eastern time. and later minnesota education issues as part of c-span's 50 state tour. we hope you tune in tomorrow morning. thank you for joining us. it stopped raining here in washington dc. have a good weekend. epa administrator scott pruitt testifies at a summit here in on

his agencies to thousand 19 budget requests. >> california congressman adam schiff comes to "newsmakers" this week. he is the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee and has been a point person on the russia investigation. he is in his ninth term in congress and his position on the intelligence committee makes him part of congress' gang of eight, the group that has access to the most secret intelligence congressman, on the one-year anniversary of the mueller investigation, we start with jerry and questions about korea. >> it looked for the past several weeks that president trump and kim jong un were on track to have a dozen summit meeting in early june in

singapore. and then all of a sudden this week, the north koreans started to make unfriendly noises, saying that if this conversation was only getting rid of our nuclear program, we are not interested. why have the north koreans turned around on this, and is this summit meeting in peril? rep. schiff: i don't think the summit meeting is in peril, and it isn't surprising that we have seen this tactic. i think it would be surprising if the north koreans had some sudden deep with any and were ready to come hat in hand and get rid of their missile program and the nuclear program. this is their tradition. they go through broad periods of confrontation followed by short periods and they use various stratagems to improve their leverage at the bargaining table and seek to divide the

alliance against them. so we need to fully expect it. if the president was going into this was some expectation that he had won over kim jong-un by saber rattling, that is a naive expectation. so this is going to be difficult. and of course, when we have been able to successfully enter agreements with north korea they have cheated. so one thing that is going to be essential is having a strong verification regime. but i still think this is going to go forward. what worries me is, our president seems so desperate now for an agreement, having walked out of the iran agreement, having pledged so much and built up so much of an expectation that things are going to be different, that he has this great relationship now with kim jong-un. kim jong-un may have concluded that the president of the united states needs this now much more than he does, and that puts us in a weak position. >> so you think he is too eager to get a deal now, having talked

about war for months and months? rep. schiff: i think it is a risk him he is saying things like the north koreans are going to be so happy with this deal. we are going to guarantee there is no regime change. we are going to guarantee the personal security of the north korean dictator. those are pretty dramatic promises and concessions, even before you sit down together. and i will add one more than deeply worries me. and that is, this week we had this inexplicable statement from the president about zte, this chinese telecom and he is basically going to reverse course. this is a company we sanctioned for cheating on the north korean and iran sanctions, and lying to it -- lying to us about it. so we are going to reverse course and unsanctioned up because we are worried about chinese jobs?

this makes no sense. there are two possibilities. one possibility is that the president is so desperate for an agreement that is willing to give the chinese anything to help, including on sanctioning this company, when our intel committee on a bipartisan basis has concluded there is a very real cyber security and espionage risk of using this equipment. that is one possibility. there is another possibility, which is equally disturbing and that is that the reversal on zte came on the same week that china decided to invest $500 million in a trap-related property in indonesia. the emoluments clause was designed to prevent us from having to wonder, is that the motivation here? but we have to ask what is by this otherwise inexplicable change of course?

>> turning to a more domestic issue, yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the appointment of robert mueller, the special counsel, closing in on two years of an fbi her -- an fbi investigation, crossfire hurricane, into president trump's associations with the russians. did you see any patterns emerging, and you think this investigation is going to wrap up anytime soon as the president would clearly like it to? rep. schiff: i don't see it wrapping up soon. and part of the reason is that, as we looked into matters, as bob mueller has looked into matters, you find more and more of concern that needs to be investigated. so in many respects the investigation has broadened. we saw that with a surge of michael cohen's residence and hotel and office. when i saw that, my gut reaction was, is very unusual to search a

lawyer. this was not just a lawyer. this was the president's lawyer. and i didn't believe that was likely to be the case, based solely on concern about it potential campaign-finance law violation. and now, i think we have seen in the bank statements that have been leaked or released, that there is a lot more going on here. there were a lot of payments and the multimillions to michael cohen, and he is the lawyer for the president. so there is a real hornets nest for michael cohen regarding those transactions. but there is a multiplicity of allegations involving potential financial impropriety, so i think the investigation by necessity has broadened. i would also say this.

for those who think the investigation has gone on a long time, having prosecuted white-collar cases, this case has moved with lightning speed. the number of people have been indicted, the number of guilty pleas already obtained, the nature of those who have been indicted and pled, we are not talking about peripheral characters here. we're talking about the president's campaign chairman, his deputy campaign chairman, his national security adviser, one of his foreign-policy advisers. this is fairly remarkable progress, especially when you look at other investigations the government has conducted, that we have conducted in congress. i participated in two benghazi investigations and those went on for three and a half years. so this is gone on a fraction of the time of the benghazi investigation, which produced very little. so i think people need to be

patient. now certainly the president wants this over, and hit is in his interest to make it seem like this has gone forever, and to beat up and badger the justice department and the fbi and robert mueller. that is a terrible disservice to the country, and we need to insist that we observe the rule of law and let the investigations go on to their conclusion, because we cannot have a situation where we don't know if a foreign adversarial power has leverage over the president of the united states. there is a national security imperative to get to the truth and i have every confidence the robert mueller will. >> the intelligence committee has oversight over the cia. this week the cia has a new director, gina haskell, confirmed by the senate. but most democrats opposed her nomination. what was your view of the haskell nomination -- the haspel nomination, and what about the record of harsh interrogations

that some call torture? rep. schiff: i don't think the hearings or her confirmation itself resolves that issue, that we can necessarily say it has been put behind us. i do think that within the agency, as far as i can tell, she has a very good reputation as a good manager, as someone who is dedicated to the institution. she is very well thought of. the only issue, but it was a significant issue, was what was her role in the enhanced interrogation program? what was her role in the discretion -- in the destruction of the tapes, the recordings of the enhanced interrogations? i was not privy to her son testimony. if i had voted on her

confirmation i would have had some hard questions about her -- questions for her about her role in those programs. and i would've wanted to get a personal sense from her that she was committed to making sure we never go down that road again. i think she was trying to walk a fine line, which some say she did and others sake she failed to do, of coming out against any repetition of this dark chapter in the agency's history, but also not condemning the people she worked with at the agency and who believe that they were following the law, or following the orders of the administration. so i would've wanted to have the benefit of that if i had been making a decision on her confirmation. but one of the things that was weighing on the senators as they were making this judgment is, and this is frankly a big issue in any confirmation in this administration, if we reject her, who comes next?

in the worst thing for the agency would be to have somebody who is essentially carrying the president's water, or a political ideologue installed as the head of the cia. and i think there were some real concerns that if she didn't get confirmed, what comes after could be much more problematic. and so, i have to think that way. for some senators it was enough, for others it wasn't, i don't envy the difficulty of that decision but i do think that the cia is probably in a better place right now than it has been, when it was under so much of the president's attacks. i ran into somebody on the street the other day when i was

in new york who had worked for the agency, and described to me, and the telling of it even though this was over a year ago, described how devastating it was to her to see that display by the president in front of the the stars representing the fallen, when he was bragging about the crowd size at his inauguration. so the agency has been first tough times in the administration, and there is a hope they can put the worst find them. >> do think the fact that the president chose a consummate intelligence professional suggests that he has put behind him some of that suspicion of the intelligence community that his team had when they came into office? rep. schiff: i would hope so. but the reality is that the president will attack whatever agency is in his personal benefit. right now his focus is on the fbi and the department of justice. should the cia produce further evidence of collusion by his campaign, i am sure he will

train his sights on them and claim they are part of the deep state that is up to get him. this president has no dei -- no ideology except itself. no respect for institutions accept self. i think the cia is probably breathing a sigh of relief, that they didn't have someone there who was going to be interfering with the mission of the agency or undermining it from inside. but i don't think that they can necessarily have confidence that they are out of the crosshairs at any time in this administration. >> let's talk about the fbi and department of justice. you have tried to sound the alarm about what you see as inappropriate intervention by republican -- by your republican counterpart on the intelligence agency -- on the intelligence committee, congressman devin nuñes, and others who are making increasingly bold requests about documents from the justice

department in the russia case. do lawmakers not have a right as members of congress to exercise oversight and request that material? and has the justice department been handling the situation in the appropriate way? obviously, there has been a cycle of confrontation, and the president seems to be siding with lawmakers rather than his own justice department. are they entirely in the wrong? rep. schiff: i think they are entirely in the wrong with what they're doing in the justice department, because this is not being done is oversight. it is being done as a way of tearing down the institution to serve the president. the gop congress has decided they are not going to be doing oversight, period. if they were doing oversight, we would be having hearings about whether the chinese deal in indonesia is responsible for the change of position by the president on zte.

we would be having hearings on whether the emoluments clause is being violated in other ways, we would be investigating corruption within the administration. they're not doing it. trey gowdy says congress should not be doing investigations, which is odd for somebody who led the benghazi investigation. what they are doing with the justice department, it is an effort to undermine the investigation, discredit the fbi, the justice department, robert mueller, basically to give the president a reason to start firing people, or to undermine whatever bob mueller finds. and you can see the choreography that is quite apparent. my colleagues, not just chairman nunes but also the tea party people on the judiciary committee, they demand documents from the justice department.

they get the documents. our chairman doesn't even read them. they go back and demand further documents. they get those and are not satisfied. they continued to escalate their requests, not because they are particularly interested in documents, except to the degree they might be used to undermine or assisted the white house, the whole goal is to escalate the demand unto you get the fight. because every time the justice department quite rightly resists providing open investigatory materials that might interfere with the investigation, as if on cue the white house tweets, why want the justice department provide these documents to congress? it is designed to give the father to protect the department. and it is very transparent. that is not oversight. that is an assault on the institution masquerading as oversight.

and sadly, it is having an effect i think in undermining public confidence in those institutions, and affecting morale in those institutions. they are strong enough to withstand it, but nonetheless they are doing long-term damage to our system of checks and balances. >> democrats have a chance to retake the house this fall. what would a chairman schiff do differently? rep. schiff: the first priority of the intelligence committee is to make sure we are gathering intelligence to protect the country, that our agencies are talking to each other, that we are making the right budgetary decisions. a lot of that work goes on outside the public view, and notwithstanding the differences we have over russia. but nonetheless, there has been, i think, a falloff in the willingness of the intelligence community to share information with our committee because of the actions of our chairman.

so a lot of what i would consider my mission would be to start to rebuild confidence within the intelligence committee. the nunes memo was deeply destructive of that trust, \destructive of that trust, because when they used this number-before mechanism to selectively declassify intelligence, and did it in such a misleading way, and file into the bargain between our committee and the agencies we oversee, which is, you voluntarilry share with us intelligence, and we want we will not abuse it abuser, we will not publish it want publicize it and i was so violently -- and that was so violently done away with, that compact, that there is a really lack of -- there is a real lack of trust now between the ic and our committee. so i would work to restore that

comedy within our committee in the russia communication -- in the rush investigation. i would look at what has been done and what hasn't been done. how far as the mueller investigation gotten? how far has the senate gotten in their investigation? and then decide what more needs to be done. it is hard to say this point where we will be eight or nine months from now, but that is how i would approach the job. >> there is a debate among democrats about whether candidates and your party, particularly for the house, ought to be talking about potential impeachment in the midterm elections. should democrats be talking about impeachment or not? rep. schiff: don't take the bait. there is a reason donald trump is the foremost champion of his own impeachment. he talks about a more than anybody else. he would like to use impeachment is a mobilizer for his base. he would like to suggest democrats aren't interested in governing, they are only interested in getting rid of me.

democrats need to continue our focus on what matters most to people, and that is their ability to put bread on their table, provide for their family, have a shot for the american dream,. -- american dream. i think that is why we have had the success we have had and the special elections. democrats are doing phenomenally well in special elections across the country. they are not campaigning on impeachment. they are not campaigning even, on russia. they are campaigning on what they will do for their constituents, and that is a winning formula. so that is what irons mike my colleagues around the country to do. i think they understand the merit of that. i fully expect that will be a priority. >> how do you avoid, continuing to talk about elections, you said you would try to restore trust with the intelligence community. how do you avoid the republicans

ending up feeling the same way the democrats have? you had subpoena power and a lot of pressure from your party behind you, that you wouldn't just be trying to dig up as much as you could edit the intelligence community and the fbi that might be damaging to donald trump and might advance a narrative of collusion or obstruction? are the democrats doomed to end up in just as partisan a place where a place that is perceived to be? rep. schiff: no -- perceived to be as partisan? rep. schiff: no. we will win on the strength of how bad the republicans are doing. we will not be able to keep the house unless we do a better job governing ourselves. that requires us to focus on governing, focus on producing for the country, and running committees like the intelligence committee in a responsible way. we have been hamstrung on the committee because from the outset of this investigation,

the majority decided it had a different mission. it wasn't following the facts wherever they lead, it was defending the president at all costs. and you can see that just this week. just this week, the senate intelligence committee, which has worked on a much more bipartisan basis, announced that they were confirming the conclusions of the intelligence community that the russians had intervened and they had intervened to help donald trump, and to sow discord in the united states. that was a fundamental conclusion of the intelligence committee which has been ratified now by the bipartisan work of the senate intelligence committee, by the minority on the house intelligence committee, by bob mueller's investigation with the indictments of the russians, by the intelligence agencies that have continued to work on this issue. the only outlier our house intel

who dispute the basic conclusion stepped it russians and donald trump is obvious to anyone who has looked at facebook ads recently. that is a clear window into where the republicans on our committee have been, which we are going to put out a favorable report to the president and tear down any actions by the justice department that is not favorable to the president. that is their mission. i confronted with that we had little choice but to part company. but if we had the opportunity to run the committee, we will choose to run it in a very different way and bring back i bipartisanship to the committee, as well as focus on the work that the country has really charged us to do. >> another big event in the last couple of weeks was the trump administration's decision to withdraw from the iran nuclear deal.

the uranian's and europeans act as if they want that deal to survive despite this blow to it? do you think it will survive or has president trump killed it? rep. schiff: he may have killed it, they are certainly going to work hard to kill it, and a lot of it will depend on whether the administration follows through with the threats john bolton has been making, which is sanctioning our european allies. that would be an incredibly, singularly destructive things to are we going to sanction our allies around the world for keeping their word when we broke ours? if we do that and the europeans go back and sanction iran, is impossible to china and russia will then develop a much stronger relationship with iran? i don't think we are going to deter china from staying in business with iran, or russia for that matter.

we may end up with is the worst of all worlds, where we have isolated ourselves, we have alienated our allies and iran may well go back to enriching and we still have china and russia doing business with iran. so we will have a weaker sanctions regime, and iran the that goes back to enriching military conflict or war in the middle east, and in the midst of all that we have both made reaching a deal with north korea more difficult, but undermined our leverage with north korea, because the president feels that having walked away from iran and potentially put us on course for another nuclear problem, he needs to at least show that he can resolve one and have -- and not have to nuclear problems on his hand. >> the leverage is undercut because the north koreans don't think the american word is worth what it once was? rep. schiff: the north koreans

have ever reason to worry that if they enter into an agreement with us and comply with its terms, this president or the next can say, we are going to break the deal. and maybe even more significantly, the north koreans may feel the donald trump desperately needs this agreement now. and so, we can agree to something that gives the appearance of a deal. the appearance of nuclear disarmament, and this president will be so eager, he will call it a win no matter what its terms. >> we have 30 seconds, the core behind the russian investigation is the integrity of the american electoral process. how confident are you in our election process? rep. schiff: not nearly as confident as i should be and we need a whole of government approach where the president tasks each cabinet member, what are you doing to deter the russians in the state department?

the defense department? what are you hearing from the intelligence community in terms of russian plans? secretary of homeland security, what has your interaction been with the states? this isn't happening because for any cabinet members to be raising this issue with the president, he views as a threat to his legitimacy, so while there is good work being done at the state and local level, there is not nearly enough being done at the federal level and that makes us more exposed than we should be. >> how about the reaction from facebook on the private sector and election integrity? rep. schiff: well, i think facebook is taking some of the right steps to any -- and sure any advertisers are subject to more disclosures. facebook has a lot more work to do, our intelligence agencies will need to work more in cooperation with the tech companies so that when we see bad actors overseas manipulating

social media, that they can share that information with the social media companies. i think there is also risk to the technology itself -- the voting technology at self and people in silicon valley believe it is more vulnerable than vendors of the technology would have us believe. >> thank you for being our guest this week. rep. schiff: thank you carried newsmakers is back, our guest was adam schiff, the lead on the house intelligence committee and their port person on the desk point person on the russian investigation. it is the one-year anniversary of the mueller investigation. we heard the representative talk about timing. let me put out the senate putting out the report on the stage one of their investigation, which conflict with what the house republicans did. where is all this? what should the public know about the state of this as the president is pressing, let's get this done? >> the congressman said bob

mueller is anywhere near wrapping up. that obviously bothers the president and the white house, but also means if that is the case, bob mueller is headed toward a difficult decision point in the next couple of case, bob mueller is headed toward a difficult decision point in the next couple of months, which is if he is not going to finish up this summer, he probably has to go quiet, not get involved in the midterm campaigns, try not to be a part of that campaign anymore than he is and kick the completion of this investigation until after the midterm elections. that will prolong the election -- investigation. and it will make the white house go crazy. >> and not only will it make the white house go crazy, but risk the political strategy, which suggests -- the white house suggests it has gone on too long. it risks a vacuum of real information from bob mueller on the american public and that probably doesn't want to wait around forever. jeff: it can be used to mobilize

voters -- republican voters. they will move on to impeachment, don't let that happen. >> how significant is this story about the crossfire hurricane and the possible -- inside the trump campaign? how does it add to our understanding of the story? nicholas: having been an author on the story, i would like to say it is significant. the president and his allies have singled in on one idea, which is that there was an informant working for the fbi that was going and interacting with members of his campaign and reporting back. that individual has not been identified yet. devin nunes, the chairman of the intelligence committee, seems to be after information about that

information and his allies on capitol hill are trying to get that person's identity out there or discover the extent to which they were interacting with the campaign. i suppose the upshot is if they can get that information, they could build a case selectively that the campaign was being spied on inappropriately. in reality, based on what we know, it is common for the fbi to have outside informants who bring information and will spend time with sources and report back. >> it becomes political -- >> as everything does in this investigation. >> one minute left, i want to bring it back to north korea. the white house is now

trumpeting possible candidate for nobel prize and north korea is expressing skepticism about the meeting. where is this going? jerry: the congressman was basically right in that this is what you have to expect from the north koreans. today zig and then they zag. it has been that way for three decades. the idea that we will march happily into a summit meeting and solve this problem by august was always going to be unrealistic. i think the north koreans are possibly signaling this isn't going to be as easy as you also to think, so don't get carried away here, or the chinese have asked them to slow down or there is internal push back inside north korea against kim jong-un, people inside his military saying you are moving too fast to take away the prize we have been seeking for three decades, which is nuclear capable at two knows what is going on, but it is a useful signal that this is not going to be some easy

cakewalk toward do make authorization -- denuclearization of the peninsula. >> that is it for our time. thank you for your questions for congressman schiff this week. thanks for your time. >> thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] "q&a" --t on it the disciplined presidency. eisenhower was a great athletes, and organized man, very methodical. that is how he ran the white house, too. he was extremely organized. and a lot of people, especially kennedy, criticized eisenhower being stodgy and predictable. but for eisenhower, it meant