continues. kildeeongressman dan joins us. talk about president trump's recent infrastructure proposal come i want to talk about the gun debate taking place in capitol hill. do you get a sense that something is different about this debate that it will end differently than past debates question mark it [video clip] feels like that may be happening it's the cumulative effect of

these tragedies have built upon each other. give the high school students in florida the credit they deserve. they have helped frame this issue come and not in political terms, in a way that i think forces us to answer the questions they are posing. it's not coming from a political place. it's literally coming from kids who survived this terrible experience. i will say this -- i hope that things have changed. as i was coming into congress when newtown took place and folks saw it, if anything would change the gun debate in america, it's this terrible tragedy that took these really young lives. and then we saw the same thing with paulson and the terrible event in las vegas, the mother emmanuel church shooting. everyone of them shocks the conscience and should shock the federal government into actually

doing something. i hope this is that moment were the cumulative effect of these terrible tragedies gets us to do something. of thehat do you make president yesterday at that meeting with governors at the white house telling them not to worry about the nra, indicating it's ok to fight them. in places they disagree? make his response? guest: when the president said something i agree with, afterward knowledge that. that's to fight the nra, for sure. the real question is whether it's a case of just saying you can fight the nra for rhetorical value or to try to reframe the politics of the question and actually take them on. we will see whether or not he is willing. is, theon this president's position on all of this is interesting and it could have some impact. but the president is not right law. congress writes law.

what i fear is that the president is trying to reframe the argument, essentially trying therovide some cover for leadership, republican leadership in the house and the senate, whichever peter usually and consistently blocked any meaningful piece of gun legislation from coming to the four -- floor of the house or senate. host: what's possible now? have to deal with closing the background check loophole. fix nix is important but it closing the with 40% of gun sales that are not subject to any background check whatsoever and that's a significant problem. with three other members of congress, i introduced a bump stock bill. we took a few weeks after the las vegas shooting. we didn't write it right away. we put together a really thoughtful piece of legislation. , denarott from michigan

titus, a democrat from las vegas, nevada, brian fitzpatrick from pennsylvania, the four of us sat down at my office sent but together really thoughtful legislation that was not an thateach and simply said if a device turns a semiautomatic weapon into a machine gun, treat that device the way we treat a machine gun. we were ready to go. all the groups we thought were on board until we introduce the ,ill and then one organization the national rifle association said no. and any momentum we had was stopped not because they said no but because the speaker or somebody essentially said if the nra says no, they have a veto on any piece of legislation. rulee have the hastert which is an insane republican rule that says unless a majority of the majority supports something, it cannot go to the floor we also have the nra rule

that the republican caucus concedes the right to the nra to pre-veto any legislation. that is insane. host: you also have discharge petitions that could force legislation to the floor. is that an avenue for some of this legislation? if there are courageous republicans willing to sign a discharge petition, we could vote on this in the next few days. punished whene they signed discharge petitions by their leadership. we saw this happen when a handful of republican signed a discharge petition to help us move forward reauthorization of the import export bank. they are punished. host: do democrats get punished question mark guest: i have only been in the minority. to be fair, there is an overemphasis on loyalty to party and to party leadership. we elect our party leadership. we should probably go in the other direction.

the peopleected by we represent from our home districts. if we are not willing, as numbers of congress, stand on the floor of the house and do what's right, what we know in our heart and head is the right thing to do because of the nra or because of leadership, i suggest members of congress should find a different line of work where they are not required to make hard choices. call in.wers can these of the phone lines. we are talking with congressman dan kildee of michigan. you are from flint, michigan. how are they doing these days, how is the water situation? guest: it's slowly getting better but the recovery process is taking longer than the headlines would indicate. flint was in the center of the storm when this water crisis hit and we were able to get some help through congress and the state government has done

something but it will take a long time. it's probably a decade-long recovery overall. it will take a couple of more years just to get the infrastructure fixed and get the lead pipes removed. the health and economic impact on the city will be felt for a long time. host: the president proposed a $200 billion infrastructure plan. what is in that plan for flint, michigan? guest: not very much. the present plan is tilted heavily against older, distressed, industrial cities. it changes the way the federal formula works so that cities like flint under this plan would have to come up with 80% of the money in order to access 20% federal funding. if flint had 80% of the money , if these communities have that money available, they would have been spending it already. the president's plan is -- it falls short. host: it's $200 billion in

federal funds to spur one $.5 trillion in infrastructure investment. that's the hope from the white house and you are saying that hope is far-fetched? hairs but to split it's $200 billion of federal money over 10 years. that's offset by $170 billion of cuts to existing federal infrastructure programs over that same time which means it's $30 billion of new money over 10 years, $3 billion per year. compare that to the $80 billion per year in funding, increased funding the defense department just received and it's pretty obvious that this is not really a priority for this president. from kathy is up first mesh again, a democrat, good morning. caller: good morning john and dan. was born and raised in flint in 1957.

gm business being there, there were a lot of roads built and sidewalks. you could get anywhere really by walking or riding your bike. there was a lot of driving. the roads are in poor condition in the state of michigan and that's a long story but i think we need to encourage the building of paths for people to walk or fixing the roots of people can safely travel. there is nothing wrong with that. when people see someone walking, they think they have a mental health issue when really, we should be like denmark, modern, extensive infrastructure. people should be encouraged to walk, it's a lifestyle. they have rails. flint has the capacity to do that. >> you can find this online at c-span.org. we leave it now to return live to the floor of the house working today on fighting online sex trafficking and in