hartl with the center forr biological diversity at 9:30. washington journal is next. host: good morning. it is sunday, august 19. as the race heats up for control of congress, a new poll by the folks at gallup says immigration of theged to the top list of most important problems in the country. we want to get your take on campaign 2018 and the issue of immigration. how important is immigration to your vote this year? ,(202) 748-8001 democrats (202) 748-8000,

independents (202) 748-8002. how important is immigration to your vote this year? here's the headline. immigration surges to the top of importantf most problems. immigration has risen to the top of the list when americans are asked to name the most important problem facing the nation. edging out the government, which has been the top issue each month of 2017. it is up from 14% in june and the highest issue naming that in gallup's history. mentions of immigration as the nation's most important problem have averaged 5%. it's up to 22% now.

immigration is front and center in many of the congressional races this year. here's just a taste from the republican senate race in arizona. not endorse ors oppose candidates. we defend civil rights when they are under attack. for years joe arpaio broke the law to humiliate and terrorize immigrants. when immigrant families are attacked the rights of all are threatened. for those seeking arizona senate seat we have one question. will you defend everyone's rights? vote august 28. host: the hill has a story this morning about the present. trump staying out of arizona's ugly and costly gop fight. president trump's decision to remain on the sidelines has caused a protracted and costly republican primary fight in arizona where the three candidates are heavily playing up their trump bona fides despite no endorsement in sight.

they have personal connections to trump and that's the reason political observers have -- sit out this time. they are talking about $7 million being spent by outside groups alone. here is one more add out of that race. favoring marinemax. let's take a look. 120 years.been here martha nextel he is trying to get the border secured. she got a bill passed were veterans getting of the military can step right into securing the border. she is leading the charge in washington right now. if she believes in something, that's what's going to happen. morning,facebook this

doug wright's i think it's a stronger issue in the media is playing it. i also think many see it strongly affecting many varied areas. it would be wise for anyone running to pay attention treated fairly. aaron writes it's very important. we need reform and for the dreamers to be settled. it's inhumane. what is happening? we have john online -- on the line from bridgewater. republican caller. caller: good morning. how important is immigration? caller: oh, totally. it was amazing when i had no feeling for trump when he came 2015.he escalator back in

the first thing he said was immigration. least been saying this at internally for years and i think he's right. illegal immigration is illegal. if you can't control your borders, you have none. sheel found that out when magnanimously decided to accept unquestionably many people for different reasons. i think that hurt her politically. it has hurt many countries. you cannot allow people to come unvetted.t it -- asking how important is immigration in your 2018 vote? couple of ads. we will see more. republicans call (202) 748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000.

independents (202) 748-8002. we're also taking comments by social media. we have joe on the line from north charleston, south carolina. independent. welcome to the program. look ati think i can this thing objectively. i like to help people out. we have good hearts. here's the problem. people just look at it on the surface and say these people need help. when you have a large influx of people coming to the united it impacts the government in several ways. these are people who aren't accounted for in the last census which affects government infrastructure to support people. it affects housing and employment. these people end up in cities with no place to go. then they do settle and they have children. and by the way for those people

who think we ought to have unchecked borders, when you send your children to school in the next couple of weeks and you walk in and all of a sudden the class is overcrowded or they have moved manufactured housing -- we had all these people that showed up and your child is going to have to sit in this trailer that we hope to get air-conditioned. need to think about the support systems we have that are accounted for by the census. and that's the biggest problem. more of your calls in a moment. we have this story from the morning consult. independence see immigration as a defining -- immigrant it -- independents see immigration as a defining issue. mostopic is now the defining characteristic of america's two major parties.

that's the main take away from a poll of independents. in this survey conducted mid-july respondents were given a list of 14 attributes and asked to choose whether they associated those qualities more with republicans or democrats. just a flavor here. on the question of which party is a bigger supporter of immigrants coming to the u.s., chose independents democrats. that spread of 62 points was 16 points wider than the response to the question, which party was a bigger support of big business and who cares more about wealthy americans. lots more calls coming in. ike is holding on from arkansas. what is the name of your town? ahead. go mamelle.

it means breast in french. it was named by french explorers. host: thank you. caller: my comment is when i was in los angeles. i got my car stolen. i decided i will run for attorney general. 600lled -- he said i've got stolen car notices here on my desk. i can't even do the paperwork. because it was illegals who stole the car. , five youngteaching black men were killed by illegals in one weekend so they solved the problem by getting $1000 to $2000 combat pay. a really poor experience

with mexicans, especially the ones that stole my car. from let's go to alton houston. you are a democrat. what do you have to say about immigration in this year's campaign? caller: i say that we have enough people from mexico and south america already. i have low education and when many of them get here they get on the system. have low education and when many of them get here they get on the system. it's just insane. david, what would you like to say this morning? iowa. republican. caller: if we do not control the do not enforce those laws, what other laws are we just going to turn our heads to? can't control that, let's

forget about a bunch of other laws. whatever we want at any given time. we have to control the border with proper immigration laws. thank you. host: at twitter, immigration is very important this midterm campaign season. it will influence my vote. right now there's a shortage of landscape, construction and farmworkers. , i willready rights vote for those not responsible for putting children in cages. valerie in ohio. independent color. caller: good morning. with our president. we have to do something that's very serious. they have demonized native blacks in chicago of doing black on black crime. no one is looking at ms 13.

in order to get initiated in that group. this is fact. they murder innocent black men. this has been going on for -- there's a movie out there about it. i watched it on a&e 25 years ago. the most dangerous gang that you have is ms 13. they're in all these sanctuary cities taking over. pushing out people. this is immoral. and it's immoral for what obama did. he gave all these millions and millions of dollars to the daca group. there's no law. he didn't sign any bill to them. cigar written on a written memo. all the jobsake that obama has nature these people have and go back to their own country.

legally they have no right to be here at all. i want them to go home. i'm sick of it. host: the voice of valerie from ohio. jeremy is in phoenix. him a chronic caller. what do you make of that senate race on the other side of the aisle? all i want is the person who actually does take over and whoever is in charge to actually care about things that matter. matter in myat opinion, one is not immigration. there's enough people at our wall and on our borders and protected. we have problems, yes. everybody on board countries do. -- border countries do. drugs, sex, things like that.

things everybody has to deal with everywhere. the real problems that are going on right now is that you have all these programs that are broken. you have all these welfare problems that give you know where to get off of -- programs that give you no way to get off of welfare. it forces more people to want to stay on welfare. you are losing $300 a month. you've got childcare and you still don't have the coverage, the medical care and be able to eat. host: one more call here. huntsville, alabama. republican. jonathan. how important is immigration to your vote this year? immigration --ry important. i have been trying to fight for

the bureau -- corruption in her country. i'm not for illegal immigration but i can see why a lot of immigrants come to this country because of how difficult it is to do it the legal way. you may have heard in the last couple of days about a pregnant woman and her husband riding in california to the hospital. she was ready to give birth and officialsials -- ice came and arrested the man. here is more background on the sturdy -- story. a man was driving his pregnant wife to the hospital and had an outstanding warrant. he was driving with his wife to he was hospital when

apprehended by ice officials. an outstanding warrant was issued for his arrest on mexico on homicide charges. he is currently pending removal proceedings. a little bit more background on that story. kimberly, washington, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. i had called in to your show a couple years ago. you had an fbi agent talking about vetting immigrants. especially with the terrorism. am i on? host: yes. we are listening. go ahead please. i had issues with not knowing full well there was no ety that they could honestly v

most of these people from all around the world. there was no records or anything. immigration, but the right way. i disagreed with one caller. it doesn't stop at the border. these people are infiltrated through the whole country. it's problems for the whole country. not just one area. i would like to see a gofundme page for the wall. that way americans can donate however much they want to get the thing built. thathen show our congress we are serious. we are tired of playing the games. we are tired of 30 years of nothing being done. tired of people being treated like slaves not making a decent wage when they are here illegally. they do everything wrong. host: john is in florida. independent caller. welcome. caller: i've had better days and

worst days. -- worse days. i joined the marine corps. in 92 to 93 there was a dispute with the growers association. they took jr. and senior stateal kids all over the and left 10 here, 15 there. get farmsnth we would picked to 93 there was a and drn school. we had no problem at all. we picked onions and honeydew melon and avocado.

i just don't do that the cannot outpace anybody in the world. from china.ying as -- excuse me. that's just it. i'm not going to buy from them anymore. host: back to twitter this morning. the racistsagainst that take children away from their mothers and put them in cages. we also have this tweet from john smith. to immigration the right legal way is important. immigrants should earn their own way. to continue to take your calls and take your social media postings. we should mention ice one more time. there's a live event tomorrow. white house to honor ice heroes

after family separation fiascoes. the trump white house is planning to honor federal immigration agents even as more than 500 migrant children remain separate from their parents. this is being called the salute to heroes of the immigration and customs enforcement. sign that the trump administration anticipates the midterm fallout from its zero-tolerance border policy very differently from its critics. we will have that event free live tomorrow 1:30 p.m. eastern time. chester springs is on the line in pennsylvania. a gentleman named dan. democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. basically i want to say is the immigrants here are taking jobs

that other americans would not take because they are low level jobs. that peoplee to say in pizza parlors, people doing landscape. they are very hard workers. look backople should at their ancestors and see how many of them came over illegally. how many of them jumped ship to come over. how many of them were escaping tyranny from where they came. we are talking about not just all immigrants. immigrants from south america and mexico. and when other thing. the people who get in a legally a lifetime's are those that are privileged. not the people from south america and mexico. i think that's it. hall is calling from georgia on the republican line. how important is immigration to your vote this year? caller: emigration is very

important. i agree with that last caller that the people that came into america, our ancestors came in illegally. but they came in for the right reason. they came in to work hard. to have freedom they didn't have in their own country. if you travel the world you see that those countries, a lot of them still do not have love for their country. america is a special country. america deserves to have toigrants who love and want back america. i have a lot of people say to me why is it that the people who come into our country don't want what we have. they want to change america. the republic was set up from the beginning deserves to have the chance that it had 200 years ago. and we deserve americans who love america, are fighting to feed their family and are willing to take a job and build a new home in a new country.

that's what america needs. that's what america must have. i know the reason why a lot of people are brought into our country illegally. so they will vote democratic. that's not the way you build the country. build a country with people that are loyal and love america. and the good thing is we have had a lot of good hard-working people come in all through the ages. they deserve to come in. they have the right to freedom that we love and enjoy. not someone who's not here for the right reason. they should be vetted properly. they should come in the right way. americanot a decent that doesn't want people to come into our country. we just want them to come in the right way. and we want them to love our america when they get here. do this for a little bit more and then another half hour. we will have a political roundtable after that. the midterms and lots of issues going on in washington and

around the country with paul waldman of the washington post and jim antle of the washington examiner. in our last hour we will take a look at the endangered species years later. the administration would like to make some changes. we will get voices on either side of the issue. you may have seen this hearing this week. it featured the trump administration official who is overseeing efforts at the health and human services on the family reunification efforts. he was at a hearing on the senate side on thursday. here is a portion starting with that stop -- the top democrat on the senate. taken toteps has hhs learn about the location welfare of each of these children? >> there are no lost children. there are some families that don't take our calls. there's a big difference. our requirement is to reach out.

to have the programs reach out 30 days after sponsoring the child and see if there's anything they need. it is not mandatory that the sponsor or the child take the call. many immigrant families after the children leave our care do not want anything more to do with us. do not want anything more to do with the systems that they have entered. -- getting through. >> why do you think that is? come out ofviduals the shadows to take their child from us. and some of them returned to the shadows. individuals living undocumented in the united states and they believe they have cause to fear us. we can't get anybody to knowledge that they have responsibility for where these children are and what they're are doing 30 days after they leave a federal facility. going to step up your or we are going to actually do something remarkable. we are going to have a bipartisan bill that lays out

this responsibility. you could do it now. there is in the law preventing you from doing it. nothing. so i will get you the list of the 50 agencies. all said tohat you this committee that you don't know who to contact is all anybody needs to know. that's all anybody need to know about how seriously you are. host: the full senate hearing will air this morning. 10:30 eastern time on this network. we look at politics and how important immigration is to your 2018 vote we found this headline in the washington post. it says ahead of in terms trump hits a wall. they have a picture from el paso. president trump has vowed to build a massive security wall on the border.

nearly 19 months into his presidency the envisions $25 billion border wall remains unfunded by lawmakers. deportations are lagging behind peak rates under president obama. crossings have spiked. this is in the washington post from earlier this month. .alling from florida thank you for waiting. you are on the independent line. my question for the illegals is the judges in this country. the judges when they are elected are sworn to take an oath of uphold and defend the laws in the constitution of the united states of america. so when they are sitting on the

bench and some little corner of the country how is it that they can make a decision to let these illegals stay here? not upholding the law that they are sworn to uphold. this is where a lot of the issues. this is why a lot of the people are staying here. the cousin of the judges. uphold and defend the donald trump, president trump is to get thesest people deported and these judges are just, they are blocking it. it is sad, sad story. it's sad to see. somebody needs to step up and get these people out of these -- this country. host: from silver spring, just outside d.c. caller: good morning. i want them out of the country. there is enough. tens and thousands of black males.

all ethnicities in this country have been disadvantage or exploited. but african americans, their numbers dominate. tens and thousands of men that can be trained for a lot of these jobs that the illegals are doing. another thing is their language is constantly reinforced. any business call in this country it's always offered in spanish. the requirement that they need to learn it is a hypocrisy here. i'm for trump. america first for americans. there's too many americans that have been disadvantaged for too long. if it's about the labor we have plenty of it here. i understand that everybody cannot be released out of prison at once. ofhink the great majority these people can be rehabilitated. they have been born into hellish chaotic childhoods and made big

mistakes. and timerehabilitation they can be productive citizens and i know it. thank you. host: lewis is in new jersey. republican caller. caller:thank you. good morning. host: how important is immigration to your vote this year? caller: it's very important. the pictures they talked about with these kids in cages, that was done when president obama. the only reason why illegal now becauseis up illegals know they have a whole political party supporting them. the only people that want these open borders are white democrats and the black democratic politicians. the only way they can keep minorities wages and

unemployment, lower the wages and get the unemployment rate high for minorities in this country. so they have to import more poverty. minorities are getting a chance and the democrats got to try and enslave them and keep them under democratic citation. thank you. and immigrant rights group is prepared to go for the mid-term attack ads. you can see and add showing a pickup truck with a confederate flag and and and gillespie bumper sticker. the head of an immigrant rights you can see andgroup said recene chilling american nightmare add showing a confederate flag toting truck stalking young can serve as aen blueprint for tv spots about the midterm election. presidentalking about

of groups called the latino victory fund. he told activist that the attack helped drive out latino and other voters that were sick of the gop demagogue and minorities. the washington times piece. , wouldrites this morning be refugees fleeing dictators and political violence in central america will have to decide if it is better or worse here before they make the trip going forward. michael writing they have to get in before the wall is finished. david is calling now from phoenix. go ahead. what do you make of the senate race going on? where do you think it is? caller: i don't know much about but i do have something to say about this immigration thing. there's no one, you got these people flooding in here.

there's no one thinking, who's going to pay for it? you think about the money it takes to bring them here. you put them on welfare. you put them on housing and move them to the black neighborhoods where they take over the black community. who's paying for it? it's just a shame. that. thinks about and i have worked with some of them and i'm going to tell you something. you see them on construction sites. and you only see them. because they don't want nobody else out there. toy were causing accident make americans get off the jobs. i'm telling you. i have worked with them. i worked with the construction company. painter, theyite didn't like him. they were urinating in his water to make and it.

theirok at them and babies and kids. but they grow up. that corruption in mexico is in them. and no one thinks about who's going to pay for that. you have to really rehabilitate them. they get on the job. they will lie to get you off of them because they only want to work with their own kind. i have seen in my neighborhood these low income houses. when one moves they have two trucks of them. one with furniture. they put furniture out and they put furniture in to keep any other race from getting cheap rent housing. they do not play the game fair. people got to understand that. host: ok. russell is in south carolina. democratic caller. i disagree with just

about everyone who has called and beat up on mexicans for trying to get into america. no one mentioned the word asylum. second of all, democrats in fact are not in favor of open borders like everyone tries to say we are. of legal favor immigration and we are also in favor of family immigration which the president just of legl used to get his wife's people american citizenship just two weeks ago. do ifat the republicans they take this and use it as a wedge issue so they can get people to actually vote with them. let me mention late-term abortions. we are not for late-term abortions. and then they-- we wanted men in the ladies

room. all of that is a wedge issue. they lost the nba all-star game because of that which we wanteds room. all of that is a wedge issue. issue that was created out of the think tank in north carolina. we're also not the party of the kkk. they like to use these wedge issues because they get a lot of black voters who for some reason want somebody to hate. so they turn and hate mexicans. what about the fact there's other people here. they don't want you to look at the muslim ban. they don't want you to look at jeff sessions attack on howard university. jeff sessions is attacking howard university on its ability to be -- saying that it's not constitutional. you've got black people worried about immigrants when they are tearing down our educational institution. forfeiture not one probably even knows what that means. that means the police can take your house and freeze your bank

account without even due process. that's being pursued by the trump administration while they have you looking at immigration. immigration is being used to fake out a lot of good americans. thinkof good americans they are doing the right thing. you can't protect this country by building a wall. you protect those countries by building up their economy. theirping them realize values so they won't have to come to the border. to get some other voices. we will continue to take your calls. the question this morning, how important is immigration in your 2018 vote. the folks at gallup say the issue is way up. 22% say it is the most important issue that is way up from previous election cycles. there is some other news. former you and

secretary-general died at the age issue that was created out of the think of 80. here's a photo of him. they write that he was a soft spoken and patrician diplomat from ghana who became the seventh secretary-general of the u.n., projecting himself and the organization as the world's conscience and moral arbiter despite bloody debacles that stained his reputation as a peacekeeper. he was 80 years old. died after a short illness. he was awarded the nobel peace prize in 2001. he was the first black african to head the u.n. there was a decorative tour royal -- turmoil. , africa's foremost that struck new york and washington. the u.s. invaded iraq. western policymakers turned

their sights from the cold war to globalization and the struggle with islamic militancy. he's a former you and secretary-general. back to your calls on immigration. paul calling from tampa on the independent line. caller: i voted democrat. straight democrat. up until 2006. since then over the immigration thing that is my main vote. i don't really worry about many other issues. that's my main vote. i won't vote for a republican or democrat who is for this illegal immigration. i work in the passport office. it really sickens me. i know people are aware of these tourist babies. i get five or six every week from china, saudi arabia, india. they come in on a tourist visa and then they have a child.

and're staying at a hotel they want the passport real quick so they can go back. and now their kid is a citizen. it is so upsetting to me that this birthright citizenship from two people on a tourist vacation can have their child become a citizen of the united states. it is so frustrating. host: tell us about the senate race in florida. it is a big expensive race. do you have a favorite? on going to vote for rick scott. he's not that tough on immigration. the democrats lost out. because of their stance on immigration. a lot of people in my family, like 50 of us. i think we all voted for trump. they lost out the democrats taxese of immigration on

and firemen, unions, health care. because they won't enforce our immigration laws. so the democrats lost out on everything now. and firemen, unions, health care. because of this immigration they lost many democrat voters. more of the ads out there. this one from washington state to its approach democratic group called equity forward. republicanbout the incumbent. the topic is immigration and family separation. the u.s. government separated thousands of children's from their families. it's inhumane, cruel, devastating for these innocent children. the crisis isn't over yet. still -- children could still be orphaned by your government. at every turn representative mcmorris rodgers has failed to stand up for the children and hold the administration accountable. to help return all the children and hold the administration accountable. host: here is a twitter comment from karen about immigration.

ourill never fix immigration system is the focus remains only on our southern border. employees are not held accountable and we ignore the huge number of the set over stays. from alexandria, virginia. independent caller. caller: i want to say thank you for c-span. it's a wonderful program. main source of my information. china and the united states have roughly the same territorial area. peoplena has 1.4 billion in the states has 325 million people. i would say the hysteria over immigration is crazy. thank you. randall is calling from stephenville, texas. caller: good morning. i'm a caucasian american and i believe that is supposed to be in the colored scheme as a white.

texasily has been in before it was a state. i want to speak on the immigration matter. like to say isd i have observed my kind of people, the white people. we are the ones that do all the repossessing of homes and cars. we are the guys that take the new york stock exchange and run it skyhigh and the drop it. we are the guys that take the new york stock exchange and run we brought the boys from mexico to my county, dairy county in texas. they have naturalized. dairy owners have even send money back to their communities. their families and stuff. it's not a matter of getting along. it's a matter of quit listening to the republicans. city,chris's from texas texas. independent caller. how important is immigration in your vote this year?

caller: i think that a lot of that these people are leaving about these immigrants, i think they're a little scapegoatish and i have to agree with the last caller. i don't think undocumented immigrants really pose that much of a threat to us. is ahing about the jobs lot of the immigrants that i see come here and work. they are hard-working people. they are not trying to take advantage of us. the reason why we don't have a lot of americans here taking the jobs is because we don't have to,skills and no one wants no one is able to pass a drug test for their job. no one is able to walk the straight line here in america.

i just see a lot of wasted youth just because of these things. maybe we can change some laws or help the youth get into these positions. and that's my comment. thank you. we found this a story in the metro section of the washington post. marilyn's crab industry in crisis. crab industry in crisis. work has ground to a halt. normally the crabs would be steamed and hauled through were dozens of employees would extract the meat. on this particular day, there's nothing going on at all. because we haven't got our pickers. changes to a foreign worker visa program have left businesses without the seasonal laborers. mostly from mexico who helped drive maryland's signature

industry. that's a local angle on all of this. it seems like every time we take a call about 100 tweets come in in between. it's very hot topic on this program. including this one that just came in from american joe. people whoish those -- what should the lobby -- law be? make up your mind. perhaps somebody out there has an answer. we take this call from tom. caller: good morning. host: good morning. host: can you turn the volume down on your set first? caller: absolutely. host: go ahead. caller: the problem i have with the immigration system here in , our congress, and arsenic and our president of the way back to reagan sold us down

the road period. we had a constitution. somewhere along the line it got ruined. i forgot to tell you what just happened to me six months ago. i was kicked out of my hospital by an immigrant. who told me i am no longer wanted. she flat out came out of the back room and told me to get out and i am not wanted. so they forced me to go to another hospital. that's completely illegal. i went in to see the doctor twice now. here are couple of -- here are got a blood clot. they refused to take my blood. i'm just waiting to die. what are you going to do when your boss comes to you with an illegal and says it got to train him for the next six months and you are going to give you your severance pay? what are you going to do? albert is in providence, rhode island. good morning. i just want to make a

couple of comments on immigration. the democrats always seem to put the african-americans with them. who's paying for all these immigrants when they actually get in here you go that's what i don't understand. legal immigration is fine. thank you. the senate will be back in session tomorrow. they will spend one more week of august looking at legislation. the house has been out all month so far. the senate has been in for certain weeks this month. forgoing their typical month-long break. more that got a large bill on the floor. $857 billion. it's a big spending package. defense and labor, health and human services and education.

it's coming up tomorrow. 3:00. the washington examiner says the senate hopes to end years of spending gridlock. in the pieceadline today. the senate next week embarks on an unusual strategy that could result in the passage of most of the 2019 federal government spending in one bill and before the fiscal end deadline. combines twoon major unrelated appropriations bills and they must pass package. the lawmakers hope will end years of spending gridlock and if it's approved later this month it will be an historic moment for the senate which passed no spending bills in time in 2018 and has now passed the labor health and human services bill. you can watch the live senate coverage on c-span2 tomorrow. pete is waiting in virginia. independent caller. good morning.

i would love to have you guys. a lot of times with this amigration thing you have line for illegal immigrants are that's ridiculous. you should have one for illegal immigrants. how about americans that have lost their jobs. put a special line for someone that can display about the -- i will get by without a little more -- a little crab. they've got to go back. i can go on and on about this immigration thing. i agree with the guy that called little while ago. i work in construction. can speakite, i directly to one out of six. these people should not be cutting my wages. compete with people from grenada, ethiopia.

central and south america. every day i shop and these into theseflooded heavy-duty construction jobs. concrete, steel workers. it's ridiculous. it should be zero. the woman that you talked about earlier, if you read down a couple lines, she has five children and she can't speaking. so the kids get to go on the dole. i listened to the senate subcommittee. hammeredocrat immigration control and housing and all of these other government programs that are dealing with these flood of immigrants. people that say -- they show up with a note or they say this is my child. we have no idea who these people are and how are we supposed to prove that? we have to call someone down in mexico and is this her real

child. we don't know who they are. randy has been waiting from chicago heights, illinois. go ahead. i've got a simple simple simple solution for this illegal immigration. are you there? i would like to say the simple solution to this is that our senate and our house is never going to do nothing about this because we went through three or four to presidents already. the simple solution is to leave it to all the people that are calling it now. or six've had about five or 10 segments about this immigration already. leave it to the people. have a presidential vote. every american citizen in the

united states vote just like a presidential vote. vote if they want them to leave or if they want them to stay and then it would a simple over and done. we are spending so much money on this. the simple solution would be having a simple presidential vote. just like we do for the president. we vote for him once every eight years. have a vote for immigration. you either want them to leave or you want them to stay. add toe have one more show you regarding immigration. this is a prorepublican pac. resistance is demanding open borders. they want to eliminate the law enforcement agency that enforces our immigration laws, opening

america's doors to more crime and drugs. they want danny o'connor's help. bankrolling his campaign. o'connor supports amnesty for illegals and opposes the border wall. would join the resistance. marshall in clearwater, florida. republican. i agree wholeheartedly with your last caller. this is a country of the people, for the people and by the people. i think this vote should go to the american people. thiswhat do we want? on the immigration issue i see a lot of sideline issues. but i think the main issue is legal immigration. in our history when we first became a country, so many people came over illegally.

but they had love for country. they had love for the american dream. they decided that they were going to leave their home. leave everything they had in their former country and become americans. today the people who come to the country it's just the opposite. we are going to leave our home and come to america and make america our country. not the american culture. afghanistan,t's mexico, german or whatever. they want to bring their culture and make their culture america. and that's where a lot of the problem comes in. i think we ought to focus more on the legal immigration. asylum, you have a possible way to go through asylum. and if these people are coming in illegally, if they are going

to the process illegally, i don't care who you are in this country. you go through the process illegally or you get set back. here's a picture you don't see every day in the papers. it's the russian president putin dancing at a wedding. it's the austrian foreign minister getting married. all putin dancing at a wedding. there the stars of the country's political universe whereplus a t with him a bouquet of yellow flowers and a heap of controversy. minister tiedgn the knot, president putin was there to give his blessing. he stayed over an hour and danced briefly with the bride. his gift to the newlyweds was a

performance by a deep voiced choir outfitted in vivid red and flown in from russia just for the occasion. the country's foreign minister said the ceremony was private. maybe about 100 folks were there. the personal event took on a very public meeting for europe while generating a backlash in austria. last couple of calls on immigration. john from pounding the, virginia. republican. good morning. how important is this issue to your vote this year? important.s very i agree with some of the previous callers. i just love the democrats say we are all illegal immigrants. we are, from all over the world. make a call toou any country -- they should make english the national language. it's just ridiculous what's

going on. maybe we should raise the wages of those jobs. there is still a lot of unemployed low skilled workers especially in california and los angeles. look at the 10th at ease. -- 10 cities. just pay them $10 an hour. thank you. host: roseville, michigan. good morning. thisr: i'm calling about illegal immigrants. i was back in the days when people came through ellis island they had to have medical records to show that they were healthy enough to come in and didn't have any diseases or anything. that they were sponsored by someone. that they had a job lined up. now they just walk across the border and say here i am, take me. we've got to put that wall up.

the immigration of these people to just walk across the border has got to stop. we they don't have jobs or homes or medical care. they are legal. these foreigners come in and they are able to get anything they want. wall, icalled for the am all for it. we have to do these things to keep these people out. if they won't come in legally, they can't come at all. from ralph is calling in delaware. this is going to wrap up the segment. caller: good morning. just in pennsylvania. i've watched over the years where the hispanics have come in

and decimated all of the black populations. have run them out by taking over the jobs. people who run the town live in the suburbs. they are raising the taxes on the poor. .hey drained all of that the guy talked about chester springs, i have a son who had a very lucrative as this doing lawn care. around,me we looked there were mexicans who came and took them over. i watch construction all the time. blacks ifone or two you're lucky. i don't think you get hired if you speak spanish. host: two can continue to leave your comments on our facebook

page after this. james writes that crops are rotting in the field because of the situation. immigration ist not important at all. from louisiana. caller: thank you for taking my call. put the vote to the people. you've got these idiots enemies communists that are taking over congress. they are not doing what they are supposed to do. trump, we would be in a heap of trouble, the later the called for michigan nailed it. i worked all my life. all i had was an address.

i didn't get nothing out of it. i am retired. i am on medicare. these people need to come across. there is a big outbreak of measles. have you think they got here? health, you don't want up here as far as health goes. some of these things are incurable. is cough inot to do a crowd. case, ihave an active am all for coming through like you are supposed to. get in line like the rest of them. these people that lost their babies, they brought them up here. we didn't.

we didn't have anything to do with that, that's their fault. we have a democratic caller. thanks for joining us so early. caller: i'm a registered nurse. as far as immunization and lack thereof, we have plenty of that in this country. we can't attribute this to immigrants. a lot of these things are on the rise. talking about bringing their culture, look at little cuba, chinatown, this has always been going on. ireland and ifrom couldn't date and italian. this is nothing new. what if we have more organization and collective bargaining where people can demand certain wages and it can't be undercut by people hiring at low wages. there is a lot to the story and a lot of it is being missed.

host: we are staying on the west coast right now. hello, ron. caller: thanks for the phone time. sad to hear people call in and decry immigrants of every stripe. ist is so funny about this the national association of automobile dealers are all for immigrants because they buy cars and trucks. walmart, they buy stuff. if we don't have them coming into this country, we won't have a country. there was no one buying anything new. that's it. you are either growing or you are dying.

the most important part of this process is the growth of the economy and the interior growth of the economy. because of the global concept we are in now, we live in a global economy. in, i'mhese people call so sad for them. concept,t grasp the that we are a global economy. when you buy a car, it has 1400 parts from all over the world. you just don't go down to the local drugstore and by ice cream and it's made by the guy who lives down the street. it's over. we live in a global economy. when you think about immigration, realize something. the government itself in our legislature, they are not doing their job.

they've had 30 years to change this and make it right. they don't do it. there is no wall, we have to have laws that say if you hired someone and they don't have the paperwork, you go to jail. we would stop this right away. let's look at this from a logical and intelligent point of view for once in our lives. thank you so much for the phone call. fate --couple of more voices on facebook.

a couple of more calls and we will wrap this up. high there. caller: thank you for c-span. , he needs to be educated. we were brought here as slaves read caucasians are european immigrants. the native americans owned this country. warond and died in every this country has ever had, we were treated badly. they need to educate themselves. becausets come here they business doesn't want to pay the average american wages they should be getting. they call in cheap labor. trump has all of his stuff made

overseas buy cheap labor. his wife is an immigrant. see illegal immigrants they through the process, come through the legal way. immigrants come here and they do the job americans don't want to do because they work you like slaves, to use that terminology. that's my comment. thank you very much. host: joe gets the last word on the segment. i just don't understand how ignorant and stupid a lot of these people are. they are supporting trump, he has all of his stuff made overseas. he said he is going to save jobs in china. he's going to make sure that americans -- hold on a second.

border whenhe open europeans came here and slaughtered people. now they are talking about brown people, and over here. maybe they should go home. that would be my solution. host: thank you if you took part in this program. i'm sure this topic will be coming up again fairly soon. we are going to take a short break. it's just after 8:00 here in washington. the topic will be political news of the day. we will have your calls. theill talk to guests on endangered species act. please stay with us. we will be right back.

>> today on oral history, we continue our series on women in congress. my service on the agriculture committee, even my members finally theirme, acceptance of me. i was a ranking member. terry made a contribution -- contribution. i can negotiate with the best of

them. >> we will hear from helen bentley, nancy johnson, lynn woolsey. watch oral history today at 10:00 eastern on c-span3. >> tonight in :00 on q&a, john furling talks about his book apostles of revolution. the struggle against the old world order. >> if they could come back and see america today, to see the most important play on broadway a play that lionize his alexander hamilton and vilifies theerson and see

maldistribution of wealth in the united states and the amount of today, theyitics would fear that many of these things that are going on in the united states today have an uncanny resemblance to the england they had revolted against. at 8:00ht on q&a eastern. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, cspan was created as a public service of the american cable television companies and is brought to you today by your wele or satellite provider. coverage offiltered washington dc and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider.

>> washington journal continues. host: at the table is the senior writer for the american prospect. welcome back to the table. thanks for joining us. we wanted to look at a recent headline you wrote about. you write that trial is inventing -- influencing important decisions. guest: he is unusual in that he is extremely agitated by any kind of criticism. when you are the president, no one gets attacked more were criticized more. trump doesn't seem to be able to tolerate this. that's why he's always getting to wells on social media. for the most time he's been president, it hasn't been about policy, it was arguing with lebron james. what we see in the case of the security clearances of the

officials he has been revoking in the case of john brennan and talking about doing more, that kind of squabble, that inability to tolerate criticism is affecting the decisions he makes as president. it's not surprising that his decision to revoke the security clearance got so much blowback, we saw the letter written by a group of former intelligence officials, both democrat and republican, criticizing that. it's an unprecedented thing for him to do. that kind ofhere petty, personal stuff that he gets involved in all the time isn't just a sideshow, it affects the work of government. host: what does that mean for his effectiveness? guest: this has been a question

from the beginning, that when we look at the white house, how ?uch is his unique personality how much does that affect what happens in the white house? we haven't seen a president like this before, someone who watches cable news and live tweets what and hasand gets angry fights with celebrities for breakfast. that's always been the question, how much of that is distorting policy and how much is like it would anyway. there is a degree to which it does. many of the people who work for him are people who would be in any administration. not all of them. that's one of the things that might be underappreciated. because he was an outsider and he hadn't worked in politics, he

didn't bring along with him a group that in order -- an ordinary present one. they have around them a collection of professionals who have risen up through the ranks. they seamlessly move into government. there is a government in exile whenever they are out of power. they get distributed around think tanks. then they move into those positions throughout government that they had been in in prior administrations. he didn't have those people and a lot of republicans didn't want to work for his administration. that accounts for a lot of the chaos that has happened in the white house. those serious professionals were not as much distributed throughout the government. he has a motley collection of loyalists and people who did work in government and don't have a lot of experience.

that is part of the reason why things have been so chaotic. he is the senior writer for the american prospect and opinion writer for the washington post. we want to give out the phone numbers on the bottom of the screen. .epublicans call (202) 784-8001 .emocrats call (202) 748-8000 independent voters (202) 748-8002. we will talk about the brent kavanaugh nominations. start september 4. this is what chuck schumer had to say about the documents. >> because republicans have chosen obfuscation over transparency, democrats on the judiciary committee issued a

request for the national archives for his records, including his time as staff secretary. we would rather follow the bipartisan process that's been around for years. mitch mcconnell is carrying down all of the bipartisan parts of approving nominees. supreme court, documents, he's not serving the senate well either. started, no. he held back all of the circuit court nominations so there were vacancies. this has been his thing all along. he regards it as a proud moment in his history as a leader. it's one of the worst moments and that's how history will show it.

instead, we would rather follow the bipartisan process. now republican obstruction requires an extraordinary response. that's why we are making this request. we are announcing we stand ready to sue the national archives for his full records if necessary. people deserve a thorough examination of the nominee to the supreme court who will yield influence on their lives. you have this piece about the kavanaugh hearings. what are you looking for in the hearings? guest: it will be interesting to , the focus is going to be on

the substance of things that the supreme court will be dealing with and how much it will be about the procedural issues of the documents they've been asking for, the white house as been reluctant to give that up. what it stems from is this dilemma the don't democrats are in. they are in the minority and there is no reason to think any republican will vote against the nomination. they are torn between trying to figure out a way where they could stop him from getting on the supreme court, but failing that, trying to turn his nomination into a vehicle to talk about the issues they think are important. republicans have been much more focused on the supreme court than democrats have. that was one of the reasons why republican voters stuck with president trump despite a really

happened in the campaign. despite all of the attention paid to republicans who did not vote for him, a big reason for that was we need a republican president so we can get the supreme court. democrats are starting to think the same way when they look at the court that will be majority conservative. roe v. wade might be overturned. we have jim here at the table as well. he is a politics editor at the washington examiner. let's talk about the hearings. they impact the elections? guest: they want this to galvanize their base of voters. it's a huge motivator to a lot , a lotal conservatives

of evangelicals to get conservative judges on the supreme court. and has the potential to be a rallying cry for loan democratic voters who will want to defend roe versus wade, affirmative action, the affordable care act. is a threat to those things. that's a good reason to show up. you might have a little bit more leeway to block brent kavanaugh next time around. host: i know you just got here, but we want to get viewers here. we've been talking to paul waldman. john is on the line from texas. good morning. ask if i just wanted to he has read any of the operation northwood documents.

has he been able to connect the dots they are talking about pulling security clearances for. they are all involved in spy gate? guest: i don't know what that is. is real common denominator people who trump has threatened is they've been publicly critical of donald trump. obviousthat is pretty has angered him so much. before, this is showing how he is extremely thin-skinned. public policy decisions, it's important for people to realize when the issue came up said why do they still have their security clearances? there are 4 million americans who have security clearances. there are people who are in the

military or were in the military , maybe they work for defense contractors. the of them don't have high-level the cia director would have, but there are a lot of people with clearances. there are a lot of conspiracy theories floating around, many of which contain the idea that very is doing something careful in shutting out these people. that's probably what the caller is referencing. it's a simpler explanation than that. these are people who made him mad and he is striking back. host: you wrote an opinion piece about trump making a martyr out of john brennan. guest: if you look back at his tenure in the cia, he was controversial on the left. there were civil liberties that were quite questionable that

were going on under his watch. you had a situation where the senate was reporting on interrogation practices, torture being done. around's andoking snooping on that. inwas not very forthcoming terms of what was actually going on. there were democrats who wanted him to resign. withnk as was the case james comey who was very much a pariah in democratic circles for the letter he released about hillary clinton, he people thought he was more responsible for her defeat. trump by virtue of firing comey and john brennan has made these people heroes in circles where they were once rehabilitated. possiblet not of them absent his intervention.

host: you are on the air. caller: good morning. not far to go back the comment about president trump being new to the government bureaucracy and having people around him. runningof an individual for the office of president of the united states is they would have the ability and the intelligence, even if they hadn't had government experience , to place people around them that will allow them to properly facilitate being the president of the united states. even though that is a factor, i , heelieve this president

does not have the skills to run the country. i know it's a tall order. lackingbelieve he is that specific piece. guest: i think it's the case that president trump wasn't a long-term political actor. he was mainly a donor. he didn't bring the kind of team with him, the ready-made group that a lot of other presidents would have. karl rove was with george w bush and texas. kellyanne conway was with him longer than most clinical professionals was running a pro ted cruz super pac. that's not a very deep bench to pick from. his talentto get from ideologues that are drawn

to him, opportunists who saw they could get higher level jobs than they would get in a more conventional republican administration, and there was a group of people who came in after his win who were concerned about the team he would be able to assemble and they felt a duty to the country to join the administration. that third group is in shorter supply as it's gone. host: your thoughts? guest: when business people run for office, they say politics is an hard, i will come in with my hard-nosed business sense and we will fix all of these problems. you don't need to know anything about it before you get there. politics is intricately complicated. with trump, it's even worse than with an ordinary business person.

doesn'thave seen is he -- he said he would hire the best people. -- he knewversy with it before he even harder. why did he hire her? she lavished praise on him. what ateria are not businessman would bring to government. there's a problem there to begin with. you don't think you need to know what you are doing before hand, his own proclivities make it worse. host: hey there. caller: good morning. barack obama is an illegal alien. host: how do you know this? we will try to get somebody who has something constructive to add to the conversation.

how are you doing. just turning on the interviewer, i object to a comment he made. he said the people that might get their clearances revoked or because they said they were critical of the president. we talked about the narrative, he also lied to congress. , he leakedd at comey to the press. now we have an investigation. that is kind of illegal. rice, she wants to go on the talk shows and say benghazi happened because of a video.

it's highly offensive to the families. it's all part of what trump is talking about, the fake news narrative where we spin it and say that people are being this because they criticized trump. james comey does not have a security clearance. is on the list as is andrew mccabe. they gave them up when they departed the fbi. criticizend things to . there are plenty of things about john brennan that were controversial. it was only when he became a critic of president trump that the issue came up. speakers, youese

may not like things they did it. hasn't saidone who bad things about donald trump who is on this list of people who will get their clearances revoked. guest: it would've been easier to make the case if he was talking about misconduct. comments against many of them. it would be easier to say i'm doing this for a reason rather than silencing critics. let's say they were pulling michael flynn's security clearance. maybe don't want to alienate him. there is nobody on the list who is not a trump critic. it makes it harder to make that case. host: we want to bring up a couple of tweaks the president sent out this weekend.

social media is totally discriminating against republican and conservative voices. we won't let that happen. they are closing down the opinion of many people on the right. censorship is a very dangerous thing. cnne is nothing so fake as and msnbc. i do not ask their sick behavior be removed. what is your take on this? guest: he is being contradictory. he is waging a real war on the media, constantly saying they are the enemy of the people. that's a stalinist phrase. he is whipping up hatred toward members of the media. aboutandidate, he talked wanting to change libel laws and make it easier to sue news

organizations critical of him. when companies like twitter take alex jones off the platform, he gets very upset and says it's censorship. censorship is something governments do. a private company like twitter has the right if it wants to to take people off. it's a funny question. some of these companies are so influential, they used to have the position that we are open platforms and we are not responsible for what people say. whencome under pressure alex jones, who is propagating conspiracy theories about sandy hook being staged, they say we've decided he didn't violate our terms of service. there is no easy answer on how to deal with platforms like facebook and twitter.

guest: i think that's the principle by which he governs a lot of things. when you look at president trump versus the media, there has been among republican voters a perception that the media is biased, it tends to favor democrats. that predates president trump. the difference for republicans as they feel trump fights back. things he says could be troubling if they were put into practice. largely, it seems to be confined to twitter venting. when you look at the journalists who had high-profile clashes with president trump, it has been good for their careers. host: hello there.

you are on the air. caller: good morning, gentlemen. mr. trump is awesome. my question and comment is this causing us to think differently about random security clearances. why should they get security clearance once they leave the government. when i leave a contract, i send in my badge and that's it. why do we did have people advising a special privilege? that's all i wanted to say. host: let's start with jim on that one. once you're done with government, they shouldn't have a clearance? feel thatot of people way you don't want to see people

monetizing their access. when the president takes these clearances and talks about draining the swamp and hitting back against the deep state, that resonates with a lot of people. you need people with past service to be available to advise their successors when certain situations, when they might have some expertise. need the clearance to be fully briefed as to what is currently going on so they can give the best advice and information. i don't see john brennan giving them a lot of advice in the future. guest: i think it's important to clarify what it means and does it mean to have a security clearance. it doesn't mean that every day he's getting briefed on the latest intelligence. it means he could get access to that information if people decided there was a reason to ask his advice.

somebody who works in the pentagon, they might maintain a security clearance and if they get a job with a defense contractor they don't have to go through the process again. they have to search all your records and things like that. it's something you hold onto in case you need it at a future date. it doesn't confirm an ongoing benefit. host: thanks for waiting. caller: i turned the tv on and i heard the latest that trump is --ting people that are bad are you there? some people that are bad into his advisory. she lavishes praise on him. i think he was looking for people that were going to be honest with him.

he thought she was one of them. that was three people in his cabinet, a major person. she said to the people she admired the most were mother teresa and mouse sits on. fourones is a truth or 911. i forget his last name. these are people who are bad actors in obama's cabinet. the three mistakes i just mentioned, those are major mistakes. we are talking about people who had influence. cabinetknow if it was or what. no president is perfect. look at what trump has done. the economy is wonderful. men backt three of our from north korea to america.

he gave no money to them like obama gave money to iran. host: we do have the example. thank you for calling in. president gets criticized by the other side and there is a certain amount of alice in trade. there has been more in this white house. one of the things we have seen reported since the omarosa thing broke, there is a sense of paranoia within the white house. not just people who were wondering how much she recorded, according to her she recorded a lot and they are worried about what might come out. apparently people are worried that everyone is recording them. there has been an unusual number of leaks from this white house,

constantly. this is been a very leaky white house. it's been great for white house reporters. insight.all of the it's all fascinating. it creates an atmosphere where everyone is out for themselves in looking over their shoulder. effectivenessheir in what they are trying to do. host: trump wages political warfare on two different fronts. what are these two fronts and why are they so important? guest: there are two things going on right now that could jeopardize his presidency. one is democrats taking the house or either house of congress. the second is the robert mueller investigation. the two can come together and create a perfect storm where he finds himself at the very least

in a similar situation to bill clinton in the late 90's were you have the special counsel producing a report that is going to have information that is critical of the president, alleges crimes even. congress is going to have to make a judgment about that. it's more likely some impeachment proceeding will be launched, even if they are trying to stay away from the issue. storm, it that perfect think he is trying to push back. host: you write in the washington post why he will pardon paul manafort. guest: obviously, he sincerely believes that this is a vegas set up and a witchhunt. he is waiting right now to see what happens with manafort's first trial. it's important to understand there is a second trial coming up.

even if he is acquitted on tax fraud charges, there is another trial in federal court in washington dc coming up soon that gets much closer to the russia stuff. it's going to be about his lobbying activities and things it ends closer to the president. one of the things we have seen with things like his exercise of the pardon power and revoking the security clearances, he is very drawn to those areas where he can do something that doesn't have oversight or constraint from anywhere else. power, the president can keep him from doing things, congress or the courts. there are some things he can do by himself. if you are frustrated by everyone else telling you what you can't do, that's a place were you can exercise your own power.

i think he will be tempted to do it. host: can you see a part in for mr. manafort? seems to bemanafort behaving as if he expects the pardon. a lot of people in that universe who are facing far less serious charges and less prospects of real jail time have become cooperators and backed off in terms of their loyalty to the president. that means manafort, the charges predate the campaign, it may mean that he doesn't have anything to give. trump has signaled he thinks what is happening to manafort is unjust. sees manafort was under investigation for many of these things before the campaign. his affiliation with trump is what has gotten him in the messy is in right now. a more conventional president

would be tempted to issue the pardon. case, it's extremely difficult not to. host: we will keep our cameras outside the courthouse, if a bird comes, we will take phone calls and reaction. comes, we will take phone calls and reactions. there is a rally in west virginia tuesday. we will have it live here on c-span. for al be campaigning candidate. trump, i want to know what you think, maybe the --ocrats should

sure what he's talking about. guest: i wonder if they might decide they want to nominate a celebrity for president. they have a much deeper bench of celebrities to draw from. george clooney has been giving money to candidates in various races. why not cut out the middleman and run yourself. the earned media you get for free by virtue of having that level of fame can really negate the need to have a massive advertising budget. you could run on the cheap doing that. yourownside of that is brand becomes very polarized and you lose all of your fans from the other side. that is probably a disincentive. there are a lot of famous people who could give it a shot. reasoni think there is a

why it left likely to happen with democrats. what trump intuited was the republican candidates weren't speaking to what the base wanted. he came along and gave the base what they wanted and it was throwing to many people in the base. a largegoing to have number of democratic candidates. they are already tuned in to what the base once. you can see them moving to the left on a bunch of issues. you can find where the democratic party is by looking at what people like kamala harris and cory booker, the things they are saying and the way they're are moving to where the bases. the party is ready for something that is its own version of unadorned ideology. all of those candidates will satisfy what the base once.

host: jared is calling from texas. with all due respect, you sit there with that little smirk and smug little latitude. i know you've got people pulling . i'ms out of their butt going to pull some facts out. a list. some of them may have clearances, some of them may not. people, mccain was fired. this is unprecedented. commonality is they were critical of the president, commonality is their conduct. john brennan call the president treasonous.

this is unprecedented. you just gloss over. it's dishonest. host: let's get a response. guest: you will see with the color just did. he said is not because they are critical of the president and a piece of evidence he brings up john brennan said something outrageous about president trump. that's not conduct. the fbi agent, why we know about what text messages he was exchanging with his girlfriend is because they were released by the justice department. there were according to many reports an entire cadre of fbi agents who were adamantly opposed to hillary clinton being elected president. they were leaking to the media. we don't know who they are.

we haven't read their text messages. we haven't had one. the idea that someone who has been held up as a particularly strong critic of the president and we find things they did the wrong, that means there was some kind of its conspiracy, that doesn't mean there weren't all kinds of other things going on, fbi agent said opinions about presidential candidates. these specific people have angered president trump. host: michael is in a california. good morning. if theyi was wondering find it ironic that john brennan who has 40 years of government service had his clearance revoked while a man like jared kushner who has no experience in avernment, trying to set up back channel with the russian

embassy, spoke to the chinese ambassador in private, he has a security clearance while john brennan who has served his country admirably, i was wanting your thoughts on this. host: thank you for calling. had itjared kushner security clearance issues. ofgets back to the question what kind of team president trump was able to assemble. some of the problem he had with the professional republicans did not have personal loyalty to him. he needed to find some people who had personal loyalty to them. those people did not have government experience. you bring in your family, which is unusual. it's an unusual situation to have. kennedy,oint to bobby

it's not totally unprecedented. to bring in your kids in this and george w. bush did play informal role in his father's white house. that's not the kind of work that required a security clearance. you're not going to be tasked with the go shooting middle east peace. we don't care about them much these days. office, he wasto going to solve middle east peace in the opioid crisis and reinvent government. surprisingly not that a real estate person who would never work in government couldn't get these things accomplished because in order to do those difficult things, you

need to understand how government works. a lot of that is just not getting accomplished. maybe it wouldn't have otherwise either. when you have a president that says i'm going to put my son-in-law in charge, the successes low. host: here is a piece by your colleague. this has to do with the meeting that will be happening later this week. what is at stake here? they can't quite figure out how they want the nominating system to work. they brought on this idea of superdelegates to forestall the possibility of someone like donald trump getting their nomination. the idea was that in the old days, things would be decided in smoke-filled rooms. 1970's, we had primaries deciding who the

nominees were. anyone could become president theoretically. the party leaders would not have veto power. if something catastrophic happened, these party elders could step in at the end and put a thumb on the scale and say we will take a reasonable person. it hasn't been necessary. the person who won the primary was the one who wound up getting the nomination. the superdelegates didn't matter. but, you did have a lot of conflict about whether or not the party was put in some on the scale for hillary clinton. a lot of people who supported bernie sanders want to guarantee it will be an open process and there won't be any possibility you could have a situation where one person was chosen by the whors and another person actually wound up with the nomination. unlikely, but every

four years we get the situation where they don't want to give it up completely. they go through this process. it hasn't been an issue in the end. host: let's hear from the examiner. guest: the race really made the super delegate thing an issue. it's been debated in the past and the democratic party doesn't like the image of party bosses being involved in the nomination process. republicans don't do quite the same thing. a lot of elected officials to become delegates in the republican process. because there was a perceived unfairness toward bernie sanders on part of the dnc, it made a lot of people, particularly his supporters, more animated against the concept. also, while hillary clinton

would have one without the superdelegates, it took a competitive race that she was winning and turned it into a race where she had an insurmountable lead. the perception was the superdelegates were giving her the nomination. that's not true, but it did change the feel of the race. if it had just been alleged delegates, she would've won. -- pledged delegates, she would've won. paddederdelegates really her lead quite a bit. it was offputting to a lot of voters. host: let's get a couple of more callers in. -air. caller: good morning. i was thinking president trump has security clearance. he is sitting in a closed room with vladimir putin and have no one know what was going on.

they still don't know what was going on, what he promised putin or vladimir putin promised him. what about his security clearance? mouth. a very bad it should be washed out with soap. think -- thank you. the president doesn't the a security clearance by virtue of being president. he has access to everything. we don't know what went on that moving -- me with him and vladimir putin. some kind of promise to vladimir putin, we would know about it when he tries to carry it out. so far, there hasn't been a lot of evidence that anything that happened has been turned into any sort of policy. that's the mystery around his

relationship with vladimir putin and why he treats of the way he does. of does vladimir putin have some damaging maybe heon on trump, does or doesn't, he may suspect that he has something, even if he doesn't know what is and that's why he's so careful. as to what he promised them, we will see it if policy is changed. host: we have one call left from california. hello. caller: i have a question for both guests. my first is for paul. deplorablesthose that are more flexible act of the election. how about this question? , he headed up an

investigation of hillary clinton's emails. about his girlfriend. let's talk about who his wife is. she was appointed from barack obama to head the criminal division of the fcc. after the't go clinton foundation. paul.t question is to do you mean to jim? go ahead. are you still with us? i think we lost glenn. i think he was referring that to you. guest: when you imagined conspiracy theories, people attribute this great power to an individual.

one person in the justice department can quash an investigation. the more you understand that conspiracy theories are really hard to pull off. the ideai don't even know what r strzok's wife does. the idea that there would have been some kind of criminal investigation of hillary clinton but it was quashed because one person decided to make sure it didn't happen, that's just not how things work in government. these things are very complement -- complicated. they involve lots of people. he didn't do anything during the 2016 campaign. if you wanted to undermine donald trump he could have leaked information about the investigation, but he didn't. don if he had wanted to something to damage trump, it would have required the cooperation of lots of different people who were involved in that investigation.

it would have been impossible to pull off taste on one person's animus towards a candidate. host: we will never know what that last caller had for you. we will give you the last word. is there anything we talked about that you want to reinforce? it's going to be very interesting. you have this dynamic where president trump is really but he's rather less helpful to republicans running in the congressional districts. aret of those districts suburban districts or even some of the traditional republicans are not particularly supportive of the president. that's going to be a big area making --crats are the president is going to be in west virginia. he has really been targeting a lot of these senate races. that's where he has been conducting most of these rallies

because he does believe it will be helpful to those challengers. jim antle is politics editor for the washington examiner. waldman is the senior writer for the american prospect. opinion writer for the washington post. thank you both for your time this morning and your participation. thisve one hour left in sunday edition of the washington journal. we will talk about proposed changes by the administration to the endangered species act which than four decades-old. jim lister is an attorney for the sportsmen's alliance. we will be joined later by the center for biological diversity's brett hartl. those guests on either side of this issue. we will be right back.

>> monday night on the communicators, former fcc chief economist thomas paisley talks about his book, the political spectrum: the tumultuous liberalization of smartphone technology. thee have only scratched surface in terms of how much spectrum we put out in this liberal way. the great majority of the airways are highly valuable for communications are still squandered. they are allocated to things that were set aside 50, 60 years ago. the technologies are gone. the applications are moot. better to come up with mechanisms. a lot of my book is devoted to talking about things that regulators can do to unleash even more of what we already come in without

the micromanagement of a federal communications commission washington. >> watch the communicators monday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span two. the c-span bus has arrived by boat in hawaii for the 39th stop of their 50 capitals tour. we are on the island of a waffle ahu visiting the capital of honolulu. we are to display and share the aloha culture. this is a great opportunity for showcasing hawaii across the nation. welcome and aloha. >> welcome to the cable satellite public affairs network, better known as c-span and its impressive bus going all over our nation. i know c-span will enjoy the beauty, sunshine and aloha of the 50th state.

i'm sure c-span will witness and feel the alone. as the bus embarks on its discovery of hawaii as part of its 50 capitals tour. governor and lieutenant governor of the state of hawaii do hereby proclaim august 15 to the twice second 2018 as c-span week in hawaii. so congratulations. >> watch more of our visit to hawaii during hawaii weekend on c-span, c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. washington journal continues. host: jim lister is an attorney with the law firm based here in d.c. you represent the sportsmen's alliance. we're here to talk about proposed changes to the endangered species act.

remind us of what the sportsmen's alliance is all about. , how are youission formed come how are you funded? guest: the sportsmen's alliance was founded almost 30 years ago as an association of hunters, anglers, trappers. over time and has evolved to be a national association with a lot of state associations and local associations. it works on legislation. it works on litigation involving hunting which is my primary role as an outside attorney. for the organizations. it is based in columbus ohio. it is funded with membership fees. host: what is your understanding of what's going on? the administration would like to make some changes. trump administration proposes revamping the esa.

what would be the priorities of the sportsmen's alliance if changes were to be made? it's important to consider both changes at the regulatory level that the agencies can make. agenciese been reform for years now with administrations from both parties to do what the agencies can do to inject some flexibility into the operation. i think your question is about legislation. changes at the congressional level. i think the first foremost priority would be for congress to trust the u.s. fish and wildlife service. the professionals, the biologists. to make decisions that are not immediately overruled in the courts. where the agency can look at the evidence, use its discretion and whyde where, when, how and to protect species in a way that makes sense.

and then for the agency to go out there and be able to explain what it'sdone and made a reasonable decision to be upheld by the courts. flexibility for the agencies applies and somebody a different settings. i think it's the fundamental principles. host: there's a lot with the potential changes to the endangered species act. i think we are in the middle of a public comment period. jim lister is here to talk about the sportsmen's alliance. npr boils it down to two specific points. of treatingtice threatened species the same as endangered species. also there's an economic piece. the economic consequences of a species protection to be taken into consideration. speak about the economic piece. what does the esa do now and what is the administration looking for? guest: the endangered species

act as written requires decisions on listing to be based on the best commercial and scientific data. commercial data does not mean economic impact. i think those questions relate mostly to the development side of esa that would be oil and gas. minerals come housing. that's not what the association is really about. hunters do not alter habitat. they want habitat to be kept in because that'ste what facilitates hunting when appropriate. i think the economic side of things is part of the dsa that is not what the sportsmen's alliance is about. i think the economic side of it's about injecting some balance into the esa for persons who legitimately want to develop their property, farming. those sorts of activities. i think legislation would work to do that. those interests need to have

their voices heard just like all the other interest even if it's different than our mission. host: phone numbers on the bottom of the screen for our guest. republicans (202) 748-8001. democrats (202) 748-8000. independents (202) 748-8002. lister who isim an attorney who in part represents sportsmen's alliance. to take your calls as soon as they start coming in. more to the changes going on here. this is an op-ed from chris bachman, wildlife program director of the lands council. extinction is forever as far as this piece goes. should beot congress making decisions about which species need protection. the endangered species act as a law of last resort after state

management has proven insufficient. focusing on modernization of a law that works, congress should improve the law's implementation by fully funding recovery efforts for endangered speed these. by chris bachman. what is your reaction to that concept? guest: i would agree that the agencies need better funding. him aboutsagree with his implication that congress is out there to overrule the scientists at the fish and wildlife service. again and again they have found species to be recovered. because they have increased the numbers over years and years of careful efforts to conserve scientists at fish and wildlife service's have recommended that species be removed from the list of endangered species and then courts have overruled them. i think i would turn his point

on his head and empower the u.s. fish and wildlife service to make the right decisions and when their decisions are supported to be firmed in the courts. host: patrick is up first from lady lake, florida. caller: i'm wondering if your in theets involved pollution side of protecting species. the state of florida issued a alert not that long ago that pregnant women should not eat any fish caught in the everglades because it would cause child effects. children shouldn't eat any fish. they recommend that adults only eat one serving a month. the oysters of seattle are so polluted with oxycontin that they're showing up in restaurants and people are

getting high from them. i don't care how many acres a bear has to roam around. i like to eat food that isn't contaminated. one more thing c-span. i noticed none of your pro-lifers came out in support of the two lawsuits ending that r came up withye because it causes cancer. they just had a thing, insecticides are showing up in children's cereal. i think some of your pro-lifers would kind of get into eating clean food. thanks for taking my call. host: what about the pollution point, mr. lister? there's not something where the association is currently working on a pollution issue. i think generally hunters, anglers, fishermen want the habitat to be appropriate to the species can do well.

you can't hunt, you can't fish if the species is polluted. i would share the general goals that he stated at the beginning of his comment. then he moved that issues that weren't really related to hunting. host: on the line for jim lister. whyer: i would like to know the grizzly bears are such a thing for all of these people that they should be kept in this wyoming. i don't try to tell them that they can't kill rats in new york. they do not understand our way of living in the united states. elk and deerve our to eat. we are not rich people. the rich people are the ones that are telling us that we need

grizzly bears eliminated. or just left to go free. that there should be grizzlies everywhere. they kill people every day in wyoming. hunting,someone goes they have to really be careful because the grizzlies will keep eat themight them -- before they get close to the elk. get the elk before you can get to it. i haven't been in wyoming for all of my life -- i have been in wyoming for all of my life, which is about 10 generations. 74parents have an married years and they have always taken care of the wildlife. it's just getting so that you can't do nothing. you can't go hunting, you can't go fishing. after age 40 you better stay out

of the mountains because them bears will get you. host: thank you for calling. go ahead. guest: i can't speak to the grizzlies in wyoming. mid-1970's there were very few grizzlies left in wyoming. they were put appropriately on the endangered species list as a threatened species. the next 30 to 40 years, the states in the area, private conservation groups including hunters, the u.s. government worked to recovery the grizzly bear. it has been remarkably successful. there are now 700,000 grizzlies where there used to be less than 150. in 2016 the obama administration proposed to remove the wyoming grizzlies from the list of threatened species. in 2017 the trump administration agreed and did just that. so that action which is being

challenged in the courts, if it is not overturned will allow more flexibility in wyoming. the state is appropriately providing some protections for grizzlies going forward so that it will remain a successfully recovered species. some of the concerns she has about interactions with the local population, there will be means to protect the local population. host: our guest is jim lister who represents the sportsmen's alliance. we're talking about changes to the endangered species act which is more than four decades old. guest: 1973. host: someone on twitter once to know -- wants to know what your clients want to do with the land. guest: the guest is asking about the esa interfering with people's use of land. most likely that would be a housing developer, oil and gas developer, minerals.

forest who wants to use products. that is simply not our client. our client is an association of hunters. host: susan is in herndon, virginia. good morning. caller: i just have a question i often wondered as to why the word sport is equated with shooting in animal, when the animal itself has no idea they are involved in this so-called sport. do a sport, we are all conscious and mindful that we are all participating. i take umbrage at this word being aligned with shooting and killing. thank you. host: can you help us out with that definition? guest: there are some people who

are sort of inherently and totally opposed to hunting as an activity. it what you want. it is an outdoor recreational activity. i think the word sport is appropriate. host: bill is in montana. caller: yes. on whether or not the ability for these anti-organizations to sue and then come back and recoup all of their money that they used in the lawsuit by a federal tax dollars. i understand that is correct. i think that is ludicrous because as an individual when i file a lawsuit i am responsible for my own attorney fees and i'm not able to recoup them from anybody. much less federal tax dollars. thank you. guest: the guest has identified

a specific problem. i want to go right to the heart of where the problem he has identity is the most serious. the u.s. fish and wildlife service to implement endangered species act is underfunded. it does not have enough resources to process the petitions for lifting new species that come into it. there are statutory deadlines where it has to process them within 90 days of one year. simply doesn't have the resources to do that in fact. the result is the agency inevitably misses the deadlines. there is in lawsuits to enforce those deadlines. the lawsuit automatically wins each and every time because the agents has missed the statutory deadline. party filing the lawsuit automatically recovers their attorneys fees. the caller has identified a real problem.

i want to jump to the solution which is one of the legislative priorities which is for congress to recognize that if they are not going to fund the u.s. fish and wildlife service fully they need to relieve it from the deadlines of 90 days and one years that are entirely unrealistic and that then result in the scarce money that is for recovering species being wasted paying attorneys fees just like the caller says. the changes.ioned there's a place to comment, regulations.gov is one place where folks can post. they can read all the changes here. there's three current rulemaking proposals all on the same schedule. one of them will give fish and wildlife service the flexibility to decide when they list a species as threatened rather than endangered, that the species isn't immediately in danger of extinction but

possibly in the future it might. that's a lower priority situation. it will allow the agency to be more flexible in how it protects those threatened species which are at lower risk of extinction. it's a very cautious incremental proposal and it actually would put fish and wildlife service in the same place that the national marine fisheries service has been for the last four years. i think that's a very modest change in the current rules but it is something you can comment upon. host: you can go to regulations.gov. maria is calling from altamonte springs in florida. good morning. i would like to ask mr. lister which animals are currently going to be on the availability for hunting and what parameters are in place.

i firmly believe that managing the population of certain animals is important. florida bear hunting. i would like to know if there are parameters in place to keep lactating bears, lactating bears, hunting after the cubbing season. guest: bears are not on the endangered species list in order. the management of bears is with the florida fish and wildlife commission for the state of florida decides what those hunting perimeters are. of florida takes public comment. they said hunting seasons. they hold public meetings. they will decide the terms in which bear hunting occurs in the state and they consider issues just like what the caller is raising. host: anything else? caller: i would just like to ask him for the grizzly bears since they were talking about montana. do they have parameters in place to keep cubs safe? guest: ok.

thing forzzly hair wyoming extends just a little bit into montana. it doesn't cover the majority of montana. when the wyoming wolves which extend a little bit into idaho and montana were delisted from the endangered species act, control over hunting of them passed to the state of montana. the state of montana has elected not this year to do any hunting. the answer to your question is there is no hunting in montana grizzlies. host: we have done in greenville, pennsylvania. you are on with jim lister. about howm wondering all of these -- may be impacting the proposed changes to the endangered species list. guest: i didn't actually hear the first couple of words in your question. how do these forest

fires that we have been having all over this country, mainly out west have an impact on the endangered species list? host: and he said fires -- i think he said fires. guest: the forest fires. thank you. that may some species be in the trees that are potentially affected. owls and species like that. again, that's not an issue which has been directly affecting hunting. i'm probably not the person to best answer your question to be be more specific about something called the blanket rule. rule does blanket what we were talking about a couple of minutes ago. the difference between an endangered and threatened species. the law passed by congress in 1973 only imposed as prohibitions on taking an animal . hunting, trapping, killing for

endangered species. it does not impose that prohibition vice that you. it gives the u.s. fish and wildlife service the discretion to choose to impose those prohibitions. in the 1980's, the fish and wildlife service. the role that whenever we list a species as threatened, we will on a blanket basis choose to impose the prohibition on take unless we decide in a particular case not to do it. it's kind of a default. it applies to every threatened listed. that's the change that fish and wildlife service proposed is. that when they list a species as threatened for the first time they will decide whether to improve the prohibition. that would limit the blanket rule. host: bob from wisconsin. welcome. the endangered species act has been implemented.

u.s. forest service and fish and wildlife service have impacted by lawsuits to prevent any management at all. part of the reason we have, there's no -- people are afraid of issuing permits on public land because they are going to be sued. , lawsuitssconsin prevent managing the wolf population. up north, i can't go kraus hunting-- grouse because i'm not going to endanger my dogs because of the wolf population. there needs to be some changes. it has been used to stop any kind of management of resources at all.

guest: i think the commentor is right on. wolves in wisconsin are one of the extreme examples of the beingsional biologists overruled by the courts. , somewhat like a were fairly rare in the mid-1970's. there are still a fair number of them in minnesota. they were appropriately put on the endangered and threatened species list. threatened in minnesota, endangered in wisconsin and elsewhere. and 40 years of efforts, the population has expanded incredibly. to 3000g like 2000 wolves in minnesota. approaching 1000 in wisconsin. approaching 1000 in michigan. the fish and wildlife service under both republicans and democrats proposed several times to remove this recovered population of wolf's from the

protection of the endangered species act. times, parties opposed to that have sued and the courts have overturned that. with the last decision there is a clear roadmap from what fish and wildlife service does to finish the job and recognize what i think is absolute biological realtor. that the wolves in wisconsin, minnesota and michigan have recovered and need to be removed from the list. you will have the flexibility to protect your dogs when you are out hunting as you did for those years between the last delisting order of the obama administration which gave you that flexibility and then it was overturned again in the courts. jim lister, explain the process from here on out. we are in the middle of a public review print of -- review print of. -- review period.

guest: there are three proposed rules. there are public comment opportunities that last until the middle of september. you can put in the words endangered and threatened to end you will be able to find specific rulemaking. can put in the word critical habitat and you will be able to find the second rulemaking. in the word consulting and endangered species act and you will find the third one. public comments will be filed and then the agency has to consider the public comments and .dopt the final at that point the rules are changed. nothing has to be done in congress to make that effective. predictably there will be lawsuits to try and overturn the agency. host: does congress have a role at some point? guest: congress can pass --islationguest: that would afm host: jim lister, thanks for

your time this morning. timeout and a brief then look at another side of brett hartlith whose government affairs director for the center for biological diversity. we will continue to take more of your calls. journal forington sunday. we will be right back. journal for sunday. we will be right back. >> tonight on afterwards. retired marine corps lieutenant colonel on gender bias in the military. she was interviewed by military times reporter todd south. is not female marine really paid attention to in her developer as a quality marine going into boot camp and not held to a standard coming outcome how does that affect the rest of her career? becauseroblem is that

the marine corps doesn't want to change what happens at the foundational level and because everything is so segregated, the stereotypes persist. and they sort of feet into the perception that women can't because they are women and then they are not respected. and the lack of respect between men and women in the green core is legendary. if the stuff that male recruits here in the squad based on the time. male recruits who happen to be slower told that they are women. that they should be sent to fourth battalion. it becomes normal to say derogatory things about women. that is sort of the dilemma that women have in the marines. that is the culture that they are brought into. >> watch afterwards tonight on book tv. c-span, where history of staley. >>in 1979, he spent was createds

a public service by america's cable television companies. today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress. the white house. the supreme court. policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. washington journal continues. is brettning us now hartl, government affairs director for the center for biological diversity. thank you for joining us this morning. i want to show you a washington host headline. it says at interior, we are ready to bring the endangered seas is act of today. what are you bracing for? the best talking point of the trump administration is your modernizing the right relations

desk wife always. false.uite it will be heard to list them. it will be herded to designate critical habitats that protect the areas they live. it will be easier to rubberstamp projects for approval let harm endangered and threatened species. make it faster for big oil and gas and logging projects to occur. egregiouslyand also it will also weaken protections for threatened species across the board we have seen this notion of modernizing and lexical it. that's aims to be their only selling point. it's quite false. this is all quite disturbing. host: what does all of this mean for your work and your organization and for the country at large if some or all of these proposals go through? guest: i think what is the most concerning is it will be much ander to recover threatened

endangered species nationwide. these rules have nationwide effect. many species have been on the road to recovery. the endangered species act has a great track record of preventing extinction. 99% of the species protected by the act are still around today which is an amazing achievement and many are on the road to recovery. now we are taking away a lot of the tools that have helped species get on the right path. obviously for us it will be much harder because our main goal is to get species recovered to the point that there are a part of really vibrant wildlife ecosystems. the endangered species act is one of our best tools at preserving ecosystems. it is in the law as the stated purpose of of

ecosystems where species live. this is going to set back a lot of really good work and accomplishments that have happened over the last 45 years. host: phone numbers on the bottom of the screen. we will divide the lines this way. (202) 748-8000 east or central. (202) 748-8001 mountain and pacific. our guest is brett hartl. , what look at the esa would your critique be of the act 40 plus years later and where could it the improved and updated? guest: the law could always be stronger and more effective. some endangered species are still struggling. the biggest challenge that we face, the earlier guest alluded to but didn't quite get it right is the lack of funding. most endangered species have a very small budget. less than $10,000 a year. only a few hundred have really to get them the

help they need to get on the right path. we are doing a great job with a really hamstring to amount of money. protections for threatened species. there's weaker protections for plans and invertebrates like coral reefs. insects. do isnk the best thing to actually to strengthen the tools that help endangered species get on the road to recovery. make conservation planning more effective rather than weakening it at a time when we are still facing an extinction crisis in the united states and around the world. how effective has the endangered species act and where might it have fallen short? guest: it's quite effective. species listed are still around today. that is not insignificant. scientists estimate that if these protections weren't available we will have seen an

additional 230 extinctions within the united states. once species get listed, they have a much better chance of surviving. 46 species have gone extinct while waiting for protections. the big shortfalls are really funding based. they have the adequate funding to list species like that. and frankly to get people in the field doing conservation work more. have to species are improving -- every single species in between has the help it needs to get recovered. host: brett hartl, want to point

out one of the many voices written by randy know who is the national association of home builders chairman. under the laws consultation process builders and developers ao is projects require federal permit -- federal agencies must confirm before the landowners can go further. making a big economic argument. guest: we have 1800 endangered species around the nation. we have the entire history of .he act it's true that if you need a federal covert -- permit you have to console. . it's true that if you need a federal covert --those consultae 90 days or less which is what

the law requires. -- usuallyin a while those are the anecdotes that the as they groups glom onto paper tiger of why this is all bad. most projects get approved on time. there's mitigation requirements because of the right thing to do. you shouldn't be allowed to kill endangered or threatened species without doing something to protect and mitigate those harms. stated andion have the endangered species act is overwhelmingly popular that we want to save endangered species. that means you can't just kill them when you are making developments. we have always found ways to accommodate both. it has been through the entire history of the act and it's really just a lot of rhetoric that's really unfounded. our first call for brett

hartl is in wyoming. good morning. welcome to the program. caller: good morning. in wyoming, i served in the legislature. there's a big idea of a federal land grab that we want to share in federal lands back over to the states. which i'm totally against. what would that do so i can educate some more voters, what if we were to take those federal lands and return them back to the states where the states couldn't properly fund them, maintain them or anything like that. have you guys been looking into those problems around the nation? and taking public lands for every american and transferring them to the state, is really a tactic to turn them over to developers.

taking things out of federal control, they have always been federal lands and having them over to the states really is just a quick way of letting industry cause developments and do so in distraught -- irresponsibly. esa allows development on public land. the big improvement is that because of the consultation process within the endangered sure thatt, you make every developer is done in a way that mitigates the harm. it minimizes the harm. and in some cases although rare and completely avoids it. because we don't want to do anything that causes a species to go extinct. that species will never come back. if you take all those public lands and there's definitely a large movement in the west that has been around for a long time and you transfer it to the states, you lose a fundamental safeguard the endangered species act provides. it's true that the act still works on the lands.

the tools are somewhat more limited and frankly given the andurce shortage at fish wildlife, it's a lot harder to make sure people are playing by the rules on state land. it's definitely an alarming trend not just for endangered species but for the environment that large. these are public lands. they belong to all of us. taking them out of the federal estate would really be a terrible thing to do for future generations. host: rachel is calling from reading, vermont for brett hartl in san diego. it's montpelier, vermont. after hearing him talk i would like to change what i have to say a little bit. studenteturning college and i actually did my essay a forle semesters back

environmental sciences class on trump and his environmental stance. and it is not just rhetoric from about theatic side potential dangers he is proposing for our country. that he andfound the former president bush jr. both were able to sign away the enforcement of the endangered and the border between mexico and the united states proves that. but condition down there is awful not just for the people who live there, but for the animals. the border destroys hundreds of thousands of acres of natural territory. and it's all because of presidents being able to do whatever they want and not follow the epa guidelines. currently we are losing hundreds of thousands of gallons of water

of police down there, frankly. we need to police more. we need to do more policing for our border patrols. because right now with the proposed changes, we would be losing the american job for. the animalslosing like the peccaries and the other very needed species for the environment. host: ok. thank you for calling. brett hartl, what do you think? i think rachel is mostly talking about the use of the waiver predations of the real id act that allow the president to unilaterally waive all environmental laws including the endangered species act to expedite the construction of border walls, border security and things like that.

this administration has used that waiver authority quite aggressively. obviously the funding and the construction of the wall is somewhat dependent on how much congress approved rates. when you wave environmental laws that has significant ecological damage. a lot of these species like the jaguar and the ocelot and the mexican wolf depend on being able to cross back and forth between the united states and mexico. lawsu wave environmental you basically allow construction of the wall everywhere without even considering what that does to the environment. i think in general more broadly the changes to the endangered species act regulations that are being proposed, we feel pretty confident that the end result will be pretty terrible because it's part of a pattern from this administration. with weakening protections for migratory birds

nationwide. getting rid of the trend is obvious. administration that clearly has no regard for environmental protections and wants to expedite business developments. really the worst type of extraction regardless of the long-term environmental damage. out: linda is calling from wide philadelphia. king of prussia, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. i really like c-span and i watch a lot. 45shad said earlier that pcs have gone extinct over some period of time. i would like to know 10 of those. the second question is the --vious caller which gives a the previous speaker who gave a contrasting view thought that if thee was demarcation of threatened animals versus the endangered animals that that might be effective. does your group support that?

thank you. host: not sure if we have time for all that. do what you can. to our website, biological diversity.org, we have reports on this. the most recent was the beaver pond burst of you which is a -- tiny freshwater mussel that nobody knows about. the rifle beetle, cave people in tennessee. a cave beetle in tennessee. they went extinct. they were waiting to get listed but there was not adequate funding to do so. they waited too long and went extinct. i can't get you all 45 many of them are relatively unknown. they went extinct before anybody had a chance to appreciate them. with respect to the threatened species, i think there's a lot

of misinformation coming from how nownistration about we are going to do a case-by-case assessment rather than before we didn't. the question is the starting point of making the decision. up until now for the last 40 or 45 years, the fish and wildlife service has assumed that threatened species will receive the same level of protection as on atened species but case-by-case basis, they would ratchet this protections down to the appropriate level. we saw that with things like the northern long eared bat. a few other species. there has always been a case-by-case mechanism. the question is do you start with no protections for threatened species or a lot of protections and ratchet them down? we have had a case-by-case goingment but now we are to start with the assumption

that no threatened species moving forward will receive any protection. if you take something like the monarch butterfly that might get listed as threatened in 2019, if it were listed as a threatened species you can still kill them with pesticides. you could still destroy their habitat. you could kill their milkweed. all that would be legal and it would be much harder to say that species from extinction if that scenario plays out. the notion of how flexible or not it is is really quite false. because in the past there has always been a flexible approach. just gave threatened species the benefit of the doubt. we give them extra protections to start and then we ratcheted backwards when needed. that helped most threatened species get on the right track. is going to make it almost impossible for threatened species that are listed in the future to make any progress. they are going to just stay friends forever and that is not success -- threatened forever

and that is not success. it's quite critical and alarming that they are proposing this. let me read a little bit from an op-ed piece from the deputy interior secretary. he says automatically treating the threatened species as places unnecessary regulatory burden on our citizens without added benefit to the species. the blanket rule reflexively prohibits habitat management practices like water management that might actually benefit of threatened species. guest: right. that's nonsense. the endangered species act does not reflexively prohibits management practices that benefit threatened species. it doesn't reflexively prohibit management in general. a consultation provisions of the act under section seven, those occur regardless of if there's a blanket for dean will in place or not. he's mixing different provisions of the act deliberately hoping

that no one knows the details of how the law works well enough to call him out on it. the notion that the four d rule is what is preventing management is really quite false. you would still do a compensation -- consultation because section seven is different than section four. the reality is that consultations on beneficial projects take only days to complete. so the notion that somehow this prohibition is causing harm to threatened species is ridiculous. giving species protections against people killing them, injuring them, trapping them, hunting them clearly benefit threatened species. that's like basic biology. it's common sense. if you say to someone, you can't kill a threatened species, it's much more likely to be alive than if you say, it is still ok to kill them. alice, daytona beach,

florida. you're on with brett hartl. good morning. caller: good morning. when it comes to big corporate power and the hunters lobby, the animals do not stand a chance. and they don't care. do you remember about six months to listmp, he wanted the ban on trophy hunting for elements -- elephants. people were outraged. so he stopped for a while and he hesitated. and then two months later, he reinstated. his sons are big trophy hunters. there's a case where they killed elephants. the babies were left. they killed the baby elephants. the endangered species act covers the entire world. just not the united states. what's happening, they are bringing back cantons so these -- canned hunts so these rich boys have these animals that are onost tamed in canned areas

large swatches of land mostly in texas, can kill them so they can have their jollies. it is disgusting. under the endangered species act, the four d rule does speak to the notions of trophy hunts. if you lift the 40 protections, many threatened species especially international species will be open to much cannedophy hunting, hunting. there's almost no evidence whatsoever that trophy hunting, canned hunt have any conservation benefit. the fish and wildlife service undersecretaries linking -- zinke --cretary'

from a really on the ground conservation perspective, we have an almost no factual evidence thatfrom a really on td conservation perspective, we any trophy hunting, canned hunting especially of these international animals like some of these rare undulates from africa and texas, we don't see any proof that they actually cause the species back -- to get better. hunting a threatened species, killing a threatened species doesn't seem like that's going to make its conservation status better. right? this is sort of basic biology. if you kill a threatened species, you are probably going to make it worse. the d.c. circuit recently said as much. they concluded that the notion that hunting threatened species is beneficial simply doesn't bear out. unless there is proof of that we should really rethink those types of policies. atlanta for is in brett hartl. caller: good morning.

two very different comments on what you said just a moment ago is an interesting segue. i think this is probably promoted, the changes are probably promoted mostly by developers. with respect to hunting is interesting to hear the juxtaposition between your comments and the previous guest. in my mind although i have never been able to get my head around hunting and what folks get out of it, there are some instances where the interests of hunters and i'm not talking about trophy hunters, but more ordinary hunters and your organization seem to be aligned. i'm wondering if you could speak to that a little bit. sure. normal hunting, well-managed hunting. the united states has done for a long time. that often brings in large amounts of revenue for conservation. , afact, the united states

lot of state-level conservation is funded by hunting. that is generally at least scientifically based in terms of quotas, hunting seasons, bag limits etc. in the u.s. framework, that in of itself is not objectionable. it is scientifically driven. there is checks in place. align,es our interest to because i think hunters want to see vibrant wildlife populations. we all want to see a healthy environment. the big tension has been what happens when state management falls short. in the united states systems of game and wildlife management, it's the states that are responsible for managing all of their wildlife and plants as the default. and it's only when the states fail that the endangered species act comes in.

so it's not as if the endangered species act just swoops in at random points and takes over. it's when the state management has fallen short. that's when the act steps in. and obviously the tension arises as to when is the right time to do so. we think at least that you should be precautionary. give plants the benefit of the doubt so that you protect them from declining even further. the act was passed, congress was very clear that they wanted the fish and wildlife service to list species proactively. didn't want us to wait until species were teetering at the very brink of extinction before taking action. i would say that normal hunting when done responsibly can be very compatible with conservation if we are using science to really drive that process. from one more call lawrence in new haven, connecticut. you get the final call. to -- talkust want

about the total absence of any benefit to african species of trophy hunting. if he could just address perhaps of thesive expansion wildlife, particularly endangered species but also the general different species of antelope in countries like south africa which is entirely based the conversion of exhaustive farming methods to which has allowed just huge quantities of game to flourish similar to the great success we've had in the united states with a sustainable well permitted hunting measures and just a fantastic benefit that that has brought with the expansion of the fish and wildlife service in the. host: thank you, lawrence. guest:flourish similar to the gt success we've had in the united states we could probably spend a long time talking about conservation and wildlife in africa.

country in africa you have to look at very carefully because the situation on the ground is quite different in south africa or namibia compared to zimbabwe or the democratic republic of congo. corruption, questions of that matter make it hard to overgeneralize. what i'm talking about in particular is there a trophy mays in the united states operate under the endangered species act where foreign other speciesx, are brought to the united states and restart again farms for canned hunting. thoseestion is do translate back to benefits in their home countries. data -- i don't think the data show much benefit. when it comes to something like south africa it's very different than what's being permitted here. it? probably is what do you do when you have a species like

elephants that are declining in parts of africa? affectsthe u.s. action global demand. it is very complicated. the courts of said that you should -- should not make over generalizations because they have to be shown demonstrably on the ground. that is lacking. , we want tolicated give species a benefit of the doubt because it they are gone, they're gone forever. and it the challenge replaces slightly different. this administration does not care about the facts. they are only looking at benefiting the special interests being developed in polluters. and a lot of the things the -- they do when they make these regulations.

.hat is the takeaway for thank you for joining us and your insight. >> we will be back tomorrow for a another addition of the washington journal. about -- talk to us her book titled zero hour. that is on tomorrow's washington journal, we hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend, we will see tomorrow. ♪

announcer: coming up on c-span, newsmakers is next with a democratic senator chris van hollen of maryland. after that, -- on the >> our guest on c-span's newsmaker this week's maryland senator chris van hollen. he has the responsibility for the democrats and is hoping to turn the senate blue this selection cycle. democrats are defending 26 seats this time around. 10 in states the president won in 2016. senator, thank you for being here. sen. van hollen: great to be with you. let me introduce the two reporters. >> comey introduced the two alexander covers the hill and nicolas covers the new york times. alex, you're up first. alexander: what battleground states will de t