-- we look forward to seeing you next year. this meeting is adjourned. thank you. [applause] on newsmakers, democratic congressman peter defazio, ranking member of the transportation and infrastructure committee talks about the possibility of a bipartisan infrastructure bill coming out of congress. >> i was at the white house. the president did not really seem to be on board with his own advisors. he expressed an interest and a recognition that we need real federal investment and new partnership with the states in rebuilding america's infrastructure. just before the election, just before they left washington, the head of white house congressional affairs came to me. maybe they had their finger in the wind. she and i talked about areas

where i could agree and potentially work with the president. infrastructure and trade. she said there is a recognition on the part of the president that -- there goes that earpiece to rebuildat we need our infrastructure and make real federal investment. i think it is doable. a few colleagues have said to me -- this is not about trump. it is about the united states of america and the fact that we have been ignoring this problem and these needs for a very long time. the country is falling apart. the americans get it. we have three examples in this election that show it is not politically toxic. california, kevin mccarthy with his political funds. and mimi walters sponsored an initiative in california to repeal the gas tax increase. they failed miserably. tim waltz, new governor of

minnesota, campaign on a gas tax increase and turned that state from red to blue. he got one of the largest margins in history. the new governor of michigan, red to blue. she also said fix the damn roads. americans get it. it is not politically toxic. i think there is this bridge that mitch mcconnell is really interested in, in couple of billion dollars. we cannot do it with existing funds. >> you can see the entire interview with oregon congressman peter defazio sunday at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. on c-span. you can also hear it on c-span radio or watch it online at c-span.org. spent part ofp his saturday meeting with california officials and looking at some of the damage caused by the wildfires. as he left the white house in the morning, he spoke to reporters and took questions on a number of topics.

president trump: we are going to california. we are making two stops. we are going to two areas that you know very well. it is a shame. it seems many more people are missing then thought possible. i want to be with the firefighters, fema, first responders. we will be coming back here, probably landed at 4:00 in the morning or something like that. we want to spend a lot of time. we want to discuss many things. i'm meeting with the governor and the new governor, governor-elect. we have a lot of things to talk about. we will be talking about forest management. i have been saying that for a long time. it could have been a lot different situation. the one thing that everybody now knows this is what we have to be doing. it should have been done many years ago.

i thank everybody's on the right side. it is a big issue. veryexpensive issue, but inexpensive when you compare it to even one of these horrible fires. we'll save a lot of lives, in addition to a lot of money. we will be out there talking to the governors, talking to the first responders and fema. they have been incredible. the firefighters have been unbelievably brave. some of the stories i read last night, unbelievably brave. >> facing any consequences -- president trump: we have not been briefed yet. the cia will be speaking to me today. we have not been briefed yet. as of this moment, we were told that he did not play a role. we have to find out what they have to say. say it. >> did you submit your answers

to the special counsel? >> no, we do that next week. they are all done. [indiscernible] whether the crown prince was responsible for this? >> saudi arabia gives us a lot of business, economic development, they have been a truly spectacular ally in terms of jobs and economic development. i'm president, i have to take a lot of things into consideration. we will be talking with the cia and lots of others. i will be doing that while on the plane. i will also speak with the secretary of state, mike pompeo. >> [indiscernible] no --re not been talking, we have not been talking, no. we will see. >> [indiscernible] >> no, it is not under consideration.

where always looking and whatever we can do for turkey and countries that we get along with very well, we are having a very good moment with turkey. he gave pastor bronson back last weekend we appreciate that. we're doing well with turkey. long well with the president. mans a strong, tough and a friend of mine. whatever we will do, we will do -- whatever we can do, we will do. at this point, no. but? -- what? >> [indiscernible] >> we haven't even talked about it. we have a tremendous military force on the border, southern border. we have large numbers of people trying to get into our country. i must say the reason it has

increased so much is because we are doing so well as opposed to the rest of the world. if you look at south of our border, not doing so well. regardless, we have millions of people in line to get into our country legally, and those people have preference, they have to have preference. they have been waiting a long time and have done it legally. we had a lot of things -- have a lot of things happening. we are not letting people into our country illegally, and we are not doing a release. we will do a catch, but not releases. they think they will be released into our country like the old years we the years and catch and release. they're not getting released. >> [indiscernible] >> as long as necessary. they have built great fencing, a very powerful fence. a different kind of offense, but very powerful.

the fence is fully manned. nobody gets through, and when they are caught, they are not really -- it is very interesting. they come up and talk about all of their problems with their country, but they are all waving their country's flag. what is that about? if they have such problems and hate their countries, why do we see all of the flags being honduras, guatemala, el salvador, we are seeing flags all over the place. why are they waving flags? this has nothing to do with asylum. it has to do with getting into our country illegally and we have to know what is coming into our country. >> [indiscernible] pres. trump: i do not question his loyalty et al.. he is 100% loyal. it was a phony story. -- loyalty at all. loyal person.

he has been with me as soon as i won the primary. he was the one i chose and i could not be happier. i do not question his loyalty at all. he has been tested in many ways. mike pence is a terrific person. that was a phony story written by the new york times who never called me for a comment. how do you do a story like that. it is fake news and that is what breaks up a country. how do you do a story like that and you do not call the principal? i would give them a quote and say it is not true. that is the end of the story, but they do not do that. they may speak to one person, but they make up phony sources. like you write a novel. have you ever written a novel? that is the way a lot of the news stories are written.

it is fake and a bad thing for our country. very dangerous. mike pence is 100%. they should retract that story but you cannot do the story without calling me for a quote. or you can call sarah huckabee and you say get a quote, and here she is. i would be happy to give a quote. you know what the quote would be? mike pence is 100%. now you can't do your story. that is why they don't like calling me for a quote. >> [indiscernible] pres. trump: i would help nancy pelosi if she needs a vote. i like her. would you believe it? i like nancy pelosi. she is smart, but deserves to be speaker. now they are playing games with her like they would be playing with me.

the president of your country is doing a great job, but he is being harassed. it is presidential harassment. in a way, her own party is harassing her. they should start off with nancy pelosi as speaker. i already have a lot of votes. if she needs votes, if she asked me, i would give her the vote to put her over the top. i saw tom reed as an example. he is a fine man. i would call him a moderate. i do not imagine she needs to many but whatever -- too many, but whatever votes she needs, she has them for me. tell the opposition they are wasting their time. >> [indiscernible] pres. trump: we are talking about the border wall and quite

a big sum of money. about $5 billion. ever going to do a shutdown over border security, when you look at the caravans, theft, the people coming in, this would be a good time to do a shutdown. i do not think it would be necessary because democrats will come to their senses. if they do not, we would continue to win elections. we won the senate. that means all of the judges i'm getting approved will now be easier because we actually picked up two seats in the senate. we went from 51-49. to 53-47. that is a tremendous difference. thank you all very much. what? >> [indiscernible] pres. trump: i'm very close to

making a decision on you in a basket or or the attorney general? no. until the decision is made, we have a great gentleman in matt. everyone is telling me he is doing a fantastic job. >> [indiscernible] pres. trump: i consider pam bondi for anything, but right now -- i know her very well. in the meantime, she has a very good job -- she is doing a very good job. she has always done a very good job. in some form, i would like to have her in the administration. we have great people. we have tremendous people. our cabinets, i'm happy. when i make an adjustment? yes, but we have a great cabinet. take a look at what we are doing with the military. very happy with the secretary of defense. jim mattis is doing a great job. mike pompeo is doing a great job. we have a great cabinet. i could go through every one of them, but you might be able to figure out the one or two i am

less happy with. thank you, see you in california. we will be looking at everything, thank you. thank you very much. announcer: president trump stopped in california at the air force base and was met by jerry brown and governor-elect, gavin newsom. kevin mccarthy was with the president and the fema director,

brock long. from there, the president toured damaged areas. here is a look at some of the visits.

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mr. carmichael: pres. trump: i want to think the mayor, governor -- pres. trump: i want to think the mayor, governor, and governor-elect. brock, i want to thank you for the job. it has been incredible. law enforcement has been beyond anything anybody could belief. to see what has happened here, nobody would have ever thought this could have happened so the federal government is behind you. we are all behind each other. jerry and i have been speaking, haveavin ni -- gavin and i gotten to know each other and we will do a great job. this is sad to see. as far asws quite yet

the lives are concerned. a certain number, but a lot of people are unaccounted for. this is notling me as bad as some areas. some areas are beyond this, just charred. one thing we have, we have the greatest people in the world looking to help the first responders, fema, and you people are incredible. law enforcement, they never let us down. they never let us down. .e are here kevin, thank you very much for the job you have done and support you have given in washington. do, justything we can bring it over to the office, right? you know that. >> what needs to be done immediately from the federal government? >> what needs to be done is .eing done put teams on the job and make

sure our first responders are supported. we get the manpower, lemon power that we need to get done and we have the cleanup because the search for those who lost their , it is just a big massive cleanup after a terrible tragedy. it is basically people right .ere, state people they provided a lot of money and expertise. somehow we will all pull through this together. >> [indiscernible] pres. trump: we have been talking about that on the ride over. i think we are all on the same path. we have to do management, maintenance, and we will be working also with environmental groups. i think everybody has seen the light. i do not think we will have this to this extent, a lot of people are very much -- there has been

a lot of study going on and i will say, hopefully this will be the last of these because this was a bad one. gavin is committed, we are all committed, i am committed to get this cleaned out and protected. we have to take care of the floors of the forest. you look at other countries where they do it differently, and is a whole different story i was with the president of finland and said we have much different -- he called it a forest nation. they spent a lot of time on doing things and they do not have any problem. what it is is a small problem. i know everybody is looking at that, to that end. it is going to work out well.

we want to look at the people that were hurt. a lot of people have been lost. jerry, you don't know what the final number is? we won't know what that is for a while. there are areas you can't even get to. we have incredible people doing the job, so we will get that done better than anybody else could do it. i want you all -- i want to thank you all for being here and showing. people have to understand. we have two of our great members uscongress and they are with 100%. whatever is necessary, we will do, right? brock, thank you very much. >> thank you, sir. pres. trump: we will get it taken care of. thank you.

[indiscernible]

>> ok. i want to say a few words. it hard to find the right way to put it. so many people suffered. so many people from so many different backgrounds have pulled together. i would like to say thanks to the firefighters and first responders and fema has been terrific. the president himself being here and putting focus on the spotlight to probably the worst tragedy california has ever faced. thank you, jerry. i want to thank fema, law enforcement, you folks have been incredible. first responders, firefighters, they are out there now. we got a lot of territory to cover. still going heavily.

is intense flame next to a very explosive area. it is a very big problem out there. we've never seen anything like this in california. it is like total devastation. you ais going to give little presentation as to where we are going, what we are doing, and how we are doing it. he men and women fighting this fire are incredible. more than 70 people are lost and we are looking for hundreds of people. there are hundreds they are looking for. hopefully that will be a good conclusion instead of a bad conclusion. and they areft with their loved ones someone else and we do not know about it. they're looking for hundreds of people and we will know the answer to that over the next 48 hours i think for the most part.

brock, perhaps you can give a little presentation to how we will stop the rest of this monster? >> mr. president, as we discussed, this is probably the worst disaster we have seen in my career and it will take partnership at all levels of government, not only helping the governor achieve his response and recovery goals but neighbors helping neighbors. fema is on the ground. i have been here since tuesday making sure we have the situational awareness on how to help the state achieve what needs to be done when it comes to the firefighting and taking care of people as far as the mass care issue. we have sent up centers and we're asking people to call fema or go to disasterassistan ce.gov. we have handed are close to $3 million directly to those who

have qualified for assistance. firefighting is the main priority, taking care of people and making sure we can get people transitioning out of shouters -- shelters into long-term homes. we working with the state of california who has done a tremendous job making sure we know how we will do debris removal so we can help communities strive for a new normal. with that, i think it is time for us to turn it over to the commander. mr. president, this is a map of the fire. this is the first they when we most -- experienced the most significant damage. almost a thousand structures were burned in 12 hours. -- 8000 structures were burned in 12 hours. there are significant challenges

with the weather. the wind and red flag warning's are still coming this weekend. there is still communities outside of the burn area we are concerned with. thank you very much. you. >> mr. president, [indiscernible] change. of climate pres. trump: i think you have a lot of factors. there is management factors and jerry has been up on it very well. gavin, we will be looking at it together. as of right now, there seems to be a big problem and we will get the problem solved. in the farm bill, we are putting about $500 million in the farm bill for management and maintenance.

the forests be on this area. 500 million will be in the farm bill. the farm bill is moving along rapidly for our great farmers. which is new category management and maintenance of the forest. that is important. thank you folks over there. law enforcement. great job. [applause] >> does this change your opinion that all on climate change? pres. trump: no. we will have forests very safe. forests, andsafe that is happening as we speak. >> [indiscernible] pres. trump: we will work together with the federal government. state, local, federal government. federal will work with the state

and help them with funding. it's going to take a lot of funding. >> [indiscernible] pres. trump: a lot of things have been learned. they have been working very hard and i think you will see something spectacular over the next number of days. >> if you really look at the view, to an open point of there are a lot of elements to be considered. the president came, saw, and not looking forward over the next months and beyond to really understand the threat of fire, .he whole matter of drought it is not one thing, it is a lot of things. if we can open our minds and look at things, we will get stuff done. pres. trump: thank you very much. announcer: during this, this weekend, -- join us this weekend for the miami book fair. on sunday at 1115: a.m. -- 11:15

a.m. the middle class. chris discusses his book "every man a king." at 6 p.m., the former secretary of state with his memoir. watch the miami book fair, live this weekend on c-span2's book tv. announcer: listen to c-span's the weekly public test -- the weekly podcast. this week is part one of a podcast with presidential historians. they share historical context for the trump reticence he -- trump presidency. >> it is an andrew johnson like hasidency like someone who

impeachment swirling around them and is not able to close the racial divide in american. person whoms is the is pushing for the act of 1798. what the act does, it tries to prevent criminals him -- prevent criticism of the government and president. announcer: find that under the podcast have of the free c-span -- podcast of the free c-span radio app. >> we would like to welcome michael ferris for coming here today. we will talk about all of the economic subsidies in virginia -- what new city york city gave out to amazon. you did a study of the large-scale bidding war that did -- went around the country for amazon. what did you find? >>