i look forward to bring your comments. guest: thanks for being respectful about it and bringing some good points. i will say this. it's interesting. maybe i need to keep repeating it about the nature of man. evangelicals -- look, if we are --ng to vote for a candidate i would say if evangelicals are going to vote for a candidate that is morally perfect, then we miss that candidate because i

was about 2000 years ago when jesus walked the earth. there really isn't anybody else -- thereing to be isn't anybody else is going to be morally perfect. back to what i said before, it's a really important point. when you have two flawed candidates, what are evangelicals supposed to do -- sit on the sidelines and not be a process of the civic duty or specifically figure out a way to vote for judeo-christian candidate and which best represents those? host: which is what you write about today in "the new york times." ityour concluding sentence is as follows, "evangelicals have found their man and it may seem mystifying for outsiders, but for someone like me with a front row seat to an inside view, it makes perfect sense. maybe they are taking their cue from billy graham, embracing

presidents with moral failings rather than rejecting them." guest: billy graham did exactly that. these evangelical leaders are doing that with president trump y. billy graham did that with bill clinton. last time i checked he had a few moral failings. if it's good enough for billy graham, why isn't it good enough for evangelical presence to embrace a sinful president? by the way, they are all sinful. we are all sinful. we need a loving savior and that is what they are trying to witness to him and tell him about. host: you started your career out west in colorado. how long has it been with cbn? guest: 14 years. great and i've enjoyed it. host: you are on with david brody. good morning. i have been watching this program, but look. i'm here to say i'm 67 years old.

i have been a lifetime democrat. there was something about the president's faith that made me pay attention to him and it was wentebate that they had donald trump tests i don't know -- when donald trump, i don't know if he was prepared or anything like that, but he was talking to me. and then hillary clinton through threw in this character assassination or whatever that was. he was so shocked and he said, where did you get that from? how did you get that?

sudden, he went into, you are nasty, politics is dirty. , what he did was is he took his faith and his compassion and his belief that he could do something and make a difference. host: thank you, deborah. we will get a response. guest: i'm try to recall the debate she is referring to. there was that exchange about mollison the -- melissa machado. host: miss universe. guest: one of the things in this book and it goes a little bit to what -- i forgot her name. deborah. you are good at that, right?

there is a curiosity that donald trump has about things of god and faith. that is a common theme that we saw in this book. the last time i checked is that god can work with curiosity. it's a people that don't think they need god or care about god or don't want to inquire about god, but every person we talked to in this book says this is a president that is seeking prayer , that is asking for guidance, bringing evangelicals, and wanting that closer relationship with them, with god. god can work with that and i think that is what we are saying. she mentioned she is a lifelong democrat i believe. i remember talking to bishop wayne jackson, a lifelong democrat from detroit. this is in the book. donald trump came to his church. i will never forget. donald trump got out of the van or whatever it was an right --re bishop when jack and

bishop when jackson, a lifelong democrat, said the spirit of the lord says you are going to be the next president of the united states. that might sound strange to folks, but here's the thing. maybe evangelical circle, a lot of people believed that. donald trump was put here for such a time as this. there's a big contingent spiritual looking at donald trump as someone who has come along for this time. please understand that james robison once told us that god uses an people to a couple of his perfect will. -- imperfect people to accomplish this perfect will. i'm not comparing donald trump to king david, but i'm making the point that the bible has plenty of examples of really flawed individuals that god wants to use for an actual purpose of his, not donald trump's or anybody else.

host: i want to ask you about former president carter, but max is joining us on the republican line. good morning. caller: how are you? evangelicals have sold yourself to the devil and the devil is in the white house. you ought to be ashamed of yourself. guest: i'm glad max read the book, but clearly he did not read the book. i will say that -- i don't say to a certain place. i can tell you on twitter that i met 17 references that i'm going to hell. and counting so that's amusing. on twitter you can go there quite a few times. this is the vitriol that's not justnd it's liberals. there are some folks who are not liberal at all that are really concerned. ,f you would just read the book you would realize that this is a deeply researched book about the faith journey of donald trump, the worldview of donald trump.

he's a city united states president and we should have a book that actually explores what his religious dna is. you can agree with or not agree with the final outcome. that's a different book, but that's not this book. host: mark on independent line, good morning. caller: good morning. trumpsy concerned about relationship with and of timests prophecy. this can be very consequential as you well know and i'm thinking here obviously in terms of the decision to move the u.s. andssy to jerusalem recognition of jerusalem as israel's capital and so on. i guess my biggest question is much does the end of times prophecy have to do with

trumps decision to do that? thosecommitted to ofphecies and is he capable you might say violating the timeline behind those prophecies? host: we will get a response. guest: he received a lot of input from evangelical leaders on the jerusalem issue. whether they be an times prophecy folks or others, it ran the gamut. it is hard to quantitatively state how much influence that had so i have no idea about that. i will say this that he has been pretty solid on jerusalem right from the beginning with the embassy. i spoke with him at liberty university in 2016 and he said yes, we're going to move the

embassy to drools on. host: that will open in may. june, you get the last call with a brodie -- david brody. caller: good morning, america. i have a question that i would like to ask. i want to know is there a greater sin for a lesser sin and where the sins of barack obama or hillary clinton any greater than the sins of donald trump? if you can say his sins are forgiven, what about hillary obama? and president it seems to me that you have a one-sided view of what salvation is and i'm going to be praying for you and all of you who voted for donald trump but cannot find it in your heart to say kind word or pray for president obama as the president of the united

states. i'm going to be praying for you. god bless you. i'm going to be interested to is there adea of greater sin or a lesser sin. guest: what a great viewpoint. i absolutely agree with you. a couple of things -- in god's sin., send this -- sin is he is not ranking at one to 10. as for barack obama and hillary clinton, that's a great point. evangelicals need to be praying for their leaders. for barackdid pray obama and voted some other way, good for them. those that didn't, not good at all. there's no doubt about it but that's a problem. i would just say this. it's really important. no one is forgiving donald trump of any of his sins. that's really important to point out.

evangelicals are not forgiving him of his sins. they are just making the ,ecision in the macro to say look, if we have got to candidates that are sending and we know god does not care about the severity of the sin, if you have two candidates who are sinning, what do you do with that? sit on the sidelines? forgelicals decided to go the macro and the judeo-christian principles they believe are in the bible and they believe that donald trump has representatives. -- represented those. has not judging on the sin issue. host: i know that you are doing "meet the press" later this morning. i want to ask you about president jimmy carter. he is the first democratic president to address the liberty university commencement ceremony. donald trump spoke to the crowd last year. and yet, jimmy carter is probably the most religious

president we have had in modern times. the parallels between him and donald trump? guest: i will try to be quick. what a great move by liberty university to do this. why do i say that? why are becoming from just one side of the aisle? spoke atnders commendation at liberty university. jimmy carter speaks to the compassion of the gospel. that is a part of the gospel. it is not the gospel. it is part of the gospel. jimmy carter i'm sure will be addressing that. it relates to jimmy carter, evangelicals have tried and evangelical candidate before whether it be jimmy carter. how did that work out for evangelicals? bush.lso tried george w. it was fine, but donald trump is much different, much bolder. i tell you what -- that boldness really resonates with evangelicals.

host: the book is called "the faith of donald j. trump." written by david brody and current by scott lamb. thanks for being with us. good luck on "meet the press" later this morning. that is one of the shows that we carry on c-span radio. i want to share with you a tweet from president trump as the democratic memo is released. he wrote the following, "the democrat memo response is a and legal bust. just confirms all the terrible things that were done. so illegal." joining us live on the phone is the white house reporter for the associated press. thanks for being with us on this sunday. guest: you are welcome. host: there has been a volley back and forth between democrats and republicans on this memo. we heard from adam schiff. what is next between this battle between congressional republicans and democrats and , cartersident on fisa

page, and the robert mueller investigation? guest: i think you will more back and forth between republicans and democrats trying to argue their case and what they believe the fbi and those investigating russian influence in the 2016 presidential election -- it will just be more back and forth. what they are saying about it what happened and you have the other side countering saying, no, no, what we are saying is what happened. there will be a lot more back and forth before th this gets resolved. host: the president held a rather extraordinary listening session with not only the victims from columbine and parkland and sandy hook as parents and educators talk about the next step. part of that is meeting with the nation's governors in town this weekend. he will be hosting a dinner tonight. where will the present go with

the -- president go with the gun debate with governors and other elected officials? guest: the governors are in town for their winter meeting and it will be there for a reception with the president and vice president and other administration officials. they come back to the white house tomorrow for a bigger meeting with the president and vice president again and other administration officials. and viceident trump president mike pence said the issue of school safety will be the top item for the series of meetings. this week at the white house, you will again see a focus on school safety and how to make schools safer, how to respond and present school shootings in the wake of the incident almost two weeks ago in parkland, florida. host: the question is how far will the president go on this? because there's been a lot with the nra and the governor of florida saying this time to put an age limit on when you can buy guns. president trump saying it's time

to rescind bump stocks and the president saying we need to on teachers and schools. guest: the president also has said that he would like to do something on the age limit for buying assault style weapons. he is talked about wanting stronger background checks. he called in to fox news last night and did a little telephone interview where he said the white house would very soon be its package of legislation or proposals for school safety. we will have to wait and see how far he is willing to go, but he has put himself out there in support of stronger background age at whichng the someone can purchase an assault style rifle, and he is talked about doing some other things on mental health and this idea of possibly arming teachers and schools. i guess the follow-up to that is how far is he willing to buff the nra if at all? guest: i think that remains to

be seen. he got significant support from the nra during the campaign. he has said they are patriots and wonderful and wonderful people and they want to do the right thing. on nra at this point is record as being against raising the age limit for buying assault style weapons. we have to see how far the one -- willing to buck the nra. you mentioned the nga winter meeting today and tomorrow. will the president be traveling to north carolina on friday for funeral services for reverend billy graham? guest: the white house is not released any details on the president's plans with relation to read and -- to reverend graham. it will be lying in honor in the rotunda on wednesday and thursday. as a possibility the president could go and pay his respects at the capitol instead of going to the funeral in north carolina on friday. host: the me ask you about the

status of the mueller investigation and rick dates -- who is pleading guilty. is the white house more worthy -- word about this or is the president going to say this is a witchhunt? guest: you continue to hear that from the president and he tweeted to that effect last night. but there are people at the white house who are a little bit concerned because remember rick gates was part of the campaign. he was a regular visitor to the white house early in the president's tenure in office and it appears that the investigation is just getting a little bit closer and closer to individuals who were very close to the president. so it's hard not to be concerned when something is -- what an investigation of that kind is getting that close to you. , her darlene super bill work is available in newspapers nationwide.

thank you for being with us. we appreciate it. >> you're welcome. the sermon we will take place wednesday and thursday is reverend billy graham lies in honor and the meeting tomorrow at the president will be having on guns with the nation's governors. for the next half hour, we to get your reaction the democratic memo that was released mid afternoon yesterday. the phone lines are open. republicans, call (202) 748-8001 , immigrants, -- democrats, call (202) 748-8000. hill," has this story at the hill.com that reads as follows -- the 10th asian credit memo charges that the republican memo was wrong to assert that the fbi's investigation of russian election middling resulted from the creation of the so-called steele dossier, and unverified private intelligence document detailing trumps ties to russia.

the credit memo claims the fbi had been investigating trump associates for seven weeks before the dossier, authored by a former british spy, krystal steal -- christopher steele. it means the fbi did not rely on the dossier to obtain the fisa warned -- warrant. to spy on order page. the new democratic memo also reveals that the fisa warrant and the three subsequent manuals were approved by judges who were appointed by republican presidents, both of the memos that added to the debate over the mueller investigation, which shows no sign of slowing down. that's from "the hill," newspaper. your calls and reactions to this house democrat intel memo that was released yesterday. jeff is first up from eden, north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. the memo on the democratic party is the latest futile attempt to protect barack obama and hide the crimes that he masterminded

-- he was the master try to get hillary clinton elected to continue the direction that he wanted to take this country, which is anti-american. i'm just glad that america sees the truth, and eventually, the people that did this to america will go to jail. jeff, thanks for the call. yesterday we covered the finally of the cpac conference, sicker -- conservative political action conference. among those speaking, congress and devin nunes, chair of the house republican committee from california. >> we wanted this out. it's been held up for over two weeks in the fbi and doj right away had told the democrats what was wrong with their memo. or the response to our memo. and they waited for two weeks before they actually did the reductions that were necessary to get this out.

we wanted it out. we wanted out because we think it is clear evidence that the democrats are not only trying to cover this up, but they are also colluding with parts of the government to help cover this up. i think as you read it, you will see personal attacks on myself, personal attacks on german gowdy , with a lot of really interesting things that sound funly bad, like a lot of happening with his russian investigation over the course of the last year. but when you are not going to actuallyything that rejects what was in our memo. and what was the point of our memo? the point of our memo was for one purpose only, and that was to show that fisa abuse had occurred. and to have a secret court the gets abused like this is totally unacceptable and it falls on the job of the legislative branch who created all of this to provide oversight to make sure when we see problems, and we

make -- will of the american people know and all of our congressional colleagues know. so you basically will read in the democratic memo is they are advocating that it is ok for the fbi and doj to use political dirt paid for by one campaign and use it against the other campaign. and i don't care who you are, republican, democrat, or independent, in united states of america, that is unacceptable. host: that's from the republican chair of the house intelligence committee, congress and devin nunes. yesterday at the cpac conference. you can watch the entire event on c-span.org. this is what it looks like. it's that unclassified it is a 10 page memo that details the republican response to the wiretaps that took place during the 2016 campaign. and he is joining us from brooks, georgia on the line for democrats. caller: good morning.

the whole aspect of the fisa deal, i think it's really going the wrong direction with the investigation all of that. thateed to get away from and take care of some of these things like shooting in the schools, where the economy is going, work on those things. he's been the president for all this time and they are all these investigations on and they forgot about the people. host: congress should is the ranking imprint on the house intelligence committee -- adam member onthe ranking the house intelligence committee. quote,uld this republicans release a declassified memo that admitted and key fact in order to mislead the public and impugn the integrity of the fbi. we can now tell you what they left out. on his tweet, that is the 10

page democrat memo. hugo is joining us from fairfax, virginia. independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to say thanks to you and c-span for the service that you perform, just report the news and on balance. i do have some experience working in national security writ large and there is an entire apparatus of people who are not political, and are just working to make sure the laws of and it'sn are enforced really a shame how this entire process has been politicized writ large and i think for the broader americans who were perhaps outside in the community , and outside of these areas, it is so easy for them to perhaps -- the things that here in the things they hear and they see, whether it's in the twitter whether the political side -- i would just say that there are a lot of folks i work with that

are patriotic americans in the end, they are just trying to make sure that the laws of the nation are followed. thanks a lot for the time. story -- news has the the dems rebuttal of the gop fires a memo has been released and it's available online at foxnews.com. it reads as follows -- president trump on saturday dismissed a democratic rebuttal to the gop memo outlining government surveillance abuses in the 2016 campaign. the rebuttal, written by democrats on the house intelligence committee concluded that officials at the fbi and the justice department did not abuse the fisa process, but material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the trump campaign. democrats have vehemently claimed that the republican memo left out important information. republicans on the intel committee responded with rebuttals to the rebuttal, providing more evidence that this battle has legs. read the full story at foxnews.com.

from key sport, pennsylvania, good morning. caller: good morning. fisat to talk about the and also the wiretapping. when this was tv shortly before maybe about a week before obama would be out of office. maybe even two days. report by comey and i watched him constantly, every time they came on. so this one time, right before , he went up to comey after he gave a report in congress and he asked what can i do to go after trump?

trump, butar after what comey says -- you have two things, you can go for wiretapping -- and go to tell you what you look for. this is exactly what he told them. 10p, and i think he is for president. or he says you have a fisa. and he asked -- obama says what do i have to do for that? he says i don't know if you really want to do this, because you have to have a dossier and you have to go and you have to go before a judge and you have to explain to him everything and it has to be dead on like that, real clear before that judge would ever give you a fisa host: permit. thank you for the call.

we go next ike in arkansas. republican line. the house panel releases the democrats rebuttal memo on the fbi and picture commerce and adam schiff. good morning, i. caller: i'm one of those that would give their life for our president, and yesterday, mr. nuñez will be known as a great leader in history. i thought to myself mr. trump, you will be as well. it's like rats and cockroaches that keep running and they have so much invested and there's one other thing that harry truman said -- if you go into the government like the clintons and you leave richer than you went in, you are correct. thanks for listening to it you are a crook -- you are a crook. thank you for listening. host: pronounce this for me.

caller: marcio from angier. host: we got the name and city wrong. we will do it right this time. caller: i feel like this country is indeed do do. wherein hatfield and mccoy territory. the matter what either side is going to say, it's all a political thing and who will be the judge of us? there's nobody who is not partisan, right? we've got to open this legislation and these governing bodies up to more political parties immediately. we've got to get greens and libertarians, socialists, because just these two, back and forth, and everything that sides as is a lie and that -- and everything the other side says -- it's crazy. is either that or we need to secede for each other -- from each other. i hope we can do that peacefully. but this is just crazy.

everything the other side says just to throw whoever is in office out of power. this is crazy. host: marcia, thank you for the call from north carolina. coming up in 15 minutes is michaels for college -- smerconish. we hoped to have david hogg with us, but he won't be joining us today. we hope to reschedule him. he is one of the students, a senior at douglas high school, the scene of that shooting in parkland, florida a week and a half ago. some headlines from south florida, this is the sun sentinel in fort lauderdale. he would stare into your soul. from the 2017 yearbook picture of nikolas cruz, the person who pled guilty to killing 17 and

injuring more than a dozen others february 14. from the miami herald, the lives they lead, looking at the 17 students and faculty members who were shot and killed without ar-15 rifle. and from the palm beach post, lives and communities forever changed. a look in particular a parkland, florida in broward county. and finally, from the sunday statesman journal, changing the rules. how teens are driving the florida shooting debate. place march 24g here in washington, d.c., we will have coverage of that on c-span networks. back to the house democratic memo, released yesterday afternoon. the president an interview on the fox news channel yesterday had this to say. president trump: he leaves the meeting and he calls of reporters and all of a sudden they have news and you're not supposed to do that. it's probably illegal to do it. he will have a committee meeting

and he will leak all sorts of information. he's a bad guy. but certainly the memo was a nothing. it confirmed basically -- it confirmed -- i washed -- i i will ms. heritage and tell you that that was really just a confirmation of -- if you call of the republican memo, , that wasez memo nothing but a confirmation. and a lot of bad things happen on the other side. not on the side, but the other side. they should look into it. because what they did is really fraudulent. and somebody should be looking into that. and my somebody, i'm talking about you know who. host: that was the president yesterday phoning it on the fox news channel is the house democratic memo has been released and the story is available at nytimes.com.

blockeds after trump it, democratic rebuttal of that gop memo is released and here are some of the details. the joint accounts reflected in a ordinary struggle on the committee to try to shape public perceptions on the credibility of the nation's top law enforcement agencies for weeks instead of focusing its full energy on investigating an attack on the american democratic system. the committee has been pulled into a furious effort i mr. trump and his allies to sow doubts about the integrity of the special counsel's inquiry and the agencies conducting a. the democratic memo amounted to a forceful rebuttal to the president's portrayal of the russian paris is a witch hunt to politicallyrated by biased leaders of the fbi and the justice department. the release was expected to be the final volley, at least for now, in a bitter partisan fight over surveillance that has driven deep fissures are the ones bipartisan intelligence committee. the full story is available at nytimes.com and don is joining us from salinas, california.

republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. the democratic memo that comes out, it pretty much verifies what i thought this fisa warrant was fraudulently gotten. this dossier comey testified in front of congress that it was an unverifiable and salacious, this dossier. yet they pushed this dossier on to a fisa judge. you can't put unverified, salacious evidence in front of a judge to obtain a warrant, number one. this is really ridiculous. and even the democratic memo, they said they mention almost in passing, some of this mighty political in nature. author hatedy the donald trump. they don't say hillary clinton and the dnc put tens of millions of dollars into this dossier to her donald trump.

if the judge would have known this, do you really think he would've issued a warrant? he would have at the very least throw this out. was means this warrant gotten fraudulently. and any evidence obtained using this warrant should be thrown out of any court in the land. host: thanks for the call. the weapon of choice, the ar-15. now the center of the controversy over gun rights activists and those calling for restrictions. the front page story of the oklahoman. next is robert joining us for manchester, england. this program is carried live every sunday on the bbc's parliament channel. thanks for listening and watching. go ahead, robert. caller: thank you for letting me have a word on this one. i've been listening to president forp and i must commend him having this debate he is having on gun control and so forth. i think we have actually missed some of the points that need to be addressed on here. anybody that has any sort of modicum of knowledge on the fact of it is it's the fight between

good and evil. if we don't recognize this is a battle between the forces of good and evil, and we have already lost the battle already. the thing is that before world war ii, pope pius the 11th brought forward a metal, which is the holy face of christ and he advised of your buddy to wear it as a protection. it's being used in this country for many, many years. i will tell you a very quick story, there was a choppy -- chappie who was a tank commander was going over his third tour of duty and i'm afraid that all my batteries have died in battle. i'm scared stiff and the owner of the shop gave him the sacred face of christ medal. you can get this on the internet. he took it out with him and it was a tank battle the just

finished and three tanks were lined up in the chap was in the middle and the other two tanks, some of you knocked out the other two tanks and the one he was in, they were all saved. all arrangement want to this particular medal. without a talisman, it doesn't mean you do pray to christ and invoking for protections. one of his titles as the prince of peace. like yourselves, we've got crime over here, mainly knife crime as opposed to gun crime. the one these prayers are actually said, it's been proved by the people in birmingham, the crime wave was huge in the group of christians all got together and started praying for the cessation of crime and the crime wave literally virtually went down to nothing. in our schools over here and in the states, we've actually taken christ out of the schools. we need to put them back. america and britain need to get back into pricing believe in

christ is you pray, you get the answer. if you don't pray then something else substitutes and gets in. we all need to get to a belief in god and also attending mass on sunday. we watched to see this actually happened because christ is the prince of peace. host: for manchester england, thanks for weighing in. was the back to the issue of the democratic memo released yesterday. it is a rebuttal to the republican memo and yesterday, the republicans have a rebuttal to the rebuttal. they called the democrats memo charge in response. christopher steele's wrong intelligence reporting to not inform the fbi's decision to initiate its counter tolerance -- counterintelligence investigation. the republican response, information about trump campaign advisor george papadopoulos triggered the opening of an fbi counterintelligence investigation in late july, 2016, by fbi agent gators drop.

investigation was fueled by chris for steele dossier. a rather lengthy response to the response and we are closing in .n our website at c-span.org corey from st. louis, missouri, democrat line. your reaction to all of this. caller: good morning. my thing is, with the killer in florida, with all the supposed attempts that were given, people -- i'm speaking on the right. tips to of been considered and the fbi and whomever else to go out and do whatever they would've needed to do to that killer in florida. but when tips are given about potential traders in the country , people are worried about the process, when the process is protecting the country. and when you have potential traders on it up to the

president, why are we defending that? the devin nunes is on the transition team, to me it's as if he is putting so much emphasis on trying to preserve the pfizer process against carter page and whomever else that they've got a warrant for. he's trying to protect himself from something. way togo out of their protect things that stevie wonder can see, and he's a blind man. host: corridor from st. louis. the only way the president trump memo is like the other memo is if you didn't read them which is highly likely. the are looking into clinton collusion with the fbi, doj, and department of state.

pelosi responders all this yesterday, she says the release of the house intelligence committee democrats memo helped set the record straight on republicans attempts to obstruct the investigation into the trunk russia scandal. david is joining us from greenville, tennessee. caller: good morning. i appreciate c-span for a clean break of water. think willthing i ultimately be tied all the way back to the irs issues with lois lerner. it's all the same flavor of kool-aid. it goes all the way back. and hopefully when all is said and done, it will show everything that has gone on in the tremendous amounts of been allowedat is to live and breed in the d.c.

area. host: another tweet from liberty, president trump's desperate phone call into the fox news channel, very telling. presented them about it later chuck schumer of new york also with a series of tweets and this is saying over the weekend. the democratic memo makes toirman is -- chairman nuñez sow discord and undermine our nation's premier law-enforcement agency. he went on to say when it comes to the russians interfering with our elections, speaker ryan, president trump, devin nunes, and the house gop need to stop playing politics and stoking conspiracies and instead let the congressional and special counsel robert mueller and the investigation run their course unimpeded. finally says by initially delaying the release of the memo, president trump nervously silenced any democratic in this ever get conspiracy theory pushed by chairman nuñez.

there is something the president is afraid of. that this morning from the senate democratic leader. chuck schumer. darlene is joining us from goldfield, oregon. democrats line. caller: good morning. i would be interested in what chairman nuñez is receiving, whether there will be a position for him or money, because he will not have a political career in california after this. the california bay area in particular, even though we have silicon valley, northern california is actually a very they may looknd like rubes in some parts, but they are not stupid and i really want to know what mr. nunez sold his soul for. host: thank you for the call. charlie savage has a piece, five takeaways from the release of the democratic memo inside the

"new york times," available at nytimes.com. some of his conclusions include the following. the fbi is only a small part of the information provided by christopher steele, the yahoo! news article was not used to corroborate mr. steele, republican reported judge -- appointed judge approving the wiretap of mr. page and it did generate useful intelligence. daniel is joining us from ross, texas. caller: i like to comment about mueller. directoras the fbi during 9/11. aboutore concerned protecting the fbi then he is america. i wouldn't trust him as far as i can throw him. looking the iron on to investigate donald trump. partisan hacks. you don't care about russia, this all occurred under president obama.

lifebeen a democrat all my , and i heard the woman, barbara jordan from texas, used to come to us and talk to us. and she said the white folks have found them some new slaves. she was referring to illegal immigrants. california used to be the number one state in the union. i was out there in the military. it looks like a third world country, san francisco does. angeles to from los portland, oregon, you'd have people sleeping in the streets. and there's almost $1 trillion in debt. host: daniel from ross, texas. you mentioned robert mueller. looking at robert mueller and donald trump, born 22 months apart and yet their careers in many respects running parallel in new york city. robert mueller's tenure as head

of the fbi is available at washington post.com. we'll take a short break and when we come back, michael smerconish. will be joining us. as "washington journal," continues on the sunday morning, february 25. we are back in a moment. >> this week on "the communicators." >> that hubby and i was borderless. -- i thought the internet was borderless. >> it can be borderless, that it shines out the medium that we thought was going to give voice to the voiceless, and in many cases, did empower the powerless, can also be used by dictators, by terrorists, by dark political money.

to undermine democracy. and we have got to address that problem. state of the net conference held in washington, d.c., we discussed the impact of tonight elegy -- of technology on voting. monday on c-span's landmark cases, we look at the supreme court case mcculloch v maryland, a case that solidify the federal government's ability to take actions not exquisitely mentioned in the constitution and restrictive state action against the legitimate use of this power. explore this case and the high court's ruling with university of virginia associate law professor fair peterson and markkula back, university of law professor and author of the following maryland, special ecology maryland. listen with the free c-span radio app and for background on

each case come over a copy of the landmark cases companion book, available $3.95 plus shipping and handling at c-span.org/landmark cases. as a link on our website to the national constitution center's interactive constitution. >> "washington journal," continues. host: joining us from philadelphia is author and radio talkshow host and cnn michael smerconish. you called what happened in south florida intelligence failure of another proportion. your thoughts. -- of an epic proportion. your thoughts. the gun'm listening to debate playing itself out across the country and i think some very important conversations are being held. pardon my pessimism. in the aftermath of sandy hook and las vegas, i'm not

optimistic that there will be significant change brought about with regard to gun policy. , maybe someweaking age changes, maybe bump stocks will be banned, but nothing monumental. and what occurs to me is that there's an issue out there that really drove the series of events, which we should all agree. and that issue is that yes, those are my words. but this was an intelligence failure of epic proportions. every single day, there are new revelations about how this guy, whose name i hate to say, sometimes i have to say it, but how he was so well known to so many different institutions. he was not ted kaczynski. he was not off the grid and living out west in a cabin somewhere using a manual typewriter. he was known for social media. he was known for the department of children and families. he was known through the broward

sheriff's office, he was known for his purchase of the ar-15, he was known for his school record. and each one of these instances, plus at least two specific reports that were made to the fbi, one that came from the mississippi bail bondsman who said hey, there's a guy who just posted at youtube using the name nikolas cruz, who says he wants to be a professional school shooter, by the way, "washington post," says annex a search revealed there were only 22 , in the january 5 phone call that came into the fbi were a woman says i want get it off my chest, i don't want to have the guilt associated with this guy if he does what i think he's going to do. i'm paraphrasing now, but go and shoot of the school. everyone of these instances represent an opportunity for some cross tabbing of data.

i often expresses on the radio the following terms. we live in such a google and facebook and amazon and apple world, where we can't make a move without some commercial force tracking our interest levels, and yet at this particular instance, it doesn't seem as if law enforcement -- of not being critical of law enforcement, i'm saying give law enforcement the technology that silicon valley has and allow some of the use of data management, data integration. my final thought is forcing him ting him should have been accused of away, but the left hand in the right-hand don't know what the other is doing and they don't know the other exists. host: is this different from sandy hook? you mentioned the high school students, there's going to be a march next month and we saw what was happening in tallahassee, we are hearing from juniors and seniors speaking of very vocally.

does this make it any different in the debate over guns? guest: i think that it might. the march 24 event is huge and i said on sirius xm potus but we hear so ago that it would be mistake of the students allow allowed their efforts to be oropted by the donors hollywood celebrities and i see that now as i read in this morning, number of people are coming to the same conclusion. ,he more organic that remains the more potent it will be as a political force. if it becomes over as marge or george clooney's march, i think it will actually lose some of the appeal. they don't need celebrities, they don't need money, frankly. all they need other iphones to make this thing huge. thatmay be some change comes from it, and i'm not presenting to you an either/or, i'm just saying as we concentrate on the weapons and we have an intelligent discussion about the second amendment, can we please do a better job managing data, and

making sure that we stop the next one by the free flow of information? beganpart of the debate friday on your program heard from not involved in on serious xm channel 124 and i suspect oral as well. -- tomorrow as well. the nra debate and corporations, the headline companies cutting ties to the nra but find there is no neutral ground. in the aftermath of the deadly school shooting in florida last week, businesses were making the same financial and moral calculus, quickly discovering there is no neutral ground and pressure mounted across various social media platforms on friday. a number of corporations, including car companies like enterprise, metlife insurance, symantec security software and truth are abruptly announcing plans to cut ties with the organization. , the actionsonish continued saturday with delta and united airlines both issuing

statements saying they were ending discount programs with the nra, leaving retails, including cabela's, bass pro undernd walmart coming up renewed fire for selling guns are sponsoring nra events. guest: to appoint, there is no middle ground. people look at this without any areas of compromise. it support and to remember this is not the way it has always been. in the 80's, i was an nra member. they lost me when it became so refusing to give on any issue. the jambalaya in the sand and they never backed away from it, but that's not the nra of 30 years ago. it's become that now. it's a shame that compromises such a dirty word in washington on this and so many other issues. because i think there are areas where reasonable minds ought to be able to reach some agreement. often do you appear on the radio beside serious xm

channel 124? guest: i don't. my primary job -- i'd say my day job is nine to noon live, three hours a day, 15 hours a week on serious xm's potus channel which we are on right now, the program gets rebroadcast and 9:00 p.m. eastern, so i'm responsible 15 hours a week of radio content on serious xm. i have a weekly show on cnn and i appear on cnn throughout the course of the week and do a lot of election work for them as well. and i write for the littlefield inquirer and i speak to private groups across the country. those four activities are what keep me busy. of thehis has been part debate on your program -- when will we call you dr. michael smerconish? guest: you can already, because i deliver the commencement address at wagner university two years ago and i was awarded a dr. of humane letters.

i guess if i go the way of cosby and donna shalala, i should say you should already call me dr., my tongue is planted firmly in my cheek when i say that. agriculturet me dr. -- you want to be a doctor of agriculture? guest: i'm giving a commencement address this spring, and they are known for their horticulture. i have a tomato gardens i'm very proud of and i kind of joked on the radio, you're embarrassing me now, but i joked on the radio that i would love it to be a doctor of horticulture, although when i said that, a real doctor, a phd of horticulture called to say you don't want that, because friends will ask you to identify all sorts of green plants and you won't know the answer. that made some sense. host: what is tc going to call you dr. smerconish? guest: we keep waiting for her

tc after dark show to air and i'm hoping that serious xm will give her a channel's logic. i think it should be the howard stern channel. host: michael smerconish joining us from philadelphia, from your home in philadelphia, correct? guest: i do a lot of work it makes it easier to be able to appear with you. if i lose that image behind me i will have to turn around and turn it back on. host: ralph is joining us from morgantown, west virginia. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. i was born and raised here in west virginia, both my father and grandfather were coal miners . when i was a years old for my birthday, i received a 20 gauge shotgun so that i could go squirrel hunting with my father and grandfather. think things have gone a little overboard when i literally can leave my house and in one minutes, i can be at a sporting goods store and they

actually are selling a 50 caliber machine gun, military style. down in the store. i can go in there and probably within a matter of 30 minutes, walk out of that store with a 50 caliber machine gun. absurd the point that we have came to. i believe, in this country. here in west virginia, we have an open carry law. i do not even have to get a permit, i go in, show my drivers license, and within 10 to 15 minutes, i can walk out with any type of weapon, gun, semiautomatic, bump stocks to convert them to automatic weapons, and the nra, they think the solution is more guns? i just can't imagine our society is every single person you would encounter on the street would be armed. host: thanks for the call.

we will give him a chance to respond. guest: the caller exit great deal of sense to me. he represents my sensibilities, although some of your viewers might not think they are so sensible. that's the kind of conversation we were having in the 80's. without alienating the national rifle association. but somewhere along the way, the line was drawn in the sand and the notion took hold that they just could not give an inch and they have been very successful in convincing their base, i mean the nra and second amendment purists, and thinking that if they relent on anything, that it's going to be the sacrifice of the second amendment and big brother is going to come for all your weapons as well as rameau. host: this tweet from a viewer saying the nra may have finally overplayed his hand. we shall see. your thoughts? lapierrewatched wayne

at cpac, he is a gifted orator and he was stoking his audience with the comments that he made. i think that the gun culture is so deeply ingrained in the united states that there will not be a significant shift, which is why i say can we focus on something we can get done, which is better data integration? to the nra overplay its hand? not as far as the basis concerned. michael, andeet -- let between with you but i can never remember how to spell your name. guest: i get a lot of that. it's actually pretty frenetic. when we were growing up, my father, whose name was walter, if i care for making a dinner reservation, we were always the walters already of -- party of four. it was too tiring to spell smerconish.

i was on "the view," and before going out on stage, barbara walters was there, she was one of the cohosts and she was struggling with my name and she said you were a guy, why didn't you change your name? i didn't have the heart to tell her the growing up were always using hers. host: what is the etymology of smerconish? guest: it's from the austro-hungarian empire in my father's side of the family come from. i can narrow the two villages within three miles of one another in current poland, where his side of the family came from. columbia ands from my mother's side of the family is all montenegrin. we've been to yugoslavia and on the prince george. ur.done the roots to

we had their version of a royal warrant in his tiny boom store -- boot store because he may choose for the king. host: you write a lot of your website, including the following -- the president can no longer say with a straight face that reports of russia's meddling are a hoax. and the president should now be held accountable for his refusal to support congress's bid to sanction the russians for the interference. notice the robert mueller himself not make the announcements, no doubt he learned from jim comey how not to handle such important announcements. before rob rosenstein's doj announced that we get ago, the media was speculating and could be about the florida shooting. we have no idea what robert mueller knows. guest: i penned that for my website right after the 37 page indictments of the 13 russian nationals was announced. and so many things are, worthy about that. mind is stuck out in my

that on a friday afternoon, i remember i was driving in my car and i was listening to cnn on satellite radio and rosenstein was scheduled to speak at about 1:15. he spoke at 1:30 i was a single panel discussion where a very intelligent people were disagreeing about the subject matter of rosenstein's remarks. we were within 15, 20 minutes of him announcing a 37 page indictment of 13 russian nationals on the speculation was that he was going to speak on the florida school shooting and my point, steve, is that is how under wraps mueller has been, that town that leaks like a sieve, nobody saw coming what he was about to drop. and given the level of detail in that indictment, yes, i believe that the president does the president now so i wasn't talking about this being a hoax i was talking about that being a

hoax. there is nothing hoax like about this. the russians were trying to screw with our electoral system and therefore begs the question of why the president didn't go along with congress and the sanctions, which were a direct response to the meddling. host: i lost count of how to books you have written, but your most recent one is coming out soon. this is based on the opening of your program, clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, a collection of essays you have written. how many years have you written for the philadelphia inquirer? guest: since 2001. i have written somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 columns for both the philadelphia daily news and the inquirer, searchable university press is releasing this in the spring and my fingers are crossed that book tv will join me at the launch from c-span. i hope you will put in a word for me because that would make it a real event, but it's 100 columns of the 1200 i have

written, i have penned a new afterword for everyone of them. i didn't just mail the sin. i recorded every one of the columns and the after words for there will be a verbal edition as well. plenty of things i got wrong, and i admit them in this book. some things i was ahead of the curve and some columns are just fun to revisit. we appreciate the book tv blog and absolutely we appreciate the chance talk about the book when it comes out this spring. one of the essays -- it on of the picture of you in philadelphia when you were a teenager, but suffice to say you had more hair back then than you do now. he wrote about the eagles and you said the eagles are not members of congress, if they are invited, i hope they will attend. certain moments call for rising above partisan politics and oval office encounter is one such milestone. respect the office, if not the president, i say.

what brought this all about? guest: that didn't go over so well, but the eagles are just won the super bowl, something we have been waiting for my entire life in this town and it has been and still remains a huge deal. so i started thinking ok, inevitably, they get an invitation to go to the white house and spend some time with the president. go?ld they go? will they in a number of players that if invited, they would not go. i wanted to reflect on that. when i say they are not members of congress, i'm going back to the inauguration. at the time of the trump inauguration, there were a number of democrats who sat it out and i don't approve of that. i think that certain events demand that you respect the office and the inauguration is certainly one of them. if hillary clinton could be standing five feet away from donald trump when he is sworn in , i think every democratic member of the senate and the house should have been there.

i recognize a super bowl victory is not inauguration. to make thetrying area and on balance, i would like the eagles to go. and to the extent that they have a political belief with the president, respect the dignity of the office and walk out of the pennsylvania avenue and say your piece. host: you ran for office before. any political aspirations in your future? guest: iran in 1986 when i was 24 years old for the pennsylvania state legislature. i was a full-time law student at the university of pennsylvania at the time and i lost by 419 votes and i have since located 236 of those people. host: in painesville, ohio. that was next. guest: that was a joke. host: i know. go ahead. caller: i watch your show on saturday mornings, mr. smerconish. inre was a gun ban enacted

1994 and nobody talks about it. it's like as if it didn't happen and it was in effect for eight clip,and they had the they couldn't have a big magazine. you can buy those. and then something happened ande they let it expire these people that were killed in the last 10 years, all of them would be alive today. they would not been able to buy that military gun. host: thank you. guest: ar-15. referring to the assault weapons ban, i think. i look at this in a big picture sense. fox, he had aat terrific encapsulation of the u.s. gonzález a versus the rest of the world and its expressed in charts and graphs.

my take away is this. we don't have a monopoly in this country on those with mental illness or those with a propensity towards violence. and yet, we are unique in terms of the level of gun violence that we have. what explains it? more who are any mentally imbalanced or struggling with issues than the rest of the globe, but we are those among us who have those issues. the rest of the world is not. once the data -- what is the data? 4% of the world's population and 40 plus percent of the firearms? therein lies the imbalanced. i don't say this as some anti-gun type, i own firearms. but we have too many. and they are in too many hands. that's the issue. smerconish, you have been on the issue of the pennsylvania congressional map for a long time and the supreme court of pennsylvania now ordering a new set of lines have

been drawn. the new map for pennsylvania's 18 congressional districts, to those who have not been following this with the old map looked like him including a reference to some disney characters and your reaction to these set have been drawn -- these new lines that have been drawn. guest: the second congressional district west of philadelphia in the suburbs currently held by representative tenney on -- pat meehan. that's the one i speak around the country, and a map from michigan, that's the line i often call out and say this is the gerrymandering problem, because it does resemble when you lift it out, donald duck kicking goofy. it was drawn to protect him and i believe in dave daly's book, which is wrapped like -- rat blank, and the way the gop gerrymanderinght

to any level after the aftermath of the 2010 census. i'm glad that handling his map is being redrawn and it is still the subject of some challenge because as you know steve, now the public and members of congress and federal court are trying to thwart the use of a new map. i like that it gives more counties together and i think the gerrymandering is a real problem in this country. i think according to nate silver, about 35 of the 435 congressional districts in the country are competitive in a presidential race, meaning the margin will be decided within five percentage points, but i never addressed gerrymandering without also making this point, if you will permit me. a problem gerrymandering, gerrymandering has existed for a long time, it just never made as sophisticated as it is today. big data has changed that. but don't overlook the fact that we are still sorting, we are self gerrymandering, we are

choosing to both associate with and live among the like-minded. and that is a big problem. host: larry is next in fort worth, texas. good morning. michael smerconish is joining us from philadelphia on the sunday. caller: good morning, c-span. i'm another fan of yours and i watch your show every saturday. you alwaysbecause speak truth to power. but what i want to ask you is if this killer in florida, if he had been a muslim, impersonal color, do you think the fbi might have gotten a different result? guest: i think that is the mississippi bill bondsman call the fbi and said there's a guy who posted on youtube and he says i wish to be the next professional school shooter, alluha akbar, i don't think it

would have dropped. especially not where they were 22 individuals with that name -- my 17-year-old could have raced through those 17 nikolas cruzes and identified this guy in a matter of minutes. host: this is the headline i want you to give your reaction on. mexican president trip on hold after a spat with president trump and my guess is you might be talking about this tomorrow morning as well. it reads as follows -- tentative plans for the mexican president any nato to meet with president trump were scuttled this week after a testing call between the two leaders ended at an impasse over the presidents promised border wall. according to u.s. and mexican officials, the mexican president was eyeing an official trip to washington this month or in march and the two devoted a considerable portion of their roughly 50 minute conversation to the wall and neither man would compromise his position.

one mexican officials said president trump quote lost his temper, but u.s. officials described him as being frustrated. guest: i wonder what was the substance of the disagreement? was it over construction of the wall or construction and funding in the wall? i've been surprised some of the negotiations taking place between democrats and republicans and the willingness of chuck schumer and his colleagues to provide some level of funding in return for protection for the daca residence of the united states. wondering, steve, where is the accountability for the president, in terms of those who voted for him based on the promise that he would build it and mexico would fund it? if the democrats go along with the dog a deal that includes funding, they will take president trump off the hook in that regard. but how many times did we hear him say not only that he will build it, but he would make them pay for it? i don't see how that materializes.

host: the daca debate is back with house and senate lawmakers returning this week and the deadline is march 5. it's caught in court litigation. what's going to happen? to see someld like level of protection afforded to those obtained here through no fault of their own. i do not believe in the end that the president will cast them aside. it's hard to read him, and i have certainly been wrong at least as often as i have been right about him. i did not see his election victory coming, that's for sure. but in the end, i cannot see that he will abandon them. i think he will offer them some level of protection and more choosing to me is whether there is some type of negotiation for the wall construction. host: what is your routine of repairing for your show, monday through friday? guest: i'm never untethered from being online. guest: i am constantly inking

about tomorrow's show, whether a television program, or column. we try to have 50% of the radio show booked in advance, and half of it left open so we can react to the news of the day. you referenced my producer. she has been with me a long time. tremendous, confidence, bright. she is to be a montessori teacher of our kids. my wife and i have four children and she taught three of the boys. aam very lucky to have such skilled and gifted person to work with me. we spend much more time preparing a show than delivering it. by the time i get on-air tomorrow, on 9:00 a.m. on serious xm potus channel, i am on cruise control because we have mapped it out. i know what i am doing and ours flyby. host: t.c. stands for what?

guest: i hope i do not get in trouble, but teresa cannon, which is her maiden name. she is from the foothills of north carolina and was startled when her family first made a trip to new york city by all the yellow cars. they were not sure what to make of that. that is a joke to her benefit because she is watching, i'm sure. host: and we are laughing, t.c. this is carried live on the potus channel 124 on sundays. it is hard coast-to-coast on sirius xm radio. check out that free radio app. do you have one? guest: i do not have an app but i am proud of my website. for a long time, it is smerconish.com, a mouthful, but it is where people would go to get my bio, clips of television appearance and so forth.

i have been frustrated over the lack of good web content that is non-doctrinaire, not ideological to the left or right, so i have been building my website to try and become a clearinghouse of independent thinking. on a day like today, if you go to my site, you will only see original content. a lot of aggregated links during the course of the week. frankly, we are headed in a direction where we will soon all be independent content and unpredictable. you might get a conservative person writing a piece or a liberal one, but it is not like all one way or the other because that is not the way americans i need to leave their lives. . make this point all the time it is not about c-span, but if you tune into the cable world, you come away with the impression you have to be one way or the other.

i am leading my life, i do not meet people like that. if i am pumping gas or grocery shopping, i meet people for whom the issues are a mixed bag. it is a whole host of things that they don't have figured out. through my contribution, i want to make the media world more reflective of those somewhere between the ideological extremes of this country. texas,ob is next from good morning. thank you. three things. [indiscernible] how can they finally get the -- i'm media admit sorry, there is a delay. i will take a couple of brief things to try to help some of

party heldts, but to a meeting -- the tea party held a meeting and they wanted to get the far left to admit how far the socialists are, and all that. just cap donald trump say a few nice things about the russians and you will have this huge outburst on the far west and maybe investigations. that succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. the far left people are puppets dancing on tea party strength. in the gun shootings, i happen to be in the mgm grand, and the men was walking out the south exit. he was in loud voices telling people that trump supporters needed to be beaten and shot. i tried talking to some police people and i have a son working

on a masters degree in criminology, look, they could get the videos of the guy doing this. you don't have to take my word for it, but there is no interest in vegas at all. this guy was killing them because he hated trump. dozens of people have to hear it because it is a crowded, good hotel. asre is the grand, it is good as any in vegas. host: we will get a response. thank you. two different points, russia and the gun issue. guest: i am not quite sure how to respond. relative to russia, i will say this, the president likes to repeat their is no sign of collusion, and he says collusion conspiracy would be a more accurate term, legally speaking to use. remember, we have not seen anything from robert mueller

pertaining to the hack. the 37 page indictment and 13 russian nationals had to do with other aspects of meddling the not the hack of the dnc server i want to underline that while the president's rights, there has been a public showing of evidence or collusion. what robertw mueller has on the hack. host: debbie from alabama, independent line. good morning. caller: hi. i love c-span. i have two questions and then i will listen to your answers. i hope you answer both. first, it is really true that the u.s. and russia had interfered in politics forever. it seems like this whole outrage and surprise is silly deliberately. the main question i have is does it bother you that barack obama sent campaign operatives with a lot of money into israel to try to defeat our allies?

benjamin netanyahu in his reelection campaign. i feel like that was wrong and i would like to know what you think. host: i believe the number was $325,000 reported that we had spent in israel on that election. this is a subject that comes up with the regularity my program. people say, haven't we done this over the span of many years? i think the evidence reveals we had engaged in regime change and attempted change through the ballot box, as well. does that mean that we sit back and take it with regard with russia and chalk it up to something that goes on in the course of business? i don't think we can do that. it may have been a hack at the dnc but today, that there were attempts at manipulating the polling. we cannot let russians or anyone else undermines our system of democracy. i would like to have said to the

caller, ok, i would grant to the united states' hands may not be clean historically, but what would you like us to do about it? if the president does not acknowledge it, it makes me concerned he is not fighting it to prevented in the midterm or the 2020 presidential election. host: brian from northeastern washington, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. can you hear me? host: go ahead. caller: excellent. nish, i am glad i caught you. i do not know how many times i have watched your show, and i'm not in internet person. i feel that i am almost ignored because we are not wanting to get on the computer and get on the internet. if you would entertain me i have an occasional column showing, i

know it is more work, but out of dedicated viewers, i think you owe us one. host: ok. i am: i was going to say totally up for that. i do not know -- look, i used to love larry king and that 9:00 hour when he would say, cleveland, hello, and take a live call, and everyone's in a while, someone would drop in. it was fun. i am trying to re-create that. steve, you know he is referring to the fact that i respond to tweets during the course of my program that i do not know are coming. i say i do not want to know the comment because i trying to replicate what we do on radio. i have raised with my producer at cnn on occasions, i would love to take -- like you are doing now, live telephone call ends. i think that would be fun. host: let me ask you about your

facebook postings. they will find you get 2000 people to 5000 people watching and reposting it. has that surprised you the growth of what you are doing on facebook, and how many people are watching your content? guest: i was facebook illiterate until about one year ago, and somebody said to me, what you need to do is turn on your phone before you turn to your radio and look at the issues of the day. i have gotten used to doing that. i am shocked by the number of people who do that. normally, 10,000 people will initially watching, and not have access from it. and we try to figure out why we did one that went viral and we have no idea. it is funny to see the ebb and .low but it is very raw it is me holding a phone and saying the democratic response to the nunez memo and then

we send it to cyberspace. host: how much do you learn from your kids when it comes to social media and technology? guest: they have such short fuses with the old man. that, and they get frustrated so easily that i candidly do not get much help from them. host: we will go to north carolina. go ahead. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i am calling in regard to the tragedy in florida. aboutk they keep talking how this young man fell through racks because police had gone to his home so many times, .nd fbi made a mistake i think that there should be some discussion about florida

law because even though they went to his home so many times, they may have been constrained by florida law about what they were legally able to do. there has been some discussion florida, baker act in and how someone can be held for 72 hours against their will for a mental status examination. what they do not explain is that toy only have the options hold somebody for 72 hours. host: thank you for the call. guest: i think her point is well made. to circle back to where we began the conversation, as florida authorities were assessing whether they had enough level of concern under the baker act to

involuntarily hospitalized or maintain some level of control over the guy who became the shooter, my argument is they should have had access to much more data that was out there but that they were unaware of. for example, the complaint that was raised about a youtube posting, where he had said, i went to be the next professional shooter. if all data points were tied together, i would like to think there would have been sufficient red flags they could have held him, maybe a charge of terroristic threats brought against him, but it seems each instance is a one-off, where the department of families knew this, and the broward sheriff's office knew this, and the school knew this, and the fbi was told this, but no inherent access to all of it. that is the sharing of information this case calls out for. host: let's turn to the politics

. governor rick scott is expected to announce he will run, appearing on fox news today. he came forth with his own proposals to try and curb florida's gun laws but he has received an a plus rating from the nra. how this layout and a potential senate bid in florida? guest: it is still a purple state, so governor scott needs to tread carefully. i noted in the cnn town hall earlier in the week marco rubio evidenced some give on these issues, and he has been held in high regard by the nra. you have the two most high takele -- i will not anything away from senator nelson -- but scott and rubio are the two most high-profile florida elected officials, both showing some gave the aftermath of this. if it had taken place in somebody else's date, not theirs, would that be the case?

i'm not sure. i understand why the two of them would feel the need to approach the issue differently but what about a governor of a different state who has been very strong in advocacy for the nra? that i have not seen yet. host: richard from wyoming, republican line. caller: you know, michael, i watched your program yesterday, but you were talking earlier about what happened to the nra back in the 1980's, and what happens, if you google cincinnati revolt, that is when congress got input from the nra and they wanted to pass a saturday night special bill, and the nra leadership said, our members are not interested in saturday night specials, so go ahead. was ahe bill came out, it mile long. they had the single action army 45 that were in rogers -- that way rogers -- that rory rogers

used on the list. they had adjustable sides, safeties, and everything, and that is when they had the cincinnati revolt, where the membership said, what are you doing to us? cooperating with these people who want to get rid of our guns. what i really wanted to get to was the broward county solution. if you google broward county solution, a lot comes up, but the original article was inlished february 20, 2018 the american thinker. if i had time to read short paragraphs -- host: just one sentence because we don't have a lot of time. caller: anyway, i think your third choice on your pull yesterday should have been political correctness because this thing -- one line says -- one to kill her motivation behind a program like broward county's was the pressure from multiple sources to reduce the

statistical disparity between black and hispanic student arrests, and white and asian, and they call it a pipeline. -- the school to prison pipeline. host: thank you. guest: the poll he reversed to, website is when what i said the florida school shooting is more to beatable -- more attributable to a failure of data integration, which is what i argued for, then gun policy. we still have it up, 17,000 plus people have voted. it is a close margin, that which i was advocating the data integration is losing out to gun policy, but people can still vote on that. i am optimistic that by tomorrow, that might switch. host: we have one or two more calls. our -- i love the fact you have

an independent line. i think it is so essential because in the media, it is presented as a stark contrast. they are republican, democrat, and liberals, and that is not a world in which we live. 42%rding to gallup, between and 45% of this country regard themselves as i's, not as r's or important thet is welcome mat be rolled out to all to participate and not just extreme. it is not a box or msn world. that may be good for ratings, but there are a lot of us somewhere in between and that is overlooked. host: i had ask, is there room for an independent to get elected in this country? i know you have been focused on this, as well. guest: there is going to be a press conference on tuesday,

where the center's project is going to announce how many quality individuals are running in this cycle as independents for gubernatorial or senate positions. i will not steal their thunder but there are good folks stepping forward. you have to have candidates that are not fringe types but quality people with credentials and can raise money and attempt to do it. i thought the libertarian ticket in the last cycle with two former republican governors who had governed in blue states, had a lot of credentials. gary johnson had that aleppo moment, which was unfortunate, and the media that had ignored the ticket. cap until then, they pounced on the opportunity to criticize him because he made a mistake. i had been opted -- optimistic that if they had a good showing, they could have set the table for the debate stage.

forink it is a right moment a change and good candidates could get elected. host: clowns to the left of me, jokers to the rights, the latest book of yours. you have written how many? guest: this is number seven. it comes out june 1. i am not making a dime. proceeds go to the children's crisis treatment center, which helps the most afflicted urban youth in philadelphia. this project is a labor of love for me, and i am really excited about the release in the spring. host: joyce has been waiting, republican line, houston, texas. nra is let me say the not our problem. the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. we can get rid of every gun in the united states of america. if hearts are not changed,

triggers will still go off. i am an 85-year-old senior i am always accused of being about 20 years old not knowing what i'm talking about. i know what i am talking about. guns are not the problem. i have owned one over 40 years. i do not care what kind of bump stocks they make, i am not going out to purchase one because my heart is here. i love people. i do things to help people, not to destroy. like i said, this knee-jerk reaction going on now -- i do not deal in that kind of foolis hness. i deal in facts. the fact is we need to change our thinking. our hearts need to be changed. i remember back in the day -- proud towhen they were

put this on? remember that? little kids were wearing guns around their waist. go back and think about where we have come from and where we are today. please, it is not the guns. all these organizations that are cutting ties with nra, that is so insane. host: joyce, thank you. 85 years old from houston, texas. your reaction? to argueme on, whom i with this kind 85-year-old woman from houston, texas. i will simply say it is a multifaceted problem but guns are a part of it. host: michael smerconish joining us from philadelphia and maybe one day dr. michael smerconish. guest: maybe dr. of horticulture and recognition of my tomato plants, yes. host: we appreciate you joining

us. the website is smerconish.com. and his latest book comes out in june. it will featured on book tv. guest: thank you. host: we will take a short break. when we come back, we return our attention to the release of this am a craddick memo, as republicans and democrats share tweets back and forth. (202)-748-8001 for republicans. for democrats. if you are an independent, (202)-748-8002. c-span's "washington journal" continues in a moment. ♪ >> monday on c-span's "landmark cases," a look at the call of the maryland, the case -- look a versus maryland, the case not

explicitly mentioned in the constitution. explore this case and the high court's ruling with an associate professor from virginia and the university of arkansas law professor. "landmark cases" live on monday at 9:00 eastern on c-span, www.c-span.org, or listen with their freak c-span radio app. for background, order a copy of the landmark cases companion book, available at www.c-span.org/landmarkcases. for an additional resource, there is a link on a website for the international -- for the interactive constitution. >> wednesday morning, we are live in santa fe, new mexico, for the next stop on the 50 h work. the former new mexico governor will be our guest on the bus

during "washington journal" and 9:15 eastern. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we have promoted our conversation with david hall, a parkland florida, he is unable to join us, but we do hope to reschedule him at another time to get his perspective on what happened on february 14 in his fight to work on gun issues. a march is taking place next month in washington, one we will cover on march 24. let's turn our attention to the house democratic intel memo. your reaction to the release and the hill reads -- the 10 page democratic memo charges the republican memo was wrong to assert the fbi's investigation of election russia meddling resulted in the steele dossier,

and unverified private intelligence document detailing trumps involvement to russia. they claim they had been investigating trump associates for several weeks, before the dossier, was handed over to them. this according to the memo means the fbi did not on the dossier to obtain a foreign surveillance act to spy on trump campaign advisor rory page -- carter page. the new democrat memo also reveals that the warrant and its three subsequent renewals were approved by judges, who were appointed by republican presidents, and it shows no signs of slowing down in the debate on robert mueller's investigation. go ahead. caller: good morning. -- this memo, remember all the reductions, how

he could not release it forever? where to begin. a person could talk forever. in the middle of it, how about nine people have lost their jobs ? how about this guy pleading the fifth because he would not stay who is deal -- you steele's source? where to begin. beginout the end, let's at that and because everybody knows, it is an established fact. hillary paid for it. it all came from russia. it was presented to fisa courts. you cannot do that. everybody knows. trump is involved with russia? it was hillary. where to begin, where to and. it is crazy. the worst scandal, by far, in

american history. the fbi, the doj, hillary clinton, it is a deep state. host: adam schiff, the ranking democrat on the house committee, thewitter reacting to release saying, some time ago, republicans on our committee released a declassified memo that omitted and distorted key facts in order to mislead the public and impugn the integrity of the fbi. the president appearing on fox news yesterday in a telephone interview said this -- president trump: all you do is see this adam schiff, he calls the meeting, leaves the meeting, calls reporters, and all of a sudden, they had news, and you are not supposed to do that. it is probably illegal. he will leak all sorts of information. he is a bad guy. certainly, the memo was nothing. it basically confirmed -- i

misheard on your show before, and i will tell you that was really just a confirmation, if you call it the nunez memo, it is referred to a lot of things, but that was nothing but a confirmation. a lot of bad things happened on the other side. somebody should look into it because what they did is really fraudulent and somebody should be looking into that. and by somebody, i am talking about you know who. host: that was the president yesterday phoning in on the fox news channel. and this is in the new york times -- should trump fear mueller? available at new york ite.s' webs

nancy pelosi says the release of the memo helps set the record straight on republican's attempts to abstract their investigation into the trump-russia scandal. richard in san diego, good morning. caller: good morning. thatt would like to say the piece you just read from the hill newspaper, that says it all for me, that the investigation started long before that dossier ever landed on these shores. that is enough for me. thank you very much for the good job you do it c-span. host: let's go to mike from north dakota. go ahead. caller: good morning. overlookingone is something on this. last year, glen simpson on august 22, there is a complete transcript, 312 pages, and if , second,to read it

there is a story where they go kushnerat do trump and know about money laundering? as you read through the story and you get to the bottom, this is why we are here. on the bottom there is james americanered from the interest with the same backup story. i know robert mueller is doing its big investigation, but is probably true they do not talk about ongoing investigations. i believe the investigation has gone very deep. it has been an ongoing investigation for decades. your comment on this i will take off-line. host: we will let your comment stand. a tweet from donna, i am confused. i thought the election ended last year. when does the governing start? from the page of the new york

times, the redacted memo and reads as follows -- the dueling accounts were reflected in the committee trying to shape public reflection in the top law enforcement agencies instead of onusing its energy investigating the attack on the american democratic system. the committee has been pulled into an effort by trump and his allies to show doubts of the integrity of the special counsel inquiry. from lexington, kentucky, good morning. democrat line. theer: i have been watching hearings that were aired on c-span, and i thought all for russiaons was interfering with our election. trumpdia to get the

colluding with the russians. was spoken ofhat in the congress hearing. the dossier did not come out line fromher down the investigation you know, i do not know if trump is guilty or innocent. i am just very concerned about our democracy and i am really eager to see what is coming out. -- what do you call it? when robert miller -- robert

mueller, 10 or 12 brushes, i read that. it was pretty detailed. this one has taken so long. i do not think his going after president trump -- host: thank you for the call. (202)-748-8001 for republicans. democrats, (202)-748-8000. we have a line for independents, and we are taking your tweets at --@cspanwj. we are going to go live to the sunday morning session of the nga winter meeting in washington, d.c., getting underway in about 15 minutes to 20 minutes. the governor is that the white house tonight for a dinner and meeting with the president tomorrow to talk about gun violence and gun safety in america. fox news with this headline -- the democratic rebuttal of the caller memo is released. president trump on saturday this missing a rebuttal to the gop memo, outlining government surveillance abuses in the 2016

campaign. the rebuttal written by democrats on the house intelligence committee, included that officials at the fbi and justice department did not abuse the caller process, omit material information, or spy on the trump campaign. democrats have claimed the republican memo left out important information. republicans responded with a rebuttal to the rebuttal, providing more evidence the battle has legs. the full story at foxnew s.com. kevin joining us from london, england. caller: good morning. just to let you know, i would like you to know that we pray for the people in florida. host: thank you. caller: with regards to the issue today, it has been amusing to all of us in western europe to see a precedent at more with his own administration.

it is very unbecoming of the democracy to fight with his on people so publicly. somebody needs to know that it diplomatic of manners and not making us feel comfortable in europe to see our greatest ally at war. god bless america. host: thank you. this program is carried live on the bbc parliament channel. dennis from maine, independent line. good morning. caller: good morning, america. thank you. let's say trump is in bed with vladimir putin, we are all familiar with what president obama said about being more in crimea, weso do nothing, russia invades the ukraine, and they ask president obama for help and he sends them mr ease. -- mre's.

last fall, russia moved battle tanks into the ukraine and asked president trump to help. tank killers were sent and they killed the tank and crew. doesn't that make for interesting pillow talk? host: tony has this, the dem memo is designed to add confusion and doubt. hartsville, south carolina, good morning. democrats line. caller: yes, sir. i enjoy watching c-span. i just wanted to say i believe president trump is one of the worst things that happen to our democracy in some time. threatens with different things to keep our attentions away from the main issues. i wish he would get on the governing. the election is over. wearing the military uniform and taking an oath to

feel like country, i you should watch out for all the people, not just the other side and his side. we are all americans. that is the only thing i want to say. host: laura from savannah, tennessee, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. what are they, accusing president trump of? i just want to know what he was doneed of, and what has he to do anything? host: the new york times sunday magazine looking at google. is it too powerful? opioid diaries, the issue focusing on the troubles and problems that this heroine related epidemic is posing nationwide in communities across the country, and the weekly

standard, chicago then and now. john joining us from alabama, good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to comment on the guy that just called from england about the trump and everything being a mess. trump has to stand up for himself whenever the democrat party and different ones come against him and says things about him. he will have to stand up for himself and he won't let people run over him. the people in europe need to realize america is america. we don't take nothing off of anybody. well, that is about my comments. host: thank you. john is next in south carolina. inside the washington post, house democrats releasing a rebuttal. caller: i think a lot of people are missing the fact that the caller applications are highly

scrutinized. there have been four separate caller court judges that were nominated by republicans and have heavily scrutinized the application, so four separate judges have approved that application. carter page has been under the watch of the fbi since 2013. so i justhe dossier, think people need to take their time and read through the caller court or both of the memos and take into consideration that carter page had admitted that he was working with them. host: thanks for the call. we will go to robert from rhode island, it morning. this is a look at the memo that was released yesterday. the pages are available on their

website at www.c-span.org. go ahead. we will try for jimmy from tennessee. good morning. caller: hello. you are -- host: yes, good morning. caller: i was just thinking that the democrats already made mistakes because we know nothing but the truth and gospel comes out of their mouth. host: james from south carolina our next caller, line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. my comment is very simple. the democrat and republicans need to stop trying to win. the american people are supposed to win. we would like them to take care of our country, not to win all these arguments. and ours us to win,

country was founded on the american people winning. thank you. from five takeaways of the release of the democratic memo, this is the perspective of mr. savage, including the following summary -- first of all, that the fbi only used a small part of the information provided by christopher steele, the yahoo! news article was not used to cooperate with him, and republican appointed judges approved the wiretap of mr. carter page and generated useful intelligence. it will take a few more comments on this. we will take you live to the marriott hotel for the winter , which begane nga this weekend and will continue into tomorrow and the president will meet with the nation's governors at the white house and we will have coverage with that.

it is taking place this weekend in washington. good morning. caller: i am from oregon. host: go ahead. caller: hi, this is john henry -- i did not mean to say my last name. host: that is ok. caller: i was concerned about immigration, what is going to happen this week in terms of daca, but i was upset when i heard donald trump's snake speech at cpac. what has been the reaction to that overall? a chance to hear from you, and that speech is on our website at www.c-span.org if you want to watch it. senator chuck schumer with a series of tweets on this democratic memo -- the democratic memo makes clear that chairman nunez cherry picked and distorted information from sensitive intelligence and it undermined our nation's premier

law enforcement agency. he went on to say president trump, house republicans need to stop playing politics and stoking conspiracies and instead let the special counsel run their course in the investigation unimpeded. he says by delaying the release of the memo, president trump purposely silenced any democratic rebuttal with a fabricated conspiracy, pushed by chairman nunes, obviously, there something the president is afraid of. joining us -- eli joining us on the republican line. caller: any rational person knows this is a witchhunt by robert miller. -- by robert mueller. he has expanded the u.s. military after obama gutted it in the face of military expansion, and he has expanded strategicn a direct

challenge. if there is an investigation that needs to be done on the and hisministration, collusion with hillary clinton and the russians. host: what about rick gates pleading guilty, is that a witchhunt or legitimate? guest: you had a liberal couple calls ago that said it started in 2014. that iswitchhunt, and nonsense. and your caller just confirmed that inadvertently. host: we will go to raymond next in waco, texas, democrat line. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: i just wanted to say, all these politicians are the same. they just are out there to confuse people to do their agenda. thank you. host: mary is next, good

morning. independent line. or itturn the volume down will be difficult to hear from you. d.c.r: hi, i live in the metro area. i just wanted to say that what i am seeing is you are putting up a lot of articles and stuff, but it seems lopsided. you are showing more of the democratic response, and less of the republican's memo or the nunes memo. host: we are talking about the democratic memo released yesterday. we focused on the republican one that came up two weeks ago. caller: we have to remember one thing. we have to follow the money. didfact is that the dnc pay. we cannot leave that up of the picture. host: thank you.

, at the cpacs conference yesterday, said this about the democratic demo -- [video clip] >> we wanted this out. this has been held up over two weeks. the fbi and doj had right away told the democrats what was wrong with their memo or the response to our memo, and they waited for two weeks before they actually did the reductions necessary to get this out. we wanted it out. we think it is clear evidence that the democrats are not only trying to cover this up, but they are also colluding with parts of the government to help cover this up. i think as you read it, you will see personal attacks on myself, chairman gowdy, with a lot of really interesting things that sound bad, like a lot that has been happening with this russia investigation in the last year, but what you will not see is

anything that actually rejects what was in our memo, and what was the point of our memo? for one purpose only, and that was to show that caller of use had occurred -- to show that fisa of use had occurred. and falls ontable the job of the legislative branch that created this to provide oversight to make sure that when we see problems, we let the american people know and i'll of our congressional colleagues know. what you basically will read in the democratic memo is they are advocating that it is ok for the fbi and doj to use political dirt, paid for by one campaign, and use it against the other campaign. i do not care who you are, republican, democrat or independent -- in the united states of america, that is unacceptable. .ost: devin nunes

this from the washington times steele deal -- the only narrow part of fbi surveillance application. --this tweet from donna obama, hillary, fox must be working overtime playing all this blame the victim nonsense. we look so weak as it county now. caller: i wanted to point out that just under 34,000 applications for fisa warrants, only 12 were denied. it is important to point out that if this process can be used against the presidential inpaign, it can be used more our society. i think we should be opposed to that and we should support gun rights. we need to support civil

liberties again. host: the president also tweeting about this yesterday. teresa is next for michigan, republican line. caller: you do not need assault weapons to keep your civil liberties. devin nunes should be investigated himself just because he seems to be putting a lot of effort into trying to detour what the fbi is doing and causing more trouble, more avenues for them to go through to get to the actual what is going on in washington. and the fact that donald trump once the call it fake news and andrepublicans evangelicals, whatever their religious people are, i cannot believe they are backing them, considering, aren't you supposed to be able to admit when you have done to ask for forgiveness?

this man will never admit what he has done, and he will just blame it on anybody else, like he always does. another viewer same fox watchers have c-span on speed dial to call to see if old people minds can be brought to recall what they have been taught to believe about the trump russia thing. independent line, good morning. caller: good morning. what i was calling about was comments about when the investigation started and everybody saying that started whatever.13, here is my contention, based on what we have found that since trump was elected, yeah, he talked about running in 2012, and i believe putin told him to hold off, and then he ran in 2016, when did the russians put their facebook and all that into

operation? in 2014. in 2016, they said, go ahead and run, we are ready for you. and we see how it turned out. believe me, it will turn out that russia got donald trump elected. i have no doubt about that. host: from the president, he tweeted the following -- "the democratic memo response on government surveillance abuses is a total political and legal bust. this confirms all of the terrible things that were done. so the legal! we welcome our c-span radio listeners, and we will take you live to the nga winter meeting at the marriott hotel. "newsmakers" will be airing at 12:40 today. also available on our free c-span radio app. good morning from kentucky on

the republican line. caller: as spies as the democratic memo goes, it is simply crumbs. host: vermont, tom, good morning. caller: good morning. this unmasking is going to be the real thing about it. who has unmasked what messengers are listening to. campaign was whole actually spied on with this fisa memo. it was not just carter page. they are going to be looking at they were looking at and who would they be unmasking. host: albert in tennessee, next on the republican line. caller: [indiscernible] no idea.:

host: you are on the air. asler: this was started republican opposition research with this company in england. company after the primary people lost out continued to sell it to, hey, they went to the democrats and said, we have stuff that you might find interesting. you might want to buy this. edward inill go to tennessee. we are keeping in i on this , where at the nga governors are starting to gather in the ballroom. edward from tennessee, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. about the memo. we seem to have one on the democratic and republican side. america needs to get back to

being america, not republican or democrat. we have an issue with our kids getting killed in school. and they have this going back and forth. we need to be taking care of our home. we got to a point where republicans and democrats cannot do anything. it is my way or your way out. we need to get back to the americans. there is nothing new about this memo. since theeen going on beginning of time. we already know about this stuff. beginning to look like war zones in our schools. republican, democrat, that is what they need to be working on. this.ppreciate i watch you all the time. i will say this to republicans and democrats, it is about america, our future, our kids. you be blessed. thank you. richarduple of tweets,

rogers saint republican appointed judges issued the fisa warrants before the fbi got the steele dossier, think? and this, was there any evidence of collusion? adam schiff should have instantly leaked it to the communist news network, making reference to cnn. we will take you live to the winter meeting of the nga at the jw marriott hotel, live coverage on this sunday morning. enjoy the rest of your weekend. lies a coupleare of blocks from the white house at the marriott hotel in washington for the national governors association winter meeting, the second day, underway. we have live coverage right now, right here on c-span. relnsartisan