commissioner. and at 9:00 a.m., university of talks kyle kondik about the key senate house and government races. host: good morning, it's friday, october 12, 2018. the house will meet in a brief pro forma session at 9:30 and the senate will hold a pro forma session at noon. after a late night of voting senators aren't scheduled to convene until a week after the midterm elections on november 136789 we're with you for a three-hour "washington journal" with you and begin this morning on the topic of celebrity activism and kanye west caused a media frenzy meeting with president trump and was a high profile moment in a year full of celebrity activism and we want to know if celebrities matter and if they've made an

impact this year and who and what issue. republicans can call us at 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000, with independents, 202-748-8002. catch up with us on social media at twitter on c-span@wj and on facebook.com/c-span. a very good friday morning to you. start calling in now. the headline in today's "new york times" about kanye west-president trump meeting yesterday just call them donye. here's a bit of what the musician and fashion designer said with the president yesterday. kanye: if he don't look good, we don't look good. this is our president. he has to be the freshest, the fliest, the fliest plane, the best factory and we have to make our core be empowered and bring jobs into america because our best export is

entertainment and ideas but when we make everything in china and not america, we're cheating our country and we're putting people in positions to have to do illegal things to end up in the cheapest factory ever, the prison system. host: kanye west in the oval office. we want to hear from you about celebrity activism in 2018. we'll get to your calls in a second but we're joined on the phone now by ted johnson, senior editor at "variety" covered this meeting with kanye west and the president yesterday. what was the original reason for kanye west to come to the white house yesterday? ted: the stated reason from sir huckabee sanders was to talk about a range of issues and first and foremost was criminal justice reform. but as you saw from the meeting, kanye west went on for about 10 minutes on so many

different topics, so i think that kind of got lost in the shuffle. host: it was a busy day for celebrities at the white house yesterday. kid rock was there, the beach boys were there. what were some of these other meetings about yesterday? ted: yeah, there was actually right before this meeting with anye west, there was a signing ceremony for the music modernization act, a piece of legislation that's all about music licensing and music royalty reform to streamline that process. it gets incredibly technical but this has been a long desired legislative achievement for the music industry. they finally got it. and trump happened to be the president to sign it. so naturally the question was who was going to show up for the signing ceremony and they managed to get together this group of artists, as you said, that included kid rock, mike love. they thought kanye might be

there for the signing ceremony as well. that is why there was a lot of activity that had to do with the music industry yesterday at the white house. host: plenty of activists the last two weeks coming up over the kavanaugh protest over the supreme court and taylor swift was involved in promoting a candidate in the tennessee senate race, kanye west, kid rock. when it comes to the november election, what celebrity appearance over the past two weeks will actually have the most impact? ted: the only celebrity appearance we actually have data on seems to be taylor swift. she put out this endorsement of two tennessee candidates on instagram and urged people to register to vote and within the next 24 hours there was a spike in voter registration. i think there's probably a good chance that that's a correlation right there.

but when it comes overall to celebrity endorsements or celebrity activism, i think people certainly pay attention. the tougher thing to prove is whether they actually take action. i'm kind of skeptical whether the celebrity who says vote for this candidate or whether a celebrity says take this action actually has a huge impact and one of the reasons is, especially for younger voters, younger activists, they're bombarded with messages these days. and i think a lot of things just get lost in the shuffle. there's so much coming at you that i question whether the impact is as great as maybe it was 10 years ago when we saw, for example, oprah winfrey endorse president obama and that seemed to have a big impact on his campaign,

especially in iowa, the first state to vote. host: a frequent guest on cnn tweeted basking in the support of celebrity entertainer is a bipartisanship exercise, politicians of both parties have practiced for years. when can it backfire? ted: it can backfire when a celebrity gets out there and starts talking in a real kind of crazy way and says things hat are a little outrageous or embarrasses the candidate. or profanity, we saw that a little bit with kanye west and in the case of robert de niro, he went out at the tony awards and delivered an f-bomb about president trump. the response from the republic national treaty is they put together a video of different celebrities saying outrageous

things about president trump and collected it all together and the whole title is the video was "unhinged." you tend to see republicans attack democrats a lot more for their celebrity support and a lot of that is driven by the mere fact that hollywood rolls to the left and republicans are looking for any opportunity to try to brand democrats as out of touch and part of the coastal elite. but there's a little bit of hypocrisy in that and that is republicans will jump at any chance to embrace any celebrity that likes them, that endorses them and that's what we saw with donald trump and kanye west. host: when we talk about hollywood leading up to the election cycles, it's usually about money being donated to campaigns and different committees. what does this cycle compare to

last cycle when it comes to the money coming out of hollywood for democrats and republicans and their campaigns? ted: i just looked at the figures and the breakdown is about the same. this is according to the center for responsive politics. the breakdown tends to be about 80% of the money going to democrats, 20% of the money going to republicans, a few percentage point difference. it dipped slightly for democrats, the cycle. as far as the total amount of money, i think we're looking at record sums to all candidates coming out of hollywood this cycle. compared to past midterm elections which speaks to the level of activism that's actually out there. and forgive me, i don't have the exact figure at my finger tips but this is coming from

opensecrets.org which is the only group that really goes contribution by contribution and kind of puts them into these different classifications and is quite good. host: before you go, ted johnson, over the next 25 days, what's one or two political action committees connected to hollywood that you're watching that viewers should watch you think might actually have an impact. ted: there's a group called swing left doing a lot of work, especially in some of these california congressional districts and they're rounding up a lot of celebrities to do get out the vote efforts and they're particularly focused on using celebrities to try to get people to volunteer the weekend before the midterm elections. they did a lot of work right in advance of the california primary and that seemed to help a lot. i know there's a lot of concerns about the democrats getting shot out of the

primary. so i think that's one group i'm keeping an eye on. but there's so many different celebrity get out the vote videos that i'm getting pretty much every day. we saw a lot of that in 2016, this year in 2018. there's a lot of feeling that things will be different this time around but they're a little more savvy about how they're making these videos and how they're deploying celebrities. host: ted johnson, senior editor for "variety." i appreciate your time this morning. ted johnson was talking about samuel l. jackson who cut a new ad for that group supporting angie craig over republican jason lewis in minnesota's second district. here's that ad. >> this isn't just a kiddie commode, this is angie craig's kiddie commode, running for

congress to represent the second district in minnesota. with the midterm days away angie is busy on the campaign trail 24-7 making people in her district know she's fighting for them and why i'm here scooping out bits of kitty treasure for her. it's really important that angie wins to the democrats is take back the house and i'd do anything to help her. nything. am so not a cat person. host: that ad released yesterday and we're talking about celebrity activism in 2018. the question, does it matter? rose is up first, newman, georgia, rosa, what do you think? caller: good morning, c-span. thank you for taking my call. i watched the kanye west

ranting yesterday in the oval office, and it was quite bizarre. i think it was insulting for president trump for allow him to rant on for so long about everything from mental illness to the money that he has. i don't think that it was a good idea to give him an audience in that way. and using profanity it. what kind of example is that setting for our children. and as president, he needs to really behave in a more mature and adult way. i pray that he will have some wisdom. host: staying in georgia. tony is up next, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. yeah, i'd like to see more black people with a voice for our president. speak up. because it's just foolishness

the way they're trying to label him as a racist. thank you. host: tony, what did you think of kanye west's appearance in the oval office yesterday, did you catch it? caller: yes, i thought it was great. like i said, i think more people ought to be talking about -- jim brown is one of the greatest football players that ever lived. what he said about colin kaepernick, i thought that was stupid for that man even -- if he wapts to pray, he need to pray at home. . host: do you think celebrity activists make a difference in your mind? has a celebrity activist ever changed a political opinion for you? caller: not really. i mean, you know, these people are millionaires and billionaires, you know. i'm just a hard-working old fella down here in georgia trying to make a living. host: tony in lula, georgia. and a line for democrats, good

morning. caller: how are you all? host: doing well. caller: i looked at it yesterday in all sincerity, i told people more than once that kanye has a problem. and the reason why 45 -- [inaudible] i work with mental people and have been doing it 15 years. there's nothing to laugh about or get irate about with kanye west because he's mentally ill and donald trump is, too. i'm not trying to be funny because i work with this. you laugh and complain about donald trump and kanye west, it's like my patients i go to daily. it's a serious illness and has nothing to do with him liking donald trump or his reaction, he's just sick. and people shouldn't make fun of people like that. that's all. i'm not trying to be funny and not demeaning to either one of

them. like i say, i've worked with this for 15 years and all i have to say. host: some reaction on capitol hill with kanye west meeting with the president. the senator from hawaii, i don't have a kanye quip, this is actually sad for the country and not hilarious. brandon boil, democrat from ennsylvania. help the hurricane or two put on a reality television show with kanye west in the oval. guess what he picked. and from "the washington post," talking about his interaction with senator flake yesterday. senator flake alone with his wireless ear buds on is looking down into his phone and watching a video of kanye west in the oval and walk over and pull him aside in the senate basement, reality meets reality television he tells me, shaking his head. your thoughts about celebrity activism.

is it going to matter on election day? albany, good morning, democrat. caller: yes, i think that when you go to an insane asylum to get your audience, you'll have an insane audience, i don't care where they come from, actors or whatever, if they're insane, they're going to be insane. e went and got people he likes and he loves people talking favorable about him and he got exactly what he went looking for. trump has a problem himself and he needs to see somebody about it. that's about all i have to say. bye, bye. host: that's johnny and marion is up next, lake wood, new jersey, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. first of all, it depends on the message. and he was giving a message to tell all the black people that they don't have to listen to

the democrats and vote that way, for years they've done othing, including obama, for the black community. look at just chicago alone. plus, obama had so many celebrities coming in and out of the white house, it wasn't funny. he had beyonce, that she practically lived there. and the other day, there was a woman caller who wanted to know who is paying for president trump's trip with all of this campaigning that he does? i want to tell her the same people that paid for obama, all his trips to go fundraising in hollywood and in new york city and bringing his kids to broadway shows and everything and going to campaign in new york city with all his rich friend. it's the same people, us.

we're the wand paying for it. so if you're going to knock what trump does, you better start knocking what obama does. host: in new jersey this morning. republicans 202-748-8001 and mocrats 202-748-8000 and ndependents, 202-748-8002. here's a poll from september 27-october 1 from a national sample of over 2,000 adults. the question they asked, when celebrities express their opinions on political and social issues they care about, how effective are they in influencing choices in the 2018 midterm elections? 8% saying very effective, 17% saying they're somewhat effective and 19% saying they're not very effective. 40% saying not at all affected. one more stat from that poll. the question asked by the

polling company about celebrity views. 50% saying they don't know the political views of the celebrities they follow. 29% think that the celebrities they follow should not express their opinions about political and social issues in public. more from that poll as we go through this segment this morning but especially want to hear from you. is there a celebrity that you llow that's expressed an opinion make made a difference to you. from west palm beach, florida, go ahead. caller: thank you, c-span. i was watching the report on cnn the other day and some of the verbiage coming out, not in support of kanye west from some of the people they had on there and one of them was a senator and the word they're saying, i can't even repeat them on the phone. and it's just an awful thing to see that many artists, many

musicians, many people in film all think that -- they're liberal-minded people but think it somehow transcribes to being liberal in their viewpoints with politics. what the democratic party is now, bernie sanders said it, democratic socialism and how is being liberal socialist and would be my question to most of them? host: democrat, good morning. caller: good morning, america. i'd like to make a little comment before i answer that question. this republican party seems to me like they've lost their way. they act more like communists than the republican party. the election of barack obama has restored this country. host: as a democrat did you not

support barack obama? caller: i supported him and look what the republican party did, for six straight years they said no to everything and then donald trump gets in and it's yes, yes, yes. we don't have no hearings on anything he does. barack obama, there was one right after another one. he got so that's all we seen him. and look at the house, how many times has it been shot up, not one time. i haven't seen anyone with a knife. i don't think activism, these california people makes any difference. our country's lost and the republican party is about to be attacked again and again and again. what happened under obama, the roofs would have been torn off the buildings. host: roger in virginia this morning. activism not just coming out of hollywood but nashville as

well. the instagram post by country music star taylor swift made headlines this week. here's what she said in that post. in the past i've been reluctant to voice my political opinions but due to several events to my life and the world the last two years, i feel differently about that now. i always have and will cast my vote on which candidate will fight and protect human rights a and i believe we all deserve that in this country. i believe the systemic race us imwe see in this country of color is sickening and prevalent and cannot vote for someone who won't stand up for the dignity of all americans no matter their skin color or gender or what they love. running for senate is marsha blackburn and as much as i'd like to continue to support women i cannot vote for marsha blackburn, the republican running against the democrat in the high profile, very closely watched tennessee senate race.

of course president trump supporting marsha blackburn in that race and president trump responded to the facebook post by taylor swift earlier this week. president trump: marsha blackburn is doing a very good job in tennessee and is leading now substantially which she should and is a tremendous woman and i'm sure taylor swift doesn't know anything about her. let's say i like taylor's music 25% less now, ok? host: getting your thoughts on celebrity activism in 2018. richard in nashville, independent, go ahead. ichard, are you with us? caller: i live in the middle of country music and i see them when the cameras are not on them. i live about two miles from most of your most famous ones and most of them, i've been in situations in limousines where eve seen them go in and say no

to drugs and go to their limousine and snort cocaine and is some of the biggest names you'd think of it. as far as taylor swift, she's not a southern girl and isn't country music and never was and is pop country like shania twain and come here and got a record deal and abandon country music and went to hollywood. she's not a republican or democrat. she's just a young girl trying to find her way and all the people in america, you better take heed and understand one thing. you're responsible for you and you only, not everyone else, unless you have children. so grow up and go for it. my daughter just graduated college and got a job making $80,000 a year and never had a job in her life. she did it and you can do it, too and she doesn't have money, we're poor. wake up, america. it's a great country. go get you some. host: in general do you think celebrities should express their political opinions and let you know who they're voting

for. we lost him. jerry, good morning, independent. caller: good morning. give me a few minutes. number one, i got to tell you that it's no wonder that the black people have been in the dark for so long with these democratic people. there was nothing wrong with kanye west and what he did yesterday with president trump. obama surrounded himself with celebrities all the time. that's what hillary clinton had to do. she had to get celebrities to get people to go to her discussions and meetings. but i will tell you, trump has done more for the black minority people as far as work and jobs than obama ever has done. but the democrats have them on the plantation and won't let them go. they're very naive and i cannot believe it. i can't believe how stupid they can be. but thank you. host: who is they, referring to

all african-americans? caller: talking about people of color. obama did nothing for them. host: john is in baltimore, maryland, republican. go ahead. caller: so my thought is that about 10 years ago, i guess it , or maybe 15 i guess back when mtv was the team they'd rock the vote and celebrities would go out and vote and flash rward to 2016 and you have utube videos like important with the cast of the marvel movies telling you that they'll do nude scenes if you vote for clinton. that to me is great because it will go completely against what they wanted and part of what they did. that video had millions of views and most of it was negative comments and downvotes

which is a sign they're completely out of touch. host: in general celebrity activism disappears for political candidates? caller: it used to not but now it does. celebrities are going to push their agenda. but the ones that go and stay neutral and register to vote and try to stay neutral and say i'm leaning towards this person but you need to choose the best candidate and learn the issues. that's what i'd love to see from people. the guy from tennessee had a good comment you need to decide for yourself, you need to work for yourself. he had a lot of good commentary. as far as kanye goes and taylor swift, kanye is a little bit out there. there's more and more of the after cap american community

realizing -- african-american community rlingsing you can't just vote democrat blindly and there are areas they're not helping you whatsoever. i'm not telling you not to. host: another advocate that's been in the news recently alyssa milano who was in the room with the high profile hearing with brett kavanaugh and christine blasey ford. last week during the leadup to the vote she cut an ad for the michigan democratic party to raise money and encourage democrats to register to vote. here's that ad. >> alyssa: you don't need me to tell you how bad it's for women to watch the brett kavanaugh unfold. michigan is making history this year with an all woman ticket for the first time ever. these strong, amazing, smart women will help represent michigan well and fight back against donald trump. and we need to make sure

another brett kavanaugh does not happen. we need to make sure another donald trump does not happen again. and we can do that. but we need your support. so please chip in anything can you to help get out the vote for michigan's all women's ticket this november. host: coming up on 7:30 on the east coast. our question for you in this first segment of the washington journal today is about celebrity activism this year. do you think it matters? if so, what celebrity, what issue? give us a call. tyrone is in new york city, a democrat. good morning. caller: i think the celebrity situation helps our country. any time you want to go toward people voting for their rights, i'm for it. i don't seep with a these people are talking about when they talk about the democrats are not doing anything, they're dress nating the black community. you know, you had three republican presidents that used

outside help to become president of this country, reagan, nixon, and this guy here, and then you wonder why people don't want to be republicans? because they do things contrary to this country. and that is definitely what happened. so kanye west was talking about mental illness. reagan was the one that closed the mental hospital that put the people out on the street and now we reap what we sow. because we don't deal with mental illness, now we have this cat in the white house coming to ask for help. these people are not doing right for this country. i will never vote republican because i've seen what they've done. here they go taking away the voters rights again. we fought for that years ago. now you're going to weaken the strength of the voters rights, why would you do that?

host: diana is next. caller: good morning. i have to respond to tyrone, first of all. that is why i'm republican. that is pure ignorance. but speaking of ignorance -- host: what specifically did you disagree with, diana? caller: everything he just said. i know a lot about people who think abraham lincoln was a democrat. i'm not surprised by anything tyrone just said right there. it just goes along with how it works for the democrats. democrats are uninformed. and as far as democrats destroying america. they're the ones that want to rip up the constitution. and a democrat wants to get rid of the electoral college. and i remember watching "hillary's america" that d.v.d. that came out, saying that republicans run campaigns and democrats wage war. and i always think that whenever i watch any of the

stuff on fox or cnn or whatnot because it's such a disparity between how republicans and democrats run campaigns and that's what we're in the thick of right now. host: diana, bring it to celebrity activism this year and on behalf of democrats and republicans. caller: i don't think it really works. look what happened with hillary. hillary had every celebrity in the world endorsing here with the swangey parties in l.a. and paul mccartney, barbara triesant, everybody supporting her. she had her fireworks ordered and look what happened. it -- [inaudible] host: you think it was a bad idea for president trump to have this high profile discussion with kanye west yesterday? caller: no, it's not a bad idea at all. anybody who wants to voice their view is a good american. it's nice he's allowing people to come over and voice their

view. he doesn't have to agree with everything but gives people an opportunity like he invited all nfl players who had a problem and who shows up? nobody? i think that democrats have hijacked the media and that goes along with the celebrity activism and celebrities want to be relyant and their face heard and sell more stuff. host: more from the hollywood reporter poll that came out this week and the question was asked, have you ever donated to or volunteered for a cause because of a celebrity that you -- because a celebrity you liked encouraged you to do so. 76% said no, they haven't and 11% saying they have and 13% with no opinion. another question there was asked, have you ever not watched a movie or tv show because of a cast member's political views? 63% saying no to that question and 24% saying yes.

i want to get your thoughts on celebrity activism. dowd is waiting in new york city, independent. go ahead. caller: can i just talk about the subject for a second ecause you give that one a lot of press. there's two things i want to talk about. one, i'm going to go back to africa and encourage the organization to have unity and from both superhauers, the united states and russia and africa is the biggest supply of uranium, once they take away uranium from them they won't deal with the nuclear plants and things. we should make plutonium because without plutonium -- host: bring us to celebrity activism. caller: every activist i see hypocrisy. member trump said last year,

it's a disaster. [inaudible] and wall ball -- -- and barack obama going around with jay-z and beyonce campaigning and yesterday he went and campaigned. look what he said. [inaudible] it's going to boomerang. the republicans are going to lose the house in november and when they lose the house all these things will be brought to light. doesn't. the celebrity support has nothing to do with the question. the question is being honest and truthful. i've been in america for over 42 years. i've never seen an american president who has been dishonest and lies like this man. i've never -- this man lies and worst of all, he follows around

prostitutes. why? host: that's new york city. eric is up next, laurel, maryland, democrat, good morning. caller: how are you doing? me, the activism, you can go with whoever you want to. let's make stuff clear about this guy telling all africa american, they fall in the democrat party. we're smarter than what you think. we know exactly what's going on. evidently you all don't read your history or learn history because what happened to the democratic party it switched over after the civil rights vote and if you take on the lion, ask people what they used to be before they became a republican and what their family used to be before becoming a republican. i know who i vote for, i vote for people with my views and i vote republican and i vote larry hogan and i vote a lot of

but vote for people that i know is in my best interest and all people go in my family. we're not dumb by a long shot. we see exactly what's going on in this country. so go ahead and keep misunderstanding us. that's what you do. host: that's eric in maryland this morning. a few tweets as we've been having this conversation. kevin writes in we might as well have celebrities in politics since our president is a failed tv show personality. allen writes in, they don't matter, their thoughts don't influence any daily life or views in any way. denise said kanye spoke there was a crisis in the inner cities due to poor economics and no chance to compete and what he was talking about with the president. michael saying only 80% of voters voted and anything that gets people interested in the process matters. one more from bilking.

celebrity activism is fine but the waters are murky and taylor swift, the darling of america comes out and endorses a democrat is now number one on their hit list. i want to hear from you this morning, the first segment of the washington journal where we set aside the discussion of celebrity activism, a very busy day for the celebrities and act chris im. here's a story in the op-ed portion. when the big political news of the week vofrls taylor swift and kanye west we're in serious trouble and shouldn't have to pay the slightest attention to what those pop music stars think of the midterm election and president trump. we do pay attention. e celebrification of our politics is complet heaven help us. if any substantial fraction particularly of taylor swift's

112 million instagram followers does care and acts on her advice we could see a real impact on november 6. the column says in the age of social media and wall-to-wall cable news, fame matters and president trump you saw his glaring unfitness for office and we're better off when celebrities model civic engagement and are lost if we take them seriously. read it in today's "washington post." gary in atlanta, georgia, democrat. good morning. caller: how are you doing, america? i just want to say when did white people become an expert on black democrats? i don't understand that. let me tell you something and what was happening yesterday. what was happening yesterday is people were dying in florida and in georgia. the stock market had dropped and wiped out everything people had owned. how about the guy -- the

newspaper man that was killed in turkey? the world is full of stuff going on and he and the entertainer kanye west. had that been president barack obama, those republicans, their hair would be on fire. barack obama did a campaign speech two weeks after sandy disaster and donald trump took to the webpage talking about how wrong it was yet he went on the same day and this those things done because people >> losing everything they owned. so the late in texas, hillary clinton has some celebrities and you voted for one and what you stuck with. thanks. host: that's gary this morning. i want to touch on some of the stories that you bring up, including hurricane michael and the disaster it's caused in florida and across southeast

united states, the death toll now up to seven in the wake of that very fast moving hurricane. the stock market, jittery investors, the dow down 2% after the second day of a rout. anxiety rises as tech shares fall. you want to read "the wall street journal," that's the lead story today. the ou mentioned nvestigation into jamaal khashoggi, a "washington post" columnist and in today's "washington post," the turkish government has told u.s. officials that audio and video recordings that prove "the washington post" columnist was killed inside the saudi consulate in istanbul. the video showses they contained him after he walked

in october 2 to obtain a official document before his wedding. they killed him and the audio tape provides the gruesome evidence that the saudi team is responsible for his death. plenty of stories in "the washington post" about the investigation and calls for ore investigation into khahoggi's death. ben cardin, senator from maryland, we must stand for kh outlets he media paint a grim picture of what happened and a full investigation must occur without delay with transparent support from all parties. concurrently the united states, the historic standard-bearer for human rights and press freedom should stand ready and have action in response to with a happened there, if you want

to read ben cardin's column in today's "washington post." those are a few of the stories the last caller was referring to. gary is in newport, kentucky, line for republicans. gary, your thoughts on this dea of celebrity activism this year? caller: as a member of sag, i've never been impressed by celebrities endorsing candidates or politics. how can you when you're drawing your residuals off a movie make a stand against guns when you did nothing but use guns in a movie you're making money off of? so my comment as far as celebrities in politics, it's all about the agenda, the economy, whatever. but anyway, my advice to him is go out and cure a disease, you might impress everybody. host: what kind of acting have

you done? gary, you still with us? we'll go to tony in waterbury, connecticut, independent. good morning. caller: how are you doing this morning? host: doing well. caller: thanks for taking my call. my comment is marsha blackburn is not a good person. 60 minutes" did a special on her in september and marsha blackburn when she was a senator helped sponsor the bill for the opiod corporations that is going through the country now where cities can have tons of opiods at the pharmacy and they're just being sold. marsha blackburn, the girl running for governor of tennessee. anye west knows he's been sick . the white house has a crazy dude like that. that's all i have to say.

host: plenty of focus in today's papers on kanye west, a very high profile trump supporter. another actor supporting president trump, dean cain and he was on this program a few weeks ago and talked about what it's like to be a trump supporter in hollywood and here's what he had to say. dean: i'll discuss policies with anybody. i'm happy to have the conversation. and i'm not going to get all rhode island up and start vilifying the person talking to me. if you have a better point, not you personally, you might, but if someone has a better point, convince me, and i'll change my opinion. and hear me out without getting too emotionally bent up. that's fine, that's great. i welcome the discussion. i think part of the problem we're having is people won't have the discussion. they'll just name call and the name-calling is horrendous and it's become -- maybe it's because of social media.

it's become commonplace with you can hurl out these expletives and combinations that have been saying you're a -- a hone or a z-bo phone homophobe or a xenophobe. i'll have the conversation with anybody. host: we're talking about celebrity activism this midterm year. do you think it matters? has it moved you? we go to the phones with a republican. good morning. caller: i think kanye west is doing a great job. i applaud him. he's speaking truth to power. he unders the democrat elite don't care about black people, they care about black votes. and this notion that the democrat party switched from being racist democrats to republican is a fallacy. the dixie kratz who were the --

the dixiecrats, the racist democrats, a bill passed in 1964, two of those 24 senators became republicans. in addition, the northern democrats never kicked those racist southern democrats out of the party and put them in chairmanships and committees and prayed with them every day. i'm from detroit and seen the damage democrat policies have done to schools and law enforcement and have done to churches and businesses. they come in there like a cancer and consider a great city like detroit the host and they feed on it until they destroy it. once they destroy it, they leave it. host: since you were talking history a bit ago, when did celebrity ago chris imbecome a thing in politics? caller: i think we vls had christian activists and we had people engaged in politics that's been ongoing and that's their right.

host: you think it's more prevalent in this world of social media and everybody having a twitter feed and facebook page? caller: i think it's probably -- contension us contentious now because we're more divided and when a celebrity comes out, the press pick it up and makes a move. we're very divided and when someone comes out on one side or the other, it will make news. host: kanye west making news and here's a tweet he put out after that meeting with president trump. he said, i will tell you to speak your mind to the original and when you do it, they call you crazy. one more tweet this morning from pat sajak, the host of "wheel of fortune" tweeting yesterday afternoon amid all this coverage of kanye west saying i would encourage you to vote next month but if you need a tv game show host to remind you, then you probably shouldn't. kelly is up next in bluefield,

west virginia, an independent. good morning. caller: good morning. celebrity activism doesn't influence my vote at all. , i really think that kanye he's just too radical and he got rhode island up and it was almost like you were watching it but you were just on pins and needles. so i think the celebrities should just stick to their job and keep their mouths shut, really, about the voting in the united states. thank you. host: melvin is up next, fort lauderdale, florida, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. yes, a couple things. we'll get to the celebrity activism and if you should heed their advice of who you should vote for but i just want to comment about that but i did want to express a couple other

things. number one, anyone thinking kanye was taking it serious, they have a problem. because black people know about kanye. kanye two years ago was out google pping money to to help him out of the hole he was in because of all the money he had lost. so that's different things about kanye you can't believe. talk about people working, he was trying to get free money. and with respect to the other gentleman talking about blacks and how lazy and how we've been in the dark by fallen democrats, why don't you ask how many people make comments like that, especially the white people making their comments. how many are willing to give up all the propane but the democrats are passing social security and medicaid. and then the gentleman was talking about when the blacks switched from being republicans to democrats. that is right but they switched white martin ad

luther king to get out of the selma jail when they were getting ready to kill him. that was the one switch. it wasn't a party switch. the majority of them switched to being republican than tempt with king getting out of jail get him out help of jail. and that's when it switched for blacks in that particular time. host: joe is in woodbridge, virginia. your thoughts about celebrity activism this year? caller: before i get to political activism i want to throw out there that i thank god every day that i wake up that the democrats are not in control of this win. -- this country. when you see them scratching at the doors of the supreme court and attacking politicians and attacking them in restaurants and running people down. i realize as a christian we

should never let these people gain power again. i think they're mentally slurred. as far as celebrity activism it doesn't affect me one bit. ecause my beliefs are my believes. i think if i'm purchasing a ticket out of my hard earned money and i'm a blue-collar worker and if i purchase a ticket to see somebody sing or watch football, they better play. i don't want to hear their viewpoint or political position. i don't want to be told by an entertainer how i should think or who i should vote for. i don't bre with it? host: do you feel that way for kanye west speaking about his support of donald trump as well? caller: kanye west's opinion, he has the right obviously to be a political activist pifment -- activist. i'm not saying they can't do that. i'm a conserve pitch -- i'm a

conservative republican and his viewpoint doesn't affect me one bit. i liked donald trump long before kanye west came around. i voted for president trump on his positions and many things i agreed with. maybe if the voting age was 12 years old, celebrities would have more of an impact on the elections. but i think celebities think they're way more important than they actually are and don't have an impact on mature voters out in the work force trying to make end meet. host: joe in virginia this morning. it's been a busy couple weeks for celebrity activism here in washington, d.c., back to last week, last thursday, this was the scene outside of the supreme court where amy schumer led a rally in position to brett kavanaugh's supreme court nomination. she eventually was arrested at a protest inside one of the

senate buildings and here's what she had to say. amy: emily and i wanted to thank you so much for showing up today. that's what we're going to continue to do, keep showing up. no matter how this goes, they cannot keep us down. we will win! a vote for kavanaugh is a vote saying women don't matter. let's stay together. let's fight. let's keep showing up! whoo! host: and here's just one of the headlines after the brett kavanaugh confirmation vote when he officially became a member of the supreme court from the conservative brightbart website, hollywood unhinged after the brett kavanaugh confirmation. you can read the rest of that headline there. robert is in lynchburg, virginia, independent, go ahead. caller: good morning, america. as far as a celebrity is concerned being an activist,

kanye west needs to have his head checked just like all the republicans. they're talking about what donald trump has done for the black folks, and if you look, he hasn't done anything for the black folks there. he just got the vote snookered he's doing this and doing that and he's getting rich off of he white house as soon as he's been in there because he takes the security with him to his hotel and gets rich overnight and charges it to the government. and look at the deficit now since he's been in there. but the republicans don't talk about their own deficit since donald trump has been there but every time obama would spend a dollar, they would complain and look at the demonstration obama had when they had that white ring demonstrating against them

when he was in the white house, on the white house steps. they can talk all they want but ain't nobody crazy and we've been through this before and all this. the republicans now in the senate and the congress, they used to be democrats. so that's where the democrats went to. host: to pedro in warrenton, virginia. republican, good morning. caller: hey, good morning. i don't think it's fair that the republicans are encroaching on the democrats's turf. everybody knows that, you know, this political system we have is kind of already balanced. it's a pretty good balance, 49-51. the republicans have the racists and the white people. the democrats have the media and the african-americans and

all the illegal aliens. so i think it's unfair for ump to try to, you know, cut into the democrats, you know, their voters. it just isn't fair. so kanye is kind of breaking the rules. host: who sets those rules, pedro? caller: well, you know, i think maybe -- i don't know. don lemon and his people were kind of upset over what kanye was saying. i don't think the people in the mainstream media are happy about kanye speaking up. a little tongue and cheek. but truthfully, you know what, i think what they're saying about kanye is just out of bounds.

the guy is just a regular guy. he had a supertall independent music so he became famous. he's got enough guts he's telling the truth about a certain topic and the democrats and the media just cannot put up with this. if the african-americans leave the democratic party, even just a small percentage of the voters leave the democratic party, the democratic party is in serious trouble. host: that's pedro in warrenton, virginia, this morning. a few more tweets during this conversation. steven writes in we have an activist celebrity in the white house whose cause is chaos. greg saying it must matter a great deal, celebrity activism because the president spend a lot of time recruiting celebrity reporters. emma, people need to think for themselves and do the research on policies and economics and one more, bobby saying celebrities use their noise and

voice to sway the people and relty -- wealthy people use their money to sway the politician. i wanted to note there was another celebrity in washington, d.c. yesterday, clint eastwood spoke briefly yesterday at the opening of the national law enforcement museum here in the district. here's what he had to say. clint: long before i was telling people to get off my lawn, i was telling people to go ahead and make my day. so i won't say any of those today. i just want to say how much i appreciate being involved with the officers organization and the police officers in general. i've been lucky enough to portray them and lucky enough making a living portraying them and glad to be here. host: time for one or two more

calls. celebrity activism this year, does it matter? larry, waynesboro, tennessee, what do you think? an independent. caller: i grew up under the jim crow laws in memphis, tennessee. and i cannot i could not ride on certain seats on the bus. the guy that called in about marsha blackburn in tennessee, marsha blackburn has never been a senator. she's running for senate, and she's not running for governor, so he's all messed up on that. but marsha blackburn has moved up the last few days. points.ead by 14 tellingst came out exactly the way it is. your planned parenthood, which has nothing to do with

,arenthood, 70 million babies basically 40% plus are black babies, have been aborted. that whenevere people are standing up, the party that stands up for planned parenthood, that puts planned parenthood clinics right in the low income areas, and it's a large majority of them are the black, hispanic, and low income, and half of those babies are female, so they are not standing up for women's rights. host: that's larry and waynesboro, tennessee. the last caller in our segment on "washington journal." that tennessee race one we will touch on an hour 9:00 hour of "washington journal." we will spend that our with kyle

, speaking about the election landscape for 2018. up next, we are joined by one america news network's emerald robinson to discuss the trump presidency and the news made he is -- news media. stoptle later, it is number 35 of our 50 capitals to tour, rhodepitals island. we will be joined by the permitted education commissioner ken wagner. announcer: saturday at 80 5 p.m. eastern on "lectures in history," professor steven andrews on conspiracy culture in american history and how conspiracy theories have changed over time. >> now, is it a problem in america that people have a

secret society at yale and with yale's connection to the intelligence community, is that a problem that they gather in place is defined as secret? the buckingham grove? is it a problem they are there without press meeting and chatting? maybe, maybe not. is it a problem they put on rogues on one of the first days and have a ceremony and a front -- ceremony in front of a giant owl where they burn a human effigy? it's weirder, right? announcer: former senator tom harkin explores the history of laws that have impacted americans with disabilities, as well as several supreme court cases. 1999 was asion in georgia case. women who werewo put in an institution, and they

argued that they didn't want to be there, that they should be free to live on their own in the community. and this made it all the way to the supreme court, and the supreme court sided with them and said the constitution, the least restrictive environment is a constitutionally based right of persons with disabilities. imagine that. announcer: at 6:00 on "american artifacts," we travel to france to visit he battlefields and monuments to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of world war i, including the story of the lost battalion. >> there are 554 men who are cut off from the main body of the two different 308thnts, the 307th and infantry's.

they are led by an attorney from wall street. the germans are surrounding them from the hills here and firing. his men take cover near what they call the charlotte bellville mill. meanwhile, the rest of the men can't reach them. announcer: watch on american history tv this weekend on c-span 3. announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: after a busy day at the white house, we are joined by emerald robinson, white house correspondent for one america news network. for folks who haven't tuned in before, what is one american news? we are essentially -- guest: we are essentially headline news, the model that cnn abandoned. you will get more news and international news than from other networks, along with ample coverage of washington, d.c. and

national news. we are on directv, verizon files, at&t, so different providers. host: when did you start, and how many houses are you and? guest: we just celebrated our five year anniversary last week. we had a big celebration in washington, d.c. we are in 35 million households nationwide. commentator said the network is trying to be the voice of true conservatives. would you agree with that? guest: i think we are the voice of blue-collar americans across the country. do see a lot-- you of trump voters who watch our network. on the other hand, i have a mother-in-law who is a hard-core liberal who was thrilled when i joined one american news. she loves watching it because she doesn't get the talking heads. she just gets straight news and conform her own opinions. host: if you are the voice -- and can form her own opinions.

host: if you are the voice of blue-collar america, what do they want to your about? guest: to want to hear a lot about the economic news. we also have a strong veteran base, so we cover a lot of the worldwide events, international news, military news. are really in tune to what matters to them daily in their lives, whether it is economics, what we are going to do on foreign policy come because it does affect her sons that they are sending off to war. a lot of them are parents of those who are in the military, see you get a lot of that on our network. host: if there is a spectrum of a liberal to conservative news coverage, where would you put yourself vis-a-vis, say, fox news? guest: vis-a-vis fox news i would say we are pretty closely in line with fox. host: so take yesterday's visit at the white house by kind a west. how was it covered -- by kanye west. how was it covered by conservative outlets?

how is that different than what you see from liberal media outlets? guest: that is a really interesting question. of mylistening to some colleagues on the radio talking about the visit yesterday, which was a tour de force. [laughter] it was quite a day at the white house. everyone is covering it in a different way, and everyone has their own take on it. some armor personal taste on their own experiences and or some are more-- personal based on their experiences, or some based on the network. some say he is out of his mind, does not speak for black america. some say he is a true freethinker who is ahead of the curve and is progressive and looking at different ways of solving issues in the black community and talking to a republican president like donald trump. so it has been so varied. it is interesting for me to hear my colleagues give a take on kanye west. host: what is your take? guest: i thought it was interesting. i think that i can look at it perhaps from a different lens

that some of my colleagues -- lens perhaps than some of my colleagues. the way he did his soliloquy was very eccentric, but we have known that for years before he ever came out of a truck supporter. he jumped on state -- a trump supporter. that was the time he jumped on stage with taylor swift. he's always vibrant. it is always eccentric. that is what we saw yesterday, but he brought up some really important issues. you was there to talk about prison reform. he brought more issues, including manufacturing. he talked about chicago and how to deal with violence there, specifically stop and frisk and how that needs to be stopped as a policy in chicago, that creates a bad relationship between cops and the community. he also said come conversely, that policeman are people. they are just like us. so he touched on really important topics that people care about. i think it got lost in the essence of city of the delivery

-- the eccentricity of the delivery. host: if you have a question, phone lines in this segment as usual, republicans (202) 748-8001, democrats (202) 748-8000, independents (202) 748-8002. what was your take from one of the other major storylines earlier this week out of the white house, the departure of u.n. ambassador nikki haley? guest: that was really surprising news. what is so surprising about it is there were no leaks. people were not talking about this in advance what we normally get news out of the white house with leaks before we get the official take. . i was very surprised i covered the u.n. -- i was very surprised. i covered the u.n. general assembly a few weeks ago. it sounded like she left her job, and she was very committed and passionate about it, specifically on working with the women at the u.n. and creating relationships there. i spoke with the israeli delegation at length.

they think she is a rockstar. i know they are very sad to see her go. with the kind of success she's had on the kind of respect she has at the u.n. among allies and others, it was just very surprising news to see her go. host: do you believe she will stay out of politics, at least in 2020? guest: i think you are going to hear a lot from her in 2020. i can't see nikki haley not being involved. strong voicesuch a for the republican party, especially as a woman, and i think they will call on her in 2020 to garner more women voters. host: do using she could be a potential challenge to donald trump down the road? guest: of course that was the rumor, and that had been a remark around d.c. for several months. she addressed that head-on in the oval office. she sounded very sincere when she said she would not be campaigning against donald trump in 2020, but be campaigning for. guest: emerald robinson -- host: emerald robinson with us this morning. jim is up first in florida, independent.

caller: good morning. a little bit of a comment, and then you can make your comments on my comment. ,uring the communist revolution their economy was going to take over the world. when it didn't, they established a propaganda arm. they sent them to germany. it was called the frankfurt school. it was by the father of cultural marxism in this country. all of those people were sent to columbia university. that is what we are seeing going on right now. they all have to think one way. they control the media. they are controlling our corporation through gender departments and human resources. we need to do something about these people. inn i see the way minorities the democratic party are expected to behave, and the way kanye west is to behave, it reminds me of a guy in history. look them up. they are taking over everything.

actually, you would know, online. host: before you go, who is they? guest: the marxist globalists. the globalist system is set up, and the chinese government is exploiting this. they want to take over. the one to cause dissension and they are doing a very good job of it. look at the contributor in social media, these companies have. host: all right, got your point. emerald robinson, a chance to respond. guest: that is an interesting comment. i do hear that argument a lot around different circles, particularly conservative circles. how it relates to kanye west in saying that he is not in line with what he's expected to think or be, there is some merit to that. i think you are seeing the backlash of that today, so there is something to be said for free thought and the ability to have free thought. in regards to what you addressed with the china issue,

infiltrating perhaps academia and industry, that is something that does come up often, and i think that is something this in ministration is looking at addressing when we are talking tariffs and trade practices. i think the overall strategy we are seeing now is to address that infiltration. host: augusta georgia is next, routes, a democrat. caller: yes, i would make my point real quick. guest, like to ask the what does she think was a published yesterday, positive or negative test was accomplished yesterday, positive or negative -- was accomplished yesterday, positive or negative? and what about the people senators in their restaurants and houses, is because they don't answer to us, both democrats and republicans.

host: before you go, have you ever confronted a politician in a public space? caller: i have not been able to a cost one of them, but in texas but i have o'rourke, never been fortunate to talk to someone. host: define a cost. what -- define accost. caller: maybe that is the wrong word. maybe approach. people say we are aggressive when we approach people with their wives and their families, but if they would talk to us when we approach other times, it wouldn't be a problem. host: that is rough in georgia. guest: rough, i'm glad john asked you to define and verify what you meant by accost because i think it is two very different words, accost and approach.

if you are approaching to just talk, or if it is harassment, are two completely different things. we are seeing a lot of that in d.c., maybe more on the harassment side with some trumpet ministration officials. i'm not sure that really gets anything -- with some trump administration officials. i'm not sure that really gets anything done. our officials do need to hear from voters and middle america to know exactly how policies are working or affecting their lives , so it is always good to have healthy conversation and talk to our officials, and that is something that i think is part of the purpose of the press and why we are there talking and asking questions as well. is there anything that was positive about yesterday's direction mode -- yesterday interaction between the president and kanye west? you have to say anytime there is conversation, it is positive. the way it came about might not have garnered -- the message could have gotten lost in the way it was presented, like i said a little earlier, with kanye west, but he brought up

good points for issues within the black community and how this administration can be couple. the administration is seriously looking at doing prison reform and sentence reform, something you might not thought what happened in a conservative administration. specifically the economics side of this administration, the chairman of the council of economic advisers, they think this is a time come because of the healthiness of the economy and the number of open jobs out there, that they can seriously address this issue once and for be able to change and reform this because they can actually get people placement outside of the prison system, get them on a path where they are self-sustaining and can find a way to reform and thrive. kanye west adding a face to that and speaking to the president more about that does bring it to the forefront, even though we might be talking about how he did it and the more interesting

things he said in that. there were issues that really need to be discussed and are something that the sid miller session is going to have to address. host: crosby, texas. michael, democrat. good morning. caller: how are you doing? host: doing well. go ahead. caller: ok, for a second on kanye, he did what mike tyson did with the president. he was going to make it look good. once he found out that trump wasn't going to pardon him, his record was going to stay, he told the truth why he was out there saying trump was so good. trump called him a -- trump is not going to do nothing for the blacks. i'm a black man. i'm a veteran. i'm a parent of kids.

honorably. country i'm going to vote democrat, and i am proud to step up for the democrats. i'm going to vote black. thank you. host: that is michael in crosby, texas. a lot of discussion this morning about president trump's record, specifically when it comes to the african-american community, and this country. can you talk about your reporting on that? guest: we are. when you are looking at the unemployment, black unemployment is down, which is a good thing. --re is higher unemployment you can see in the pulling his numbers have tumbled among the african-american community, which is interesting. host: tumbled to what? guest: i don't have the exact only numbers. about 12 points to what it was.

for this demonstration, the deathly count that as a win. host: we are talking with americarobinson of one news network, on her coverage of the white house. we are talking about president trump and the news media specifically. on this program yesterday, we talked to author max booth. he had concerns about the evolution of conservative media in this country. here's what he had to say. >> there's nothing wrong with conservative media. i spent a lot of years writing for alternative conservative publications. the problem is with the rise of fox, they are not just offering a different opinion. they are offering alternative facts. they are offering alternative reality tunnel is not the same reality asainstream people understand it. they are pushing this far right, nationalist propaganda line, and they don't care about reality. they don't care about decency.

they are basically, they have become a propaganda arm of the trump white house. it is a very complex relationship because not only is fox influenced by trump, but trump is also influenced by fox because he watches fox all the time, and this is a very dangerous and unprecedented nexus. i am really afraid of because quinces of fox news channel because they have -- of the consequences of fox news channel because they have an isolated bubble where they don't believe the same facts as people who read mainstream news sources believe. donald trump encourages that. he says the facts are not the facts. he says believe me, not what you read. and many people do believe what trump and sean hannity and tucker carlson tell them, and that is unprecedented. i think that is very harmful to the long-term health of our democracy. host: emerald robinson, your

thoughts. guest: i think that we've heard max out there saying this quite a bit. he's also highly critical of the president in his writing. it is not very surprising to hear him say that about fox. conservativeo media or media in general, you see it also with the outlets that are considered liberal media. it is a lot of the talking head issues. you do get people on their that thereings that on -- on that say things that are more opinion as opposed to really the facts. i think that is one benefit to our network, that we don't have the talking heads outside of a two-hour primetime show where you have more pundits and more commentary. before the most part, you just get the news throughout the whole day. that is something, because of these kind of issues we hear from viewers, that really appeal to our viewers.

host: how much commentary writing and talking to you do? guest: very little. host: emerald robinson taking your calls. sharon is in california, an independent. caller: good morning. first off, i would like to say to emerald i think your network is focusing on the facts rather than the talking heads. guest: thank you. host: i really disagreed with the last person you had on. i'm sorry, i forgot their name. host: your target about max boot's comments from yesterday? guest: know, the gentleman that was just speaking about fox news being a problem -- caller: no, the gentleman that was just speaking about fox news because it is a unit reality. -- ann alternate reality alternate reality. when you look at fox news and cnn, i happen to think that fox

news is probably giving the reality that i've come to see as being more the truth. i mean, just even watching these shows, i do not see the level of viciousness by the reporting on fox that i do on cnn. so i really disagree with that. host: emerald robinson. guest: i think our caller, that's what we've heard from our viewers, specifically in line with what they think. some people, as she said, she didn't agree with max boot. some people said perhaps he lives in an alternative reality with his criticisms of the president. , it isin, like you said always good to go to different sources of information. i read everything. i look at everything. i watch every network. and i think that there's something to be said for the comments that the color had, particularly about fox news. host: in illinois, brenda, a

democrat. caller: good morning. thank you for taking our call. donald trump has not done much for the black community. when barack obama got into office, the unemployment was 12%. when he got out, it was 7%. so no, he did not do much for the black community. if anything, he is harming the black community by making all these divisions between everyone. you don't even know who you can talk to nowadays without someone may be getting an attitude or getting upset. if you say i don't like trump or i like hillary. to me it is just crazy. thank you for taking my call, and have a blessed day. thet: clearly that is caller's experience. i think that is why it is important to have different numbers of different communities come and talk to the president. i would have liked to ask the caller specifically what she would like to see from this administration.

how does she feel at this president could better help and better serve the black community? i do have to absolutely agree with her on the sentiment that you can't speak out in support criticized a political -- support or criticize a political figure. we are in a highly partisan and divided culture right now. she said it is a difficult situation. host: a minute ago you said you don't do too much commentary writing now, but you didn't get a lot of attention for a column you wrote earlier this summer. you predicted that the confirmation of president trump's second supreme court justice would mark the end of the never trunk movement in this country. movement in trump this country. why? guest: that is something conservatives have said they wanted, to get another conservative on the bench. that should have been seen as a win, i would say. it clearly didn't in the never trunk movement -- the never

trump movement. just talking with conservatives on the ground who may be were opposed to the president ahead of the confirmation process, in this confirmation process and how it went down and he sort of ugliness that ensued from it, he did win over some conservative voters who might have been opposed to him before. he lost again, perhaps some as well through this process. was somewhattion on, and maybe not somewhat in so many ways as well. [laughter] host: one of those you call that specifically in that column, he wrote a column in response to what you wrote. is a bit of what he had to say, talking about some of the other people you mentioned when you talk about the death of the never trump movement. "bret stephens moved to the new york times.

is that a marked demotion careerwise? steve hayes has been promoted to the weekly standard. that doesn't sound like a career freefall to me. more broadly, national review and the weekly standard are thriving. in short, robinson doesn't know what she's talking about. my suspicion is because she and her network are trying to become state tv in the trump era. she is pandering to her audience by telling them what they want to hear." guest: jonah did a very personal attack, clearly, in response. in talking about the never trump movement, we don't have enough time to really talk about all of these never trump-ers. today i came here in the capacity to talk about my work at the white house. i really don't focus on commentary and opinion very often, and i think that's, you know, how i came here today. host: about two minutes left. get a few more calls.

anthony in minnesota, line for democrats. good morning. caller: hi. she asked a moment ago what blacks would like out of the present resident. -- presence president. first off, if you are talking , gettingson reform people out of jail doesn't help if they can't get a job. also, another thing the administration can do is stop lying about certain things. another thing is, since you are a reporter, could you give me the actual numbers for unemployment? i'm at a loss to understand because african-american unemployment is usually 15% to 20% higher, but then you hear your president constantly saying african-american unemployment is low. if you work in the white house, tell them to say the correct numbers. that is how you win over blacks.

stop, another thing is stop, stop villa nothing black people, trying to blame everything on chicago. we have enough -- stop villa and villainizingop black people, trying to blame everything on chicago. we have enough problems. we need honesty from our president. we need top-down integrity, and that is what we don't have with our president now. guest: well, that is a very interesting comment from our caller talking about issues with the black community. is probably that something we will see more of out of this administration. i do want to address felons not being able to get a job. i think that it's going to be a focus and really interesting as they pivot following the second , looking at reform

prison reform is an opportunity to give felons more opportunities in the workplace for some of their workforce development issues. clearly i think it is great to hear from members of our black community to talk about exactly what they do want to see from the feminist ration -- from this administration. it is interesting for me as a reporter as we focus on going forward. host: in our last 30 seconds or so, give you a chance to comment on the jobs numbers. from the september bureau of labor statistics report, the and implement rate for adult women 3.4%, teenagers 6%8%, blacks in this country , asians 3.5%, hispanics 4.5%, showing little or no change over the last month. thoughts on the jobs numbers? guest: it is a constant process, and john numbers have been

pretty good overall. -- the job numbers have been pretty good overall. we talk to members of the president's economic team quite often, and they feel positive going forward. and we certainly hope that is the case. --t: in more robinson emerald robinson, white house correspondent for one america news network, thank you. up next, stop number 45 on c-span 50 capital store in providence, rhode island -- capitals tour in providence, rhode island. we will focus on some of the key house and senate races, and later kyle kondik. we will be right back. announcer: saturday, three retiring members of congress, democratic congressman joe crowley of new york, democratic congressman gene green of texas, and republican senator jeff flake of arizona all discuss

their experiences in congress. >> i think our greatest achievements as a congress with the passage of the affordable care act. worked very closely with the obama administration, whipping that bill on the floor and getting the votes we needed to pass it. it is one of my career here in washington. i think we delivered for millions of people who had no insurance who today have it. >> i have a district that has huge numbers of immigrants, so some of the things the president has done is against what i think our country ought to be doing. people ought to -- the dreamer act, these are people who were brought here when they were children. you can't commit an offense when you are a baby or a child. we should be more inclusive. america is an immigrant country. >> is a tough time to be here.

and never did warm to the president -- i never did warm to the president in the campaign or as he governed. these days you not only have to embrace the president, you have to embrace all of his politics and his behavior in order to get through a republican primary, and that was never in the cards with me. i just couldn't do it. announcer: join us for conversations with tarring members of congress saturday at 9:00 eastern on c-span and www.c-span.org, or listen with the free c-span radio app. stop number 45 on c-span 50 capitals tour takes us to providence, rhode island. joining us on the c-span bus is state education commissioner ted wagner. thank you for joining us this morning. as you are on the bus, i what i do get you to start by explaining what is happening with school buses there in providence.

we are in week two of a school bus driver strike in that city. can you explain why there is a strike? guest: sure. there is a dispute between one of our largest school bus providers for students and the union that represents the local drivers, as well as the national union of teamsters. where the dispute major sticking point is pensions . the union is asking for defined benefit pension systems. this is one of those examples that happens from time to time where there is a disagreement between adults that unfortunately has negative consequences that only for our kids, but also for our families and our communities. we believe it will be resolved quickly, and we hope the adults come to their senses as soon as possible. host: how close are we to getting this resolved, and how

have you been getting students to school in the meantime in providence? guest: providence has about 9000 students affected. the state transport about 600 students. both the state and providence have offered to reimburse schools to help parents find options for their kids, whether that is a front end reimbursement or after the fact. providence is also making options available to their families. but there is no good solution. we've been on the phone for weeks on madison is as the strike became clear it was going to happen. with called a local providers, public transportation, rideshare opportunities. we've looked at alternate vendors within the state. with talked to vendors outside the state. there just isn't the supply available to do this. the dispute between adults is having a harmful effect on our kids and our families and

communities. last night it took a particularly strange and tragic turn. to six buses in the providence bus depot. we have to remember that these are our kids. these are our teachers. these are our families and communities. but equally important, the drivers live in our communities. they are our aunts, uncles, dads, moms. i hope this awful even last night, setting fire to school buses, will finally snap people out of this and bring the adults back to their senses. they will find a resolution to their dispute so our kids, families, and communities stop suffering. host: ken wagner is our guest this morning and our 50 capitals tour stop in providence, rhode island. want to invite viewers to join in. a special line for rhode island residents, of course, as always in the 50 capitals tour stops.

for rhode island residents, it is (202) 748-8000. for teachers and educators, that number is (202) 748-8001. all others can call into (202) 748-8002. as folks are calling in, commissioner wagner, rhode island is one of those states that has struggled to find enough certified teachers for the classroom, especially in the subject areas of math and science, and english as a second language. what have you been doing to try to address that shortage? guest: we've got a set of comprehensive regulatory proposals that are out for public comment now, and we hope to move them forward in just a few weeks. but you have to take a copperhead to the approach. you have to look at teacher preparation when teachers are getting prepared to become day one ready for teaching in the first place. we are proposing, for example, to double the amount of practical experience teachers get preparing to be teacher. there are shortage areas.

this federally defined and local shortage areas, things like secondary science and math, working with anguish -- with english language learners. we propose some alternate strategies to address those shortage areas. for example, we are proposing complete, unilateral reciprocity with our neighboring states connecticut and massachusetts. massachusetts is an international leader in education, and it is just silly we would not take teachers certified in massachusetts to come teach here in rhode island. our message is simple. we want your talent. we want you to come here. we want you to pay attention to rhode island. we are open for business. come work here. we've also propose alternate pathways for teachers who want to teach in this shortage areas. they might be a practicing scientist or a trained mathematician, but haven't met their education certification standards yet.

our current regulations allow in calculus that isn't quite the advantage of someone who might consider shifting careers. not a great prospect if you are to give up disrupting your family and livelihood to come work in education because you believe in the mission of public education. we are trying to flip that and say we will give you a seven-year window. come work here. the district will invest in you, mentor you, support you, and we will get you to the same rigorous certification standard over a seven-year window in this particular shortage areas. then we are pushing the envelope a little further. we are looking at cultural confidence as a shortage area. it is just as real as science and math. we need more teachers who have the cultural confidence to work with an increasingly diverse student population. we need to make sure our workforce looks like the

communities they serve. latinxa 20% increase in students over the past three years, and we need to have a serious strategy to increase the diversity of our workforce. we are proposing an alternative strategy to get to the same standard while we invest in people to get to that standard not just for our academic shortage areas, but also our more human capital shortage areas that we have to be attention to. host: how unusual is it for a state to accept certifications from other states? as massachusetts the only state whose standards you would be comfortable accepting? guest: we are proposing to accept unilaterally the standards of both massachusetts and connecticut. that makes the most sense because there's a lot of alignment with neighboring states. 15 -- we alsove have schools that are just 15 minutes away from teachers and massachusetts and connecticut.

i believe they will come to their senses soon. in the meantime, we are going to take their teachers, recruit their talent. we want them to pay attention to rhode island. it is really hard to explain the magic going on unless you actually watch it. we want people to be watching rhode island because we are on the move. host: the first call from connecticut, ron from shelton, connecticut. caller: good morning. i've always been annoyed by the fact that the way the school system and the teaching structure is set up, every teacher seems to get a raise every year based on working another year, not based on good performance. similarly it is almost impossible to fire a teacher because of the strict tenure regulations. don't you think those laws should be changed, not only in rhode island, but here in connecticut? where we can improve the quality of the teaching force by exacting higher standards and

making teachers perform to a higher level instead of just giving them an automatic raise every year? host:'s director. -- mr. wagner. guest: great question. sometimes laws set things up that make it difficult to solve ongoing change and continuing sees -- and contingencies. but no, i don't think our teachers are paid enough. i think our teachers are heroes and we need to find ways to pay them more. whether it is tied year-over-year is the best way to come if they determined his talent we have is certainly an open question, and we should have that conversation. but our teachers do magic everyday. they believe in our kids every single day. it is not hard to fire teachers. people pretend like it is hard to fire teachers, but there's often cases where everybody knows the teacher who, despite every heroic effort to get them up to a standard, just hasn't done it. fellow teachers know it. the principal knows it. the superintendent knows it. is not a failure of our system.

is a failure of leadership to do what the laws require to remove the teacher who, despite every effort, has knotted the standard. will alwayseacher be rare because most teachers do an amazing job, but it is not impossible to fire a teacher. we have a crisis of leadership. leaders need to step up and do what they know they need to do and push through the difficulties. sometimes you just need to learn how to navigate what the law requires. host: joe is in eastpointe, michigan on the line for educators and admis -- and administrators. caller: i dialed the wrong number, but i am a lifelong educator at any rate. what i want to know is how you evaluate your teachers in school? how do you evaluate whether or not they are qualified or not qualified? that is a real question around the country. i will listen. thank you. guest: it is a great question. i'm glad you dialed the wrong

number. thank you for your question. there's two parts to it. over the past five to 10 years across the country, we have worked hard to standardize the vocabulary for how to talk about teacher professional practice. how to give feedback to teachers that is fair and transparent so teachers can take that feedback and really lean in and do the growth work we all need to do to stay on top of our game. gettingo get better at better every day, and each of our teachers, no matter how good they are, need to get better at getting better. vocabularyoped that for talking about teacher professional practice, and we get teachers observing their colleagues in the classroom to give that feedback. there is absolutely a place for student performance measures to be part of that conversation, the particular nuance of how student performance measures factor in with more feedback from trained professionals is

something that is a really important conversation. but the other part that did not get as much attention over the past five to 10 years is every organization needs to invest in its people for the sake of the bottom line. we know that in the private sector, the private sector invests in its talent pipeline with ongoing professional learning opportunities, not just for ultra stick reasons that for istic stick -- for altru reasons, but because it allows them to get better and better. we do not prioritize that in education. we insult teachers with one-size-fits-all ongoing professional learning. in our regulatory proposals going on right now, we are trying to focus not just on high-stakes evaluation, but also decrease the temperature around all of that and invest in our

people, but let our people own their earning. our teachers should own their learning just like our students should own their learning. when you believe in your learning, that is when it really sticks. when you are telling us what you need to get better at him and not in a one-size-fits-all kind of way, but in a way to bring in an ecosystem that can help you meet your needs or give you time to sit down with your colleagues , good old-fashioned professional learning communities, teachers sitting down around a shared problem of practice, looking and unpacking the standards and figuring out how to go forward. not only is that the best way to move our education system forward, it is the only way to move our education system forward. teachers anchored in standards helping teachers do what they do best. host: when you talk about that evaluation process including observation of teachers and the test scores, what is the balance? is a closer to 50-50, or should it lean more towards one or the other? guest: our most important work

agency,e a civil rights a state education agency like the federal education agency. -- our founding mandate it comes from the neck and 64 civil rights act, and we take that to the 1964 civil rights act -- our founding mandate comes from the 1964 civil rights act, and we take that to heart. how do we give opportunities to our least privileged students? if you focus on holding people accountable to those broader measures, things like chronic absenteeism, suspension practices, leading indicators, then it all falls into place. you need common measures of student progress like test scores. you need to have adult accountability. but you also need to have a focus on curriculum. how many districts have a

coherent, viable curriculum where every teacher has access to high-quality resources? how many have a coherent develop a plan around professional development anchored to high-quality guaranteed viable curriculum?we know high-quality curriculums versus non-high-quality curriculums. we need to stitch it altogether. a focus on teaching, practice, common student measures and accountability, but it all needs to be anchored in practice. people getting better at getting better over time. that requires you to stay the course. massachusetts is a leader not because they are smarter than everyone else, but because they adopted high standards 25 years ago and stuck to it through thick and thin, political pushback, through concerns. 25 years later, they are not just a national leader. there an international leader.

we want to engage with them and learn from what they've done, and we want to teach them a little bit else about what is going on in rhode island. host: we have about 10 minutes left. we will try to get to as many calls as we can. phone lines again, rhode island residents (202) 748-8000, educators and administrators (202) 748-8001, all others (202) 748-8002. for edward, new york is next. paul is an educator. caller: i am a retired special ed teacher. i would have to say there is a teacher shortage for a give very best for a very good reason. the end -- shortage for a very good reason. the investment one has to take to become a teacher, in my state it is a masters degree. and once they get into teaching, the pay is so low. my daughter is also a special ed teacher in west virginia. she couldn't even make enough to make payments on her rent. your expert to

comment on what incentives you offer to give someone a reason to go into teaching. what are you doing as far as pay goes? i haven't heard a lot about it that. thanks so much. host: commissioner wagner. guest: thank you, and thank you, paul, for your service as an educator. pay is extremely important. pay is complicated. there is an important debate about what the best way is to invest in educator compensation, whether it be structured ways or performance ways and so on. people have been debating that for 30 plus years. but i would just offer that yes, pay is important. money is important. but teachers do not go into education for the money. they go into education to change lives and save lives, and that is what they do every day. teachers change lives and save lives. and teachers, when we have a tradition, it is most often

because teachers felt their hands were tied. doy were not unleashed to what they wanted to do, which is to change lives and save lives. so part of that unleashing of teachers means having viable structures of accountability, making sure we have adult measures of account ability. but part of reaching a teacher talent is really believing in teachers. teachers can smell it if you don't like teachers. if you have to believe in teachers. you have to like teachers. you have to invest in them. you have to hold them accountable, but give them the space to do what they do best within the guardrails of civil but also we need to have curriculum that guides coherence of in structural mission. we don't talk enough about curriculum at the district or state level. there is a group out there that rates the quality of curriculum, and we still unfortunately have districts investing hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions of dollars in curriculum that

everybody knows, according to third-party national measures, are substandard. we need to move that curriculum conversation. when we invest in our curriculum and our teachers, we invest only in high-quality curriculum. we get training opportunities to teachers, understand the curriculum they are working with , and feedback on how to make the curriculum come alive. but we need to give teachers space to do what they do best and which is the magic in the classroom everything will take him a while holding the adults accountable for results. host: living try to get a few more callers. kyle is waiting in buffalo, new york. caller: good morning, john. the last him and stole my thunder. i'm a special ed educator with the buffalo public schools in new york state. the same thing, too. degreerequired a masters , which right now i am wrapping up my masters as well.

it is quite costly. it is not that we go into education looking to make money, never havei would moved down south as a teacher because those teachers down south hardly make anything. you wonder why the south is probably behind in education versus the north, because you can't get good, quality people who want to go into it. you want to make a decent living in a pay your bills, and not have to work two or three jobs. that is the problem i see. new york state teachers are compensated a lot better, but i think compensation brings quality educators, and that is my comment. thank you. host: sandra is waiting in massachusetts. good morning. caller: good morning. , ihink on this whole thing worry about the homelessness for

the people that have to go off to school, the children that have to suffer. , andr, homelessness uneducated parent or two. the ones that are on the opioids with the problems they have. they got all kinds of problem they are bringing into school. we need to address homelessness. we need to address hunger before we can address education because they cannot go off to school with a stomach that is not full, a mind that is not clear, and a body that is not healthy. we need to treat all and every. before we look at what happened then education, we need to look at what we are doing to the people at home. and the people at home that are struggling are the parents and the children. and there's a lot of homelessness, a lot of abuse,

and a lot of unhealthy things going on. god help us all if we don't treat that -- help us all. if we don't treat to that, we don't treat any. host: commissioner wagner, a chance to address that. guest: great point. one of the things that is so exciting to do here in rhode island is governor rolando has been an amazing partner and champion of education. one thing she has charged her cabinet with doing is to work together to address the common sense comprehensive set of needs that not only our children have come a but families have -- children have, but our families have in their communities. directors around housing, mental health needs that students have with education. to the previous caller, special education, one thing we don't

often talk about his we had huge equity drivers in getting our children proficient in reading by third grade and proficient in math, specifically fractions, by fifth grade. one of the best ways to make education come alive, one of the best ways to deliver on our equity challenge, is to prepare particularly special education teachers who are often prepared for accommodations work, not necessarily the content work, about how to really get students to proficiency in reading by third grade and in fractions by fifth grade. all of the cover hands health, housing, nutrition needs support, but also get our teachers the tools they need to hit those equity drivers like third-grade reading and fifth-grade fractions. t -- at allto fi have to fit together at the state and local level. caller: good morning. i does wanted to know your thoughts on privatizing

education and the use of vouchers. host: commissioner wagner. guest: sure. i am a public education person. i got my taste of public education as a high school senior at the age of 18, where i was elected to my local school board in new york. we had a few callers from new york. i've been doing this for 30 years. i believe in public education. public education will always be the way we educate the vast majority of our kids. however, i believe the best way to strengthen public education, not to undermine public education, is we need to have healthy competition. systems tend to perpetuate their own existence unless they have an existential reason to adapt to change, to grow. one of the best ways to give any of our systems and existential reason to adapt change and growth is to have some measure of healthy competition. we often talk about the big dramatic things like school

choice and charter schools and private schools and so on, but don't often talk about things like course choice. students who might not be able to take a particular course in their local high school, but through something called an advanced course network, they can take their course through a public college or university or private college or university, or a nonprofit organization or a neighboring school district. we have to keep our systems on their toes by offering options to kids through partnership at the level of the course or at the level of the school, not to undermine public education, but to make it stronger. i believe in public education. we needed to be strong. the best way to keep it strong as to give it some healthy competition. host: about a minute left. one last question for you from one of those folks watching and tweeting about our segment. "what does the federal department of education do that the rhode island state department of education can't accomplish on its own?"

guest: i mentioned before, i believe the federal government has the same civil rights mandate that we have at the statewide level. i said many times over this segment, we don't have a crisis of workforce. we have a crisis of leadership. i think it is up to state and federal leaders to step up when they have value to add, and to step aside when they do not. we are not focused on what is going on in washington. we are focused on in rhode island. we are stepping up to protect the equity and civil rights we need to protect to invest in our workforce, to get the outcomes are economy needs and our students, families, and teachers need. we are paying attention to the work in front of us. host: can minor is the commissioner -- ken wagner is the commissioner of rhode island education. thank you for joining us on the bus. we want to thank cox

communications in providence, rhode island. our next stop, boston, massachusetts. "the washington journal," we will be joined by someone from the university of virginia and discuss some of the top midterm races. of campaign 2018, c-span coverage of local rallies and debates continues tonight. on the schedule, joe biden heads speak atd, indiana, to a rally for senator joe donnelly. ,ou can watch that on c-span and watch the tennessee debate between marsha blackburn and silver edison. bredesen. and you can watch senator martin martin and gary johnson. lastis a bit for a debate

night. candidates were asked about the idea of impeaching president trump and the molar probe. if you are elected and democrats are in the majority, there may be an effort to impeach president trump. would you vote to impeach the president. is where i stand right now in regard to what is happening out in washington. i think on both sides, we are seeing too much political partisanship. we have seen it for too many years now. i am not happy anytime we try to our constitution, or not follow processes that were put in place to make sure we do protect our democracy. i do not have an answer for that at this time. i certainly think what is important is that we allow mueller's investigation to complete its course. pointl determine at that if there is information in there that puts our country at risk. or if we need to do something

like that. some people say the molar investigation has gone on too long. has it? >> good question. it is still there. as long as they are not being , they need he focused on the issues. we need to get to the bottom of this. so far, even democrat leaders in the house and senate have said there is no evidence of collusion. it is very important to take note of. at some point, this does have to end. andas been almost a year three quarters, almost two years. it has to end at some point. when the findings are there, there should be no question left out there that any of us should be questioning. >> washington journal continues. host: "kyle kondik" serves as sanaging editor of "sabado'

crystal ball at the university of virginia." away.dterms just 25 days a good time for viewers to call in if you have questions about specific races, specific campaigns you are seeing play out on your television screen. kyle kondik, i want to start in the wake of the brett kavanaugh confirmation to the supreme court. a lot of discussion in the last couple of days about what that means for election 2018. at this point, do we have data to tell how that is playing out? guest: at the center for politics, not the miller center, but at uva -- i think there is always a fog of war over the senate and house battlefield, in terms of kavanaugh. i do not know if it is doing a lot. there is some rumbling that it is maybe affecting the senate, which is sort of happening in red states where democrats try to defend themselves.

the kavanaugh effect may be positive for republicans in those places. in the house, which is heavily suburban, the districts are maybe voting for clinton or are more competitive at the federal level, the presidential level. in those places, the kavanaugh effect may be kind of negative for republicans. it is interesting, and it helps to bring into -- into focus the different battlefields. in the house, it is heavily suburban, highly educated, affluent places that do not like the president. maybe they have been republican in the past. they do not like this president as much as they have liked republicans in the past. at the senate level, you have a lot of republicans running in these dark red states. the impact of these developments may be uneven. host: the we tracked the impact is with the crystal ball and the race ratings changes that happen. can you talk about the latest changes, and have they been

impacted by kavanaugh? guest: the most important change we made -- our newsletter came up on thursday morning. we moved her from tossup to leans republican, meaning she is the clearest underdog in terms of the senate incumbents in the country. the crucial thing about that --e, in terms of our ratings we have 50 senate seats -- we have 35 total -- we have 50 senate seats leading to the republicans, and 50 is all they need to keep the majority, a cousin they have the vice presidential tiebreaker. we have long thought republicans were favored to maintain their senate majority and that was solidified in the ratings. high camp leans republican. host: -- heitcamp news republican. host: she released a new ad.

temperament --is the temperament of gorsuch qualified him to the supreme court. in addition to concern about his conduct, last thursday's hearing called into question for me judge kavanaugh's current temperament, his honesty and his impartiality. these are critical traits for any nominee to serve on the highest court in our country. i am ready to work with the president to confirm a nominee who is suited for the extreme the extinction -- distinction of serving for a lifetime apartment. dr. ford gave heartfelt, credible, and persuasive testimony. courage, great deal of and it came at great personal cost to her. i have spent much of my life in public service focused on combating domestic violence and protecting women and children from abuse. are anions right now important signal to young girls and women across the country, and that signal i have been sending is, i will continue to

stand up and for you. host: what signal that it sends that she released a one minute ad explaining a vote? guest: i think she realized this is one of the most important votes she has cast during this particular congress. she felt like she owed the voters in the nation as to why she did support neil gorsuch in the previous supreme court battle, but not brett kavanaugh in this fight. it takes place on this backdrop iser which senator heitkamp acknowledged to be behind in the polls by both parties. i have seen a few public polls that have had high camp down 10 cramer,ints, and kevin the at-large republican house member, as her challenger. democrats think it is closer and she could close at the end. polls underrated high camp -- won inp when she 2012. she hopes to get a late surge. she is in a tough spot.

confirmation battle was an unwelcome battle for a lot of red state democrats, because they are trying to get a lot of trump voters to vote for them. they are trying to get voters to take off their partisan jerseys and support a democrat. i think a supreme court battle might make people put the partisan jerseys on a little bit more. camp --what high heitkamp's dealing with. her personal numbers are good. it is just a really republican state. she is in a tough spot in this very republican state. north dakota senate race just one of many we can talk about with kyle kondik, managing editor of "sabato's crystal ball." 9:30, we are expecting a brief pro forma session in the house. we will go there for gavel to gavel coverage when it happens.

it is only expected to take a minute or two. when we take you there, stick around, because we will be back here afterwards. phone lines in a second. let us know what races you want to talk about. carol is up first in new york. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to ask about the new york 22nd district between claudia tenney and anthony brondesi. i would also like to ask your just what he inks of a relatively new book from last abramowitz about political realignment. , ifess the third question he thinks abramowitz would be a good guest on the program, especially with a person like yourself. you could talk about the specifics of a race as well as

the general realignment in the state are in the district. thank you very much. -- host: -- guest: first of all, alan abramowitz is a contributor to our newsletter. we like him quite a bit. he would be a great guest. i like his many books over the years about polarization. alan and one of his colleagues, stephen webster -- they came up with this great term called "negative partisanship," which is a way of describing how american voters today sort of dislike the other party more than they like their own parties, and it really animates a lot of our polarized political behavior in this country. again, alan is an extremely and a very keen observer of american politics and big picture trends. i think he would be a great guest. as to the specific question about the house district new york 22, really interesting race

going on up there. that is in upstate new york. , democratstrict that held a version of it prior to 24 and -- funny 10. the district get redrawn after the census. there was a moderate republican who held the seat, a guy named richard hanna. he wound up reading the house. a more conservative hardline in 2016.n won the seat she is facing this credible challenge from anthony brindesi. that is a tossup race, a district the president won by double-digit. it is also a place democrats are hoping to win. trump-wona lot of districts in new york state that democrats are hoping they can flip. host: to take the house, how many tossup races are must win? what is the state of play? guest: in our crystal ball

rating -- other race raiders would have similar numbers. we have 208 seats at least leaning toward the democrat. 218 is the magic number you need. sorry, we have 210 seats leaning toward the democrats. 197 leaning to the republicans. 28 tossups. based on our map, democrats only need eight of 28 tossups to win. we feel they are at least small favorites in the house. those last couple of seats might be kind of difficult. this is why the political environment is very important. it is probably not just going to be the clinton-one -- clinton-won seats. they need to win the seats trump won. host: from florida, a democrat. good morning. caller: how are you all doing? host: doing great. caller: i have a question for

kyle. how come nobody is talking about why heidi heitkamp will lose in north dakota? that is my question. because the supreme court, several days ago, deleted native americans, because the post to thedoes not deliver reservation. most of them in north dakota live on the reservation. why is no one saying anything about that? i will take the answer off the air. good question. that refers to a recent court decision about a voter i.d. law in north dakota. north dakota is a unique state in that it does not have voter registration but you need to show proof of identity to vote. this court decision required that you needed to have an on yourtreet address i.d., i believe, in order to be able to vote.

what the caller is getting at is that some native americans have a po box if they live on a reservation. a lot of democrats are concerned this could potentially disenfranchise some of those voters, and those voters may be disproportionately democratic. a legitimate concern. i do not know if it is why i think that heitkamp is an it is a decision that has potential negative political impact for her. host: we are happy to bounce around from house races to governor's races, senate races. some news coming out. a reportertech -- from "the texas tribune" writes that beto o'rourke race $38.1 million in the third quarter, according to an announcement from his campaign. guest: that is a crazy amount of money. i still think ted cruz is favored. we knew beto o'rourke was raising a lot of money, particularly from small donors.

a $38e top of my head, million senate quarter might be the biggest senate quarter of all time. probably is.ne it somebody may correct me on twitter if i am wrong about that. that is an outrageous amount of money. cr has beenuz -- cruz has been living in the polls by six or seven points on average. texas, hello -- hillary clinton lost by nine points, a better performance than obama, who lost by 16. i think o'rourke can get closer than nine points, but the last five percentage points is really difficult. certainly, o'rourke is going to have money to run an active get out the vote operation. host: if there is an issue he is winning on in texas, where should he focus that money in your mind? in texase big problem is that there is hypothetically a democratic voter base.

is a just that texas heavily hispanic state. hispanic voters do not turn out at the rate of white voters or african-american voters. win that state, overcast to change the electorate, effectively. one way of trying to change the electorate is to run a very effective ground game effort. that is what i think he is going to try to do. i would still rather be cruising that race. -- be cruz in that race. cruz has talked about how he felt vulnerable knowing that beto o'rourke has a lot of money. host: richard in massachusetts. good morning. caller: my biggest problem in this country is the division. it seems like the democratic party, with obama, he divided the whites and blacks really bad. really bad. that is done, now we will

get the women going against the men. it is getting sickening. even that heitkamp that was on there, she did not mention a man. she just mentioned women. kavanaugh and ford. this is getting ridiculous. this has to be done. richard inis massachusetts. the meme -- the me too movement? guest: the country is divided. you can do -- can dissect the electorate in many ways. the gender gap in american politics goes back to the reagan area. that is where you start to see a divert jens. men became more republican. women stayed as democratic as they had been in the past. also, our country is very polarized by race. minority voters voted for 75 percent.ton,

white voters more in favor of term. the divisions in american life are concerning to people. i think people are right to be concerned about the various divisions in american life, but they do exist, and they are politically salient. host: john is waning in virginia. -- waiting in virginia. caller: i want to say to the guests that the election has become trite. i have never heard in my years that i have been living in this that hesomeone saying is scared of voting for democrats. i would rather vote for russians. politicians always play one game. they divide and conquer. if you do not bring people together and solve the problem, we will never have a country. 7% for american people, the

congress, yet we are voting the same people over and over again. we have to use common sense. if you know your congressman cannot bring people together, cannot work other sides, you do not need that kind of congress. you need some of his stands up for what is right. number one, he should put america first, which means he should look every way possible that he can work with the republicans, and the republicans find a way to work with the democrats. his notion that we are attacking -- donald is going to be here for years. forever.s we need to wake up and stop attacking each other like there is no tomorrow. this is not how politics should be. as long as big money is involved in our politics, we will not have a country. simple as that. he brings up attack ads and the issue of impeachment as well.

can you talk about that issue and how it is being used in ads i both sides? guest: i do not think impeachment has really come up that much, as far as i can tell. i know there are some democratic members of congress from safe democratic seats who have talked about impeachment. it is not somewhere the leadership wants to go. the leadership of the democratic caucus in the house, a lot of them were around when bill clinton was impeached by the house, i the republican majority in 1998, 1999. there was some feeling at the time that the republicans had maybe overplayed their hand a little bit. they overreached. that was maybe one of the few years in a midterm or the presence party picked up seats in the house, a small number. i think the democratic leadership is leery approaching that issue and i do not think it has come up that much. ads, i thinkgative unfortunately we look for our campaigns to be more positive, but negative ads work.

there is all this money that goes into them. they are often toxic and inaccurate, but they are also effective. win, theytes want to generally have to engage in them. third-party groups have to engage in them. host: let's follow the numbers on my candidates seem to want to focus on. this from "the wall street journal" earlier this week on issues that have come up in ads by democrats and republicans. when it comes to democrats, 325,000 ads focused on the issue of health care, far and away the number one issue them a credit against focus on. the top issue we have focused on adds and the issue of immigration. that was a great story "the wall street journal" did in that chart was very helpful. it is just from the primaries. we have seen that democrats have

been laser focus on health care throughout this whole campaign. republicans have been a little more broad-based in their messaging, getting at some of these themes including immigration and attacking democrats for not being sick -- hawkish ony open borders. health care, if you look at polls of what is the biggest issue, health care pretty highly or is number one. sometimes it is an issue more for democrats. it is interesting that republicans were able to use the againstle care act democrats in 2010 and 2014 and throughout the obama years, and yet when the administration changed, the democrats were able to go back on the offensive on health care. republicans took control of that issue because they control washington now. one piece of the health care argument that i think is really important that republicans are

concerned about are these democratic attacks that are saying that republicans want to do away with protections for pre-existing conditions. you have seen republicans running ads preemptively, saying they do not want to take away these protections, but that is the place where the democrats feel like they have an advantage of republicans are cognitive their potential liability and trying to do something about it. host: a few minutes before we go to a brief pro forma session in the house, just to show you what happens from gavel to gavel coverage. it should only be a couple of minutes and then we will continue this conversation with kyle kondik this morning. let's go with races. charlotte is in st. louis, missouri, a democrat. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i was wondering if he had any updates on the race between senator claire mccaskill and josh holly. guest: thanks for the question.

that is one of the top senate races in the country. this cycle, the university of virginia center for politics and reuters news agency and absence, a big international polling firm -- we have been working together on certain things. we did our own poll of the missouri senate race. it looked pretty similar to the polls we have seen. candidatesparty splitting the vote. race has been.he heitkamp is the most honorable democratic senator. le democratic senator. mccaskill is someone who has liberala -- more of a belief, liberal positioning. she did not vote for neil gorsuch. she did not vote for bright

kavanaugh. joe manchin, from west virginia, voted for both. mccaskill -- you could say maybe mccaskill is to left wing for the state, although she is generally a pretty successful candidate and has run good races. host: here is the message from hawley in a-- new ad. >> the people in our senate today created a circus. liberals like claire mccaskill and chuck schumer, they do not want the truth. they only want power. too many republicans will not stand up. i am josh holly. i will fight for the supreme court. it is the last line of defense for our values. it is worth the battle. that is why i approve this message. host: kyle kondik? guest: hawley is trained to have a contrast on the kavanaugh

although he does not mention brett kavanaugh i wonder if the whole confirmation process is such a toxic battle that i almost wonder if some about, ins are talking am a republican. you need to send me to the senate to vote for these conservative judges on the court. in recent history, it has been more animated for republicans, the judiciary. ey needsa way that hawl to make sure trump republican voters vote for him. he is reminding them of the importance of missouri senators, the vote on the supreme court, is one way to do that. i thought that was a pretty effective message for what he is trying to communicate. host: as we wait for the house, we will go to barbara in texas, a republican. go ahead. caller: i have a question for

kyle. thank you for taking my call. guest: thanks for calling. host: what is the question, barbara? caller: when you have candidates running, why do we have so much money pertaining to one candidate versus another? i know a lot of this money comes from outside the states and all of that. have that? why can't we have an even playing field for each candidate, democrat or republican? or libertarian or whatever? host: thanks for the question. guest: obviously, donors are going to pick and choose who they are going to support. with beto o'rourke, we talked about his immense fundraising quarter. not only has he become a nationally compelling candidate, i think a lot of that money is coming from places outside texas. within texas as well. it is not only being unattractive candidate. he is running against ted cruz, who a lot of candidates do not

like. we talk about negative partisanship. we want to support somebody running against someone. ted cruz is that motivating person for democratic donors. the country could have a public funding system for elections if we wanted to. there could be constitutional issues for that. being able tohat donate to a candidate is the equivalent of free speech and you cannot limit that based on the first amendment. there are limits in terms of what uri could give -- what you .r i could give to a candidate outside groups, someone could write a $20 million check and that money could go to their efforts across the country. there are certainly ways around the campaign finance limits that we have set up. host: as we wait for the house

to come in for this pro forma session, if there are one or two fundraising reports you are waiting to see from the third quarter, what do you think it should be? guest: i am curious to see the final numbers from the democratic house challengers. like beto o'rourke, on a smaller scale, you have democratic house candidates putting up $3 million quarters, which is awesome for house candidates. host: we will talk more about it in a few minutes. we take you to the house for a brief pro forma session. chaplain conroy: let us pray. god of the universe, we give you thanks for giving us

another day. in this moment of prayer, please grant the members of this people's house during this campaign season and their opponents, the gifts of wisdom and discernment that end their words and actions -- in their words and actions they will inspire the american voter a new level of respect for congress. we ask your continued blessing upon those in the path of hurricane michael. may all the affected communities come together during a difficult time of recovery so as to be stronger neighbors and to a future of rebuilding and renewal. may all that is done this day be for your greater honor and glory. amen. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 4-a of house resolution 1084, the journal of the last day's proceedings is approved. the chair will now lead the house in the pledge of allegiance and i invite others in the chamber to join me.

i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on october 10, 2018, at 9:27 a.m. appointment, cyberspace, slare yum commission, dwight d. eisenhower commission. signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of

representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on october 11, 2018, at 9:15 a.m. that the senate agrees to the house amendments to the bill senate 3021. signed sincerely, karen l. haas of the the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on october 11, 2018, at 2:41 p.m. that the senate passed senate 1305, appointment, board of trustees of the institute of american indian and alaskan native culture and arts development. signed sincerely, karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house the following enrolled bill.

the clerk: h.r. 6, an act to provide for opioid use disorder prevention, recovery, and treatment and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 4-b of house resolution 1084, the house stands adjourned until 10:00 a.m. on tuesday, october 16, 2018. have the senate will also a pro forma session today. we are talking about the midterm elections until the end of our program today. kyle kondik is with the university of virginia senate for politics. works for "sabato's crystal ball."

housee been talking about and senate races. kenya you talk about governors races? dashcam you talk about governors -- can you talk about governor'' races? guest: in everyday people's lives, their state government matters a lot. democrats in the house are probably going to be making a substantial game. hold --ships republicans hold 33 of 50, a high number. there is an independent, the governor of alaska. he ran as a fusion ticket and defeated a republican incumbent. democrats will probably pick up three or four net governorships, and probably half a dozen or more. the democratic hammer might fall the hardest in the midwest, which is a region that swung heavily to donald trump, and provided his victory.

if you include pennsylvania as an auxiliary member of the midwest, pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, ohio, iowa -- those obama toipped from trump. democrats have a chance to win a substantial number of governorships in the midwest. there are six of interest -- minnesota, wisconsin, illinois, iowa, and ohio. of them inrail one minnesota, and are favored to hold it. they are favored to pick up michigan. bruce rauner is running for reelection and is well behind in polls. wisconsin, iowa, and ohio -- ohio is an open seat. wisconsin has a quasi-incumbent. tookieutenant governor over after the previous governor took a federal job. in wisconsin, where scott walker

is running for reelection -- there is a world where democrats win all six of those governorships, which shows how quickly things can change. the electorate has different feelings in the midterm environment. also, the midwest in general is a very competitive region, probably the most consistently competitive region we have in the united states right now. we are going to let the viewers drive the conversation. governors, house, senate. kyle kondik is the guy to talk to you about it. just is with us from woodbridge, virginia, a democrat. caller: thanks for taking my call. the one question i had is, how much are unlikely voters going to play? you see a lot of polls that pull likely voters, and a few with registered voters. i feel in midterms, especially this one, where the energy seems to be on the democratic side,

unlikely voters mike -- might turn the tide on close races. in florida, with the governor's hawley up by a slim margin, but has not cracked a 50% margin. undecideds, you see pulled where the energy is. races in general, how much will unlikely voters impact these midterms? guest: that is a great question, particularly someone calling from virginia. we saw this in action in the 2017 virginia governor's race. ralph northam, the democrat who eventually won the governorship, was leading the polls, but sometimes only by three or four points. some of the internal polling in outside groups were doing -- they had northam up by a little bit. but northam ended up winning by nine points.

the turnout was excellent for a governor's race. the vote totals for gillespie, the republican candidate, were quite good. it is just that northam's vote totals were excellent. that is where you saw a really big turnout benefiting a democrat, and how some of the voters that maybe pollsters -- maybe they did not get through the likely voter screen that the caller was referring to, but they ended up voting anyway. that is the danger for .epublicans we know the democratic base is enthusiastic. we know the polls are not quite capturing that enthusiasm. to the caller's point, those voters might end up deciding some of these close races in states like florida, like missouri, etc.. specifically about virginia, i hasd say that virginia these growing, highly affluent,

highly educated, diverse zones of populations. northern virginia, greater richmond, the hampton roads -- those are places that powered ralph northam to victory in 2017. a lot of other states do not have those kinds of demographics. they are not as upset about the president. in fact, they might like the president quite a bit. they might not have that supercharged democratic electorate we are seeing in these suburban areas. you might not see that kind of effect everywhere. but in a state like virginia, you could see it again. there are several competitive house races in virginia, for instance, where those voters could make the difference. ad fromwant to show an a very competitive house race, virginia 10. jennifer west and running across barbara comstock. >> barbara comstock might as well be [indiscernible]

donald trump is against extending medicaid, against coverage for pre-existing conditions, and he sabotaged the insurance market in virginia. barbara can't -- barbara trumpstock agrees. wexton fought -- for those things. have not beents running specifically on trump as much as you might think, but here is an example of clearly running against trump. a classic example of a district where that message might be salient. virginia 10 is historically republican leaning. it is the single most affluent congressional district in the whole country. higher rates of four-year college attainment. generally a demographic that represents hostility to the

president. the district basically tied in the 2012 presidential race. that hillary clinton won it by about 10 points. we sought lots of different places swinging in different directions on this past presidential election. clearly, virginia 10 did not like trump compared to even met romney. wexton waxed and -- running very clearly as "my opponent is like trump," and it looks like she is leading now. host: in texas, a democrat, good morning. caller: i just had a statement to make. maybe after the statement -- but , heelation to beto o'rourke wants to be inclusive as far as the independent, republicans, democrats. he wants to be inclusive. positiveng a lot of ads. i have not seen him do any negative ads. at the same time, cruz is doing

as much as he can negatively. i have heard that his own party does not like him. pac and the nra are donating heavy amounts of money for mr. cruz. uzknow you talked about cr was worried about the money, but i think it is more because mr. o'rourke has been campaigning, visiting all the counties in texas, across the board. up forz has not shown any of the campaigns. i do not know if he is taking people for granted, or what. has beenw mr. o'rourke working diligently, very, very hard for us. i would appreciate a comment. thank you. host: thanks for the view on the ground from texas. guest: i think a lot of texas democrats are happy to have an

active senate candidate. there has not been a close senate race in texas in 20, 30 years. you really have to go back to lloyd benson, basically, back in the late 1980's. we talk about how much money o'rourke has, and the caller talked about -- he is running and unconventional campaign. factonders if he does in lose if maybe he should have run a more conventional campaign. i talked about how these negative ads do tend to work, unsavory as they may be. maybe he is not being as aggressive as he could be or should be. one interesting factor with this race is, there are third-party apparatuses on both sides. there are big, well-funded outside groups. those groups on the democratic side are not playing in texas. one, they know that o'rourke has use,money than he can

really. also, they are defending other democratic senate incumbents across the country. there are 35 senate races. 26 are held by democrats, or independents who caucus with the democrats. the democratic senate committee has a wild battlefield to defend. the outside groups are the ones that run the nastiest ads, because they cannot be traced back to the candidate. is a component of typical campaigning that is not present. maybe that case is not being made in an effective enough way. active state very is minnesota. from minnesota, tammy, democrat. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. my question of course is about keith ellison. i am wondering what people are showing for him. keith ellison, member of

the u.s. house, running for state attorney general in minnesota, democrat. the secondstill is in charge at the dnc. i cannot remember if he still has that job or not. he was accused of sexual harassment. has beenlike that race fairly close, as far as i can tell. emma kratz are generally doing pretty well in minnesota right now. there are two senate races. there is a governor's race. immigrants are leaving all of them. my sense is that -- democrats are leading all of them. my sense is that ellison has a chance to win. we talk about the me too movement being a big factor in politics and all walks of life this year. keith ellison a person who has gotten caught up in that with some of these allegations. int: about 15 minutes left our program. if you have a question about our

specific -- about a specific race in your state, please ask. is in lane, pennsylvania, a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i am curious about pennsylvania districty created after the gerrymandering issue in pennsylvania. guest: that is a great district of focus on. it is one of the districts in pennsylvania that did not change all that much in redistricting, although it got a little bit more democratic. a pennsylvania, there was pretty aggressively drawn republican gerrymandering of the house delegation that kind of locked in the gains that republicans made after the 2010 election in that state. the state supreme court, which is controlled by democrats, it has to be said -- they decided to draw a new map, a much better map for democrats. democrats are going to pick up four net seatsast

in pennsylvania. they started with five and will probably get up to nine of the 18 seats. one that was not included in the tally is pennsylvania one, one of the most competitive house districts in the country, historically. it is the philadelphia suburbs and exurbs. it is a place that swings between the parties. it did not change all that much in redistricting. it is a battle between brian fitzpatrick, a first-term house member, a republican -- his brother held the seat for a while and was very successful. he has a lot of name i.d. from that. he is also one of the house republicans who is probably closer to the center than the rest of the caucus. scott wallace is the grandson of henry wallace, who ran for president as a progressive in and and was one of frank roosevelt's vice president's. he was vice president for fdr's third term. wallace is wealthy and there is a kind of money coming into this

race. i think it is a pure tossup race. it is one of the districts that is going to help determine control of the u.s. house. southwe will move east to river, new jersey, and independent. good morning. caller: i had a question about the state senator -- i am sorry, the senate race in new jersey, with bob menendez. i was wondering what the polling looked like. i had a couple comments. i do not see how he can be a head still when the guy had such that she was told by the senate he was correct. withd done a lot of stuff this ethics violation as a doctor. he would inject people with ointments into their eyes and cause a problem. plus, the me too movement -- helpedid that this dr. them have sex with prostitutes

from the dominican republic were 17 years old. in new jersey, that is statutory rape. where is the me too movement? could you tell me what is going on with the race? i would appreciate it. robert menendez was accused of a lot of wrongdoing. he avoided being convicted in a trial last year. and he is a damaged candidate. i think there is reason to question the new jersey democratic infrastructure keeping him and not having a against challenger run him. menendez performed weekly in the primary even though his opponent was basically a no-name candidate. was clearly hunger for a replacement for menendez. new jersey is a machine state, one of the few true machine states we have left. the machine decided they wanted to keep menendez. it is possible that they made a horrible mistake and will

actually kick away this senate seat in new jersey, although i still think menendez is favored. the caller asked, what does polling look like? low double digits would be a poor showing for a new jersey democrat in a democratic year. he is facing a former pharmaceutical executive who is running and aggressive campaign, a lot of advertising. it may be a bridge too far. but this is not a race that democrats should have to worry about, but it is because menendez is so damaged. host: what is machine politics have staying power in new jersey? guest: it is a good question. part of it is how the ballot is constructed in that state. in every county, the county party determines the preferred ballot line in primaries. if you get the endorsement from the county party, your name consistently appears at the top of the ballot. in a lot of other places, the name that is on the ballot is

scrambled and randomized. just for whatever reason, there is that little ballot quirk. there are other factors in that state. that has allowed that state to remain with strong parties and machine politics. menendez loses, or even if he wins, i think it is credible to wonder whether he should still be a u.s. senator. i think a lot of new jersey voters are grappling with that, given the accusations against him, even though he was not convicted. host: time for just a few more calls before our program ends. stan is in silver spring, maryland, democrat. good morning. caller: i am calling because i want to know why it is that a is so far governor ahead in the polls in a very thatstate, and why it is he is able to persuade people that he is moderate, when he has been opposing a number of things

that the progressives are for. the democrats looked like they might be able to break through in the midwest, competitive races. republican asset is that in a lot of blue states in the northeast and down the coast -- and maryland is a great example of that -- you have these republican governors who are doing quite well. scott in vermont seems like he is safe, charlie baker in massachusetts, and larry hogan of maryland -- the approval ratings are excellent. i think part of what has ,appened is that ben jealous the democratic candidate in maryland, has not run a great race. he has had fundraising problems. hogan has to make great job of convincing the democratic maryland electorate that he is a moderate. regional people can disagree as to whether he is or not. a lot ofhat binds these blue state republican governors together is that they

deemphasize social issues. they are not talking about banning gay marriage. you cannot do that anymore. ending abortion, gun rights, etc. if they are moderate on those issues, they either have a liberal position or do not talk about those issues in public -- they focus on other things that the voters care about more. i think hogan has done a masterful job of cultivating that image for himself. i would say charlie baker and phil scott, and even chris sununu in new hampshire is in more of a competitive race. it is still a swing state as republican governor, doing well. a lot of interest from texas viewers. bridget is an independent. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. how are you? host: i'm well, go ahead. caller: lupe valdez is running against governor greg abbott.

she comes -- she has had significant accompaniments. she faced so much adversity, being a woman and a latin woman. she let her life. she has come from a poor -- from a rough neighborhood, a poor family, in san antonio, is my understanding. she is not so far removed from what a lot of hard-working poor people and average people are up against. governor greg abbott is. he caused hardship concerning planned parenthood and women being able to continue to get as breaste, as far cancer checks, and checks for cancer of the cervix. he says there are a lot of places they can get health care. not affordable health care. women are dealing with poverty and need the assistance. as we have talked about others in political fields, if they brought in those with the

battered women's center, there are specialists that recognize you could work with planned parenthood. it is a hard disorder to understand, concerning battered women's syndrome. some of that could be manipulated from guys on the outside pressuring them to get abortion. they have helped them get to transitional housing. they can help them carry their child to term and get away from an abusive guy. he could be manipulating them. they do not physically walk into planned parenthood. abbott is in a stronger position than ted cruz is. part of it is that at that has a significant resource advantage over lupe valdez. i think that abbott's personal numbers have been a little bit better. abbott is a pretty strong conservative, i think. so is ted cruz. i think abbott has had an easier

go of it for a number of different reasons, but he remains popular and on track to be reelected. most of the polls have shown that abbott is running pretty well ahead of ted cruz. ted cruz is only up high single digits. that race has not really activated the way the senate race is activated. what about the issue of planned parenthood nationally? healthobviously, women's and those issues are and animating force for democrats. look, it is possible that brett kavanaugh could be the decisive fifth vote on a landmark decision for the supreme court that would curtail abortion rights, potentially. more least give the states rights to curtail abortion rights. i think that is an issue that comes up a lot that i think is very important to women on the democratic side. as for its presence in the

health care is important. health care and abortion rights fall into that category now. it is something that democratic candidates talk about. i do not know that it has necessarily been super prominent as far as i can tell. host: before we leave texas, there is a question on twitter. het is next for a rock if does not win? how does he take advantage of the trajectory? that will be interesting to watch. guest: i wonder if he might run for president. he has got incredible built-in fundraising network nationally. i think that like the republicans did in 2016, you may have these big multicandidate debates. remember, the republicans would actually have two different

debates, the undercard and the main event. if you got 12 candidates on stage and beto o'rourke is one of them, i do think he is a person who could sort of pop off the screen in a way some of these other democrats might not. i do not know if he has any interest in doing that or not, but he has become a national phenomenon, even if he does lose. i do think he is the clear underdog at this point. the could he run for president? i think it is a reasonable question to ask. to ask youd want about "the crystal ball," what viewers can expect in these last 25 days. "the crystal ball" comes out every thursday morning. it is free to sign up. litics.org/ we are also working on the political atlas. it is the polling from it so's, ipsos, ands -- from pis

also social media metrics of what people are talking about. what candidates are getting talked about the most? it is free toll, sign up for our newsletter. we are going to try to get as many races right as we can. we will follow this election to its conclusion and we are going to jump right into the 2020 election, probably. host: kyle kondik is the managing editor there. thank you for your time. that is going to do it for today's program. but we will be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern, for clock a.m. pacific. in the meantime, have a good friday.

>> on c-span, we are live at the center for strategic and international studies, waiting theear from dennis about world trade organization. it will get underway within five minutes or so. while we wait, we will show you part of "washington journal" this.

>> we have to bring jobs into america because our best export as entertainment ideas but when we make everything in china and not america, we are cheating our country and putting people in position to have to do legal things to end up in the cheapest factory other, the prison system. host: that was kanye west yesterday in the oval office. we want to hear from you about celebrity activism 2018. do you think it matters? we will get to your calls in a second. we are joined on the phone by ted johnson, senior editor at for id, who covered the president yesterday. what was the original reason for kanye west to come to the white house yesterday? guest: the stated reason from

, presste house itself secretary sarah huckabee sanders said it was to talk about a range of issues with criminal justice reform. meeting,w from the kanye west went on so many different topics and it got lost. host: it was a busy day for celebrities at the white house yesterday. kid rock was there, the beach boys were there, what were the other meetings about yesterday? guest: right before this meeting with kanye west, there was a signing ceremony for the music modernization act, a piece of legislation all about music licensing and royalty reform to streamline that process. it gets incredibly technical, but this has been a long legislative achievement for the music industry.

they finally got it, and trump happen to be president who signed it, so naturally, the question was, who would show up? they managed to get together this group of artists, that included kid rock, mike love. they got hyundai -- they got kanye west might be there, as well, that is why there was a lot of activity. it had to do with the music industry. host: plenty of activists over the last two weeks coming off the protest over the brett kavanaugh nomination. we saw taylor swift get involved in promoting a candidate in the tennessee senate race. kanye west, kid rock. when it comes to the november election, what celebrity appearance over the past two weeks will have the most impact?

when it comes to taylor swift, the only celebrity appearance we have data on is taylor swift. she put out an endorsement on instagram and urged people to register to vote. within the next 24 hours, there was a spike in voter registration. i am hesitant to say whether celebrities take this action. for the hugeasons impact, especially for younger think a lotvists, i of things just get lost in the

shuffle. there is so much coming that you that i question whether is as great as maybe it was 10 years ago when we saw oprah winfrey endorsed president obama and we saw that big impact on his campaign, especially in iowa. drucker, a reporter and frequent guest on cnn, tweeted yesterday, blasted in -- basting and the support of celebrity entertainers and both parties practice for years. when did it backfire? guest: they could backfire when the celebrity gets out there and starts talking in a real crazy way. a sends things that are little outrageous or embarrasses .he candidate, says profanity we saw some of that with kanye

west, or in the case of robert de niro, he went out at the tony awards and delivered a f bomb about president trump. the response from the republican national committee is they put together a video of different celebrities saying outrageous things about president trump, and the collected it all together, and the whole title of the video was unhinged. that is the thing. you tend to see republicans attack democrats a lot more for their celebrity support, and i think that is driven by the fact that hollywood leans to the left, and republicans are looking for a, the way to brand democrats as out of touch and as part of the elite. >> welcome, everybody. glad you are