>> brett kavanaugh of the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia is president trump's nominee for the supreme court. follow the confirmation process on c-span as judge kavanaugh meets with key senators this week on capitol hill, followed by senate confirmation hearings and the vote. watch live on c-span, watch any time on c-span.org or listen ith the free c-span radio app. >> earlier today, house speaker paul ryan and house democratic leader nancy pelosi held their weekly news conferences. they answered a range of questions, including some about president trump's upcoming meeting with russian president vladimir putin. first we'll hear the speaker's conference, followed by the democratic leader. mr. ryan: good morning. this morning, a little ways down the road, i talked about the economic resurgence that's going on in our country right

now. after struggling to get ahead for so long, this has been a breakthrough year for america's workers. unemployment has fallen to historic los. job openings have reached historic highs. tax reform, paychecks are growing. wages are rising. confidence is returning. the american people are better off now. we're building a strong economy and we're also building a stronger military as well. a military that is finally getting the resources that it needs to rebuild. we're providing better pay for our service members, we're providing better care for our veterans. we're building stronger and safer communities. through an historic effort to combat the opioid epidemic. taking on human trafficking. targeting gangs and dangerous criminals. making schools safer. i can go on and on. but if you go to better.gop, you can see the progress we are making. more work remains, of course. especially when it comes to getting people into good-paying jobs and good careers. that's what our work force development agenda is all

about. but americans have rosken -- proven once again that we can achieve great things when we raise our sights. when we reapply our founding principles to the problems of the day. that is the story that is going on right now in america. we delivered on a positive agenda and now we are seeing positive results that are improving people's lives. the american people are better off now. so just go to better.gop to learn more. i'm sure you have plenty of questions on this topic. [laughter] new guy. reporter: related to your speech. you said that you are opposed to the president's new tariffs. do you foresee congress having to take action to stop it? especially considering the companies like harley, the farmers and districts that your colleagues represent, are potentially most adversely affected by the decision? mr. ryan: i don't think tariffs are the right solution. i think what's more effective and constructive is to work with the administration to get the policy in a good place. that's what we're doing.

i think that's going to be more effective than trying to pass a piece of legislation that will not make it into law. i'd rather work with the administration, which, look, we engage with them daily on this subject. i met with kevin brady earlier. to make sure that we can try and get this policy in a good place. at the end of the day we all want to get the same place. we want free and fair trade, we want a level playing field. we have difference of opinions on how to achieve that. what i'm trying to do is make sure we get on the same page on not just the end but the means as well. reporter: if your colleagues say september, october, gosh, mr. speaker, my folks are hurting back home, it wouldn't hurt -- mr. ryan: i've heard it earlier. i'm hearing that right now. i talk to farmers over the fourth of july in wisconsin. so we grow a lot of soybeans where i come from. there's definitely that concern. and that's understandable. so the question is, how can we get the right policy in place? i think engagement with the administration's the most effective course of action. reporter: peter strzok is testifying today in front of the joint hearing. in his opening statement, mr.

strzok says that the hearing itself is another notch in vladimir putin's belt and his attempt to divide americans. do you agree with that? mr. ryan: no. reporter: [inaudible] mr. ryan:, no i don't. reporter: thank you, mr. speaker. picking up on -- mr. ryan: see, get your follow-up this way. reporter: president putin. the president will be meeting face to face with putin next week. do you think that is a good idea and what is your counsel for the president as he meets privately? mr. ryan: i don't have a problem with face to face meetings but the president and i have talked about in this a number of times. vladimir putin is not our ally and our friend. i've made that clear. i think most of us feel that way. you just have to look at what they tried to do to our democracy and to other democracies around the world. they do not share our interests. they thwart our interests. engaging with him on that is constructive and good. but i think we should be really clear about who we're dealing with. reporter: i want to go back to something from a couple of weeks ago because we didn't get to talk to you after the

immigration vote. you went to foxconn. you had said repeatedly on the question of discharge petition, you said you wanted to take a route that had a chance of something -- [inaudible] -- and you had a bill to get to 190-some votes. why in your mind did you think that those pieces of legislation had a pathway to get to law, especially on the second one? mr. ryan: i know the president would have signed both of those. so what i mean when i say a pathway, i know he will not sign the dream act on its own. he's made that really clear. but i do know, spoken with him many times about this, he would have signed either goodlatte one or goodlatte two. so that's what i mean when i say. that he would have signed that bill into law if we could get it to him. i think the democrats chose not to participate in this debate for various reasons. reporter: 121. mr. ryan: members got the votes that they wanted to express their opinions. i do believe, look, i've seen this on a lot of different bills. sometimes a policy's not ready for primetime. that doesn't mean it's not the right policy. that doesn't mean it won't

eventually be arrived at. i really believe that the esident's four pillars are commonsense, reasonable, great consensus points. ultimately this is going to have to get fixed. we have a broken immigration system. doesn't work for anybody. least of which is to control our border. so when we get to the moment where we're actually solving this problem, which i would prefer sooner rather than later, i really think it's going to gravitate around these four pillars. why do i say that? because the person who is going to have to sign this bill into law is named donald trump and those are his four pillars that are reasonable four pillars, they make sense. and i think at the end of the day we'll get to that consensus. how about back over here. reporter: on the immigration topic. there was a promise made in conjunction with the previous bills to have a separate vote this month on e-verify and the ag guest worker program. some members are saying they don't want to move that and that also addressed the family

reunification issues. do you envision those two issues having to move together if you're going to have that vote? mr. ryan: i'm not going to foreclosure options on packaging. we're engaging in conversations with our members about the ag issue. more than just ag. there's h-2-b and e-verify. so we're talking with our members about those issues. what our members basically want to do is take steps that are productive going forward. we had two bills on the floor where people got the votes they wanted. on the ag, e-verify issue i think members want to see progress made on this issue. with respect to family separation, we want to get clarity as to what is needed legislatively to commit or complete the president's executive order. to keep these families together. i'm glad they're being reunified. we don't want to see families separated. we also want to control our borders and enforce our laws. who are you with? reporter: i want to ask you about the farm bill. mr. ryan: who are you with?

got you. reporter: i want to ask you about the farm bill. -- [inaudible] -- against the work requirement amendment. will you stand in the way of or oppose a bill, keep a bill from becoming law if it doesn't -- the senate doesn't agree with the work requirement? mr. ryan: think what we're proposing here. we have 12 1/2 million americans, able-body idea, who do not have small kids at home, who are working age, who are not working, not looking for a job, not in school. they're slipping through the cracks in society. we have tight labor markets. we have careers and jobs being offered. we have more jobs being offered in america today than people seeking jobs. so is it not absolutely the right thing to do to get people off the sidelines, into the labor force? and when we've had these pilot projects, whether they're kansas or maine, we have shown

a mild work requirement that says you have to put 20 hours a week in, 20 hours a week in work or in school, and we'll cover the cost of youron train -- job training. that is as reasonable and commonsense as it gets and more importantly, it's good for people. so this is our position. we're proud of this position. and we hold to this position. we haven't even appointed conferees yet to the farm bill. so i'm not going to get into what everything looks like. but we feel very strongly about our position. reporter: -- [inaudible] -- family separation, some democrats have called for abolishing i.c.e. what do you think are the political ramifications of that in some of your swing districts? mr. ryan: they have really jumped the sharks on the left. they have really -- it's animes i -- i think it's pocan's bill from madison. you want to aboirble the immigration -- abolish the immigration and customs and enforcement agency. this is the agency that gets gangs out of our communities,

that helps prevent drugs from flowing into our schools. that rescues people from human trafficking. they want to get rid of this agency? it's the craziest position i've ever seen. and they are just -- they are tripping over themselves to move too far to the left. they are out of the mainstream of america. that's one of the reasons why i feel very good about this fall. who are you with? reporter: c.n.s. news. the u.s. is running a record trade deficit with china. $1552 billion in the first five months of this year. is that a problem for the united states? mr. ryan: i think what's a problem for the united states is china steals our intellectual property. i think a problem for the united states is china oversupplies commodities and dumps on the foreign markets through third party chris. the problem is not that they're playing by the rules and winning in a fair exchange. the problem is they're skirting the rules and that's not fair. >> last question. reporter: i wanted to follow up

on the immigration question too and talk about a bill that the president would sign into law. you know there's going to be a fight for government funding at the end of september, that the president hopefully won't want to shut down government right before an election and he'll have to find something. do you see any potential there to package up a bill that has the four pillars, with the government funding bill -- mr. ryan: i wouldn't complicate funding with -- i wouldn't patch it -- attach it to appropriations. i think it's a discrete issue on its own. what's frustrating to me is we lost our deadline from the courts. the way you cover this place. congress typically works on deadlines. right or wrong, it's how we operate. when we lost our deadline, the democrats walked away from the table. i offered them daca solutions in the last appropriations bill. they walked away from it. they didn't even offer counteroffers. so i don't think that road is a very fertile road. i think this issue is probably going to be dealt with by the courts, meaning the deadline we get. we think we should have border

security along with all these other solutions. i think the four pillars are the way we land. and i don't want to use some other artificial deadline like the fiscal year. i think it's going to be something the court will probably give us if the democrats still choose not to participate in this debate. i think that was it, right? thanks. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] ms. pelosi: good morning. this week the president announced his supreme court nominee, who will seek to reverse generations of progress for americans' health care and for roe v. wade. judge kavanaugh's comments make abun danltly clear -- abundantly clear that he will expansively rule against women's reproductive rights and freedoms and mto