it'so callers to think somehow unfair to want a check on this president, please note that a majority of americans want.it now, he's going to get it. uncivil war,k, and taking back our democracy in an age of trumpian disinformation and thundered on politics. >> on capitol hill the house in recess gaveling back in at 3:45 eastern time for work on 15 suspension bills including funding for hiv-aids programs and the awarding congressional gold medal. also on the agenda, house candidates who were elected in special elections last week will be sworn in today. while we wait we'll take a look at more from today's "washington journal." >> washington journal continues. the: a week removed from 2018 midterms come we are joined by david mcintosh.

how much money to the club for growth and its various arms spend on election day 2018? guest: for the cycle, the two years, all of our different $50ties raised almost million. of that come about 30 many dollars went into the elections. direct those we bundled contributions from our members to the candidates of 25 million of that was what they call super pac, independent expenditures helping various candidates. host: what did you get for that investment? guest: thank you for the question. we won 85% of our races. host: how many did you plan? guest: these are in the fall. 20. so 17 out of 20. i am counting the florida senate as a win. i know that is being recounted. but we did very well. our candidates did well. one lesson i took away from this ranfor republicans, if you

away from core republican principles, and he didn't talk or the need for more freedom and free markets, you ran into trouble. you democratic opponent defined the issues in the election. our guys stood by their principles and did well. election,y after the you talked about squishy republicans. to find that. guest: -- define that. guest: it is people who want the office more than they care about principles. they give lip service to conservative pencils or freedom, but when comes down to tough votes, for or against the tax is -- will iand excessp and say no to spending, the squishy ones say no, that is too hard. i don't want to do that, i want to find a place to run and hide. host: dave brat of virginia, robert eyewall, would you define

them as squishy? guest: no. i think it was cases where there were closely divided districts. dave brat fought hard. we spent half $1 million on independent expenditures to help him. he just got outspent. was hererat opponent in washington dc, touched a sliver of the district, it was too expensive for us to spend money on. mcintosh is with us. -- leadership elections in the house are taking place today and tomorrow. what did republican voters signal they wanted from republican leaders? i think they want to see

a change in the house in terms of supporting president trump's agenda. it essentially means they want to see leadership for those proposals. when you are speaker of the he always came to whatever the senate came up with. at this point, what they need is back, it can'tes do that by cutting deals or playing small ball politics on the little things that voters don't really pay attention to. it looks to me we're on the path to do more of the same. if you do the same thing and expect a different result.

insanity. host: kevin mccarthy -- will bet looks like he the inside favorite being the majority leader and he has been at the table the last two leadership of the house. jordan and does jim up in all of this? guest: he is a fighter and would make a great minority leader. up, depending on whether he wins or loses, he will be able to bring the caucus back to a majority after the election. following the current path he is on, showing there are republican to will fight. mitch had a tough year. many problems were in the senate.

others, youhim or can do a lot of things. one or two people would object. hopefully it will be up to 52. will make it easier for him. the problem with mitch mcconnell is the process. i heard him bright we ran a wonderful appropriations process. problem with appropriations under republicans was deficit spending. everything we saw showed that was the number two concern among republican voters. you have got a most three -- and the leadership sides with the party. that is a source of frustration that republican voters sought grow with this congress and wanted to see the change.

, how longd mcintosh have you been president of the club for growth? guest: this is my fourth year. we are a free market small ,overnment political group organized as a nonprofit to advocate for positions, but the main way we do that is through our political groups, our super pac to elect champions for limited government and free markets. problems can be solved in private society and when you have economic growth, a lot of other problems end up being easier to solve and follow a. we look for republican candidates who not only say that but you can tell from their life and voting records in the past that they will stand up and fight for it. host: some callers.

upid, republican, you're first. caller: what happened in florida? why weren't these corrupt election officials done away with? rick scott has been here for and pam, iyears called her office friday and had a long weekend. they took off the weekend. this is ridiculous. we are seeing a repeat of 2000 all over again. i touched my friend of mine from florida who said in those counties, had rick scott removed the person who was there, the corruption was endemic and would have just bubbled up under whoever he replaced it with. least at this point he's doing with people he knows who are not on his side and not the dark underbelly in the process that is willing to cheat and steal elections. host: do you think that is what

is happening in florida? guest: the fact that they mix all of the votes, the one that should have been separate, it is a way of making sure many of the invalid votes are counted anyway, yes, i think that is an effort to try and steal the election. host: santa cruz, go ahead. caller: i was calling about everybody complaining about this and that. it is unbelievable. ,20 trillion in eight years gone. where does that go to? infrastructure in shambles. -- justention everything. the have a one train dollar deficit. now. debt and deficit how big of an issue is it with this congress? guest: as we talked to voters in the last six months, it was

their top issue across the board. democrats and independents, this congress has failed to address that. they keep spending more and removed restrictions that were there to try and limit the growth and spending. they think there is no political price for it. we are not yet at a tipping will but the experts always warn you we're getting close and need to do something about fiscal restraint. host: do you think that would happen with the white house being republican controlled as well, coming into this 115th congress? guest: mick mulvaney was the head of -- for president trump. he put forth a immensely insightful budget and it was

ignored by everybody. by -- theyst went are a group on to themselves. for many reasons. defense spending, increased a mistake and welfare spending. others said we like the programs, why are you spending more, to the trump administration. it is truly a disappointing issue. when i was there, we actually balanced the budget. wills hard, but it took power from john kasich and newt gingrich who basically told the appropriators, you will chair the committee but only if you agree that we will cut spending. host: do you think we will balance the budget again? guest: i think it will take a

long time and a political effort to gain consensus from the congressional areas spending i talked about. even more, what to do with entitlements. clear, i trump made it will not touch social security and medicare. that means you have to look at other entitlements. farm spending, food stamps, and the welfare part of entitlement programs. host: good morning to you are on with david mcintosh. caller: well, my issues are that actually pulled the worst out of americans. and the republicans cheat at gerrymandering and others are blamed for the state of jobs.

companies want to make bigger profits. they took the jobs to poor fortries to have them work wages. host: let's talk about some of the issues you bring up. jobs going overseas. guest: thank you for the question. everybody blames the other and yes, most americans, republicans and democrats, want to see some effort to work together. it is very hard appear because all of the members remember the last time somebody did something to hurt them. it works both ways.

jobs, we areon of in the best place we have been in a long time on job creation. an unemployment rate is at historic low, new jobs in the last 14 months have been at record highs. good chiefly with -- cuts and he entered industries like energy and health care energy that has let american companies invest and create jobs. we have a transformation in the economy on low-wage manufacturing jobs that have moved overseas. we have seen that happen if you look throughout history, all the time. engage in trade, people buy and sell with each other around the world. the low cost producer ends up making goods that a higher cost

producer really shouldn't invest in. we do well when our countries invest in jobs like the tech industry and research and and we can do those more effective than the entire world. focusingsident trump on the wine industry. france makesade, excellent wine. but they make it hard for the u.s. to sell its wine into france and sells us a tariffs. whereas the u.s. makes it easy for french wines and makes small tariffs. not fair and must change. what your thoughts on the president's use of tariffs? a -- an attack on americans. a bad idea. it is very easy to sell french wine in america. but the people who enjoy french wine are americans.

if the president with a tariff on them, americans will spend more because they get taxed more. was we saw in north america steel and aluminum tariffs brought a better trade agreement . as a temporary measure to rewrite some of the trade i can understand what the president is doing. there is a cost. now that he has got a good agreement with mexico, lift those aluminum and steel tariffs because it is hurting united states jobs and the car industry. in the end, tariffs hurt the country that put them on. businesses cannot compete around the world. david, l.a., independent. byler: i have to start off really thinking david for his

honesty. to go will further on my appreciation for his candor, when he talks about how much money the fund for growth has contributed to a particular type of candidate, and what the what they are contributed to the candidates, i think david, you make a good point, you demonstrate why it is you have to get money out of politics. you already have begun with how do we now balance the deficit after the koch brothers have already received all of these big tax write offs. now you want to go to entitlements. what are entitlements? are you still with me? the entitlements are social all of thed

so-called discretionary spending things that helped the people. but your corporations don't want to actually be good americans ,here you can pay your taxes you get all these tax write offs and billions of dollars, and you do your stock buybacks and he really do not invest in america, but you want the american people to believe that all of your politics is about the benefit of america? i think your honesty has demonstrated who your loyalties are. let's give mr. mcintosh a chance to respond. guest: thank you for the question. essentially, corporate america are americans. many of them are international companies, so there are employees working overseas were other nationalities.

but when general motors makes cars here and then has to pay a , so it will shift and make its cars more expensive and they cannot compete, that means americans will lose out, either shareholders who tend to the with theirple company and their 401(k) plan, or employees like my home state of indiana, they shut down a lot of plants over the last 30 years. so corporations are a way of people organizing themselves to engage in economic activity. work they can do together that are then separate -- separately. ist we see in politics today a lot of special interests on both sides. by the way, the big corporate entities in town to not particularly like the club for growth candidates because they don't vote for subsidies to corporations. they don't vote for the special tax breaks. they vote for the general tax break that everyone could take advantage of.

today, if you see -- if you start a small business, you will pay less taxes than you would have before our tax cut. decides theyl who want to go into business, that acentivizes people to take risk with savings. a lot of people run up credit card debts when they start a business. they are hoping their dream will come true and they will be successful and earn money off of that. if the government taxes it, it is harder for them to do it. you want to go to entitlements next. call themo not entitlements, i call them the welfare program we set up as entitlements, meaning congress does not have to vote to increase spending on them. so we have to restructure those programs. oure is a huge problem in society of welfare being too rich because then people do not want to work in those entry-level jobs.

social workers will tell them, don't go work at mcdonald's, you can get more if you don't work and sign up for food stamps. that is a bad deal in society. feel dependent and lose hope and we need to restructure that to channel people to endeavors that will let them be successful. club for growth, you can check them online. at the beginning about how much money raised and spent on election 2018. how much of that specifically was spent during primaries and republican on republican races? >> a rough ballpark figure i think about one third of it was. to help the republicans ultimately keep the majority of the senate, and reduce their losses in the house, our guys

for the mostes part. part of our whole goal is to the quality of republican candidates by looking for men and women who really believe in the things republicans say they are for, really believe in smaller government, less spending, lifting the heavy-handed regulations so people can pursue their lives in the private sector without worrying that they will hold them back. when there were so many close races, do you think one third of the spending in 2018 could be better used to take ?ore republican seats in several cases by getting the right candidate at all. i would say is a couple of examples in texas, his nomination, didn't have to spend

money in the fall for that one. guy in texas, those were races where it was very successful. taylor, another texas example. mark green in tennessee, they shored up the races before november. republicans squishy expect that you will play again in the 2020 campaign? guest: yes or we will favor seats where there will be one candidate or another. we are also looking at other races and saying, their voters want to see someone who is with the program. do you have a budget? guest: we are putting it together now. it depends on the environment. i want to demonstrate how we decide that here we looked at the map and there were 10 seats won.president trump

open tennessee for blackburn, we found kevin nicholson, we found rick scott, who really essentially found us, and by getting those candidates in the primaries, the country had a better chance of winning those seats. >> five main dollars was spent on that race? >> yes. a disappointment. primary, wethe didn't have any money we helped him win a tough primary. his credit, he did a good job and immediately started attacking him. so the month of june, matt rosen negative ads on

him, he was under water. he had more negative impressions than positive. that just hurt us from then. we demonstrated to everybody it would have been a good investment, because he was down 10 points in july and we narrowed it down to a tie toward the end. john run -- ran a good campaign. had we had more money in june, i think he would run. host: republican, go ahead, thank you for waiting. caller: i am 71 years old. just like this year, i am giving and his sample. schoolteacher, they work for general motors and he was making close to $50,000 per year.

she said she went to school for five years and could make that kind of money. you've got to work at general motors because it is only two dollars an hour and college is worth $100 an hour. the sad part is the american people don't understand the $10 shirt you buy at walmart, pay for a guys welfare, food stamps, housing, that shirt really bought $30. the american people came here today and say, we stand by trump, we have to pay more for our clothes. but an american would be working. i know that is the hope and the dream. i grew up in indiana in car country. a lot of those jobs are not there. the textile industry today.

i don't think even if we had huge tariffs on shirts coming in from around the country that we would rebuild that. case in a healthy economy that things turn over. successfulhat was for generations, someone else figured out how to do it cheaper and more efficiently. the business does not thrive anymore. look at the original mail-order catalog, amazon of 100 years ago. they were huge and went through a great cycle. we're facing the possibility of bankruptcy. that is the way good and healthy economy works. if you stay stuck with the old, you get beat by the competition. so you have to innovate and come up with new products or new ways of doing it and delivering it. amazon is the giant today. if they do only what they are doing now, which happens a lot faster, 20 years from now, they will be like sears.

it is a healthy dynamic. it is stressful for people like your friend who went to work for $50,000 and hoped he would do that all of his life, and over that lifetime, the economy shifted around him. we do have to find ways to help those people be part of the new economy. host: you mentioned amazon. any reaction that part of amazon's new headquarters will be right across the river here? guest: i think that is exciting. for amazon and the tech companies, they are kind of isolated in california and have a different view of what makes the world tick. i wish they depict one of the midwest or southern cities, if they had east coast west coast or somewhere in the middle, amazon is a company would understand three different times of -- cut -- types of american culture.

caller: my question is, i'm up in my 50's but i feel like the politicians, when you want to talk about people selling out the country, they sold it out when they did the nafta agreement. because they didn't really care it destroyed our manufacturing once nafta went into effect. trump came in and we renegotiated the deal with canada and mexico. i have a relative that is a farmer. i talked to him this weekend. in the shortat run, financially, it might be a little tough. but in the long run, the agreement trump made with canada would benefit big pharma in the midwest. me isr thing that bothers you get politicians that leave

office and once they leave office, they go to work for lobbyist groups. there should be a mechanism put in where if you are a representative, i do not care if you are a senator or in the house of representatives, you should never be allowed to lobby the government. they know all the ins and outs. that is where the money goes. they don't care about the american people. let me start with trade. that is nafta. parts jobs, they moved overseas, i think that would have happened whether or not we had nafta. the companies could have basically in getting the same thing for less overseas. americans everywhere paid less for cars.

nafta was good for farmers in your friend was right. i think the new agreement will begin for farmers and may help manufacturing. host: under the democratically controlled house, is that in limbo? only playing politics and not wanting president trump to get any victory. it was negotiated by an old , navarro, and it is very pro-labor. you would think they would want to go ahead and move forward with that. i am worried the whole two years will be played out under the shadow of the presidential election we will see good things get through. i think politicians are getting self interested. even more on the spending side, and someone on the tax side. congressman to the working here in washington, is really to reduce the amount of

money in the system. him him -- no one would pay them to lobby them they were threatening them with regulations and taxing them. if you scale them back, reduce all of that, and you don't need lobbyists. growth --for for youat are the rules back in 2001 and are those different today? when i was there, you couldn't go back and lobby -- lobby on the issues with the committees you served on. in indiana for three years and then did come back and joined a law firm and was a let -- registered lobbyist. we had that cooling-off. .oday, we extended it a bit

it is not much of a restriction. i know people are careful they do not cross the technical line and they have to register as a lobbyist. honestly, if the committee were spending -- weren't spending test their money, the company wouldn't hire them. the need to hire people who know how it works. could you walk into the capital to the house floor and talk to current members now? yes.: i'm not a lobbyist beard i may head of this political organization. the member of congress has the right on the house floor, he has niceking space, one of the perks. no parking of the capital. i used to be able to go to the gym. i do not know if you still can.

but yes, you have access as a former member. i am thankful for it. talk to mostf you lobbying companies in washington, they are reluctant to hire people like me. the honest ones will tell me, we know it was your staff that did a lot of the work. so we're going to hire them. you see that happen all the time. host: less than 10 minutes left with david mcintosh, club for growth president. waiting, a republican. go ahead. caller: the reason why the in the midterm was health care. they could promise health care to the voters. the reason they could promise health care is because they took over the health care industry by passing the aca law. it gave those in power the ability to distribute health

care. it is kind of like what the socialists did. the only one i see who is talking about giving health care back to the private sector is josh howley. right now come we have only got one-size-fits-all health care. it is terrible. what the democrats are doing is areible because they controlling everything and promising health care because they took over the industry and that is not fair. you are exactly right the democrats turned health care to a winning issue for them to i see that as a failure on the republican side. they failed to pass a replacement of obamacare in this case in the senate. then their political leaders told all of their members do not talk about it. it was a failure. move on to other issues. that gave the democrats a

wide-open opportunity to come in and talk about it. and i saw these ads against our candidates. they ran to people and said, so-and-so republican is going to take away my health care and i have a pre-existing condition. great, new fresh leader who knew how to take that on. he said of course we will protect people of pre-existing conditions but not the way obamacare does it where everybody else's premiums become so expensive they cannot afford basic health insurance. plans to dopublican that. the one i like best is rand paul's plan where you pull the people with pre-existing conditions out, and is government-subsidized, and you have a free market for everything else. is one of thember ones we endorsed immediately in the primary. money thereto spend because we pushed everybody else out of the race. but did spend money for his

general election. maria, westville, new jersey, independent, good morning. caller: i have three questions. number one, our founding fathers warned us against entanglement spirit ever since world war ii, we have been taking britain's place in the world. we are in secret wars that used and inolonial wars, yemen and now israel, that they would destroy the palestinian people, those are not our wars. we should bring all of our people home to guard our own borders. a second thing is about thatlements, who stole all money for social security? where does it go? does a black budget for the defense department? nobody will count for the arms we give everygive new weapon we have to israel. it will never end until he come back home.

host: you brought up to big topic spirit let's let david mcintosh answer them. guest: defense, we do not have that, we focus on the economic policy. that leads me to the second one. social security. and they put taken it in an iou to cover it. it was taken to spend for all the deficit spending. we have been doing it for several decades to one of the biggest regrets i have from the , introduced as part of the balanced budget, that you would take social security out of that. had we not allowed them to borrow to cover for all of the deficit spending, we wouldn't be worrying about social security going broke. didn't. for decades, governments just used it as a secret way of funding all of the run away spending that we have.

that has to stop at some point. it essentially ends up being like a government run ponzi scheme where you put your money to but it is not invested pay you back later when you retire. it is used immediately to pay retirees. but also to pay for everything else. thatey vote alert is a way club for growth signals to members of congress that we think this is a key economic think, the position, we is yes or no. is a formal way of telling key votehat this is a that we think impacts the economy. we urge you to vote yes or no. then we keep a scorecard. at the end of the year, we tally up the key votes and rate members of congress. 100% and some have zero or close to it. i look at it roughly the way my

high school students get graded be, ands in a, 80 is a below that, you're probably failing. host: the congress probably has to come up with a deal to keep it funded, unless we are part of a shutdown. do you think whatever deal that comes together will be a key vote alert? guest: about half of those that we do would be on economics. spending,he deficit then we would support it. if it is business as usual, but they are in a big fight about immigration policy, that is not an issue we get involved in and we stay out of it. host: a couple more >> we are going to leave this discussion here but you can find it online at c-span.org. just click the tab for "washington journal." the u.s. house about to gavel back in for work on 15 suspension bills today, including funding for hiv-aids

programs and the awarding of the congressional gold medal. also on the agenda this week, removing the gray wolf from the endangered species list. you're watching live house coverage on c-span.

taylor: the house will be in order. -- the speaker pro team: the house will be in order. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, the chair will postpone further proceedings today on motions to suspend the rules on which a recorded vote or the yeas and nays are ordered or on which the vote incurs objection under clause 6 of rule 20. the for what purpose does the gentleman from kentucky seek recognition? mr. barr: mr. speaker, i move