>> thursday, racism in america. >> white fears of black people are not justified. this year's, conservative summit in colorado. most-13 is one of the violent and inhumane groups in the world. rape, ando -- kill, control. onthis week in primetime c-span, c-span.org, and the free c-span radio app. this morning, julie talks about recent changes to the affordable care act and the state of health care in the u.s. later, christopher of the government accountability office examining the fiscal health of the u.s. as the national debt

reaches $21 trillion. we take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington ♪ host: good morning. it is monday, july second, 2018, a hazy morning on capitol hill, where congress went out for their fourth of july break. we are with you for the next three hours. we begin by focusing east of the capital on the supreme court, as the fight over the next supreme court justice gets underway even before the nomination announcement next week. we're asking you whether you think it will ea battle over abortion or if another issue will dominate -- will be a battle over abortion or another issue will dominate the discussion. democrats, (202)

748-8000 republicans, (202) 748-8001, independence, (202) 748-8002. you can also catch up with us on social media at facebook at facebook.com/cspan. a good monday morning. we are asking, what would be the focus of the upcoming supreme court nomination and confirmation. will it be roe v. wade? you can start calling it now. plenty of headlines on the fight for roe v. wade. from the wall street journal, abortion and focus as pick.weighs -- here's what the president had to say >> are you going to ask your nominees how they might vote on roe v. wade? >> that is a big one and

probably not. you should not do that. i am putting conservative people on. i am proud of neil gorsuch. he has been outstanding. his opinions are so well written, so brilliant. i am going to try and do something like that. in their wrapup of that, usa today notes that president trump will not need to ask nominees about their views. the federalist society legal group whose leaders disagree with the decision vetteed candidates on the list. democrats have been talking about it ever since anthony kennedy announced his retirement on it last week. here is senator schumer on thursday, the day after the announcement. on november 11, 2016, then

president-elect trump said, i am pro-life. the judges will be pro-life. in a debate against secretary clinton, then candidate trump and, because i am pro-life, i will be appointing pro-life judges, i think we will go back to the individual states. it is impossible to conclude that president trump will appoint a justice who we can have faith will leave roe v. wade. he said in his own words, president trump said in his own words, of that he wants to appoint a justice to give they court a majority who will overturn roe v. wade. count on it. president trump will in all likelihood, nominate a justice willing to send roe back to the states.

those are president trump's own words. several are preparing, if not already prepared, to roll back a woman's right to choose. to an institute, there are 18 states where abortion would be illegal almost immediately. that is against what america wants. ands because the president his heart rate ideological -- hard right ideological judicial acolytes are far away from the american people and are trying to create a court that would turn the clock backward in many ways. roe is at the top of the list. host: for the first hour, we are asking you if the upcoming nomination is going to be a battle over abortion or is it

about something else? give us a call. democrats, [laughter] ,- democrats, (202) 748-8000 republicans, (202) 748-8001, independence, (202) 748-8002 or you can catch up with us on social media. abortion,writes same-sex marriage, this is a battle of our lifetime and liberals cannot lose. blue horseshoe says the battle is the survival of the democratic party. they are on life support. donna writes, it may be included in the battle but i do not believe it will be the top priority. immigration will be the top. michael says the world does not revolve around roe. it will be about having a qualified person become justice. there is a poll we are running on our twitter page if you want to check that out.

you can respond via tweet or give us a call, like fred from cherry hill new jersey, line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. expect roe v. wade will be overturned by mr. trump's new court. we will go back to the states. i do not expect anything to change in new jersey. texas, ittates, like will be overturned. what that means in the real world is that the women in texas decides she needs an abortion she will be inconvenienced she will have to travel to another state. she might have to carry a dangerous pregnancy to term or go to a back alley abortionist. alleyredict the back abortion industry is going to

have a rebirth if roe v. wade is overturned. inequality is going to become more of a matter of life and death than it is. democrats need to oppose as hard as they can. it is going to be a serious issue, with serious consequences. host: thanks for the call. randy is on our line for independence. go ahead. >> good morning. thank you. about the supreme court nomination, i do not know why the left is fixated on roe v. wade. the only justice who said he would overturn it is justice thomas. my other point is, what would happen if justice ginsburg

decides not to go on much further? what would happen? host: what do you think would happen? caller: then, president trump's term, he will appoint another beservative, so what will the last argument then? janet is in washington, the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. the democrat party used to be good. right now, they need to change it, they need to go according to the laws. they need to not have abortions that are killing babies and that is against the law, that is in the bible. they are doing wrong and they need to get the party back to where it used to be. abortion is wrong. it is god's body.

it is god's baby. that baby belongs to god. the woman has no say over that. , it wasated the baby created by god. the woman has no right to get rid of it. i do not believe in abortion. i think we have to go according to the law of god and put abortions -- host: got your point. are you a democrat? caller: yes. i do not go along with abortions. that is against the law of god. don't they believe in afterlife? don't they think about what might happen to them? host: what parts of the platform do you agree with? caller: what do you say? host: what makes you a democrat?

caller: i believe in the way it used to be when my dad was living. the working man lives wealth, he got a social security, which is good for everybody. the republicans are going against the law of god by taking from the poor and giving to the rich. it says in the bible that the rich need to stop and the poor get less. host: let's go to our line for republicans. charles is in alabama. good morning. caller: good morning. one of the questions i would why are we is, killing our own babies through abortion and turning around and letting all of these other people come in?

it does not make sense. why don't we keep our own children that we love so much? daddies to all of these kids? they are in el salvador and they're having more kids and two years from now, having it over again. they just keep having kids. it does not make sense. host: do you think that is what this confirmation battle is going to be about? is it about abortion or do you think immigration? caller: i think it is going to be a big issue. if they do reverse it, we're going to have problems and demonstrations. this is going to separate this country in a big way. host: that is charles in alabama on the issue of overturning roe v wade. from polling in the field, this poll out from the kaiser amalie

,oundation -- family foundation conducted in june, on whether the public once the supreme court to overturn roe v wade. in total, 67% responding they would not like to see it overturned. 29% responding they would like to see it overturned. democrats, 89% would not like to see it overturned. the breakdown of among men and women. betweenaking it down ages 18 to 44. you can go to the kaiser family foundation reporting on that if you want to read that story. a lot of focus in the coming days on some of the votes in the senate for the confirmation

process, including moderates such as susan collins of maine, a republican. here is one of the stories on that. she says roe v. wade opponents will not get her vote. hostility to roe would sway her vote. she was on abc's this weekend was asked. here is what she had to say. going to have an in-depth discussion with the nominee and i believe very much, that roe v wade is settled law, as it has been described by chief justice roberts. it has been established that the constitutional rights for 45 is -- andwhat is real was reaffirmed 26 years ago. a position on whether or not they respect precedent will tell me a lot about whether or not they would roe v wade overturn

-- whether or not they would overturn roe v wade. a candidate that would overturn it would not be acceptable because that would indicate an agenda i do not want to see a judge have. that would indicate a failure to respect precedent, a fundamental tenet of our judicial system. host: the washington times focusing on susan collins as lisa murkowski, key moderates on the republican side in the senate. activists have launched a campaign to nail coat hangers to ms. collins and miss murkowski, the only pro-choice republicans in the senate. both votes would be needed to defeat a nominee. susan collins voted last year for neil gorsuch but she also

supported both the president obama's nominees who are entrenched on the liberal wing. back to your calls, florida, line for democrats. thing, i think the same roe v wade, i think it should be overturned. you're killing innocent kids. i understand people get raped. give your kid away, god will forgive. he forgives people. as far as immigration, they should not be separated. that would be like if you came and they separated you. come on. they're coming over here because it is bad in their country. people are killing people, they are murdering their kids. it is wrong. to get them over here, get them over here. this is wrong.

they've got to straighten out the prison system. they have got so many people locked up for misdemeanors and they are making money off of the prisons. they have got to give felons the right to vote. a lot is like misdemeanor stuff for stupid stuff like stealing a radiator. they are doing time yet they cannot vote because of something stupid they did and that they should be forgiven for. host: luis is in virginia, the line for republicans. is this nomination fight about abortion? it is beingink attempted to make it that. we have birth-control pills, we have morning after pills. condoms andkinds of i think it is a false argument.

host: who is trying to push that narrative? caller: it is mostly on the democrat side. i do not think that roe v wade should be overturned, no i do not. think we should be having abortions up to nine months. in the 60's, i had two friends that had abortions. they had to know within three months that they were pregnant. now, they've got ultrasound. they can tell how many months they were pregnant. then they would get a shot and they would abort. it was an embryo, a living embryo. it is not a fetus. 1991 thatare until they were doing abortions until

theyonths, nine months and found these arms and legs in the .ewer systems in washington they thought it was a serial killer, some killer killing babies. they understood, this was weeks later, this was from abortion clinics. that is when i became aware. i was under the impression it was like in the 60's, with my two friends, where they went to the doctor and the doctor gave them a shot and they had an abortion of an embryo. the: on that issue of advancement of medical science, past debates over abortion, the it on in ames takes front-page story this morning. medical gains are reshaping the abortion fight. without legalen

abortion, america would be different. even then, a full-fledged return to back alley abortions seems improbable. in the decades since roe was decided, innovation has reduced simpler, safer ways to prevent pregnancies. advancements have contributed to an abortion rate that has plunged i half since the 1980's. a more likely scenario that could happen is that there is a thating by the courts would uphold efforts to restrict abortions which would encourage states to limit access to abortion. that havef the states instituted restrictions on abortion over the years, here is a map from the washington that, looking back at 2000 and the number of states that had instituted major abortion

restrictions. especially in the south and midwest, had more restrictions in 2017, then in 2010. is states that have instituted all major restrictions tracked. it is a bar chart showing the number of restrictions passed by state legislatures by year. 1973, the year roe v wade was decided. you can see the change over time,, culminating with the highest number, 92 restrictions after the 2010 restrictions. that is up from 14 state legislatures before that. the year, 2017, after that. plenty of stories in today's papers. we are asking if this is going

to be the fight over the next supreme court nominee, about roe v wade. lisa is waiting in idaho, the line for independents. caller: i am for leaving it alone. ownn have a right to their and i agreephysical with the lady from virginia to a point. they are always screaming about the constitution and it is a law that they made, just like gay rights laws. they should leave those alone. all these states they go ahead and do what they are going to do anyway. i think they should leave it alone and leave planned parenthood alone. that helps women get birth control and to not have unwanted children. we have enough of those already.

think, the immigration thing, i think they should put all the parents and kids back together and help them find a way back to where they came from. how can we take care of all of these people? host: you mentioned planned parenthood. action, withthood this tweet after the announcement last week by justice kennedy that he was retiring. the right to access abortion is on the line. a few other tweets from groups on both sides of this issue. tweak,ice, with their with trump nominating the next supreme court justice, our constitutional right to access abortion is in danger along with the rights of all americans. a pro-life group, we have a opportunity to overturn roe v wade and secure

the most basic right to life for pre-born children. roe v wade has deeply wounded our country and killed over 60 million pre-born children. group, profilefe action alert, we support justice kennedy with a justice who believes in the constitution and the right to life, asking people to add their name to the list of people supporting those issues. several tweets from members of congress as well. we will talk about them and show you the latest. we want to from you, is this what the next confirmation battle is going to be about? democrats, (202) 748-8000, republicans, (202) 748-8001, independents (202) 748-8002 (202) 748-8002,. helen is in michigan, a

democrat. go ahead. caller: there have been so many stories. i heard about the judges in the lower districts, ok? i heard there have been so many appointed by trump. trained to vote his way. the lower courts, we have to be more concerned about the lower courts than the supreme court. most everything has to go through the lower courts before it gets to the high court spirit i'm a little nervous -- high courts. i'm a little nervous. i want to talk about this pay for play with tariffs. that bothers me a bit. i do not know if you remember, they were called sponsored terrorists by trump until a

company came along and helped pay off the building for jared kushner's father. and it was $500 million, pay for play. the focus on keep the supreme court nomination, our topic for the first hour. you are talking about the , the judgesjudges that may president trump's list of 25 potential picks. a story on that focusing on leonard leo, a profile on him in today's wall street journal. the story notes that mr. leo, has a bachelors in law from cornell, has never been a judge or run a legal practice. career atnt his whole

the federalist society, the network established during the administration of ronald reagan to groom conservative scholars and judges. he was inspired to get involved by the rejection of robert bork, a hero of the right. today, he stands poised to install a conservative in the seat once intended for judge byk, the one relinquished justice kennedy. that profileo read on leonard leo, in today's wall street journal. pennsylvania, a republican. go ahead. caller: good morning. i am a republican and also pro-choice. i do not think that this should be centered around either roe v wade or immigration from the democratic side or the republican side. i think both are playing to fear

mongering from that side of the agenda on both sides of the aisle. i think it should center on the constitution, who is going to go by our constitution. i do not think there is ever going to be a chance of overturning roe v wade. decadesld be going back and decades, taking away women's choice and to erase all of that, it is fear mongering. the same with immigration on the republican side. i would hope we can get to an intelligent conversation on the constitution and how any of the nominees would apply their craft to guiding the constitution in their decisions. host: you say it are a pro-choice republican -- do you find it hard to be a pro-choice republican? roe v wade -- caller: no, sir. host: do get challenged by

members of your own party on that? people that i am friends with accepted. -- except it. if we go back to the days when we undo roe v wade, we are looking at, can a woman have choice over what she has done to her body? having said that, i'm not in favor of late-term abortions. i am not saying every woman should go out and have one. a woman should have control over her body and that is why i am pro-choice. host: bangs were the call from pennsylvania. it is coming up -- thanks for the call from pennsylvania. it is coming up at 7:30. you can keep calling in. is the upcoming supreme court nomination a battle over abortion or about something else?

,emocrats, (202) 748-8000 republicans, (202) 748-8001, independents (202) 748-8002,. the lead story in today' as washington post today on the presidential election in mexico. mexico turns left, the election candidate the post describes as somebody who relied on voter anger. ,he editorial board today taking the time to focus on his election and what it means for mexico and the united states. write the former mexico city mayor is 64 years old populist, he lost twice. this time, he won against weak candidates. his victory ends a reform era and brings uncertainty.

president trump's anti-mexico rhetoric played into the hands of his left-wing nationalism. in mexico will spill across the border, wall or no wall. hispresident tweeting congratulations last night to the newly elected president of mexico. congratulations on becoming the next president of mexico. i look forward to working with him. be done that to will benefit both the united states and mexico, his tweet late last night. one other story from the front page of the wall street journal concerns about north korea expanding its weapons facilities after that meeting with the .resident anth korea is completing expansion of a missile manufacturing plant. they have new satellite imagery

of the site, the latest sign they are pushing ahead with a weapons program. analyzed by the middle barry institute in monterey, california, show that north korea was finishing construction the timeant around they kim jong-un met with president trump in singapore last month. last week, another organization that monitors north korea, published images of the main nuclear research center, showing it is upgrading facilities. plenty of stories about that. if you want to read more. is ino your calls, windy michigan, the line for republicans. go ahead. caller: good morning, john. i have been a pro-choice for a long time. to abortion ised a woman's right to choose and it is between her and god? it andshould legislate

the judges and anybody who wants to tell people to do, -- people what to do, it is a private decision. it is a private decision. i have heard other women calling in and i agree it has to be capped in and the next judge has to make sure that roe v wade is continued. a woman should be able to say, if i have a child that is deformed, that i have that right and not having the catholic church or the judges or the legislators to tell me what to do. i have to answer to god for my decision and nobody else. in wisconsin, a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have been listening to the

back-and-forth. i am afraid there is a possibility it could be thrown back to the states and that would be on an individual level. we are already seeing defunding of planned parenthood. you have the option to seek an abortion but you also have the option to birth control. , fromhole idea of when conception, what is a child and what is not. , i had a woman who said cannot remember what it was, an embryo or something. baby therem, is it a or there? it is like a woman should have the right to choose. we are policing women. i do not understand it. in this society, once they are here, nobody wants to take care

of them. a fellow called in, and was like, why are all of these people having children? it is like, but we have to have the children. i do believe, you need to keep roe v wade the way it is, a woman's right to choose is a woman's right to choose. host: if it is overturned, the washington post took a look at what would happen in individual states after that took place. reverting abortion would to state legislatures, which have become more restrictive. there are four states where abortion would be banned as soon overturned,e were louisiana, north dakota, south dakota. they all connected trigger laws. bands thatave free

were never repealed. eight states have laws which nevada,abortion rights, california, washington, delaware, maine. it is in the washington post. dave is in georgia, the line for independents. though ahead. caller: -- go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. this is the among the ring. i have to -- this is fear mongering. i have to echo the previous call. list has saids they will interpret the laws. roe v wade is the law of the land. the laws will be interpreted by the court. they are not there to create laws. all of them understand that. this is fear mongering. the democrat party cannot change

what is going to happen. it is a bunch of mainstream, media driven, with the democratic party to scare people. it is sad. host: to what end? caller: the end is what it is. roe v wade should not be part of this. want to scarehey people -- to drive votes? caller: that is exactly right. they will get power any way they can. going to beey're voting democrat. that is changing. it is just everything else they do, the mainstream media is fear mongering. theye do not like the fact could not control public policy

polls in the last election. host: you mentioned the list of 25 games. we have posted that list at www.c-span.org. one of the names on the list, a chosen,who, if not would be one of those who would have a vote on the nomination, michael lee of utah. on the line for democrats, good morning. caller: how are you? host: doing well. caller: i do not think they're going to repeal it, i do not think they will be able to no matter who is on the supreme court. callers, thereur is an undercurrent in this do not of people who agree with me about what we should do in this country. i do not know, that is what i am

afraid of. the other people that i share this country with who want to keep a wall on the border and do not want to love their fellow man, that is scary. host: maryland, republican. go ahead. caller: good morning. thanks for having me. you notice a lot of republicans who call in our pro-choice, including myself. where we have a rub his who is going to pay for it. that is the problem. who is going to pay for these? nobody wants to pay. democrats are whirring, for the midterm elections, they need to buckle up. trump is going to win again in 2020. we are going to keep the house and the senate and they need to stop panicking. host: that is maryland. we mentioned the senators who will have votes on confirmation.

lindsey graham was on meet the press and talked about roe v wade and the upcoming confirmation. here is what he had to say. >> i am pro-life and the job of a judge is to decide cases before the court. one of the concepts that means a lot in america is you do not overturn precedent unless there is reason. i would tell my pro-life friends, you can be pro-life and conservative. has been affirmed over the years. i would hope that the justice that sits on the court, would listen to the arguments on both sides before they decided. it is a well-known concept in our law. that is important to you. are you not going to vote for somebody who does not believe in that? >> i am not going to vote for anybody who tells me they're

going to decide a case before the facts are in -- fax. -- facts. a baby can feel pain at 20 weeks during the birthing process. that is a compelling interest to protect a child. that is an issue that has never been decided under roe. i hope the justices will listen to the arguments before they decide. several other senators taking to the sunday shows and weighing in on twitter. elizabeth warren saying president trump's shortlist was hand-picked by right-wing extremists who want to criminalize abortions and punish women. roe v wade is what is at stake. another tweet from kamala harris, president trump once to nominate someone who will overturn roe v wade. what this is about is punishing

women for wanting to control their bodies, lives, and futures. cornyn, tweet from john pointing to the president's interview yesterday in which he said he would not ask his nominees about roe v wade. michigan, the line for independents. caller: good morning. my wish is that politicians like susan collins would not talk about this until someone is nominated. on thehey can discuss it floor of the senate all they choose. the pressin maine and is trying to get in touch with the lady from alaska to find out her protest against this. we do not even have a candidate. it is ridiculous stuff that goes on that they want to be off the televisiontalk on

when the discussion should take place inside government and not off the record. excuse me, they should not call it roe v wade. give it a name that people can understand and not have to research. something that attaches it to what it is really about. do not give it the names of people. what is this going to be this supreme court nomination is going to be about, the abortion debate? i do not believe so, not at all. there are some of the issues that come up every day. we should be concentrated on trying to get this country to live together without this discrimination and arguing and fights and demonstrations and everything, every weekend.

people are showing up everywhere. people andts of politicians come out and address the crowd and go someplace else. government and we have washington, who cleans up their mess. what good is it doing for all these people to show up and who is organizing it? somebody is paying for it. host: deborah is in oklahoma, the line for democrats. go ahead. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. i have a story about when i was a 13-year-old girl, walking downtown seattle with my dad. i noticed a beautiful girl coming out of the back of a building. she was dressed professionally but she was bleeding. hand, ran usd my to the corner, got a policeman. i read in the paper, she had

died from hemorrhage from a botched abortion. it impacted me and the way i thought about my body and my situation. mell, to this day, affects in a way which was horrific at the time. i hope this is not a battle over roe v wade because there are lots of women that have laid down their bodies to get an abortion, for whatever their reasons at the time. i cannot judge on that. i have seen in oklahoma, people with the most grotesque pictures of infants, pre-birth. i have never seen anyone put up a picture depicting what has happened to women that had to have an abortion from someone medicalnot qualified, a

team on hand in case something went wrong, a place for her to recover safely. host: did you ever talk to your father about that and what happened and what did he say? caller: yes, he is intelligent. he was logical about how he explained how i had to protect myself, the whole sex talk. it changed the way i thought. that was 1969. i had no idea what was going on as far as men and women at the time. host: what did you think about the debate in the 1970's leading up to roe v wade and how we talked about it then versus now? thought it must be the most agonizing choice a woman would ever have to make. thought, men can use

condoms and that can prevent pregnancy. a woman, at that time, it was hard for her to get birth dangerous.t was not i suppose through desperation, would need an abortion. extent to go to a person that would let her go on the street like that. that was my experience. it shaped the way i think. i cannot judge another woman for wanting to have an abortion. host: thanks for sharing your .pinion cynthia is in iowa, a republican. good morning. caller: i just started listening to c-span. that somet make sense of these politicians are saying it is inhumane to take these

children from their mothers at the border. say, it is ok to rip a child from its mother. it does not make sense. i am a nurse. if that was my patient, i would have to call the doctor. , i have a tv in one room and in another room, i cannot get the tv in another room. i only get 12 stations. when i am listening, i can 99% of the time tell who is talking, a democrat or a republican. the democrats are always yelling. they are lying, doing this. cynthia in iowa. a few more tweets.

the writes in, roe was ultimate activist decision. it is settled law. do not says politicians care for intelligent conversation. it takes too long. says the senator should be reelected before the selection hearing so the public will have adding maybepic, wait until after the investigation is done, after which voters will feel sure they're in the right places. handwritinging the is on the wall, trump is going to have a conservative court for years. thank you, god. time for more of your calls in this first segment. will this upcoming supreme court nomination be about abortion or about something else? that is what we are asking. john is in pennsylvania, a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning.

thanks for c-span and for taking my call. , the tribunepaper democrat, they had in article about that they thought the people on the right would issueay the roe v wade and be more concerned about what they called religious liberty, moving forward. about makings cakes and those kinds of things. my concern is not any of that. i am concerned about roe v wade but my biggest concern is how the senate will do the confirmation, how they will consent. they will not do a by two thirds majority.

they will do it by a simple majority of 51 votes which was changed to get justice merrick confirmed. host: you mean justice gorsuch? >> that is right. my concern is, that is another issue. that should have come up. should have been by a two thirds majority. concern would take care of itself if we were doing a two thirds majority confirmation or a consent ruling. as one of our earlier caller said, democrats are issueaying the abortion to drive people out to vote in november? could but that could backfire on them.

, you just fan the flames of division. i can understand the passion on both sides. that is fine but it is an important issue. it inere going to make plymouth tour -- it is going to make it inflammatory, it worsens that. it does not get us down the road very far. , my bigger concern is how they're going to make the confirmation and that is the part that upsets me the most. vote thate a fairer people would respect if it were done by two thirds. there is some assurance that there is someone picked who can pass a two thirds spoke who has

who has to beote at one extreme or another, would take care of itself. that is how i see it. aboutyou are concerned doing away with the traditional judicial filibuster. are you concerned the legislative filibuster might go next? caller: it is possible. kindsides have done these of things, the nuclear option, this and that, what is an acceptable vote? it, this is seeing a form of corruption. this is corruption at the highest level in both sides are guilty. if you are a democrat in congress, you have no power. you have no say. it is flipped the other way as well. theyr revamp the way -- need to revamp the way they run the senate and the house. whoever has the majority control

rules the day and the other side twiddled their thumb. they shout a lot. the power-sharing is not there. host: the judicial confirmation filibuster changed in 2013 under then majority leader harry reid, although they kept it in place for supreme court nominees. it was changed again to lower that threshold for supreme court nominees when neil gorsuch was going through the process last year. time for a few more calls. janus, missouri, republicans. good morning. caller: i will try to be fast. my main point was that the people who are in favor of ago,ion rights, 150 years would have been saying if you do not want a slave, do not have one.

hope going to change and i we do not have to fight over it. host: on the first point, explain the connection between those. caller: people say if you do not like abortion, do not have one. have you never heard anybody say that? host: i just wanted to have you explain the connection. what is your second point? caller: we need to get mccain out of the senate because he is too sick to vote and his hatred for trump has poisoned his mind. it is so close, they need to have him replaced and put somebody else in because that will give us one extra vote. cannote way he is, they count on 51 votes. this is one other thing. polarization in this administration is like the

polarization in the last administration. conservatives were upset with that but we did not want to protest. their lion int the senate and he was replaced with a republican. i am wondering if that would happen in arizona. theyould have ever thought would have elected a republican in massachusetts? host: to john in virginia, a republican. go ahead. with a you had engaged previous caller about why the antiabortion groups would try to animate debates. it is just to get turnout. i will suggest another reason. they, and you are

hearing congressional leadership, try to erode the delay inon between the the voting and a new congress. if you can erode that distinction and it is a legitimate distinction, you can put the hearings into the next congress. by generating enthusiasm for the democratic base, there is a good , maythe senate would shift be narrowly, maybe significantly for the democrats. at that point, you have a situation where you can reject trump's first choice and maybe the second choice. we saw that under the clinton administration. it would not be unusual. that is a scenario that could be rewarding for the democrats. what do you think? host: to do that, it would take

all democrats voting against the nominee and some republicans as well. are you afraid that some republican senators will reject the nominee? caller: yes, i do think somebody like susan collins might. by the way, i think that collins would only do it if you really aspected the roe v wade of a person's vote on a supreme court. i do not think roe v wade will be overturned. one of your experts last week talked about death by a thousand cuts. that is a more reasonable scenario than overturning it. host: you see the democrats laying the groundwork right now to do that when that person is nominated a week from today? caller: sure, why wouldn't they?

that is in their interests and but as a threat to roe much less significant one to overturning. host: thanks for the call. shelby is in tennessee, independent, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. upheld.o see roe v wade upheld.see roe v wade , do believe roe v wade . host: just talk to your tv. i can hear you. -- caller: i do believe that will give you a chance

to turn down your television. we will go to ohio, the line for democrats. go ahead. caller: good morning. how are you? host: doing well. caller: there are two points i want to make. i have been listening of -- to -- the last time we did that, we call that the civil war. , i do not roe v wade think it is going to be overturned. is based onn law this. they might whittle around it like they did with maranda. [indiscernible] the bare-bones of the law have not been changed and there was

one other thing i wanted to comment about. i do know how things are in maryland. i'm a democrat. parenthood does not take -- d'e government of any kind. from theoss the street hospital, two blocks away from the university of cincinnati, a level one hospital. we don't have those kinds of concerns. our concern is making sure that -- mother and father and dr. make their choice. host: do you think justice roberts, the -- as the head of the supreme court, will

adhere to the law? is he someone who wants to roe v.n decisions like wade? caller: i see a thread, with the aca. feel -- his mind was saying, is this something we really need? instead of making a tax for people to play, i think that , if he haderts through mostthread of his decisions, i cannot say the same thing for clarence thomas.

host: our last call this morning. later, we will discuss recent changes in the affordable care act and the state of health care in the united states. -- later, a new federal or federal report. we will be right back. ♪ >> tonight on the communicators. politico national security group discussd brian bender how china gets access. and the threat that china poses to the u.s. qwest the governor has --ormation of all kinds of

kinds for its people. if a chinese company with this close ties to the government had access to millions of american health records or banking records, that information could be used for espionage purposes. if they know who works in the state department -- and there is , maybef money for debt that person is a better target. >> the thought that national security leaders have in putting at there is that any time chinese investor with a potential link to the chinese government has some sort of foot into the supply chain, sourcing our technology to build robotics or artificial intelligence or space technology -- the things

--t powered the government if the chinese government has insight into what that technology is, not only could they plant in espionage bug to monitor communication, but it thews you to adopt technology themselves. that could give a military, technological, economic edge. two.tch tonight on c-span "> "washington journal continues. host: if you have a health care policy question and you want an answer in plain english, now is a good time to call us. julie rovner is with us.

we had a key decision last week by a lower court. explain what happened? guest: kentucky wants to acquire in the expansion group, under the affordable care act. for people who are low income were elderly or children or pregnant were able. and at the encouragement of the trump administration, they want to make people work for their medicaid. it differs by state but roughly job ors a month at a training or education and there are paperwork requirements. kentucky estimated that 95,000 healthwould lose the care coverage. not because they can't work, most do work.

but because they couldn't fill out the paperwork requirements. the judge ruled on friday afternoon that requiring people to work is not part of medicaid's purpose. so he basically put the entire ice for regulation on now. to a higher court. we expect it will. host: you mentioned several states are suing the work requirements. did kentucky just get the was it more stringent? not clear.s this doesn't apply to anything but kentucky at this point. the question is, will people turn around and sue against other states that are doing it? that have beenal approved or are in the pipeline. medicare and

medicaid services. does the trump administration become a party to any lawsuit with changes? guest: yes, they will be. question is whether the trump administration overstepped. to dove to get permission these kinds of experiments which is basically what this is. and the physician that determined, it is not in the medicaid statute. host: walk us through the latest of who took the expansion and who didn't. 34 states now have expanded medicaid in the wake of the affordable care act. guest: virginia was the most recent state. they are democratic governors but republican legislature.

last year, they came very close. so actually, virginia and to do it a compromise. because they would ask for work requirements. so we have to see what comes of the work requirements. to thea added itself list of states that expanded medicaid. muchs complained about how up will cost, but in the beginning, the federal government would pay for an hundred percent and even when it , thel the way face down government will still pay 90% of the cost. in a lot of states, it is only 50%. so it is up to the state to get these people covered. host: for viewers who may be squinting at the map, explain what is going on?

guest: they will both decide. the republican governor there refused to implement this. this is also under court review about this. the governor was ordered to expand medicaid this week, when he was supposed to have done it. i will follow up with wherein the main -- ways where the main saga is. this is mostly not across the south and into the conservative thes of the northwest but government is offering such a good deal to do it. and: julie rovner is online on twitter. .ou can find her tweets there she is with us until 9:00 this

morning. a wide variety of health care coverage. phone linesthe differently. in sure it through the affordable care act, (202) 748-8000. medicaid or medicare, (202) 748-8001. uninsured, (202) 748-8002. confused or all others, (202) 748-8003. give us a call and we will take up your questions. folks are calling in as we talk about the court cases. take us to the future of the affordable care act. widely written about case last month, the justice department decided that it would no longer defend a provision of the aca? defend -- defined to us what they are choosing to defend? guest: a republican attorney

general sued and said that because congress got rid of tax penalties, they didn't take away the mandate for having insurance, because they couldn't in the way they passed it. they effectively eliminated any penalty for attaching that mandate. the attorney general argues that it was the linchpin that upheld the constitutionality of the affordable care act in 2012. saying it is a tax. tax but the rest of the law is unconstitutional. on boths eyebrows sides. host: what are the concerns there? guest: there was a deadline a few weeks ago to weigh in on the case.

they said that they didn't agree ish the decision that it right up to the affordable care act. but it should invalidate two parts, one says that you have pre-existing conditions, and the other is that you have to charge them at the same price. what the justice department said is that they think maybe though should go. and several career lawyers dropped out of the case. the asked to get out of case, which i'm told is unprecedented. that the career justice left.ment host: did they disagree?

guest: yes. they didn't want to be part of the argument. guest: yes. they didn't want to be part of host: so who does defend this in court? guest: a number of democratic attorney's have stepped in. they have been allowed to intercede. and they will basically the defending. because they sued the federal government and the federal government said, yes, we are not sure we want to defend it. host: are they unsure about what it will mean at the end? yes. there is no direct impact yet. it is a low the lowest federal level.

fightis the supreme court about what to do if it gets all the way to the supreme court. but in the meantime, we see insurance companies deciding nextthe premiums will be year. it adds uncertainty to the mix. they tend to raise prices when they cover themselves. this is what happened last year when it wasn't clear if the republicans were on shore. they are worried that healthy people might not sign up. it could make a more expensive e product. we are interestingly not seeing rate increases everywhere. a lot of insurance companies every's rates to the right where they can make money and they

don't wish to raise them too much more because people will go to other products. steady raises in some cases. host: let me give you the phone numbers were more time. it is (202) 748-8000 if you are insured under the affordable care act. (202) 748-8001 insured under another. , uninsured.02 confused or all others. ask,r: i would like to there is decrease coverage in the former health care. and i'm afraid they will come for my medicare. because they are talking about messing with it.

please do not mess with my medicare. guest: the medicare fight is on a different track. no one really thinks they will have any impact this year. but once again, the house is making changes. about makingern sense for this, fiscally. it is a popular program. and with the changes the republicans wanted to make last year, medicare was not part of that. host: albert is in michigan. go ahead. caller: my question is, what is the increase in taxes

with the range in this country, the increase of to a $2000 limit -- [indiscernible] any kind ofhat money at all, it gets paid for from that fund. wouldn't that cover all of the problems? guest: there is a cap on social security taxes. eventually the cap will have to be lifted. there are people who don't want to use that money for things other than social security or possibly medicare. the caller is probably talking about a single-payer health insurance that would require more in back taxes. is in oklahoma. good morning.

caller: it was pretty affordable when i first got on it. to 1002i have it up hundred $50. i have the grandkids so i do have the subsidies. we used to have something in -- we need to look at putting that on some of the -- it isn't affordable. there is no and could get insurance other than that. guest: this is a big problem right now. is pretty close to held harmless by the increasing subsidies. you don't have to pay more, no matter how high the premiums go.

of povertyat 401% and you make $60,000 then you look at the multi-thousand .ollars a month he's. there are people talking about raising the threshold for premium health because it has gotten so expensive. there are also plans for thousands of dollars. everybody agrees that it is a problem. ,ealth care is really a problem it is expensive. storytake us through this , my colleague here at the khyber health news -- the kaiser health news -- parents received an $18,000 bill.

explain what is going on there. and the larger issue of bringing down the cost? guest: kaiser health newsexplai. and -- are doing a bill of the month. we do have a project looking at emergency room bills, you can send them to sarah. and it is joint story something called a trauma fee. and basically when you go to a hospital at a level one trauma center, many hospitals charge a a traumassembling team. it is often not covered by insurance. the family in this story, they were here from out of the country. they had $5,000 in travel insurance that the bill was $18,000. known this for a while. another recent study that the

reason that health care is more expensive in the u.s. is not because we use more, it is because we charge more for it. host: the link for the story can be found on the kaiser health news website. find julie rovner, the chief washington correspondent. she will be with us for the next 40 minutes to take calls on a wide friday of topics. jerry is in pennsylvania. on the line for those who are insured under medicare. caller: good morning. i have parkinson's. , i had aapril

prescription for $300 which was expensive. i got it again, it was over $600. for me, that is incredible. what do you think? the price of drugs and there are a number of different issues. the trump administration is trying to encourage them. in addition to the drugmakers themselves, you have speculators buying drugs and raising prices. and all the middlemen are passing on the costs. it is a huge problem. a tough problem for the public, when you ask him what they are worried about with health care -- the good news is that there are drugs that treat a lot of things that we never used to have that there are other drugs around that are thousands of times more expensive. it is a big issue.

host: what are some wake stories? , he is notin shkreli a drugmaker. not a researcher. drug that raised the price many thousands of times. i read recently that even though he is -- he is a doing this anymore that the price has come down but only marginally. than still more expensive it used to be. 's or anything congress can do to legislate that? guest: there are a lot of things congress could do. they have been trying for years. when generics

drugs, the market, it brings down the price of everything. when a brand name pay a good -- off therand name pays generic maker. host: to just sit on it? guest: yes, they get the extended monopoly. are thele who suffer people who pay for the drugs. that is something that congress has been talking about for 15 years. the drug industry is powerful. there are a lot of other drug price issues. they have been having hearings. they have been having issues. they have been talking about some of these since the 1990's. host: john, good morning. i have medicaid and

medicare. with our medicare. host: ok. guest: this has been shown several times through your own polling that americans are willing to pay for universal health care, even if it means raising taxes for them. 59% through your polling. is that universal health care is cheaper as a and use -- to buy pharmaceuticals in both. is overall for the

individuals. so is and that problem actuary? why is that -- understand it is on you. lower healthet care costs. ofause it isn't a problem numbers. it is a problem with politics. and you control politics. what the kaiser polls found was that when you ask people about the government for all, you ask them if you would be willing to pay more taxes to pay for it, support goes down. we basically haven't had that debate. french with the affordable care act. that was as far as we could get

with it majority in the house and senate. the affordable care act was still as far as they could get. so they clearly were not ready. i guess we could have a democratic resident and house and then we will see. kaiser health news is a program of the kaiser family program. host: you wrote about one of their polls that came out last week. on the public opinion of overturning roe v. wade. guest: the public supports roe v. wade. it has long supported roe v. wade. it just hasn't changed a lot.

basically the public is divided. you have a hard core who believe that abortion should be illegal. you have a slightly larger but still small portion who believe illegal. be and you have the vast majority in between. whether it is time of pregnancy or the reason the woman wants an abortion. the view on abortion is that it should be restricted but roe v. wade should not be overturned. public holdsof the the law and has for a long time. host: 67% said they would not like to see it overturned. 81% said they would not like to

see it overturned among independents. among republicans, it is just 43%. julie rovner wrote for -- wrote about that. the results week. go ahead. are you with us? ellen? oregon. caller: medicare already use -- the pre-existing exertions, it s called chronic -- host: are you still with us? we lost her.

guest: i think she was making the point that medicare covers people regardless of whether they have pre-existing conditions. most people do have a pre-existing condition. one of the issues is that medicare isn't that generous. you have to have some kind of supplemental insurance unless you are independently wealthy. some people buy their own supplemental insurance. some people like medicare to go with medicaid. those are dual eligibles. is a popular program but when you look at what it covers, it is not that generous. host: would you say that single player -- single-payer is the platform? guest: pretty close.

most are calling for some kind of coverage. there is agreement for widespread coverage. depending on how you get that. not necessarily through the taxes. medicare is run by the government but the care is provided privately. that is what canada has. a true national health insurance that is government provided would be like what we have in england, where the government owns the facilities and pays the salary to the providers. abouteople are talking the medicare and canadian type system.

host: what is this compare to the last midterm election, and how prominent it was then? guest: it wasn't that prominent in 2014. itch is interesting because was the first year of the aca and democrats were in full defense mode. they have republicans back on their heels. there is the effort by the administration to invalidate the pre-existing conditions. that is the most popular part of the affordable care act. in 2014, it was a republican against immigrants as part of the aca which wasn't working well. is joining usvner to take your questions on health

care in a wide variety of topics. go ahead. insurance companies have no right to be making a profit off the debt of american people. this is the profit motive. and i think that is sick. that is the same as universal health care. that means keeping the profit the same but getting everybody involved. single-payer means we get insurance companies out. doing what needs to be done. pay the taxes and the taxes come back to you with health care. guest: there are a lot of nonprofit insurance companies. there are for-profit insurance companies. that they make a profit if they hold medicare costs down.

the idea is driving down costs. they get more profits because they have driven down how to pay out in bills. companys the insurance have the bargaining power. sometimes doctors or hospitals power.e bargaining they can call the shots. there are a lot of hospitals --t insurance companies there is a lot of profit in health care right now. we talk about drug makers. more portions of the

health care system than there used to be. and it causes -- it cost more money and we are just starting to grapple with that. host: jack is on the line for the uninsured. caller: thank you for taking my call. saying theye is will give you a couple of quick reasons why. my prescriptions were first $65. i got a prescription from the affordable care act correct -- care act and my prescription double. i am now paying cash. that i had tois go to the emergency room. the public didn't pay my bills. i'm still paying for them. i had to have a colonoscopy.

my premium.ng that is my cash price. $815 cash. i knew that i had to get insurance. i did get my colonoscopy but they charged over $4500 for the colonoscopy. thei got a bill from anesthesiologist for over $900. i got them to tell me that it was for the nurse. i told them that you are ready paid them $600. and another thing is that i had

an aneurysm so i had to get the ultrasound. i pay $450 a month. $900 for the ultrasound. i just got one done last month. i paid cash. host: do you have any children? caller: yes, but they are all grown. host: do they approach oscar the same way you do? caller: i'm trying to get a health care savings account. peopleing to educate about the insurance. host: did you have this experience when your children was young?

caller: i did. host: thank you. guest: this is a big issue. they are being hit with enormous bills. count towards your deductible. this is all put in by the affordable care act. your deductible can only be so high. if air outside of the network, you have to pay the whole thing and you don't know if it is out of network. with drug prices, sometimes the insurance cover price is more than the pay cash price. it is all over the place. medicare.a on good morning. caller: i have both medicaid and medicare. and i have a low retirement

benefit on my job. and i really didn't prepare. i didn't expect to live to be 73 years old. i didn't prepare for the retirement. so in terms of the affordable out, it, when it came heard he had the estimate to get some dental work done. and after the affordable care, , the pricecame in tripled. for the same procedure. re: printing out the estimate. and i didn't understand it. what is affordable when it became deregulated. and increased the price of the procedures extremely like that? i was very disappointed.

i wish i had prepared my retirement. because i bounced from job to forand i did a nursing job the last of my years. i worked in psychiatry. and i had to leave there because viewers of us to listen to what thedocument -- to what patient says and i documented things that could be troublesome. -- i ended up getting my life threatened. host: thank you for sharing. dental care is not the affordable care

act. up inst of premiums going the individual market -- most of the other calls going up were happening at the same time. it wasn't because of the affordable care act. an association health plan is something that has been around for quite some time. it allows small businesses to band together to buy insurance with negotiating power. so if you are an electrician, you can band with other electricians. restaurant owners can band together with restaurant owners. there happen a lot of problems with these plans. some have gone broke and haven't been able to pay claims.

be trumped administration put out a listing to expand the plans outside of the affordable care act. he will were concerned that you small businesses buying these health care plans because they will be cheaper but then you leave the sicker people behind. and it makes that experience more expensive. host: trump talking about those rules, talk about allowing those associations to get rid of the lines around the state? something you would talk about off the campaign trail? host: when he was talking about buying off state lines, that is the individual. when this india was first around early 2000 90's and

in theory, it did make sense but now most insurance plans have tightly regulated networks. if you are in florida and you bought a plan in illinois, the doctors and hospitals would be in illinois. so it is hard to see how that would work. caller: good morning. i am in houston. i am a 65-year-old. i am a cancer person. family, we have every combination of insured or uninsured. i am on ssi. my 32-year-old son was born with disabilities. scoliosis and a blood disorder. cancer twice. graduated at my kitchen table

and i had extracted everything i could get for him. he was thrown out of his health care. and the cancer center monitored him. treat rare illnesses but when the affordable care act came in, it turned against any form of health care and the rich people who go down there and people from foreign countries and medical tourism, my son was shown the door. and he is a grad student. he needs dental care. teeth are falling out. how can he be a professional man and have falling out teeth and pain. people understand why want to have children who are disabled -- i had one and i we dohim -- but what do when there is no care? i took him to all of the appointments and routines and no

he has done. they don't even know what it is. they don't know what the malformation is. i had to explain that to the judge. i just wanted to tell you. that -- hasing is helped tremendously with my grandchildren. but if they had an adult one, it would be a pilot for universal. anld the government not make adult one? i would like to hear your thoughts on that. where my son could get care for his rare illness. guest: i'm so sorry for your family. that is one of the states is not expanding medicaid which is part of the problem. doesugh your son

apparently have supplemental insurance income. people do fall through the graphics and it is difficult. the child health insurance program is very popular. congress did let it expire and then managed to redo it. chip is basically something that lies on top of medicaid. this dates get extra money for providing health insurance for the children who are not poor enough to qualify. people who don't have enough money to my insurance. it is pretty substantial coverage. because providing comprehensive coverage to children isn't that expensive and it is helpful. if you extended that to

everyone, it would be health insurance setting up instead of setting it down. there would have to be a way to find the money. host: 34 states have expanded coverage. orange states are not adopting. that is 14 states. ralph from d.c.. good morning. caller: i will make a couple of points here. trying to solve a problem. stanford came out with a study that shows there is no relation between what the american voter wants and what the law of congress passes. there is a strong correlation with corporations. that is the root of the problem. doctors who are in business for themselves. they own part of the x-ray or the mri or they get kickbacks

from drugs. was addressing the person -- then we couldn't have that. androther is on an airplane he is sitting down the side with an executive from one of the insurer companies and she said, we collect 20% off the top. so the whole system is screwed up and it is insidious. law that setass a the amount of sugar -- we have a huge obesity and diabetes problem which will break our financial backs -- just trying to list sugar in food in teaspoons instead of grams -- that is something that doctors know but not the average american -- they couldn't even get that passed in congress. so we have real problems.

this programjust or that program. we have a government that does not represent the united states people. guest: congress has taken small steps. there are no requirements that doctors who get paid by drug companies have to disclose that. fore were a series of laws doctors who invested in physical therapy companies or imaging companies and referred them to companies they had financial stake in. or have been lots of loopholes and tinkering but at least there has been an acknowledgment of a problem of the health industry after scratching each other's backs. not that it has been dealt with but it has been addressed. host: is there a limit to how come from the coverage? guest: in the affordable care

act, there is. markets could only keep a certain amount of profit. it is called the medical loss ratio. andmuch goes to health care how much they can retain for other business operations plus profit. and if a company goes over that two rebate the premiums the next year. so it does exist but that is basically just for insurance companies and it is still pretty small. in northgo to jane carolina. uninsured. good morning. caller: i'm glad to be able to talk with you. thank you for staying on to answer questions. would sit down before they even think about going to

alldoctor and research medicare and medicaid and see i believeaws are, everyone would be able to do more. america in this day and time, people think all you have to do is ask and then you get. but no. we have a system. and the system is of laws we must abide by. and there are so many that don't want to abide by the laws. they think they just do everything they want. sitmericans, we need to down and talk it over. like a doctor would tell you, before it goes through. if you have something to talk about, write it down so that you don't forget it. that is the way the american people should do before they go

and ask about abortions and things of that nature. i believe they should sit down and think about it along with parents. i believe all should sit together. guest: that is pretty good advice. especially when you go to the doctor, it is always useful to write down what you want to ask the kids otherwise you forget. had a cost -- we had a discussion about the cost of description drugs. i wanted to ask your opinion on amazon getting into the companies.n drug what does that mean? guest: the pharmacy industry is worried. into thed to know how pharmacy amazon is planning on getting although this recent acquisition was an indication

that maybe they are starting to. could amazon disrupt the drug crisis? the way they have disrupted other things? why else would they do it and how big is -- to give viewers an understanding of the size? guest: not that big. but i think they applied for pharmacy licenses last year and everybody got very excited about this. i have no idea what amazon is a two. amazon is part of the big -- with j.p. morgan, chase and berkshire hathaway. and prominent author and surgeon , a researcher trying to figure out ways to hold down health care costs. definitely interested in this area. not sure what they will do. that there is lots of speculation. host: we have lots of colors.

to clarksburg, virginia. go ahead. i am on medicare. cost is ridiculous. i would like to give you an example. here problems with wax and stuff. doctor and he told me that they could no longer do that. that i had to go to a specialist. somewhere, ito costs me a fortune. takee to pay somebody to me and bring me back. they curb the curb.

so -- [indiscernible] 83 years old. me very much.p room two the emergency months ago. $4000. me almost the emergency room was over $1000. guest: emergency room costs are astounding. coverage 24,000 -- 24 hours a day and sometimes they have trouble finding specialists.

i hospital could be in the network and they finally get a huge bill from a doctor. firm --a private coverage -- m host: so this isn't a way for them to make an extra buck? it is expensive to maintain a 24/7 emergency room. it is expensive to assemble an emergency team. hard to say. are charging everything they think they can. host: on the line for all others, good morning. caller: i have had type one

for years. they are making so much profit. the companies and device makers. recently i read that the three are beinglin makers investigated for price collusion. , from what ilike read, that is exactly what happened. because the price in recent years has gone up 300%. i have insurance through our business that i know diabetics who don't. and they suffer. do you know anything about this price collusion investigation? guest: i don't know anything investigation but my boss has written extensively about the cost of insulin and the shenanigans that go on in

the diabetes industry. i recommend her work. wanda.ast call, caller: i can think of a couple of reasons it might be -- a gentleman called an earlier saying his prescription went from $60 up to $600. theou watch television, high price could be a result of the television ads, which are cheap. and of drug representatives that hospitals. sometimes they get benefits and a good car for being a salesperson. that could be a result of the higher prices as well. not so much for price but

for induced demand. what to dos has been -- congress has been trying to figure out what to do about advertising. host: up next, the current u.s. debt stands at $21 trillion. christopher mihm will discuss what we can do about it. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ part of our capitals tour, the c-span bus visited alaska with encourage the final stop on the tour. >> anchorage plays a critical role in making sure that

democracy is functional and provides an understanding of what is going on, but also provides a window into being a farc, this distance away, can see what is occurring. >> we think it is important, because we believe in the mission of the network to be a chested media source. we probably support their effort to inform and educate the nation on policy, politics, history and current events. announcer: join us on july 21 and 22 when we will feature a visit to alaska. c-span,aska weekend on c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app. announcer: c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television company.

and today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington dc and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. "washington journal" continues. host: each week, we take a look at a different aspect of your money. this week, we are focusing on the u.s. debt and deficit and to do that we are joined by christopher mihm, who serves as the strategic issues management director at the accountability office. and maybe just define those terms, debt and deficit, and the difference between them. is the annualicit number, the difference between the revenues and actual expenditures that go out of the federal government each year. the debt, like in our personal lives, is how much you are building up over a long time of

what you owe that you are not paying down each year. host: the report we are about this money from the government accountability office, the fiscal health and action needed to address the physical feature of the government. we have a phone lines for democrats, republicans and independentss. . a good place to look at is the u.s. debt clock.org. the national debt approaching $21.2 trillion, the deficit expected to be over $800 billion, which two of those numbers concerns you more? guest: they are both of concern in a sense that -- our report focused on the end of 2017, taking us through last september, but as you said the numbers you have are both big and the real concern is they are both growing. our concern and what we have been urging congress and the executive branch to do is to put in place a plan that will deal

with both of those. we are on track to hit our historical high of jet to pdb -- to gdp ratio. we are on track in a few short years, depending on which assumptions you use between 14-22 years, we will hit 106% and keep going. so we need to manage both of those. host: are there lessons to be learned from looking back to that time when we were in the fiscal position to maybe bend the curve we are seeing today? guest: very much. the report you mentioned has a chart that shows from 1790, the founding of the republic, debt to gdp ratios. and what you see consistently over time is that as, during the wartime, economic downturns, recessions and depressions, the ratio goes up. we spend more than -- we spend more.

during peacetime, historically, and economic upturns, we pay down that debt. and so we had that 106% after world war ii, then over the next, into the mid-70's or so we were paying the down. we did go up periodically over time, but postwar it has been about 45%. the concern is, over the last two decades, the historical pattern has been broken. we have not been paying down the debt during better times, and as a result we are on this, but we would refer to as an unsustainable fiscal path. those are the hard decisions we have to make about spending and revenue going forward. we need to get back in place and put a plan in place to deal with long-term challenges. host: the term you referred to in the report available at jdo.gov, but i can show it to viewers, the percentage of growth domestic product, the debt held by the public as a percentage of gross to meta-product.

you can see the changes from 1790 to 1800, to the 1900s, through to today. in the report, if you take a look at it, you will see numbers from jdo, cbo, explain the gao?rence -- what is guest: we are, like cbo, we are part of the congress and legislative branch where an independent nonpartisan agency an independent nonpartisan agency. we are basically the congressional watchdog. we do program evaluations, audits at the request of congress. we do about 800 a year. the overwhelmingly majority of those available on our website. people pay my salary and this out of my colleagues, so that information is there information. people can search, find basically the valuation of or assessment of anything the

federal government does, virtually everything the federal government does on the website. host: is the power in the tell an to, can gao stop spending money a certain way? guest: i wish we had enforcement authority, but we do not have direct enforcement authority, but fortunately for us the power of what we have, over time, close to 80% of our recommendations are implemented, so the authority we have is through the quality of the work that we do and in the gao we were closely with congress and getting action on our recommendations, whether they be actions for those agencies or legislative actions that need to take place. ofend up saving tens billions of dollars each year in the american people, thousands of other benefits like management improvements within agencies, so we are a good return on investment. host: if you want to join the conversation, lines for democrats, republicans and independents.

democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. christopher mihm will be with us until the bottom of the hour. this chart shows the three biggest drivers of long-term fiscal spending, health care, social security, interest on the debt. which of those is the easiest to bend down? guest: it would be great if any of them were easy to bend down. the viewers with the last segment saw the challenges we have on health care costs. medicare, just on social security and interest on the debt, we are projecting a $3 trillion increase in federal spending over the next decade, two thirds of that increase will come from those three kind of broad program areas. and so, you know, i would not characterize it as being easy, but to the extent we can begin to pay, or piling less debt on

and decreasing the ratio, we are about 76% debt to gdp now, that is money that comes back without any other different choices that need to take place. host: what is the tipping point? you talk about using hard decisions, these fiscal pictures look decades into the future. when did these decisions need to be made? guest: we need to put in place a plan of against the start dealing with it now. the sooner you start dealing with these challenges, the broader array of options you have and the less painful decisions you need to make on that. let me give you context. we often talk about using a device called, something called the fiscal gap, the amount of either spending reductions or revenue increases that we need to be taken immediately and permanently in order to achieve a certain target by any given point in time. as an example, say you wanted to keep for over 75 years, where we are now on jet -- on debt to

gdp. that would require, it would probably end up being a mix of them, it would require a 37% decrease, or rather increase in revenues, or 27% decrease in spending. that would have to be permanent. we are not going to do that, but it would have to be a mix of those. the sooner you take action, the broader the array of options we have and the less people any decision needs to be made. host: on a day that the debt is $21 trillion, $184 billion and rising, we are talking about the nation's's fiscal health. michael is up first in illinois, the line for independents. good morning. caller: this is a mobile number. woodbridge, illinois. host: go ahead. caller: ok, thank you so much. mr. mihm, i want you to comment

on why is it that every time, you are not the only person that is talking about this, the concorde coalition, i do not know if it exists, but they used to talk about these things and you know, there is this a equation in front of us -- we are spending more than we are taking in -- the only solution i ever hear is, we have to cut social security and cut medicare and yada yada. look, the fed has been managing the economy with low interest and thathelp the rich, is why the debt has been manageable. it is all smoke and mirrors. tell me, why don't we talk about putting the maximum tax bracket back up to 90%, like it was i think in the 1950's after world war ii, and squeeze the top 10%

in the nation that has profited from all of this "economic growth," and led them pay for this stuff. because i earned my benefits. host: that is the revenue side. guest: i completely understand where the caller is coming from and that is why we have been saying the solution will have to be a mix of spending and revenue issues. you are not going to get a lot of spending, not all out of entitlements, for exactly the reason the color was mentioning -- caller was mentioning. those are difficult policy decisions, the how and where and how big on each, that is something that is not a question i can answer, it is a policy that is up to congress and up to voters. host: the report from gao, viewers will not find a specific tax bracket that you are

recommending to solve the problem. guest: absolutely not. that is a policy call. and tickets to political views and values that is not appropriate for an audit office to make. host: new york, good morning. caller: hi. i have a comment. , my firstntleman question is how old were you in wasral -- when greenspan concerned about the biggest problem that might be paying isn the national debt, which why i supported the bush tax cut ? host: why you concerned about age? caller: because he has been watching the money for it is why i supported the bush tax wh. guest: i am a proud member of the baby boom generation. host: do you have a follow-up question? caller: my point being, $21

trillion is a very large chunk of change. it was about $5 trillion when they cut taxes. and at that point, that is when it started to boeing. - -- balloon basically the money has been transferred out of the treasury and into the hands of the top 1%, maybe 1.5%, maybe 1.25%. so you cannot just rip that back. said,ke the caller before what is the problem with raising tax rates? not to mention the fact that the people before talking about drug prices. donald trump talks about how we are getting ripped off by other countries. meanwhile, other countries are mostly ripping us off by letting us pay the high price of drugs that they get reduced prices for. host: we will take thehost: point. i will show this chart, showing

the total u.s. public federal 1966 through the -teens. this from business insider story on the rising federal debt. guest: one of the things, the c aller mentioned international dishes, but one thing to keep in mind is over the $20 trillion of that, about 1.7 chilean dollars of that is debt held by the public. what that is is that held primarily by international investors, the message investors, the record is of that is the two categories, and some held by the federal reserve and state and local governments. of the $14 trillion, a large and growing share is held by international investors. in fact, in about 2001, about public debtebt was

being held by international investors, now it is around 39% and it continues to grow. host: explained debt held by government accounts. guest: that is primarily intergovernmental, intro governmental accounts. ans that the government is making to itself. it gets repaid, so it is not a subsidy on that. it is a concern and is legitimate to talk about the entire 20 drilled -- the entire ire $20- ent trillion. host: 5.6 train dollars held by the governments. eddie in massachusetts, go ahead. caller: i was interested in your ratio of debt to gdp. trillione a $21 deficit and to be at 100%, does that mean our gdp is $1 billion?

trillion for goes to mr. product? -- gross domestic product? guest: if we get to 106% within 14-22 years, the amount of debt that is owed by the federal government is about the size of the economy. so back to the earlier discussion that we were having come it does not mean that there is some sort of apocalypse or tipping point that happens there. world war ii, we were able to take actions and worker way out of it. but what it does mean is that that the array of options that will be available to congress and the market people in terms of spending will decrease or be more constrained over time, flexibility in terms of meeting new priorities will be constrained. this is what we mean when we refer to an unsustainable path. host: this is a chart from your report. the important part showing that it goes all the way out the 2090, and various lines showing

the baseline for malaysians by the gao, alternative simulations, how flexible are all of these lines? how much do they allow for cushion in case of something unexpected like a natural disaster, some sort of war? guest: that is -- there are a couple things of concern. on the direct point, they are all about the -- it is a simulation, not a projection, in the sense that we believe the country will take action before you get to those ciccone and really -- draconian really bad situations. so our point is that the sooner we take action the greater the array of options, less typical it is those decisions we need to take. host: certainly a point you have emphasized throughout the report. guest: even using different assumptions, basically the models -- they work off of each other. using different assumptions, they all point in the same

direction, whether it is ours, our baseline versus , where ines, the cbo the fiscal report of the united states, that comes from the treasury, they all show -- facts are facts. any all show we are on unsustainable path. host: caller from ohio, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. to set up my question, correct currencym wrong, ithe in this country is the federal reserve notes and it is not actually money. we as it predicated on the confidence we have to purchase with it. it seems like the debt you are talking about is correlated to money, but the federal reserve notes are just securities. there is really no substance. so the substance is the value of the labor pools that brings the

value into existence, in a matter if you are paid $5 or $50. help me gain a perspective on how the debt-based economy represents the value of labor of individuals and how it is reflected in the $21 trillion debt. thank you. guest: one thing that is consistent with the point you are asking about is that, right now we are borrowing and a lot of money. we are borrowing it generally by historically standards, low to moderate and just rates. a spike in interest rates would cause us, it would obviously increase our debt costs, interest costs, quite significantly. it gets to a point, the confidence point the caller was raising, was in 2011-2013, when there was a question as to whether or not the congress would raise the debt limit, we

did quite a bit of work on looking and talking with the investor community and tracking interest rates, and found there was a decline in confidence in u.s. securities. investors were not willing to hold them, that they would mature in the short term. it led to the increase in borrowing costs. so playing with the fate of the federal government, making sure that investors have confidence in treasury securities, is absolutely vital. not.t costs us if it does that is why in our report we've advocated that congress change the way it deals with the debt level, solely with appropriations and budget decisions in the congress and i am an article i guy in terms of constitutional issues. keeping those spending decisions with the congress. but not, but better joining debt and it spending decisions together rather than separating

them artificially the way they are now, which leads to a reduction in confidence. host: less than 10 minutes left. if you have a question as we talk about physical health. we have lines for democrats, republicans and independents. good morning, william. caller: thank you for taking my call. you said earlier, somebody said that obama pretty much the book the national debt, but in reality a lot of that debt came from tax cuts, two unpaid wars, there is art b, and lot of spending that goes towards vets as it relates to their injuries and benefits as a result of these wars, so how much of that debt really did come from barack obama, and not with previous administrations did and chose not to put the debt on the books? guest: in terms of more recent

numbers, that i am more familiar was, is the debt in 2017 the deficit rather, was $666 billion, that was a $23 billion increase from the preceding year. cbo has estimated because of legislative action, including the tax cuts, bipartisan budget agreement, the appropriations taken at the end of last year, this was after 2017 when we finished the work on this report, that there will be an increase in the and a deficit in the coming years on this -- debt and deficit in the coming years on this. this is a long-term, bipartisan issue, which is why it is so difficult. if it was just a matter of either one party or one set of decisions or one set of programs, or easy fixes we could make, we probably would've done that moment of. the challenge is for a lot of very good reasons this is very

hard to deal with and again, it is because of good reasons it is hard to deal with, because we have priorities we want to spend on and things we want to fund. host: the top economic advisor, larry kudlow, made statements about the deficit that raised eyebrows. there is a headline from the hill newspaper. lyric of the claims the rising deficit is coming down. he is quoted as saying, as the economy gears up, more people working in better jobs and careers come as revenues come rolling in, the deficit is coming down and it is coming down rapidly. growth solves a lot of problems. is the deficit coming down? guest: obviously, i saw the press accounts of that and i also understand that he later clarified and talked about some of the comments that he was making. projected is we are looking at a big increase in the deficit and debt in 2018, including the 10 year window as

well in the neighborhood of in the trillions over the next 10 years. obviously, the larger point he was making is economic growth is obviously very good, and it reduces the size of your challenge, but i should underscore that just like we are not going to tax our way out of this problem, or cut our way out of this problem, we will not grow our way out of this problem. there is no scenario that lets us know we will be able to get sustained economic growth at the levels that would have me back here in a couple years saying, it was overblown, sorry. host: the projection has the deficit over $800 billion this year by 2024, 1 $.2 trillion. those are some of the numbers from cbo, fox news research on responding to mary kudlow. and -- larry kudlow. and we have dave on the republican line. good morning. caller: first, a quick,.

comment. it would bother to work if the government to 90% of what they earn? a question about medicare. once therstand it, biggest contributor to the growth in our national debt, tens of trillions of dollars in future liabilities for a program that people pay into for about 50 years and take out of for about 15 years, yet i hear more and more democratic politicians composing -- proposing medicare for all. what do you think that we do to our national debt? guest: there are a couple things on medicare. i made a reference about being a member of the baby-boom generation. i am on the backend of that as it were, but beginning in 2010 is when the first of the baby-boom generation became eligible for medicare. 65 years old. we now have for the next 15-20

years, between 10,000-11,000 per day that turn 65 and become medicare eligible on that. that is putting enormous pressure on obviously federal spending. and i do not say that as being a bad thing, this caller and a number of others have indicated that people have paid into that and they have made a life assumptions that that would be available to them, but the accommodation of demographics, the retirement and baby-boom generation, and on the whole we are living longer, although obviously very sadly we have some racial interregional disparities on that, but life expectancies are going up. the cost of beneficiary, which you heard about earlier, that is also going up because of new technologies and health care inflation. that is outstripping the general economy, but new technologies and procedures -- so dealing with health care aspect is very

difficult on that. now, the second part in terms of medicare for all or any changes we would make in terms of general national health insurance coverage, it is very difficult to say exactly what the implications would be, because of just the complexity of all the moving parts that would have to be put together and really understand what the relationships of the moving parts and when they would be. host: ok, the land of lincoln. robert is a republican from illinois. am in marion at park. quick question on a follow-up. i heard rand paul say if you took a penny from every dollar we spend you will get knocked down quickly, although i do not have much confidence in our congress nowadays, but is that true, just one penny you would be able to knock down the deficit pretty rapidly? guest: i would have to see the

context of the senator's comments on that. obviously even small savings can make big differences for you. one thing that we outline in the report is some opportunities to really make improvements on that. for example, each year at the request of -- based on statutes, the congress has this release a report of duplication overlap fragmentation, and also cost savings and enhancement revenue opportunities within the federal government. over the last few years, it has resulted in over $100 billion in savings that has a ready taken place, as well as a combination of those that are booked into the future. the point is that that is tens of billions of dollars in additional savings that if congress and the executive branch acted on a recommendations, already costed out, that that could come to the federal treasury. likewise, there is the each year

we have a $400 billion in all tax gap, the difference in that, the difference between what is legally owed and what is actually paid. that is money that is out there that would not require any conversation about, we should increase taxes or not increase taxes, this is already legally owed. and it needs to be recovered. host: what it costs more to collect those taxes, to get the people out there to make sure that the taxes are actually being collected, will there be an expense on that side? guest: in some cases, yes. we have shown that you need a three-pronged strategy. first, clarity in the tax code. we find a great deal of the problem is people wanting to do the right thing, intending to do the right thing, but just making a mistake because of the complexity of the tax code. the lower hanging fruit on that is actually two elements, one, better customer service. making sure that the irs is

answering questions quickly and accurately. increasedird is enforcement action where those are needed. to the extent integrated third-party information, that is information from mortgage dealers or whatever, that goes into the tax system, that will help people pay their taxes and will help with enforcement actions. host: last call. gregory, republican. go ahead. caller: thank you. mr. mihm, secretary mnuchin just served our gold reserves. know am just curious to how the gold reserves of the united states, which is the greatest of any nation on earth, 80 some hundred or thousand tons, plays into this deficit. and are we buying gold at prices today in order to enhance our holding, or is it going out, how

does it work? and what comes to mind is hillary, how could she possibly drop the sale of uranium to russia? it is unimaginable. i appreciate your comment on gold as it plays into her deficit and debt. need ai'm not sure i minute or so on that particular question. that is not something we are particularly looked at. we are focused on the combination of spending and revenue decisions that need to be made. it requires us as a country and congress to come up with a long-term plan on how to deal with that. we have had short-term needs, whether it is another economic downturn, or a catastrophic weather event, hurricanes, those have to be dealt with. so our point is the sooner we get a plan in place the greater array of options we have, the less draconian we have.

at some point we begin to see big problems because of this. host: the report is the nation's fiscal health, gao.gov. easy to find all these reports. we appreciate it, christopher mihm, the statistics issues -- the strategic issues and management there. we will end the day with open phones. the phone lines are yours. you can call on the lines for democratic republican and independents. start doing that now. we will be right back. announcer: as part of our 50 capitals tour, and with the help of gci cable, the c-span bus visited alaska, with acreage as the final stop. >> we play critical role in making sure democracy is functional, providing a common understanding of what is going on, and also provides a window

into washington dc that those of us who are distanced can see what is occurring. >> we really believe it is important to offer these to our customers because we believe in the network's mission, to be an unfiltered and trusted media source. we proudly support their effort to inform and educate the nation on policy, politics, history, and current events. announcer: be sure to join us on july 21 and 22, when we will feature a visit to alaska. watch alaska weekend on c-span, c-span.org, or listen on the c-span radio app. sunday night, freelance journalist tom dunkel on his article "locked and loaded for the lord," on the sons of the church in newfoundland, pennsylvania. >> a situation which in

pennsylvania is a co-mingling of undercurrents in the country, of religion, politics and guns. to a degree that we have not seen before. it is still a small church, no question about that. shaun has a worldwide following. my guess would be about 200 people in the congregation total or 1000ylvania, and 500 or 2000 worldwide. these days, you can follow a church on you to come all the sermons on their webcast every week. it is that combing doing of -- inmingling of passion america and what does this say about us as a culture, and what -- is there any precursor of what we might see down the road? when you get the genie out of the bottle of mixing guns and religion amongst any society, it

has usually been problematic. announcer: sunday night on c-span's "q & a." host: it is open phones. any public policy issue you want to talk about, now is the time to do it. we will have open phones until 9:00 a.m. -- 10:00 a.m. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. as you are calling, i will show you the front pages from newspapers around the country. the dallas morning news focusing on the election in mexico. el-lopez and manu his victory, third time is a charm. "people are going to decide if they want more of the same or real change," said the president elect of mexico. and the san antonio news, also

focusing on that election, but also the ongoing crisis at the border. chaos as families seek asylum and a separated kids, the headline there. and the chicago tribune focusing on the upcoming nomination and confirmation battle for the seat that was vacated, or will be vacated by justice kennedy, when he officially steps down from the supreme court at the end of this month. the chicago tribune focusing on who could push the high court to the right. they are focusing on judge amy coney barrett, a former law professor and appointee of the seventh circuit in chicago and appellate judge for cavanaugh. that is their story. what do you want to talk about? steve, san diego. an independent, go ahead. hello? host: go ahead. caller: i am sorry, it is dave. i live in san diego. host: what is your comment?

caller: on the last segment, on the federal deficit it was interesting. you talk about various issues. this is not a political statement of any kind. it is just the cost of dealing with liberation, the problems, you know, and kids in foster homes, i think we could find a little bit of money, like the gentleman before said, in many areas of the government. i think that is part of our problem as a whole in our country. host: what part of the country is ripe to find that money? where should we look first? caller: the government itself, as far as the way that we handle the problems down on the border. host: ok. jennifer in north palm beach, florida. mine for independents. go ahead -- line for

independents. go ahead. caller: i wanted to address the issue of many politicians using the issue of illegals as a bargaining chip. and what i see, i even take part in churches, we should open the borders and allow a lot of these people to come in. do nott i see is -- i see it as a policy of compassion, i see it as a policy where the women and children in particular are made of vulnerable, because they do not have the rights we have as citizens. raisedssed rents being without any notice. if you think about it, these people have to live somewhere. i live in south florida and i have heard of rents being raised like $200 overnight. and they have nowhere to go. think these women use

prostitution just to make a rent payment. and i will get calls like, i need to pay my electric bill or whatever, and they are so vulnerable. and they will go to the emergency room all the time for earaches or whatever, so that has impacted all of us because we then have to pay medical bills. more on the to see issue of the fact that these people need to be treated fairly. but we should not be using them, because they are vulnerable, and any citizen who comes to this country should have rights. they have no rights. they are not citizens. and -- host: go ahead. comments.r caller: i am living next door to a building project and i see

these people who are not citizens, they are not wearing proper equipment, and a lot of abuse that eyewitness --- i witness, that they are not citizens, and should not be made citizens overnight, but i see that they are pawns on the part of the elites. host: one of the newspapers from florida, the orlando sentinel, one of their stories today talking about advocates and officials decrying the inhumane conditions at immigration customs offices and other federally run centers that have raised concerns for advocates. jim in medford, oregon. line for democrats. caller: good morning. my name is jim. i am calling about the taxation situation. if you lived in the 1950's or 1960's, your ability as a middle-class or lower income was

a lock greater. -- lot greater. and it generated a lot of upward mobility for the middle class. and today, with the tax situation reversed so that the rich are getting the biggest tax incomeand percentage of compared what i mean by that -- income. what i mean by that is if you make $40,000, you are getting a wonderful tax break of $800, versus you are making $40 million and you are making a payment of $400,000. that is a big chunk of spendable income. the middle class has lost that ability through all of these wonderful tax breaks. and we have, we have generated a society that thinks taxes are

terrible. and the truth of the matter is, that is what runs the government. and why shouldn't the ones who get the most benefit out of it pay for it? host: that was jim in oregon. joe in the sooner state. good morning. caller: hi. good morning and thank you for having me on. i will be kind of quick. on the woman who was on for kaiser, i felt like, you know, she kept saying that they have been working in congress to fix some of these problems, and what she really should have said is some of the democrats have been working to address pharmaceutical companies advertising on tv, trying to address pharmaceutical costs. republicans have blocked all of that stuff. so i think part of the problem here is that we need to call out

parties and better in the way of actually helping the people. as far as some of the other -- host: are you calling in on the line for republicans, are you calling out your own party? caller: i am a born-again non-republican. what happened was i voted for donald trump and expected him to keep his most important campaign promised. when he got into office, he said he was going to get the lobbyists out, wall street out, you go back to watch any of his speeches he was talking about hillary and wall street, but if you look at what he has done he has got billionaires on his cabinets, he has lobbyists running agencies, we have a liar lili running -- eli lili running health, scott pruitt who is a lobbyist for the gas and oil companies, running the

protection of our air and water, he has five goldman sachs guys, including steve mnuchin. just look up foreclosure king, that guy is now running a lot of what is going on with our government. that is not draining the swamp, that is filling it. host: karen in michigan. go ahead. caller: hi. i was calling because i'm really confused of evangelical christians. how they feel that kidnapping children is the right to life. conceived, a baby is they believe it is a human being, but once that person is born they are treated like garbage. it is amazing to me that they would follow somebody like donald trump, who is only -- the only thing he wants to do is destroy humanity. and for them to remember god

sits high and looks low. thank you. host: in the wall street journal, one of the headlines, thetion is the focus as president says he will announce his pick for the supreme court it week from today, july 9. open phones. go ahead. caller: i would like to leave a, on -- comment on the media in general. they are not focusing on solutions. one of the solutions, which i think president trump is focused on, he wants to do a campaign on, is for the united states to join -- the initiative, which monetarypecific -- reforms in the united states,

like reestablishing a law set up by roosevelt -- wall street -- not that i am -- [indiscernible] -- it reestablished a national banking system on the model of alexander hamilton, and use the national banking system to distribute funds for development. and tap into this project, once china has -- they want to reinvest in the united states. host: going a little bit in and out, but i think we got you. courtney in california, good morning. caller: how are you doing? host: doing well. caller: let me make quick comments before you hang up. first of all, the democratic party was started by andrew jackson.

we honor the history of andrew jackson. he wanted to annihilate the human race. and the democratic party elected him as the first president under this party, so this immigration system is a footprint of slavery, and the same thing going on with these children, the situation right now, to make people like donald trump and the republican party look bad. the republican party was started by abraham lincoln. ok? so, i am not so vain not to think that this whole immigration with the children aspect of it is somewhat victimizing me, because i have looked at the supreme court since 2015. separated from my children as i continue to fight. my last situation is with roe v. wade.

people have to look at who they are. the male sparks life. 400as given birth to million-500 million sperm. these things live. host: tim in maryland. go ahead. caller: hi, i was just calling. i am a little bit concerned with donald trump in general, because i thought the promise was he would speak truth and a simple solutions. i will give you an example. the immigration debate, one of the biggest things not being discussed is the core of the issue, what is the process to become a citizen. you ask the average person and they cannot tell you, they cannot tell you the documentation required. we are all sitting in different camps are doing the effects of the different processes. but nobody is being educated as to what we could actually change, you know.

wante right, republicans documentation. ok, document them, fingerprint them, allow them to be citizens. we can do that overnight, make it a one-day process and a suddenly have them in the system, but that is not what republicans want it it is not what they are advocating. on the other hand, democrats say we want a process, we want to be inclusive, we want to bring in as many as possible, but they are also advocating a long-term solution that could be about 5-15 years to become a citizen. i went up to hear more politicians -- would love to hear more politicians explain the details in facts so that we could actually consume it and have better informed opinions about these issues. host: thank you for the call. from maryland this might come on immigration and the border crisis. the story in the usa today about congress leaving for the july for holiday without a border

fix. five bills have been proposed, but nothing winds consensus. the story noting that the best hope for a compromise may be in the senate, where the unlikely duo of ted cruz and dianne feinstein are working on a bill, among the options using ankle bracelets the key parents from fleeing while waiting with their children for court hearings. you can read that story in usa today. another interesting story getting attention from abc news. michael:, the longtime -- cohen, the longtime personal attorney of donald trump, has always insisted that he would remain loyal to the president. "he was a pitbulls of fiercely protective of his boss that he once described himself as the guy who would take a bullet for the president, but in his first interview since the fbi raided his office and homes in april, he strongly signaled his willingness to cooperate with robert mueller and federal prosecutors in the southern district of new york, even if it

puts president trump in jeopardy." "my wife, daughter and a son have my first loyalty," he said. "i put my family and country first." it was an interview at a manhattan hotel, the story at abc news.com. hostlouis, good morning. line for democrats. caller: good morning. i wanted to say that the man who was on their earlier talking about the deficit -- there earlier talking about the deficit, i think one of the problems with congress is they all try to look at the big picture, but they do not think about the small things. so i have three suggestions. one, that $255 debt benefits that social security gives out does not help anybody, so why not discontinue that? it probably costs more to send

it out than it is actually worth. and another one is i would like to know if these congress people are on a budget when it comes to their travel, because it seems like they are constantly traveling all the time. and i do not know how many trips they make to israel, which i find ridiculous. and then another one might be, since all of these billionaires do not mind spending millions of dollars on campaign contributions and since we are going to have a conservative court that is never going to overturn citizens united, why don't they pass a law that for every dollar donated for any $.25 of that, or dollar has to go toward reducing the deficit? thank you. host: have you ever made a campaign donation? we lost louise.

richard in massachusetts, good morning. caller: good morning. i am calling about immigration. about two years ago i was watching a show and they had immigration on and there was a woman who was a nurse in texas. and they across the -- had their babies and they are citizens. she said her husband was earning $500 a month and they could not handle it and they were building 15 clinics in dallas, texas to handle this. could you have somebody on to find out about that? and see if that is really happening. because that is a big concern. if this is really happening like that. babies,of these anchor they are allowed to be citizens, it adds to the problem. i would appreciate it if you could find out something.

host: we appreciate suggestions. richard on the immigration issue. here is the front page from alaska's the juneau empire newspaper about a rally there against family separation of u.s. southern border. in salisbury, north carolina. about five minutes left in our program. go ahead. caller: good morning. i have a couple of comments. number one, on the hurricane people from puerto rico. why didn't fema have a plan for those who came to the united states? abruptlyand they are ending the finances to those people. they are american citizens. why is fema cutting off their aid? they have nowhere to go. it is like donald really does not care about anybody but the rich. my second comment is about

maxine waters. out of a restaurant and donald trump thought it was so bad that they gave sarah sanders bodyguards. maxine waters had direct threats to her, so bad she had to cancel dates. what is wrong with the administration, how come the cia or fbi has not given her security? i think it is wrong. they have said nothing about the people who threatened her life. and where is congress the back her up, to help her? i find that the administration does not care about anybody but his administration. and congress is not doing enough to protect her. host: as i understand it, congressional security in the hands of the capitol police most likely, it is in their purview of security. do you think this is something the paul ryan should look into

as a speaker? -- as the speaker? caller: we all know that paul ryan is not going to do anything. so whataving this year, is he? a lame-duck speaker? he does not care. remember, all of those senators, they are all getting tax break money. we are not getting anything. why should he even care about protecting anybody? i find it is so crazy. the members of congress are so hypocritical and they are doing nothing. i think something needs to be done. host: edward in springfield, massachusetts. an independent. good morning. caller: how are you? host: i am doing well. caller: ok. [indiscernible] ina republican and democrat

washington, um, wondering why these folks, every time donald trump brings up the wall, that they do not remind him that he promised us that mexico is going to pay for that wall. he should not get the wall until mexico agrees to pay for the wall. you konow. donald trump -- host: we got your point. mary in illinois. go ahead. caller: good morning. andtch fox news sometimes, one morning, i think his name is paulo -- he is a judge that comes on there often. he said the previous judge that passed away told kennedy not to retire until the republicans had the house and the senate.

and i also want to say that if president trump would stop taking all of his golf tournaments, playing golf, then bills would not be so high. i think he is above president obama in his short time that president obama was in the house for eight years. thank you very much. happy for the july. -- fourth of july. host: kurt, go ahead. caller: i would like to touch on immigration and on the money supply. the reason the american public is doing so poorly right now is the money supply is to be based on gold, silver and copper, now it is all based on electronic currency owned by the federal, private reserve bank, which is not owned by the american people. it is owned by foreigners. it is all digital, all electronic money now. the truth is, there is unlimited

money supply because it is on the computer, so foreigners own the money supply and therefore nobody can compete in the marketplace because they get unlimited money loaned to them and you have to work for your money. so since they can have unlimited money coming cannot work to compete against those people and the people who own it are mostly jewish people who own it. they on the republican and democratic parties because they can control the elections through the money supply, and they also control corporations. host: where do you go for your information on money supply and the religious affiliation of those? caller: as far as the federal reserve bank, you can go to wikipedia and it is a private bank, not owned by americans. and you can look at the board of directors listed, they show all

their pictures and host: our last caller, line for democrats. go ahead. wonder i just wanted to why the government can't hire the smartest people in computers in the world to figure out these solutions. listening to the complaints and the hands, we are not going to figure this out. they need to just get the facts and that is the way it has to be. the facts are the facts. do you think the facts of change? facts change every day. we have very smart people, very smart computers. they should be able to figure this out.

that is our last caller. we would pay back -- we will be back tomorrow. have a great monday. ♪ >> c-span will be live at georgetown university law center in downtown washington dc for .iscussion about location data the discussion coming up to the supreme court ruling in carpenter versus united states which ruled five-for a warrant is required by authorities. we will have live coverage starting in half an hour.

live coverage today on fighting crime and violence hosted by the inter-american dialogue and counterpart international starting at 3:30. >> as part of our 50 capitals to her and the help of his gci with, we visited alaska anchorage the final stop on the tour. >> american democracy is functional. it also provides a window into washington that those of us, this is a far distance away can see what is occurring. >> it is important to offer customers because we believe in its mission. we proudly support their effort to inform