republican senator cindy hyde-smith on the eve of her runoff election. it a.m., to attempt look at a recent report from the pentagon ordered by the white house on the u.s. manufacturing and defense industrial base. on c-span3 at 5:00 p.m., look at the impact of populism and identity politics with authors and political scholars hosted by the heritage foundation. >> when the new congress starts the democrats will control the house, the republicans the senate. leaders, watchew the process unfold on c-span. this morning, a roundtable discussion on the week ahead in washington with .ahil kapur and ayesha rascoe later, our segment on your money features todd harrison from the

center for strategic and international studies on the results of a newly released audit of the pentagon. we take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning. 2018., november 26th, the senate returns from the resource at 3:00 p.m. today the house returns tomorrow. we begin on the u.s.-mexico border near tijuana where u.s. authorities briefly closed the port of entry and fired tear gas at the migrant -- at members of the migrant caravans. the u.s. and mexico continue to deal with how to deal with migrants.

we're asking your thoughts on how president trump handled the issue of migrant caravans. democrats can call at 202-748-8000. republicans can call in at 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. a special line for border state residents. 202-748-8003. you can also catch up with us on social media. on twitter it is @cspanwj. on facebook it is facebook.com/cspan. toery good monday morning you. you can start calling now. here is how the story is playing out from various websites. gases at border -- the conservative red state -- the headline mexico to deport all the human stampede that rush the border plus the left is losing its mind. here is how the story looks on the front page of the wall street journal.

s erupt.line, tension' -- made a rush for the border fence as tensions build over the diminishing prospects for asylum-seekers trying to enter the country. women and children were among those affected by the use of the tear gas. anxiety is rising in tijuana where as many as 5000 migrants who traveled with the caravan from honduras have been camped out in a sports complex for two weeks waiting to enter the united states. border patrol agent say they deployed the gas after several agents were hit by projectiles. here is the tweet from homeland security secretary kiersten nielsen. by projectiles thrown by caravan members. such actions are dangerous and not consistent with peacefully seeking asylum.

we will -- i will continue to aggressively support homeland security personnel as they worked to secure our border. president trump tweeting about this yesterday. if this is the tweet from about half an hour ago. mexico should move the flag waving migrants back to their countries. it do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, they are not coming into the u.s.. we will close the border permanently if need be. some reaction from democratic members of congress from the senator from hawaii, tear gas across the border against unarmed families is a new low. alexandria cassio cortez with a asking toerday saying be a refugee and applying for status isn't a crime. it wasn't for jewish families fleeing germany.

much more on this throughout our program this morning. we are asking for you to colin, your thoughts on president trump's handling of the caravan. phone lines as usual. a special state for border state residents. pat, a republican from texas. go ahead. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i am in agreement with president trump and i hate that -- in their country, they are having problems. we need to help them. we cannot let them flood to the u.s. if they are throwing things, i am in total agreement. situation.ful i hate that it is happening. thank you for taking my call. host: that border crossing where

the incident happened outside tijuana where the border connects with california. todd is an independent. good morning. used -- isr gas is ok if it is used as a defensive measure. trump needs to stop with all the racist rhetoric and maybe hire more border patrol agents. the wall is too expensive. -- congress has mexico is like our number three trading partner. host: that incident happening yesterday as top advisers to is in's president-elect talks with the trump administration over a plan that would require migrants seeking

asylum in the united states to wait in mexico while those claims are being adjudicated. some reporting on that story yesterday although the reporting noting the incoming mexican administration said there is no deal in place that would allow asylum-seekers to wait in mexico while their cases are being processed. the remain in mexico policy -- catch and release permitting immigrants to remain in the united states while cases move through the court system, a process that can take years. david in texas, republican. go ahead. caller: good morning. i fully support what the .resident is trying to do i think the interesting thing is most folks that know anything about what is going on really know what is happening. loopholeshave lots of

. the migrants -- they are not immigrants, they are for the most part adult males. 80% have been ignored to be males. they are obviously coming here -- a high percentage for jobs websitesis fine, i do for a living, they are not threatening me. lower end ofthe the economic spectrum are those whose wage levels have been threatened and have been suffering for years because of it. democrats are taking advantage of it because they know all they have to do is get folks into the u.s., repeat a phrase everybody is being taught as they come up. to the discussions started,grants as they

i don't remember hearing a single one that said they were coming up for asylum. as they get closer, somehow they are getting taught what to say. they get released and they never come back or a high percentage never come back and it is repeated over and over again. the thing that is different now is -- not letting them in has allowed for people to see the visual. for years, we have had this steady stream of people coming through and they disappear into the country. i wouldn't say disappear exactly, but you don't see the visual of tens of thousands of people building up on the border -- 300,000 orsual 500,000 illegal aliens a year -- that is a big city. every year we bring in what amounts to this big city and stick it somewhere, except that

is spread out. if you take that visual and see big cities coming in every year and figure out the percentage of them, they don't come with money, they don't come with sponsors, they don't come with jobs. you stick this city over there. now we get a chance to see what this looks like and the mayor of tijuana said he is not spending any of his people's tax money to help those people. when they get in here, we will be spending our tax money and citizens like myself who have and theinsurance rates burden of what has to be paid for as well. --have a problem i run needs everyone needs to solve. whether it be you fair if i come host: everyone thinks jobs are coming. host:host: the new york times

reporting a snapshot of what it looks like on the other side of the border, thousands of migrants began arriving in tijuana about 10 days ago and have been housed in squalid conditions in a community sportscenter that has been converted into a makeshift shelter. many have become desperate with the realization of the obstacles before them in reaching the united states. officials say they have no money to improve conditions at the sportscenter where more than 5000 migrants are sheltering in place -- in a place that has no more room than 3500. am kind of ignorant on all of this. the people calling from hawaii need to look back in history at the up lot -- uprising with the jewish people. they only had 39 million plus.

i don't know exactly how many they lost. it was genocide. rwanda, it was genocide. these people in hawaii have a big body of the pacific ocean so they don't have to worry about people walking in. towardy get a few boats them. i don't know. democrats and republicans, this has been this way for 40 or 50 years. independents are in the middle and trying to decide is it going to be better this time? life is not good. i hope these people -- i have a hard for these immigrants -- i have a heart for these immigrants just like anyone else. you can only be compassionate so long. -- senators and governors, i know it is good to your -- sit in your mansion and say they should let them in, they ain't

in your backyard. host: that is ready in georgia. in indiana, democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. moste name of the lord mankind and merciful, has migrated all through the history of mankind and one of -- we haves we have lost the humanitarian aspect of ourselves being fraternal and martin van buren believed in fraternity, we have brought it to an individualistic society which cares not for the welfare of others. i think we need to get our humanity back into our hearts and get rid of the commercialism and capitalism. thank you and have a good day.

shirley in pennsylvania, good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. when president trump was running for president, that was one wasg he promised, that he going to put up a wall and these people could come in the right way. that way we know who is coming in and for what reason they are coming into our country. this is what he is trying to do. we expect it to be done. there is so much trouble in his all theseght now with shootings and opioids and one thing after another. we cannot afford to allow anymore bad people -- and i know they said there are a lot of people in these caravans that are less than perfect. what hegod he is doing

is doing and let's all get behind him and help him to get this done. host: before you go, you mentioned president trump's campaign promises, he also promised mexico would pay for that wall and we are coming up , possibleng bill government shutdown with president trump saying he wants money in this new funding bill for a border wall. putou think congress should money in that bill for a border wall? would've had if we these problems taken care of with the prior president, we wouldn't have this problem today . that never happened. everybody promises, but they never do it after they get their vote. yes,e are at a place where mexico, he said he would pay the bill. keep in mind, president trump, he is very smart and one way or another, they will pay for this

wall. thank you. host: that is shirley in pennsylvania. that funding fight has until december 7, that is when the current funding bill would expire. a partial government shutdown a.m. then ensue at 12:01 december 8th. more immediate timeframe, president trump in negotiation's with mexico about what to do with those migrants who are seeking asylum. more on that from the wall street journal story as part of a possible plan, the u.s. would increase the number of asylum processes. in exchange, the mexican government would agree to keep the migrants in mexico during that application process. must current law, migrants be permitted to remain in the country while asylum claims work their way through the immigration courts. asylum-seekers generally

remained in the tension until they were released on bond pending court dates. parents with children can be held up to 20 days and many are released on parole with location tracking devices attached to their ankles. a lot of attention on sunday shows about ongoing negotiations, what to do with asylum-seekers. this is senator elijah cummings when he was press" asked about what to do about asylum-seekers. >> no, no. >> why? >> that is the law. they should be allowed to come in and seek asylum. >> would you support change of the law? >> no, we have a system that worked for a long time. this president has come in and wants to change it, that is up to him. congress has to stand up. >> do you think what he is doing is unconstitutional? >> i don't think so, but we will

see. a lot of people don't realize president trump is basically controlled the legislature because they have been aiding and a bending -- aiding and abetting him. he controls the executive branch and now he controls pretty much or trying to control judiciary. he basically has all three branches with no checks. now he has a check. confused or it we have got to address the things the american people want us to address. they are tired of this. they are tired of hearing the lies. they are tired of it and what they are saying is help me get my prescription drugs, help me get health care. chatting with you this morning about president trump's handling of the migrant caravan issue. phone lines for democrats, republicans, independents as usual. a special line for border state residents, 202-748-8003 is that

line. check is an independent -- chuck is an independent from long beach. go ahead. caller: it is interesting. when we had our election, i thought the wall was ridiculous, but i also did think we needed to do something about our immigration laws and enforce them. i arrived in california and i see the understanding of people trying to live a better life. , it issee gangs, ms13 frightening. if we set up a security with our military to protect the world, we should be able to protect our border. i don't care who pays for the wall. i think it is evident we are being invaded. a simple solution to this is

economic opportunity. i think anyone that works here -- we have the technology, e-verify kaisha -- e-verification. why the democrats and republicans don't get behind us, i have no idea. if you come into this country, you will be taxed to work. all employers must have e-verif ication. and the fact we have a wall you cannot deal with the -- a border you cannot deal with, we need something stronger. i always thought we should be putting our military bases along the border to protect ourselves. n ourey are going to trai military guys, train them on the border. i don't care who pays for it, i want to take care of it. if people need asylum, do it

correctly. this is an invasion. as far as the budget is concerned, i find it real interesting december 7th, pearl harbor was the day of the attack and this is the way congress is dealing with the next day of attack. i used to love going down to mexico, not anymore. i would never be able to cross the border. this is destructive and it all comes down to economic opportunity. host: this is andy, new york city, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. i am sure president trump's white house doesn't know what is going on in the country. if our country is in decline. our politicians only a care -- only care about the other

issues. our behavior is different. comments -- the most important issue. california fire, there is no clear law about homelessness and injuries in california. there is not enough food. to disband all programs unfortunately, all the people and all the media only want to care about an important issue like black friday. thank you, c-span. host: that is andy in new york.

here are comments from social media. you can join the conversation at @cspanwj, facebook.com/cspan. charlotte writes this is exactly what trump, kelly, miller, bolton, wanted it to be. they have no comments and -- common sense solutions for anything. a poor plan is the same as no plan. rebecca saying shut down our government until taxpayers pay for the wall. why punish u.s. taxpayers? democrats for liberty on facebook saying is this what republicans mean when they say there is a war on christmas? launching tear gas at women and children seeking a better life? trump committed a crime and he denied the right to apply for asylum. this is no different than a bank heist, we arrest and punish for breaking and entering, we don't hand them health care or welfare, we give them jail time, sent them home. getting your thoughts on

president trump's handling of the migrant caravan issue. phone lines for democrats, republicans, independents. special line for those in border states. a republican, go ahead. caller: how are you? people that are calling in that are for the immigrants coming in like this, they don't understand. they are not catching all the overflow of people coming into their neighborhood like here in california. you have people that rent homes and they have two or three families than half of the families are not working and then you have people living in andparks in the woods forest and if they don't have money, they are going to steal. the people that are coming in for the immigrants coming over, how come they just won't support a family? bring them into their house and they can support them and the government will not have to support them and help them get

established. that is all i have to say. host: mike in maryland, good morning. caller: good morning. first, i have to give trump credit for making a decision -- a bad decision that was only made good by another bad decision. when we put in perspective these immigrants, we have to first know that immigrants coming from our southern border are not the greatest influx of immigrants coming into this country illegally. the immigration problem we had is actually european to overstay there visa. president trump has an issue with people who have a brown pigment to their skin. second, we hear people about -- talking about issues with overflow in their state. the people making these complaints aren't even from border states, you had a gentleman from georgia

complaining from people in hawaii. here is that she is from georgia, he doesn't know what it is like nor does he know why these people are migrating to america. the same people -- reason other people came to america, the promise of a better life. why are we billing -- villaini zing people? another thing your callers need to take into consideration is these people pay taxes. they pay taxes and get nothing in return because they cannot get social security and medicare and things of that nature. they are paying into a system they never get a return for. when we put in perspective the 500 that stormed the border made a horrible decision and those 500 is only 10% of the total population that is attempting to come to this country, are we the barrelllainize

of apples for one apple? thank you for hearing my comment. host: the president as we noted earlier tweeting out threatening to close the border permanently if need be. congress fund the wall is what president trump said at his tweet at about 6:15 this morning, a day after this incident at the border outside tijuana -- plenty of discussion on sunday shows about -- about the wall funding. this is senator joni ernst, republican on cnn's "state of the union" yesterday. [video clip] >> we would prefer we keep it open, so let's work hard making sure we are addressing the asylum-seekers before they come over the border. i think that is the intent of the president, to diverse issues before they happen. we don't want to see the border close, but the safety of our nation comes first. >> do you think it is an idle

threat in order to get mexico to deal and potentially allow asylum-seekers to be in mexico as a barely there are private discussions? >> i certainly think the president sees results anytime he does bring up an issue and he does lay down certain reasons why he is doing what he is doing and we are seeing results. we see mexico, their government is now -- they have said they will keep those asylum-seekers in mexico until they can be sorted out. i think we are seeing results. to try to diverge anything before we have to act on the president's threat worried -- threat. the president is also threatening to shut down the government if congress doesn't pass money to fund his border wall. would you support shutting down the government if the president doesn't get the money for the wall? >> i do not want to see the

government shutdown. i know leader mcconnell is working there he hard to make sure we get funding in this lame-duck session. i hope that we can avoid shutting down the government. we have a lot of departments that do a lot of good for our citizens, so we need to make sure we are funding them properly through congress and realizing the goal of the president, to fund the border wall. seven: 30, wep at are having a conversation asking for your thoughts on president trump's handling of the migrant caravan. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. a special line for those in border states, 202-748-8003. jim is in california. go ahead, jim. presidentthink the surprisingly is making the right call here. this is an invasion.

like history. when i was a kid, eisenhower deported a lot of people. a lot of people. we see a lot of thing with why obamaresident obama and put people away, the press doesn't want to show that. the a little surprised american people, while we are a generous people, are allowing .his invasion to happen i think we have a lot of good people that will be coming into our country. we need to be able to sort out who comes to our country. notriends in australia will into theire to walk

nation because they have a wall of water around them. we have land and people migrating to a better place. i understand the concerns. if my family was threatened, i would be trying to find an escape as well. to do it legally is the way to do it and we need to help the people of central america better their government. host: when you talk about bettering their governments in central america, are you talking about new foreign aid spending in this country's? -- countries? caller: i am talking about two things. one, they have a criminal element running the country with drug cartels. two, i am thinking about aid toward economic opportunity. if people have jobs, crime goes

down. we have seen it here in our country. when our unemployment rate was high, crime was high and it dropped. i think crime dropped because a lot of our young people -- minorities are now getting the opportunity to work and crime is dropping. why is there crime? it is called hunger. that is my take on it. what do you think? host: we want to hear what you think. phone lines as usual and the special line for border state residents. built in pennsylvania, a republican. go ahead. caller: thanks, john. you should do a review of your last half-hour because you really haven't put republicans on in a fair manner. i am good ask you and your boss to do that because it is true. when president trump or candidate trump came down the escalator at started to talk

about our border, he said things i have never heard a politician say before. he said, if you don't have a border, you don't have a country and i thought to myself, this guy is right. we have all these military bases and we act like we are all about the safety of our population and that is why we have to be in iran and iraq and afghanistan, but we do nothing to protect the borders of our country. what i have seen trump do since he has been in office is he tries to keep the promises he made. he said he was going to secure the border. there is so much pushback on him and there are two main reasons. one is a globalist agenda, which is prevalent not just in our country, prevalent in the e.u.,

they have all kinds of problems immigration-- lax policies and people who live there are starting to push back and say this is our country, we want to control the number of migrants we have coming in. we are undergoing the same problem here in this country. the second thing that is pushing whichs you have states are almost right on the line andeen the blue and the red the democrats like this lacks policy because the fact is most folks from latin america come here either through a silo some other means, maybe not even citizenship, if they gain the right to vote, they are voting democrat and this is a serious thing in the states of florida, texas, arizona, nevada. i am in pennsylvania. there are at least four or five

cities that are overrun by immigrants. wilkes-barre,r, allentown. we don't mind immigration into we want ity, but controlled and i thank you for your time. host: you mentioned the e.u. -- some news in the papers today on the e.u. and the brexit deal that great britain is embarking on. may embarks on a briggs it it hardll after -- brex deal. -- hard-sell. theresa may in a two-week campaign to sell the deal agreed to by european leaders telling s they risk plunging the country into "more division and uncertainty" if they reject it. the terms were signed off at a

meeting yesterday. the agreement aims to deliver a -- th divorce to although many details of the future relationship between the two sides have yet to be ironed out. one of the other stories in papers about that. plenty of stories looking ahead to the 116th congress, the makeup of that congress. this is from the washington post, newcomers looking to shake up the house. many young and progressives may clash with veterans over the party's direction. alexandria of casio cortez in that picture. -- a alumni that story noting nearly a dozen members of the house's incoming class are far from being iraqi wkyshmen -- being ga

freshmen. instead, experienced policy, 7 of them from the obama administration. there is tom of new jersey who served as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor. oren underwood also pictured there. one other story from the metro section of's today's washington times -- section of today's washington times, the trial of james alex fields, a 21-year-old ohio man known for being fascinated with nazism and idealizing adolf hitler. heather heyer, 32-year-old paralegal and civil rights activist killed a counter as a counterching protest to that alt-right rally that took place in charlottesville back in 2017.

some of the other stories -- we will talk about them in today's program. we are spending the first hour talking about president trump's handling of the migrant caravan issue. the border was the busiest border crossing between the united states and mexico briefly closed yesterday. some tear gas fired at the migrants who rushed a fence. here is reaction from other members of congress. aic swalwell saying this is refugee crisis that is not going away until america shows leadership. -- find a consensus on solutions, tweeting and stoking fear, anyone can do that. this issue needs a leader. a tweet from a democrat saying this is despicable, firing tear gas at asylum-seekers is -- shutting it down violates our moral obligation.

from republicans, senator james latestd of oklahoma, the crisis at the border is further evidence congress must act to fix our broken immigration system. we must ensure those that need asylum have a fair and quick process. lindsey graham saying you have to really hate president trump to not understand the problems created by these caravans. he is right to push back to deter future waves of immigration. we have the line open for those in border states. from california, this is william. good morning. thank youod morning, for taking my call. i think this is a number -- another shameful thing in a list of shameful things president trump has done.

they have been allowing all these refugees in and here we are throwing them out, using tear gas to keep them out. what is next? are we going to start shooting them at the border? this is insane what we are doing. 1960's,rew up in the freely, every day there would be tons of mexico's coming up through the border and going to work in the fields for us. most of them every day would turn around and go back. there was nothing going on and we have this insane policy, this insane president adding more shame to our country. that is the way i look at this thing. host: you talk about the use of tear gas on the border, rare at the border though it has happened before. a former senior official said in that wall street journal story rare since thes

creation in 2002. injured an agent with a rock. this is a story from the san diego union tribune from 2013. at that same border crossing where this incident happened yesterday, a group of about 100 people trying to illegally cross the border throwing rocks and bottles at u.s. border patrol agents responded by using pepper spray and other means to force the crowd back into mexico. that story from november 25, 2015. larry is next in massachusetts. a republican. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. am a social worker. thet to see firsthand

impact on a community like boston. publicpact our jobs, housing, etc.. i am so thankful for president trump because -- where do the people go who are destitute? 50 years we have an lout -- we have allowed this invasion. none of our black congress people speak on behalf of african-americans. where do these people and up going? into the -- end up going? into the ghetto with black americans. thank god for president trump. i did not vote for him, but i would vote for him just on immigration alone. thank you for taking my call. host: bob is independent in

massachusetts. good morning. caller: good morning. i would say i agree with president trump's policy on the southern border problem. we don't have this problem on our northern border. has anyone suggested we board -- build a wall against the border with canada? of course not. the reason why is candidate is a stable country that offers opportunity and living for its citizens. we have this problem with the southern border with mexico because mexico is unstable, corrupt, and more than not a banana republic. their major export are illegal drugs coming from columbia and south america. wish peoplesue i would pay more attention to is

the word or the adjective illegal. i am not anti-immigration. i am anti-illegal immigration. i brought my wife into this country 26 years ago and i did it following the process. it took about two years and as i recall, somewhere in the order of $1000 to fill out all the forms and pay all the fees and weight and she finally got her green card after two years of processing. that is the way you come into this country, you don't barge up on a flatbed truck and claim you are seeking asylum. i say, asylum from what? being poor? they are taking refuge from what? being poor? that is not a valid reason to barge into another country and say i am here and in your face and you have to take care of me.

thank you. caller: this is the -- host: this is the front page of the new york times. migrants in tijuana rush border, but retreat in clouds of tear gas. the picture that goes along with the story is one that has made the rounds quite a bit since this story broke yesterday. you can see some of the migrants --cting to the tear gas canister that is letting off the tear gas in the background. -- more page from the another picture dominating the top half of the washington times with migrants crossing a river, pushing past the line of mexican police in tijuana as they try to reach the united states. is next in florida. republican. good morning. .aller: listen

this is, first of all, in my opinion, and invasion. it is obvious, all you have to do is watch the television. these people are not just cruising through waiting to get in line. they are pounding across our border. i am sorry we have to use tear gas on them. i think the president is to be admired with what he has had to work with. first of all, if you look at the democrats and republicans, all of the leaders have agreed for years that something needs to be done about this and they have all, many of them, had this same situation and had military at the border. repeat int, repeat, one form of another. the biggest, most disgusting thing rather than pulling this

aboutabout trump -- crap trump and calling him a racist is to get off their butt in washington, d.c. and fix this thing. why are they not fixing this thing? they wanted to be a problem or what? , -- sorry for these people also, why doesn't mexico turn them away at the border instead of letting them through mexico? why don't these people except mexico's offer? isn't there a rule or law they have to take asylum in the first available country and they have been offered it and turn it down. they want to come here because they can storm the border and get away with a bunch of stuff. it is all organized in -- and all in congress'hands.

host: john is a democrat from texas, go ahead. caller: good morning, sir. i disagree with all of that. -- thea with what trump people's so-called president. if you don't have money, you don't have anything basically. he is not doing it for our country, he wants to be a dictator. that is what his issue is. praises everybody to him. all we should doing is praising our hands to the good lord and jesus christ who died for all of our sins. this country was built by immigrants from all parts of the world. understanding there is a bad apple that one bad apple does

not have to spoil the whole bunch. from one more comment facebook, we have been showing the pictures from that border crossing outside tijuana. ruben saying it is disgusting seeing what these parents are putting their kids through. nevada,rtin, las vegas, independent, good morning. caller: i just want to make a statement. when europe was in turmoil and more, the most fdr, turnedsident, more ships coming from europe -- then donald trump has ever turned away from the u.s.-mexico

border and for anybody to call president trump a semite or -- hing racial look at yourself in the mirror and make a change. glenn martin this morning as we have been having this conversation about a migrant -- the migrant caravan, another conversation as a side topic, this on the washington post, a story about the training for agents applying to be part bp.c president trump has pushed for an additional 5000 border patrol agents. this story going through some of the training and recruiting efforts to fill those requests

by the president. -- on that story. johnny in albany, georgia. democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. first of all, i would like to introduce myself. my father was a cherokee indian and my mother was african-american. i would like to tell all those people who have been calling in this morning that they would not have been calling you if they had waited for the european to came here to put their paperwork in. now you are complaining about people throwing rocks. you came in here shooting guns. you came in here not asking for placee to live, picking a to live. everybody who calls you this morning is an illegal immigrant, every one. those people you won't let back into the country was here long

before you came and they migrated down south. they all came out of alaska and migrated down south and now they are coming back home and you are telling them they cannot come. god your history book and erase all of those lives -- lies and write the truth in the book. caller: yes, sir, thank you for taking my call. why all of these me,rals calling in, excuse have not agreed to accept one or two of these families to live in the house and sponsor them and make sure they make all of their meetings instead of sitting back and running their mouth about

how bad everything is going. to texas, robert is an independent. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: i am doing well. caller: i would like to raise the alarm bells about a couple of weeks ago, trump was touting the caravan -- i believe he was --ng it to stir up emotions in the order of $300 million and yet we send troops to the border, which is against the law to use federal troops to do law enforcement, which i believe is what we are talking about. instead of going to the root of the problem by saying the expenditure for such items as

like this law for $28 billion, how far with that money go if we were to send law enforcement or troops to central america, try to stem the problem at its root and eliminate these druglords and the corruption going on down in central america? i think the money instead of going towards walls and sending troops to the border would be far better spent protecting basically our american continent like the monroe doctrine dictated and as our laws dictate federal troops cannot be used within our borders for law enforcement, but they can certainly be used to stem the actual problems on a continent basis. host: is it something you think could be done in conjunction with central american governments or something we should do unilaterally? caller: it could because we are

funding central american governments to help assist them in the form of money to stem corruption and violence. why not use troops in conjunction with central american countries to help them alleviate the problem that is causing this mass migration northward to flee from violence? that is my two cents. i think it would be far more reasonable, probably at a cost of a 10th of what is being proposed for that wall. host: joe is next, long island. democrat, good morning. caller: good morning. ellis island, we had 20 million people come into this country from 1870 to 1930. ronald reagan made 11 million illegal in 87 and how many green

cards they came out and how many illegals didn't come forward and how many came in since 1987? 43eard we have close to million illegal aliens in this country and how about the ones from pakistan and india and all of this other stuff? where are you getting the 43 million number? that is higher than i heard. caller: i heard from somebody who works on immigration. anyway, the point is it has got to stop -- illegal immigration has got to stop. when are we going to stop it? thank you. host: braxton in arkansas, republican, go ahead. caller: good morning and thank you to c-span. i completely agree with what trump is doing at the border. i will have to say this is a well orchestrated social attack

on our country being funded by outside sources. the elites in power right now are hiding behind in the -- they used. it is sad he had to use tear gas. what everyone is not showing, if you notice in the photographs that are showing, they strategically placed the female and her children. what they won't show you is the violence that comes with this -- they won't show you the drug, the murder, the -- they show you the sure td placement of two female and -- two children and female. i think this is a well orchestrated attack on our country and whatever means they are going about, i am not sure on. this is not just a regular immigration. host: who is they? elitists.ey being the i would have to say soros and

friends. orleans, andin new independent. caller: good morning. i think what trump is doing is in newecause i live orleans and after hurricane katrina -- i want to make two quick points. in new orleans, the hispanics have taken over all of the general labor jobs that were traditionally african-american jobs and they had taken over the -- you goeverywhere to metairie and it looks like -- another point i wanted to make is if you look at what they are doing in southern california the streetspanics, thes, this ain't ms-13, but mexican street gangs are way worse because those guys have like street organizations of

tens of thousands of members and what they need to do is claim clean theprisons -- state prisons out and put them all in the super max federal prisons and take their power base because mexico is the one ringing in the heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana. threatis a much bigger in the prison systems, in the streets, everywhere and the mexican mafia had a man -- shoot african-americans on site if they were gang members or not. that is a bigger problem than ms-13. host: time for a couple more calls. julia in north carolina, democrat. go ahead. caller: good morning. trumpironic how melania

got here and now she is bringing her family here. this is despicable. now he wants to close the border down. caller earlier talking about the numbers for estimates on the number of unauthorized population in the united states. this from the migration policy institute, their latest estimate put that at somewhere around 11,300,000. top countries of birth for those unauthorized immigrants of the united states, mexico represents about 5.9 million of that number. el salvador, 655 million. 362,000. honduras, 355,000. migrationpolicy.org is the website if you want to see their numbers. kimberly in michigan, a republican.

go ahead. caller: i was just wondering, whoever bussed them up to the border and took care of them and fed them all the way up, did they dump them at the border? that is what seems inhumane to me, to mislead them, bring them to the border and dump them off. it is kind of sad. host: in franklin florida, independent, go ahead. thank you for taking my call, c-span. i think the problem between both the republicans and the democrats, they had the chance and president trump still has the chance to mandate it -- an executive order. the jobs dried up, they would go back and find jobs elsewhere. i'm in the construction industry

and i can't get a job without a drivers license, let alone a piece of paper that says i'm in the country legally. i think president trump should make either the law of the land. more stick around, plenty to discuss this morning, including with the end of the year approaching. we will have a look at the white house and the lame duck congress. we will be joined by sahil kapur or and ayesha rascoe of npr. the pentagon failed its first ever audit. we will be joined by todd harrison to talk about why. we will be right back. ♪

>> what does it mean to be american? that is this year's c-span video competition question. students and teachers from around the country are posting on social media about it. -- tweeted what does it mean to be an american? social studies students brainstorming constitutional rights. national characteristics. and important people and events of the nation. from tesco middle school in florida tweeted civic students brainstormed ideas for c-span's camp. recognizedo students for their projects in recent years. i think he is going for a tribeca. visited ag tweeted "

high school to speak with the government class and i was interviewed by students participating in c-span's studentcam scholarship program. we discussed freedom of speech and the first amendment." florida,auderdale studentcam 2019, project-based learning at its finest. check out -- this year, we are asking high ahool students to make documentary, answering the question "what does it mean to ?" american we are awarding a grand prize of $5,000. the deadline for entry is january 20. for more information, go to st udentcamp.org. where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies.

and today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress. the white house. the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d.c.. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. >> when the new congress starts in january, there will be more than 100 new house and senate members. the democrats will control the house. the republicans, the senate. new congress, new leaders. watch the process unfold on c-span. >> washington journal continues. host: on mondays, when congress is in session, we like to take a look at the week ahead. helping me uncover both ends of pennsylvania avenue, we are joined by a white house reporter for npr. and sahil kapur or. let's begin with leadership.

at this point, is nancy pelosi looking like the next speaker of the house? guest: it is not as he has the votes yet. it still is like it is going to be an uphill climb for her. last week was a good week for her. you had the leading contender and potential challenger on the democratic side job out of the race and endorsed pelosi. you have brian pickens, who signed a letter saying he would not support her say he is now willing to support her. he on that, you had president obama showering praise on her. members,everal including alexandria a cost of cortez saying they do not support and opposition to her. she is looking better than she did a week ago. host: remind me about the timeline. there is the caucus this week and then january 3 is the real vote. is there time for an opposition to emerge, even between this

week and then? guest: the way it works is that on wednesday, house democrats will meet internally and vote amongst themselves for they think should be the nominee. there was never any doubt pelosi was going to get a majority. the question is what happens on january 3. the first day of new congress. the full house has to vote and she needs 218 votes. she needs 218 votes to get a full house of representatives. she is teetering on opposition with 15 democrats. that is at the bubble of what she can afford to lose. host: how has the uncertainty over the leaders in the next congress and house impacted how president trump is trying to plan for both this lame-duck and 115th congress? guest: as president trump would say, it does not matter who is in charge. he has surprisingly been very supportive of nancy pelosi, saying she deserves it.

that?trolling with , or while heefore was campaigning, that nancy pelosi is -- he has used her as a foil to him. not get ae could better opponent the nancy pelosi. so, it is not clear whether his support for her is genuine. think this white house knows it's going to have a difficult time, no matter who is in charge of the house. guest: if i can add to that, i think her allies definitely perceive that to be trolling. the idea that she is going to get any republican votes after they ran the entire house election campaign on saying that if you elect a democrat, you elect that democrat and any to crack -- any democrat means net to close he will become the next speaker. the idea that any republican will turn around and vote for her is nuts, to be frank.

the lessons from 2020, i know you have a new story out talking about the big lessons that democrats learned when it comes to donald trump. guest: the single biggest lesson .s to not play on his turf president trump is extremely counted at controlling the conversation and moving the conversation with a single tweet. in 2016, i spoke to people on hillary clinton's toy 16 campaign and what they said was they were happy to play and engage on the issues he wanted to engage on because they thought it would be to their benefit. what they underestimated and got wrong is that he was doing it on purpose. moral death rural white voters. who took to his message -- to row of rule -- rural white voters who took to his message. in 2018, they learned from that message. they stuck to their message of

health care. opposing the tax law. they want huge victories. the lesson is don't take the bait when he tries to change the conversation. he is doing it on purpose. host: your take on that? suddenly worked for them, not focusing completely unpresidential. i think one of the lessons is that they could not just be anti-trump and get elected and when. are,nk some of the issues when you have what is happening on the border right now and having these very serious incidents, i think it is going to be harder for democrats to not weigh in and sit on the sidelines. at some point, when you have president trump threatening to shut down the border, you are going to have to weigh in on that. you're going to have to make a stand somewhere on that issue. difficult's is more

-- even if it is more difficult politically. host: the week ahead in washington is our topic. phone lines, democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. , (202) 748-8002. you can call in now. president trump is headed down to mississippi to review his trip down there. down there. going he will hold rallies in support of cindy hyde-smith. this is something that normally, a president, a republican president would not necessarily have to go and campaign in mississippi. after everything that has happened, i think they want to be sure that they can energize the base. there have obviously been issues with the republican senate candidate about a public hanging

. she says it was taken out of context. other issues about support for the confederacy and things of that nature. what president trump is going president trump is going down there to throw verbal support behind her. she says she loves mississippi, the u.s. and that she is the right person for the job. host: one serving that came out, this is from a republican political elections blog, they put out a poll putting it at cindy hyde-smith, 54%. -- the, the republican atmer u.s. representative 44%. in that race. democrats think they can get closer in the coming days. guest: it is still a long shot. mississippi is as difficult as you can get as far as democrat.

you have the republican whombent can's -- senator is undoubtedly the favorite. and a lot of democrats are looking into the alabama special election last year where doug jones scored a major upset over roy moore. that is obviously not quite comparable because roy moore was facing allegations of pedophilia which are not an issue in this race. espee is anfor mike overwhelming african-american turnout. he will get 98 200% of that vote. -- 98 to 100% of that vote. there were not -- in eastern pro substantially to have a shot. -- he needs to improve substantially to have a shot. host: the metrics are traditionally red in the days before election. jolt to the a

campaign. it has given democrats hope and a way that they otherwise would not have. beyond that, it is hard to know that has necessarily helped him in his closing stretch. host: other things vying for national attention, former fbi director james comey will testify on capitol hill, will he and what format? it seems like the lesser of the republican majority. comey and lynch have gotten subpoenaed. james comey has said that he does not want to testify in a setting because he does not trust that republicans will operate in good faith. he believes they will distort what was said in there. he has said that he will testify in an open hearing.

that is going to be the question. we have not touched on the december 7 headline. let's hear from richard in nashville, tennessee, independent, good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to ask the gentleman and the lady, my question is that i have been around for about 50 years, i am 65 years old -- 65 years old and getting ready to get medicare. people my age, it has grown. we'll have a way to get to it. or the insurance reason. presidentns when trump, which i think he has every right in the world, i have been watching drugs and human trafficking come across this order for 40 years. it is not theou, good people coming from these other countries. it is the ones that are

trafficking people, prostitution. drugs. there have been more drugs coming across that el paso border. a friend of mine that owns businesses there said drop the drugs and they will cross back in mexico. if you don't shut this border down to the illegals, look at the open your crisis. you have senior citizens going across the border to get cheaper drugs. i'm telling you, i have seen it firsthand. , i gottrump, my question off on a tangent, i apologize. what happens when pelosi and trump have to go head to head and shut this country down. they will shut the border down and the government down. this country is doing better than it has done in my 40 years of living in this country. i'm not a democrat, i am not a republican. i am for america. black, white, asian, anybody that was to come here legally.

-- learning to close the border permanently, if needed. do you want to take us through his strategy? guest: his strategy seems to be saying that this is a crisis at the border. and that you have to take extreme measures. part of what he is doing is threatening mexico because when you shut down the border, you're not talking about immigration, your talking about trade -- you are talking about trade and all the things that have happened. mexico does not want that. they are trying to take action to get president trump to cool down. whether he will be able to shut down the border for a long period of time, like i said, because this deals with trade economics, it seems unlikely that he would be about to do that without getting major pushback. the impact of that would be so traumatic. he is making the argument that

something needs to be done in order to push the democrats, he is trying to get money for his border wall. host: and trying to push mexico, according to reports. inopposed to them staying the u.s. during that process. where are we as of now, and when are you expecting some sort of deal? guest: it is not clear. there was reporting that there was a deal reached but mexico pushed back on that. they said that the deal had not been reached. president trump was saying that this needs to happen. it is not clear exactly what is going to happen with this deal. this will be a strength on mexico -- strain on mexico. made itt trump has clear that he does not want people coming into the country, while there waiting for the

process to go through, as far as asylum. host: this current micro caravan, the one that was the that yesterday, members of caravan are being housed at a sports complex in tijuana. did you want to weigh in on this deal that is trying to emerge between the u.s. and mexico? guest: i was going to weigh in on government funding. is -- december 7 is the next government funding deadline. there is no deal -- if there is no deal between the house and senate, there will be a shut down then. present trump, now, as he has in the past, is threatening to force that shut down if there is not funding for his border wall. it is going to be tough to get that funding. as funding in the past, republican leaders have pulled back and said let's not fight it this time, we will fight it next time. this is probably the last, best chance that he has.

are goingry 3, they to raise the demands and make it more difficult. house republicans -- back could be connected to border security and funding. 1.6 billion for for security. it is not clear how to connect to the wall. it -- whatit since incentive is there for democrats to do anything if all they have to do is wait and they are in a stronger negotiating position? guest: they don't have any incentive to get president trump is wall funding. if your nancy pelosi, you're holding a progressive flag. friendly, that has been her strong suit. -- frankly, that has been her strong suit. caller: to pennsylvania, crystal, a democrat, good morning. caller: i just want to say, i have two points to make. i believe that countries should have borders. i believe nothing that trump

says. absolutely nothing. here is a man who talks about migrants that are coming over, murderers and killers and bringing drugs. yet, he supports saudi arabia after killing that journalist. i believe nothing that he says about the border. i believe nothing yet he says about when he talks about compassion. he had no compassion for the people who were being burned in california. he had no compassion for brown people. he has no compassion for anyone who does not vote for him. i believe this man is just a liar. period. i may agree with some things but i could never ever support a liar. i could never support a man who my children get up every morning and they watch the news with me and they, 10, 12, 14 years old,

are sick of this man. they believe he is a joke and they are young. the bestlakeland for in lakeland, florida, a republican. caller: good morning. praise be for c-span that allows common citizens to have a voice on television. i'm a republican that is against trump. put about if the democrats on joe biden to be speaker of the house? wouldn't that be more effective? it is my understanding that it does not have to be a member. joe biden could leave the -- lead the house of representatives and there could be a coalition with republicans. in my local paper, i have a letter to the editor called a plan to remove trump and move on. i proposed that mitt romney can be the leader of the republicans in the senate. to condense donald trump and put in joe biden to be speaker of

the house, which would be very effective, i think. what are the responses of our guests? host: thank you for bringing it up. guest: as your viewers know, it is not necessary that the speaker of the house be a member of the house. that said, it almost certainly will be. i am bordering around a hundred percent that it will be. nore is no discussion, support for having summary on the on the outside come in, even though democrats like joe biden. take on theto previous cause question about immigration and the comments they made. there is a lot of noise. immigration, the population of undocumented immigrants in this country has been flight -- flat and has not really risen or fallen. there is no documented connection between illegal immigration and crime.

there is no evidence that it increases crime. when it comes to legal immigration, there is evidence that legal evidence commit crimes at lower rates than nativeborn americans. for whatever it is worth. emotions are heated on this issue but those are the facts. host: would you like to jump in? guest: i think that part of the issue is what is the crisis? because, right now, we don't have people coming in at record levels. hadast years, we have illegal immigration at much higher levels than we do now. what is the crisis at this moment? president trump says it is a crisis. host: about halfway through our roundtable. ayesha rascoe with npr. and sunoco for with bloomberg news. taking your questions about a variety of topics. -- and sahil kapur or with

bloomberg news. taking your questions about a variety of prop -- topics. caller: i just want to point out that, as everyone knows, if we were to focus on the employers, we would not have so many people coming into our country. because they come to work. regarding drugs, most of the drugs come in the united states postal service. because these packages are going unchecked, unchaste. now thata bill right is called the stop act 2017. fentanyl is pouring into our y, killing thousands of young people. what they want to do is put all of the focus on the people coming in across the border. because they want to distract us. because the people who are making a lot of money are the ones controlling our congress. letuld suggest to everyone,

-- tell them to get the stop act 2017 through. let's start making our demands. no more shenanigans. --t: sunoco for, on the sahil kapur on the stop act. guest: i want to adjust the point about employers. there has been a push. to have some sort of a system which would, on some level, mandate, it would get employers to use the central document system to make sure that all of their employees are legally allowed to work in the united states. that was part of the 2013 immigration bill that passed with a bipartisan vote. it stalled in the house of representatives. it did not go any further. all of these things can be on the table, including the stop

act. i don't think that democrats are going to give on the security and enforcement measures, unless they get a big part of what they want, which is a solution for the 11 million people here. guest: the white house has made its demands very clear. they want to cut illegal immigration as well. they want to have chain migration. ended. this is a check on legal immigration. they also want a wall on the border. they want that funded with very strict border control. there has not been any sense that they have been willing to negotiate on that right now. host: to silver spring, maryland. james, a democrat, good morning. caller: good morning guys, i want to start by saying that i want to follow up with the gentleman that spoke about looking at the idea of instead

of spending money at the border, we should look at the root of the problem. working with the government, possibly breaking in troops and .elping fight off cartels fo host: that was the idea a caller proposed in our first segment. talking about sending combat troops to the countries if they allowed it. go ahead, james. think we need a multifaceted approach to this problem. the other part of the problem is i think we should look at the citizenship and how we can use the money generated from all of these aliens that are already here. if we can have them -- have some way to get them green cards. that can help support programs for the other people that are coming in.

some reason, we get resistance from the republican because of the fact that these people have broken the law coming into this country. there have been many signs that where the court system has given amnesty to people who have broken the law for the greater come upthink we should with some way that these people can get their path to citizenship if they are already here. you can always give them some type of fee, $10,000 fine that they have to pay. , they have toars pay taxes, we can come up with an estimated tax. at least we can do something to make the problem better. important, a lot of people complain about supporting these people when they come in. why are we paying for them? i got your point.

sahil kapur or. guest: it reminds me of the efforts in 2006 under president bush and the effort in 2013, under president obama. this was basically the theory that 11 amelia -- 11 million people are here, put them on a path to citizenship after they pass a background check and a mistake that they have not committed crimes. that would create an influx of money because they would now be brought into the workforce. they would no longer have to live in the shadows. that bill in 2013 appropriated $40 billion for additional border security. included family-based sponsorship. adult siblings, which is not all of what job once in the category -- trump wants in the category but it is some of it. there was a faction in the house of representatives among the republican majority that could

citizenshipthe past for 11 million people here legally. this is the reason that the effort repeatedly hit a wall. host: i want to go back to the point about doing more in these countries and working with these governments. who has the best relationship with a country like guatemala or el salvador? and a lot of these places where the caravans are coming from. guest: the president has really, in his actions, he is threatening these countries in saying that he would take funding away from them. that he would not help them. because he blames them for allowing people to come into this country illegally. canceled,clear and he he was supposed to go to columbia as well. he has not really gone down there.

he, personally, president has not gone down there. he has talked to them at various international events. he has not gone down there to make the case himself for them making changes or what he wants them to do, other than just stop these people from coming and threatening them. he has not made a case for helping them or trying to stop these cartels. what is making people want to come to the u.s.. -- not this time. this time, i get to skip it. host: what are you watching for? guest: the main thing is his meeting with president putin. russia. people will definitely be watching that. withsupposed to be meeting china. people will be watching to see what happens with that. the u.s. and china have been battling on trade. will they be of to reach a consensus on that?

anytime putin and trump are in a room together, all eyes are on them. host: harry is a republican, good morning. caller: good morning. i'm concerned and maybe you could help me with this concern, when you talk about -- county and city budgets. , a homelessk at woman is rested in south carolina for stealing pampers for her child, they are going to come in and take that child away from her and incarcerate her, until her crate -- case is disposed of. i have heard that what is good for us is also good for immigrants coming into this country, they are protected by the same laws. can a mother, who is a criminal, coming across our

border illegally, how can you order her child to stay with her , when in every jail across this country, they do not accommodate family incarceration. this may come to the supreme court. i don't see why the aclu is not already involved in this. me, that's -- that: this is something president trump has done. he has pulled back from it. he is gotten an enormous amount of criticism for it. because of the impact it had on families. essentially what the trump administration did was impose the maximum penalties for people across the border. it is their right to do that. awaydoes mean taking kids for one year, two years, for several months and sending them

to a prison that you cannot house children in. which means separating them. putting them in a refuge facility. administration and the admin section before them did was different. they used things like family detention centers. the problem is, there is not quite the capacity for the federal government to deal with that. who come across in proper ports of entry. there is a mismatch between the resources congress has and what the mandate is. which is why there is so much dispute. host: ayesha rascoe, what is your sense of what the president things above the separation policy as a deterrent? publicly, he defends them and he says this is something that was done before.

was not something that was carried out on a widescale basis. while the presence. -- by other presidents. president trump said i did not do anything different, even though he had a policy. he is sensitive about the criticism of it. it seems like, within the admin decision, they did feel like it was a deterrent. it is not clear that it affected -- it stop people from coming. you see people coming as we have the separation policy. i think that what we have seen with them threatening to shut down the border and what happened over the weekend, and these clashes over the caravan, that present trump is willing to take extreme action on immigration, whether it is threatening about birthrates and citizenship. he is willing to take action, whether he will go back to family separation, i don't know because it was such a push back. he is willing to take action. host: the family --

guest: the family separation policy was described by john kelly as a deterrent. it was described by jeff sessions as a deliberate policy to send a message for people to not try to come here illegally. this is a trump administration policy. the -- saying that -- that means doing some harsh things. host: 10 or 15 minutes left with our panel. we will get as many calls as you can best as we can. elaine a is an independent in washington, good morning. caller: one caller said immigration has increased. a calling to a security website, in 2008, there were 5000. waslast recorded number 77,000.

of that, they approved 6000 for asylum. statistically, only 3% show up for their hearings. the other thing i wanted to say is, regarding e verify, when i worked for an agency that had access, i have seen as many as 75 people using the same social security number. is not necessarily a good avenue to take, either. you cannot verify that the person belongs to that social security number. the other thing is that of the people who crossed the border, on the stats, according to dhs, they found over 1200 people that came across the southern border network from middle eastern countries. easternwere from middle country. primarily from pakistan. that was alarming, too.

that is all i have to say. guest: i want to make a distinction heard the color of for death refer to asylum claims -- the caller referred to asylum lanes. that is legal immigration. that has gone a enormously over the last decade or so. only a minority of them get approved. what i was referring to is the undocumented immigrant policy. that has been flat at 11 million. some are coming in, some are leaving. the number has not risen in a long time. caravan am ofe the talk of the migrants at the border, and a lot of them are applying for asylum. most of them will not get approved. that is legal immigration. it is not like they have iphones , they can't pull up their maps and see exactly where it to go. -- where to go.

their claims, but they are joined to do is fight the legal process. host: before we lose you, i did want to ask about mueller protection legislation. its chances in a lame-duck congress and what might happen. guest: it is a little unclear. we would have to start and end with senate democrats because republicans don't control the house and senate. the white house is obviously dead set against it. there is a push among some republican senators, including jeff flake, the arizona senator who is retiring and threatening to vote against every judicial nomination. senator susan collins of maine who has suggested that it is not necessary and the protocol is not in danger, is in support of legislation. the real question is whether there are going to be 41 senators who refuse to vote against any government funding

bill. the answer right now is we will see. ayesha rascoe, with the president sign a bill like that? guest: i have not pushed that question to the president. he has been asked about mueller and whether he plans to fire him? . this thing is that he could. but he has not so far. he has every right -- his argument is that he has every right to shut down the investigation if you wanted to. he has not. according to him, he has stayed on the sidelines and he has not acted on that. and so, his argument would be that it is unnecessary but also that this investigation is a witch hunt and there is no collusion. host: it is worth mentioning -- guest: it is worth mentioning quite this is coming up. matt whitaker left a paper trail being critical of the mueller investigation.

suggesting that it could be shut down by getting strangled. that is what is concerning democrats and that is where senator schumer has said that is not ok. host: have you had a chance to interview matt whitaker? guest: i have not. he has strong views about the judiciary. host: pulled you ask him if you had the chance? -- why would you ask him if he had the chance? guest: i would follow up on it, he made in 2014. should the government have the authority to regulate interstate commerce? where things like federal child labor were declared unconstitutional because the court restricted the federal government authority. my question is what he support that? i think it is an important one because the attorney general overseas the general which argues before the supreme court. host: same question.

have you interviewed him? if not, but would you ask him? guest: i would ask him if he was involved -- that has been accused in engaging with scamming people. i would ask him about what he knew about that and what was his involvement in that. those issues are interesting. there are also questions about money that he received when he was working in the justice department. a campaignready -- that was already ended. some of those money questions i would like to ask him about. host: in maryland, democrat, good morning. caller: just to clarify, this is not the ronald reagan or judge -- george bush republican party like a previous republican caller implied. it has gone to a point -- got

into a point where they use this out --o get their face base out. there is an extreme side of the republican party that lacks compassion. he tells them i'm going to fix all of these things. said heemember, trump could fix the immigration issue, work with democrats and republicans, he could fix the health care issues. work with democrats and work with republicans. he could help our economy. the economy looks great. month, we had $120 billion -- we had a $120 billion debt, which is on track to be a 1.4 chili delegate for the year. we are not paying for anything. for the4 trillion debt year. we are not paying anything. the republican party has not asked the american people to pay for anything.

we just borrow the money from china and all these other countries. where the children and grandchildren will have to pay back. host: military spending is the ground for a discussion later in the program. we will talk about military discussion -- military spending at 9:30. i want to get to a caller who is waiting in utah. republican, go ahead. caller: i want to get back on point. first of all, it is not trump's wall. it is the american people's wall. we elected donald trump because donald trump promised to build a wall. nine out of 10 of those people that are down there at the border who want asylum, into the country were provided transport from their starting point to where they are. nine out of 10 of those people were not -- would not be welcomed into america under the asylum laws. if we do not stop it now, it is not going to be a few thousand people. it is going to be one million people at our borders.

e-verify should be 100% mandatory for every business. i am sorry to be heartless but on this child separation thing, a lot of those children that are coming through the border don't belong to the people that are caring them. there are a lot of missing children through mexico, guatemala and honduras because people know, these traffickers know that if they shop at our borders with children, they have a better chance of getting to our borders. the way to protect those children is to keep them in their own country, stop allowing this practice to happen. -- andreaew in utah in utah. ayesha rascoe, -- guest: i think that when you look at the issue, there has not been a whole lot of evidence of that. there have been some cases where they have determined or they could not determine that there was a link between the parents

-- or between the adult and the children. i don't think that there have been numbers to back up that these children are not connected to the people they are traveling with. ultimately, there will be an argument about the wall. with the last midterm election, i am sure democrats have argued that people -- if they wanted a wall, why would they vote for democrats were against the wall? yes, president trump was elected on the wall but then we have had another election. sahil kapur, i will give you last word. guest: president trump would not be the first person to campaign on something and not be about to get it. president obama did not get the path to citizenship for 11 million people. people coming through the border seeking asylum had been given transfer, i don't know where that comes

from. i don't know whether that is true. this is president trump like the issue of immigration. evil are motivated by and it has worked well for him politically. --the caller before that, people are motivated by it and it has worked well for him politically. -- those two work very much in favor of immigration. president reagan signed a bill in 1986. president bush tried to operate have to citizenship for everyone and 2007.06 i would say that the base has been there all along. which is why president bush could not it pushed into thousand seven. -- in 2007. host: ayesha rascoe is on in the are.

ayesha rascoe of in the art. we had to death before tobefore we had to -- head -- we will be right back. ♪ >> what does it mean to be american? that is this year's c-span student video competition question. students and their teachers from around the country are posting on social media about it. tweetedng in illinois "what does it mean to be an american, social studies students brainstorming constitutional rights, national characteristics and important people and events of the nation."

and pascoe county, florida, a girl tweeted students brainstorm ideas for student camps. recognizedo students for their projects in recent years. i think he is going for a trifecta. "i wasung tweeted interviewed must in participating in c-span's student cap scholarship program. we discussed free speech and the first amendment." in fort lauderdale florida, "studentcam 2019, project-based learning at its finest." >> this year, we are asking middle and high school students to reduce a 5-6 minute documentary, answering the question "what does it mean to be american?" $100,000 --rding awarding $100,000 in total cash prizes.

including a $5,000 grand prize. the deadline to enter is january 20. or more information, go to stu dentcamp.org. history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created by -- like we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. >> washington journal continues. host: it is open phones on the washington journal. any public policy issued you want to talk about, the phone lines are yours to do so. democrats can call in at (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001.

independents (202) 748-8002. here are some of the headlines from today's newspapers. we talked about in the first segment of the washington journal, the protests at the border near tijuana into california. turning into a rush at the border. there is the picture that you are seeing in a lot of outlets today. from themigrants caravan and moved up from mexico , trying to dodge away from the teargas. also, what is ahead for the 115th congress and -- 116 congress and i will include the vote on who will be the next speaker of the house. there is a picture of nancy pelosi working to overcome some of the dissatisfaction among some house democrats. the leadership elections coming up on wednesday.

it has been a topic of conversation for the last several weeks. democrats would take the house, it was talked about again yesterday. a democrat from california, when asked on cnn, whether he was confident nancy was would be the next leader. [video clip] >> i am confident that she will get the votes that she needs and more confident that she is the right person for the job right now. everything is on the line for the country. people's health care is on the line. without the best tactician, without the best organizer to keep our caucus together, that is going to be more challenging than ever before because we have a more diverse caucus than ever before. if there was someone else who had that same package of talents, i would say support them. no one, i think, is better

qualified than she is right now. i am confident at the end of the day that she has the votes. host: that was adam schiff yesterday. today's wall street journal on this topic, the editorial board noting that it melted away. meet?""did they at some point, they have said they would not support nancy pelosi for speaker. theired and listed on about nottatements supporting the congresswoman for it if you want to read a, it is in today's wall street journal. the budget pressure is there, driving the debate on military strategy. it will be part of our

discussion coming up in our next segment on the washington journal. we will be talking about the first ever pentagon audit. the pentagon failing that audit. we will talk about why. todd harrison will be joining us. until then, it is open phones. uphy in new jersey, you are first. democrat, new jersey, go ahead. punters as to why -- why -- curious as to host: howdy think the trump administration would respond if the united nations decided to get involved? caller: the trump administration lies all of the time, anyway. it would just be another live, regardless. somehow were able to assimilate the lost boys and lost girls of sudan in two different communities.

i would think that we could start some sort of logical program. i think it is terrible, terrible, terrible for children to be ripped away from their parents. we could try to assimilate them into this society, they would have a chance. host: president trump tweeting that "mexico should move the flag migrants back to their country, do it by plane, do it by bus, they are not coming to the usa." congress, fun the wall. the funding debate will be in focus over the next two weeks. the cymer seventh is the current funding deadline current funding deadline. if there is no funding bill put in place -- december 7 is the current deadline. if there is no funding bill put in place, decent grade would be a government shutdown.

in arkansas, a republican, go ahead. caller: thank you for having me on. , i woman from mary's land don't know where to start. -- nder how many youngsters that would be interesting. stolen and robbed several times. i decided i would -- i would go to the attorney general and say let me also run after you. i will become a hanging judge for all of the people that steel. paperwork for all of the stolen cars. 90% are by african-americans, 90% are by mexicans.

my dad was 95, he said figures don't lie but liars can figure. india -- he may be one of those liars that is good at figuring. host: you're talking about one of the members of our panel? caller: he sure knows a lot. host: who do you trust if you don't trust a national political republic -- reporter for bloomberg news? caller: i trust the president. i trust president trump. he will be the most loved president. that is mike in arkansas. ed is an independent. go ahead. caller: you have to keep in

mind, hannity. rivera gets $5 million a year. bill o'reilly had a $20 million contract before he was like go. they are commentators. they are not journalists. those in the republican party with record in -- with reagan were against the soviet union. bush, iraq, weapons of mass destruction. republicans are turning us against each other. it is time to open up your eyes and minds and think. thank you. is in northa carolina, a democrat, good morning. caller: yes, i have a comment concerning the border for it if i recall correctly, trump said that mexico was going to pay for the wall. in fact, i have memories of the consistent chant.

of "who's going to pay for the wall?" and mexico. who's going to pay for the wall, mexico. it was as consistent as any catholic catechism. admiringdmirers are so of him for keeping his word, they need to make him keep his word on this. who is going to pay for the wall? mexico. thank you. host: give us a call. you can join on twitter and facebook. writinger, bill king and there are rumors there will be hundreds of anti-trump protesters at today's trump rally, talking about the rally president trump will be holding

for the runoff race that will take place tomorrow. jennifer harper in today's "washington times" writes about what is expected to be waiting for the president. they planned the battle of biloxi protest in the town of the same name not far from where president trump will appear tonight. that group has previously protested the state banner. also advised legal observers will be president -- present to document the rally. visited the same

venue in january of 2016. 13,000 attended that rally. executives director saying the trump expects people to be lined up on the sidewalk and u.s. 90 in the gates open this morning. the rally taking place tonight. look for our coverage on c-span tonight as well. bill is in georgia, a republican. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. a couple of things with the mueller investigation. can you hear me? host: yes. caller: they should go after the clinton administration. they should go after the fbi also in that investigation. i thinkng the border, the president is doing the best he can with the support he's giving -- getting. i am an immigrant to this country. i had to wait my turn.

i think these people need to be turned back and go through the legal process. if the african american wants to help out, they ought to give up their food stamps and low income housing to these people. let them have part of that stuff. i was never given none of that and never asked for it, but a lot of african americans get low-income housing, food stamps, low income jobs, they get these jobs. i see it all the time. they should be giving it to the immigrants if they want to. host: why do you just focus on african americans? caller: i needed some work. i was self-employed for a long time. i finally closed the doors of my company. i went to warehouses around here and could not get a job to save my life. there's nothing wrong with my ability to work, but the african americans were getting all these jobs. that is fine, that is great.

but to let all the illegals come in, that costs money. host: when did you come to the united states and where from? caller: canada, 1962. it took five years to get here. i had to carry a green card. my mom and dad immigrated here after world war ii. they could not come here first. they went to canada. we went through the due process of law. that is the way it should be. great president roosevelt had concentration camps for japanese citizens during world war ii. democrats don't mind using our wallets. but when it comes time for them to make a sacrifice, they won't make it. host: mike is an independent from crystal city, florida. since trump has been in office, he has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on immigration and hired thousands of border patrol agents.

it seems immigration has stayed the same gotten worse. is there any accountability for where the money is spent? why hasn't immigration gotten better? host: you talk about border patrol agents and the hiring. you might want to read the story on the front page of today's "washington post." the agency hurries to build up its new force, focusing on recruiting and training that goes along with the president's call for 5000 additional agents and 10,000 additional customs enforcement officers. following some of those working their way through the recruitment and training system, that story in today's "washington post." kay is in ohio, republican. good morning. caller: a couple of things. there was a lady from north carolina talking about trump. i think mexico will have to build the wall at their southern

borders. that will help us when they stop people invading their country. i also think regarding the withst planned for today trump it is time to get over it. each person should be responsible for doing good in the world and being negative and andg at rallies that demean protest a man trying to get something done. it further increases the negativity of this country. things are divisive. we are just trying to do what needs to be done. the democrats are fighting this all the way. the gentleman just on was talking about how he is not doing what he said he would do building the wall and things like that. we need congress to pass that. congress is now highly democrat. we have to hope they are willing to take the interest and safety of our country and put that

ahead of eating a democrat or republican or anti-trump. host: have you ever participated in a political protest? caller: i have not. i am 65. i know all about political protests. the last year as a nurse, i have taken cap seven immigrants -- care of seven immigrants who came here legally. every one of them felt trump was correct, that we need to make it a legal process. you cannot just storm into our country. you have to come legally. they had great sacrifices coming here. they gave up everything. they came with just the money and clothing on their backs. one lady came with her daughter. it took eight years to get here, but they can legally. now her daughter is a lawyer and married to a lawyer.

she worked as a housekeeper her whole life. now she is going to be a grandma. this is the american dream. they did it legally. they sacrificed everything and waited and did it the right way. host: what do you think about the asylum-seekers trying to come into this country illegally -- legally through the asylum system? caller: i think you have to come legally. it is like if you have an appointment to have a procedure done and you have done everything you were supposed to do. he went through all the craft, you stood in line, made the appointment, you took the medicines they told you. and all of a sudden 500 people come into the hospital and demand to have the procedure done today, and we demand to have it done ahead of all these other people. host: are you ok with these migrant caravans as long as the people present themselves at

ports of entry and make asylum claims? caller: yeah. and i think they should stay on that side of the wall until they can come here legally. lessnk we will have immigration if mexico builds a and mexico stops busing them to our border. look at tijuana. they have a mayor saying we cannot give our taxpayer money to these people. what a novel idea for congress to consider. host: on the issue of where migrants should be while they wait for these asylum claims to as part of a possible plan between the united states and mexico and the incoming administration in mexico, the u.s. would increase the number of asylum requests it processes at key ports of entry. in exchange, the mexican government would agree to keep them in mexico joined the

application process. the law now says they must be allowed to remain in the u.s. while their claims work their way through the court system. asylum-seekers generally remained in detention until released on bond pending court dates. parents with children can be held up to 20 days. many are been released on parole with location tracking devices attached to their ankles. that from the front page "wall street journal" story on the incident at the border yesterday and ongoing negotiations about what to do with migrants seeking asylum. texarkana, arkansas, independent, you are up next. caller: thank you for taking my call. to give you a little background, i live in arkansas. i am a disabled veteran. i am 67 years old. we have a republican governor, republican legislature. our representative is republican. both senators are republican.

all of those are republicans. our industry in arkansas is farming, timber, and poultry. you can visit any poultry plant in the state and you will find more illegal mexicans employed their venue will citizens -- there than you will citizens. the farmers are american citizens. when they are picked up, they are picked up by illegal aliens. the governor knows this. the legislature knows this. why don't they put a stop to this? i will tell you why. because that is the people who put money in the coffers for them to be reelected. that is why there is not nothing being done. host: who puts the money in the coffers, james? businesses that support the republican party.

just about every business in this country supports the republican party. -- i forget the term -- sanctuary cities. do you think the average citizen once these people here? no. it is the businesses in the city's that want them here for the cheap later -- in the cities that want them here for the cheap labor. look at how many people are mowing the yards. host: north carolina, jacksonville, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. back to thatto go individual. if there is any way to fact think things continue

because of people not hearing information over and over again. the assertion that only black people are on the welfare system getting food stamps, proportionally there are more nonblack people on the systems. the majority are white people utilizing medicate -- medicaid, food stamps. statistically, they live longer so they are using medicare dollars. i wish there was some way to mythsheck so these could dissipate a little bit. that is an old-time myth. was some way to mitigate some of these long-term myths. mythswhat are some other you keep hearing that touch a

nerve with you? caller: jobs. systematically, i lived in the midwest along time. i am a social worker by profession. in the south, they say that criminality. let me tell you something. in the midwest, there is criminality and felons can get employed. in the south, they cannot because the majority are black people that have been in prison who have served their time but check yes on application. all of these myths about all the crime is by black or brown people. yes, proportionally, there are a large number of black on black crimes. but look at all the crimes across the board. lonnie, huntington, west

virginia, is next. republican. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i'm calling about the russian fiasco that has been going on for a couple of years. i would like to say a lot of people don't seem to realize hillary was instrumental in getting russia about half of the uranium in the united states. then she got about $145 million put in the clinton foundation. gettinginstrumental in india uranium to build a nuclear bomb, and they did not even have one. it is just a joke when they talk about it. host: what do you think the acting attorney general, matt whitaker, should do what comes to the mueller probe? caller: i think it should be ended. if you have two years and can't find something in almost two

years, it is a joke. it and go on to something else. it is supposed to be about the president. i don't think they have found anything about the president. there are so many things going on in the world and the united states as far as floods and all that stuff. we just need to concentrate on abouta and quit worrying someone getting murdered in saudi arabia. they do that all the time. they do it all over the world. i don't know what it is. when i was a little kid, i used to go with my granddad. i voted straight democrat. i am 75. i would pass out flyers in front of the polls around here. i would see the money exchange hands and whiskey exchange hands.

i don't know what the solution is. i think we have a president really trying to do something. he is a little weird sometimes, but they have all been a little weird. host: how is this one weird? caller: he is a little weird the way he looks at things when it comes to expressing his opinion and feelings. that one of these people does not wear his feelings on his sleeve, you know. we have a lot of people that do that. my mom was like that. she did not wear her feelings on her sleeve. but shea good person, did not seem to have many feelings. a lot of people don't. i think he is trying. i'm 75. i have never seen a president

for bill promises like he has. host: you talk about investigations, here is a story in the "new york times" today about what house democrats may focus on anyone hundred 16th congress -- in the 116th congress. they are laying out lines of inquiry that could lead to president trump and his immediate family. republicans may be forced by the changed political climate to take a harder line toward the trump family. taken bynclude actions his sons and son-in-law during the 2016 campaign. the story noting the oversight and judiciary committees are likely to focus on any violation of the constitution's emoluments clause, an avenue that will lead to examination of payments to

in theeld properties role his sons and mr. christer have played. they may try to question donald trump, jr. again about the meeting he held promising dirt about hillary clinton. you can read that story in today's "new york times." hamlet is in michigan, independent, good morning -- pamela is in michigan, independent, good morning. theer: i don't understand people who call for mass immigration when we have all kinds of problems already. everybody's health care is going up. social security can't get a raise that is decent. yet they talk about let them in. who is going to pay for them? if they can then, they have got to get health care which is

going to make yours continue to grow up -- go up. if they come in, those already struggling, their benefits will be cut. we ain't got the money. our deficit is through the roof. more moneyg to rob to take care of them? people are not thinking. host: alvin, houston, texas, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i am democrat and african american. i am totally behind trump on keeping these people out of this country. they are trying to get in because they know they will illegally get on health care and housing and help. we need them out of here. if the democrats bring these people over here, they will soon be out themselves so they better think about this. thank you. host: sylvia, virginia, republican.

good morning. caller: good morning. i'm calling because i hope nancy pelosi becomes the head of the house. even though i am republican, i like her very much. when president trump was inaugurated, she helped him when he was writing executive orders. she was very kind to show him the ropes. i was very impressed by her. i think she can help us with immigration and work with the president. thank you. host: why are you a republican? caller: i am a republican because i am very pro-life, but i feel like some of the democrats who are more conservative like the senator from west virginia, i like him very much. host: do you think nancy pelosi is conservative? caller: i feel she is moderate. host: in what way? caller: i see how she works with the president. and she is not as liberal as some.

some of the ones coming in our liberal and almost crazy like. they don't have their head on straight. but she knows the way washington works. and sometimes, you can't go against washington. you have to work with the president even though you are on the opposite side of the auto. i'll opposite side of the aisle. host: kathy? caller: i would like to know why this president who is a real estate mogul wants to build a wall for billions of dollars that will be on the backs of taxpayers. what is wrong with using electronic -- i am sorry. host: using electronic what? which: electronic tolls would be pennies on the dollar's. does he have skin in this, building the wall? he is a real estate mogul aspiring to be like all of dark

-- oligarch putin in some ways. these people are poor. they want a better life. we should open our hearts for the poor people of the world. host: a few minutes left in open phones this morning. i did want to point out a couple of offense -- op-eds in today's papers. bobby jindal writes conservativism is not dead yet. the column ends with the former governor saying conservatives are underrepresented and under siege on college campuses and newsrooms. conservatives should take comfort our ideals concerning free markets, the american dream, the traditional family structure, and democracy continue to prove their merits of each generation.

this from "usa today" concerning the mississippi senate runoff tomorrow. the writer served as a speechwriter to condoleezza rice and a national security council aide to george w. bush. now works as a political analyst and cohost of "words matter" podcast. writes cindy hyde-smith gave only a belated and cursory apology for comments supporting voter suppression and public hangings. it should be a cost reminder of the darkest days of our history. is that a reputation risk mississippi can afford to take? you can read her column in today's "usa today." linda is waiting in oklahoma, a democrat. good morning. caller: hello? host: go ahead. caller: i would like to say that i support trump on immigration.

these people did not wake up one morning and say let's migrate to america. they have known in advance they wanted to make the trip. if they can afford to pay the coyotes to bring them through the desert, then they can afford to put their paperwork in and come legally. i don't think most people have a problem with them coming. it is just that they want them to come legally. when you have the mass numbers like down there right now and they barge in, that is not right. they need to do it the right way. host: where would you rank the immigration issue in terms of your priorities? oneer: right now, number because i think it is unsafe for our country. we don't know who all is trying to come through. host: did you vote for president

trump in 2016? caller: i did not vote for trump. host: would you vote for him in 2020? caller: i don't know. i do agree with a lot of the things he does. but this immigration, i am with him 100% on that. host: what makes you a democrat? caller: i have just always been a democrat. host: what issues do you agree with the national democratic party on? caller: i think they are more for the elderly and the working class people. i think the republicans are more for the upper class people that have more money. ,ost: that is linda in oklahoma our last caller of the open phones segment. next,erm a we will be -- we will be joined by todd harrison to talk about why the pentagon failed its first-ever audit. we will be right back.

>> what does it mean to be american? that is this year's c-span studentcam video competition question. students and teachers are posting on social media about it. tweeted this. she tweeted -- florida gary hoskins has two students recognized for their projects in recent years. i think he is going for a trifecta. senator todd young tweeted he

was interviewed by students. we discussed freedom of speech and the first amendment. mrs. king from fort lauderdale, it isa, tweeted project-based learning at its finest. this year, we are asking middle and high school students to produce a documentary answering the question, what does it mean to be american? we are awarding $100,000 in total cash prizes, including a grand prize of $5,000. the deadline for entry is january 20. for more information, go to studentcam.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: each week in this segment, we like to look at how your money is at work in a different federal program. this week, we are joined by todd harrison, the director of the center for strategic and

international studies, to talk about the long-awaited audit or fordepartment of defense -- the department of defense that they technically failed. they say they expected to fail. why? guest: this is something the d.o.d. has been working on for more than a decade, trying to get ready for an audit. believe it or not, this is progress that they failed because that means they got through the process of doing the audit in order to find all of the deficiencies. now, as expected, i think i was on the show in march talking about how they will almost certainly fail the audit. now, they have a list of corrective actions they need to take. they will go back and clean up the accounting processes and inventories and have a go at it again next year. host: as i understand it, all other federal agencies are subject to audits. why has it taken so long for the pentagon?

guest: because the pentagon is a massive organization in the federal government. $716 billion a year flows through the pentagon. that is more than any other government agency. it employs more people than any other part of government. it has more property around the world. it has more than $1 trillion of real property, assets, in buildings and land around the world. it was not built on the accounting systems -- the deity accounting systems -- the d.o.d. accounting systems were not built to meet auditing systems. they have had to retrofit with modern-day accounting systems. host: how did they do this? how many people were needed to conduct the audit? how many sites did they visit to do this? guest: hundreds of people. we don't have the full list of where they went to visit. in a standard audit, you don't check every line item. you just spot check.

we know it cost over $900 million to do the audit and work with the corrective activities just in fiscal year 2018. over $9 million. that will continue in 2019, 2020, and going forward. of $1l be spending short billion a year trying to get the d.o.d. up to the standards where it can pass an audit. as we go through the process, inviting your phone calls. todd harrison with us until the top of the hour. republicans, independents. a special line for active and retired military. we would especially like to hear from you this morning. as folks are calling in, the good, the bad, the ugly. what was the good found? guest: i think the good is they made it far enough through the process that they could complete

an audit. i think that is the biggest win out of this for the pentagon. there were a number of items they found. we don't have all the details yet where they need to take corrective action. there is still a lot of work to be done. d.o.d.re pockets within i believe the national carson's office which is highly , so weied what they do don't know the details of what they do, but they are able to pass a clean audit. host: this cost $900 million to do. are we reaping rewards in terms of money saved down the road? guest: there are pockets where -- like the defense logistics agency, they were overestimating what things were going to cost. when they did the audit, they realized they could lower sim internal cost estimates so they

don't have to charge much overhead to other agencies. the purpose of an audit is not to generate cost savings. the purposes accountability. no one should expect the audit itself is going to save a lot of money. they feel we say this audit, what his failure and what does it take to get to passing? failing is when you do not meet the general accounting standards for passing an audit. you are not able to show possibility from appropriation to win it is spent at the lowest level and be able to track how the money was spent over time at the most detailed level. if you cannot do that, you will not pass an audit. host: how long did this take? guest: they spent a year working on it. host: is the next one want to take as long? guest: i believe it will. host: the next one coming amid a new budgeting season. here is a story from the "wall

street journal" about it. president trump has proposed by percent cuts for agency budgets. this came as the d.o.d. was preparing its budget for next year. i understand $733 billion was the estimated budget of the d.o.d. before the cut. including that cut, they would have to find $33 billion worth of savings. how will the pentagon do that? will they do that? guest: it remains to be seen. all we are talking about is what the trump administration will request for the budget for 2020. will it be $733 or will they have to cut it back to $700? ultimately, congress will decide . you will not cut $33 billion by finding savings. you will have to reduce the size of the force or cut back on training, maintenance, or weapons procurement.

host: if they have to go to the $700 billion number, what do they go to? guest: i think they spread across all of these. i think the cuts will is proportionally fall on modernization programs. host: which ones in particular? guest: i imagine they will buyad the pain around and fewer fighter jets, maybe delay the start of programs or stretch out the schedule. this administration has made it a priority to rebuild readiness, so i don't think they want to cut back on training. part of readiness is maintenance of equipment. i think they will not do that much to cut back on maintenance if they can avoid it. the administration has proposed growing the size of the military so i don't think they will cut back on the size of the force.

i expect modernization programs to take the brunt of the reduction. this is far from a than deal -- done deal. it is not clear that is what the administration will request or what congress will appropriate. host: todd harrison is our guest today to talk about the pentagon failing the audit. john is first on the line for retired military, from louisiana, republican, go ahead. caller: i was a tactical flying squadron commander here at barksdale air force base in the late 1980's. we had an audit one-time. the audit was about travel. 155 people in the military that are aircrew members travel a lot. they said here is how much money was spent. we want you to account for it.

the paperwork is monumental. we fill out a travel voucher. when it comes back, that reconciles it. but there is no requirement for anybody to keep these things. we did not keep them in our squadron. somewere kept at godforsaken vault in washington. yet i was supposed to come up with the answer of where did all the money go. i happened to be one of those people that keeps those things so i brought out the stack of things and handed them to the auditor. after about two days, he came back and said we can't do this. this is the auditor, individual sent to do the audit on a small slice of the squadron, me, realized in three days what he was trying to do was impossible. so i cannot imagine how they ,ould apply these techniques these auditing techniques, it

was very enlightening for me because i did not understand what an auditor did in the first place. it was mind-boggling. how they can do that, no wonder they flunked that. i would be interested to take a poll of every one of those auditors. host: thanks for sharing your story. guest: that highlights the difficulty of auditing organization like the pentagon. modern systems that businesses use, you keep a lot of records electronically so it is easier to sort through them and find what you are looking for. keep in mind these basic auditing standards like being able to go down and verify where all the travel money was spent, was it spent appropriately, that is what

businesses do all the time. if they can pass audits like this, d.o.d. should be able to pass an audit. they say graftr, is an integral part of the system and an audit lets them spend more money. did they find fraud and abuse in the system? guest: i am not aware of any fraud the audit uncovered. that is not to say there is not. scandals come out from time to time for fraud, waste, and abuse. that is a crime. it is investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. scandals plenty of like the one in the navy where there was a contractor known as fat leonard who was basically bribing senior officials in the navy to steer business to his company.

that was found. people have gone to jail, including fat leonard himself, and a lot of people have been fired from the military because of it. those kinds of investigations will continue. it is possible and audit will find something like that and that becomes a criminal case. the purpose of the audit is the traceability to make sure money is being spent how it is supposed to be spent. host: who is in charge of the audit? the joint chiefs? guest: i believe this is headed by the d.o.d. chief management officer. i believe that position is now changing out so i am not sure who the head is now. host: michigan, mark is an independent. good morning. hoping theas government would take whatever amount of money the government gives to defend the nation, divide that by five, whatever that base pay is, plus 10%, plus

a cost-of-living increase, the theref the institutions, would be four of them, they would divide, they would get 1/5 more than they normally get. they could rotate this. then they can work with the budget that would set a budget tone towards how much money they are trying not to spend or save. host: so i am clear on your math, you want to move some of the pentagon's budgeted money to nonmilitary spending, the other agencies, is that correct? caller: no. the concept is you have five institutions. muchivide five into how money the system is offering the institution. you divide that by five. you get a number.

one of the institutions, the get base pay plus 10%. the rest of the institutions would divide whatever is left over, they would get more than they would normally have gotten. host: i think we got your point, mark. guest: if you look at the d.o.d. budget today, about one third is used for military compensation related costs. about one third is used for operations and maintenance, for training and the upkeep of equipment. another third is used for weapons, for research and development and procurement of weapons systems and other support systems. that is kind of a basic breakdown of it. in terms of dividing it between the military services. there are five services today. but the coast guard does not fall under duty for the budget. it falls -- under the d.o.d. for the budget. it falls under homeland security. the money is not evenly divided.

the navy gets a little more. in recent years has gotten more money because deployments in iraq and afghanistan have fallen on the army. the marine corps is part of the department of the navy budget. there is part of it specifically for the marine corps activities. budget, a large part of that budget is classified pass through money so it does not state in the air force -- stay in the air force. it goes to other classified activities. for: your latest briefing csis is about the cost of the space force. what are the estimates? guest: i looked at a bottom-up estimate of if you create a space force what it will involve. the vast majority of the funding would be transferred out of already existing today

in other services' budgets. most will come from the air force because the air force does most of the space activities today. you would move all of that into a new budget. that is neutral. it does not add overall to the budget. but then you have to add a new headquarters with staff on top for a new service and create a new secretariat staff as well. my estimates were, depending on how large you built the space force, the additional force -- cost is going to be anywhere from $330 million to $550 million. interestingly, that is less than the cost of the audit. host: if you want to read more on the cost of the space force, csis.org. froms waiting on the phone kentucky on the line for retired military. caller: i am retired united

states coast guard. you alluded to the fact we are under the department of homeland security. in regards to the spending of money for budgets, we operate similar to d.o.d. end of fiscalthe years, units were pretty good about spending their money and having accountability for it. but there was a mentality that you had to spend everything you got or you would not get additional money next year or the same amount of funding next year. what we see things, called fallout, and that was money from higher commands thatrsed to lower commands more or less just needed to be spent. they did not care what it was spent on. it just needed to be spent so they didn't have any money left

over at the end of the year. i think they need to look at this mentality. it should not be a bad thing to have money left over at the end of the year. there's nothing wrong with giving it back. guest: you are exactly right. i have observed that myself when i was in the military. that is something congress has been working on quite a bit. the reason this happens is because the way congress appropriates money, it puts time limits on how long you have to spend it. at the end of each year, d.o.d. has money expiring. if it does not use that money, congress will take note. they will say you asked for too you're probably asking for too much this year so we will give you less. the incentive is to spend money before the end of the fiscal year. congress has started cracking down on this because they know there could be unwise spending

to get the money out the door. now congress has put in rules that say you cannot just wait until the end of the year and suddenly spend a huge chunk of your budget. they have milestones. when you get to the end of the third quarter of the fiscal year, you have to have spent 75% or 80% of the money depending on the rules for that year. congress is watching carefully. they are concerned about this. host: you say you saw examples in your time in military. what are some examples? guest: we called it fallout money, a general term. the fiscal year ends on september 30. at the beginning of september, they would say do you need new furniture or computers? let's order some stuff. we got the money now so let's use it because you may not have it next year. you would try to put in orders of things in september. a lot of the contractors know this, so they will be around

saying here is my catalog. here is stuff you can buy. we are on the gsa schedule. host: where did you serve and when did you get out? guest: i was in the air force reserves and got out in 2003. host: the line for active military, josh, north carolina, go ahead. caller: i heard you talk about cutting back on the military. cutting back on personnel. i believe what bleeds d.o.d. the most is private contractors paid to be deployed. i have talked to gentlemen and have heard from them that a mechanic would be paid $200,000 a year. they would get paid three times what i would in the military. , see a lot of that overspending on that. even with medical supplies, i

could buy something that cost $35,000 but a private hospital would only pay $17,000. we are fighting an unfair battle when it comes to spending and complying and not being able to do the fiscal things we are supposed to do responsibly because we have our hands tied behind our backs. guest: great point. contractors the caller was referencing, we generally call these contingency contractors. for a rock and afghanistan, for -- for every -- for iraq and afghanistan, for every troop deployed we generally had another contractor to support them. they are well paid, highly skilled. they are doing jobs normally done by someone in the military but we did not have the forces to support all of that. very few of them did security-related jobs where they had guns. some did. that made a lot of news with blackwater and some scandals in

the 2000's. but the vast majority of these contingency contractors were used for things like maintenance, base upkeep, laundry, food service, things like that. in the past when we had the draft, we would have had draft ees to take these jobs. many contingency contractors are not highly paid. they are third-party nationals. they might come from the philippines or random other places around the world. host: how many of those do we employ on a yearly basis? how does it compare to active duty numbers? guest: at the peak of iraq and afghanistan, we had a little over 200,000 of these contractors. that has been drastically scaled back. now i think it is north of 10,000 contingency contractors.

we are only talking about the ones that get deployed overseas due to contingency operations. there are many other contractors used in the united states for what we call service support contractors. those number in the range of around 800 two one million. we don't keep an exact number. we say we don't buy them by the head, we buy them by the pound. we contract for services. sendany people the company is not necessarily in the contract so we don't have a good headcount. host: jerry, good morning. caller: good morning. these insane wars and politiciansthat our and the defense industry like to costlyin are extremely in more ways than one.

show howudit able to the money is spent? in afghanistan, how is it spent? is it accounted for? do they pull up with planeloads of money that is handed out? is it off-limits? can you even look at it? i would like to know how much money we spend over there. it does not seem like we will ever get out of that place as long as there is money made we will keep going there. i wish the audit which show about how the money is spent and if we could stop this insanity over there. guest: the audit will look at everything. nothing is off limits in the audit. even classified spending, auditors with the right clearances are able to perform the analysis on those parts of

the budget. afghanistan, congress created a special inspector general to look at afghanistan reconstruction efforts. if you want more detail about special, look up some inspector general reports about afghanistan. they have found evidence of improper spending and overspending in afghanistan. they have publicized it and there have been corrective actions taken because of it. that is independent of the audit. that is the inspector general investigations over the years. nita last week, we had crawford of brown university to talk about the cost of wars since 9/11. the estimate they have come up with is $5.9 trillion. they include not just overseas contingency operations money but also medical and disability care for post-9/11 veterans, future

spending on medicare, homeland security spending, and the cost of borrowing. i wonder what your thoughts are on the $5.9 trillion number. guest: you have to keep in mind that includes future spending. they are looking at what we will have to spend in the future for veterans benefits because of injuries and activities during these wars. is $1 trillion. guest: there's a lot of uncertainty in that. but i think it is sobering to look at how much we have spent. if you just look at the direct spending on iraq and afghanistan, it is well over $1 trillion we have spent directly on those conflicts. point, we also are to consider the nonfinancial costs. the opportunity costs. as our military has been focused for almost two decades now on these conflicts in iraq and

afghanistan, that has shifted priority away from other threats to national security. we have burned up the readiness of our forces. we have burned up a lot of our equipment. that is not accounted for in the financial costs. that is just opportunity cost. host: about five minutes left with todd harrison. if you want to get your phone call in, now would be a good time to do it. steve is on the line for retired military from gaithersburg. caller: i would like to ask your guest if we have an indication of the aftermath of the sequester. was there holiday spending to do some catch up? guest: if you look at the d.o.d. budget after the budget control , starting in 2013, the

budget dropped significantly. it continued to decline until 2015. then congress has passed budget deals each year that have increased the level of the budget caps, so the budget has started coming back up. in february of this year, congress passed a huge increase in the budget caps for fiscal years 18 and 19. that is what bumped the budget up to where it is today, $716 billion for total national defense. we have seen the budget rebound significantly since the low point in 2015. did that drive some poor decision-making in the department? it surely did in 2013 because they had to make so many cuts at the last minute. and there was a sequester triggered that year which is an automatic across-the-board cut, so you have to cut every account by a certain percentage.

that wreaks havoc on the budget, so it forces a lot of bad decisions like furloughing employees. civilian employees were sent home without pay for six days over the summer of 2013. we had things like the government shutdown that happened. all of these things drive bad decision-making and inefficiency into the system. i have not seen a good accounting of how much that cost us. again, it is more of an opportunity cost. it meant we were spending lots and leadership in d.o.d. was spending time in budget turmoil trying to fix problems rather than thinking strategically and planning for long-term security of the nation. host: las vegas, independent, go ahead. caller: are we employing mercenaries anywhere? are they part of this budget? guest: it depends on how you define a mercenary.

if you mean a contractor that provides security services, then yes. it is not just d.o.d. the state department at times hires contractors to perform security services. i don't think most people would consider them to be mercenaries, per se. but argument could be made for that. host: albert, miami, independent. good morning. caller: great show, great guest. i have a question for mr. harrison. i could have sworn a study came out not long ago that said up to 25% of the d.o.d. budget could not be accounted for. is that the ballpark this audit revealed? i had another point about the higher-ups and generals, the upper echelon in the military, they don't have much incentives to cut the budget.

when they retire, they start working for raytheon and boeing and everyone else. that is the two points i wanted to make. guest: the audit did not come out with a figure that 25% of the budget is unaccountable. there was a prior study by the defense business board, a quasi-independent board made up of business professionals. they performed a study that looked at how much of the pentagon's budget is spent on overhead functions and how much that could be reduced. i believe they found about 25% of the budget was spent on overhead functions. of that, they said you could probably reduce that spending by about 5%. you multiply that out and that is about $125 billion in potential savings over five years. the caveat is they were applying a blanket savings, we think you

could probably cut 5%. they did not identify specific things to cut. that is where it becomes difficult, to try to root out the waste at the detailed level. host: only a minute left. democrats take over the house in january. the ranking member of the armed services committee is expected to be the new chairman of the committee. what will you be watching for? guest: i think there will be a new level of scrutiny of defense activities and programs. i think soon-to-be chairman smith has made it clear there will be much more scrutiny of modernization programs, missile defense programs. during his reelection campaign, he cannot opposed to the space force on the grounds of it was too expensive. so i think we will see increased scrutiny of that proposal in congress as well. host: plenty more to talk about down the road.

todd harrison is the defense at the centerr for strategic studies. we will be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable companies. today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme

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