time on c-span. in the afternoon, president trump delivers remarks at a republican party state dinner in columbus, ohio. cato institute looks at state regulations and fiscal responsibility at noon eastern. then the school superintendents association and howard university hosting a discussion on the challenges facing urban school superintendents. >> saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, live coverage of the democratic national committee summer meeting in chicago to decide on changes to presidentialse nominating process, including the role of superdelegates. watch live saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, >> coming up on "washington cbs news elections and

surveys director anthony salvanto discusses election polling and stephanie devaney with the national institutes of health on a program to gather data from americans to improve health research. ♪ host: good morning, everyone. it is friday, august 24th. we will end this week on the "washington journal" with your top stories and it begins with some of them on the table, the michael cohen plea deal and the 8 guilty counts in the case against paul manafort. yesterday, the attorney general jeff sessions pushes back against the president's criticism that he never took control of the agency. you also have the supreme court nomination judge brett kavanaugh. meetings on capitol hill and hearings slated to begin next

week. also on the table for discussion, secretary betsy devos proposing that schools use a fund set up by congress to buy guns for schools and representative duncan hunter and his wife in court yesterday for allegedly misusing campaign funds. those are some of the stories you can talk about. here are the phone numbers. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. you can also go to twitter @cspanwj for facebook.com/cspan -- or facebook.com/cspan. we will get your calls in a minute read let's begin with the president and his interview on fox news and he was asked if he knew about the payments michael cohen, his former personal lawyer, made to women alleging affairs with the president. [video clip] >> did you know about the payment? >> later on i knew. later on.

you have to understand, what they did -- what he did -- and they did not come out of campaign-finance. they came from me and i tweeted about it. i don't know if you know, i tweeted about the payments. they did not come out of campaign. my first question when i heard about it was did they come out of the campaign because that could be a little dicey and they did not come out of the campaign. host: that was the president on fox news wednesday and chuck schumer this week took republicans to task over their hen plea to the co deal and claims the president used cohen to pay off these women. [video clip] >> everyone knows that is true. no one doubts that is true. the president knows it is true, i am sure, and, yet, the republican ostrich puts its head

in the sand and ignores the day by day erosion of the american character that donald trump creates. host: that was the minority leader on the floor yesterday criticizing republicans over their reaction to the cohen plea deal. another story this week that happened earlier when the president sat down for that fox news interview and he criticized the attorney general saying he did not take control of the agency. the attorney general jeff sessions issued a rare statement saying this, "i took control of the department of justice the day we work -- i was sworn in, which is why we have unprecedented success at effectuating the president's agenda. while i am attorney general, the actions of the department of justice will not be improperly influence by political

consideration." this morning, the president was up and he tweeted this about the attorney general. "the barman not be improperly influence by political considerations -- department of justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations quoting the department -- attorney general -- " yesterday, there was speculation on capitol hill that the president could fire the attorney general after the midterm elections. senator susan collins warned that was a bad idea. senator ben sass went to the

floor yesterday and said he sent this message to the white house. [video clip] >> i think jeff sessions' statement today that the u.s. department of justice is filled with honorable, dispassionate career prosecutors who execute their job in ways the american people should be proud of is indisputably true. what he said is something that basically everyone in this body knows and agrees with and bizarrely, there are people in this body talking like the attorney general will be fired, should be fired. i am not sure how to interpret the comments of the last few hours. as a member of the judiciary committee and a member of this body, i find it difficult to envision any circumstance where i would vote to confirm a successor to jeff sessions if he is fired because he is executing his job rather than choosing to act as a partisan hack. ont: that was senator sasse

the floor. you can go to c-span.org if you want to listen to what the senator had to say. your top story of the week, some of those we just showed you that has been happening here in washington. what do all of you think about the news -- public affairs, politics? we want to get your thoughts on that. we will spend the first hour of the "washington journal" with your top news story of the week. jesse is first in indiana, independent. good morning to you. caller: good morning. i just wanted to say chuck schumer standing on the floor and making comments about trump making payments and trying to make this out like it is a moral high point for the congress when they had a slush fund that was devoted explicitly to making

payments to people for inappropriate sexual behavior. i think the hypocrisy we are seeing is horrible. you brought up jeff sessions. even with him, eric holder was probably the most crooked attorney general we had when it comes to upholding the law over playing favorites with the president that he served. john kennedy had robert in office as his attorney general and suddenly, since trump is in toice, it is wrong for him have an attorney general that is loyal to him and is going to whatsure his view of should be done in the justice department is carried out? people need to step back and

take a look at what is going on. they want to strip trump of all this power because they are afraid of what he is going to do. the problem with that is what our presidential office will be like from now on. stripped fromr is the presidency because you don't like this president, what is going to happen with the presidents here on out? i think some closer attention needs to be paid to what is going on right now. host: on that story, on the attorney general jeff sessions and president trump, "the washington post" frames it this way. trump-sessions battle intensifies and from the new york times, their story inside the paper has this quote from ,enator. -- senator john cornyn "we don't have time, nor is there a likely candidate who can

get confirmed in my view under the circumstances.:" mainer susan collins of warned that removing mr. sessions because of his refusal from the russian investigation would not be a -- recusal from his russia investigation would not be a wise move. mr. garthwaite -- a comprehensive bipartisan .riminal justice overhaul at thethursday's meeting white house, the president held at the white house, the president held off on backing the proposal until after the midterm elections including that the endorsement now carried too much political risk. this is according to a senior white house official. the presidremain committee committed to working with the senate on their proposed addition. mr. trump's notably -- decision notably aligned him with sessions and grassley in the

short term. -- open to confirming a possible replacement for him. i've got time for hearings this fall, he told reporters. senator lindsey graham, republican of south carolina hedged support for mr. sessions and said he did not necessarily object to mr. trump replacing him after the midterm elections. mr. graham previously said mr. hell" told have "holy pay if he replaced mr. sessions. neither man brought up their barbed exchange. lindsey graham is slated to become the legislative chair after mr. grassley breed that is from the "new york times" on what "the post" calls the

trump-sessions battle. josh, go ahead. caller: i don't even think it is a question. it is mollie tibbetts being murdered by an illegal alien. none of the other stories involve anyone getting hurt. it's all talk and politics. i just wonder how many people have been killed in the past 10 years by it illegal immigrants. americans have been killed and how many americans have been killed by russian nationals. the fact that this is getting sets -- such disproportionately little coverage is showing the bias of the media and this is exactly what everyone who voted thetrump is against, all political correctness and not talking about the real issues and fixing the real problems causing pain and suffering in america. host: here is one headline from the "new york times," the killing of mollie tibbetts in iowa inflames immigration debate and there is this in the washington post, immigration

looks to -- gop looks to stiff immigration policy ahead of midterms. -- believing the issue will bolster gop turnout and help to track -- the tract from the legal scandals involving the president. host: ray from pennsylvania, independent. caller: on that last caller about immigration, the republicans will never, ever get immigration off of their plate and do anything about it because it is a good issue to inflame their voters they will use year after year like abortion or anything else. i called about the tweet the president dave, the last one --ut what jeff sessions dave, the last one about what -- tweeted the president -- tweeted the president gave, the one about jeff sessions -- what jeff

sessions should do. it seems a little bit odd to me he won't say i would order you to do this stuff, jeff. independences the of the justice department and the attorney general. caller: but he can be ordered by trump to do it. he said he can order him to stop investigation. he is his boss, i don't see why he can't say i order you to do it. that is my opinion. host: tom in danville, ohio. a democrat. hi, tom. caller: first of all, that gentleman right there that right now, i want to puke all over the place with the way these republicans listen to that theynd the way are supporting. they call themselves patriots,

but we are backing a draft dodging, communist loving president who lied and lied and lied to the american people and fox news lied to him, too and that is all they are, bunch of angry americans anymore. the fact of the matter is robert mueller, who they badmouth constantly on fox news, went to vietnam just like john kerry and fought and was wounded for this country. donald trump is a draft dodger. george w. bush went to the national guard and as a former conservative republican, barry goldwater and ronald reagan and richard nixon would be rolling over in their graves. it is disgusting what these republicans are doing to this country and that is all i have to say. host: when you say disgusting what they are doing, what do you

want them to do? caller: i want them to be americans. we have had our elections basically compromised by the russians and july 4, what did we have, we had 6 republicans in moscow sitting around with the russians. if that is not telling you the republican party wants to put us under a communist order, then i don't know what there is. these people who listen to fox news are so stupid they can't distinguish between things because they look into -- listen to lou dobson and sean hannity and the one guy on nightline. you have ruined this country. host: tom, what do you listen to? what do you watch? caller: i try to watch all three of them to get a fair balance. there are some good people on fox news, chris wallace,

sheppard, they are ok. i listen to rush limbaugh and people like that. there is nothing the democrats are going to do that is going to be good and meanwhile, these people can't distinguish that our president is in bed with putin? host: i will leave it there so i can get some other voices. barney in florida, independent. caller: my top story is the mob impeached.ng to get just like the other gentleman said, the republican party running around -- hello? host: we are listening. waving what? barney, are you there? caller: yes, i am there. host: we are listening. waving what? caller: waving the american flag. look what we have got in the white house. hello? host: we are listening, you have to stop watching your television, just talked through your phone.

caller: what we have got in the white house is a draft dodger like the aroma -- the republican party walking around with the american flag, this is that. i agree with that gentleman. these are republican senators, what are they running over therefore, to get money from putin? to get him to fix this election? this is a total disgrace. host: ok, bonnie. joann, texas, republican collar. your turn. fixin'to getman is a wide awakening because these take uss are fixin' to down the road and it will be the end because all they are interested in is they pull everything on trump. they go from one extreme to the other just like these two women.

well, he paid them. let me tell you something. is an affair. people have them every day now. this world's morals are gone. so he had an affair. those two young gals are not an affair. they took money, they are prostitutes, they should be arrested in the united states of america. they arrest prostitutes on the street every day of the week. why? they are taking money to sell their body. that is what those two old gals did. they are prostitutes. they are sluts and the democrats ss, weying " oh my goodne have got to do something." they are doing it all right. they have nothing good to say about anybody. usa today" their opinion,

the silence of republicans speaks volumes. paging all republican members of congress, please report to the front desk to collect your spines. you will need them to defend the rule of law against the president who is the holding to the truth. might we suggest now would be a good time to do this. formernt donald trump's fixer, michael cohen, implicated the president in a federal crime. cohen said than candidate trump -- then candidate trump directed him to make such money payments 2016men before the election. in prior years republicans have demonstrated no such reluctance to hold the white house accountable so long as it was occupied by democrats. imagine if barack obama or hillary clinton had been credibly accused of directing illegal payments to cover up affairs and a pride voters of

potentially -- deprive voters of potentially -- information? there is credible evidence of criminal wrongdoing by the president, party leaders sit mute and meek. the opposing view from dan backer, the founding attorney of there is now says fire here, there isn't even smoke. why should congress perpetuate this witchhunt? the mueller investigation went from chasing collusion to chasing down paul manafort and michael cohen's transgressions. however justified, i'll politically motivated, the underlying prosecutions of manafort and cohen may be, they stem from business dealings long before there was a trump campaign.

underlying prosecutionsthere ise isn't even any smoke. in the face of a booming economy, the left is running out of ways to attack president trump and hoping he won't notice. randy in california, democrat. what do you think? caller: i want to thank you for being such a great host and the other employees that work for c-span because it is a great source of information. i am 60 years old and two weeks ago i had to reregister because i moved and i had to put the box for democrat because i was a proud republican when i was 18 years old when i became a republican and voted for ronald reagan twice. things have changed so much in nbc,country that i watch msnbc, cnn, fox. i get diverse news that i am acquainted to and i see a huge change happening in this country

and i see that the republican leadership is just not standing up for what the true values are bighis country and i see a blue wave happening and that is all i have to say. thank you very much. host: micky in milwaukee, independent. you are on the air. caller: thank you for taking my call. in response to the lady who said prostitutes get arrested, the john gets arrested as well. it is not a one-way street. now you have the new york attorney general's office looking into the trump organization for illegal payments made to these women and there are possibly more than two. now you have the payments made to michael cohen as a legal deductednd invoice and as an expense where it was hush money. people need to realize what was done. this was not just paid to

somebody to be quiet, that is not illegal. it was made in the wrong amortization under tax return -- on the tax return and it was keep somebodyo quiet during campaigns, so it is illegal. my main thing to call is with president trump attacking jeff sessions all the time, he wants to have the type of rule of law that is in russia, that people work for putin. he says shut down this publication and it gets shutdown. when he says imprisoned this journalist, he gets imprisoned. everyone works for donald trump, not the american people. he wants jeff sessions to do to do. what he tells him shutdown the mueller case, do whatever is agreeable to donald trump. and for republicans who continue to support him with that disaster news conference in helsinki on labor day, why don't

you hang a hammer and sickle flag in your front lawn and take down the star-spangled -- banner? host: floyd in virginia, republican. caller: good morning. i would like to say when you first come on you were talking about guns in a school pre-to thank god we are the first county in virginia, only county i know of in virginia that arms their teachers. thank god for that. they will be right there to protect our children and we thank god for that. also, you were talking about the democrats getting on and talking about the kids that was took away from their parents in mexico on the border. they don't care a thing about abortion. i wonder how many kids was killed this past week in abortion clinics. 60 million babies have been killed in america and democrats do not care.

they will vote for those abortion clinics where they kill babies. it is premeditated murder and they need to open their eyes. host: on the stories about -- story about guns and schools, "the new york times" had it on the front page. lawmakers had in mind a pile of money that would increase access to mental health, art and music, at the most impoverished schools. back to back school shootings this year have prompted education secretary, betsy devos , to examine whether it will allow schools to tap the school in richmond fund for another purpose and that would be guns -- school enrichment fund for and that would

be guns. congress passed school safety bill that allocated money for the school district, buttocks and that would be guns. illicitly -- explicitly -- devos --. duval -- ms. times" "the new york let's go to john in florida, independent. caller: good morning. first i want to state i respect c-span. they give a voice for everyone, not just cnn for left or fox for the right. i am an independent and i grew up in a family of democrats, but i learned. i worked for nasa in a physics lab and i think the younger --eration getting over to donald trump, i

have various certificates from the college because they teach the constitution. i voted for trump because i am a ted cruz guy, but he did not get in. i would never vote for hillary clinton. she is the most corrupt individual around. one last thing i would like to say is trump is not against media. he is against fox news -- fake news. mostch fox, fox is the consistent, open, free speech news channel you have on television. i appreciate c-span. you have a great day. host: sort of related to what you are talking about, the president also tweeted this this morning, responding to attorney general jeff sessions' statement yesterday. he said ex-nsa contractor to spend time in jail. who is the nsa contractor

leaked the report about russia trying to hack into the florida election system. the president goes on to say this is small potatoes compared to what hillary clinton data. so unfair, jeff, double standard . that is what the president is saying about that nsa contractor. the judge sentenced this former contractor to what prosecutors suggested to send a message to other contractors and others in the intelligence community that you do not leak that type of classified information. any classified information. let's go to peter in canada. independent. good morning to you. caller: fine, how are you? host: doing well. caller: good morning, america. i think donald trump is great. i think you needed a non-politician to come out and drain the swamp. host: do you think he has done

that because his critics say he hasn't? caller: i think we have watched d onlistened and opine donald trump's critics every day, 24 hours a day for 18 months. i am kind of at the point where himsh you would impeach because then, perhaps, we could get news about hundreds of ofests raping thousands children. of american bombs blowing up school buses and chasing children in the poorest country in the world. you can say what you want about beend, but there has thousands and thousands of human traffickers that have been put behind bars. thousands of children saved. you look at your phony stock

market and all the rest of that stuff, it is great. we don't hear anything about that. our gosh -- all we are hearing are these billionaire businessmen from new york indiscretions with women of ill repute. there was one woman who said it best, that in her age, these women would have crawled back into the gutter where they belong. host: fred, new york, republican. caller: hello, this is fred. thank you for c-span. double understand the standard that goes on continuously between the democrats and what they are saying about president trump. i don't agree with any of these -- it is a moral problem in the whole united states as well as the world and it has been going on for years.

had problems with women before he even got elected president and even paid women off. how much money has clinton spent paying off women? how much money has the clinton foundation taken in from the russian collusion that went on with them has been so apparent and nobody talks about it. if fox wasn't on, we would never hear anything about what the clintons have done or even john f. kennedy, look at what is going on in the white house as far as the problem with women. even with marilyn monroe and they think this ought to bring down impeachment on this president that has done nothing like that while he has been and hent at this point took this country and made us see the corruption that is going on in washington, d.c. more than we even realized within the senate and the congress, within

the cia and the fbi. the top-tier 6 men in the fbi have been rotten. the things they are doing, they did support hillary clinton more than they wanted donald trump. we want have heard of none of this stuff. --would have never known host: we will go to andrew in chicago, a democrat. greta. hi, how are you? host: good morning. caller: my big story of the work rourk in el paso, texas. he is running a bit -- against ted cruz and there was a to him yesterday about kneeling during the national anthem and he give a great response to it talking

about civil rights and he went into a lot of detail, rosa parks making it from the back of the bus from the front. this man is bright and intelligent. he interacts. i don't know if texas will ever 4 blue, but if you could take questionnd show his and answer he gave to everyone, republicans, democrats, independents, i think a lot of people will say he really hit it cruz right and ted away went after him that most texans think it is disrespectful and he explained in detail why it is not and i did not want to say and say i hate republicans or democrats or anything, i just wanted to call to interject my thoughts on what beto o'rourke

said yesterday. host: i am sure people can find it if they google that exchange as well. let's hear from mario in fairfax, virginia, independent. we are asking folks what is your top news story of the week? what is it, mario? caller: thank you for taking my call and thank you for c-span. a couple of things came up, but my actual top news story i had before i heard the comments earlier is we have the unfortunate murder of ms. tibbetts. the media coverage is unfortunately illegal -- inflaming as illegal immigrants come here and do horrible acts. there is good and bad on both sides. unfortunately, a lot of people that you listen to today, these are the people calling in.

hear that some people think people who come over here to try to build their lives and end up improving their lives, as evidenced by my own family in the past and i am a natural citizen. i have relatives and long-distance cousins that have come here a long time ago and made beautiful things in america. business owners. i think there is a view of illegal immigrants and get them out of here and people are trying to pacify this -- the issue with we will only take out the bad illegal immigrants. there is bad everywhere. in colorado there is a gentleman who killed his entire family and it is a caucasian white american man and that is not getting any coverage. but therean excuse, needs to be fair coverage. i think people need to look a

perspective and get a little longer before they make such comments that are not helpful. host: ok, maria. some other -- mario. some other stories you probably heard is the hurricane bearing down on hawaii. fema with a couple of tweets. "hawaii, if you don't live in a flood prone area, prepare to shelter in place. if you do, prepare for the possibility of moving to a .earby shelter to find locations, text "shelter" and your zip code." jim in delaware, republican. .aller: good morning, greta

i think the big story this week is the fact that we still see a corrupt prosecutor and a corrupt new york federal court. this manafort thing was investigated and dropped years statute ofer the limitation went on and they brought these charges out of nowhere because of his association with donald trump. deal, he never really had a day in court. they showed him evidence and made him plead guilty -- allowed him to plead guilty to some crazy charge and they never really had anybody give any testimony about it. lifeied to cover his own by being allowed to go to this lesser charge and it shows how corrupt this whole investigation just draggedle are up and probably having their

civil rights violated and the country's rights violated to find out really what was going on with michael cohen. the continued derangement continues in this country when it comes to the way justice is the biggest story of the week. host: just a couple of other stories on that. "the wall street journal" publishing ceo got immunity. in exchange for immunity, david pecker met with prosecutors and shared details about the two women's alleged sexual encounters with mr. trump. with the testimony, prosecutors have statements from at least two people. a story abouts the paul manafort case, manafort jurors say there was a holdout. one holdout juror kept paul

manafort from being convicted of all 18 tax and bank fraud counts. the juror said in an interview on fox news that the evidence in the case against the former trump campaign chairman was overwhelming and that the other jurors try to persuade the lone holdout to convict on all counts . the jury voted tuesday to counts mr. manafort on 8 jurors were deadlocked on the remaining 10 counts, many of which were similar to those under which mr. manafort was convicted. "i did not want paul manafort to be guilty" but he was" said no one. prosecutors had until august 29 to decide whether to retry mr. manafort on the 10 counts. illinois.o perry in

caller: hello and thank you so much for having c-span present a comprehensive view of our political arena. i am very disappointed. vietnamhe non--- i am a veteran and the son of a world war ii veteran and we have lineage going back all the way to the first world war. i had uncles that fought in the first world war. the reason i am calling is i think there are some moral dilemmas that have to be addressed, family issues. if we look at what was stated in the media in reference to trump's relationship with women with the bush son who just lost his wife through divorce. the way he described those women. i have a daughter and two

granddaughters. the way he described those women should not have even been described in the private area of a home and he made jokes out of it. we used to sit -- sit around as a family and discuss politics as it relates to how it will affect our family later on in life. the whole nine yards. can you really sit down with the family and extrapolate which values this individual is making for our society to look well here in the united states and abroad? i don't see it with him, i don't think it is coming. races.crates the indian i am talking about natural american indians. he definitely degradation the african-american race through

our politicians and even calls our women dogs. if you look at the comparison of ladyast presidential first , you cannot call any woman a notwithout actually -- i am even going to go that way. he is a disgrace to our society. i am sorry. host: george, what do you think. the top story of the week is our discussion. caller: first of all, i want to thank c-span. i used to watch all three of the propaganda channels, and -- msnbc, cnn, and fox. i would like to make a comment no what else heard. i have never heard a political comment from any of the hosts on c-span and i cannot tell you how refreshing that is. as far as the cohen trial, what the republicans keep saying is

the corrupt justice department. arguably, the most conservative republican in this country heads the justice department and sets the policies of the justice department. why doesn't that get mentioned? the other thing is they keep bringing up bill clinton. if memory serves me right, there were articles of impeachment filed against bill clinton. if they want president trump treated the same way bill clinton was, file articles of impeachment. thank you for your time. host: headline of the "washington times," did trump make payments from campaigns or to hide affairs? .n expert calls the law murky this is from "the washington times." a legal fellow at the heritage foundation and a former member of the election committee said it is highly unlikely the

government could prove the payments were campaign related. the justice department's policy under democratic and republican administrations has been to delay indictment until after a president leaves office. if the fcc operate as normal, it will take four to five years. operate as normal, it will take four to five years. morningstory here this that many of you may have heard of out of california involving congressman duncan hunter and his wife. duncan hunter junior, many of you, c-span watchers will probably remember his father served in congress for many years and was a member of the armed services committee. the headline in the "washington post" duncan hunter embraces

smash mouth tactics. it learn -- it says overshadowed development in the indictment -- he and his wife allegedly using $250,000 in campaign expenses. he will not agree to give up his committee assignments, resisting pressure from paul ryan. he is seeking reelection. roll call has the story that duncan hunter's veil was set at $15,000 yesterday. -- bail was set at $15,000 yesterday. say toe senator had to reporters is "this is modern politics and modern media mixed with law enforcement that has a political agenda. this is the democrats' arm of law enforcement. it is happening with trump. it is happening with me.

they can try to have a political agenda as we see with former fbi .gent peter strzok let them expose themselves for what they are, a politically motivated group of folks. " the younger hunter is accused of buying stuff for himself, including hawaiian shorts and claiming the money was spent to help wounded warriors. these charges were brought by the u.s. attorney's office, led by trump appointee adam braverman. jeff sessions installed braverman last year. one federal judge was appointed by george h. w. bush and the others were appointed by george w. bush. jim in mississippi, independent. top story of the week. good morning to you. caller: i was going to comment on manafort and the cohen and dykeman's, but i see that has already been covered, so i

, but i seendictments that has already been covered. i will read a tweet from trump "i have asked -- the large-scale killing of farmers. south african government is seizing land from white farmers." this was a very interesting issue and very sad that president trump is trying to put his hand in the race in this because it is patently false. the number of killings of white south african farmers has plummeted over the past five to 10 years and it is in the lowest level in 20. he is really galvanizing the white supremacists in south africa and there is a tweet from the south african government saying that this is intentionally trying to divide the south african nation and

distracting the south african people and the american people from the criminal conspiracies going on within his administration, setting up racial strife so that criminality is ignored. the one thing i want to say is maybe the biggest story every week under the trump administration is this undertone that is just under the veil of theousness, just under public eye, which is this white supremacist, white people are under threat and we need to protect them lie. host: let me show our viewers the story you are referencing. it is front page of the "new york times." presidential tweet on wednesday appeared to be the culmination of a lengthy lobbying effort by a right wing south african group that falsely claims white farmers are being

forced off their land and killed . the leaders traveled to washington this year to press their case. our viewers can read more of that in the papers. let's go back to a previous caller who asked us to play this moment with beto o'rourke. against senator ted cruz. beto o'from twitter of rourke responding to a question about kneeling at nfl protests. [video clip] >> a tough issue if we don't talk about it is not going to get better and the question is how do you feel about nfl players who take a knee during the national anthem and is it disrespectful to this flag and the country and service members here tonight in afghanistan and former service members here with us today. thank you each for your service. my short answer is no, i don't

think it is disrespectful. [applause] trying to make sure i get this right because i think it is a very important question and reasonable people can disagree on this issue. let's begin and it makes them no less american to come down on a different conclusion on this issue, right? as i do or as a young man does and you are every bit as american. someone mentioned reading the taylor branch book, "parting waters in the key years." when you read that book and find out what dr. king and this nonviolent peaceful movement to secure veterans -- because they did not -- they did not get full , civil rights for their fellow americans. the challenges they faced, those who died in philadelphia, mississippi for the crime of trying to be a man, trying to be

a woman in this country, the young girls who died in the church bombing, those who were beaten within an inch of their life crossing the bridge in selma, alabama, with john lewis. those who were punched in the face, spat upon, and dragged out r are sitting at a counter with white people in the same country where their fathers may have bled the same blood on the battlefields of omaha beach or okinawa or anywhere anyone ever served this country. the freedoms we have were purchased not that -- not just by those in uniform, but also by those who took their lives into their hands riding those greyhound buses. riders who knew say it -- who knew so well they would be arrested, and they

were, serving time in the mississippi state penitentiary. peaceful, nonviolent protests, including taking a knee at a football game to point out that blackmen, unarmed teenagers, unarmed, and black children, unarmed, are being killed at a frightening level right now, including by members of law enforcement without accountability and without justice. this problem, as grade as it is it is, is not going to be fixed -- unable to resolve this or bring justice for what has been done and stop it from continuing to happen in this country. nonviolently, peacefully, while the eyes of this country are watching these games, they take any to bring our attention and focus to this problem to ensure we fix it. i can think of nothing more

american than some -- to peacefully stand up or take a knee for your right anytime, anywhere, any place. thank you very much for asking the question. host: senate candidate beto o rourke and that tweet was sent out by this organization, that is the tweet that went viral. senator ted cruz with this tweet "most texans stand for the flag, but hollywood liberals are so siding with beto is players that kevin bacon just retweeted it. that means all of us can now win six degrees of kevin bacon" caller: thank you for taking my call. my story of the week is the book "house of trump: house of putin." it's the untold story of donald trump and the russian mafia and it really lays out how involved

trump has been with the russians even as a young man building, creating his buildings and how he worked with the russian mafia in this country and it is really an eye-opener. and also, that leads to why did trump spend two ours alone with putin when he went to russia if he isn't colluding with the russians? host: what do you want the democratic leadership to do? them to take back so that they -- will have more power to deal with some of these issues.

-- these issues with trump and how terrible the republican leadership has been. host: do you want democrats to pursue impeachment? caller: i think that they should that sets theg country right. i think trump has no business being in office. i mean, he hasn't even released his taxes at all. what is he hiding? i ask because of this headline in the washington times, democrats feel heat as liberals fan flames of trump impeachment. meetocratic billionaire's wondering campaign --

why the latest developments of guilty pleas and convictions aren't enough evidence for leaders to get on the impeachment train. whether we like it, want it, or oppose it, the november elections will be about impeachment. party leaders are determined not they baited into a fight don't want, but they also need to fan the flames of antipathy, feeding the impeachment push to keep voters engaged. nancy pelosi says impeachment is not a priority. senator richard durbin of illinois said it is premature to go down that route. dorothy, cleveland, ohio. democrat. greta. callerhi, i just wanted to say trump is -- for usand he has to be going through this as a country with this man and all

this corruption that is going on , all the racial animosity that is going on, children who are lost from their parents at the border. parents are deported . they don't know where the mothers, the fathers, nothing is. all this man has done since he has been in office is give him and his cronies a tax cut. he has -- he has destroyed our relationship in the world. most of our allies are against mostnd we are in the darkest part of our country's history. hopefully, some of these republicans in the house and senate will get some backbone and put a check to this president. i hope in november there is a

to bring we can try back some normandy to this country and i am just sorry that these people that voted for him can take their head out of the sand long enough to see what this country is going through and where we are headed and i just hope all americans, whether you are republican or democrat, stand up for the moral high ground of this country and not yet -- not let us road down a path we will not return from. host: ok, dorothy, i will leave it there. just another story to share with you. gop pollster says brett kavanaugh, the supreme court, -- nominee, is popular in senate battlegrounds. -- wanted their senators to

support supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. research found people in indiana, west virginia, and north dakota want senators to confirm the high court nominee. joe donnelly of indiana, joe manchin of west virginia and heidi heitkamp are all up for reelection this fall. the poll taken in mid august taken by a group working to confirm brent cobb in a -- brett kavanaugh found 23% of voters do not want him confirmed. indiana was 46% of voters and west virginia, 51% want him confirmed compared to 32% in opposition. ed in winchester, virginia, independent. good morning to you. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. my top story of the week is -- his campaign promise to drain the swamp. -- it iseing right now

his justice department that is draining the swamp of republicans. i don't know why everyone he is keeping a campaign promise to us and he is draining the swamp. the republican party is crumbling before america right now. ande he became elected sessions to cover the justice department, they are finding republicans -- let's take paul manafort -- he has worked for this campaign and worked for that campaign. to me, that says republicans don't vet their people very well. if they know paul manafort does don't vet andthey they like this want -- the

swamp. host: do you think the president should defend paul manafort as a good guy in tweets? caller: greta, there is not anything that donald trump says that i can agree with. i think donald trump is scared. let's take watergate. nixon was not charged with breaking into the watergate. he was charged with covering up the watergate. now, we don't know where this investigation is going to lead. he is the one that says there is no collusion with me, there is no collusion with me. maybe there was no collusion with him, but he knew about the meeting with the russians in trump tower. his crime could very well be covering up what others were

doing with the russians. we don't know that. i'm not saying donald trump conspired with the russians. we don't know that. what i see is the swamp is filled with republicans and then you go and they talk to the republican senators and they are defending the swamp. we've got senators being thrown out, we've got congressman being caught spending campaign money. how many democrats as jeff sessions pulled out of the swamp since trump has been elected? not very many. we've got to run because we are going to change our conversation. up next, the science of political polling. salvanto.

the author of "where did you get this number?" later, the national institutes tells us doctor about a voluntary program aimed at improving medical research. we will be right back. >> tonight at eight :00 eastern, the senate hearing on prioritizing cures. >> a special project on spinal muscular atrophy, a tragic .isease gene therapy was recently tested for sma and 15 infants with severe disease. these are infants not expected to survive more than 15 months.

over the next few months, something truly dramatic happened. evelyn, 100% of the kids who got the highest dose of gene therapy were alive at 20 months. nearly all could talk and feed themselves, and some like evelyn, who is now three and a half, not only can talk and walk, but she can do push-ups. >> tonight at 8:00 p.m. on c-span. [chanting] >> one of the most qualified nominees ever picked for the supreme court. he has contributed a great deal to his community and the legal profession besides being an outstanding judge on the d c

circuit court of appeals. has a specialaugh obligation to make his views on this topic clear given the president's litmus test that he would only appoint judges who would overturn roe. on that obligation, judge kavanaugh failed spectacularly. >> i look forward to watching judge kavanaugh's confirmation hearing and after conducting a thorough review of his nomination, i'm confident that judge kavanaugh will be an excellent addition to our nation's highest court. senateh day one of the confirmation hearing for supreme court nominee brad cavanagh, tuesday, september 4 on c-span3. >> "washington journal" continues. host: anthony salvanto is that our desk this morning. he is the election survey

director at cbs news and the author of this new book, "where did you get this number?" thanks for being here. guest: thanks for having me. host: before we start about the last time around, the president last night was tweeting about the next election. i want to share with our viewers what he had to say on twitter. he is tweeting this out last night around midnight and he was referencing stories, re-tweeting from dan scavino, jr. pulls re-tweeting a 2020 -- poll. out -- also tweeted your reaction. guest: i did not see the tweet, i'm hearing you tell me about it. one of the things i always caution people about looking at 2020 polls.

it is a long way away. i'm old enough to remember when jeb bush was leading in the polls for the republican presidential nomination and that was in 2015. when people see those kinds of polls, they don't often say, those polls were wrong or off, because we know that things change and the dynamics change, and we know that polls like that , especially now looking ahead to 2020, are often name id polls . no one is going to pick a name they don't know, they're going to pick the most known name. i'm just trying to get through 2018. host: too early? guest: it's too early. host: when would you start. guest: that depends on when the campaign dynamics really start. like any poll number, you want to measure something that is based on what people are actually seeing and how they might actually make their voting choice.

i've got my hands full with 2018. host: you are focused on 2018. -- headline from your book why the blue wave is unlikely. guest: we saw the house moving toward the democrats over the summer, but what i want to say regardless of headline is that we have got the house right now at 222 seats for the democrats, that is our best estimate when we look at the competitive races. but there is a margin of error around that. that margin of error is 11 seats to either side. that is 5% of the house. it encompasses the possibility that republicans hold the house. we have seen it edged toward democrats over the summer. the house is in play. is in flux and we

are going to watch it. we have two months to go. one of the things i caution and i say this in the book is don't treat any poll like it is a prediction of the future. treat it like it is a read on the dynamics of what is happening now and look at what are the moving parts, what are the things that could change, because things i most always do. host: what about the senate? guest: the senate map as the democrats defending seats in a lot of states that voted for president trump. their map is harder comparably in the senate than it is in the house. you go state to state and you look at north dakota, you look at missouri, we've got competitive races for democrats in those places that they have to hang onto. we see a competitive race in florida, as well. that map gets a little trickier for them.

there are a couple possible pickup opportunities for democrats. most folks agree on arizona might be one which will certainly be in play. overall, what has happened is partisan straight-line voting has just increased and increased and, these days, more than nine out of 10 republicans vote for republicans, democrats vote for democrats. when people like me look at these races, one of the first things we look at is how did they vote in the presidential election? we know that all of those folks are probably going to stay with their party and that creates the baseline. that is why i say it is a red state and a blue state and that is where that idea comes from and it starts where how people pave. host: what could make a blue wave happen if those people stick to how they voted in 2016? guest: one of the first things is turnout. what happens is when you look at congressional voting and i'm thatmost folks realize

incumbents get reelected no matter what people think of congress. many districts are lopsided to one side or the other. more than 60% voting democrat or republican. so, we look at those competitive house districts and what i see article of patterns. they are comparably -- they have more people with college degrees on average and they are little more affluent than average. those are the kinds of voters the democrats have been trying to put in play. so far, we see them tilting a little bit toward the democrats. but the other thing about them is that they are from coast to coast, they are in the suburbs primarily. we see them from new jersey to california, we've got a few in the suburbs of texas, dallas, houston, etc. they are in political battlegrounds that we don't often see in a presidential election. so, it is sort of a new set of competitive territories in that regard.

finally, turnout. we are we say it all comes down to turnout, but the fact is that in the polling anyway, the democrats are dependent to some degree on bringing out people who don't typically vote in midterm elections. midterms, you might see something around 40% turnout, less than half of eligible voters. that will have to go up, that will have to be people who might vote in presidential years, but don't vote in midterms, to kind of change that midterm dynamic because the more habitual voters are often a little older and more conservative. host: what about republicans? what do they have to do to hold off losing control of the house and the senate? what issues for both parties polled well to energize their base and get new people who would not necessarily vote in midterms to come out? guest: those things are intertwined. the economy, people say the economy is good.

so historically, you might say, well that would favor the party in power. in these districts, people do say the economy and local areas are good. the question becomes are they voting on it? often times what we are seeing now is that there is a large gender gap, where women are preferring democrats, men republicans. , those those women moderate women, a small number of the republican women who are more undecided appeared to be voting in part on the president. to what degree he becomes a factor as opposed to voting on the economy is sort of any central thing to watch going forward. host: so, that works for both democrats and republicans, either voting against or for the president? guest: in midterm, we also see -- often see a president be a factor. they are "on the ballot."

thisfinitely see it in one. for those who feel the president is a factor and are voting against him, there is a -- the people voting against them are saying, they don't like how he handles himself personally. people voting for him say regardless of that, they like how he is managing the government. again, it is what kind of line of thinking raises to the top of mind, that is the key thing to watch. host: why should people trust you and other pollsters after the 2016 election? how are you doing things differently this time around? guest: it starts by explaining very transparently and in plain english what it is that we do. that is one of the things i try to do by writing the book. often times with predictions, with the forecasters. do a differento thing. i don't presume to tell you what you are going to think. you should judge me on whether

or not i can explain the way people think right now. if i do a good job of that, it is because folks think that i've asked the right questions, that i've framed the issues. people can pick an answer and say, yes, that is how i feel or that is how i feel. or if they hear me describe somebody that doesn't agree with iem, they say, i get it, understand why somebody thinks differently from me. and the fact that things can change. the science of it is part of the thing that we have got to describe. i think that i always get the question, how do you talk to 1000 people and know the country? i think that underpins a lot of the skepticism. and very fairly. we all make decisions based on the things we see around us, but there is a whole world of people that we don't get to talk to. how do we do that?

what i've described for folks is we create the nation in microcosm. when we take a sample, what george gallup another pollsters in, week create the nation miniature. if we don't talk to you, then we have talked to somebody like you and they have represented you in the poll. folks say, there is no one like me. everyone is special, they've got the run experiences. that's true. on the broad brush strokes that we use in doing the polls, do you think the economy is good or bad? are you voting for the democrat or the republican? we can find someone who would answer the questions the same way that you would. a republican, there are tens of millions of people like you in that regard. democrats, same thing. there are tens of millions of other such folks. they represent you in the polls. that is the science behind how we do it. what i want to convey is that if we do call you, then you are

very special to us and you will represent all of the people who are like you. host: so don't hang up? [laughter] guest: i hope not. it has gotten harder to find people. no question about it. we have to dial thousands more numbers now then pollsters did 10 or 20 years ago. people are busier, we have moved a lot online. we have moved interviewing online because it is private, faster, and that is one of the things i want to walk people through. we now have to work a little harder to find you, but it is still our mission to do that. host: the phone lines are lighting up. the book is "where did you get this number?: naples to her to making sense of the world." the phone lines. .epublicans, (202) 748-8001 democrats, (202) 748-8000.

.ndependents, (202) 748-8002 urt.s go to k caller: i've been reduced to trying to read facial expressions. i would say, greta, you are awesome. what are the primary motive so pollsters? me what political affiliation you represent in your voting booth? that i truly believe is the undermining factor that minions and deplorable's like myself are being trained and coerced to read that as rough question. thank you so much for i don't know what political affiliation you may be. host: i will take it first to say that i'm not going to tell you because it doesn't matter, the host of the show, the people who sit in this chair, our job

is to moderate the conversation in a neutral way and allow both sides to be heard of the conversation. that is the rule that we play -- role that we play and it is an important one. guest: my job is to listen to you, the american people. , and i doll questions it well, it's got a place where everyone can go. if you take the poll and you see that question, you were going to say, that's my answer, i get that one. ,hat is the science of pulling it is the science of measuring how people feel and when we do that in questions, we try to give, we do give everybody a home and a place to go. when we represent people in the polls, we should be describing people of a range of viewpoints. we should be describing everybody as they are. i think sometimes the misunderstanding comes because if folks see a poll and they

said the majority may be disagrees with them or the , ofteny agrees with them times, we all associate and hang out with people who might agree with us more than disagree with us. that might just be how we choose our friends or social circle. oftentimes, that leads to confusion because people say to me, nobody i know feels that way. that may be the case, but then again, you might not necessarily be talking to the folks that we are talking to because we have been calling her surveying online people from all walks of life and all over the country. and thank you for your question. host: thomas, a democrat in texas. caller: good morning, america, again. you wrote a book on this? president, youme know there was going to be a republican. radio.the a.m.

listen to rush limbaugh, hannity, and the rest of them. i said, trump is going to be president. host: are you saying that because we had a democrat, because we had president obama, the pendulum was naturally going to swing? caller: of course. if you listen to rush limbaugh. [indiscernible] caller: it started way long before that. guest: the book is on how we do how we try to understand what people are thinking. it is an attempt to tell you where your numbers come from, why it is that you see something at 95% or 2% that you happen to see.

the political dynamics. the back-and-forth, you could read where that is going more you follow the polls or read the polls like the pros do and hopefully, that is helpful. how can somebody tell if a poll is a good one? has to be that microcosm of the country. got to have the balance of republicans and democrats. a lot of people think that we don't call cell phones. good call cell phones and phone polls do call cell phones. we call mostly folks on cell phones. the way we put the sample together is often indicative of whether or not a poll is done well, at least on the phone. online, same thing.

the same thing, the microcosm of the country. a good pollster should tell you how they put the sample together. often times, it is up to us in the news when we present the poll to you, that we have vetted andwe have looked at it said that balances right, the demographics are correct, it's got that right mix, that right regional makes -- mix, so that , thatresent it to you means i have done some of that legwork for you. host: what does the margin of error tell you? and is it indicative of a good or bad poll if someone looks that --should they look at the margin of error? guest: absolutely. 66% of peoplet say the economy is good. nobody ever says to me, it is no, you are way wrong, it is 64%.

there is a margin of error on the estimate. people want to know if they think the economy is good, but i and put that on the a 51%, 49%d say race, there is uncertainty there. and they say,that you can't tell me who is ahead or behind. but that is the limits of what we can do, quite candidly. we are going to have an estimate that has that range around it, such that as i described in the book, if we were to repeat the poll again and again, the estimate would keep falling in that range. the good news about the margin of error is think of it as a byproduct of the fact that when right way, wehe

have ruled out extreme numbers come the idea of being way off. , the trueght number population number, might be within that range, and that is as well as we can do. host: where was the margin of error in the 2016 general election heading into election day? the days, the weeks before. guest: one of the things that lead to confusion is that the national polls turned out to be very good. the national polls rebut -- reflecting the national popular vote. sometimes, a number can be accurate, but not tell us the right story. in the 2016 case, the real story turned out to be these late swings in the upper midwest, specifically in wisconsin and michigan and to some extent

pennsylvania. what i sort of draw away from that as a lesson is now, make sure we do our polling focused in on the places that could swing, and try to tell you that story. i wish i had done more polling in michigan and wisconsin. i did not in october. that is one place where even now, for 2018, when i talk about my house estimates in the house races, i'm doing that polling very specifically in the competitive house districts and the ones that could move. one is to try to carry forward for folks this lesson and say, focus on the places that could swing. i already see and i see out there now that there are still the house.lls for people probably watch this show and following this, they's the national generic ballot. that is not necessarily reflective of what is going to happen.

it might be accurate in that it is measuring what people are saying nationwide, but in that national number, you are talking to people from outside the districts that are going to swing. and translating that into what would happen and the who wins. something that people debate and there is not a straightforward way to do it. use caution when you see the national generic ballot and focus in on the places that could move. host: let's go to jerry in wisconsin. a republican. caller: good morning. just listening to your comments about the more intensive polling in the upper midwest, i'm calling from wisconsin. to ask whethered you felt that people who are using blocking apps for telemarketers might be interfering with your polling numbers. i always participated in polls each year when they would call in. get flooded with

telemarketing calls. i've set up an app on my cable-tv provider that will block telemarketers, but it is blocking everything that is coming in. i have not received one single poll call that made it through the blocking app this year. those appse who set up, did they lean one way or the other? guest: thank you, a terrific question. , ifor that particular app don't know. i can tell you this. often times, the people are harder to find our younger and they are more mobile. the reason for that is that they are not necessarily at home as much, they are not necessarily setting up a telephone or landline. phones, but not necessarily answering them.

we look at the composition of the folks that we missed in our polling, the people that said no or the kinds of numbers that did not respond, and pollsters often find it is the younger and more mobile population that is harder to reach. on a broader point, no matter what the technology is, they often times -- we often times have to dial many more numbers than we used to in order to find people. so, if we can't reach you, i've got to work harder and the phone tom has to work even harder go find somebody who would answer the survey in wisconsin like you would have. that is a question for us -- challenge for us. one of the ways we are addressing it is to do this online. as people join and participate in surveys online, we set up those panels along with our go andand we actually

create a representative sample and then those folks can take it online. you can take it on your smart phone. people whous get to might need to do it quicker or might feel like they need to do it privately. in a broader sense, we have to follow where people go. move from land lines to cell phones, we went to cell phones. as phones got harder and harder, people went online, we have gone online. one of the stories that i want to tell is we need to keep going where people go, that is what beta pollsters do. host: we will go to massachusetts. robert is watching, democrat. caller: good morning, america. the polls don't mean nothing. the polls don't mean nothing. we are in a constitutional crisis. .ou have manafort, cohen

indicted. the polls don't mean nothing. host: what do you mean, the polls don't mean nothing? caller: freedom of the press. if you take the freedom of the press, polls don't mean nothing. polls don't mean nothing. --n you have robert mueller robert mueller is a great man. mueller has his daughter's taxes, he has ivanka's taxes. everything, he knows about the dark money he knows about the dossier. host: but what is your point about what you are saying and how it is related to the polls? caller: that is the problem.

it is the polls. it is not the real deal. host: ok. guest: well, you know, pollsters have long argued that there is a place in a democracy for having people have a place to express their voice. to say but they are thinking and feeling. regardless of what happens in politics and what folks are doing in congress and what have you, that there is a place where we can go and measure what the general public is thinking and feeling. in a democracy, everybody hopes or thinks elected officials are at least partially responsive to that. pollsters have long argued, before me, that that obviously out to be the case.

where we have a situation people tell us that conversations are getting harder to have. there is increasing polarization, animosity between democrats and republicans. there is a next her component to that. in some ways, we are looking at the poll and maybe helping us to understand what the other side is thinking and the reason that people are thinking as they are. some of the things outlined in the book are the amount of mistrust that each site has that is not necessarily warranted. when you listen to people, there are a lot more things in common that you might not realize. maybe in some sense giving people that voice helps to have a conversation.

host: a couple of headlines to share with you. jumping off of that call. " -- democrats seize on corruption is a midterm issue. this morning in the "washington times," democrats feel heat as liberals fan flames of trump impeachment. you have tom stier, the democrat billionaire, running need to impeach campaign ads. then you have republicans with this headline in the washington post, skipping immigration policy ahead of the midterms. are these wedge issues? how did they pull? guest: that is one of those things that i'm sort of -- i don't know yet. we don't know yet. this news has just come out this week. one of the things pollsters always caution is give people a chance to digest it, then go to their sources and put it in context or perspective.

one of the things that i've seen so far, i was just talking about partisan lines. no better example than this, the russia investigation. right from the get go, we have seen republicans, republicans say they think it is politically motivated. i've even tested the term witchhunt and they are echoing it, they are responding to the president's messaging on this. they say it is a witchhunt. it is interesting that when they hear the president criticized, that they feel they want to defend him. he certainly has a strong base of supporters that sees this that he is under more pressure than previous presidents in their view. democrats say this is a critical matter of national security.

those numbers and where we get side,8, and 10 on each that is where we have not moved much. where are the independents? guest: there are a lot of independents, they are mixed, but we often find that underneaths come that declaration, they often vote much the same way all the time. there are republicans who call themselves independent and democrats who call themselves independent. mixed.dents are more there is a sliver of folks who say they want to wait and see what the facts say and what unfolds. that has been about a third question.

isn there, i think there some room, there might be some room to move, but i think we have to wait and see. host: michelle calls herself an independent in west virginia. you are next. caller: hello. thank you for c-span. thank you for taking my call. i'm a little skeptical about polls, like a lot of people are. it is a lot of how you phrase the question. and theo create a poll teacher would say, the way you phrased the question, the word you used would steer a person to answer it one way or the other. way to get the actual questions for a poll that that say a research center, think tank puts out a poll -- is there anyway to get the actual questions and how they were phrased if you want to do at them yourself? what do you think about the type

of research from like cambridge in the lytic, basically using people's likes and things they shared on social media as a sort of pull to take a temperature of how people felt about issues, but they were often using that information to manipulate people , so it was kind of like a in a way and- poll do you think others should be transparent, more transparent about polls, and do you think they affect people when they go to vote? if they know their side is ahead on something or behind on something, does it inspire them to go out? some countries do have laws that prohibit certain types of advertising or polls being done close to elections. thank you for answering the questions. guest: thank you for a lot of great questions. ok, let me take the last one first.

there are some studies and some folks who say that if people see that their candidate is trailing in the polls, will that dissuade turnout? other people say it makes them want to rally and go show up and get their candidate to catch up. it is not clear. side, if somebody sees the candidate is winning, does that inspire them? there are studies in all directions on this. maybe it all comes out in the wash. on the first point, your question about questions is a really good one. , you canut out a poll get the full poll released. you can see the questions as they were asked, but your question about the way we phrase

things is really good. take for example if i ask how concerned are you about a volcano irruption or an earthquake? that presumes a degree, should i be? is that of a job congressman doing? that is a matter of degree. how good? but if i ask that a little bit differently, are you concerned about a volcano eruption? now you get a yes or no. now you're going to get perhaps a different measurement. the people who are not concerned see that choice right there. for the people who say yes, i can then ask, to what degree are you? , but small,a subtle but perhaps meaningful example of the way that a question is structured that we try to do our best to do it so that everybody an a place to go and we get

accurate measurement. think about the order of questions. if you ask about how well the economy is doing and you ask about how well somebody is doing financially, then the next follow-up question might be influenced by their thoughts on the economy. we have to be wary of that, we have to be careful of that. so putting together a questionnaire is a science unto itself, and we try to do it, as i said earlier, in a way that best reflects how people might be thinking and a way that is neutral and giving everybody a place to go, and a lot of it -- it starts often times by listening. it starts by listening to the way in which people are discussing a matter were a conversation, and trying to pick up on some of that language, so that when you get the question, you read it or hear it, you go, oh yeah, i get it, that answer

is mine. host: cambridge analytica? guest: notwithstanding them specifically, i think that there is going to be an increasingly interesting area of research which is, how does what people are seeing and doing on social media both influence them and to what extent can we measure it or read it in a quantifiable way? at at first blush, you look for as much activity as there is on twitter, not everybody is on twitter. one thing that requests of with is it is not whether you are seeing a given tweet, but whether you are posting, whether you are writing back and forth to people on social media, we have asked people about that and we don't get very high numbers of people who are active on it.

it, notthem are reading everyone is engaged. measuring the degree to which people are influenced is tricky. people can see something and they might be influenced by it. , they mighttime have already been in a social network with people who agree with them in the first place. some of the studies have shown that people on twitter, if you are on the right, you are connected to a lot of people on the right. if you are on the left, you are connected to those people on the left. there is a self-selection into that network and maybe the things that you see don't influence you, but they reflect your pre-existing set of beliefs. host: we will go to erie, colorado. cindy, republican.

is that right? caller: yes, it is. good morning. i liked what michelle said about the statistics and how the questions are worded, whether it depends on what cut of answer you get. i wonder if you have at all honed into how the news is reflected, how that affects pulling --polling? we know that obama got 80% positive coverage and trump gets 90% negative coverage. how does that play into polling? host: ok. guest: again, we might have a in which people going to whatever source for news they want might be determined by or influenced by their views already. way does the which causal arrow run?

do people feel a certain way and then seek out or pay attention that reinforce what they already think. one of the things that we have seen is that partisans, when they talk about what they find accurate, what they believe is true is often times going with folks, political officials, or reinforcet already what they think. that is part of the partisan divide. quite frankly. that is part of the partisan divide. host: william, houston, texas, democrat. caller: good morning, c-span, thank you for all of -- all you do. i also believe that poll questionnaires -- [indiscernible] you that i is to

know swing states, michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania, i believe that the lack of participation in minority and disgruntled minority voters is what elected our president today. directed been a poll toward those communities? the african-american community as to lack of participation? in the number of voters who decided to stay at home? i think that is what pushed it over the top. thanks again. host: got the question. guest: thank you for the question. there are studies on that. it was academic studies, census studies as well, we did see a lot of frankly what i saw on election night, that as the returns were coming in from some of the high democratic counties

in places like michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, one of the things we noticed was that turnout was not quite at what we had expected. turnout there was in fact a down relative to both the expectation numbers and what it had been in past years, and there is no question that in the pre-election polling, we had anticipated more of those folks turning out. forward to 2018, one of the things we need to do better is make sure that the turnout models reflect might -- who might really show up. 2016f the things we saw in is a relative lack of enthusiasm for hillary clinton. that may have had an impact in that turnout being a little bit lower. turnout is a thing that we wrestle with because what a

pollster is trying to do is gauge not just how you feel, but what's -- what somebody is going to do about it, what action somebody is going to take. a lot of variables. you need to have time, you need to have interest, you may not get a chance on election day. we wrestle with that. host: tell our viewers where you work election night and what when they areay watching cbs news and they see these anchors calling the races? guest: my decision desk makes the projections, we call the races. we get both streams in from all over the country. in a setoking at that of computer models. puzzle that is sort of appearing to you piece by piece and you are trying to make

sense of the whole from looking at a part of it. in.w counties are is that a representative group of counties? no, it is not, so we wait. as more come in, we start to see a pattern. we are seeing county after county where turnout is strong for trump, where there has been some change from the past years toward donald trump, do we have that weata in here now are confident that we can make a projection because the pattern is so strong. host: what is the source of that data? guest: the source of that data is county and precinct votes. host: not exit polls? .uest: exit polls too interviewers are deployed to a representative sample.

i keep saying representative. representative sample, freezing around a given state, the interview voters, they take the responses to that, that gets relayed back to us. part of our role at the decision desk is looking at that and saying, is this a clear enough pattern? is there a big enough gap between the two candidates that even withstanding some error, which they will invariably be in that poll, that we are still hasident that one candidate won. when we make the projection, we are not telling you technically what is going to happen in the future, we are telling you what has happened. the votes have been cast. they are revealing themselves county by county or person by

person in the case of an exit poll. we are trying to make sense of that pattern. we bring you the projection, that is when we are confident that one candidate has won. there were some states that were pretty straightforward to call. they were pretty lopsided. there were a few, pennsylvania was called pretty late into the night, and we were waiting on wisconsin for a while. one of the reasons we were doing that is we were looking intensely at some of the high democratic areas and saying, wait, is turnout really down? is turnout really don't from expectations? we started to see that pattern in county after county. we started to see that there was a pattern. host: talk about the button that you push? guest: [laughter] there is a click. , what weection system do is i go and push that button and it puts the w flag on a

candidate. ask me, once i click that button, we have called the race. that gets relayed up to graphics. i tell people in the control room. people low is ask me, do i get nervous when i do that? it is a lot of pressure, without question, but my test is always in my going to be nervous, not, nervous? i i call this right now, am going to worry about it one more votes come in in five or 10 minutes. that is kind of my test. if i think i'm going to be nervous, then i don't call the race. host: you are the only one allowed to push the button? guest: yes, i push the button. [laughter] host: viewers can read more about anthony salvanto and the role that he plays at cbs and about polls. where did you get this number? thank you for the conversation. guest: thank you.

enjoyed it. short breakl take a and then come back and talk to the national institutes of health and the programs that they have aimed at collecting data from americans in an attempt to approve medical research. we will be right back. >> sunday night on afterwards, discussing the book "edge of chaos." the interview by the former chairman of the council of economic advisers during the obama administration. >> you wrote a book which is

quite a lot about politics and political finance. >> the most important thing in terms of motivation for writing the book is that it is born out of frustration. my interest at my academic background are in economics, but if you think about the global economy today, there are a whole host of very deeply structural long-term problems that the global economy has to contend with and i imagine we will get to them in a moment. what the impact of technology will be. concerned about productivity and the debt overhang. income inequality. something that was never discussed and it is now one of the top three big issues on the policy agenda. these are long-term structural problems. people charged with overseeing the regulatory environment are very short-term in their frame.

>> watch sunday night at 9:00 eastern on c-span2, booktv. &a,"unday night on "q jeffrey rosen talks about his biography of william howard taft. >> he told his aide, archie butt, who served as an intimate fall apart fort popularity. view. this madisonian hamilton believed that majority should rule, but only slowly and thoughtfully over time, so that reason and passion could prevail.

people can be governed in the public interest rather than through faction, mobs that favors self-interest rather than the public good. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on "q&a." >> "washington journal" continues. host: at our table, dr. stephanie devaney, the deputy researchof the oliva program at the nih. us researchf program is one of the largest longitudinal research studies in the u.s. host: what does it entail? what are you trying to accomplish? guest: we are asking one million or more individuals who live in the states to share health data, lifestyle data, data about their behaviors, information about themselves over their lifespan,

and then all of that information is used by researchers to answer who stays healthy, why they stay healthy, why some people respond to drugs differently than others. it is really going to be a very large collection of information that researchers can use to tease apart important information about our health. host: any sensitive information that will be in this database? guest: all of the data will be de-identified. when we asked participants to donate data, all of the data will go into a central place, but the identifying information will be stripped off before researchers use the data. host: who is supplying this information and how are they doing it? guest: we just passed over the 100,000 mark yesterday. who havearticipants joined the program. then they go through a protocol.

the go through an informed consent process to make sure they understand what it is they are signing up for, then they ,nswer surveys about themselves family health history, basic demographics, then the go forward with the protocol. we have people from all 50 states registered from the program that in the program -- in the program right now. in geographicking diversity. host: are people going to the website to do this? on their own? out, so thataching you get the diversity that you are looking for? guest: great question. it is a mix of all of those. we are using digital marketing to reach folks and we also have partnerships with a number of health care organizations to

engage people in the program, and then there are a number of community groups helping us reach out to their specific communities and build the trust to engage in the program. you can do it directly online or often times people hear about it through their provider or a community group they are associated with. host: who had this idea, where did it come from, and why? guest: so, precision medicine is have been health we trying to tackle for many years. right now, health care is really about the average person. we want to get to a place where we know more about individual characteristics and all of us that shape our health. that concept has been around for a few decades. this will enable us to actually collect the data because we have the computing to be able to do that. the vision for the specific dr.y really came from francis collins, the nih director. he wanted to do this back in

2004, but it was not feasible at that time. now, we can sequence the whole genome, someone's entire dna, fourit has become much more feae today and back when it was first envisioned. host: how much funding do you have for this program? guest: we have been grateful for congress. act, they authorize $1.4 billion over 10 years, and then we had the annual appropriation as well. host: how will that money be spent? guest: we have already made most of the awards for the program, we have a number of organizations across the country building the infrastructure for the program. where the data is stored, the bio bank is at the mayo clinic, where all of the blood samples go where individuals donate their blood for the clinical and genome sequencing we are doing. all the health care organizations enrolling participants directly, community engagement groups helping us to

build those relationships. all of that money is being used to support the enrollment of a million individuals, retention of those folks, collection of the data, and then axis of the data to researchers. and then generating more data, through blood samples, when we generate the dna. host: what are people physically donating? individual an decides to join our program, they go through a bunch of --veys and also access authorize access to their electronic records. that information will come to the program quarterly so we can see how someone's clinical information is changing over time. then they physically go, in person, and undergo physical measures and donate a blood and urine sample. those samples are sent to the mayo clinic, and we will use those samples to generate information about that person. host: how will that be protected

and stored over time? guest: one of our most common questions. we obviously take security and privacy very seriously. all of the data that is generated on an individual given to us from the participant directly is environment, cloud we have a poorer that we are building out where all of the data is stored, encrypted. researchers will come to the data to use that data. the data is not shared with researchers in local environments. we have everyone coming to the data in our secure cloud environment. -- host: a table, lot on the table, hopefully the viewers have some questions for you. here are the phone numbers. we want to hear from our viewers. in thisave participated

program, we want to hear about your experience, or if you are interested in participating, please dial-in as well. what are the diseases that you are hoping you might be able to cure or research, make progress on by doing this all of us program? guest: the goal of the program is really to advance our understanding of health across the spectrum of health and disease. both how do we stay healthy, what does it mean when somebody is healthy, how do some stay healthier than others, and then when we get sick, what are the underpinning that cause somebody to get sick in different ways, and that really start to dissect for diseases. that means for us across the whole spectrum of disease. we are a disease of agnostic platform and we are trying to build up the data resource on a diverse set of individuals that will allow researchers in all different disciplines of science

to be able to answer questions about health and disease. host: what is your role in this? guest: i'm the deputy director of the program at the national institutes of health. we are managing the program with a number of organizations across the country are building the program out. i help to sort of lead the vision and implementation of the program with all of those partners. host: who are some of those partners? have partnership with 10 regional medical centers including the university of pittsburgh, arizona, university of california systems, there are 10 total. and then six federally qualified federal centers -- health centers. we are working with them to build up the data research center, which is where all the data is housed. we have a partnership with scripps out in san diego. this is an important part of the program. as we aim to get to all corners

of the country, all parts of the country, we have these partnerships with health care organizations but they are not everywhere. whoow do we get somebody lives in the state of kansas, for example, who enrolled from their couch, how do we get them into a place where they can donate their blood sample and undergo physical measures? so the partnership with scripps as the institution, organization has built partnerships with walgreens, quest diagnostics, and other organizations that have infrastructure across the country which allow us to get the blood samples from those individuals who don't live close enough to one of our health providers. these are some of our partners hoping to implement this. host: let's hear from keith in california, and independent. caller: good morning. i am curious, your survey is the political

parties, believe systems, religion, that type of thing. i am retired. people in my family, specifically one member, that has somewhat different opinions, different mental health issues. i wonder if that will be taken into consideration into how that changes one's life and how that goes along their health as well. guest: right now, our surveys are focused around basic demographics, lifestyle, behaviors. we are not asking questions about political affiliation. we are working right now on a survey that will get at mental health. the way our program works, everything in the program is digital except for the in person visit. all the surveys come out as modules within your dashboard, if you choose to join the program, which allows us to ask our participants to fill out new surveys along with the course of

the study, over decades we hope. one of the surveys we are working on now is pacific we are a mental health, any of the issues for your own personal mental health and any family issues. host: why do that type of survey? mentioned, weth want to understand how mental health affects overall health and vice versa. host: what does the research say so far? guest: honestly, we don't really know enough yet about what it means over the course of your life to be struggling with different mental health issues, so we want to be able to capture that information and let researchers look at that, combined with your dna, combine with where you live, how you grew up, other stressors on your life, your own clinical situation, any other diagnoses, prescriptions you are taking, all of that information together. host: virginia beach, bill. republican. caller: thanks for taking my

call. do you have any information in how research in regards to we are coming along discovering cancer of the pancreas and liver, and earlier stages, so that by the time we discover it it hasn't spread so far to other organs in the body. basically, these two diseases mean that you are going to die soon. i will take the answer off-line. guest: that is exactly the thing that we are hoping to do with a study like this. because we are able to capture information on individuals early on at any point in their life, when they are healthy, when they already have disease, we are hoping to tease out what happens before someone gets sick, and what it looks like when someone is starting to get sick. that includes cancers like pancreatic and liver cancer. i know the national cancer institute at nih is working on

this independently but we have a strong collaboration with them as well and have been talking with them as we build on this platform to understand ways in which we can start to come up through the all of us research program, he's out early indicators of cancer. this is not related, but the front page of usa today, patient number one in the cancer trial that may mean hope. properly mix the medicine. intravenousght the back to the sign of the recliner were a man with brain cancer set. the nurse prepared the treatment. for it to had arrived meet its first human patient. are you familiar with this come is this precision medicine? guest: i'm not familiar with this clinical trial. but what we are aiming to do with persistent medicine is understand someone's disease at a molecular level so that when

we are treating that disease, we are really treating their specific disease and not the .verage patient cancer is a good. cancer is a good example where we have been diagnosing cancer based on the organ where it originates, rather than the structure. there are so many different kinds of lung cancers. scientists are now trying to figure out what is the genetic underpinning of any kind of cancer and how we can treat it in a more targeted way so that individuals are not undergoing harsh treatments that will not help them, and that we can save more lives. host: what do you mean by the genetic underpinnings of cancer? not the genetic underpinnings of the person, but of the cancer? are they the same? guest: no. all cancers have their own

genome, we talk about a tumor genome. this is the dna of this specific tumor. cancer is a genomic disease. when there is a mutation within your dna, that causes cancer. that is different from what we call the germ line genome, which is what we all carry throughout our body in the normal state. oh all cancers arise from a mutation in the dna. it is about understanding how that is influencing a very specific kind of cancer. getting away from broad categories like breast cancer, down to the different subtypes of breast cancer and treating them most effectively. host: for our viewers interested in this story, the front page of usa today. it goes onto say that the drug killed nothing but the cancer and that federal regulators demanded more research in animals before it became used in this patient. cincinnati, 26 in

brain power and money at last brought it to a crucial first test for government approval. you can read more of that in usa today. is in d.c., a democrat. question or comment? caller: question. thank you for taking my call. i have two questions to ask you about this research, about the information. do you retain this information, what groups can have access to the information? i am raising this question ancestry.com they are using dna that you send in to find out about your ancestors and the police are using it to track down criminals and things like that. i would want to be a help to science but i certainly would not just want to put my whole family out there on the line,

don't know who is having access to me or whatever. what about that? host: that is a story in the papers today, police officers whateverg these -- those companies are that have it . police are able to access them. how can you protect what you are doing? guest: great question, and thanks for your support. we have been thinking about this issue specifically a lot since the moment we opened up our portal for people to join the study. our participants so generously provide to the de-identified and encrypted and stored in our secure environment. that information is not accessible by law enforcement. we have a certificate of confidentiality which is a legal

term for a privacy protection that was included in the cures act of 2016 that allows us as -- prohibits the program from turning over individuals information under any legal request. notpurpose of our study is to allow folks to mine the data for any purposes other than health research. the individual that will be accessing the data will have to be authorized as health researchers and will have to state the purpose of their research on a public website. so any researcher that comes to use the information will be using information that does not include your name and address or other obvious identifiers, and also will have to comply with the data use agreement, code of conduct, which states specifically the things they can and cannot do. and then we'll have to post publicly on the website what it is they are studying.

so all participants as part of our study can see how the data they have contributed is being used to advance health research. host: john is in new york. republican. caller: have you figure out a way to get people off of opiates without using opiates? another form of medicine? guest: great question. i know this is not an area that we are specifically working on, in terms of therapeutics, but there are a lot of efforts on that specifically at the national institutes of health and across the government right now, a huge area of focus, specifically on designing treatment alternatives. the all of us research program may give us some insight into pain management, how people manage their pain, how many people suffer from pain, chronic pain. hopefully, that will provide researchers with insight into what is susceptible for

addiction and other alternative ways of managing pain over the course of our study. but we are not specifically right now working on therapeutics from our program. muchis a subject of research across the national institutes of health, though. host: delano. conway, missouri. democrat. caller: i'm looking at an article in the paper here of 81 people dying from medication that came from china, were being flooded by chinese medicine that is not verifiable. i know the secretary of state for clinton, she has a company in china that is sending things over and i don't know if it is medication. but that is a big problem. this whole article i am sending to my senators and two of my congressman. no one even talks about the

medication. shootinghing -- every that occurred, according to information i have, these people were all on medication of some kind, but nobody even mentions that on the news. host: i will leave it there. dr. devaney, does this factor into what you are looking at? what types of medicine someone might be taking, the brand, not just the type of drug? guest: absolutely. when we are asking participants to share their electronic health records, that includes the medications they are taking. we have information about medications individuals have been prescribed and are taking through their life, as long as they keep sharing. host: i want to get your reaction to an npr story. they talk to a retired penn state genetics professor. when the human genome was sequenced, many scientists they

would be able to identify the common genes responsible for common diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, and so on. that simply didn't pan out. the solution to these common conditions lie in changing diets, tobacco addiction. focusing on those that have strong genetic component make a lot of sense but for more investment into these huge studies based on the idea that if you search through enough computer data you'll get an answer, i think is a false promise. guest: we understand that all of the answers are not within someone's dna, which is why our study is not solely focused on an attic information -- genetic information. we are trying to capture all aspects of someone's life. at the very beginning of the study we launched a program with will start soon that allows any of the participants that have a fitbit to bring

their device to the study and connect that information, so that data can go directly into center where we are holding our data for researchers. even stuff like that, we can learn about how physical activity data, how much someone's sleeps affects their health overhaul. what we understand about the genome is it has a high impact on some diseases, and on others, --is hard to find a genetic any genetic information that is driving the disease. we really think these are diseases -- many of these diseases are highly affected by lifestyle, behavior, diet, sleep. all of that information will be captured within our program. host: will you have logarithms that call the data, give you a pattern, trend? will bringarchers

that information to the platform. we will have tools and analytics that will allow researchers to look at different things. those individuals will help us differentwhat influences on a person are affecting disease in a significant way, or will give us maynse of how individual a be at a higher risk of developing type two diabetes, versus individual b, and it is based on these factors. host: robert, d.c.. independent. caller: thank you for taking my call. there has been a lot with your guest but you have said nothing about alternative treatments. a few years ago, i was on a scientific expedition with the u.s. coast guard. julie air force base in greenland. cb, and exposed to ddt, p radioactive waste. it, ihe course of

contracted some sort of mutated conditions. then i took the traditional treatment. after i went on an alternative, i found better relief. without the use of those drugs or other conventional methods. there has been other scientific data that corroborates with other natural therapies, that people can use to offset the conditions of cancer. host: dr. devaney? again, that is another area where we are interested. if people are taking alternative medications of any sort, even individuals are integrating into their lifestyle, yoga, meditation, those are the things that we want to capture and understand

the effect on health. we are as focused on precision health as we are on precision medicine, understanding what it is that people do to stay healthy, how we can provide that to more people, that understanding. host: if the viewers want to learn more about the program, joinallofus.org. dr. stephanie devaney is the deputy director of the national institutes of health. thank you for the conversation. we are going to take a break. when we come back, we will open up the phone lines. start dialing in now. ♪ tonight at 8:00 eastern, the senate hearing on prioritizing jurors at the national institutes of health. >> nih launched a special project on spiner muscular atrophy, a tragic inherited disease.

one of the most exciting comes from jerry's team at nationwide children's hospital in columbus, ohio which recently tested gene therapy for sma in 15 infants with severe disease. again, these are infants not expected to survive more than 15 months. infused a viral vector designed to deliver the normal gene to the spinal cord, which is where the problem is. over the next few months, something truly dramatic happened. , who you see in this picture with her parents, 100% of the kids who got the highest dose of gene therapy were alive at 20 months. nearly all could talk and feed themselves, and some like evelyn, who is three and half, cannot only talk and walk, but she can do push-ups. >> tonight at 8:00, c-span.org and listen with the free c-span a.io app

>> saturday at 11:00 on c-span, live coverage of the democratic national committee summer meeting in chicago to decide on changes to the party's presidential nominating process, including the role of superdelegates. eastern onay, 11:00 c-span, c-span.org, or listen on the free c-span radio app. this sunday on oral histories, we continue our series on women in congress. with former republican congresswoman helen bentley. >> i knew i had to do well, because i could not afford not to. and i just kept plugging and working hard. a campaign is tough work. and i admire anyone goes into it. >> in the weeks ahead, we hear from barbara cannoli, nancy

johnson, and lynn woolsey. for all histories, sunday at 10:00 eastern on american history tv, on c-span3. c-span, where history unfold daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme , and public policy events d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. >> washington journal continues. host: we are back in open phones for the remainder of today's washington journal. want to get your thoughts on public policy issues or politics. we can b