of the 2008 financial crisis. then louis jacobson from governing magazine joins us to discuss key governor races to watch in the upcoming midterm elections. ♪ on a cloudy sunday here in washington, these eight, the house is in recess for the week while the senate returns tomorrow afternoon. look for a number of votes on additional funding in the alarming rise of the opioid epidemic across the country. the senate taking up a bill calling for more transparency when it comes to drug prices. sunday, september 16, we welcome you to the washington journal and much of the focus today is likely to focus on judge brett kavanaugh. replacing anthony kennedy with democrats releasing a letter late last week claiming that he sexually abused a high school

ago,mate 35 years republicans are calling it a last-minute stunt. the senate judiciary committee is still scheduled to vote on the nomination on thursday and a full senate vote is expected in the last week of september in just a moment. we will open phone lines in get your reaction in just a moment to all of these developments. democrats, kavanaugh confirmation process, [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] process, confirmation (202) 748-8000, that's the number for democrats. .epublicans, (202) 748-8001 -- sundayy money morning. we will get your calls in just a moment, we want to share with you these headlines from the charlotte observer. to give you a sense of how devastating the storm has been. epic rains hitting the region with more to come. darlene is following the story from the white house with the

federal response and is with the associated press. let me begin with fema and the federal response from the carolinas. how is it going so far? good morning, steve. it seems to be going well. we haven't heard from the president and a couple of days to get any update from him on .ow he sees the response going unfortunately there has been at least 11 deaths as of the last from art that i saw. the carolinas are bracing for some severe flooding. the president this afternoon has another briefing to get an update on the response and we, the reporters who will be at the white house today are kind of hopeful they will allow us in and we can hear from him. we also know that the president is scheduled to travel there later this week? guest: that's correct.

my guess would be probably wednesday, there would need to be a little bit of time for the , you don'tto improve want today were a lot of the police officers and other people who would support a trip like that in the area. to give you a sense of how widespread the damage has been in the carolinas we have drawn pictures. there are ethical questions facing the current fema director , who will be making an appearance later this morning on "face the nation. oh does that complicate the efforts on the ground? >> it shouldn't. there are two separate issues. one is the response in trying to help the people of the carolinas be safe, get their power restored, get back into their homes. that sort of thing. the other one is a sort of

that is separate from the response work he is responsible for doing. it could distract him a little bit, but they are kind of separate. host: as we look at how massive it has been, the bigger problem has been the deluge of rain, 15 trillion gallons of water over the weekend and into early this week. guest: yeah, it's reminiscent of hurricane harvey last year that sat over houston and dumped 50 something inches of rain over the city, a record amount. you are seeing the same situation here in the carolinas, a record amount of rainfall. living inknow, washington, we have had lots and lots of rain. the carolinas have had lots and lots of rain.

the ground is saturated. there is just no place else for the water to go. let me turn very quickly to the other issue that this town is going to be facing this week, the brett kavanaugh confirmation hearing. the vote is scheduled in the senate judiciary confirmation hearing. where does this stand on this sunday morning? >> the senate judiciary committee is still scheduled to vote on the nomination on thursday. kavanaugh has strongly denied the allegations made against him. fully in house remains his corner and what we are expecting, barring some other last-minute serious development is to see the nomination voted out of the committee on thursday and sent to the full senate for confirmation vote.

host: darlene, thank you so much for being with us, we appreciate it. guest: you're welcome. host: let's give you -- get your phone calls on the confirmation process and share what to let ago is writing. claims keeps the nomination in limbo." detonateds old charge at the critical juncture of the battle. sending republicans into damage control mode and leaving democrats on short how or whether to capitalize. with the exception of one democratic senator,

patrick leahy joins us on "newsmakers," and the question came up on friday. [video clip] >> the fbi, whatever does the background check, leverett was, what would be inappropriate is if she had the allegations sent to her and did not have something decimal look into it. >> but she has had it since july. quite she didn't refer it since the intercept report. quite she has always been very careful and acted with

integrity. happen about what would if there was some kind of an and after confirmation someone said -- we ought to ask about this. again, this is the problem that happens when you rush something. askve things i wanted to judge kavanaugh about in the hearings. especially some things that were matters of committee confidential. i said i wanted to ask questions about that. i'm the dean of the senate, i ought to be able to use it. about 3:00 in the morning of the hearing they said -- ok, you can use it. >> is senator feinstein had never share the document you think that would have been inappropriate? >> i'm going to allow the people

who do the background checks -- let them make the decision. i was a prosecutor for eight years. a lot of people saying this one's guilty, that one's guilty. let's get the evidence and make up our minds based on that. i have found that the people that do the background checks, republican or democratic nominee , they are very professional and very thorough if given the time to do it. i will rely on that. host: that's for month senator patrick leahy. this headline from "the washington times," "a quick response from brent cobb -- from , "i did not do -- i'md from kevin

skeptical of these fresh allegations, but the fact remains that there are a dozen good reasons to delay the vote anyway, including the apparent perjury he engaged in during his hearings for the d.c. circuit." send us a tweet to tell us what you think. senate democrats, republican response, and the kavanaugh confirmation process. stephen from albany, oregon, good morning. >> -- caller: thanks her taking my call. this is my first time on c-span. host: glad to hear from you. caller: i have watched you for years. you -- truly the only independent thinkers. god bless you, senator leahy. what i have to say is specifically pertaining to the same respecthe that this supreme court nominee, is the republican

answer to -- i'm not quite sure what. abortion or whatever. what i do know for sure is that inhas voted 100% of the time favor of corporations over people. independentr an thinker like myself, it gives me great pause as to why anyone would want to confirm a man that does not represent us as a whole. host: stephen, thanks for the call. don't be a stranger, call again. where is albany, oregon? i live between salem and eugene and them right now actively involved in the independent candidate for governor.

patrick starnes. this man is the only person. i called him out of the voter pamphlet. he answered the phone. called every single politician and the whole pamphlet. he was the only one that answer the phone. vfw.t at the we sell for three and a half hours -- we spoke for three and a half hours. this man is of the people, by the people, for the people. please promote, a man who is working for the people. by all means, if you can spread this news to anybody who can help us get some representation here, we are desperate in oregon. this is the time of critical mass. stephen, thank you for the call. lou jacobson will be here to talk about the governor's races. for this week,ed and after the house and senate

recess at the end of september, a flurry of debates in october, we will be the one network to will show you those debates in their integrity and to you, stephen, we will be covering the governor's races as well. eleanor, the kavanaugh confirmation hearing process, your thoughts? caller: thank you, c-span, for your broadcasting. i wanted to say this morning that i think that supreme court nominees should not be based on the party they are affiliated with, but by the fact that they would do what is right and what is not right. is justthat all of this a political poison that this is not a serious intake but a lifetime commitment. will thanlater they in front of these people. confirmation of this sort should be thoroughly investigated

before they go before the committee to be nominated. those are my opinions. thank you. host: eleanor, north carolina, how are you doing with the weather by the way? we have overcome the severity of the storm, but right now we have been on a flood watch for the kate crescent on us. keep us in your prayers, god be with us all. host: sure well. be safe, eleanor. this tweet -- host: the weekly standard has this editorial, "senate democrats disgraced themselves again."

"kavanaugh has undergone -- host: that from "the weekly standard go david is joining us from columbia, maryland. welcome to the conversation. things are taking my call. i think the supreme court -- i'm about 78 years old and the supreme court has become quite the political issue for i don't know how many years but probably since the board hearing and it is pretty clear, most people would say, that each side has a fair idea in advance of whom the

person is expected to vote for. it really has been part of a cheapening of our political this course and things like that through the years. i think, in some ways, you can say of course that both sides are responsible, but in a lot of ways i think the republicans have deliberately shown that when they have the power, they are prepared to just use anything they can to get what they want. i think that that is in the long-term really very damaging. the example that people bring up occasionally, merrick garland, republicans had to vote to kill him. the republicans wanted to show, and in fact even said that -- we don't want to have him have a hearing, so he never had a hearing, you know that's the first time something like that ever happened. now you have kavanaugh -- and

you started out by saying that they want to have a vote next week so that he will be there when the court begins on october 1. that is an example of just shoving somebody's face in the mud because you can get away with it. kavanaugh, lots of papers, you haven't mentioned it today but it has been in the news, he has a large paper trail. they are releasing them rather slowly. this is not what has happened with any previous candidate. i don't see any reason why the papers cannot be released and if kavanaugh, they certainly have the vote confirm him, that's not the issue. if he gets on in november or december, chief justice roberts can just leave out controversial and then a few months you know, he will just are having these extended. host: this tweet --

,ost: if you're just tuning in we are asking about these latest developments, adding the letter released last week i the rank and development on the senate judiciary committee, senator dianne feinstein of california. this editorial and the caller from columbia, maryland, making reference to it in "the ," saying theyt should delay. "circumstances demand that the confirmation be delayed in we are not referring to the latest allegations from an unnamed high school acquaintance of mr. kavanaugh, the focus of much attention this past week. a nonpartisan entity, perhaps the national archives should sort through the staff secretary documents.

voting should be postponed until a fair assessment has been completed and germane documents turned over to the senate. we must also consider whether they want railroading the minority to be the new normal. the editorial from " washington post." robert, portsmouth, virginia, lime for independence. good morning. thank you for having me on. i really appreciate your program goas all of this host: ahead, robert. caller: oh this is just pulling away from the main issue of our

president, a president who would use underhanded soviet tactics against our neighbors, canada, , our allies overseas, underhanded tactics. unbelievableare so that the republicans have to do this thing with judge kavanaugh and make it so extreme that it pulls away from the main issue of our country. let our system work. he's not giving our system a chance to work. needs to back off and let our vice president get to work for americans again. host: this story has been

dominating the news, record amount of rain from hurricane lawrence, "the washington post releasing drone video, check it out at "washington post." "the metaphor plea deal could push the mueller probe towards the end game, the plea agreement announced on friday, this from inside of the post, and glenn harris's claim about kavanaugh and birth control is misleading. richard is next on the republican line. louisville, kentucky. good morning. >> kavanaugh has released more information about himself than the last five justices combined. combined,ive justices kavanaugh has released more information about what he has done in the judiciary since he has been there. kavanaugh is a wonderful man, a

good family man, and it are terrible, absolutely terrible, what they have done to this -- they made them little girls leave the room , i just -- i was a democrat since i was a teenager and i mean i just never -- never ever have i seen such slime ball moves in all my life. richard, thank you for the call. good morning, cheryl. how are you, steve? you are my favorite. i haven't seen you in a while but i am glad you are on today. i wanted to make it comment about judge kavanaugh. first of all, when you are oath,ered a liar under that in itself should disqualify in any position of authority that would have people's lives, you know, in the

balance. you are supposed to be a truth teller. no one knows if you really attacked the young woman, but differ a chance to come forward and for people to find out. what's the big rush? i wanted to mention that the republicans are always crying like a little baby, indicating that the democrats are horrible people. i'm a democrat and i will be until i die. things of the important i want to make note of is i think they should really investigate and not rush, like they are trying to do the mueller case. when you have a president that is dishonest and he is trying to get someone who lies like himself, in itself that should be enough for us to take our judgen approving him as a for the supreme court.

host: another tweet -- host: coming to the offensive judge kavanaugh, you can read it at weekly standard. robert is joining us from bloomfield, west virginia. democratic line, good morning. >> it won't matter, the documentation on the rules the republicans will bring. this man is going on the court regardless. it won't matter at all. but i hope he does make the court, because when the papers come out, when the full documentation on this guy comes he's going to be

impeached. two, he will be the most tainted judge that will ever be on the supreme court. will rebuke him. it won't matter. politically this guys there, the republicans have the votes, it doesn't matter one way or the other. thank you for the call. this is from the boston globe opinion page. "truth is a casualty in the kavanaugh nomination. judiciary majority excluded three years of white house service from the scope of records requests and failed to challenge an unorthodox claim articulated by private attorneys managing the review of constitutional privilege and other exemptions withholding 100,000 pages. the voluminous white house record of kavanaugh would undoubtedly inform him of

inconsistencies in his testimony and illuminate his unvarnished truth views. we are getting your reaction to all of this and the kavanaugh confirmation hearing process. bill is next in palm springs, california. caller: things are having me, thanks for being there for us. one thing to remember is with the amount of paperwork available now for any person running for any position is the fact that all of the electronic things that exist today, there is just a whole lot more paperwork and things available in terms of emails and things that weren't, they just were not available 20 years ago. one curiosity to me is the fact that many of the callers, look atg myself, different news outlets, read different newspapers, get their sources from several different places and not just fox news.

if you are just listening to fox news or tv preachers, you are getting x and the rest of the time you are getting the entire alphabet. one thing that frightens me, i was raised with religion, the preachers that are in love with that at and they think this point the evangelicals would say that if we have trumped an office, we've got everything under control, we can bring jesus back. that frightens me, that's a scary mindset. thank you for your time. for the callou bill. you can join in on the conversation, [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] (202) 748-8000 is for republicans. the action from the senate

judiciary committee, a vote scheduled right now on thursday. meaning the kavanaugh nomination with and presumably go to the senate or the last week of september and october 1 is a monday, the worst in october, when the supreme court will begin its new term. this tweet this from jodey, " underhanded tactics -- ost: this headline from cnn.com, "iron thomas taking a job at cory booker, from an event covered earlier in the month by the federalist society. here is the special justice appointed by george h.w. bush, clarence thomas. >> brick by brick we build the infrastructure and fabric of a society. downne of us can tear it by ourselves. but think about it, how many people can you use in leadership

positions today? honorable. honorable. not the honorable, honorable. that word, use people who actually asked a question at confirmation that we use -- [laughter] >> had to get that in there. >> hey, look, three others. but at any rate. if we could use the word honorable more often, think about the difference it would make. then you would have a legacy. we would have left the country in better shape, morally, structurally, than we found it. but as long as we are looking at our interest or scoring points,

looking cute, being on television with the editorials we are getting, how do we maintain it? issuescannot debate hard honestly with honor and integrity, how do we keep a civil society? host: we are getting your reaction in just a moment, but this is from the washington examiner. who dares to take on nancy pelosi with an eye on the house and flipping about two dozen seeds that could determine whether or not the democrats regain control of the house of representatives? see you weekly, the big churn, the revolving doors for the election. the weekly standard, a rise of catholic resistance and a picture of the archbishop of

washington, d.c., cardinal donald wuerl was meeting and washington, d.c., and this from time magazine, i have a masters degree, work two extra jobs and donate blood plasma to pay the bills, i'm a teacher in america. the piece by katie riley. kirwan is joining us. good morning. >> good morning. guys are talking about is people who should tell the truth, starting from the president on down who will not tell the truth, they want the office and then they take advantage of these offices we let them. good morning. host: thank you for the call. we will go to john next on the republican line from memphis, tennessee. good morning, john. >> good morning. it feels to me like these events are allowing people to project a lot of other things going on.

really, the supreme court right, we go through this same -- i don't know, ritual or something. but the law? it's a pretty staid institution. right? people are concerned about roe v. wade being overturned. roe v. wade is a badly decided case. anyone who looks at how they reasoned would agree. striking a down wouldn't be the end of abortion. be an abilityps to legislate better. i don't know, it's a different country than at the time that roe was decided. the weight of the state certainly against the kinds of .estrictions but i would also say at this point that republicans need to start taking seriously this idea

of putting country before party. you are getting this fed to me through the media and it's like to doin that you tell us it when it's our guy in charge, but that's because our guy is not the problem right now. i know the whole russia gave thing sounds like just nothing burger, something to make people just fill up washington gossip columns, but really it is a big deal. these are things that are policymakers -- our policymakers didn't see coming. if you look at the events going on right now, the way that russian citizens -- mercenaries, mind you, bombed by u.s. forces, sanctioning these individuals, the russian government a well say that these are acts of declared and undeclared war and of the decide to meddle with u.s. elections to further our ends, so be it. host: thank you for the call

from memphis. ,"is is from the boston herald another editorial, "kavanaugh smear, calling it a new low --e let barry ." "though it fairly felt possible, democrats have hit a new low, wildly misbehaving with regards to this nomination and they have ensigns day one. the voters deserve better. muscatine, iowa, independent line, good morning. hi.er: you've gotten better looking over the years. like most men. it's not fair. i have been watching since -- gosh, years and years. way, marge, this is the 40th anniversary of this network. >> really? i have always considered -- i can think of his name, the guy that started it all as one of my all-time heroes. host: of course, that is brian

lamb. his son -- q&a program airs every sunday. >> i know, i know. it makes me sad to see him age. he must be older than i am. host: he's just that she's doing great. he runs circles around all of us. he's fabulous and he's here every single day. good good for -- caller: for him. why did she wait? it came in july. i don't understand why she waited. i think the kavanaugh, should he be confirmed, is an excellent replacement for kennedy. i think he's going to be on the liberal side. i think it's sad that she waited to put that letter out this late. anyway, i have one other question. when a guest is on your left, --

no, you're right. that alwaysilding shows up behind the shoulders of the guest. i have been there, i have been to the sea and i'm wondering what that building is. can you tell me? it is union station, about a block and a half from here. the train station. caller: all right, thank you for a much. c-span is a blessing. thank you a lot. host: thank you. i will send your breath -- your lamb.o brian fenton, michigan, independent line. jake? to make awanted comment about that justice thomas and you had there. go on about being honorable, talking on her, you know? it was just -- it was so

hypocritical, it seems like to me. i watched justice thomas the confirmation hearing back in the day. i saw anita hill out there. i saw that live. or it seemed like it was live. to watcht despicable this happening. and with kavanaugh? it's the same kind of a thing. they keep going on and on about how much more of this he has released than anyone house, but it's all trash paper, you know? they are holding up the good stuff, holding out anything that will be against him and claiming that it is the volume that matters. it's not the volume. it's the details. anyway, it's my first time ever calling. host: jake, thanks, a lot of

first-time callers this weekend. thank you. "dems, laughable, they could not even read the aca act." host: back to politico, the judge kavanaugh nomination in limbo -- here are the details from the top of the program, "detonated at the most critical check -- the confirmation battle sending republicans into damage control mode, leaving democrats unsure how or whether to capitalize. with the exception of dianne feinstein, both parties claiming to be blindsided i add anonymous allegation that kavanaugh forced himself on a woman in a locked room decades ago. republicans rambled to round of character witnesses as democrats would were mom, waiting to see what would drop next and whether they had a shot at the railing -- nomination, but after it a tense 24 hours of speculation

and partisan tussling, kavanaugh remained exactly where he lorded, the closer to farther away from the 50 votes needed to give president trump his second high court justice in just two years. the votes to keep an eye on, lisa murkowski, susan collins, reportedly on the phone for about an hour late last week in a conversation with judge kavanaugh. fort lauderdale, florida. good morning, paula. good morning. would it be possible for the tople listening to your ram take the word of justices who currently serve on the supreme court question mark they say they are appalled at what's going on. they have the resources to check out a lot more stuff than you and i do. here's the thing, you know? came say that this letter

from a real person, which i'm not really sure of. i would like to speak to the women who make the listening, ok? what man has never been caught with his hand in the wrong place? or other things like that while they are growing up? these are formative years for a man. i hate to tell you, they make mistakes, they really do. of fairness needs to enter into this. men often get the wrong idea about what's going on. what's in his mind may not be this same as what's in a woman's mind. paul, from fort lauderdale. this from cnn.com, a couple of references to clarence thomas about the federal society with anita hill making headlines during the confirmation process

of justice thomas in 1991 and she responds to the sexual misconduct allegation against brett kavanaugh saying -- given the seriousness of these allegations, the government needs to find a fair and neutral way for complaints to be investigated." anita hill, now a professor at brandeis, saying in a statement on friday that the senate judiciary committee should put in place a process enabling anyone with a complaint of this nature to be heard. the woman accusing brett kavanaugh of sexual misconduct is not come forward publicly. mike is joining us from oak grove, missouri. independent line, good morning. i was trying to save my monthly call for something i really wanted to talk about until i saw that clarence thomas clip their. i find it hysterically comical that one sex offender is protecting another. host: let me just jump in.

the allegations against brett kavanaugh have not been confirmed, he denies them. we need to be clear about that. caller: you know, being clear about that is fine and dandy, andpeople are calling in asking why this woman didn't come forward? look at the way that it anita hill was treated. you know? the woman is a professor. the other thing that catches my is the liar donald trump who has been caught in so many lies, so many obvious lies that were so easy to prove his nominating another liar, the liar that live for his judge confirmations. the republicans won't let out the papers to prove that because the liar donald trump put out

to blockial whatever the release of the papers proving that he lied to. mike, thanks for the call. this from twitter -- host: want to share with you something from the sunday times,", "new york looking at that location data that google has collected about you and you will see yourself in a whole new way. you can read the full essay in the new york times magazine. also available online. your phone calls, pomeroy, ohio. jerry, you are next, good morning. sex good morning, america. hey, i love all of you. wonderful shows.

how about -- how asking the question? democrats on the committee, most of them have said that they would nominate -- oppose the nominee to matter what? why put out more papers? you will change anyone's mind. they have already set decided they won't vote for anybody that president trump nominates. this is all a delay tactic, hoping they win back the house in november. they want to wait until later on. same with mitch mcconnell on a lot of stuff. and paul ryan. these are all anti-trump people and they don't care about the law, they don't care about anything. how about all of them guys on the committee saying they have been in washington for 30 and 40 years? how's come we still got the same problems today that we had 30 and 40 years ago? what have you been doing in washington for that long?

you ain't solved the problems. let's get to work and get things done for the american people. not to mention the people all over the world. referring to the earlier caller, "not many men put their hands over a woman's mouth." that part of the letter surfaced level against brett kavanaugh, it was a letter that the senate judiciary committee ranking democrats said to the fbi -- sent to the fbi. cq weekly," a look at the many faces, including h.r. mcmaster, reince priebus, and sean spicer, who have left the trump administration, part of the cover story of turnover in washington, d.c.

donald, san antonio, texas, good morning. every: i'd be amazed morning i watch her show, but it's educational to me. i'm listening to all these people calling in. i hear them complaining, but you don't understand, you are sending the same people over and over to represent you. this the problem, to me. every four years you have the same problem with republicans coming through, taking over, it's a problem. democrats take over, it's a problem. sending thety keep same people over and over. back up there to create these problems. that we have on tv that you're talking about. far as i'm concerned, they are going to be confirmed, so what's the big problem? that's what i don't understand. why everybody calling to complain about the democrats?

call to complain about the republicans. we are the full -- we are the fools. we the joke out here. they doing what they want to do. that last gentleman calling in, why's it always with me when they do things they wants to justify what they do to woman? if that was my mother or sister or anything? they wouldn't have had no problem of going to court. thank you. host: donald, thank you for the call. another tweak -- host: one to go back to the other story, this is the headline from "the citizen asheville, north carolina. "hammered, unprecedented flooding hitting the state, and we have drone video giving you an extent -- a sense of the extent of the damage. a reminder this week on our weekly podcast, available on the

free c-span radio app. we talked to joe alba, the former fema director of the george w. bush administration on the role of fema. it began in 1979 during the carter administration. 17 part of homeland security years ago, the structure and the seen theema as we have federal response in the carolinas and virginia, check it out on our free c-span radio app. the biggest issue now, the deluge of rain in the carolinas. jim is joining us from dublin, ohio. going back to our west and, senate democrats, the kavanaugh confirmation hearing and the committee vote scheduled for this thursday. good morning, jim. >> good morning, steve. i can't understand, the paper trail of this accusation against kavanaugh, you -- you keep saying that feinstein was the

individual who received a letter . the initiald that letter in july was sent to the house of representative test your. she had at first, and then after the hearing concluded she sent a letter to the f guy on thursday afternoon. caller: you don't keep pounding on that like you keep pounding on fines and having the letter since july. feinstein said that she was under a commitment at she had made to the individual who sent the letter. that's a lie to begin with. let's get it all straight. who sent the letter, who got the letter, when it went to find nine, and when feinstein turned it over, supposedly.

the other question is, does it matter, 35 years ago, and the individual involved going public? host: the democrats are saying that she was under this thing of secrecy, just get it straight and tell me about it. host: our guest this week on .newsmakers" is patrick leahy james, good morning. >> i would like to give my opinion, if i might. i have one big question about end of the hearing that i would like explained. but first, here's feinstein. you will have leahy on later, saying she is so aware of everything else going on, she had a chinese spy driving her around for the last 20 years.

i have been a blue dog democrat conservative my entire life. why look at this panel that they had and what they tried to do a there? it's him was laughable that you have little involved, who lied about his vietnam service and then you have durban, who came out of a secret lows meeting and started saying that the president's war, the president's war. you have him out there saying that he would release programs and paperwork about the racial profiling and it turns out that if you keep reading the article, there was no racial profiling and that kavanaugh was racially prohibited. my big question about the end of these people here -- my party is just going down the tubes. the big question i have here is what color was the mini-cooper in that they came into the hearing within the democrats? it was a clown car that we are trying to get out of. trying to ruin a man that

doesn't deserve to be ruined, in my humble opinion. the democrats are just taking this stuff way too far. leahy is going to come on and say how smart he was? he got hacked 20 years ago and he didn't even know enough to warn the dnc and hillary clinton not to get hacked. thank you for the call. this is another from our friend carol. host: well, if you go to google, allsixth amendment says "in criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the state in the district where the crime had

been committed in which the district was previously ascertained by law and informed by the nature and the cause of the accusation. back to your phone calls. thanks for the tweet, by the way. let's go to lorraine. republican line, good morning. caller: good morning. first of all, i would like to mention briefly that i think the vote should be held off until thursday, but i had a question for you guys. briefly i saw an interview that was being conducted of justice ginsburg. i apologize for not knowing what it was. i saw it very briefly. but one of the questions in her interview had to do with the supreme court selection of justices and, surprisingly, she said that she thinks the process nominees and voting on new justices is very will is. she says it's not quite used to

me. it kind of shocked the audience. she was confirmed, i think, 96 to three back in 1993, including orrin hatch you said that i may disagree with you, but you deserve a seat on the supreme court. exactly, --caller: exactly, exactly. she mentioned she was very supportive of the lc you -- acu -- you know what i mean. the bill went through. i wish that there could be a bit more coverage on that. that's a justice on the supreme court saying that it's very politicized. well, we covered it this past weekend it's on our website. you -- caller: thank you very much. host: sterling, virginia. caller: thank you.

i believe the latter. there was another person in that room and they caught up with that person. that person he -- said he had no recollection. no recollection of what happened? they need to find that guy, get him in there, put him under oath and let's find out the truth. let's go to george, republican line. caller: good morning. trump said that he was only going to take people from the heritage foundation. far as i know, kavanaugh was an added to it until mueller was appointed. yeah, he happens to be one of the judges who says that the president can't be indicted or nothing like that? to me that's a more important point in anything. to me that's just out right up front a structure of justice to try to get him on their so that

he can't be prosecuted or investigated or anything. that's all i wanted to say. host: thanks. our business and economics columnist at "the washington post," want -- winning a pulitzer prize 10 years ago, right before the 2008 presidential elections. don in dallas, texas, independent line, good morning. i have then listening this morning, enjoying your program. no one has brought up the fact of his finances, where he approached a home valued at around $1 million. could someone please fill us in on that? host: there is appease on his question are that included questions on his finances available at washington times website. caller: thank you much. host: a couple of more phone calls and we will go to our guest, steep roasting.

joe, florida, republican line, good morning. caller: everything is ideologically driven today. it almost always seems to be one-sided. the democrats seem to be the ones who are always slowing things down and obfuscating things. when they vote for the nominees, they go through fairly smoothly. they don't seem to be able to have the votes in the congress to be able to do anything. they use these tactics and it's a little bit more involved than what i am trying to explain. thank you for taking my call. we appreciate it. tony saying that we left out the most relevant part, the right to

be confronted with witnesses secret accusations are un-american." host: thank you, tony. this from another viewer -- how last caller is from port richie, florida. you get the last word. good morning. >> i'm a first-line caller. one in a -- the third grade, he pulled a little girl's ponytail in front of them. this is getting ridiculous. what clarence thomas went to. he's a good, honest man. put him in where he belongs. host: richard, thank you for the

call. coming up in just a moment, steven perlstein joins us to talk about the financial crisis. lessons learned from 10 years ago, can it happen again? later we turn the attention to the 2018 midterm elections and the governor's races across the country. lewis jacobson will be joining us. patrick leahy is the vice chair of the senate appropriations committee. in addition to the kavanaugh process, hurricane florence in the aftermath of what is now a tropical storm and what it will cost the federal government and what resources will be provided. here's that part of the conversation. >> are we confident that that amount is going to cover this hurricane season and the rest of this year? >> i don't know what's happening this weekend. you watch the news, and this is

something i have never seen before. are the everybody, we united states of america. i remember when hurricane irene it from off. it was devastating. -- vermont. it was devastating. huge destruction. getday after, i started to emails and calls from other senators, including very sayingative republicans, we will stand with you. we are the united states of america. whether it is a volcano in hawaii, and earthquake in california, flooding in the , welinas, or puerto rico are all part of the country. that is why i got worried about the way puerto rico was

happening. they are americans. this is part of the united states. we will do it. to answer your question, we will do it. i have not talked to a single republican or democrat who said we cannot find the money. we will find it. that is why i am worried when i see the white house taking money out of fema and putting it into or handleport people the mess they have made along the mexican and u.s. border. toyears ago, the aid hurricane sandy became politicized. >> somebody tried to do that. nailld fight tooth and against that. to best night --

host: you can watch that, newsmakers, this morning. our guest is senator patrick leahy. our guess is steven pearlstein, washington post columnist, out with his latest book this month, can american capitalism survive? thankorning good guest: you. host: you predicted the collapse on wall street. what did you see and when? inst: i wrote the columns 2007. the crisis began in the fall of 2008. by 2007, you were already beginning to see cracks in the mortgage market. you were beginning to see

companies that were involved in packaging mortgages and selling them to investors on wall street going under. i said, that is sort of interesting. what were they doing? it did not take very much to lift up the rock and say they were writing mortgages where you do not have to put any money down. they were writing mortgages where they did not check your credit score. i don't know about you, but i bought a house, and they were rather thorough in looking at my credit and other things. i could see that people on wall street were making a lot of money doing these things. that is a pretty good sign that when wall street is making a ton of money doing a new product or thing, you can pretty much be ine they are running away

the way that will not end well. host: when you wrote the columns in 2007, any reaction from the bush administration or official washington? guest: no. there was not even much reaction in the washington post newsroom. this guy again. time. this very euphoric markets were doing fabulously. the economy was doing fabulously. people rationalized these things. the reason it is up there is because we are going to be growing at a faster rate, or they are new technology that these instruments are being done, they spread risk. alan greenspan was given a knighthood by the queen of england because he talked about how feckless these things were in 2006 -- fabulous these things

were in 2006. nobody wanted to hear it. host: for those that did not have the expertise you did, what was lehman brothers doing? guest: lehman brothers got into trouble for a bunch of things. one of the things was just investing incredible amounts of high and paying very prices for commercial real estate. there was a huge commercial real estate bubble. lehman was a little bit involved, other companies more so. when you get a home mortgage, maybe you think the company sits there for 30 years and collects your monthly payment. today, that is not true. they take that mortgage and sell bank thatnvestment takes your mortgage and hundreds of them and puts them in a package.

they create a security out of that package. they sell that security to investors. let's say they had 1000 investors in this package. owns 1000th of each of those homes in that package. that is a way for investors to 000th of your monthly check. in some number of years you get your principle back. host: in the washington post, you write, in boom times, companies get into debt, forcing them to sell assets to pay interest on those debts, causing asset prices to fall and triggering even more forced selling and marketing. -- market panic. with corporate credit at an all-time high, it is a fair

guess that the u.s. is at moment.minkssky explain. guest: he was an economist that explains we would have these crises regularly because people forget about the last one and corporations take on too much debt. it looks like they are fine because they are doing great help and then something happens in the world, and then they are not having profits that they had come and it is difficult to keep up with their debt. they start cutting back. they have to sell things. it causes the price of those things to go down. other people sell. selling begets selling. that is when you have a financial crisis. e herd behaves in a

certain way, and that is selling. host: could it happen again? the question is how frequent and how severe these booms and busts will be. since 2008, we have done some things to reduce the crisis like the last one from but in continuing to embrace our more ruthless and unregulated and unfair model of capitalism, we have left most of the big things unchanged. guest: we have a different kind of capitalism in the u.s. than they have in your or japan. it is more ruthless. it offers investors less security. there is a lot less regulation. there is a lot less equality in income. all of those things contribute to this boom and bust cycle. you can go into the details of that if you want, but it is a

different kind of capitalism. we are particularly prone to that kind of boom and bust cycle. it was not true in the first 40 years after world war ii, but in the 1980's, we embraced the kind of capitalism that was much more cowboy like, much more innovative, but much less secure. we needed to do that because we were becoming noncompetitive in the 1980's. we were losing out to japan and germany. we pulled out of that by making adjustments that worked, but we have taken those adjustments and those ideas behind at to such an extreme that we have a different kind of problem in terms of booms and busts, inequality, lack of economic security, not enough regulation in certain areas.

that process of taking all those mortgages, packaging and selling them, and that investors sell insurance against them. it becomes very complicated. that goes on in and unregulated market called the shadow banking system. banks are actually smaller in terms of the money that goes through them then this shadow banking system. that has not changed. we have not changed much since 2008. host: we will be talking about all of this with our guest, steven pearlstein, his new book coming out on september 25. we have a line for those of you who may have worked on wall street, especially 10 years ago. that number is (202) 748-8003.

i want to take you back to the of 2008. george w. bush about to leave the white house, and this from the oval office. [video clip] >> the other part of my presidency that has been hard is huge economic turmoil recently. i am so sorry it is happening. it is happening, and therefore i have made the decision to not let there be a massive collapse. what is hard about this one is the hard-working taxpayer making his mortgage is wondering why the president is using his money that got a little excessive in their desire to make money. i understand that complaint. my answer is that if i thought

they could fail without causing the average guy real economic hardship, i would let them. it has been an interesting presidency from that perspective. host: your reaction. thet: that was always dilemma. tim geithner, secretary of the treasury at the time, had an interesting way of thinking about it. we can either punish all of these guys and make them suffer the full extent of their bad judgment, or we can save the economy, but we cannot do both. tell me what you think is more important. his feeling was let's say the whole economy -- save the whole economy. the problem of letting the financial crisis become a depression is that lots of innocent people who have nothing to do with all that lose their jobs, homes, savings. it is better to prevent or

nothing that than to do and let all of these firms fail one after the other, and it takes years to come out of that. host: think his book, george w. bush said his choice was to be herbert hoover or franklin and eleanor roosevelt. he opted -- franklin delano roosevelt. he opted to be fdr. guest: that is not exactly the right reading of history. was 38he crash, and it or 39 before the u.s. briefly came out of recession. it was only world war ii that cost the economy to start humming again. host: you mentioned treasury secretary tim geithner.

2008 and 2009,at became treasury secretary at the start of the obama administration. here is his reaction. [video clip] >> it was easier when we decided. the hardest thing was sitting at the table with my wife in the morning with her reading about what we were doing and seeing mix of despair and out. -- doubt. [laughter] i believe that she felt we were ethical people trying to do the right thing, but she looked at really?did and said, i think that was the hardest thing. that was mirrored by what we faced across the country and that gap between what we thought was right, the best of available

options, what we thought would provide the broadest benefit the fastest possible, and what people thought was fair and just. i think that was the hardest thing. host: that is on our website at c-span.org. guest: that is precisely the point. i wrote a lot of columns supportive of what the government was doing, what tim geithner and paulson were doing. bailing out the auto industry. two of the three auto companies were bailed out. i would get these calls from the far right and far left, how can you be doing this? this is just wrong. how can you bail out these guys? in order to bailout the economy, you need to bailout the financial system. the only way to bail out the

financial system is to make sure there are institutions that are still solvent that can buy and sell things and offer credit to the economy. if the firm's collapse, the system collapses. if the system collapses, the economy collapses. say we time, some of us are lending money into these things. we are temporarily investing money in the case of the banks. we will get it back. we did get it back. we actually made a small profit. what that tells us is that the system wasn't bankrupt. these institutions -- lehman brothers may be an exception. lehman brothers may have been. most of these institutions were solvent. the problem was there was a run on the bank.

everybody wanted their money at the same time. if everyone who puts money in a bank tries to get their deposits back, it is not there. it is lent out. when you have a panic, the best thing to do is plug the system with money. the panic subsides. that works only with the institutions are solvent, that in the long run they are able to pay you back. the auto companies paid back the investment with profit. aig paid back investment with profit. all those banks that took money or were made to take my paid back -- money paid back with interest. what happens in a panic is even institutions which did have enough capital, which were solvent, if there is a bank run, it looks like they are not. or you cannot tell whether they

are. that is the problem. things theyf the hold is bonds and stocks. if the value of those things in trading goes down, it looks like they are insolvent. if the reason they go down is because there is panic selling, then they were never really insolvent, though at the time we don't know. host: our guest is steven pearlstein, a business columnist for the washington post. he is out with a new book, can american capitalism survive? welcome to our listeners on c-span radio and sirius xm. our program carried live on the bbc parliament channel in great britain. we welcome you. lucy from virginia, good morning. caller: good morning.

i welcome the opportunity to hopefully get some answers. thisall 10 years ago as financial collapse was occurring, i cannot believe what on earth -- could not believe what on earth could cause that. if i could make a few points, please don't cut me off. politically the democrats have been pushing the everybody, it is a basic human right. it is a nice idea, but a lot of the banks were being pressured to offer these mortgages to people who essentially did not qualify. that is one point. i guess they are called subprime mortgages. causing it to happen,

this is the question i want to ask. fed must have been aware of all these mortgages out there that are very dangerous. they were all bundled up into cdo's on wall street. the fed must be aware of all of these tenuous mortgages. wise earth was it a thing to raise interest rates? host: was the fed aware? guest: the short answer is no. they were not. point, when at one this problem with mortgages started to be revealed, he said we have done some analysis, and in americartgage

went under, there is still enough capital in the banks to withstand that. what he did not understand is this shadow banking system, which he did not regulate. of theseaction mortgage securities with other securities that were linked to them and similar securities and how those were linked to commercial real estate, he did not fundamentally understand that because the fed is a bank regulator. their whole regulatory structure is based on the idea that a bank makes a loan and holds that loan. changed, theucture regulatory structure did not change. it still has not. host: you mentioned this earlier, this tweet saying no

cash for a rainy day fund, banks had little cash for a rainy day fund. can you explain that? guest: i think he is making the point that banks had too little capital. banks are required to have a cushion, a capital cushion, to have their own money that they put in treasury bonds in case they make loans that are bad loans and they have to suffer losses. losses,suffer too many then they are insolvent. that means the depositors do not get their money back. since the government ensures those deposits, they insist that 80% of their 7%, cap -- 8% of their capital in reserve. as it turns out, they did have

enough. that is not the problem. the problem is everyone wanted to sell these fancy securities in the shadow banking system all at once, and nobody wanted to buy them. the trading price, which changes every minute, fell through the floor. bankstrue that those actually owned some of those instruments, quite a few of them. they also found commercial real owned commercial real estate. all of those things looked like their value was going down very fast. it looked like they did not have enough capital to absorb those losses when they did. we did not know that. bank looks insolvent, everybody starts demanding money back from

everyone else at the same time. the system collapses. host: how long have you been at the washington post? guest: 30 years, a little more than 30 years. i was hired as a business editor in 1988. of bookrecord amount sales. dave is joining us from armstrong creek, wisconsin. caller: good morning. i would just like to point out that wasn't the democrats pushing that. that was the george w. bush administration. pearlstein, would you please explain to the audience how the rating institutions were involved, standard & poor's, moody's, how they rated these packages aaa when they were actually toxic.

they were kind of in collusion with the whole thing. it was a very good book i read a long time ago, matt tidy, -- taibi, it explains a lot of the stuff that went on at the time. it is easy to read. the federal government got their money back, but a lot of people, including me, i lost it the portion of my 401(k) at a time when i was 55 years old. recoup that.e to that's great that the government got their money back, but can you speak about that? host: are you working now? guest: i am destined caller: i am semi retired.

i am 66. i am working part-time. i am getting social security. i am doing ok, but it was at that time for me. caught. people were argument resonated in 2012 and 2016. guest: let's remember the government's money is your money. the government is not some force out there that is supposed to -- popposed to you. -- opposed to you. it's us. that the government caused this by subsidizing mortgages, there is a little truth to that, but it is fundamentally not true. the reason subprime mortgages

became such a big hit was that bonanza.et saw a wall street and the real estate industry saw a bonanza in selling more homes, making bonae mortgages, putting them into packages and selling them to investors. the demand was huge. it was because the demand from that the was so big signals that were sent through the system was send me more mortgages. send me more packages. they went out and told the brokers send me more mortgages. they got them. it was not because the government was encouraging it. it is still the case that these institutions fannie mae and freddie mac, which are now owned by the government because we had before them over, but

they were sort of independent companies. they have rules. they subsidize all mortgages in the u.s. that they buy. their rules were that you had to have a credit check, put down 10% to 20%. the mortgages that fannie and freddie karen t, there was not a , thereblem -- guaranteed was not a big problem with those. there was a big problem with the ones that did not go through them, which were subprime. those were financed by the shadow banking system. fannie and freddie were not participating in them. what happened at the end of the boom is that fannie and freddie saw that it's market share was going down. what they did with their money, their profit, they went and bought those securities as an investment. that is one of the ways they

lost a lot of money. it is also true that foreclosures went up across the country, including loans that have been injured by fannie and freddie. sometimes they went down by more than 20%, and those mortgages were underwater. freddie, to say they caused this or that george bush's encouragement of working class people who did not have the down payment to be able to make that the government caused this, this was financial market driven. host: we want to get back to the calls quickly. if you could quickly explain. dodd-frankd in --

signed into law by obama. guest: i don't really agree with it. the law requires a lot of reporting and a lot of stress testing. it was applied to too many banks, smaller banks. they have changed that so that it only applies to big banks. the truth is even the big banks dodd really want to change -frank now. they have come to live with it. the banks are in a much better position. this is a theological thing with .epublicans they think all regulation is that anytime you have a regulation they call it job killing.

system is already too big relative to the economy, too rich, too powerful. the idea that it has to be richer and more power, i think we could do with less financial innovation these days. host: our guest, can american capitalism survive? white greed is not good, opportunity is not equal, and fairness will not make us poor. caller: good morning. i wanted to say thank you to mr. perlstein. he is a very good conveyor of this information that a lot of people don't understand. i wanted to mention and see if there are any responses. i know he is not here to manage my portfolio.

him what heask thought about this. my husband and i will be retiring. when you say retiring, that is something that means different things to different people. my job,be leaving collecting a very small pension. he is already collecting social security. ago andere two weeks independently, we just don't feel good about what is going on. we already lived through the last losses of things in the stock market. back,e gotten much of it but we took all of our stocks, not all, we have a little bit left, but we took them all out and put them in savings. host: please your question can it happen again -- is your

question can it happen again? caller: i believe it is going down again. mr. perlstein is indicating that is how it works. guest: that is not how it works. but you see signs right now that things are frothy right now and the value of those stocks or bonds, there is a good indication that things have risen higher than their general economic value. if you have a lot of your money in cash, in a savings account, that is probably good to have a lot of it there now. it is very difficult to time markets. people who are professionals cannot time the markets. we can look at when markets looked pretty frothy. they show signs of that now. bonds too.s to

that is the trading value of bonds. if you are willing to hold the bonds until it matures, that is fine. when the market has a correction, the value, the trading value of those bonds will go down, and your monthly statement will say you have less money. if you are willing to hold the bond until it is due, you will get your money back in all likelihood, and you will get your interest every year along the way. the trading value and the value on your statement every month will look like it went down. if you are not prepared to do retirement, are in and you will need that money, you may want to move into cash. int: we are going to brian washington state. good morning. caller: good morning. i am glad you are on the show this morning because i have been

asking myself, i just came up with these situations where they actually happened. if you could just answer yes or no so we could get through them quick. in 1997, did the congressional budget office tell the country that we were going to go from ink ink to black 2007? did that happen? guest: no, we were on the verge of, and we actually ran a surplus for a year or two at the end of the clinton administration. that is correct. host: you want to follow up? guest: i was curious if the situation of us not going to black ink was the bush $500istration issuing rebate checks to each household.

did that keep us in red ink? --t: guest: yes. it was not just $500 to individuals. it was business tax cuts. exceeding.re government revenue was going up in the booming economy of the 90's. we were in that situation. bush tax cuts reduced the government revenue below its expenditure, where it has remained ever since. bday, we are in another oom. we just had another tax cut so that our deficit this year and next year will be $1 trillion per year. the major cause of that will have been the fact that we cut taxes too much. host: it does than 10 years

since the financial crisis. the man who predicted this, steven pearlstein, is here. what are some of the signs we are seeing in the economy today? cliff from connecticut. democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you. i have a quick question for your guests. i would like to get his opinion on why there were no criminal prosecutions in 2008. there was a lot of wrongdoing across-the-board, but there were zero criminal prosecutions on that. i would like to hear what he has to say about that. thank you. host: thank you. guest: a lot of us are not happy about that, but having bad financial judgment is not a .rime

being stupid is not a crime. being overly optimistic is not a crime. that is the short answer why there were not criminal prosecutions. you have to prove that somebody knew something was wrong or lied about it, and it was very hard to prove such things. there was a lot of self-deception on wall street involved. there were instances where people knew things and did not say it. probably not the chief executive banker of a $20 billion did not know about this mortgage and that mortgage. place in manyk instances was at a very low level. lender, notroker or a big bank, but a smalltime guy

might have known that he was selling stinky loans. major banks generally did not make stinky loans. they bought them and packaged them. a lot of those stinky loans were made by small fry who were essentially brought into the industry and created because the shadow banking system wanted more and more mortgages to packaged so they can earn a fee. host: stinky loans, is that economy 101? guest: yes. that is loans you can predict will go back. the ratings agencies were part of this. there was some thought that maybe they did engage in fraud, that people at the ratings agencies knew they were giving too high of ratings to these instruments, and they gave them high ratings because they know

that they did not have that there were investment banks would not go to them, they would go to another ratings agency. was there grade inflation induced by the desire to earn more and more fees? that whole structure by which the investment bank that puts together the packages pays the ratings agency is inherently unstable and leads to corruption. we ought to figure out a different way to pay the ratings agencies. they should be paid by the investors for home they are giving advice. they are saying this is this risky. the investors are the ones who need that. they are the ones who should pay for it, not the one who is selling the instrument. he is good to pressure the ratings agency.

give me a good grade. we never fixed that with dodd-frank. we should have fixed that so that investors pay for them. headline, the junk debt that tanked the economy. it is back in a big way. from go to ann california. caller: good morning. i have a couple of questions. banks toou expect the start paying us our little higher interest on the money and the banks, especially the regular savings accounts for .eople we used to get 4% and 5% interest rate on regular savings accounts. now you get 0.1%.

you get less than a dollar at the end of the year. why don't you go to your bank or and ask him why he hasn't raise rates? there are some banks that are beginning to pay not 4% to 5%. we are not at that level. you should be beginning to get 1% or even a little more than that. there are banks or money markets that are paying that. you should look around. call the bank and say the fed is raising rates by one percentage point. there should be some connection between the federal funds rate and the bank rate you are getting. host: it could happen again, the flaws of american capitalism

invites cycles of booms and busts. you write that banks are better capitalized and less vulnerable to a short-term loss. consumer protections were strengthened until the trunk crowd took over. the financial system and american economy remain uniquely vulnerable to booms and busts because americans have chosen a set of capitalism based largely on flawed ideas embraced in the 1980's that persist to this day. caller: good morning. i would like to say that i watched the goldman sachs hearings way back when, and i thought they were real helpful in understanding what happened. those were very interesting. the second point, i think dodd-frank had a hand in this

because they allowed the subprime loan to be made available to people, basically opened it up to everyone. people like countrywide went wild with it. i was felt that president obama could have given relief to people in the buckets and not the banks. i felt they could have refinanced a good portion of those loans and made those better and maybe only sustained a smaller proportion of loss when they so those but this, which would bail out the homeowners and trickle up to the banks. i thought obama by bailing out the banks with the homeowners get foreclosed on. that would have been away. there are several problems with that.

one, the government would have to choose between those who were worthy of being bailed out and those who were not, those who needed it, and those who pretended to needed to get some help. if you think about it, that is probably not something the government is going to be very good at doing. it would have been very hard to do in the fairway. it probably would have cost a lot more money. rescuel trick in this was restoring confidence in the peopleal system by the who are involved every day in the financial system. it is not you and me and steve. it is people who package, buy and sell these instruments. you needed to stop the bank run. the fact that everyone was calling back their money.

they wanted the cash. it. just wanted to hold if we could solve that problem, then the panic goes away, and the prices of those instruments goes back closer to their economic value. frankly,a quicker, and it was something the government could probably do and succeed with. doing the other thing would have been very hard, and there would have been all sorts of people who would have thought it was unfair. the caller remembers the goldman hearing. do you remember something else? do you remember how the tea party started? it started because a guy on cnbc who covered the chicago futures exchanges. host: rick santelli. guest: he heard about this idea of bailing out homeowners.

he said i don't want to use my tax money to bail out those people that never should have had a mortgage in the first place. that is how the tea party began. the resentment against fellow citizens who might be getting help you don't deserve it would have been a political problem. mentioned -- caller mentioned the goldman hearings. in goldman,rought and they turned out to have been selling a package of these securities, which they knew were becausebut they did it one of their big customers wanted to bet against them. placeis a way to actually t that aial be

security will go down. this guy wanted to do that. they created a package of stinky loans, which they did it intentionally so this guy could make money. he did. the senators called up the goldman people and said how could you do that? how could you put out a security that you knew were stinky so that a customer could make money on that. they say, we just do this. this is what we do on wall street. it was like the senators and the guys from goldman are from venus and mars. they were talking past each other. the guys at goldman say we do this all day every day. we try to screw the other traders may that is what we do. -- traders. that is what we do. senators were saying this is immoral. don't deal saying we

in morality. i want to sell it. he wants to buy it. i am a grown up. he is a grown up. sometimes people make money. sometimes they don't. host: very quickly, this is a tweet. i want to show the debt clock. at what point does the national debt become a problem? it is now $21.5 trillion. guest: i am not one of those people that goes running around saying we are imposing this burden on our grandchildren. freak, but wet are taking on so much debt because of these tax cuts and entitlementsve that have need of some reforming. we're taking on so much debt that at some point the rest of the world is going to say, i am

not interested in lending you money for that come or if i am, am, i amat, or if i going to require much higher interest. taxpayer isbt per $176,000. guest: don't look at that. look at how much we have to pay in interest every year. this is something i heard the other day. the amount of money we are spending every year to service the debt, to pay the interest, is more than we pay that medicare -- we pay on medicare. interest rates are pretty low now. wait until interest goes back to historical norms when government borrows at 4% and 5%. the number is going to go up. that means either raising taxes or people are going to start to

mandy even more money to lend us money. those people are foreigners to a large extent. that is good to be the problem. the problem is servicing the debt. people have the misconception that this debt will have to be paid by our grandchildren. government debt is never repaid. it is always rolled over. we bonds come due, and issued new bonds. in the hundred years, the u.s. government is good to be able to borrow money. the question is, can we afford interest payments? soon that will product other government -- crowd out other government spending. the government will not be able to do the things we need to do. our guest is steven pearlstein of the washington post. he has a new book titled, ken

american capitalism survive? -- can american capitalism survive? thank you for being here. from the economy to politics and midterm elections, our look at the race for governors coming up in a moment. louis jacobson is going to join us. first, we traveled to lake charles, louisiana, part of our c-span cities tour. airing later today c-span3n2 booktv and american history tv. we will look at the city's chemical manufacturing growth. start movingeople out of the community? c the first buyout with

onoco was about 20 years ago or better. this was part of conoco phillips. a lot of the history started in as far as the martial residence just where this tank farm was many years ago before conoco expanded. this was small. families lived in this area. this was one of the first buyout's the refineries did. families on both sides of this road. the development you see recently has happened in the last five years. sassaw came in in 2013 to start

their buyout. volunteer basis that you had a choice to either stay accept the buyout they offered. host: travel to lake charles, louisiana, all part of the c-span cities tour. booktv and american history tv. midterm elections, governor races, louis jacobson is following this as a contributing editor to governing magazine. guest: there are 36 governors races this year. host: why are they significant? guest: there are a lot of reasons. a lot of policies made at the state level.

not everything is at the federal government level. there is a big policy impact. because the 2020 census is coming up, you have the last chance for democrats, who currently trail in the governors by 32-16, it is their last chance to even up the governorships. governors have a significant role in a lot of states, not all states, power over redistricting, often veto power. for the number of seats in the u.s. house that are controlled by each party. it has lots of significance. this is the big year for governors races with 36

contests. this is by far the biggest year in the four-year cycle. there are 10 or 12 races two years from now. midterm contest. let's talk about georgia. it is an open secret gov. nathan deal is stepping down. a number of african-american candidates running for governor. here is an advertisement running in atlanta. [video clip] >> remember him, he pointed a shotgun had a kid and said it was a joke. he has been caught making it harder for rural georgians to vote. a campaign donor recommended closing down 709 polling locations in randolph county. >> consolidation has become

highly recommended. >> trying to shut down our right to vote, how can anyone trust someone like brian kemp? florida,th georgia and these are states where the two parties had open seats and primaries in which the relatively more moderate candidate lost. you have a really sharply opposed ideological contest in georgia and florida. is facing aams, who state which has traditionally been red. in some of the recent election cycles, democrats thought they had a chance with some candidates who had some appeal, but the state was to red. they fell behind in the final tally by larger margins than

folks thought going into it. things are changing demographically in georgia. it is a state where hillary clinton in 2016 did a lot better. the democrats did not win the state, but she did a lot better there than in some of the recent presidential elections. like it looks like the democrats are having, .t will be interesting probably a nasty race in terms of the ideology of the candidates being held against each of them in these attack at. host: we saw that. brian kemp is the republican candidate. one of the campaign has his campaign his aring. [video clip] >> she is an extremist. she campaigned with socialists who endorsed her.

she wants government run health care with massive new taxes. she wants public venue release for law enforcement officers. stacey abrams, too extreme for georgia. host: to your point, the negative ads in the georgia market. they: this is going to be race to watch. what is happening here and in florida is you have a fairly liberal african-american candidate who draws pretty well among minority voters and young voters. that could shuffle the deck a little bit. traditionally, georgia has been dominated by more conservative right-leaning voters. if the turnout patterns are different because of the

, it sort ofave shuffles the deck. i don't know where it is going to end up. i have this race as lean my sense is that this is one of those contests that will go down to the wire. we will see. host: our first caller is from lawrenceville, georgia. good morning. this would be a good segue. you guys,g to remind mr. jacobson, that there is a third-party candidate, ted metz with the libertarian party. with how he left the conversation regarding georgia, what does he think the impact will be of that? bunch ofere are a states around the country that do have third or fourth party candidates.

georgia is not one that i'm tracking most closely. it could have an impact on the margins. georgia is a runoff state. if no one gets a clear majority on the day of the election and there is a runoff, that could mean in georgia you could have a later election in which the turnout is different. i don't know who that helps. at this point it is premature to say, but that could be a factor. there are bunch of other states that have a third-party factor. they include kansas, maine, rhode island, and alaska. these are three-way races in which one party could be at a disadvantage because the third-party candidate could bleed support for one and lead to someone being elected with maybe 38% or 40% of the vote. host: let's talk about kansas. guest: kansas is fascinating. governor sam brownback, who is

now in the trump administration, he served a pretty controversial couple of years. inually, nearly 2 terms kansas. a lot of taxcutting and budget problems. in 2014 for second term despite a pretty strong challenge. it was a gop wave year. he has soured -- and this is a souredd state -- he has some of the more moderate republicans against the republican party, giving democrats an opening. that is the only way a democrat could really win kansas. the lieutenant governor moved up to governor, but they lost the primary.

koback, nearly. and is quiteon controversial. he has been controversial on voter access issues and on the issue of immigration. so to aeally even more certain extent than sam alienated moderate republicans, a core constituency in the state. the challenge for democrats, a pretty strong candidate, is there is a strong third-party candidate. greg orman ran in the senate race a couple of years ago and did pretty well. it was a contest in which there was no democratic candidate. the straight head-to-head matchup. kobach, against kelly, against orman.

isach might have a base that 34%, or somewhere close to that. it is a much more competitive race. we have it as a lean gop seat, but depending on how the democratic vote between orman and the lead democratic nominee shakes out over the next couple of weeks, we could have a tossup race. we have a line for independents. louis jacobson. could the gop admit turns be the year of the young? joining us from chicago, good morning. in the state of he has been walker

doing a great job [indiscernible] host: you are breaking up. we heard wisconsin and you are asking about governor walker. i assume you're trying to get a sense of that race. guest: just because walker was the incumbent, the democrats have contested the primary. it is now a pure tossup seat. maybe even one of the better democratic pickup opportunities in the country. it is hard for any candidate, agardless of party, to win third term. he has actually won three elections, including the recall election he faced. there is a general structural sentiment among voters for change after 8 years. that is a challenge to begin with.

furthermore, this is a state where the democrats seem to be poised for a comeback. narrowly for a couple of cycles and around. it is historically a swing state and the pendulum could be moving back. tony evers won the democratic primary by surprisingly large percentage fairly easily in a several candidate race. he seems to have a certain amount of momentum. i think it is a tossup race still, that that could change as election day comes. host: you mentioned the florida's governor's race which will be fascinating. a petri dish example of understanding politics in this country, you can read the piece on the washington post. [video clip] shocker.s a

his name is andrew gillum, the mayor of tallahassee. >> is one of seven children born to a construction worker and school bus driver. lum could be the first african-american to hold that post. >> tallahassee mayor andrew gillum will win the democratic nomination for the governor of florida. >> if the state of florida has to show the rest of the world, let it begin right here. host: democratic nominee for governor in florida. this from the supporters of ron desantis, the republican nominee. [video clip] >> talk about collusion with russia, first of all collusion is not a crime. collusion is not a crime. crime.on is not a collusion is not a crime.

collusion is not a crime. talk about collusion with russia, first of all collusion is not a crime. democrats is from the going after ron desantis. ron is a july ad from the desantis campaign in advance of the republican primary. [video clip] >> everyone knows my husband ron desantis is endorsed by president trump. he is also an amazing dad. >> build the wall. >> he read stories. >> been mr. trump says "you're fired." i love that part. he is teaching him to talk. >> make america great again. >> i just thought you should know. phone isning us on the

the political reporter that reportere -- politico that covers the state. andrew gillum was up slightly? caller: right. andrew gillum leads ron desantis by and inside the error margin marked by 3% or 4%, depending on the poll. that is to say it is probably tied. we can basically deduce that by the fact that leaders within the margin of error. also, it is florida. there is very little reason to believe the ford race for governor will be different in november. host: i want to go back to jacobson pointed out, that florida will be a test case for both parties leading up to the election in november? caller: the election you are seeing in florida, especially

the governor's race, is a test of the deepest blue progressives and one of the darkest red trump conservatives. this makes voters take a clear choice. what is interesting about the governor's race this year as opposed to previous years, is within the past five elections for governor, the florida democratic party has nominated a white centrist from the tampa bay region. they have lost and lost and lost. the last five has been a white centrist, the last four have been from tampa bay. a variety of factors, the most blue, progressive, and liberal candidate, andrew gillum, has been nominated for the democrats. it is a first time for them and for florida governor's at large. tell us a little about

the turnout and how that will shape things in florida. the smartest and dumbest thing ever said in politics is it is all about the turnout. it is true. that is the reason we say it. the problem democrats historically had is the democratic turnout is abysmal and the republican turnout is good. in prior -- in a few prior midterm elections we have had, the republican performance had 4% greater than the democratic turnout. that has basically been sealing the deal for republicans each time. now that we have a very liberal nowcratic candidate, and that we have an opportunity to choose between the very liberal and very conservative one it puts to test what progressives have been saying all along.

they are saying our voters will not show up for someone they are not enthused about. now they have someone to be enthused about, the question is, will they show? host: what impact will the governor's race have on the senate race? moneyputting a lot of against bill nelson. guest: we have not -- caller: r.i.m. not seen polling to show how the gubernatorial race will affect the senate race. a lot of us have a strong belief having looked at the primary that there will be increased african-american enthusiasm that will probably drive more turnout. that will probably help bill nelson. even though president trump's approval ratings are not good, they're not as bad in florida as they were nationwide. it would be a mistake to assume

that those trump voters might not show this time. a third point to raise is we have had a few special election test runs. about 4 contested local races in florida for various offices, statehouse, state senate, a mayoral race. in those races we have seen with the democrats say we are going to compete with the republican in this swingy district. special elections from the tampa bay regions in the miami area, if they are at all instructive about the mood of the electorate, it bodes well for what they are saying might be the blue wave. caputo joining us from the sunshine state. we check in with him often.

thank you for joining us. your take away? guest: this will be the marquee contest. there's an georgia will probably attract the most attention. these are big population states, big prizes for the 2018 midterms. i would think the focus nationally will be on these two states until election day. (202) 748-8000 is the line for democrats. (202) 748-8001 is the line for republicans. if you are an independent, (202) 748-8002. i believe there is a poll today that showed the incumbent republican governor down by a larger margin than before. this is a state, i have it as a lean democratic seat. it is pretty far gone for the gop.

it is hard to see it not flipping. it is going to be a high spending contest. it will be one where most rich ands are very willing to spend their own money. in state of illinois recent years has been a very democratic state. it is a fluke that they have a gop governor now.it would not surprise me to see a democrat win at the end of the day. who is jp's pritzker? he is a wealthy heir with a moderate political background, he is more of a business guy.has a lot of money to spend and the wind is at his back nationally and statewide. that is why we give him the edge. , democrats.748-8000

(202) 748-8001, republicans. iowa, another race you are watching? where there are a couple the lieutenant governor has been elevated because someone has joined the administration or left for some reason. i mentioned that was the case in kansas. it is the case in iowa. the current governor is a republican, kim reynolds. be trying foro her first term on her own. candidateats have a who is a businessman. a prettyell won convincing victory in the primary. it will be a good race. i have this in the tossup category now. this is a state which supported obama twice, the birth of his

victory in 2008. it's one heavily towards trump and 2016. it is definitely swingy. a lot of counties along the pped fromriver fli strong obama to strong trump and 2016. what democrats are counting on is the cyclical 8 years is enough situation will help them in 2018. host: international falls, minnesota. good morning, brad. i am wondering what he thought about the minnesota governor race. number two, i was listening to the guy from politico talk about democrats not showing up. most people look at that much differently. the ones that don't show and don't show up to vote is called a vote of no-confidence.

that is what will happen at the midterms. after it shakes out everyone will say we thought the democrats were going to win. they have no chance until they kick out the media from running the dnc. until someone takes over the dnc to run it and boot the media that is running it today, i feel sorry for the party. i would like to know about minnesota now. host: there are two senate race is also in minnesota. guest: it is political ground zero for 2018. there are a couple of house races as well, and statewide offices like attorney general that are very big. historically, there is a democratic legacy. mark dayton is the outgoing two-term governor in the state. not hugely popular, but not hugely unpopular either. this is one of the midwestern states where it is a contest

with the governorship is coming open. this one, the key thing was in the gop primary. the former governor from a couple of terms ago lost. he had been seen as the establishment favorite. jeff johnson is the republican candidate.he is more conservative . this is a seat that i have in the lean democratic -- i think it is lean democratic. let me double check. yes, it is in the lean democratic category. of the various open midwestern seats for democrats, the most likely to go their way at this point. we have a bunch of tossups, this one is lean democratic i have. host: i want to direct your attention to this website from the university of virginia, political-atlas.com. it is an interactive map. you

can click on a state and get information about the polling and candidates. good morning, bill. caller: thank you for taking my call. i greatly appreciate it. i have to agree with the last color. the media is running the democrats in this election. you know, it is all about obama. what states he won. it seems like it is unfair. i think this president is doing a great job. he is not getting any credit, but he is doing the best he can and he is not getting any cooperation. hopefully, this country can come together and we can work together to make it better. what is going on now keeps dividing us. that is all i have to say. thank you for taking my call.

host: you are from one of the counties in pennsylvania that flipped for trump in 2016 after voting for democrats for more than 20 years? caller: yes, sir. yuri, pennsylvania. the first-term incumbent governor wolf is seeking reelection against wagner, the gop candidate. we have this in the likely democratic candidate. waggoner is a trump-y republican. wolf, while not enormously unpopulars not too either. with the wind at their backs as a democrat, wolf has been up by double digit margins in the recent polls. host: good morning, republican line. caller: good morning.

how are you doing? i am from georgia. i was wondering about the abrams race in georgia. i think abrams might have a chance. he got the primary, won the primary over cagle. i thought cagle had a better chance to beat abrams, but when president trump's people endorsed him, i figured they put in because of everyone backing trump. i don't think he is the best qualified to represent the democratic side. guest: i will second something that marc said on the phone. turnout will be everything. if stacy abrams inspire new voters to come to the polls,

georgia has a growing minority population, a growing suburban population, which is shifting democrats. if she can energize those disparate groups, she will have a decent chance. say. still too early to things are developing. host: can a democrat win in oklahoma? guest: this particular democrat might be able to. drew edmondson is the former attorney general of the state. it is a very republican state, however mary fallin, the coven current governor, is very unpopular. she was in the teens in the recent approval rating. there is also a contested gop primary where a political

untested, a who is businessman type. in terms of political skill, the democrat has an edge. leannk the general party of the state for the gop is ready significant. it is a pretty tough obstacle to overcome, but not impossible. i believe i have this in the lean gop category. james,outh carolina, good morning. caller: good morning. my only statement is i keep nobody these people say will work with trump, do this, --that >> they forge this do that. they forget this started with obama. how the republicans treated

obama when he was president. they started all of the collusion things. the emails over hillary clinton. they opened the can of arms, now they had -- can of worms, now they have to deal with it. guest: those are issues at the federal level. what i'm focusing on is that state level where historically there is a linkage, a modest linkage, between what is going on at the national level and state level. the state level has different issues than that federal level contests. it is not a pure link between the two. in the past couple of cycles in the midterms, 2006, 2010, 2014, seats changed in favor of the wave party. i am currently estimating that

as we stand now. things could change, but the democrats are on track to gain net 3-7 seven seats in 2018. our next caller is from daytona beach, florida. caller: good morning. how are you all doing this morning? i think the democrats are going to turn out heavy in florida. rick scott, we had eight years of him. desantis he wants to stay right behind trump. i don't know. you had a guy call a few minutes ago that said no one is helping trump. he has the senate and house of representatives. the problem with mr. trump is these guys don't want to get behind him because he is a

crook. he was a crook before he went in there with all of the stuff he had in his past. you have to say the proof is in the pudding, especially with him. with all of the baggage he had, they had to know that people were not going to let him do what he wants. that is my opinion. the earlier caller from pennsylvania, was very trump.ive of donald how big of a factor is he in the governor's races? guest: we don't know yet. there is no strongly necessarily between what is happening on the federal level and state level. there is a modest link. however, one of the interesting --ngs -- i did calculations 6 states i have

been the competitive category which is tossup, lean democratic, or lean republican seats. percentageve a high of agriculture and manufacturing as a share of their economy. these are largely in the midwest. historically swing states. most of them are controlled by the gop now. a bunch of those seats are coming open, so there is no incumbent. that is the ground zero for the the 2018 targeting gubernatorial elections. these are states that will hurt by some of the trade issues the president has pushed to the fore. the agriculture and

manufacturing sector has had negative consequences from that. these are people who i would think in 2016 probably supported trump heavily. ehe question is whether th emotional bond to trump and past support for trump will be stronger than perhaps their pocketbook issues, which might be starting to suffer when they go to the polls. host: late last night, the a storyt re-tweeting from donald trump, jr. on breitbart. the headline is "my dad fixed the economy that you could not." a reference to president obama in the speech he gave last week. good morning. caller: i think they should have honesty in campaign advertising. where itd a commercial repeated over and over "collusion is not a crime."

they were saying collusion is a crime, i suppose. that is what it looked like. it is not really a crime. if it is a crime why don't they arrest john kerry? he is colluding with iran, and iran is an enemy of the united states. that is what the crime is in that commercial. is very deceptive. host: let's talk about california. it is not a very competitive race. i have it in the safe democratic category. the current lieutenant governor, he won a spot in the general the gop candidate. state fara very blue ahead in the polls and is expected to win.

what is interesting is that jerry brown, the outgoing democratic governor, 4-term governor of california -- host: the youngest and the oldest. guest: he is now probably going to give up his seat for gavin newsom, who is about 30 years younger. this is a generational change. i looked at a lot of the governor's races, the nominees, people who ran and lost in the primaries. not everywhere, but in a lot of states, we're seeing people that are 5, 10, 20 years younger. the election could be a generational change election. joseph, good morning. issue aboutve an freedom of internet and freedom

of speech. i was wondering if i could bring that up. guest: it is not a subject i am familiar with. host: let me ask you about ohio.former president obama campaigning in that state. guest: sure. this is one of the states at the start of the cycle i gave it a lean republican rating, but have moved it to a tossup. example of the midwestern state where there has years gop governor for 8 and the democrats have a real opportunity. it has a lot of manufacturing and agriculture. it is a pretty close race. it is certainly no guarantee that a democrat will win, but it is a good opportunity for them. same could be said in terms of michigan. in terms of iowa, as i mentioned before. these are states where the rubber will hit the road for the democrats.

can they win trump states from 2016 in 2018 given the satisfaction with trump, a better turnout, and the wind at their backs? host: going back to ohio, california, pennsylvania where you have high-profile governors races and competitive senator races. whether voters will split their ticket or vote straight partyline? guest: it is a great question. with is a moderate linkage the personal attributes of the candidates mattering. it is not unheard of for a that ar to win statewide governor from the other party wins. florida is a good example. two huge senate and governor race combos with a lot of spending on both. a big population state.

a history of close races. i could see a possibility with the democrat wins one, and the republican wins the other. host: we will check in with you often. 50 days and counting. in a moment we will open our phone lines. tell us what is on your mind. (202) 748-8000, democrats. (202) 748-8001, republicans. (202) 748-8002, independents. you are watching and listening to c-span's "washington journal." we are back in a moment. ♪ >> tonight on q&a, historian richard norton smith discusses his biography of herbert hoover. >> he said when all is said and

done, accomplishment is all that matters. when you think about it, it is an unsentimental -- the sort of thing you would expect an engineer to say. that is one of the keys to understanding his life, his success in everything but the presidency. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. thursday morning, watch the senate judiciary committees debate and vote on the nomination of judge kavanaugh to the supreme court. >> if this man is successfully nominated he could become the deciding vote on major legal issues that americans care deeply about. >> i now move to report from the committee the nomination of brett kavanaugh to be associate court. of the supreme

> follow the process live thursday morning and 9:30 eastern on c-span, c-span.org, or the free c-span radio app. >> monday night on the communicators a discussion with the u.s. telecom president on developing 5-g and the expansion of broadband throughout the united states. he is interviewed by the tech and telecom reporter for "the hill." providersnd are ready to work with any democratic or republican, to advance pro-investment policies that will guide development and the future of our internet. theher we like it or not, ones that transfer the broadband blue.k are either red or we need a nonpartisan approach when it comes to shaping the rules of the road that will ofmate the next generations

how and where we want the internet to provide. >> watch the communicators monday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span two. "washington journal" continues. 25 minutes left in the program. in what they call a district work period. of spendingng packages before recessing for the midterm elections. the senate will be in session for part of october. a headline from "the charlotte observer." as rain hitting the region with more to come. from the "asheville citizen times" hammered, power lines are

down across the region. and finally, the death toll rising to 11. this is drone footage from new bern, north carolina to give you an extent of the damage across the carolinas, especially the coastal region where the rain continues this sunday morning. tropical storm florence becoming a federal disaster. we will go to your phone calls. janet, from new london, ohio. what is on your mind? good morning. i'm calling about the latino crisis in ohio. happened that have in norwood, ohio and marion, ohio. shout out to governor kasich. if we want a blue wave we need to think about our latino communities and voters. i don't think they will go to

the polls without your support. host: st. paul, minnesota. independent line. good morning. had ar: i actually question about the fema pb. i had trouble getting a refinance to a lower interest rate on my house. when i heard about the consumer finance protection act, this was a good deal for the consumers. i am a consumer. it turned out they set the debt income ratio, which i think prevented me from getting a deal for a lower interest rate. i thought this should have been called the bank protective finance agency. did make a complaint.

the federal reserve responded on their behalf of the consumer finance agency. it was kind of interesting. i was curious what he would have said about it. he was interesting and informative. cfpb was a result of what happened 10 years ago. frome getting your tweets the school liberal who says what is the 2019 budget due in 15 days. they don't want the u.s. to know they doubled the deficit obama left of them, the republicans are saying nothing about it. cr, continuing resolution, will fund the rest of the government until after lawmakers

return after the election. that will likely continue until the first or second week of december. good morning. caller: am i on? host: you are. let me go on to alan, i apologize. caller: yes. what effect will these polls have on voter turnout with everyone saying hillary clinton will win by 60% to 40%. then it goes the other way. did that suppress democratic votes? host: what do you think? caller: i think it does. people say why vote when we know the outcome? host: i'm not here to defend or criticize, but the national polls had it right. they took into account the

electoral college, and states like michigan, wisconsin, and ohio. hillary clinton won nationally by 1.29%. she did not win the electoral college, but did win the popular vote. caller: i had not thought about that. your previous guest, when he theret up the fact that were questions for the foreseeable future, a lot of people forget they were looking at the surpluses and they disappeared. int: we will go on to rose pasadena, texas. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wanted to make a comment on the kavanaugh confirmation. host: go ahead.

we -- as a federal employee you take an oath. we all do. before we do that we have to be vetted. thoroughly vetted. i feel that everything must come gentleman we put this up with the supreme court. host: this is that headline of the litter go.com, the sexual theult -- politico.com, sexual assault allegation leaves the kavanaugh confirmation in limbo. intoscends republicans damage control mode, leaving democrats unsure whether to capitalize. with the exception of one democratic senator, lawmakers bem both parties claim to

blindsided from an anonymous allegation that kavanaugh forced himself on a woman in a locked room at a high school party decades ago. republicans scrambled to round of character witnesses, and democrats remained mum to see what would happen next. speculation,s of kavanaugh remained where he started. neither closer to nor farther neededom the 50 points to give donald trump a second high court justice in 2 years. alabama, republican line. caller: good morning. i wanted to make a comment about us republicans in alabama. as republicans are not necessarily trump supporters. we sent a democrat in washington to congress. we have a few that still have

their heads in their -- in the sand, and see donald trump as a savior rather than a desperate. quite frankly, i compare him to hitler. i'm shocked there are that many supporters for trump. he is not a republican. he is a trump man, only for trump, always will be for trump. god save us all if that man is not put out of office soon. he is a threat to our society. host: you mentioned doug jones, the democratic senator from alabama. he was one of the -- on one of the 5 sunday shows we air on c-span radio. you can listen to it at noon. our thanks to the networks that allow us to carry the senate programs and cnn.

fearsome florence is that headline, the deadly storm creeps into the area. the rain won't stop in the region. veronica is joining us from pennsylvania. caller: good morning. i actually had to question for stephen pearlstein. i imagine you had a private line. like the gentleman from wisconsin, back on what he said, i have a simple question i asked and no one seemed to have an answer. 330e had approximately million people in the u.s., and we spent billions rescuing banks and so forth, what would have happened if we gave each man, woman, and child in the united states $1 million before we did the other mechanics that might rescue the financial industry? what would that have done to

animal spirits or whatever else you are counting on to straighten out capitalism? i wanted to say i agree with the gentleman who called from alabama. i am an independent, but we must have our eyes opened. a narcissistic, selfish person should not represent the united states. have a good sunday. amen to thataying alabama. spot on for every word. as revolving door spins washington braces for elections. look at the location data google collected about you. you will see yourself in a new way. time magazine, i have a masters degree, 16 years of experience, work 2 extra jobs and donate blood plasma to pay the

bills. i am a teacher in america will archbishop of washington, questions looming if he will step down amid the sexual assault investigations into the catholic church. william is joining us from breckenridge, texas. caller: good morning. how are you, sir? i wanted to send a shout out to north carolina and south carolina and tell them god bless them and stay safe. i disagree with the last two colors. i don't think trump is the devil or hitler, or the wild accusations they want to send that people. he is doing what he can for the good of america. himself. doing it for he had plenty of money to do what he wanted to do and be a billionaire without all this harassment and daily garbage everyone throws at him.

the democrats, all they can do is say "we hate trump." that is their whole platform. they just want to slam him. to that point, it shows me they are not willing to do anything in the government now at all. if they wanted to do something, they would do something. host: bracing for the impact. the storm surge along the north carolina and south carolina coast, as well as parts of southern virginia. the rain continues to be the big problem. these are the images we have seeing. in new bern, north carolina, wilmington, north carolina, and footage is available on the washington post website. good morning. caller: good morning. it is in reference to the governor's contest here.

the story short, billionaire democrat has been groomed when he got out of college. state., we are a close independents could not vote in the primary. there are a whole bunch of us that will be voting in the general election. i noticed is no one is talking about the federal investigation on gillum for fraud, stealing campaign funds, and using taxpayer dollars for his campaign. he is under federal investigation. they keep it real quiet. host: he has been asked about it. it has been in the public record. this issue came up before the election and after the election as well. caller: right, but i am saying

it is not plastered all over the place like they do for everyone else. they are keeping it pretty quiet and tight. he has a chance between the billionaire democrat george soros. i don't think they can do it, honestly. i would like to see more on that as far as the federal investigation and what is going on. ever since he became mayor, he didn't run the city. the version that runs the city is the city manager. the crime rate has gone up and things are not that good. if he were the governor of florida, he would probably ruin it. i wanted to bring that to the forefront. host: financial times weekend, .anafort agrees to help mueller the campaign bus takes a plea deal.

the carolinas, the relief and recovery efforts. the economy surge costing the gop and the president threatening sanctions aimed at china. next is jeff, also from florida. a lot of florida colors this morning. caller: how are you doing today? i would like to try to enter the ladies question about giving everyone $1 million. host: sure. caller: i believe one day businesses got their tax deductions, and instead of giving everyone raises they should have cut prices from 5% to 10%. my whole life, anytime i've seen minimum raise go up and everyone raisesses, everyone prices and takes it away from us. if they lower prices, that gives

everyone a raise and doesn't cost anyone anything. can you imagine what would happen if everyone was given $1 million? host: we will move on to democrats line, new york city. caller: good morning. greetings will st. someone was saying we hate trump . we don't hate him, we hate the things he is saying. we hate when a person, regardless who he is, even if it was me, we hate them to tell lies, we hate them to make up things. we don't like it when they are the head of the usa and don't yshow their taxe and tr to hide things. we don't hate the individual person. we feel that everyone, including the president, should stand for

something. host: the boston herald, the low.augh smear a new democrats in washington have hit a new low with their most recent antics around brett kavanaugh's nomination to the supreme court. democrats are missing regarding the nomination and have since day one. better.voters, deserve democratic confidence swelling with the midterm staff approaching. looking at the generic how it increase for democrats recapturing the house of representatives. joining us from pennsylvania, welcome to the conversation. we will move on to shannon in palm city, florida. caller: hi. thank you for highlighting the boston herald article. importanthink it is

this accusation gets brought to life. we are living in a new era where these are affecting positions now. previously it was the boys will be boys idea. i am a little disappointed in democrats as they go through the nomination process. he is aearing how victim of slandering, and no one is sticking up for anita hill. it is important we do have a an honest report. anita hill came forward and testified.that is important . claiming he swept up in a broad, slandered idea that he is another nominee is ridiculous as well. host: the washington post editorial has this.

the senate should delay voting on brett kavanaugh. circumstances demand his confirmation be delayed, and not referring to the allegations from an unnamed high school acquaintance. instead, a nonpartisan entity, perhaps the national archives, documents. through voting should be postponed until a fair assessment of the files have been completed and turned over to the senate. with the rush process the republicans have imposed, you have to consider if they want railroading the minority to be normal. we will have live coverage of the confirmation vote scheduled for thursday. good morning, democrats line. caller: good morning. apologize. i have not talked to you since 2005. host: why? the last time i talked

to you i insulted you, and i know i embarrassed myself. i wanted to call and apologize. a boy from texas talked about how nice you dressed. and for some reason i said you looked like a deer in headlights. host: don't worry about it. i have been called worse. no fears. would you think will happen in the governor's race in kansas? caller: it is a republican state, so it will be red. that is just the way it is out here. i am the only democrat in the state, i think. for calling.ou don't be a stranger. don't wait another 10 years. morning.n line, good caller: i feel like your last caller.

i feel like i am the only republican in new york. i love trump. i think he is doing an amazing job. it bothers me that those who oppose him cannot do so on policy reasons. if they are not complaining about his policies, every one is pro-american, then they are voting on personality. if they do win an election they will not be in for long because the policies won't match the electorate. it is time americans stand for pro-american policies. that is what trump is doing. they are not attacking him based on his policies. it is all personal. host: our last caller is also from florida. what is on your mind? caller: on the upcoming elections, i was concerned how many senators and representatives have not paid their taxes.

they should be banned from running for any more elections. the democrats to ran and went to illinois and did not vote, buried their head in the sand, and tried to get a sick note from a doctor that was fake, i think they should also be banned from being in office again. host: thank you, and to all of you for your calls and, on a bit -- calls and comments on a very busy sunday morning. newwoodward is on, his best-selling book "fear: trump in the white house." we will look at the week in washington. mike lillisons and will talk about what the white house will be doing, including as the nomination of brett

kavanaugh moves out of the senate. check out all of our programming on c-span.org. hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a great week ahead. " with fromewsmakers a senator democratic patrick leahy. later, conversation with supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg about diversity in law, followed by supreme court justice clarence thomas talking about the confirmation process. what does it mean to be american? that is the studentcam question

we are asking middle and high school questions to answer it i producing a short documentary about a constitutional right, national characteristic or historic event and explain how it defines the american experience and we are awarding $100,000 in total cash prizes, including a grand prize of $5,000. this year's deadline is january 20, 2019. for more information, go to our website, studentcam.org. greta: this week on "newsmakers," vermont senator democrat patrick leahy is with us for this week's newsmakers. we also have kate irby, mcclatchy newspaper congressional reporter, and kellie mejdrich, appropriations budget reporter with cq roll call. senator, kate irby is going to kick off with the conversation about judge brett kavanaugh. kate: the new yorker came out this morning detailing an