broadband in the future. >> i think it is very important congress,inistration, considers proceedings and other concepts, that broadband is and has been determined to be a matter of important infrastructure to our country and our national policy. that is a change because we usually think of infrastructure is bridges, roads, railways, which are all very important and need to be helped. it you cannot survive today as an individual, a business, or someone working from home, without having a rich, robust watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. this morning, a reporter's roundtable discussion on the week ahead in washington with matt fuller of the huffington post and gabby morrongiello of the washington examiner. then jessica lucas judy of the

government accountable office talks about redundant federal programs and their cost to american taxpayers. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. host: good morning. it is monday, june 4, 2018. the senate returns from its memorial day break this afternoon. the house will reconvene at noon tomorrow. we are with you for the next three hours this morning for "washington journal." we will begin by getting your thoughts on president trump and the power of the pardon. after president trump pardoned a controversial conservative ismentator last week, there a growing question of how the president might use the pardon in the russia investigation. this morning, we are asking for

your thoughts. do you trust president trump with the pardon power? republicans can call in at (202) 748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. you can also catch up with us on social media. on twitter it is @cspanwj. on facebook, it is facebook.com/cspan. we talking about president trump and presidential pardons this morning. here is one of the stories from the washington times today, republicans squelched talk of trump pardoning himself. debate raged on sunday over whether president trump has the power to pardon himself even though republicans declared such a move politically impossible. fueling the speculation was

president trump's high-profile conservativeeek of ,ommentator dinesh desousa pardoned as a signal to robert mueller that president trump might pardon central figures in the investigation of possible collusion. the president's lawyer appeared on multiple shows sunday. he was asked if the president could pardon himself. here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> it is not going to happen. it is a hypothetical question. there is nothing that limits the power of the presidential pardon from a federal crime. --sident trump is not up to not going to do that. he is not been to give up any of

his pardon powers. >> why put it in the memo if he wasn't going to do it? was this a threat? was this a threat to robert mueller? >> you are not asking the guy who wrote the memo. >> fair enough. >> i'm not sure i would have written that. i think it is a hollow promise. >>ou think it does come across as a threat? >> not a threat. almost impractical. the president of the united states pardoning himself would be unthinkable, and it would lead to probably an immediate impeachment. the house and senate would be under tremendous pressure. president trump has no need to do that. he has done nothing wrong. this is a terrible investigation. host: that was rudy giuliani on meet the press yesterday. the memo he was talking about the 20 page memo from the trunk team team -- trump legal

after a request robert mueller to testify under a number of questions. it argued that the president was constitutionally incapable of committing obstruction of justice and that he could terminate the inquiry or even exercise his power to pardon if he so desired. that memo written before rudy giuliani joined the trunk legal team. with lots of discussion about the president and the pardon power, we ask you, do you trust president trump with that power? republicans (202) 748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents can call in at (202) 748-8002. after the pardoning of dinesh headline,st week, the

trump needs to get less personal with his pardons. if you have ever read on his tv show or prosecuted by one of his foes, president trump this started to hand outns wh people with very specific personal connections. he should know he is playing th fire. arly allwrite of the president's pardons so far were issued without department of justice vetting, something less than that president bill clinton in his last day in office as seenhen as a flagrant abuse of power. seeing as using pardons merely to award his cronies and punish his foes. we want to hear from you this morning. republicans (202) 748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000.

independents (202) 748-8002. bob is up first in massachusetts, independent. go ahead. caller: good morning. all i can say is that president obama released me really bad people. he pardoned them. bergdahl, a mr. traitor. he gave up for terrorist generals for that guy. it is hard to argue that mr. trump is doing anything that because the people he is letting go are people that the democrats should not have turned on in the first place. i don't know how you say they are doing anything good. shout out to president obama. thanks for making america racist again. host: richard rogers on twitter writing, all presidents have used the party. get over it. -- pardon. get over it.

pardonst obama used 212 over his eight years, many more in terms of commuting sentences. george h.w. bush with 70 pardons. president trump so far with just a handful. york, democrat. go ahead. caller: i would agree with anyone who is saying that his recent pardons are a clear uellere to the m investigation. if anything comes out of it, we will just pardon them. what is the point? host: brian, go ahead. caller: the pardon is not really the issue. beingperial president above the law is the real issue. what is unusual is they usually wait until the end of their

term. giuliani -- by host: what about that statement? caller: i'm sorry? host: what about giuliani's statement? that thehe statement president cannot be held accountable for his actions is not supported by the constitution. the spirit of the constitution is the high crimes and misdemeanors like espionage and obstruction of justice, it is not collusion. it is espionage what he did. when you involve foreign governments in our election, that is espionage. he is accountable to the people just like everybody else. he must be subpoenaed if there crimespicion of or probable cause, which robert

mueller has plenty of. nixon was overturned, a false constitutional claim. the founding fathers make sure that imperialism or monarchy or feudalism is what they rebelled against when they separated themselves from england. there is no such thing as a class supported by the constitution. it is just the opposite. host: herbert is in georgia, a democrat. good morning. caller: good mornin i agree with virginia. we cannot trust donald trump. doldrums family is involved in the investigation, -- donald trump's families involved in the investigation, such as his son

and son-in-law. it shows you what this republican partys all about. this republican party is lowing this. wholean has disrupted the constitutional system. there is not a republican party anymore. there is a trump party. embarrassed, not only in the united states of america but the whole world. here, jack johnson, a black man already dead, please, don't even try. you understand me? host: why do you disagree with the jack johnson part? caller: that's absurd. he should not even have been charged with that crime. it was racist. he was charged with that cri because he was black.

i am distracted tell you. that does not even face black america --se black america. t haveivil rights oran still d nothing like that. president's the pardons so far, boxer jack johnson, who died in 1946, convicted on charges of transporting a white woman across state lines. the chattanooga times free press 's pardons president so far political, sending a clear message. a was the political commentator prosecute high-profile u.s. attorney that donald trump fire, pre-borrow --

bahara.reet also pardoned sheriff joe will pile -- arpo. scooter libby was another pardon. he supposedly leaked the identity of valerie plain. ex- there is asked navy -- navy sailor who pleaded guilty to taking classified photos inside of a nuclear submarine. that is just a wrapp from the chattanooga times free press. after that pardon last week, we want to hear from you about president trump and the pardon power. ray is in chicago.

ahead. caller: good morning. you know what gets me is that , when they get on the otheride, that is the law, the president has the power to pardon anybody he wants to. about the boxer, listen, he son't being fairly judged, president trump pardoned him. why does that other guy say it was racist? it was racist at the time. it is not racist now. host: how would you feel about president trump pardoning someone involved in the russia investigation or if a case is brought against him tomorrow, if he pardons himself? law,r: if it is within the

the law is the law. if you don't like it, change it. it that a you, why is month ago i ask you, i said andthing about david duke them both being racists, and then you asked me was i a fan of david duke? of course i'm not. i am the mexican-american. i thought in being on. why would you ask me a question like that? you did not know i am mexican. don't ask the question. forought for this -- fought this country. i have the right to think what i want to think. host: thank you for the clarification. we will talk to you next month. robert is in baltimore, line for democrats. caller: hello. this is a grandmother.

i don't know what would make him stewart,ardon martha who has already done her time, or robert latoya which -- bla gojevich. i guess he is only part in pardoning people i think he can get away with. as far as the last caller talking about changing the law, nobody is going to change the law because why would you miss yourself up? why are you going to change the law? you would not be able to get yourself out of it. that is my comment. i am going to let you go. host: thank you. you bring up martha stewart, people the president said he was considering for pardons down the

road. maryland, line for democrats. go ahead. caller: hello? host: you are with us. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. sorry to say i feel trump, he is nothing but liar. that no other person done before. i don't trust him. he lie all the time. liar.uy is nothing but he just abused power. this, nobodywho is can go against the law. host: ken is in washington, d.c. caller: good morning.

i guess you always start the program on monday morning with a racist in boston. thank you for that,. a lot of republicans, trump supporters, no need to deflect to barack obama. a pardon is when someone is being excused for a crime. if donald trump is using his pardon for his friends or family, especially so early in his presidency, it is exposing something. he is a chronic liar. i don't think he can help himself. for $1.8 billion. that is why he does everything he does. i don't know if you talked about ivanka trump winning trademarks in china.

those are all things of corruption. he will forgive his family and friends. it will show he did something wrong. i find it refreshing that boston who is a racist could see what another racist looks like. host: we mentioned some of the democratic reaction to that pardon last week of dinesh d'souza. here is senator mark warner of virginia, ranking member on the senate select intelligence committee, which is conducting its own probe of russia interference in the 2016 election. he tweeted that the president ad hoc use of the pardon power is concerning enough, but the possibility that he may also be sending a message to witnesses in a criminal investigation into his campaign is extremely dangerous. no one is above the law. wantingoned democrats

to rain in the presidents -- pardon the presiden'ts power. in the spring, after the party of scooter libb become a libby,tion -- legislation introduced by adam legislation designed to prevent the president from abusing the power of the pardon for their own personal benefit. if the president pardons someone in connection with an investigation for which he or family member is a target or subject or witness, the evidence against recipient of the pardon would be provided by the justice department. president trump is already signaled he is willing to use his constitutional powers in order to protect those who

remain loyal to him even if they are convicted of obstruction or perjury. it is incumbent on congress to stand up for the rule of law by creating a strong disincentive for the president to use the pardon for himself or obstruct ongoing investigations. we're talking about president trump and the party. it is (202) 748-8000 if you are a republican. --democrat. (202) 748-8001 if you are a republican. (202) 748-8002 if you are an independent. yesterday, several republicans taking up this issue. majority leader kevin mccarthy in the house said the president does have the power to pardon himself, but question back on this idea of the president doing it. [video clip] >> does the president have the power to pardon just as presidents before them have

hardened individuals. the question is very clear the president does have the power to pardon. >> you think he has the power to pardon himse? had be a legal question. the president is not saying he is going to pardon himself. i'm not sure why we are walking through hypotheticals. i don't know where the president would go pardoning himself. i don't think it president should pardon himself. you trust president trump with the power of the pardon? eric, line for democrats. go ahead. caller: good morning america. does the president have the right to pardon himself? i believe he does, but in doing it, he has to pardon everybody. if he pardons himself, he pardons everybody in prison. we need to do that. president trump got elected in

the year of jubilee. jubilee is a universal pardon handed down by god. it is typical. we're supposed to be doing it. have not been celebrating jubilee correctly. host: you don't think there should be anybody in prison right now? caller: i guess. we could turn the prisons into hospitals, wipe them out, and start over. listen to trump. they are all corrupted. the fbi, the system is corrupted. we have to start over with new information and simply start helping people. host: ken is in illinois, republican. go ahead. caller: i believe he has the right to pardon anybody he wants to. he has not pardoned anybody that is criminal. all he did was pardon people that got a raw deal by you people in washington.

c-span is just as bad as -- host: just as bad as what? caller: if you would let me talk, i would finish. c-span is just as bad as msnbc and cnn. seeanybody treated the way you guys treat trump. do you trust obama? obama pardoned people who should not have been pardon. host: we certainly had that conversation during his pardons. we encourage you to go to c-span.org and some of our past segments. is there anything else you would like to add? caller: i would like to. you will not let me. all you do is keep talking. host: go ahead. morer: you guys hate trump than the country. all you -- are you cutting me off? host: no sir. finished. -- finish.

caller: how come there are no republicans calling in this morning? .ou have had twoo host: you are a republican. we have had the lines open. we try to rotate through the lines. joe is in connecticut, i'm for democrats. go ahead. caller: good morning. unfortunately, i don't appreciate the last caller's,. i don't trust -- caller's comment. i don't trust trump. or his familyelf members associated with the 2016 election or for these pay for play schemes that his son-in-law in particular has been accused

of would be seen as self-serving and raise the perception in the minds of american people that this is something close to him being a monarch. i think it would be an excuse for people to take to the streets to protest his presidency. thank you. host: much of this conversation in the past couple days coming after the pardoning of dinesh d'souza last week by the president. he will join our program a.m. if morning, 8:30 you want to have discussion with him about the pardon process, his case. you can do that tomorrow morning on "washington journal." susan, line for republicans. go ahead. caller: i do not understand this question in particular. i think this is a very fed up, partisan question in particular for this topic.

do we trust being power, weardon elected him as the president of the united states, so clearly we trust him with pardon power because we give all presidents of the united states pardon power. question --ere and you listed this long line of all the presidents and all of their out, didhat they dish we question each and one of them over the pardoning powers they had? no. never, never, never. however, today we sit here and discuss if we, on this particular president, are going to accept and trust his

pardoning power. that right there is not correct. host: what did you make of the pardon, the joe arpaio pardon. do you agree with them, disagree with them? honest, those are his decisions to make, aren't they? whether i agree with them or disagree with them, i don't know all of the circumstances on each and every one of those cases. vy to all of priv the documentation that he might or might not have. so far i can say this, we don't sit there. have we gone through president obama's, all of his pardons and

thumbed through every one of those and decided whether we agreed or disagreed so far with them? no. i daresay, i think it was 200 that he did or maybe 300 that he did. who were they? do we even know? of course not. we know every single one of what donald trump doe 24/7, all the time. get off this. it is his right to do what he wants. we have entrusted him with his judgment. like it or not, he is our president of the united states, everybody. whether i agree with it or not, -- host: susan, one issue before you go. how do you feel about president obama commuting chelsea

manning's sentence back in, i think it was, 2016? caller: i thought that it was politically instigated. i thought it was a political maneuver for him. i don't know whether it was really right or wrong. i think it was politically motivated for him to do that. was it a good choice? no. maybe i did not appreciate that, but i did not have a big fit o ver it eitherecse he s my president of the united states at that time, and whether i liked it or not, he was my president, and i have to appreciate and understand that his overall judgment is going to be ok. host: got your point.

when that happened, the chelsea manning commuting, we talked about it on this program. we discussevf obama's effortover the years to either commute a sentence or pardon. we encourage you to go back and listen to those segments and that discussion. everything available at c-span.org. ron, go ahead. caller: i will like to say, i wish everybody would please get behind the sky. this is a good man -- this guy. this is a good man we have as president. let's get behind him. stop knocking him. every time we turn around, someone has something negative to say about this guy. he has done the best anyone has ever done for this country. look at the blind folks. he is helping them. did obama help them? he did not do a thing for those people. as far as i'm concerned, this is

the greatest guy we could have in there. he is doing a super job. keep it up, mr. president. you are doing great. i am surprised the people have not started loving you more. you deserve it. that weinly wish could -- i wish that i could shake his aunt and tell him how much i appreciate him because he is doing a great job for this country. host: that is wrong in texas. the president later this -- ron in texas. the president later this week is heading to the g-7 summit to discuss a host of issue with allies. trade tensions intensify ahead of that meeting. canada ministers met in over the weekend where the non-us members issued a

u.s.c rebuke of trade tariffs. in china, beijing said it would not abide by an agreement to buy more u.s. products without assurances that the u.s. would not go ahead with plans to hit it with $50 billion of tariffs on chinese imports. there was no sign over the weekend that the administration to aarying os trade war. the wall street journal using that term on the front page today. focusing on steve mnuchin, the treasury secretary, headline, peacekeeper in a trade war led by trump. the spot that mr. managing reince himself is trying to be the voice of reason in an

administration that sees diplomatic norms and particles as a sign of weakness. trade thistory on morning, focusing on the broadening range of tariffs that are being ramped up, noting the u.s. imports in balance, the u.s. importing $3.26 trillion worth of goods per year. aluminum11 billion of annually. steel and aluminum are the focus of the latest tariffs. reaction on capitol hill and congress in our next segment, look at the week ahead in washington. we will certainly focus on the g-7 summit in that segment. tammy is in tennessee, line for republicans. go ahead. caller: good morning. i would just like to say that i voted for john. i will no longer represent him.

i no longer trust trump at all. he has done some of the things he said he will do. i think he has grossly abused his power. russians pouring into tel aviv. that raises questions as to what they are are doing over there? there has been a 40% surge of people flooding from russia to tel aviv. it is just amazing to me. it ise states, we are all just playing russian roulette. host: when did your feelings, when did that trust start to change from the time you voted for president trump until now? caller: about a year into his presidency. my husband and i both voted for

him. it has been a real concern of ours. host: what happened in january ecifically? caller: i was tired of what we had in there before. i was just tired of it. i thought i am going to vote much different. i voted, and i really put my trust in the republican party. my family is all republican. i'm just disgusted. i think that is most of americans in general, just disgusted. we tried to find the better of folks. all these people are trashing obama, trashing trump. i'm not trying to trash anybody. all i am saying is what i hear and see by president trump, and what i hear from him, he is just untrustworthy. democrats are

behind the children being pulled from their family. that is not american. i'm sorry. that is not american. host: that is tammy in tennessee. we are having this discussion of whether you trust president trump with the power of the party. this tweet, with any system of lace.s, power must take p jodi says having the pardon power is like having an endless get out of jail free card. if a democrat is elected president, all these rules will change drastically. john, democratic congo had. democrat, goa, ahead. caller: i am so confused. i don't know what to say. i appreciate what that lady had to say, a republican too.

i don't know what is going wrong with these republicans. they used to be the party of ,ecency and human, you know values and stuff. got intot putin office, and these people act --e he's jim joseph somody jim jones or somebody. i want to know what these republicans do when trump declares a king? he is acting just like a king. these republicans act like they don't understand what is really going on. they don't listen to the real news. they listen to that doggone fox. all they do is tell them a bunch of lies just like trump tells them lies every day. they still won't listen and to go against this crazy ass man.

host: matthew, line for independents. go ahead. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: i was a republican. i have nowwitche independent. votingake the mistake of for our current president. it was probably the worst vote i have ever cast. i decided to change my party affiliation after charlottesville. when you have american citizens mimicking and using the same verbiage as nazis, i figured it is time to make a change. i will do my best to make sure that no republicans are elected. i think the republicans have -- theyir way in such have lost their way in such a .ig way it is hard for me to put into words for you.

sorry,n't want to -- i'm hold on. the way he uses his pardon powers, like the previous caller, it is a get out of jail free card. to the fellow callers from texas, the gentleman, well, i have to say that if you think he is the greatest thing to ever happen to our country, then you need to go back and do just a little bit of history and locale president obama, who i did not vote for and did not truly support all his ideas, but he did for our economy out of the gutter. during the economic downturn, i ended up losing my business. i had to file for bankruptcy. host: kind of business was it? caller: it was a restaurant. located,restaurant was

we were shipping jobs over to china in 2001 and 2002. when you start taking jobs from america and sending them overseas, my business suffered dramatically because people do not have the extra income. our county where my business was 65,000, we lost over family sustaining manufacturing jobs. they all went to china. when you are a restauranteur, and you are living on the ability of people to spend their ancillary income on your place, when they don't have it, they cannot spend it. it is very simple. we did everything we could to stay in business. we were in business for 18 years. host: do you think things have changed on the trade front on losing jobs overseas? you think the president has made a difference? caller: no.

when i voted for him, there were three things i was looking for, to address the trade imbalance with china, to address currency manipulation because they manipulate their currency, and also to do something about the immigration. i don't mean that by saying throw everybody out, separate children from their parents. that is wrong. if you askdaca kids, me, they are american citizens. they need to be given that right. thank you for your time. have a great day. host: jed is in maryland, independent. go ahead. caller: good morning. i think it would be a great idea to curtail the pardon. it would be a drastic change. there would be a lot of other good changes they should try to implement it one issue would be -- implement.

one issue would be the thought changes,erm, make some but don't have them come into effect until 2024 when nobody can protect who will be in powe r. ilst: how would you curta the party? caller: you are not interesting anybody. just people calling in. host: how would you curtail the pardon? caller: i just say curtail in terms of opening up the debate people,ertain types of more political type of incarcerations could not be pardoned. maybe someone could be pardoned if there were flat out dna evidence. just to get rid of the political

aspect of it based on the discussionst now of what trump is doing and is he laying out a signal of get out of jail free. host: after that g7 summit this coming weekend, expectations for that highly anticipated meeting with kim jong-un of north korea. here is one of the stories about the process of setting up that meeting. headaches of seating, serving, and spending is the headline from the new york times. -- north korea has pushed other countries to pay for its expenses when they travel abroad. theh korean government paid travel expenses for the north korean delegation during the

olympics. south korea paid an additional $121,000 for the delegation to attend the paralympic games. the question of who will pay for what goes to the heart of who is really hosting the meeting. that covers many other decisions, such as who will determine the menus for the meals and who walks into the meeting first. one more speaking of north korea, syrian president bashar al-assad is planning to visit kim jong-un, north korean state media reported over the weekend. that story from the wall street journal. some reports on that as well from other papers this morning. peter is waiting in california, plan for republicans. go ahead. host: i was calling -- caller: i was calling because i

have personally met donald trump. i was at a thing in the year 2000, was called theillennium bash. it was the first time president trump spoke at a public speaking thing. some of the items he said there, at first i was gung ho for donald trump. then when he was after this born-again christian think, he started turning me off. in front of 60,000 people, he talked about how everybody kni fed him when he was going downhill. they forgot one thing, that he christian, he a does it turn another cheek. later now this born-again christian, and a lot of republicans now that came because he is a man of god.

i am not a holy roller. i did go to catholic school most of my life. to play with religion and stuff like that, to make a moment of applause them that shows is character. that lack of character to use any subject to get your way, that is why i don't trust him with anything. basically the power of the pardon, he is making it look like if i protect the people pardon, thy with the ande law the nurnberg lawss, were great laws back in germany. host: what did you say when you met him? caller: he was talking at that time about prenuptial agreements and how you should pick your spouse.

that was the most stuff that he his firstut, how the, wife dumped him. million when he gave a guy 1 bucks to buy a sandwich. he brought all that up. i was like, you are right, who you select as your spouse makes a difference. i thought he was a great guy. holet back from the backup to the billions. i thought that is what this country needed. we are basically broke. nobody wants to admit it. undertax and buy too much. host: thank you. peter bringing up the presidents spouse.

first lady melania trump is expected to host a reception for gold star families, her first appearance in weeks. it is listed as a closed press event, and the first lady will be in attendance alongside the present. she has not been seen in public since may 19, when she returned to the white house after undergoing a kidney procedure. president this point, a tweet, noting this is his 500th day in office, and saying we have accomplished a lot, many believed more than any other president in his first 500 days. cuts,e tax and regulation military and veterans, lower crime and illegal immigration. you will keep an eye on his twitter page. connecticut, line

for democrats. caller: good morning. make,int i would like to of course i am concerned with how he is using the pardon power politically. i do accept that many presidents have done that. i think the clinton, obama you mentioned before. the area about this, and listening to the callers and those who think that trump is , whathe end all, be all concerns me the most is i see trump as a person who actually does recognize that he did not win the majority of votes and that this is making him do all of these outrageous things to

bolster his base. as a person who did not vote for him, who is not impressed with them in the least, there is such feeling that he does not care for the whole country. when someone is elected within our system that does not get the , and thisf the votes , 3down of obama and hillary million more people voted for someone else than they did for him. fragile,is ego is so , he isis such, to me such a weak man with such a need for approval that he is frightening. that is all i really have to say. the you think is

going to happen in the midterm elections? what do you think his reaction will be depending on what happens? onrner: i really am want people to vote powermocrats to put some in the hands of the people who -- to me, he this is like a farce of a president. , and ipray that people want them to do it in good conscience. i do not want donald trump impeached. i want them to react to what this man and his party is doing soliditye is just no

behind the man's thoughts. he does not read. to me, he is just a tv personality that knows how to manipulate and manipulate, and it is frightening. that is all -- i will work very developsee that we another balance against this awful situation we are in. host: that is betty in connecticut this morning. the path to the midterm elections continues tomorrow. it is primary day in eight states, california, iowa mississippi new jersey new mexico, south dakota. we will talk about that in our next segment of the washington journal. here is a story from the washington post focusing on the california senate primary. the picture showing california state senator campaigning

against senator dianne feinstein on a message of generational change. he finds himself in a close race with a little-known republican of the second spot in tuesday's top two primary. the top two winners will go on to the general election. trump trust president with the pardon power? jenny, new mexico, line for republicans. go ahead. caller: good morning. how are you doing this morning? host: doing well. caller: maybe people don't realize that president obama pardoned over 1700 people, over 500 of those people were imprisoned for life. maybe people don't realize how many he did pardon. onst: the number is 212 pard

by president obama, but he also commuted a lot of sentences as well. go ahead. 200 pardons.s over all you have to do is google it. over 1700 was pardoned. over 500 had life sentences. i know that google sometes stretches it, but at the very end, he pardoned a whole bunch. i have been listening. i will be honest with you. i have been very disappointed with "washington journal." i have not turned it on often because there are so many negative people there. maybe president trump is not someone they wanted as a president. i did not vote for mr. obama, but i did not call in and -- in -- bash him every day just to say i did not like him.

he has done more harm to our country then i think people realize. yes, he got the world peace, whatever that the price he got, t that because he went around the world criticizing us. if they would just stop and look back in history and read some of the articles, he never said very many favorable things for us. as far as the pardon, he done an awful lot of pardons. i just googled it, and it said 1715 pardons. host: i will give you that number. commuting a sentence, reducing a sentence different from pardoning somebody for what they were convicted of. you are right, there were 1715 sentences who were reduced by president obama during the course of his presidency. in the last day of his presidency, president obama

granted 330 commutations, the most commutations during a single day by a u.s. president. the announcement coming within 24 hours of the transfer of power. among those, 1700 individuals sentences had been commuted, 500 had been sentenced to life in prison. don, go ahead. caller: that was a great call last call. those numbers are astonishing. enise's pardon. he was railroaded by obama. off because hed made a movie about him. esh is the only one with a campaign violation that went

to jail. they were going to give him five years, but he took eight months. it was a good pardon. man whojoe, 80-year-old upheld the constitution, immigration, that was another great pardon. za will be ond'sou the program tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. what would you askim if you had the chance? caller: i would love to talk to him. i would say, i agree. know, you wereou railroaded. i really believe that. obama was pissed. if you want to obama's website, he posted on their about his movie, he was bad mouthing him. eric holder went after him hard. not one person in our history has gone to jail for a campaign

violation. it was $20,000, and he had four people putn $5,000, and he peop all the money back to the host: that is happening tomorrow morning at 8:30. we hope you join in and join the conversation then. james is on the line for democrats, texas. do you trust president trump when it comes to the pardon power? caller: i do not. a man who has spent his life cheating people will cheat on this. i have one brief statement. i am really afraid. i am a vietnam veteran. republicans who prefer communists to democrats. i hear them hollering seig heil dear leader. he is changing the government cannot pulling the power --

government, pulling the power into the oval office. this man is a communist. he is completely dishonest. i am going to get off. they are punishing the left for putting a black man in the white house. that is who is running the show here. it is a sad day for america. maryland,is in democrat. go ahead. caller: hello? host: go ahead. caller: i agree with the gentleman before. think that, you kw, th country is just going down the tubes. they have no clue who they put in office. it is just a disgrace to the presidency. this guy is just a con artist. be.ys has been, always will

i don't know if he has been paying off his republicans. they are asleep at the wheel right now. we are suffering. americans are suffering because of president trump and the so-called republicans. host: our last caller on this segment of "washington journal." next is our reporters roundtable. we will talk about the week ahead in washington. we will be joined by matt fuller of the huffington post him and gabby more in jail of the washington examiner. talk about redundancy in

the communicators. matthew poca and the senior vice president of corporate affairs, into peterson, they talk about the issues facing rural and suburban broadcasting providers. scope. burrell in in many stances, pdf is the only provider in those areas. we were closely with the federal government on federal programs -- bringing broadband to customers that didn't adequately have broadband. bringing their more rich and in the future.

>> i think it is important as the administration and fcc and congress considers infrastructure like the proceedings and other concepts been aoadband is and has matter of the infrastructure to our country and policy. and that has the change because typically we think of the structure as roads and bridges -- all are important and need to be helped but we cannot survive today as a business or individual or someone working from home in our economy without having a robust broadband experience. onwatch "the communicators" c-span2. educator, ier really believe that education is the most important factor facing south dakota. we have been that last for many years and we are now 48th which is an great but it

improvement. we must understand that children are our best asset. so we have to take care of them and make sure they are good citizens. i think the most important issue going on in north dakota energy and agricultural prices. education is one of the biggest issues here. working with our students on behalf of behavior and social problems. , whether it isrt beds for kids that need, whatever it may be. we're just finding that we don't have the support we need to help these kids be successful. teach and the most pressing issue is government funding.

is for public employees and teachers and retirement funds. funding is tight in our state. this is part of c-span's 50 capitals tour is. our stoperin north dakota. and is marked, south dakota. "washington journal" continues. host: we like to take time to look at the week ahead. to do that we are joined by matt fuller from the huffington post from the morrongiello washington examiner. let's start at the end of the week and the other end of pennsylvania avenue, trump preparing for the g-7 summit with canada. what will be his goals going into the meeting on riding at saturday question work guest: it is likely to be fairly uncomfortable considering the terrorists leveled against the allies last week.

there is a great deal of tension between canada and this administration. justin trudeauame t say that this was disrespectful for the united states to do and it simply caught them off guard. they had set the deadline of may 31 to continue negotiations with kenneth a and the eu over tariffs and for this administration, they felt that they didn't get what they wanted out of the communication so they moved ahead with tariffs and now we see retaliatory efforts from canada, mexico and european partners. host: how much will they focus on trade? question, they're looking for any legislation where they could potentially see trump drop it or have them influence in that way but you have a few flashpoints you could look for in the senate.

they could be considering the national defense authorization act. there is some thought you could throw legislation in there that would signal attention but republicans are not on board with the harsh retaliatory tariffs and what the white house is talking about right now. so there's a lot of stuff in the air that certainly, house republicans are all looking at this keenly. ,ost: gabby morrongiello you mentioned this and here is what he had to say. >> our approach has been consistent all the way through. recognizing that canada and the united states have the most successful economic partnership and alliance and friendship in the history of the modern world. there are no two countries that are as interconnected. to us everye things year than to u.k. or china or

japan, combined. our companies are interwoven. and there is an absolute paths towards improving nafta and doing well on that. the fact that the president has moved forward with the terrorists will just hurt canadian jobs but it will alert u.s. jobs as well. and neither of those things is something that canada wants to see. host: the g-7 summit takes place in canada this coming weekend. justin trudeau will be the host. what is his relationship like with the president right now? -- veryhere he tends tense. his advisers and claim this is not going to impact the canadian economy or the u.s. economy and they say this is a family quarrel and it will eventually result in a renegotiating of the nafta agreement and things being addressed like trade imbalances

or unfair trade practices with canada and our european partners. obviously, the canadians don't share that feeling. they are upset about this. they have vowed to take measures to respond to these tariffs and i think there will be some moments during the g-7 summit later this week where trump and prime minister trudeau will interact and it probably will be tense. we will save anything comes out of the meetings but right now, i think the administration is holding firm on the tariffs. the potential for the good cop, bad cop with the other leaders there? president macron and angela merkel? has a unique relationship with macron but doesn't share that with angela merkel or theresa may. and i imagine there will be meetgs on the sidelines at

this summit with all of the european partners and trade will be the primary topic. ofwill see what comes out that. i don't think the administration intends to lift the tariffs so they have said they are not permt andould be lifted at feel that thethey negotiations have reaped what they wanted. but right now they are obviously holding firm. host: matt fuller, talk about what congress is trying to do on these specific trade issues. trade talksentioned ongoing. is there anything thate ofe if trump pulls us out nafta? guest: they have been talking about nafta legislation for a while. little movement there. they could address that specifically but i think they really want to convince trump -- they want to deter him. we will feel a lot public statements coming out here.

before you saw paul ryan, there were threats before where large-scale tariffs wererump introducing or ballooning and you saw congressional republicans say, we want to take the scalpel approach. maybe there's something weou do on a few different issues .ith trade i think they want to avoid an all out trade war so it is more about trying to mary that to finding what trump wants. republicans are free traders. that may change somewhat but they will try to convince trump -- himself and legislation would be the last remaining option for them if they had to go to that route host:. -- that route. wordstrade war are two

that are coming up more often. headlines talk about steve mnuchin as a peacekeeper as the by trump. this is one topic we will be talking about this morning as we look at the week ahead. several more is on the plate. if you want to join the gabbysation with morrongiello and matt fuller, republicans at (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independent callers, (202) 748-8002. a warm-up for visits outside the country ahead of the g -- ahead of the summit. can you talk about the white house preparations for the event? and you tells what is happening behind the scenes? yes go they sent a delegation to singapore last week led by joe hagan who has been laying the groundwork for this. making sure that the appropriate preparations are being handled.

making sure that all of the safety aecy protols are llowed there is a lot going into this. andthere is an outside wall making sure that these are addressed. , this was-scenes described as a meet and greet. talking about how this goes forward. certainly how to ensure and -- these are things that will be prepared for with his secretary of state visit this week. host: how much access do you have? guest: that is good question right now. we are still working through the white house with that.

host: how good members of congress influence this high profile for a meeting that the president is having next week? guest: i think they are asking themselves the same thing. know how you influence this president. a lot of repubnsave tried. trying to gratify him and praise him and inject your perspective into that. this is interesting. thise really knows how shakes out. to seehink it is unclear the intentions of either side. what did we try to get out of the sun that at this point? yes, very tricky. and i think that they mostly leave this to the president and the white house and go from there and be more proactive.

host: how do democrats play it this week? guest: they might be saying this is irresponsible and that trump might be getting played here. we don't know and it seems data they willh have and how much they are willing to negotiate. i don't know what our objective is in the end and how we influence them. so much is up in the air. host: so much is going on in washington, d.c.. the house isn't in until comes inbut the senate later today. many preparations are underway a big white house for upcoming week. taking your calls and questions.

again, the lines for democrats, independentand callers. keith, go ahead. trump 100%. behind the only, does going to make on that7 is that i heard trump didn't seem to be going but justina as much trudeau seemed to be hinting that he can't mess with mexico or canada will retaliate with the. i think mexico is the security risk to the country. and i think justin trudeau should stay out of the mexico-u.s. relationship and focus on canada but that is all i have to say. host: what are your feelings on nafta? i don't think there are a lot of problems with canada. the biggest problem i heard that upset me was canada trying to say that they would intervene in

the decisions we make on mexico with. mexico is a mess and they don't want to do anything on immigration. guns, drugs, youame it. this is a fact. i remember justin trudeau saying that they would stand behind mexico when it comes to nafta but they should stay out of that . , whereabby morrongiello do you want to pick up on that? guest: it is interesting seeing from trump's advisers over the comments of justin trudeau. saying that he escalated this to a level where it didn't need to be. and they characterized the trade disputes between canada and the u. and the u.s. and mexico as

and thereisagreement will be conversations to eventually fix this. but these conversations echo what we hear out of the white house. and they are frustrated whenever aally interferes with relationship with another ally. and it is something that critics of the president say he tends to do. he metals and relationships between european countries and other nations like china or south korea or japan. so it is interesting to hear the criticism. would say ising i that canada is a major producer steel and aluminum.

he wants cheap prices for building so to leave canada out of this or the idea that the speech would go away, it is the case. host: i know that you wrote a piece across the most recent the immigration bill. where does that stand and what will happen this week? guest: a k week. icans have a meeting , members are very close to key -- we have 190 democrats signing on to this with potentially more. 218ould get to the threshold. the moderates in the republican party use the addition to trigger a number of votes.

so they're using that threat to say that republicans need to .ome up with a bill saying that this is congress and so they're trying to come up with a bill that republicans only could pass but i think this come up with 218 republican votes. the only thing they do have is that they say to the moderates, this is what we want and we want .o address daca but they say if you go this route then it will never come into law and trump will never

sign it. they are trying to find the middle ground and this week is key for that. is tough to see them coming seeith a bill and tough to a bill which is the product of a discharge position. host: matt fuller is well sourced in the republican conference. a good guy to ask for any questions that you have among house republicans. how is a reporter for the republican post known for being well sourced? guest: i have certainly tended to graduate towards the most conservative in the republican caucus. i have an interest in them. they respect the fact that you are there reporting on them and as long as you are fair than they are good to you. there is also something to be said in washington for the

guys who come here and say they want to do exactly what they told the voters they were going to do. i appreciate that and i certainly see the conservatives actually do mean what they say so there is a genuine respect for that. host: if you want to know what is happening inside the freedom along onollowed twitter, along with gabby morrongiello. virginia beach, an independent collar. go ahead. is wherehe first issue it says that trump could not be indicted. actually don't know. this is the reason why the anstitution is such arbitrary document that is so vague. go from onecan political spectrum to the other

political spectrum and neither person is right and neither person is wrong. number two, trump always talks about the black unemployment rate. the lowest it d ever been was during slavery. we were 100% employed during slavery. would you please run -- go back to this memo issued to the justice department over whether or not he could be indicted? start with the robert mueller question. this was an extent of letter sent by the president's legal addressing the in's and outs of the presidential interview and whether trump would be willing to sit for one and what the conditions would be in order for him to agree to that. he felt wasg what

the inability of the justice department to charge the .esident there was a lot of legal arguments about this. and i discussion about whether or not he could be indicted and i think the argument and debate is being reignited and that is in the news of the letter sent this week. i'm sure we will hear plenty more about that in the coming days. host: do you want to talk about the history of jobs numbers? a good pointis here that during the campaign we heard trump say that the unemployment rate was around 5% or 4% and it was really at 10% or 15% or 25% or 30% and even up to 42% was his high mark. , at the it came in second white house briefing, a question was asked to sean spicer about the official on wen the rates to know what are working with and they failed to come up with a clear answer.

economy is doing well. the unemployment rate was 3.9% on friday? guest: 3.4%. guest: so it has dropped to a low and robust economy now. but if trump were sitting on the sidelines, would you say it was a 3.4% unemployment rate or a 30% unemployment rate? he has shown a willingness to pull numbers out of the sky on this issue. 3.8% on friday. the president touting his jobs numbers. saying he gave msive tax and regulation cuts. saying that it is the best economy and jobs ever. that has been the presidents only tweet this morning.

we are keeping on talking to viewers here with matt fuller and gabby morrongiello. duane in michigan. on the republican line, go ahead. caller: i don't know if this is an accurate question on the .rade thing about 30 years ago or 20 years ago after nafta was brought in, i saw a picture on the nightly news of all of the headquarters of big american corporations over the border on mexico. this is the first question. -- the second is, don't you don't a lot of people think that things in general are very good?

but the the economy things with north korea? it has been 18 years since there and they areat all on the border of being a nuclear program and country? 3% growth in the economy? i'm not an economist and i don't claim to be one. you, i will hush up and listen. thank you. host: matt fuller, you start on this one. guest: certainly, the economy has been strong. and under obama administration, it was also very strong. trump oversaw an economy that was booming but in part he cause they have added a lot of debt to where we are at. this past couple of bills will add $10 trillion in 10 years. these things have a impact on the economy and the moves above

the regulatoryh environment being lax at this point. so yes. the economy is doing strongly. although on the point of north korea, we don't know how this shakes out. yes, they have been increasingly an issue, a complex and difficult one. and if we can get them to lay down nuclear arms it would be miraculous but it remains to be seen. host: i will get the polling numbers from gallup. overall satisfaction with the way things are going in the u.s. 62% dissatisfied.asfie you see that same question being asked back to the 1980's. that: an interesting time

they find themselves in. midterm elections and a lot want to ron on the economy and brging in tax cuts and the dismantling of regulations gop midterm and the message. polls, we have consistently seen that while most americans are fairly satisfied with the direction of the economy and with the change in the tax cuts, they are pretty broadly dissatisfied with the way the administration has been governing. so there is an interesting dynamic at play as the white house and the campaign trail the ways he tout has helped the economy flourish. we are not seeing that in the midterm election polls right now. guest: and you haven't seen the wage growth.

the republican sold it as seeing thousands of dollars in your paycheck. for a lot of people they haven't seen that. are largely prominent tax cuts. and there are people still saying that they might be satisfied with the overall direction of the economy that do they get that back on a trillion dollar tax cut bill? more, the red lines saying that the country is on the wrong track. almost 40% say the country is on the right track in 2016. the fuller, we mentioned and mississippi, new

jersey, mexico and south dakota, something of a tuesday of the direction. california is the one to watch. arestructure system, there so many democrats on the ballot and you could potentially have democrats locking themselves out of the congressional races. primary -- you think mostly of it being republican or democratic. but there are a number of competitive seats out there where we could have a situation two winds up being republicans on the ballot. so certainly that is one to watch because it will eat into the seats in play. and democrats are looking to pick up more than a few, potentially five or six. guest: california is the big

one. i am from california. and i have been watching the way this primary system has played out over the last couple of years. i am also looking at the governor's race out there. this is interesting. be athere will republican that makes it in. plenty of calls, we will get to them. terry in illinois. a republican. go ahead. caller: i wanted to say something about the trade. companies before were crying and complaining about how china was treating everybody but trump is and now theyy cried because he is doing something. and with the house, what they ,re doing with the immigration they put illegals first before

the citizens. that is wrong. and i hope trump looks back at the last three presidents and every single person they put in jail and if they are having any doubt, the investigation is over with, i hope we find the -- lligence service host: you bring up a lot of issues. do you want to tackle the immigration topic? guest: putting the leg -- people who are here illegally or citizens, that is something that they are talking about. difficult when they have the other side of the republicans. more.0% or

there are a number of theirmented immigrants in constituents. there is a natural debate here and it makes it very difficult when you see those ideologies clashing. on the moderate side you have jeff denham. large immigrant population in his constituency. side, the other freedom caucus is always at play. you have a number of people who sort of are in the middle of this and they are looking for the middle ground. and this is certainly a leadership race. paul ryan is leading. steve scalise is angling for it. both of those men have to thread

the needle here and there are republicans who are looking at the debate and thinking that maybe we could use this as a launching board for the speakership run. you are going to watch two men run for the right a little bit angle then conference debate as much as they can. host: debates were sparked over the weekend after rudy giuliani when online and was asked about the potential of trump pardoning himself down the road. any thoughts on how rudy giuliani did yesterday? a lot of republicans and democrats were unsettled by that. legal team would even think you would be ok of pardoning himself? rudy giuliani said this is that something that the president is

considering. shows thatng this up they are trying to put pressure on the investigation to show a subpoena would not be tolerated. that he has already pardoned some of his allies. and if we get to the point where e president is indicted or some of his closest advisers or campaign hands find themselves then he could turn to him next. host: 24 hours from now, being at this table taking calls, pete souzwill be joining. good morning, thank you for taking my call. i have three quick questions. could the president shoot james comey and get away with it?

what happened with the meeting with kim kardashian at our pardoning the african-american women who was serving for a first-time offense as a lifetime. ? i would like to do a shot at to pbs news. stephanie rule and washington journal. thank you. we will let gabby morrongiello start with whichever one you want to start with. guest: the first comes from a comment that rudy giuliani made in an interview yesterday morning when he said the president could shoot or andssinate the fbi director not be indicted for it. this is something controversial because scholars have argued i watched a program this ,orning in which jonathan truly , hasstitutional brought in the argument of officiala government

and whether a president could be indicted. it is a clash and it is a is our example for giuliani to a broad. as far as the meeting with kim kardashian, the white house did not give us a readout of that afterwards but kim kardashian said it was successful and she hopes that trump will eventually pardon the woman who she met who she met with the president about. we will see that the president will scale back the pardoning the flakis because of he has received. and in terms of which companies have returned to the u.s.? and number of companies haven't necessarily move headquarters back to the u.s. but have opened plans for noting that they intend to have manufacturing plans back to the u.s. in the coming years. there is a great example of a chinese-based solar company

after the solar panel tariffs were installed this year said a plant inbe opening florida. and that is something administration touted. so while we haven't cessily seen a lot of relocating of headquarters in the u.s., there has been a boom in the number of companies that are relocating or opening new manufacturing plants. host: 20 minutes left. matt fuller has scary in michigan. on the l good morning. one thing i would like to comment on is that years ago when nafta was established, it was established for the western hemisphere on the side of the planet. what is going on in asia and the other places has something to do with this too. it has to do with the separation of different places like asia and european continents and africa as well. so when we look at immigration from the northern and western we're talkingre,

about this with the united states. we're talking about one third one third, and one third. the reason why we talk about this is because we need the western hemisphere because we'd use most of their stuff on that side so now we can close it up. and put the borders up. because we need to cancel out the immigration. got your point. matt fuller, what do you want to pick up on? tesco we do have significant trade with canada and mexico. we are certainly part of that. the only thing i would say about this is that we are an increasingly globalized world. there are a lot of accusations that china has been able to dump steel -- able to cheap steel. they have been able to skirt some of the existing tariffs that we have with steel.

these are issues that trump ran on. runningry popular about on the message of renegotiating trade deals. i thi it has taken him 500 days to get to this point but he certainly seems to be angling inants to be getting the mix and i think that scares a lot of republicans because certainly, they are a free-trade party or they were a free trade party. and now policy has come up and it is coming to a head. host: talking about the president's party power. four minutes ago, the president tweeted "i have the absolute right to pardon myself but why would i do that when i have done nothing wrong? in the meantime, the never ending witchhunt led by 13 angry and conflicted democrats continues into midterms." scholaror every legal trump has read, that says he has

the right to pardon hself, there is another who says he does not. so there will be an ongoing debate especially of the special counsel continues with more indictments being made. coming under significant scrutiny, airing on what the president's ultimate decision will be if he faces charges. and right now, it seems as though it isn't heading in that direction and that is something the administration feeds on. in thise months left investigation, potentially years. and i think that there is a great deal of debate that will take place guest: and it is funny because the argument that he could shoot someone on the white house thatds and pardon himself, argument is a slippery slope. that is an insane legal standard, of course he

could be charged but you already see the trump white house with himself and his legal team and here significantly so they are basically setting up an argument that the president is unimpeachable or unaccountable in a will of law, which is an interesting argument considering e the public party was a few years ago. , saying he wasma a lawless president. making an argument very publicly on twitter that he could pardon himself and do whatever he wants and his legal team seems to think this. betty is unaccountable to no one. host:avidn grand rapids. go ahead. that with thing is the tax cuts or whatever, yes, i got an extra $20 in my paycheck but gas went up.

read went up. everything went up. so the tax cuts to help the middle class, they took all of the money from me. you know? rich white men want to be rich white men. the other part of it is that trump is a criminal. a gangster. we really need to get him out of here. host: matt fuller, i will let you start on tax cuts. that is a large concern for people. they are not seeing the wage growth they were promised. certainly when barack obama left office, gas was two dollars but now it is three dollars. people are having the same concerns and this is a $1.5 trillion bill, did i get my fair share of this? up corporate tax rate went

and corporations feel it and shareholders feel it. whoaverage working people saw $100 in their chat, are they the ones saying that this is so life-changing amount? when you see prices rising like they are, republicans have to address this in midterm arguments. the president has shied away from talking about the tax cuts when he is supposed to be talking about the tax cut. is reason for that is because the suppose it benefit for americans and it up being less than the administration and congressional republicans expected. the caller only saw $20 added to his paycheck. there are a lot of other voters like that who didn't get the $4000 in their paycheck at the end of the year. and trump has actually seized on

a lot of the other topics that the administration think they are doing well on. deregulation. the economy. everything that doesn't have to do with the tax cuts. it has been interesting to see him run on this message. much like the republican leaders who think this is the landmark for this year. do you think specific parts are left out? or is this what republicans on capitol hill are -- guest: a great example -- earlier this year he was at a campaign event that was supposed to be about tax cuts and the jobs act and he tossed those remarks out the window and started talking about the inabilityd for congress to pass immigration legislation and he does this routinely. gophe is on the stump, leaders would prefer he would talk about the economy or about tax cuts and he deviates from that. the one that you could

say about wages is that you can fool people on a lot of things but people know what their paycheck is. see $1000 or would $2000 as a bonus but a lot of people say they will not see that significant amount of money. at the end of the day they see a side-by-side comparison on how this bill would affect. if you have questions for matt fuller or daddy mourned orl-o, it is -- matt fuller gabby morrongiello, it is (202) 748-8001 four republicans. (202) 748-8000, democrats. (202) 748-8002, independence. cannot to sayrump he would impose the tariffs on

and steel,d still -- he said it was because we had so few aluminum plants and steel plants that we could not make our own parts we needed if there was a war or something and we couldn't get the parts or replace our military, that he felt it was a national security issue. and i listen to the other morning to justin trudeau, who misinterpreted that -- i don't have that was due to the media, but he said that trump called canada a national security risk and that is the true. that's not what he meant. he meant that we need to have the ability in our own country make our own parts for security. i don't know if justin trudeau

misunderstood or because the media twists and turns things around. that is the case, the media needs to stick to the facts. i get so tired of hearing the .undits give their own opinion everybody have the right to it but when it is misinterpreted or stated incorrectly, it is a harm to this country. and to the relations we have with other countries. i will let gabby morrongiello respond to this. guest: the prime minister and his response to what the president was trying to say doe, the fact was that we import so much steel and aluminum from canada right now and we do have an inability to

produce it ourselves that is to the extent that canada imports, it poses a national security risk. and it is of the canadians posing the risk but just the situation we find ourselves in as a risk to the national security. is what the administration was saying. i don't want to say that the prime minister misinterpreted , i think there is just a bit of disagreement here over the tariffs over trade which has led to a lot of words being said that possibly but it happens that if the president didn't move forward with the tariffs in the way that he did. host: the president tweets this minutes ago, a few "the u.s. has made so many bad trade deals over the last few years." and talking about china, "canada has all sorts of trade barriers

on agriculture. not acceptable." beverly is in columbia, missouri. go ahead. have a surpluse with canada on steel? i can't speak specifically on that. i think we impt re than we export and i would have to look at that to make sure. but i would be willing to wager that we are importing more. steel$29 billion of annually. those are the numbers i have at my fingertips. go ahead with your comment? caller: if we keep going on the track we are going, all of these people out here thinking that we by 2019, if we keep going and we will lose a lot of these jobs. this country is going to fall.

wast: that ceainly republicans screaming about free trade for so long and i think it is interesting to see this shift here. a lot of people are concerned about the trade war and they should be. a trade war would be disastrous if we fell into a true trade war. trump's point is that while we , heave a trade deficit wants to renegotiate a lot of the deals and rebalance this in some way. i think those are tough tasks certainly how trade has usually played out is that places that can make things for lower prices usually when so it is a tricky issue to tackle. and i think we are about to find out in the course of the next year how difficult that is. host: from the wall street journal, a story on the steel and aluminum tariffs.

thatated back in march tariffs by reducing trade volume and boosting inflation could reduce u.s. growth by .1%-.2%. host: if you want to read this story in the wall street journal . yorkel is waiting in new on the line for republicans. go ahead. caller: good morning. i would like to add that while i someel that trump has made significant gains for us in the trade issue, because the unfair business practices are well

do towith what they american corporations and forcing them to turn over trade secrets which they then share to andhat issinesses just unfair. american companies spend a lot of money on r&d. and you have those secrets given to a chinese company to build local companies is bad. and also to put higher tariffs on our companies, that puts them at a disadvantage. it is an unfair business practice across the board. so while i agree with that, there are so many other issues nexttrump that the election, i will not be voting for him. what he has done as far as the tax laws here in new york, we are working with local government officials at the state and local level to offset what the republicans did to us here. yorkers,ow most new republicans and democrats, will

be paying a much higher track so forget about the tax break for us. it is a huge tax increase. the other issue is the on.corr trump ran on the platform of draining the swamp but if anything, things have only gotten worse. partisan politics are at an all-time high. politicians are only interested in their own self interest. at the end of the day, i think that is one of the reasons we see across the united states, states taking and a penchant -- states taking independent action. marijuana laws that prevent officials from enforcing changes -- in immigration laws -- more and more greasy grassroot movements to circumvent or stop federal officials from doing what they want to do. michael, thank you for the call. gabby morrongiello? guest: it is interesting to hear

someone who was a republican who says he will now not be voting for republican candidates for reelection. i want to focus on one of the issues that was t up is t iss of corruption and self interest that a lot of people think is happening right now in washington. and the frustration with this president to ran on the dream of the swamp message. and whether or not this is something he has achieved. if you go back to the in between between the november election of 2015 and the time that trump was inaugurated and took office, there was a great deal of discussion for what he would be like as president. he was previously a registered them across but ran as a dealmaker. he would be able to break through the partisan gridlock and negotiate deals on capitol hill and also, make sure the government was running less as a

corrupt entity. but we haven't really seen much of that. and that is something that not only democrats are frustrated with that republicans as well. they really do feel that despite all of the other achievements that the administration might have made, this certainly is an area where republican -- where the president has not made progress. andrew in white plains, new york. is directeduestion mainly towards gabby morrongiello. previously, the question of justin trudeau and the assertion that steel was a matter of national security. i'm not sure that's necessarily the case. it seems to be a stretch to say that national security is a justification for tariffs across the board. trump jumped on this as a national last resort.

what are the numbers? i'm sure this country has a tremendous amount of steel and if we had to ramp up for war it wouldn't take much to do that. to saywhat i was trying is that the administration would argue that it is a matter of national security and we have national security interest that are being violated and not met because of our trade imbalances and some of the practices in trade relations with other nations including canada. something thatis the administration has to answer for. they have to prove why this is a national security risk and this is something they are being scrutinized for already. democrats seized on this. they said, show us where it is a risk to national security. right now it's seems as though the tariffs are actually presenting the most risk to our national security and to our economy. this will hurt american workers and jobs. disagreement huge about the purpose of the tariffs and ultimately the impact of them.

and the disagreement is something that will be playing out in the coming weeks as trump continues to defend this move. is an certainly this argument that the white house can make and an argument you here on capitol hill lh , about act whether it is a shift or the can't supply, because we fly on oil, certainly consideration foa lot of politicians is the fact, are we making enough's deal? to be have the means of production ourselves for this particular thing? it certainly comes into play. and to your point, a trade war is also a national security threat and may be a more significant 12 a lot of normal people. host: last call. go ahead. caller: good show this morning. seemsment is, con man don

to base belief in that maybe he knows what he is doing herin terms of tariffs and that sort of thing but my sort of thing -- but my concern is that the bankrupt's are bad businesses vision. balances? the checks how will our country deal with this decision aboutse tariffs that could ultimately send us down the tubes in 2019? host: big questions for the last minute. guest: the way these tariffs have come about has almost been decision-making process by trump. he first issued this exemption for european allies, canada, then decidedut that negotiations to go the way that he wanted them to so he was going to go ahead with the tariffs. we have also seen his rhetoric be confusing with china and there are a lot of concerns about whether trump knows what he is doing.

whether he realizes the potential impact of decisions like this. and i think a lot of people would say thatt is hastily done anddn' he direally realize going into this decision last week to impose these tariffs, what the impact would be is certainly going to have to be answering questions about that this week here in washington with the press and when he arrives at the summit on thursday. guest: i was a to paint with an overly broad brush, tariffs and overly protectionist trade policies normally have a negative effect on the economy. but certainly on a more microlevel, we have used tariffs and different trade agreements for over 100 years. for hundreds of years, since the inception of our country. it's a very complex issue and not one that you can just say free-trade is the end-all be-all

and everything needs to be free, and you can't say tariffs jacket andof -- jack it all up these are complex issues. certainly it matters to have people who understand the issues debating it in coming to cool, calm, collected agreements on those sorts of things. host: matt fuller with "huffington post," and every morrongiello -- gabriela morrongiello. we appreciate your time this morning. in thehington journal," report that shows how the federal government can save billions of dollars by reducing redundant federal programs. jessicaabout it with lucas judy from the government accountability office, next. stick around. ♪

>>-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. ight on "the communicators," american cable association president and ceo matthew volcker and senior vice president of corporate affairs and repeaters and talk about the issues facing rural and suburban broadband providers.

35%e serve so many areas, ofcommunicators," american cable association president and our 'e access to traditional cable providers. there were numeral in scope and so in many instances, we are the only provider in those areas. we worked very closely with the federal government and the fcc on progrs that make partnership investments with private sector companies like to bring broadband to customers that did not previously have it or have adequate rod band, bring them more rich robust broadband in the future. >> i do think it's very important that as the administration and the fcc and congress considers infrastructure like the ,roceedings and other concepts that broadband is and has been determined to be a matter of important infrastructure to our country and to our national policy. and that's a change, because typically we think of infrastructure as roads, bridges, railways, etc. which are all very important and need be helped, but you cannot

survive today is a business or an individual, as someone working from home in our economy without having a robust broadband experience. "the connecticut is," on c-span two. >> "washington journal," continues. host: each weekend, the segment of the "washington journal," would take a look at your money at work in a different federal program and this week we are talking about the cost of duplication across the federal government, and to do that, we're joined by jessica lucas judy of the government accountability office, the gao new duplication report is out, always eagerly awaited by those on capitol hill. let's talk about some of the duplication. explain why you started doing this and how you go about doing this report. gaot: this is a mandate for

, we are required by law to look at across the entire federal government programs where congress or executive branch agencies can better manage overlap oron gao duplication of programs and we also added in where they can achieve some kind of cost savings, save money and avoid spending or get some additional revenue. host: fragmentation, overlap, and duplication. is there a difference between those three? guest: there is, there's some overlap in the overlap, but basically fragmentation is where you have agencies th are orking towards a common goal doing the same kind of thing and they could communicate better or coordinate better to deliver the services a little more effectively, they share information or clarify who is supposed to be doing what. overlap is where you have agencies that are serving similar types of populations or providing similar types of services and duplication is just what it sounds like, where you have been providing the same services for the same people. it's not just by itself the bad thing to have fragmentation,

overlap, or duplication. we look for areas where is actually causing some kind of negative affect, some kind of harm. money is being wasted or taxpayeoe who are ying to get the services are having a lot of difficulty. there's a lot of burden on them who am i supposed go to in this particular situation, or it's difficult to know what's effective because they are not worki together well. host: as we go through this report, we encourage viewers to go to gao.gov to check it out , is the annual report with additional opportunities to reduce fragmentation, overlap, duplication and achieve other financial benefits. let'ta about some of the biggest money wasters that are in this report. where can government save the most money by getting rid of a specific program or getting rid of some of the overlap? guest: it's about better managing programs. one of the examples we point out in this year's report is with the department of energy and dealing with nuclear waste.

as you can see, it's a very serious sort of issue. recommeing ithat congress provide the department of energy with some additional authority to use alternative methods for dispg of a clear waste. this i lower-level -- waste with a lower level of radioactivity. in washington in the department of energy can't use this one process called routing for dealing with this lower-level radioactive waste. grouting is -- encasing the waste in concrete to render it inert to render it safely. the department needed to use the , which is encasing it in class, which is a much more expensive and time-consuming process and it's one that is recommended for higher levels of radioactivity, but in this case, the department has successful used the method to-- grouting

dispose of waste more quickly which helped prevent it from leakin and causingro we rommended that congress give the department energy that authority and we think that could save tens of billions dollar ho you are recommending congress give that auy, can gao not mandate these things happen when to find duplication or waste? guest: we make recommendations to congress or executive branch agencies and then we follow up every year at least once a year if not more often to find out whether or not our recommendations have been implanted. far, of the almost 800 actions recommended in our eight years of doing this report, there have been hundreds of them that have been implemented. and fully addressed even partlly addressed. not so far has saved at least $178 billion. we are about this year's report with jessica lucas judy at gao.gov if you want to check

out their work. you can call and ask questions about duplication, fragmentation and some of these issues we're talking about. republicans, call (202) 748-8001 , democrats, call (202) 748-80's report with jessica lucas , independents, call (202) 748-8002. take us through another big money line item in this report that you .2. guest:th example is with coast guard boat stations. they perform search-and-rescue operations as part of its mission and they have boot stations all around the country. ifd 18 ofthe their boat stations th they could close without jeopardizing their ability at all to provide that certain rescue operation. they have to be able to respond within a two hour window. they found there was into vocation and overlap in the atio. and that they could close those without having any kind of bad effect. that could potentially save millions of dollars. it also makes it easier forhe if they have fewer boat stations, it's easier for them to maintain the training and the

readiness of the personnel that they have. one of the stations that was looted for closure was badly damaged in a storm and they had to pay to repair it. to bring it back into operation. even though it is potentially on the chopping block for cutting. stationst identify the in 2013 and when we did our review in 2017, eyti haven't starclosing any of the stations. i had been some resistance from congress and from -- there had been some resistance from congress and the local populations, it's a big de t lose a coast guard boat station. we recommended they put together a plan with time frames they could meet and what they would need to do to be able to close those boat stations. report on aou do a topic like that, you go back and explore how the duplication was allowed to happen in the first place and why would multiple boat stations be built to control hypothetically the same coastlin thingsthat is one of the

we do, we try to identify the cause for any problems we're finding. we try to make a recommendation is going to get at the root cause. in many cases, what has happened is your programs or services that have developed over time for slightly different purposes or for different audiences or and a different program they are trying to work together and we find ways they can do that a little more effectively and more efficiently. the coast guard, their processes have changed and technology has changed and they probably have greater range now. these things have sort of built up over time and we are not necessarily making decisions quickly enough to keep up with the changes. host: do you find that specific departments have the most duplication? a lot of these focus on the dement of defense. expected,is to be the department of defense is very large with many different programs and it does basically all the different things that the rest of the federal government does not within dod. hundreds of billions of dollars are spent through dod programs and so they do have the largest

number of recommendations and the largest number of open regulations, which is one of the reasons we focus on them in this year's report. how much for the depart of dee saving the unlimited all of your recommendations? guest: i was was possible to put all the different estimates together and give a big number because i'm sure would be huge. we conservatively say tens of billions of dollars by implementing the open actions that could be saved. but really, even some of the individual actions by themselves could have tens of billions of dollars in benefits. host: we want to get to fewer calls and the phone lines, republicans, call (202) 748-8001 . democrats, call (202) 748-8000. independents, call (202) 748-8002. if you have questions about your tions and government or how the gao does its job to find the duplication, i did want to ask about one of the specific dod recommendations and how that you point at saving potentially $527 million over the next five years

, defense distribution centers. what is that? of defensedepartment as the situation centers all over the country to help provide for its operations and some of those are run by the defense logistics agency and others are run by the individual services. thatone of those things they built up over time and what we found when we looked at it, again the department of defense's own study has found that they have some duplication and overlap in the district and ceer some of them were on in the same location, they were again serving similar populations and they identified these interviews and centers that could potentially be closed. centers distribution that could potentially because base realignment and closure authority from congress in order to be able to do that. we found when we looked at their study and at the situation centers are talking about was

that they have existing authorities that they could use potentially to close some of those. in some cases, within you to do just noty congress that is going to involve a certain amount of money and then wait 60 days and then they can close them down. or if the facility has deteriorated, they have the ability to demolish. we recommended that they actually go through a look at their existing authorities and figure outhich ones of the situation centers can we close with our existing authority and which es do we need additional authority. host: what else are you looking at an agency's own reports and pointing out what they haven't done that they already found out they should be doing? guest: pretty often. it's a good way for us to figure out where there's a problem. it's hard for the agency to argue against its own findings. host: was an agency were that happened or that these sort of things don't implement them? guest: i'm not sure if i have a good example of that often top of my head.

i know one place we looked at is with data centers. data center consolidation. this is where agencies are using more and more data for data analysis and data analytics and they are collecting more and more information and so they were building their own facilities to collect and store and analyze all that infoio we found that there are thousands of them and they could be consolidated. agencies are working towards that and as of last year, as of august, 2017, more than 5000 of the be closed and consolidated and that saved about $4 billion. but there are still thousands more that could eventually could be duplicated. host: how big of an agency's gao? they 3000 to 3100 people. host: have you ever done one of these reports about a recommendation for gao? guest: would you make sure whenever we're making a recommendation and reviewing

that we look at ourselves as well. and try to take our own medicine and implement our own recommendations. host: jessica lucas judy is the director of strategic issues at the gao, tang your calls as we go through the latest report on government duplication. norma is up first in ogden, kansas. a republican. go ahead. caller: i think we should quit funding young women they get pregnant. they know that they can go to the srs office and that they will get help with an apartment and they will get money and went and everything. maybe if they didn't have that, they would get pregnant. host: do you have a comment about duplication in the government? caller: oh. [laughter] there are so many things wrong that they are too

many to count. i don't like that some -- this law that someone can move in with you for 1days and they are considered a permanent resident and you can't get them out without going to court. many things accounts, if you count of the numbers in the duplication you find, how long did it take for you to do one of these reports? guest: is a pretty time-consuming process but what weo is we would all the reports that we had issued in the previous year since we did in this case since we did the 2017 report and we went back and looks all reports that have come out and all the recommendations we need and all the matters for congress to consider. we figured out which ones of them involved fragmentation, overlap, or duplication or had potential financial benefits and we put them all together. in a report. that they are too many to count. i don't like thatand what we fog it this way helps us to get the message out a little better. these a existing gao recommendations, things we already follow up on and we report publicly. this gives us more opportunities to get some congressional attention and public attention by doing interviews like this.

just to help people know about all the great work we do. talking about all the different things into many things to count. we do work in law enforcement and homeland secury and immigration. we also look at education programs and income security programs, department of defense that we already talked about, health care, medicare, medicaid, indian health service, the v.a., basically anywhere we spend money, we look at it. host: more information at gao.gov. go ahead. i was seeing the show on redundant federal spending and i believerobably there is far more than this office has even been able to discover. billions more. if they have this extra money, they could probably take care of the poor, and building structure, build a wall that has money left over. host: judy. guest: that is one thing that we

try to highlight is that governments is a long-term unsustainable fiscal path but in the meantime, there are short-term steps that can be taken to save tens of billions of dollars which is why we try to encourage congress to implement our recommendations and effect branch agencies. had $178 billion in cost savings so far and tens of billions of dollars more. host: how many random are outstanding, the congress is not taken action on? guest: three and5 om these reports that are still open. we do continue to follow-up with the agencies and talk to them about the recommendations and again with congress, there's directedof them specifically at congress where there is some kind of legislative change that would be needed and we are in conversations with all the oversight committees and budget committees to try to get them to take some action. host: eight years and a doing these reports, do you have scrapped the entire federal government? kind: we have varied its

of amazing. every year in think maybe we are done in their won't be any more book every year we continue to find. we looked across the entirgovemt out there. there always seemed to be more opportunities for cost savings and for more effective or more efficient use of resources. host: virginia in annapolis, maryland. an independent. caller: i'm wondering how much the gao or the federal budget considers the impact of contractors and the effect that that has on with respect to redundancy. the intent with contractors was to reduce redundancy, but for example, in translation, the government in different branches always use translators for international work and yet they hire contractors and on the fire them and they hire them and they fire them and the process of hiring and firing contractors is extreme, because you have to vet them into clarins word on that. i'm just wondering if there's any way to pool those resources across the government. we have looked at among

other things, strategic human capital management across all governments, it's warmer areas the jail has identified as high risk and so looking at where agencies are making decisions abt what their future work force will look dthey have the skills in place and have people who know what they need to do and have the training they need to be able to do the work, with contracting, we have a whole team with in gao that looks as richard accelrys and contracting and tries to figure out is there any opportunity to make the processes more efficient or more effective rate -- more effective. host: the oversight of imported seafood. guest: that has been an area of interest from a number of perspectives for a long time. we have this year looking at the inspection service, is different depending on what kind of seafood you are talking about. we have the department of some of thethat has

seafood oversight and then you have another service that has oversight of other types of seafood. we found that with that fragmentation, there was some confusion about what the standard should be some of the seafood oversight and then you have another service that, for , drug residue, antibiotic residue in the seafood. what levels are considered safe and there were dfences among the different agencies in terms of what they considered to be safe. we found that they could work together better to share information and share their research results and things like that just to make sure they are protecting the consumer, that people when they get seafood, they can be assured that it is safe. host: could you put a price tag on how much that would save? not on that one. host: via price tag on some and not others? guest: some of them are easier. we try to rely where we can on the congressional budget office or the joint committee on taxation or other outside sources. or we look to agency's own estimate of how much of the spending and we do try to put a framework around it if we can n.

host:, at least give some context for this is how much is spent in total on these programs, so some portion of that could be saved. and that's why as i said, our total dollar estimate is pretty conservative. we do try to make sure that there is a good estimate in place and then take the bottom line before we put it together. st: nashville, tennessee. brands is an independent. caller: hello, monday america. my question is regarding homeland security and big data. i've asked this question before and the hands go up in the air. since the patriot act, there is no accountability. check and massive overrun. how many people have classified top check secret -- is it 3 milr 4 million? how much they get paid per year? many c-span listeners don't know onut the incredible overruns

the mental asylum, billions of dollars to renovate a building which probably could have been built for cheaper. c-span, government counted only on homeland securitynd big data, i don't like big brother. thank you. host: what you want to pick up on? guest: sony different topics and one of the things i enjoy working in gao's we have done research in just about every single one of those, immigration is one of the areas we have looked at, for example, in one of our prior reports we highlighted border surveillance that there were savings to be had there in terms of getting better estimates of how much it costs and whether the technology is working as it is intended. with some of the other areas, contracting is another area that we have looked at quite a bit. v.a. and how it gets

medical supplies was one of the areas that we highlighted this year. at the departments in that case. was trying to save money and was trying to consolidate how is different medical centers across the country get flies, t doing it, they 't follow leadingra example, they picked a certain number of supplies they were going to centralize ordering for, but they didn't talk to the clinicians who would actually be using them to figure out if they have found the right things. so even though they had this process in place for the centralize ordering that was supposed to save money, what we found was that a lot of the offices were still going ahead and ordering through an exception for what we would consider an emergency to get around it, because the supplies that were being ordered were not the things they need it. we recommend they go back and

they look and try to focus in on the ones that are going to save maybe work on and consolidating and centralizing those first. they look at the data, the buter mentioned to big data that'a sour of information where the government could identify opportunities to save money. so they figure out where they actually are, where the supplies we are actually using at these sites and are there places where to get ark together lower price on some of these supplies? and maybe focusing on those first. host: the estimate of the v.a. could save tens of millions of dollars if they did that. marian billings, montana, democrat. that morning. caller: good morning. the oth things, as far as accountability to money goes, we should start a th top and how money is -- lead by example. and that means watch how prewitt, zinc he, the president himself and his administration

is spending money, foolishly. also with regards to date information as to how safe fish might be to eat. this is administration is hiring gross polluters. i don't trust any of the data that's coming out of that. thank you. jessica lucas judy, up?hing you want to pick guest: if you name it, the gao has done work on it. we have looked at spending by parts of the presidential theretionnd mentioning was a legal opinion recently about secretary prewitt spending and i encourage everyone to go to gao.gov for those particular topics you are interested in and look at one of the gao reports. asked to giveas a legal opinion on how much scott pruitt spent on his office decorations. guest: our attorneys will look

,t whether the law was followed if there were processes or procedures are regulations that are in place and whether those were followed and then issuing an opinion. host: what did you find that opinion? gut: i probably should not brought up that because i don't have the answer. host: a good teaser, steve is an lewi center ohio. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wish you would explain why we have 17 days spending over $75 anlion a year, that's approximation because you can't get an exact number with no accountability. host: overlap of the security agencies. would you work in national security by don't know that we have any reviews pacific not overlap in those and that is something we can look into. place to look for all of gao's is gao.gov, jessica lucas judy is the director of strategic issues with the gao, we appreciate your time is

running. come back again. host: thank you so much. on "washington journal,". any public policy issue want to talk about, the phone lines are yours to do so. the lines on your screen and you can start calling in now. we will be right back. ♪ >> tonight on "the communicators," american cable association president and ceo senior kolkata and tds vice president of corporate affairs andrew peterson talk about the issues facing rural and suburban broadband providers. >> we serve so many areas. 35% of our customers don't have access to a traditional cable provider. very rural in scope. is the instances, tds

only require -- provider in thosareas. we work on programs that make partnership investors through the federal universal service program to bring broadband to customers that didn't previously have it or have adequate broadband. bring them more rich, robust broadband in the future. do think it's very important that as the administration and the fcc and congress considers infrastructure like the proceedings in other concepts, that broadband is and has been determined to be a matter of important infrastructure to our country and to our national policy. and that's a change, because typically we think of infrastructure as roads, bridges, railways, etc., which are all very important and need to be helped. but you cannot survive today is a business, as an individual as someone working from home in our economy without having a robust broadband experience. ? watch "the dominican is," tonight at 8:00 eastern on

c-span two. communicators," tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span 2. >> i really believe education is the most important factor facing south dakota. we have been dead last in teacher pay and we are finally thanks to the governor and many is as we are now 48, which great improvement. we must understand that children are best and greatest asset and we've got to recognize that and take care of them and make sure that they are good citizens that take care of us in the future. >> i think the most important issue going on in north dakota is diversifying our economy to deal with low energy and agricultural prices. feel educationally is one of the biggest issues we deal with is working with students that have behavior and social problems, that emotional side, , whether itort would be beds for kids that need

to be in placement or whatever it might be. or just finding out right now we don't have the supports that we need to help these kids be successful. >> i teach at the grand forks air force base and i think the most pressing issue is public funding right now, whether it's for infrastructure around or if it's for public employees such as teachers and retirement funds. a lot oftas righnow, fundinis really tight area -- really tight. state, partom the of c-span's 50 -- 50 capitals tour. >> "washington journal," continues. the: just after 9:30 on east coast and about half an hour we will be taking you on c-span to the center for strategic and international studies, a discussion this morning on maritime security, the title, innovation and the marine air ground task force,

coming up at 10:00 for viewers on c-span. until then on "washington open phones. any public policy issue you want to talk about, the phone lines are yours to do so. republicans, call (202) 748-8001 . deall (202) 748-8000. independents, call (202) 748-8002. we want to hear what's on your mind. richard starts us off in verona, missouri. the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. i was listening to your program about the amount of money the government spends. in springfield, missouri, they are building a new veterans hospital. one in a town 30 miles from springfield between --ingfield in joplin that this hospital in mount vernon is a common waiting to veterans and their 30 mile drive to springfield and a 40 mile drive from joplin.

in building this new veterans deal in springfield, so other veterans drive from all over get there. in joplin, and have a brand-new hospital and they have two wonderful hospitals in springfield so why spend the money to build another hospital whenever they can accommodate all them people in the existing hospitals, it just don't make sense. it is some thing that our congressman said he was going to do and he is doing it all right, but it costs us all a bunch of damn money. host: what is your sense of the federal government right now? are we getting better at finding and eliminating location, or is it getting worse -- duplication, or is it getting worse? caller: is the same old governments, whatever the congressman wants, that's what they're going to get. highwaya four lane between springfield and arkansas down here. and of course, when another hospital.

but anyhow, we will take care of veterans, we could do it more in an economic way. host: who is your congressman? is it billy long? caller: yeah. host: did you vote for him? , he's about as worthless as anybody i've ever seen. that's all right. that's just my opinion. thank you. host: vivian and albertville, alabama. independent. good morning. caller: good morning, thanks for taking my call. haduple weeks ago, c-span some kind of hearing on an claire mccaskill from missouri was talking to a panel of three men, one was general mattis. claire mccaskill brought up the point that the people in afghanistan rebuilding or repairing or whatever they were doing over there, they had

subcontractors over there that were leasing bentleys and all these fancy cars. and also, the wives of the subcontractors were making an average of $190,000 a year for nothing. claire mccaskill also said that she has seen their was obviously nothing really happening from anybody doing anything over there. this is just the tip of the -- itg of our american would take me years and years to make $190,000 a year. they are giving the lives of ceos an average of that for doing nothing? this is part of her wasted money and i want to hear something about this, like i said, it's just the tip of the iceberg. are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of wasted money in the government.

host: and to guess the hearing you were watching was the defense department fiscal year 2018 budget request hearing before the senate armed services committee, april 26 of this year. theremattis testied along with the chair of the joint chiefs of staff joseph dunford, if you want to watch it, you can go back to c-span.org where we carry all of our segments and all of our programming all of our hearings. it's all there on our online database. august is in port washington, new york, the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. this morning, i found a very interesting article about the city of stockton, california and the fact that there may or -- eir mayor will be distributing $500 a month to

members of their city who suffer from poverty, which is one of four. i just wanted to say that i is a very interesting idea and one that could possibly hold a lot of promise for helping out with poverty in this country, which is simply an abomination is and in one of the richest countries in the world we have such an issue with this. such as finland have tried this, but i think n income tax rate over $250,000ers and newer capital gains tax and increased capital gains tax, something like this could be reasonable on a state level or even on a national level. and could really do a lot to help alleviate poverty. host: things for bringing it up.

here's a reuters story about what august is referring to. michael tubbs comehe 27-year-old mayor of stockton, california has a radical plan to combat poverty in his cash-strapped city, no strings guaranteed basic income for $500 a month for residents starting in 2019 he plans to provide a monthly stipend to a select group of residents as part of a privately funded a team of experiment to assess how people use the money. and then maybe in two or three years, we can have much more informed discussions and decisions about the social forty net, and the income the people to serve in the best way to do it because we will have more data and research. tubbs told reuters reporter for that story. laura in cottage grove, oregon, republican. go ahead. yes, i paid into social security, i'm retired and into medicare both and when i retired $100t i was charged over just for my medical.

and yet a noncitizen that migrated here through their kids or whatever at 65 years old without paying a dime into it month plus medicaid, no cost to them whatsoever. why is that? $781 where did you get the and what would that before -- what would that be for? laura, you still with us? callermmy caer staed that. old,oncitizen is 65 years comes over here and could get that. somebody brings over a brother or sister and they can also get that ssi. and free medicaid. but it just doesn't seem fair that our tax dollars are going

to support somebody else when i have to pay for my stuff. mike is in chicago, illinois, line for republicans. go ahead. to a few months ago i told you i had filed in federal court in washington a lawsuit for the first time, arguing that mandatory spending deficits, spending and interest service are violation of my right to vote host:. i remember the call. what happened since? caller: is now the supreme court docket, and friday, the solicitor general so that their opposition brief to mine. at this point, the court is going to consider whether to hear it or not. host: give us the argument you lay out in a minute. caller: mandatory spending was 64% of the budget in 2016 and win election every two years for the entire house and one third of the senate, does that mean that we have the right to decide

how r mone appropriated on policies? 64% of the budget is spent on mandatory programs and they are defined by the gao and the omb and congress itself as spending that does not require an appropriation act of congress. allthe constitution says money must be acquired in a prorated by an act of congress i limitthere's a two-year on all spending because that's what the constitution says. the interest service is also a violation because in 2016, 11% of the budget was wasted on interest. does that mean that we lost 11% of our voice in government? future kids have limit on all spending because that's what the constitution says. no solid connection between our vote and how money is appropriate by congress. if they appropriate the money without our vote, doesn't that steal our vote? host: was the name of your case? caller: my name versus medassets of america. host: do my share your name? junior,michael e garg

and anyone can find that on the supreme court.gov under case dodocumentet search and put in my last name. it's really available to everyone and you can print it out and read it. westjet more the future as his moves forward. thanks f the call. from travel ban to political buttons, pending decisions before the supreme court is the headline of the article from the minnesota public radio at 10 at 10 of five today, the supreme court might release opinions in a number of significant cases on this year's docket, deciding the fate of president trump travel ban on the public-sector unions and local redistricting among other possibilities, the corners as in advance which opinions it's releasing and has until the end of june to either release opinions or decide to postpone decisions. there is no way of knowing what exactly my get dropped on any given opinion day, but today is one of those opinion days and we

will certainly want what happened at e supreme court at 10:00, coming up in about 15 minutes. until then, open phones on "washington journal." republicans, call (202) 748-8001 , democrats, call (202) 748-8000 , iepens, cal(202) 8002. thomas on the line for democrats. caller: what you think congressional republicans republicans advertise one point or join dollars on a tax that money on infrastructure? since the other so poor, each dollar tt goes towards infrastructure would be more valuable to our economy then each dollar towards a tax cut. host: what do you think the chances are for some big of a structure push here as we are approaching the midterm election -- infrastrue push here as we get into the mid term elections and the depth of the summer? i'mt: caller: -- caller:

not a financial expert but it doesn't seem plausible now that you have a 1.3 trying dollar tax cut on the board while the economy is growing. host: thanks for the call. infrastructure is a topic we spent a lot of time talking about. terrance in minneapolis, the orndennts. caller: thanks for taking my call. i think laura was onto something there. we do have a lot of immigrants that come here. after years of living in their own countries and get there on social security i never understood how they can come over here either and collect social security without having paid a dime in. i think that's what she was getting at. , on the h-1b visa program, why you never publish the u.s. immigration -- u.s. citizenship and immigration services to on how many h-1b visa's has been given out since 2007, which is it is aately 3 million,

real dermis -- a real dermis -- the service to our college students graduating these days and we don't need to be giving $3 billion -- 3 billion immigrants who eventually transfer those over the green cards after their six years of thatce at whatever company paid for them to emigrate over here, we're just giving this country away right underneath americans feet and americans better wake up and realize they've been sold out by their own governme. is all i've got to say. just look at the h-1b visa program, i wish c-span would publish those results. 3 million h-1b visas since 2007, that's ridiculous. host: thanks for the recognition of a possible of coming program. eric is in pittsburgh on the line for democrats. go ahead. caller: i was disappointed this morning and are subject was really not relevant, there are more important subject.

why don't we ever talk about the national debt, which is huge? all these old people in the government are thinking about the next generation is going to pay for it. the next generation is not aware what we're giving them. they should settle that debt now , we want no part of it. host: do you mind if i ask which subject readers appointed in? caller: the national debt. host: you said you were disappointed. in the subject we talked about this morning. which one were you disappointed in? caller: about the pardoning of different people. -- has noch a small consequence in the future of our country. it's irrelevant. let's talk about the national debt, according to u.s. debt climate.org, the u.s. national debt right now is $21 trillion $172 billion six and $75 million and growing. that comes out to $64,500 per

citizen if you do not just among taxpayers, it's $174,000 for taxpayers d the u.s. federal spending in this year over $4 trillion. bart is waiting in buena vista, colorado. an independent. holly in this morning, basically, c-span here lately, you guys have been putting on a lot of divisive topics about you've gotrump and other people calling in on the open phones this morning and they are talking about real issues that matter to the american people. why don't you guys cover that little bit more and stop picking on our president. people can bring up the issues they want to talk about. in terms of divisive issues, did you watch "washington journal," obama and didt

you feel like we brought up divisive issues when he was president? caller: no, i think you protected obama basically, i but the say c-span did, press in general protected the left. of a was an example divisive issue that you think is unfair to chat about? well, what was your opening deal this morning? host: are question this morning was whether you trusted president trump with the pardon power coming in the wake of the pardon that he granted last week to desousa and some of the discussion at his own attorney sparked on the sunday shows yesterday. caller: there you go. that's just one of the prime examples, you got people calling in on the open phones and you're always going to the new york times and the new york journal, which are leftist leaning, but

you got people calling in on immigration issues, so security all these important things that we should be discussion -- discussing and you want to talk about this nonsense about whether you trust trump or not. is just ridiculous. otherand promised those topics you come up, we have segment on those topics as well as you keep watching and we would love to hear from you again down the road. the phone number is if you want to join us for open phones this morning, republicans, call (202) 748-8001. democrats, call (202) 748-8000. independents, call (202) 748-8002. teresa is in washington on the line for democrats. go ahead. caller: hello and thank you for taking my call. it is not true that illegal immigrants can collect social security. you have to have a certain number of quarters before you can collect and you have to have

paid in. for instance, i know a family that immigrated from the middle east and they are citizens, they have been here for about 20 years now and the husband went to collect social security, he 65 years old and he gets these statements that say -- you misunderstood, they say if you continue to work at this wage level, you will be eligible to collect as much per month. he went in and they explained to him you have not worked enough quarters. he had to quit working because it was a physical thing and no, you can't. furthermore, there are illegal immigrants paying into so security, their contribute into arsenal security collection and they will never be able to collect because they are illegals. for that.k you it's hard to fact check on the fly as we go, so we appreciate other callers calling in as well. theythey hear something heard about or read about

something different and it creates a conversation we try to have every day here, so they give a call. rebecca is an interlocking, florida. the line for democrats. go ahead. good morning. i have been watching c-span for years and i really enjoy it. noticed that i have that the most complaining and finger-pointing is always from the republicans. there never happy with anything everybody does anybody ever says, whether or not is a republican president or democratic presidents. saidf your callers just that you are dealing with silly questions like whether or not you trust trump and i would think that whether or not you trust the president of the united states is not silly. that's an important issue.

o top it all off, i'm not in a trust anybody who has now d intouced the p-wor regular news broadcast, any man who thinks because he's famous -- [inaudible] host: rebeccad into regular newsid abby, independent. caller: someone mentioned something about the national debt and social security and so on and so forth. my concern is that not a lot of people -- a lot of babies are being born in the u.s., so how are we going to be able to repay all of this debt and contribute to social security when you have future, it'sn the

when it create more of a burden. we really need to deal with these problems right now, in order to alleviate this problem. because you will have less people in the future to contribute. what should lawmakers be doing to tackle that problem? there's been discussion about immigration laws and whether they are too loose or too strict. you think that plays a role in averting the future problem we were talking about? >> i can see how if we have more immigrants in this country that eventually they will be able to contribute more into paying the national debt and then perhaps of security. as far as the sto do it and who is allowed to come in more of a i am not speciali a, but it's something they definitely need to be taken into consideration. definitely education plays a big part in it. i think this is the investment we need to make. if we are going to increase some debt of some sort, let's make

sure that we are spending the dollars on education, education can bring so many positives and changes into a society, you will ma better decisions as far as what they consume for their health. as far as what they can bring in for your country with science, engineering and so on, i think education should be a big investment rather than investing money and some other nonsense, things that could not bring any returns back. host: abbaryland. republican, go ahead. caller: hi. i just wanted to comment and give a high five to the farmers that are getting started out there on everything. i'm no organic gardener and i'm getting started with my stuff and it's hard work. i think we ought to think about our farmers and i want to say on

the waterfront, that a lot of this green stuff and the algae that grows in the water, it actually is in the air and it can grow in a bucket rather than blaming farmers and. -- i grew up using in the 60's when they were using so many pesticides, you know and things to keep algae from growing. much more why we see blooms, we are not using those chemicals to keep the algae blooms down. i just want to give a high five to the farmers and hope people realize that we're just not using the chemicals were used to use to keep algae down and that's the problem. have a nice day. on the issue of farmers, president trump tweeted less than 10 minutes ago about farmers and here's what he had to say. the farmers of not then doing well for 15 years, mexico, canada, china and others have

treated them unfairly and by the time i finish trade talks, that will change. big trade barriers against the u.s. farmer and other businesses will finally be broken, massive trade deficits no longer. we mentioned a few minutes ago that today is a decision day at the supreme court, some news on that front from the ot side of capitol hill. from reuters this morning, the u.s. supreme court threw out a lower court ruling that a tognant illegal minor led obtain an abortion over the objections of president thompson administration. the action by the justices by the legal victories in trump administration even though the teenager already has have the abortion because it eliminated a precedent at the federal appeals court level that could've applied in similar circumstances in which detained miners sought abortions. in the unsigned opinion with no dissenters, the justices throughout the appeal court decision on the grounds that the dispute became moot once the

unnamed teenager had the abortion. the justices, however, declined to take up the administration's request for disciplinary action against the american civil liberties union lawyers who represented the girl who underwent the abortion in texas last october. you will probably be seeing more stories on that issue today. time just a couple more calls an ". jeff in spring hill, florida, a democrat. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i think c-span washington journal does provide a very for the american people and i thank you for that. i also want to bring you to test just a little bit, because you cover a lot of topics, but you don't really inform people with what they really need to know. the topic today but am thinking pardon of president trump, him pardoning himself or his family members.

be importantuld for people to understand why the president has that power to pardon, what purpose does it serve? i really and truly don't know why he has that power. i would think if you can't you shouldself, that have someone who is educated and learned enough to explain it to the american people because i don't see a purpose for himbein able to pardon anybody for any reason. i appreciate the suggestion i will bring up the history of the presidential pardon as a topic for a future program at our meeting this afternoon. raymond and evermore rolled, maryland, the line for independents. caller: thank you for c-span. i was just wondering something really bothers me about the way i don'ttors behave, know that everything we are so stupid to understand, that

during the obama era, the role the senators talking about the some of the deficit, them held the senate floor for hourjust because of the deficit and so on and so forth. sudden, there is some kind of amnesia that kke in. it just went dead. you don't see them saying anything about it. maybe it one way, i don't know. senators should come on c-span and explain to the american people what really happened. they were so furious about the national debt and now we don't hear them say anything about it. let us know. int: our last caller "washington journal," today, for those juror -- viewers on c-span can stick around for discussion --these center for strategic

they are talking about innovation and the marine air ground task force coming up in just a moment here on c-span. we will see you back here tomorrow morning on "washington journal," at 7:00 a.m. eastern. have areat monday. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> . >> welcome. this is part of an ongoing dialogue. to highlightpes current thinking and issues facing the naval services, the marine corps, the coast guard. our event today is our first one of 2018 and we look forward to having you join us for future events. we thank huntingtoningles industry for their support of th