we used to deal with widgets, now we deal in digits. thing, one different is aould touch, the other bunch of zeros and ones. we will be able to answer that clearly. anti-competitive to the point where antitrust laws take effect. we need to take a look at our antitrust laws to make sure they needsapted to median's -- -- meet the needs of this new world. >> this morning, a roundtable on the weekend for congress and the white house. on, opportunity america's

bruce reed discusses a report on the working class. we take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. is next. ♪ host: the flag at the u.s. capitol at half-staff to remember and memorialize george h dubya bush -- george h. w. bush. his body will lie is state until wednesday pre-political putting -- reporting that melania trump will attend the funeral at the national cathedral. happy hanukkah for those who are celebrating. your thoughts on the trump administration's handling of international trade. a newly side trade deal with trade deal-- signed

with mexico and canada. also announcing a short-term pause on new tariffs against china. it comes to the trump's administration -- trump administration's handling of trade. if you support with the white house is doing, 202-748-8000 is the number to call and tell us why. if you oppose, it is 202-748-8001. you can post on our twitter feed @cspanwj. about 60 people posting already on facebook.com/cspan. business insider highlights some of the details of the newly signed trade deal done at the g20 for it at some of those details include this, there is a review clause saying the u.s. mca includes an expiration date -- there is a close for dispute settlement saying nafta's

willte settlement system remain the same, a key win for the canadians. investors think this system, which allowed investors to bring grievances against number governments will be phased out for the u.s. and canada while energy will be able to give -- bring cases against mexico. the u.s. will be able to export ..6% of canada's dairy market when it comes to autos, members must produce 75% of the car for it to pass through duty-free up to -- 40% of each car must be produced by workers making $16 an hour in order to avoid war duties placed on the cars -- more duties placed on the cars. g20,eal took place at the the president participating in a signing ceremony along with mexico's outgoing president and

canadian prime minister justin trudeau. the president made comments about the signing of the deal and what he thinks it does for the united states. [video clip] >> this is a model agreement that changes the trade landscape forever and this is an agreement that, first and foremost, benefits working people, something of great importance to all three of us here today. say, pena i must nieto, and prime minister trudeau, we'd worked hard on this agreement, it has been long and hard. s andve taken a lot of barb a little abuse. it is great for all of our countries. thank you for your partnership throughout this process. this agreement will ensure a future of prosperity and innovation for mexico, canada, and the united dates.

it has been so well reviewed. i don't expect to have much of a problem. to ensure the implementation of our agreement. host: those are some of the president's comments about this newly signed deal. you can make comments on that and what you think about the passage of this deal and the administration's handling of trade policy. 202-748-8000 if you support the president and the administration's approach to trade. 202-748-8001 if you oppose those approaches pray to offer our facebook page, several comments already. this is joe saying if the deal like that we are no longer so far ahead that we can let other countries receive handouts for an nothing. jason saying i support using it as a bargaining tool with china to opening their markets and stop the trade imbalance.

the editors of the wall street journal take a look at the signing of this deal and concerns they express pre-a nafta suicide note is how they highlight it, saying they highlight the comments of the president saying congress will have a choice of the usmca or pre-nafta, which worked well, adding by pre-nafta if he means the continental trade rules, that would mean the reposition of tariffs and restraint on trade. it would be an economic shock that could well send the economy into recession. it amounts to mr. trump holding a gun to his own reelection chances and daring nancy pelosi .o let him pull the trigger presents democrats with an ultimatum of voting for new nafta or confronting the danger of terminating the current one. that is and how democrats are likely to see it.

if nafta blows up and the economy suffers, the president always gets most of the blame. the media will echo the democratic view. that is some of the points made by the wall street journal editors about the passage of this new deal. canada and mexico doing the same with their own bodies of government. john in washington starts us out this morning. john who opposes the administration's response. go ahead. caller: my company imports one million tons of steel slab for oregon steel. duty coming in. because oregon steel owns cameras and diamond steel in canada, they rolled the steel here and send it to canada. canada hits 25% going in and processes some more

and sends it back into the united states for auto parts or wire ever and they get 25% again. tariffs.paying 25% , what a worse time to have to pay 75% terrorists on steel -- tariffs on steel and it was said in the news gm lost $100 billion a year due to tariffs and that is part of the layoffs. host: that is john in washington state. we will hear from james in pittsburgh. caller: hi, pedro. , c-span3 toand hi thank you for taking my call. to say.really know what i am sorry i called because i don't know what to say and thank you for taking my call. host: when it comes to approaches of trade, what do you

think is the best approach? caller: open. andhave to have supply demand for something. we have steel, what do we need steel for other than building weapons? we need to explore on solar power. i don't know, i am kind of lost with the russia thing. host: carol in oregon, you are next. hung up. if you want to make comments on trade issues, particularly this administration's handling of trade, 202-748-8000 if you support it. 202-748-8001 if you oppose it. one of the people showing concerns about the trade deal as it was currently signed is nancy pelosi, set to become the house speaker when democrats take control of the house in january.

she made comments about the deals on friday. here are some of her concerns. [video clip] >> whatever they are calling it now -- agreement formerly known as prince -- formerly known as nafta is a work in progress. we are admiring of the trade representative and the intensity it makes and make sure we are aware of what is in it. what is not in it is not -- is enough enforcement reassurances providing workers -- provisions made to workers and the environment. there has not been a law passed in mexico in terms of wages and working conditions. when all of that happens, people make a judgment about whether they will be supporting it. this is not something we have a

piece of paper where we can say yes or no, but open to that. host: but year from david in texas. caller: good morning. i am very supportive of president trump's effort. we had 70,000 factories go somewhere. forave had flat wages middle-class and certainly below middle-class americans for 20 years, 30 years for some reasons, which is a combination of illegal immigration and bad trade deals. he is the first president to push back against this as far as i can tell, forever. he is getting flack from every side, which is to be expected. and treat -- entrenched, elitist, globalist. host: what he did with mexico and canada -- canada and what he did with china, what do you think are the successes of those deals? caller: for one thing, he is

getting started. there were a lot of things about nafta which needed to be renegotiated or even when he was promising on the campaign trail that he would renegotiate, they said it would be impossible. i am not saying it could not have been a better deal, but i think it was the best deal possible in the amount of time it was negotiated. he is negotiating these things on the fly as we move forward, kind of like korea, i don't mean to jump another direction, but just on the negotiation's, you don't have a lot of time to negotiate. in some cases, these things took years and years. he is turning them around in months hurried we have got the new deal with south koreans and the japanese. there are things improving in all directions and a lot of that has to do with the fact people believe him when he says he is going to impose tariffs, going to level the playing field and make things fair.

it is absurd to think china should be considered a third world country, which it is via the debbie too rules. -- via the wto rules. journale wall street highlights the current back and forth between united states and china over trade issues after an announcement of brief postponement of tariffs on that country. bob davis saying the issues on the table include forced technology transfers by companies doing business in china, intellectual property production. non-tariff barriers that impede access to chinese market and the topic of cyber espionage. the jump page highlights the cease-fire leaves american tariffs on place on $200 billion in chinese goods and removes mr. trump's threat to increase tariffs on $200 billion in goods in january from 25% to 10% and

impose -- the agreement sets a march 1 deadline for a trade deal expected to be brokered by steve mnuchin and robert lighthizer. the agreement hence the initial 25% tariffs placed on 50 billion last summer could become permanent if not in place for a protracted period. we will hear next in illinois from sally. caller: good morning. i wanted to let everybody know sittingl the soybeans around in the fields all over the midwest that have not been harvested. soybeans that have been harvested are sitting in warehouses and silos. they will be rotting pretty soon. that is a big loss. barge companies aren't moving them. trains aren't moving them. heardew nafta is -- i somebody on one of the panels on some show on c-span say it

wasn't nafta to point o, it was 002.a 1.0 he made a couple of changes and slapped a new name on it and everybody thinks he made a great accomplishment and the last thing i want to talk about is tpp. getting out of that gave china major advantages. all over asia, argentina, they just signed a trade pact with argentina. argentina was part of the tpp that the united states was in. it is a big loss for the united states. i think the reason trump was elected to do as much damage as he could in as many places. it is going to take a long time to recover. there is a lot of farmers around here declaring bankruptcy. host: let's hear from andy in new york. go ahead. caller: hello. thank you for taking my call.

i totally support president trump for his global trade. he has done a lot of things. -- big benefits from the saudi's. like in the yemen issues -- he can earn lots of money -- in burbank, california. go ahead. caller: i am in total support of what front is doing -- trump is doing. i give him the most credit of any president we ever had that took the bull by the hand and is dealing with other countries and let them know we will not take this anymore. host: what about the deals do you support? caller: you name it. what shouldn't we support? he has been -- the main support of our country since he has been

elected and he is not given the credit by the american people or by politicians or the media that he should be getting. host: two these it deals, give me a specific. one of the specifics of the deals. heler: i love the fact that is working for the farmers. i love the fact that he is working for the military. i love the fact that he is working for our police. i love the fact that he is working for manufacturing in this country. i love the fact that he is giving people a second chance at getting trade. if they are not qualified for college, that at least they have some kind of way of getting themselves ahead and out of the rut they are in with the welfare and food stamps. host: doing robertson off facebook this morning says he supports the president, putting legal u.s. citizens first in trade policies, adding it is

long overdue. this is jan saying you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. tradeays the president's plan is my way or the highway. trade should be both parties to come out on top. if we are "winning with every deal -- if we are "winning," with every deal is not worth doing to him. if you want to add your thoughts, our twitter feed is @cspanwj. on our facebook page it is facebook.com/cspan. if you say you are a supporter when it comes to president trump's trade issues, 202-748-8000. if you oppose it, 202-748-8001. a website has a post this morning by caitlin owens taking a look at a member of congress and his concerns about the president's trade approach. this is cap crassly -- this is chuck grassley.

the incoming senate finance chairman chuck grassley told us he will make it harder for the president to propose new tariffs. he said he would take a favorable view of legislation limiting the power to impose tariffs to protect national .ecurity maybe the definition of national security or the conditions under which national security could be used is a little wide. in the why it matters section, saying the frankness about supporting this effort -- the concept of constraining 232 power isn't new. -- blicans block the president from putting tariffs on auto imports. the president has used section .32 to tax steel and aluminum if you want to read more on that article, you can find it at

their website. in tennessee, you are next, go ahead. caller: i would like to say i -- doing a wonderful job you read in the white house, he is making america rich again. brought a lot of jobs back from other countries. when ross perot said you hear the sound of jobs leaving america, i was around when all of that was going on and i can remember a lot of our jobs leaving michigan and different places and we are seeing them come back. caller: why -- host: why do you specifically think that is tied to trade? nafta tradeuse the deal is one of the worst deals america ever made in history and i think president trump is trying to write some of the wrongs happening in the white last in washington for the

three decades in my lifetime. i have seen a lot of things turn around for the better since we have had president trump and he is doing a wonderful job for this country keeping america first and making america great again. host: we will hear from mike, go ahead, you are on. good morning. caller: good morning, pedro. host: you are on, go ahead. caller: i am in support of trump . i did not want either one of them. hillary would have been the worst choice and we probably would have been in the gutter by now. it amazes me nancy pelosi and the government is taking time to read these bills. when they submit a bill, they don't even bother reading them. let's take a look at biden. biden junior made a billion-dollar deal with china. imagine what this will upset

their problems. host: let's bring it to the deals in question. what is it about the deals either what he has done on china or mexico, what do you support about that? caller: the tariffs between the countries are always so odd. we always get stuck in the red and the other guys manage to pull themselves out of a hole three like the guy from tennessee who spoke, everything was gone. if we don't start looking at these deals and making sure there is no conflict of interest, which is always a conflict of interest in every bill, that is how somebody can make $170 billion a year. that building behind you, we need to clean that house. host: we will go to gym in fort lauderdale. go ahead. caller: one of the ladies who called in earlier pretty much said it all about opposition to these trade deals.

she said whatever trump does, i am against it. there really isn't a lot of thinking going on with the democrat and the democrat party, they are just against donald trump. my question is this. if pretty please worked, how did all the pretty pleasing we are doing end up with a $600 billion trade deficit with china and wiping out industries like textiles? televisioncturing, -- host: how do you think this approach changes that? caller: he is forcing -- he is saying, look, we are going to win because we have the economic power to win. if you want to continue these policies that devastate industries in the united states, you are going to get devastated yourself.

into a room and somebody is about ready to push things up,at blows you don't say, if you don't mind, do -- can i comment on what you are about to do? this pretty please stuff has been a disaster and it is hard for people to put together all the economic things that make up economic stress. i understand that. it just take for instance north korea. north korea was threatening to send an icbm to hawaii. and donald trump has got them denuclearizing. host: only because it is a little far afield of what we are having a discussion on this morning. columbus, ohio, tim. hello, go ahead. caller: any time you have improvements is always a great thing. i just think you have a lot of

government in america. in every country, i think you have a lot of government and i think that needs to be put back. oft: when you say this idea improving, do you apply that to these trade deals? caller: any time you can improve america, that is a good thing. that is one thing. improvements have to be everything. host: do you think these trade deals are improving or not? caller: i think if you can make them so that they are improving america, yes, it is a good thing. in studies i believe so you can play off of them and work off of those things. host: let's hear what the president had to say about the signing of this deal particularly as it dealt with

the auto industry. [video clip] >> our nations agreed to innovate new measures to ensure fair competition and promote high wages and higher wages for u.s. and north american auto workers. the auto workers are tremendous beneficiaries. under the usmca, 75% of automobile content must be manufactured in north america and 40% to 45% of automobile content must be manufactured by north american high wage labor to gain preferential access to our markets. this will help stop auto jobs from going overseas and bring back auto jobs that have already left, many jobs already planning to come back. many companies are coming back and we are very excited about that. host: next up, catherine from georgia. caller: hello, thank you for taking my call. host: you are on, go ahead.

caller: i definitely support what president trump is doing. i have been told all my life that if we keep sending things to other countries and now we are bringing it back. i truly believe what he says and it will happen. we are going to get more jobs. host: from joe in south carolina, good morning, go ahead. caller: i support trump. being originally from new york -- the reason why is because he disrupted some of placeaos democrats put in -- like for example the farmers were paid more money to not farm. me. did not make sense to just some of the idiotic things i remember.

i am of an age i remember democrats -- personal gain or family gain that did not help the american people. even though i don't like how he is doing it, i think it can be good and it puts democrats on notice that you need to get stuff together. i would never go back and vote democratic. i don't like republicans in many ways as far as when they come to their race relationship. when it comes to business with the younger people now, being that i am no longer in that market, the business market due to health. i hope of the younger people start and be forced to learn some of the politics. go ahead, trump, disrupt it. my beloved american people, especially my beloved african

people. i hope you start being conscientious. host: that is joe in south carolina. one of the democrats showing concern about these trade deals, particularly the u.s. cma -- thea, sherrod brown was on cnn show yesterday and asked about the position he will take when it is time for him and other democrats to take a look at this deal. [video clip] >> the work is not done yet. i understand the president said it is final. the president needs to talk to congress and we can go back to the table with the mexicans and canadians and do stronger labor. mexico has an even passed the promised strengthening of labor standards and laws it said it would do. there is now a new mexican president who is more pro-worker than the outgoing president that signed usmca. i am help -- hopeful with the

house of representatives where it is -- where it is with the labor movement -- you don't just signed this away because this doesn't live up to the promise the president said it would be a renegotiated nafta helping workers and stopping outsourcing because it doesn't do that yet read i am hopeful it will and i have been talking to the trade rep for months and months on strengthening the labor enforcement. for the first half-hour of the program, we are getting your thoughts on the president's and the administration's approach to trade. also news coming out with it comes to china and the future of tariffs against that country. if you want to talk about those specifics or the larger aspects of the president's trade approach, it is 202-748-8000 if you support that approach. 202-748-8001 if you oppose it. on our facebook page, you can post at facebook.com/cspan and

our twitter feed is available @cspanwj. from indiana, don is next. good morning. caller: good morning. just a couple of things. i have been a steel worker for about 40 years and everything started going downhill when reagan got in back in the early 1980's. .e had 26,000 steelworkers by the time he got done, we had 5000. when you start these trade wars, nobody wins. canada on the usw trade worker, they are our partners. i don't see anything good that happened with nafta. now nafta has changed and i think the only thing that changed was the milk farmers in gotda. screwed over -- screwed over. all these jobs are coming back to the united states, thank you, president trump.

i did not hear any companies named he was talking about. host: part of the deal now 75% of a car has to be -- for it to pass through the country duty-free -- members have to produce 75% of that. what do you think about those requirements? caller: the automobile industry was always hard nose against steelworkers anyway. we are always working in the red and when we finally started getting some profit from them, they increased. either way, it will increase. just gots and them, we done negotiating our contract and we haven't had a raise in i don't know how long. we finally got a raise. the other companies coming back to the united states, i don't see it happening. there was an article yesterday or the day before that talked about the deficit -- the trade

deficit between the united states and china. could you 1.5% per to find that out and let these people understand the tariffs are not working? that is when they will start backing up. host: that is don in indiana. one of the other details of the agreement with canada and mexico comes -- when it comes to intellectual property saying the deal will increase the copyright period in canada to 70 years after the creator's desk, ringing -- a bringing the country in line with the united states. greg in canada in 29 palm. you are next to this morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. deal.ort trump's trade even though i am a democrat from maxine waters' district, one

thing about that deal is it will increase the wages of americans and at the same time, increase the wages of mexicans. the illegal immigration orulation will stop them slow their flow from coming over here and the democrats had never done anything about those illegal immigrants and our communities are being flood and overrun and maxine waters, she has never brought up the fact that the illegals are taking over her community. i support trump, but i don't like him. ox takes a look at the deals and what it does for low skilled workers in the united states and mexico saying free-trade had a small positive impact on all three economies breed all the jobs nafta created and often downplay all the jobs it wiped out. when nafta was enacted, labor

were -- labor unions worried allowing goods across the border untaxed would give u.s. manufacturers too much incentive .o move factories to mexico proponents pushed back, saying boosting trade would raise wages for low skilled mexican workers, making it less attractive for companies to move factories to mexico. that definitely did not happen. farms wasn from u.s. responsible for putting more than a million farmworkers out of work and the unemployment rate is higher today than it was back then. wages for workers in mexico have hardly budge and they cite a center for economic policy research. you can go to the website if you want to read and see that chart. bonnie in maryland. hello. caller: trump keeps talking about these tariffs, but he wants a hotel in russia. how many patents have him and

his daughter secured in china alone this year? specifically to these deals, what do you think about them? caller: not one thing that trump's family produces is made in america. tariffs affecting him? it is affecting everyone else. it is sad. he reads a piece of paper and does a photo op. he has no idea what is going on. int: let's hear from carl chicago, illinois. caller: how are you doing, pedro? host: fine, thanks. caller: i am opposed to this deal. -- general public only has really has no idea what these agreements are about. they are not as simple as trump likes to state them.

we could make like a comic book and it is that simple. they are not simple. i see you have a reporter on it now where they are trying to break it down. the nafta agreement is not that much dissimilar from this agreement. claims we got rid of nafta and this is a new agreement. that is nothing but a big lie. host: what are the differences? caller: the differences are subtle. i tried to watch the news and i have only been getting little bits. i had seen some of what was there and there were supposed to -- they haverences autos ande wages and stuff for union workers and

forcing to unionize. republicans are talking about making mexico unionize their workforce -- that doesn't make any sense to me. that that is chicago in -- is a caller in chicago. if you want to call and comment on policies and the larger aspects of how the administration handles trade, you can continue to do so. a few bits of news about the funeral and the activities in washington when it comes to george h. w. bush, his body will arrive in washington and go to the u.s. capitol at 5:00 today. there will be an arrival ceremony at that time. about 7:30 this evening, a public lying in state will continue until wednesday until 10:00 in the morning when there will be a departure ceremony at

the u.s. capitol. when it comes to other activities and specifically funeral services, at 11:00 on wednesday, there will be a service at the national cathedral and another one when his body is flown to houston at saint martin's church at 11:00 andern standard time thursday at 5:15 in the afternoon, a burial will plate -- take lace. -- take place. dan quayle writes about george bush in the pages of the wall street journal. be prepared to be loyal. he gave the job his best and expected people to notice and always did what he thought was right. he could have paid more attention to his speeches and his speeches reveal a lovely and

insightful writer. president the vice dan quayle. it was the former secretary of defense for george h. w. bush, dick cheney on the shows yesterday, talking about the kind of boss the former president was buried [video clip] >> when it was time to put the -- what kind of boss the former president was. [video clip] >> when it was time to put the budget together -- everybody else got what was left -- we needed it. it was wartime, too. the other thing that was noticeable -- i had 4 million people working for me. 2 million active-duty and one million reservists and active civilians. at one point, i had to relieve one of the members of the joint chiefs. some things that weren't

ethically bad, but just totally off course from the direction i wanted to go in. do whatever you need to do and i will back you. his't ask why, just gave me wholehearted support and endorsement and left me to run the show. there is no better way to operate for a boss in tough circumstances. an assistant for president trump highlights the fact with a picture off a twitter feed that the portrait of president george h. w. bush is draped with black cloth at the white house. the capital at half staff. a national day of mourning declared for this wednesday. stick close to c-span for coverage of that. we will go to bed in california -- ed in california. caller: i have to talk really

fast. the only people that really benefit from tree -- free trade retirees.-ers for the all of southern california, i see -- everywhere. hire signs everywhere. when the system fails, it is usually a failure of leadership. curtis, who does the discovery channel -- host: specifically, the newly announced deal with mexico and canada, your thoughts on that. caller: i believe we should adopt the same policy china, korea, japan, has. if you don't make it here, you can't sell it here.

host: you said trade policies benefit the 1%. what kind of example would you give? caller: moving these jobs out of the country for low-wage and bring it back at a profit. make profit,ot they would never set those jobs up in the first place. host: let's go to missouri, you are next up. draft, 85 years old. when carter was in the administration, the debt was less than $1 trillion and then we get on to madeleine albright. if she moved to china and she has her own company over there to bring jobs from the u.s. to

china. ronald reagan told toyota, if you are going to sell them here, you are going to make them here and they bought property over here. the american people are one of the biggest problems we have. my daughter has never owned an american car. she is a retired teacher. that is our problem. the american people have to stand behind trump. he walked into a swamp that was overwhelming. insider trading inside the white house is unbelievable. they are making money off of this. host: let's go to william in ohio. caller: my name is william farms. i am going to be running for president. i have to admit, donald trump is an amazing president. he is a genius. he basically causes all kinds of trouble, which lets those who

thrive on trouble make a lot of money on the stock market. tradethe president's policies, do you support or oppose them? caller: i agree with toughness. i oppose his benefiting from them. host: how so? trump is a genius. he is an absolute genius. host: you said that. when you said you agree with toughness, does this apply in these cases where you have seen trade evidence with mexico and canada and china? would you say that is a tough way of approaching those three countries? caller: trump appears to oppose china, but he opposed china with halfnd then he gets a million dollar loan from china, which will not pay off. he knows he has the backing of the united states armed forces to make it so it does not have

to pay those love -- those loans. trump is a genius and he will be hard to defeat. host: allen, good morning to you. caller: good morning, c-span. when you ask people give specifics, none of them have any idea other than what trump says. he ishas no idea what talking about. are you listening to these people saying farmers are filing bankruptcy? all the -- this man has no idea what he is doing. motors, steel. ford will follow suit, chrysler will follow suit soon, you can bet on that. host: you saw the president alongside the leaders of mexico and canada on friday when this trade deal was announced and signing the document in place. during that time, we heard from canada's prime minister, justin trudeau about the signing of the

deal and what he thinks it does for his country. [video clip] the new agreement lifts risk of economic uncertainty that lingers throughout a trade negotiation process, uncertainty that would have only gotten worse and more damaging had we not reached a new nafta. when faced with this challenge, canadians came together and rolled up their sleeves. canadians from every order of government and walks of life with their country's interests tost and worked hard -- modernize an agreement that will protect jobs, strengthen the middle-class and create opportunities for businesses breed -- businesses. host: david saying they criticize the president's tax cut bill as a giveaway to the rich and now congressional democrats are eyeing their tax break that would go heavy to wealthy americans. one high priority for democrats

from northeastern states is to look at rolling back the $10,000 limit on state and local tax deductions and was included in the republican's 2017 overhaul of the federal tax system. repealing the state and local tax limit is where -- for the wealthy, the proposals could lower tax bills by tens of thousands of dollars in attacks policy center found more than 96% of tax cuts would go to the top 20% of households in terms of income. the washington times with a that story. john is next in delaware. caller: hello. how are you, sir? host: i am fine, thanks. go ahead. caller: i oppose whatever trump is doing. host: give me a specific of why you oppose these trade approaches. caller: because it is going to

cost us too much money in the long run. host: why do you think that? caller: i know that. i don't think it. it will cost us in the long run. everything trump is doing is going to cost the poor, working man. host: we will hear from linda in mississippi. go ahead. caller: yes, i oppose what he is doing because he does not know what he is doing. he doesn't read, he just signs something. he has a good feeling. i live in farm country. .hese farmers are hurting they need the crop, they cannot sell it. negotiate him -- when they file their taxes in 2019, they will see the hurt he is doing to them as well as the

country. he is not bringing jobs back. he is sending jobs overseas he and the tax scam republicans made are letting those countries make it easier for them to come over -- hello? host: that is linda in mississippi. -- writes about jim comey coming back to testify before the house in a certain fashion saying he agree to sit for voluntary fashion under creams that will -- that include that "so long as the interview proceeds as a voluntary interview." an fbi representative will be present to -- after an initial hearing on the talent on friday judge, u.s. district trevor mcfadden did not indicate he was unlikely to grant comey's

motion. comey filed suit to fight a subpoena issued by the two committees, but not to prevent of the pretext of a closed interview to pedal a distorted there did about the clintons and russia investigation. judiciary and oversight committees subpoenaed comey and loretta lynch a week ago to appear for close the door depositions to discuss the politically charged investigation into russian interference and the email practices of former secretary of state hillary clinton. comey saying he is grateful for a fair hearing from the judge, hard to protect my rights without being in contempt. i will sit in the dark, but republicans appear i am free to talk and the transcript released in 24 hours. this is the closest i can get to a public testimony. that is james comey from his

twitter feed. mike in tennessee, hello. caller: hello. thanks for allowing us to voice our opinions on c-span. i support the president. a previous caller mentioned something about the gm. hello? host: you are on, go ahead. caller: the previous caller mentioned something about gm. the steel tariff puts about 200 per car. the problem with gm is not the tariff, it is poor management. the lady makes $20 million a year and they make a car that is really not, pricewise, competitive with some of the foreign cars. anyhow, i think he is doing a -- i think some of your

previous caller's would not just banter, butbunch of listen to what the facts are. if we can make things on a level playing ground, it will make things better for america, our workers, all of us. times takesnancial a look at what was going on in france, particularly paris over the weekend when it comes to protests desired by the french president to impose a tax, emmanuel macron held an emergency meeting yesterday after antigovernment riots left paris and other french cities in shock and the president is facing his most severe political crisis. it was the third consecutive .eekend of protests the grassroots movement began as an online outcry against planned

rises in fuel taxes and evil into a wide-ranging protest against the president whose -- evolved into a wide-ranging protest against the president. this compares with 166,000 demonstrators the previous saturday and 282,000 across the country the weekend before that. in massachusetts from holyoke, this is john. caller: thank you for economic eugenics. you know that word, eugenics, you descendents of communist, fascist, zionist. host: joan in richmond, virginia. our oppose line. hello. joan from richmond? one more time for joan? we will go to tony. tony is in connecticut. tony, good morning. caller: good morning, pedro.

i oppose the trump administration's trade policies and i appreciate you asking for specifics this morning. i will start and then brought into generalities. you cited two examples from the newspaper and one of them is the wouldceutical industry restrict generics. it is the pharmaceutical industry that benefits, not the american people. i don't think pharma who produces oxycontin and made billions of dollars from it while thousand -- americans have died because of it, i don't think that is good for the american public in general. with respect to copyright laws, extending the copyright term doesn't help the american public, it helps disney. when the law changed in the united states 40 years to 70 years, it was because of

disney's copyright on mickey mouse was about to expire and they were going to receive competition from small businesses, so it extended to 70 years to protect the 1%ers, disney. host: that is tony in connecticut. in kentucky, george. hello. caller: hello, how are you -- how are you doing? host: fine, thanks. go ahead. caller: i am a farmer. is nothing, there worse than people speaking for you as a farmer. my friends and neighbors have been going bankrupt for a long time. it did not stop yesterday. we are tired of not making money on our crops. the government always subsidized and had our back, but it is not like we are making money hand over fist. with these new tariffs, if we stand our ground, we have an

opportunity to fight back and make some money. startlay down, we will buying food from mexico like there is no tomorrow and that is not the country i grew up in. host: what kind of farming do you do? caller: soybean. host: what have you seen as far as your ability to sell soybeans because of things that have been put in place week as of this new deal or tariffs put in place? caller: no hiccups. things are going to move forward. in then't made money last 20 years. it has been minimal. for people to say my friends are , these going bankrupt are not my friends calling you. don't misrepresent farmers. either you know what you are saying or you don't. the misrepresentation of people's opinions is souring what is moving forward. if it was trump or banana john or killed billie joe as

president, as long as they are standing and they have my back, i have got their back. host: you are saying you will get more access into mexico and canada? caller: i cannot answer that. i am not sure on that. what i am looking forward to is when we can make more money selling our product. all these people go to the grocery store and they are buying american foods and the packages are getting smaller, we are paying more, that is the distribution center's profiting off the backs of the farmer. host: the supreme court will take a look upon a case previously decided by brett kavanaugh. the wall street journal highlights regarding when it comes to the securities and exchange commission, it was a case involving fraud that tests how far the securities and exchange commission can hold stockbrokers accountable. brett kavanaugh considered the

case last year as an appeals court judge and wrote a spirited dissent in support of a broker afterhe sec sanctioned finding he solicited investment in a startup energy company. was aware of the technology which claimed to -- did not work and was worth anything -- wasn't worth anything paris to the sec hit the broker with a $15,000 civil penalty and bargain for life. the u.s. circuit court of appeals largely sided with the sec in a 2-1 decision. , youpeter in new jersey are next. good morning. am ir: hello, m i on -- on? i am a constitution instructor. it's not about trade, there will

be a short term tactical gain, but the long-range strategic issue here is a compromising of american sovereignty and independence. this is worse than nafta. it sets up a tribunal that will be judging american issues. it is a template -- based on the template of the trans-pacific partnership. it will be worse than nafta. i am surprised at trump. he is trying to do the right thing, but he is surrounding -- surrounded by people that are globalists and pushing their agenda. host: let's hear from john in columbus. youer: it is nice seeing back on tv and everything. booth. to tighten up our everybody is doing it around the world. everybody is doing what they are

doing. i am not no fan of this president. we need to raise up our bootstraps. well, this is my thing with donald trump. you're doing with the book for people who are sitting around that it is like i am here in ohio. about to cut gm down a place in youngstown. if youngstown loses that plant, trust me, it is going downhill. it is going to go downhill. the one thing a want to know, stop cutting people off. you are so quick to put your finger on the button to cut people appeared stop cutting people off. george is next from virginia. good morning. go ahead. well, the deal that i am that peopley is

that are criticizing the cottons. it is the people that is doing wrong. i am a retired coal miner. i have to put you on hold for a second because i want to give you a chance to turn down your television. we're getting feedback as far as the television that you are listening to. if you turn that down we will have the ability to hear from you directly without the interference. lynn in north carolina. good morning. good morning. i would just like to remind the people gm is now going to start laying off. the farmers are -- harley davis is already packed and moved away. trades, heing these just traded a name of the trade deal is all. same darn deal. men, then't care that

president of the united states, every american a million dollars. the man was elected by the russians. he is a fake president. host: that is lynn in north carolina. thoughts on the trade deal that was signed. trade approaches by this administration. this comes after the signing of the deal of mexico and canada this past weekend. and comes with new stance or some type of understanding between the president and china. leaders in china. when it comes to new types of tariffs being imposed. again coming give your comments for the next couple of minutes. if you oppose that, iowa, diane. i am with that other guy, pedro. i would like to hear the rest from the first color. you keep cutting people off. host: you are on the line.

what are you thinking about? caller: i don't know too much about it. people are calling in and you are just cutting people off. just to give you a sense, people get a chance to make a comment. they get a chance to bring their arguments as far as what we are concerned, i wish i could allow for everybody to talk as long as they want when it comes to issues that we bring to the table. that is not physically possible at this time frame that we have. they make comments and statements. we will give them that ability and move on to the next color. again, for this topic, or this hour, when it comes to trade toues, you have the ability make comments and questions that you want about the president's approach to trade. from delaware, frank. hello. caller: good morning.

the best president we have ever had. people don't understand that the things he is doing is unbelievable. i did not think ever to have a president like this. his policies are great. you have to have the tariff policy. the europeans, the chinese, the canadians, mexico, they will all take advantage of the united states. make no mistake. that is why you need a businessman, not a greasy politician. caller: what do you think has changed between the newly announced approach versus the nafta deal? caller: it is good. people complain about if he got a raise for people in mexico, they had to have that in mexico in order for the cars. they wanted to ship all these cars over here because they had cheap labor. now they will not do that because they will make good money.

the tax policy that he did, that was great because for years, the businesses were moving to other countries. now they are not going to do that anymore because we are in line with everybody else. ok.: that is frank in delaware. last call, president back from signing the trade deal. events at the g20 plus this week looming deadline. we will talk about that and other issues with two guests joining us. white house correspondent for political gabby or joins us. covers congress. the washington post to talk about the week ahead in washington. later on in the program, your money segment, an expanded segment taking a look at the working class. policies that might benefit them that might be passed by the administration and congress. along for those discussions later on. all this as washington journal continues. thanks.

♪ announcer: funeral ceremonies and services for former president george h w bush begin today on c-span. at 11:30 a.m. eastern the departure of the poor -- former president casket from houston. 3:30 p.m., the arrival and joint base andrews in maryland. 4:45, the arrival ceremony at the u.s. capitol where his remains will lie in state at the capitol rotunda. on wednesday, the live coverage of the departure ceremony from 11:00, thepitol and, east -- funeral service at the national cathedral. the state funeral for george w. bush. watch our live coverage this week on c-span in c-span.org.

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monitoring california's 385 alien dollar technology industry. -- are the googles and facebook's of the world to begin your view? >> you can look at the companies that are becoming very large and wonder if they're getting to the point where we have to take a closer look. because the internet is a different animal, we used to deal with widget. now we deal in digits. thing. very different one you can always touch. if the other is a bunch of zeros and ones. how you tackle that is, we have to get a grip on. when we do, we will be able to answer that very clearly. is anyone being anti-competitive? is anyone becoming numb ballistic to the point where our antitrust laws take effect? and do we have to take a closer

look at our antitrust laws to make sure they have adapted to meet the needs of this new internet world. watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span two. announcer: washington journal continues. host: joining us for a discussion on the weekend in or, political,by who covers the white house for the publication. also, erica of the washington post covers congress. good morning to both of you. thanks for joining us. one of the things that the president has to deal with before their -- leaving for argentina was the fate of the budget and possibility of a government shutdown. where are we in that possibility? guest: as things stand right now, the deadline for a government shutdown when funding is friday at midnight, december 7, at midday. it looks like, because of president bush's staff and events that will surround that, they will push that deadline off by at least a week, maybe more.

a major issue remains unresolved, that is funding for president trump border wall where he wants $5 billion and democrats in the senate and house are not interested in giving him that some of money. host: as far as the figures are concerned, how much of a willing to give the president? guest: there was a bipartisan deal for 1.6 billion dollars, which democrats are quick to say is not all for a wall, but for border security and barrel -- carriers. they want to make that distinction. at this point, they are not willing to go above that figure. with the president wanting this money specifically for this fall, what is he willing to do or not do if he does not to these requests? guest: that will become more clear this week as he meets with some of these leaders. to have chuck schumer and nancy pelosi at the white house to talk about border wall funding and the budget negotiation. isthis point, he has said it $5 billion or nothing. he is willing to shut down the government if it comes to that.

--sort of feels like this is this has been on the table from a months and that after he helped stave off a significant loss for the gop in the midterm election, that they owe it to him to give him this $5 billion border wall funding. host: what is the political ramifications if they go forward with the shutdown? is pretty risky. we are heading into christmas holiday. it will be difficult for the administration to play this off in a pr way that is positive for them. especially with all the other domestic issues going on for the president. the mueller investigation. the developments surrounding that. a deal withtrike the chinese president this past weekend in argentina. with acombine those government shutdown, the second one come under his administration, would not be in politics for the white house. host: we will continue with our conversation. questions, it ask

is (202) 748-8001 for republicans. at -- andso tweet us post on our facebook page if you want. how expensive of the shutdown are we talking if this does indeed occur? thet: about 75% of government, including the pentagon and h h f have already been funded through next september. of the 12 annual spending bills that congress is supposed to pass, five have already passed. includes the big ones with pentagon and hhs make up a huge portion of discretionary spending. there are seven spending bills the still have to pass making up about 25% of total federal spending. those agencies include doj, homeland security, agriculture department. interior. a number of others. this has got a negligible group of agencies. there are hundreds of thousands

of federal workers who are employed at these agencies around 600,000 according to our tally. he your listeners know, when there is a shutdown, employees begin to be furloughed. critical functions to continue. those would likely include those at the border. the mueller investigation has a separate funding stream, it cannot be affected. the impact would be come a, significant, potentially. host: this be wrapped in a pr, we see some kind of short-term expansion. correct, continuing resolution that would extend the deadline with funding staying at current levels for a week or two. there is currently some dispute between the parties as to whether to push it off for a week or for two weeks. democrats seem to favor a shorter-term extension which they think would keep their leverage higher as opposed to taking things even closer to christmas, at which point, everyone feels pressure to kind of cave in one way or another. host: the president will meet

with democratic leaders on this issue. if he wants to see this, what is the purpose of this meeting? this point,nk, at it is optics. he has stated clearly that there is an appetite for compromise on his end. only way hethat the will move forward with supporting any type of spending bill is, again, the $5 billion figure for his border wall. not just border security, which, as you made clear, them a kratz are saying they are willing to fund border security and enhance the border and provide resources for patrol officers down there, they don't want to be giving the funding directly to the barrier of some kind. we can really speculate what is going to go on in that meeting at the point. year from a meeting trying to strike a budget deal with the democrats, which came to the surprise of many republicans. that could very well happen again.

i think it is a lot less likely at this point. host: is it fair to say that he does not want to be pushed into something that he does not agree with? absolutely. he does not want to come anything in the way of him and his supporters. his link's immigration and getting the border wall funding. anything that would appear to be a major compromise or concession on that and would not be good for the president or his supporters. host: we have calls lined up for both of you. john in lakeland, florida. democrats line. good morning. go ahead. caller: good morning. is there truth to the fact that the water spinal $750,000 to her daughter illegally? how does nancy pelosi accumulate $196 million in her net worth? guest: i am not familiar with the report that the color reference. as far as nancy pelosi's personal wealth. she is wealthy.

her husband has been in finance. he has -- he is the source of much of her fortune. host: from new mexico. republican line. caller: hello. yes. i wanted to call in say that it sounds to me like the democrats are working with our president and i think that they need to buck up and work with our president. instead of wanting to president to work with them. i think they need to push back. they need to work with him. he is the president. the leader of our country. we love him. we realize that you people don't. we do. we voted for him. we voted for him. just about every person i know voted for him and loves him. and you are trashing him. host: that is new mexico. is it a sense of just the president wants to work as hard as an opportunity to blame the democrats? i think that is part of

the reason. the senate democrat and house democratic leaders this week. just to gauge where they are on this, whether there is a compromise that can be struck and whether he can go out and say this is more the obstructionism that we have seen from democrats. it is worth noting that this president and democrats have worked together on a number of things including the sentencing reform bill that could come up before the end of the year. they passed major bipartisan opioid legislation earlier this year. there are, you know, despite the differences, a handful of things , legislatively, that they have done together. host: it does not help the chuck schumer was on the floor talking about the figure in question, but what it looks like politically. >> we are for strong border security. the bill we originally put together in 2013 had $40 billion.

we are for strong border security. we made numerous proposals. number two, the $1.6 billion for border security negotiated by democrats and republicans is our position. we believe that is the right way to go. shutdown,there is any it is on president trump's back. first, left to our own devices, the senate and house could come to an agreement. andnd, the democrats republicans are in control, there are presidency and the house and senate are shutdown is on their backs. stick to the 1.6 billion. host: a glove thrown down. that's right. he referenced the president's sense that the midterms were good for him. democrats, of course, see it differently. they routed republicans in the house. took back the house. they don't see a political imperative to give to the president's demand here. on the other side, you have

republicans who have about three weeks left where they control washington fully. fully control the house and senate, and the white house. the president was convinced to put off this fight until after the midterms. he now wants that fight. republicans in the house have just a few more weeks where they control the majority. for many of them, as well, this is their last chance to get this done. host: for as much as we have heard about what the president wants, do we have a clear visit -- vision of what that will look like? guest: he has said there is miles of the border that needs to be improved. there is current structure that in some way.pdated dilapidated sensing. areas where there have been an increase in illegal border crossings. those would be the focuses of where the funding would potentially go. he has also said that he might be open at the very least, that he would expect $5 billion

figure spread out over a number of years. it does not need to be immediately. it could come in a 10 year stand, five-year stand. just something that would provide that figure to enhance those areas. improve border security. for him to be able to go out there and say i got this done, i cut that funding. senate -- senator shelby -- rapture -- rather than a lump sum. over: doing the 5 billion two years. 2.5, two .5. democrats rejected that. we have to be aware that this is a political fight more than a policy fight. the $5 billion where the president is has become toxic for democrats because that is the number he wants and the don't want to give it to him. democrats make the point accurately that the administration has not been all this border money that it already got in the last budget bill. there are questions as to whether they could really spend

$5 billion over one year, two years. it is kind of the political argument of getting that money that the president wants more so than what actually is being done on the ground. let's hear cameron. cameron is in pittsburgh. go ahead. you are on. caller: yes. the border is just a waste. the lady who is saying trump has been commander in chief, she forgets that we have -- democrats have banded together, any money for trump on a stupid border. that is my opinion. a waste of money. we have already given so much, basically, they need to stop giving money. money on our taxes, is just a waste. president has the made very clear, especially in this moment, with this so-called caravan, central american migrants, that this is the time that we particularly need this strong border.

additional funding to protect the united states. that would be his argument. at the same time, the last time that the border -- that the government shutdown over thegration, it seemed in weeks after that the political opinion seemed to favor republicans. further embolden the president. he has said before that this is a winning issue for him and for his base. the congressional democrats lost the office of the last funding shutdown. that battle. why not go to bat for this, why not fight for the $5 billion figure? no matter what the political costs are. he will have a house that is controlled by democrats. this is really the last opportunity that he has to go to the mat for something like this. host: have we heard anything besides the first bill that deals with a lot of good governance issues?have we heard on areas where the

government and white house could work together specifically? guest: you're talking about going forward in the next congress. the big issue that everyone talks about is the area of potential compromise, which i think is the case in infrastructure. that is an area that the president has wanted unsuccessfully to advance in this current congressman coming to an end. to the point where it has become a joke. when we talk about infrastructure, which, you know, there has been several of them and none have resulted in infrastructure legislation. that could change in the coming congress. infrastructure, typically, is an area where one can get a win because everyone wants projects in their district. that is popular with the public. there is a question of how to fund it. i think there is the will for that on all sides. host: are we looking at a widespread improvement of highways and roads? guest: yes. any type of project is what people have in mind. airports. roads. bridges. there has been a lot of studies showing that there is huge need

in this country for infrastructure improvement. on bridges and highways. don't know how they will fund it. they don't have to figure that out. democrats would potentially raise the gas tax. trump has been opened that at some point. senate republicans are not. we will have to see. host: since the democrats won the house have we heard anything -- anything from the president of reaching out for infrastructure? guest: he has talked a lot about wanting to work with democrats purity said after the midterm elections, he specifically referenced infrastructure as an area of the could come together on. know how much, again, of an appetite there is for compromise. it would almost benefit him arguably going into his reelection campaign to be able to say i tried to work with democrats on infrastructure, i tried to work with them on immigration, but if nothing comes together, if they don't pass a bill at the end, if they don't pass the major infrastructure bill, he can turn to his supporters and say i

tried host: and nothing came of it. host:this is olivia and she is in maryland. hello. caller: hello. thanks for taking my call. i am just trying to ask the ladies what happened to cuba -- mexico paying for the wall? i thought of the wall was supposed to be paid by mexico. the did we just forget that campaign was about mexico paying wall?e host:host: a topic point that you heard a lot of times. host: guest: -- guest: happy to take us want. so many people said that that was their key issue. they were so happy that president trump was not only willing to build of the border wall, but that he was going to make sure that it was not funded by american taxpayers. now, a lot of those supporters are sort of feeling like what happened. very similar to what the color express. not only has mexico not been -- put up any money to fund increased border security, now,

we are even talking about the made in mexico policy, policy sending -- possibly sending resources to mexico to help pages dealing with all of these asylum-seekers. tremendousbe a reversal of what president trump has promised to do in his ministration. i think this is a frustration that is shared by a lot of his supporters. host: we have heard this. democrats in congress as well. guest: the color does make a good point. which, as she said, all along, trump said mexico would pay for the wall. mexico clearly is not paying for the wall. that was never realistic. democrats go to that point when they talk about this issue. which is why is trump asking us for money, what happened to mexico? democratsway in which hit hard in their opposition to giving trump additional money. host: if you're just joining us, erica from the washington post joining us.

also joined by gaby, political coverage of the white house. in other big topic last week was concerning the mueller investigation which was brought up. as far as paul manafort came into play. mike cohen came up and play. gabby or, let's start with you. where is the white house on dealing with these issues and how concerned are they? guest: i spoke to a lot of officials last week. a number of attorneys for representing current former white house officials had been entangled in this investigation. most of them said that this is a one-off situation with michael cohen. he has always been a slimy figure by the president and a lot of his inner circle. they are not necessarily concerned about the implications of this development. this to wrapr for up. they are growing more concerned about the number of indictments that we have no idea what they contain at this point appeared who could so we be named in those. who could be further entangled in this investigation because of that. ultimately, what this means for the president who, certainly, emerged as a key feature of this

administration. individual one has been a number of court filing spirit we discovered that that is in fact president trump. what does that mean for him going forward is the biggest question at this point. host: let's show you a little bit on nbc, beat the press yesterday. incoming judiciary chairman in the house come up is securely when it comes to the molar investigation and congressional efforts to protect it, here's what he had to say. have openly talked about holding up the government funding vote until the mueller protection bill is either held on or not. is that still your current stance? and is that the stance you want nancy pelosi and chuck schumer to take? >> my current stance and our stance is generally we have to to protect can similar investigation from interference by the president. we have to depend on the investigation to get to the bottom of the corruption in the campaign of the russian role in the campaign of the trump

campaign, the president's role in colluding with the russians if you did. we know his campaign did, the question is did he personally, we have to do whatever we can to protect the investigation. a desire for democrats to get the protection. what is the reality? guest: chuck schumer hasn't you like to put the protect mueller bill on the year and spending legislation. republicans have rejected that. i don't think that that is going to happen. i also don't think that that is the issue that democrats would take to the mat and provoke a shutdown over. be a bridge too far, i believe. it would start to look like the overreach that democrats fear could happen in the next congress as far as investigating the president. moving to impeach the president. someone like to see stuff like that.

-- some would like to see steps will that. host: is there a danger for them? caller: -- guest: potentially. they have to strike a delicate balance. it is not clear exactly where they will find that line. and if that will work for them. the number of democrats who would like to see impeachment proceedings begin against the president is very high. over 60% in polls. leadership is resisting that. that is going to be an area that we will see in various spheres and the next congress where liberals and more moderates within the democratic caucus are struggling amongst themselves over how far to go and what to do on a variety of issues. takenif that approach is than how far as the president willing to go in his defense? guest: he is eagerly awaiting to see what happens with the congressional democrats once a take control of the house. in his mind, impeachment proceedings would be a tremendous politically that political gift, you be able to

see that say we elected democrats to take control of the house and this is what they did instead of working with me on infrastructure. they, instead, chose to impeach me and, perhaps, at this point, we have not seen the results of the mueller investigation. that would give him tremendous leverage heading into 2020. the white house is looking at this, waiting to see what happens. a lot of people are probably confident that congressional democrats are not going to head down that direction. they know that even though it would satisfy a significant percentage of their base, politically, it would just be, you know, self sabotage. host: tennessee. al in watertown. thank you very much for taking my call. i want to remind you that there were about $70 trillion in debt. the last time i heard infrastructure and bailout we had 800 billion that was supposed to go to repurchase.

and none of it went there. nothing is it done on infrastructure innovate. the next thing is the wall. it will pay for itself over time are ae illegal aliens drain on the system. the next thing is ms. warner was very quick to defend this, but that is what i would expect. the last thing is this budget shutdown, the government shutdown won't affect me at all. i have to go to work, i do my job. for pedro, i think for your listener, you should have net takers and that producers. asple that produce them country won't be affected if the government shuts down. the people that are net takers are the ones that are going to be affected. you have producers and takers. host: thank you. appreciate that. as far as the public is concerned.

guest: i think that this is something that is taken into account. whether or not that actually got politics, i am not quite sure that it does. the president has seen in numerous public opinion polls that they don't -- most americans don't want a government shutdown, even over border wall funding. or a blue ring -- improving other aspects of the government. at this point, you know, president trump has said i want this money and i am willing to go to the mat for it. no matter what, i am going to do that. i think that that could backfire for him. it is also something democrats have taken into account as well. there are also public opinion polls that show that people do want a border situation do with. that it's something that they have to take into account as they approach this. congress take as much concern over public perception? guest: one issue we have alluded

to his trump and republicans say that if there is a shutdown democrats would be the one to are blamed. they believe that the recent issues we have seen at the border with skirmishes between federal authorities and migrants trying to cross increases public awareness of the need for security and for a wall at the border. therefore, the public would be on their side, republicans believe, in a shutdown. democrats say exactly the opposite. is ag that if there shutdown trump is the one to blame. each side thinks they would win the pr battle. we would have to see how that actually played out. host: back to robert mueller. what is it like in the senate now that judicial nominations and the process thereof is essentially ground to a halt? isst: that is because it senator jeff flake, who is retiring. he is making kind of one last stand on the issue. protect to vote on the mueller bill. he is on the judiciary committee.

he's in a position to hold up judicial nominations until he gets a vote. senator mcconnell is not interested in having a vote. soloa number of republicans are pretty irritated with him for what he is doing. host: this was a key push of the trump administration would comes to those nominations. guest: this is something they feel they have excelled on after the first year and a half of the presidency. the judicial nominations are something you can take the voters and say i did something positive. i stacked the court conservative, going to have a lasting legacy beyond when i am in office. that is something that they are really pushing for. i think is going to continue to be something that they are able to accomplish in the coming months as democrats take control of the house. they still have the senate republican majority. it will be easier for them to push through some of these host: district court judges. rebecca is in virginia. thanks for calling. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my

call. i have comments to make. by thetrump was elected american people. not the russian. as far as the building of the i agree with they need to give the funding of the wall because these immigrants are coming over here, carrying diseases. you need to protect the u.s. citizens, which that is america, as for -- as far as the mueller investigation, you don't want to protect that in raise money -- waste money on the witchhunt. i think that the negativity coming from all of these withrats, you need to work the president, donald j trump host:. host:host: think you very much.

what comes to the investigation, remind us where the president is on as far as testifying? that he submitted written answers to the special counsel's team last week on a number of different issues including a potential obstruction of justice charges. we don't know where mueller's team is at in reviewing those answers, whether they will be satisfied with the written answers that he provided. if not, whether they will try to subpoena him and bring him before a grand jury to testify. that is also up in the air at this point. to theng i want to say, caller's, erica mentioned this earlier, it does really help the president, at least right now, with the optics of this migrant caravan coming to the border. it has emboldened him. it makes him feel as though this is the right push at the right time, the right battle. a good side to be on at this point. it is -- his administration has

done a number of things to say we need help. they have deployed troops to the border. just last week, secretary nielsen says the memo around asking for civilian law enforcement agents from a handful of government agencies to go down to the border to assist border patrol agents. to be able to say we have all these resources down there, but themn since sure home, get home to their families by christmas if we have this funding, i think that is the message that we will be hearing in the next two weeks as this continues. host: mary is in the louisiana. hello. caller: hello. i need to ask you a question before i make my statement. i finished my statement, am i allowed to suggest to vote for these two ladies? make your statement and then quickly suggest the book. caller: i get them a pen and paper. host: go ahead. caller: ok.

donald says that mr. cohen will pay for the wall. he was not talking about they will write a big old check. that is now he was talking about. i understand what he was saying. what he was talking about is that he was going to make a trade with mexico more fair. anyway, he was not talking about mexico was going to write it, he was talking about through other means that he will negotiate way, theco and that money that this country will make, the jobs that would come back, that would be like mexico paying for the wall. he was not talking about they were going to write no check. host: you made that point, what is the title of the book? isler: the name of the book

white, black, and racist democrat. ok.: eric warner, a little bit thanks to the previous point about the immigration release, the larger aspect of border policy. the president wants to see these figures. the democrats don't want to these figures. what republicans are backing up the president on these efforts? guest: for the most part, republicans are backing the president. you hear a few republicans such madesa murkowski recently a comment that they don't see the need for this fall. i think, privately, republicans, including john gordon, are not necessarily in favor of the wall. with the president kind of throwing down so hard with the

$5 billion figure, senators, including mitch mcconnell and house leaders say that they want to help him get the money if they can. $5 billion actually, while bill might have trouble making it through the house. you will have a number of republicans who are retiring who have supported broader immigration reform. recipients.a it might be a little bit difficult to get them to vote for a legislation of that kind. host: we will start with jean or go to jean in kissimmee, florida. know everybody talking about the hundred 50 billion dollars that obama sent over there. overseas. in the middle of the night. and where that money come from and who was paying for that. with the mueller investigation, you know, there is $40 million. they come up with nothing. who is paying for that?

is there any timetable on when the investigation will wrap? guest: that is question everybody has been asking. it has dragged on for too long, democrats point out that the investigation to bill clinton lasted for far longer on this in whitewater. know, you have both sides saying it feels a can needs to wrap up at some point. it would be ideal if they could wrap up before the new congress succeeded. we have heard from a number of reports leading up to the midterms that this is something that the special counsel had planned to wrap up after the midterm. right now, with the latest development, the timeline does not seem likely. host: how concerned was the white house? have said that paul manafort has been treated very unfairly. president trump has not taken apart and off the table. behind the scenes, they are extremely concerned. about what this means for president trump, what he might be telling robert mueller, even

though he has made it clear that he is not going to turn on the president. havehat his associates said. host: let's change topics. one of the things that still has to be resolved is the farm bill. give us a status report and what is at play. guest: right. last week, there was an announcement from the negotiators that they had reached a deal in principle. to remind your listeners the farm bill is a five-year piece of legislation that is normally reauthorized on a bipartisan basis. the current farm bill expired on september 30. the house and senate have been fighting over their different versions of the farm bill, which each passed over the summer. the big issue has been working raqqa -- requirements for food stamp recipients, which the house version 10 and up considerably. that approach was not going to

fly in the senate. the compromise that has been reached looks more like the senate version on that issue. we heard some initial negative reaction from house republicans because of that. the republican chairman of the agriculture committee said last week that he wants members to keep their powder dry to look at the compromise, and he hopes that they will like it. that on the to see floor in the coming weeks, with timetablethat is the probably changes. sometime in the next couple weeks before they and aa. host: the president's interest in signing something like this if it does not have the requirements? guest: the white house does not want to get ahead of the protestant of the things like this. i don't have an indication if he would sign appeared house republicans are backing the legislation that it would seem likely that he would. they have been reluctant. to speak openly about where he stands. host: but this is something the

white house wants. guest: it was. they aren't sure what has been added, what is included. he definitely wants to be able to turn to his supporters and say that is another piece of bipartisan legislation. even if it is routine bill. at the same time, we don't know where he stands on this. host: let's hear from jeff in new york. go ahead. caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. you know, trump's foreign policies, and some aspects, are controversial. -- forf politicians instance, i can mention our technology and trumps inferred meeting them and ignoring their crimes, inc. -- especially killing innocent people in yemen. on the other hand, the idea that a lot of people are angry about that enforcement of the rules and even some people saying they had fraud inhalation.

this problem on corporations between what and congress. host: we will leave it there. some of the current air relations with saudi arabia and where the president is on that. clearlyhe president has been disconnected from the intelligence community on the assessment involving khashoggi and the death. he said that he did not plan to meet with the crown prince when he was in argentina this weekend. they did not hold a sideline meeting. they did exchange pleasantries at one point. he was pretty quick to say that it was just a mere hello. no meetings, no discussion of this. at this point, he has sort of slowly coming into agreement with elements of is administration that have said they were clearly at fault. the saudi crown prince was directly involved in this. createould, in fact, issues for saudi arabia and the u.s.. host: what does that look like?

that is the big question. president trump has said that he is tremendously proud of the agreement that they reached with saudi arabia that would bring millions and millions of dollars back to the u.s.. has resisted backing sanctions and saudi arabia. at this point, whether he backtracks and approves the sanctions, if there is some type of consequence for saudi arabia, it has not become clear yet. he might be heading toward the direction of embracing it. host: this was a conversation on capitol hill as well and continues to be. guest: that's right. we have that significant rebuke to the trump administration. with a large vote that supported powersng a war resolution that would essentially and u.s. support for the saudi war in yemen. the vote in the senate happened right after administration officials have come to the hill to brief the senate and tried to back them off this resolution.

overriefing did not go well pure senators were very upset that the cia director was not present. we will see where it goes. this has become a significant area of disagreement between senate republicans and the white house, more so than we have seen on other issues. host: republican line. arizona. caller: good morning. educatedple are so that all they can use is words .ike slime and degrading words you know, we voted for president donald. not the russians. we voted for him because he is not a politician. we saw the heart and soul of the politician when you berated the judges that woman. we saw the heart and soul of waters when she said to disrupt

people because of their political beliefs. we see how you democrats act. i think all the senators should be taken out and we can put in robots that could do the constitution and speak civilly more than you. host: ok. that is arizona. is not adent politician. we hear this a lot from supporters. say?: i mean, what can you he is the president, he is a politician by definition. his administration is so unconventional, his approach is so unconventional, continues to be, that has not changed. he certainly does not act like a standard politician. host: what are you thinking? guest: on the one hand he was elected on this idea that he orthodoxy, bute he has been a very conservative president. to say that he is not a

politician, that he has defied these norms, that he has run an unconventional administration, it is true, but at the same time, he has behaved very much like a republican president. and his predecessor feared he has enacted a number of republican policies. he has, obviously, moved through these conservative judges at a record rate. there is a number of things that have been very political that he is done. very calculated that he has done. to 2020, heading whether his supporters also contained -- consider to use that line. particularly, if he does get together with congressional democrats in the coming months and negotiates guilt with them, if he reaches across the aisle, does that make him one of those washington dealmakers? host: how active is the 2020 campaign today? guest: they are a bare-bones campaign. very active on the recruiting small dollar donors. reaching out to people via text message.

politico'sory in website weeks ago that talked about messaging strategy and how they plan to reach out to voters that they did not reach in 2016. i would encourage people to take a look at that because it does provide a pretty interesting look at the inner workings of the trump campaign. host: erica warner, who is the strongest democrat in congress? guest: it is hard to say. so many of them are running for president. it is really too early to say how that is going to shake out. a very going to be interesting and important dynamic to watch in the next congress where you have senator warren, harris, booker. others, sanders. that are all potential, gillibrand, klobuchar, so many potential presidential candidates. they will all be kind of docking in different ways to find their lane, to oppose the president or to work with the president. in whatever way they think could

bring the most political benefit. willit is something that impact what deals can get done. how senator schumer can manage his caucus. you havehe same time, house democrats taking control, so it makes for an interesting mix of dynamics. host: from new york, this is vickie. hello. caller: i just wanted to say one thing. said that mexico was going to pay for the border wall. mexico did not pay for the wall. why can't his supporters pay for the border wall? host: ok. we have talked about that issue. let me talk to you about paul ryan. the waiting days of his speakership. we saw events on capitol hill last week. first of all, how would you -- you covered him, how would you rate reince speakership as the deficient of the office? guest: you would have to give him a mixed grade as far as making good on the issues and

values that he promulgated throughout his years in the congress. he, of course, past a big tax cut bill and that could be his primary achievement. and legacy. but, the deficit and the debt grew enormously under his speakership. despite that being an issue that he focused on and paid attention to and complained about under the obama administration. there was never a comprehensive immigration legislation passed, which was something that was a goal of his for a number of years. there was not a lot done to address poverty, which was also something that he talked about and focused on. again, i think a mixed grade on his speakership. host: what is the largest challenge for kevin mccarthy? one challenge is to be relevant. as you know, being in the minority in the house, you have very little leverage.

there is not a lot you can do. majority rules and the house, unlike in the senate. towill see what he can do make a mark that allows him come ultimately, his goal will be to take a majority back and he will be taking steps and at trying to achieve that. you envision the relationship the president will have with minority republicans? definitely has a positive relationship with mccarthy. perhaps more than with speaker ryan. they get along really well. mccarthy was always bloated as a potential steve jeff -- chief of staff. i think that they will work well together. it is going to be more interesting, i think, to see the dynamics play out between the more conservative part of the republican caucus versus the more moderate and whether there is tension between those -- who would prefer to work with democrats. the president will come down on that. or will he back the moderate

republicans? host: i want to ask about democrats. future as far as cohesion is concerned. where are democrats as far as keeping the party together? hast: a lot of attention been and will continue to be on nancy pelosi as she attempts to lock up the votes to become speaker. she is not very yet. she has work to do. she is obviously the favorite. there is not another candidate. so, i think the focus on that has kind of taken away from what might otherwise be a bigger discussion about the democratic caucus itself and the divisions in the caucus. we saw a lot of moderates elected. we saw some progressives elected. the big star being alexandria cortez. from new york. very progressive. bringing a lot of liberal values.

be a lot ofng to tension already has been and will continue to be between those two elements. host: parallel bait. freedom caucus type group which could cause speaker pelosi some trouble. guest: you could make that comparison. it is going to be difficult for her because she is speaker to manage those two different groups. she has done it before. she passed the affordable care act getting blue. democrats in line and getting more liberal democrats in line. she is better at it than anyone. host: terry from north carolina. independent line. caller: good morning. i have a couple comments. we hear about more's investigation on trump constantly. it is always in the news, always in the news about the meeting at trump tower. we never hear anything about a gps and where the clinton money is still and the still dossier and money went to russia. which is actual proof that there was collusion.

also, in an investigation as far as the clinton emails go, in an investigation where everyone gets immunity, how can that be an investigation? host: go ahead. guest: i think there has been, and will continue to be a great discussion about the leaders. founders of fusion gps. very much entangled in this investigation. they have appeared on the hill for congressional hearings before. they have, certainly, fallen into the background as the president has emerged as the central figure in this investigation. surrounding his eldest son. donald trump, jr. has continued to unfold. going forward, i think this president has made very clear that at some point, and this will very much depend on how he ends up working with house democrats, whether he feels that there is a desire among the american public to reinvestigate the clinton. he has tweeted this i have full

times. we know that his acting attorney general has been very vocal. in encouraging something like that. off themmediately taken table after president trump was elected. he now seems to be heading in a direction where he could put it back on the table. that was certainly a very interesting dynamic is house democrats are in charge, his just at the department is real opening probes into the clintons. call, fromast maryland, republican line. hello. caller: i just want to talk about the need to be troops at the border because the mockingbird, it is on it. well-equipped, financed, wealthy people. pertaining to the mueller investigation, it is a facade. lawyers, they lied to the judge. all this is a big lie. try todemocrats

implement the impeachment, they are successful in the house, but fill in the senate. host: that is all i have got to say. we covered all those topics, i want to finish off by talking about george the we bush particularly come of the events taking place concerning him. will the president and first lady be attending? guest: they plan to attend. different from what happened when barbara pushed past. they were not there. something to watch for, to see how they interact with other leaders, including the obamas. as well as the clintons. they do plan to be there. host: the character of a different type of relation the president had with george h.w. bush. host: -- guest: he had an interesting tweet. he said that he had always been very fond of him. their interactions rose very positive. it was sort of a different tone then he struck after barbara if i recallse correctly, he sort of waited to issue a statement. when he did it was not very

conciliatory. i do think that this is different, the white house is certainly making an effort to approach this different than they have with previous steps. -- deaths. guest: congress? guest: he will be lying in state in the capital. most recently it was senator mccain, when he passed away who had that honor. , the bush death and the focus on him inevitably , thects on congress current occupant of the white house and how differently they approach the job. we saw it with mccain, there was , notlection on trumpe necessarily positive for the president. erica warner who covers congress for the "washington

post." gabby orr covers the white house. politico is that website. coming up, and expanded your money segment. we will take a look at the working class. tamar jacoby and bruce reed will join us next. continues. journal" ♪ >> funeral ceremonies and services for former president george h.w. bush begin today on c-span. at 11:30 a.m., the departure of the former president's casket from houston. at 3:30 p.m. eastern, the arrival at joint base andrews.

at four: 45, the arrival ceremony at the u.s. capitol where his remains will lie in state. on wednesday we will have live coverage of the departure ceremony from the u.s. capitol and 11:00, eastern, the funeral service at the national cathedral. the state funeral for president george h. w. bush. watch our live coverage on c-span and c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1970 nine, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television company. today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme eventsand public policy in washington dc and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider.

when the new congress takes office in january, it will have the youngest, most diverse freshman class in recent history. new congress, new leaders. startinglive on c-span january 3. >> this week on the communicators, california attorney general on monitoring california's $385 billion technology industry. >> are the googles and facebook's of the world too big? >> you can look at the companies that are becoming large and wonder if they are getting to the point where we have to take a closer look. because the internet is a different animal, we used to deal with widgets, now we deal with digits. it is a very different thing. one you can always touch. the others is zero zen ones.

how you tackle that is something we need to get a grip on. when we do, we will to answer that clearly. is anyone being anti-competitive? monopolisticoming to the point where our antitrust laws take effect and we have to take a closer look at our antitrust laws to make sure they have adapted to meet the needs of this new internet world? >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: and expanded your money segment taking a look at the state of the working class. two guests joining us. marja kobe is the president and ceo of opportunity america -- tamar jacoby is the president and ceo of opportunity america. we're also joined by bruce reed,

cochair of the work initiative. just to take -- just to step things up. it isunity america, what and why the need for this report. project we were the tugboat of the two big thing tax in washington, d.c., the brookings institute and the american institute. everyone remembers the 2016 campaign, everybody was talking about the working class, the media was covering the working class. we think that was useful in that it has shown light on problems that have been festering for decades. we thought let's dig into this and find out what is beneath the soundbites and beneath that. what is going on in these communities? we found that the campaign was right. feel they angry and have been left out of the policy discussion in the nation and

lost their dignity, and they are ,ight that for two generations policymakers have helped everybody but them. policymakers have done a lot for the poor, and done a lot for the middle class and upper middle class. in working class is the hole the doughnut and they being hit by globalization. we thought it was important to look at what that is doing. host: mr. reid, the reports by asking several questions. the first, how would you define working-class or what makes up the working class? guest: the definition we use in approaching this report was people who have less than a bachelors degree. they have finished high school but not college, and they make lower middle income. between the 23 percentile and 50th percentile. host: the second question, what ails them, how would you spell

that out specifically? guest: they are not working as much as they were once working. $25 an hour job you do not want to nine dollars an hour wendy's job. getting married dramatically less. their communities are falling apart. the most active in local organizations, unions, churches, rotary clubs. the leastre by far active. a lot of those institutions have crumbled and disappeared. things like the opioid crisis have been able to opportunistically take advantage of these places where people are not working, not getting married . institutions are falling apart. host: she talked about the declining's of fortunes, which was one of the questions. the question becomes what can government do and why is this a government solution? just ait is not

government solution but it is important for the government to do its part. the social contract has broken down for these folks. they get very that will help from the safety net. those at the upper end of the income bracket get a lot of tax breaks. those at the bottom get help. working folks do not get so much. their fortunes have been falling as wages have stayed flat for a generation. we need to make it easier for employers to make sure they get the skills to get ahead. it is important to reshape our tax codes so a lot of the tax breaks are available to working people and not just to those of the top. there is a big role for government to play, and a big role for employers who need to be putting more their profit into helping people get ahead the way they used to. host: our conversation will

continue for the hour. if you want to ask questions about the findings of the report , particularly what it means for the working class, we have divided the lines differently. if you're employed, (202) 748-8000. maybe you're an employer, (202) 748-8001. and for all others, (202) 748-8002. outof the specifics you lay on recommendations is something called the earned income tax credit. talk about what it does and why you think this is a good approach. earned income tax credit else people who are working but not making as much as people think they should make and a living wage. it is an incremental thing where a percentage of your wage, you get it from the government. as you make more, you get a smaller percentage. it has been available to lower income people, specifically to people with children for a long

time. why welfare reform work. it helps people get back to work and supplemented their income. it has not been available if you do not have children. mostly women are getting it but not men. president obama and house speaker paul ryan agreed it should get expanded to childless workers, but they cannot agree how to pay for it. it is not a new idea that we are for expanding it to childless workers, but it is important we have a bipartisan group working to find out where to find the money. president obama had his idea and paul ryan had his idea. we found a way to square that. host: as far as funding, what is the funding mechanism for that program, and ultimately does that mean more for the taxpayer? guest: for the earned income tax credit, we suggested there are

ways to reduce the error rate within the program that would help pay for that. some other recommendations we have are to make more skilled available to those who do not go to college or go to short-term bylege programs, we paid for trimming 529 college plans that only go to those at the top of the income bracket. these are some of the recommendations made in the report. you can find it online. guest: opportunityamericaonline.org. the average taxpayer would say it is hard enough for me as it is. fightswe had a lot of about taxes because we are democrats and republicans. it was hard to get republicans to agree to any tax increase. the only tax increase were tax expenditures for upper-middle-class people. if you are taking a lot of

deductions, we will close some of those loopholes. estate taxes, we raise those a little. from of the savings come -- if you think of it as two mountains with the valley in between. the middle class is getting so many benefits. 529 go exclusively to upper-middle-class people. graduate school loan forgiveness -- people who are going to go to medical school and law school who are borrowing half $1 million would like to use -- we would like to use that for people are learning job skills. we say four your college is not for everyone. let's have an alternative to four year college and pay for it with some of the money we are pouring into the upper-middle-class. host: how hard was it to come to consensus on these issues. guest: she is the magic worker. we met for close to a year and there were a lot of knockdown,

drag out fight. everybody recognized, particularly in the wake of the election and in the wake of exit , this is a cry of help for people who needed it and the political fights that washington an up and working for them and we had an obligation to put our differences aside and come up with answers. host: was this research done from an ivory tower or did you have a chance to talk to those correctly affected? guest: we went on several tips. -- several trips. we want to western michigan, we went to northeastern ohio, and we try to get a sense of the programs that were working and people's unhappiness and what the leadership was doing to make things better. that was important. host: what did you learn? guest: the specific leadership is important. the places where business leaders and government and the

nonprofit sector are coming together, those are the places that are doing well. the places they are not doing that are not doing well. we have calls lined up. the verses from texas, the line for those were employed. john, you are the first for our guest. caller: i am from one of the masters growing classes in america, -- the fastest growing classes in america, the educated poor. those who have a masters degree or higher and cannot find gainful employment. i live in the corpus christi area and they say how great the economy is. only the oil business and the refineries have been doing great . the rest of us are hurting. the unemployment rate is much higher than what they are officially reporting it as. the jobs are not there, despite all the propaganda to the contrary, the jobs are not there. there are so many of us that are educated, never been arrested,

don't use drugs, no criminal record, and we cannot even get interviews to save our lives. it is disgusting to me at how much propaganda there is about this great economy and it is not there. the investor class are the only ones who have done well over the last 15 to 20 years. the american workforce has been absolutely decimated and destroyed by this new fast-paced, high tech, corporate run economy. it is killing society but is making wall street rich. host: that is john. guest: we talk about that in two ways. we would like businesses less responsible to their shareholders and more responsible to the people who work for them. it is little bit late for this caller, that we talk a lot about getting employers more involved in the education system so people learn jobs that are going to be in demand. has ane this gentleman interesting to great and had a great college experience, but

maybe he was not studying a topic that was growing in his area. if employers are more involved in post secondary education, it will be more likely people will learn job skills and how to develop knowledge that can be useful. host: one of the recommendations will be to reallocate financial aid, particularly when it comes to career education. how would that work? it is clear that in today's economy, high school is not enough, but college is not for everybody. we need a lot of better targeted programs that make it possible to get the skills you need to do a job in a shorter period of time at a price you can afford. we want to make pell grant's more available to people who need them for this purpose. i think the higher education world needs to take a hard look at itself and figure out how it will be relevant in the 21st

century when there are so many whole like the last caller got a degree and not get the skills they need for this particular economy, or what is often the case, paid a lot of money or borrowed a lot of money to fall short of getting a degree and are worse off than if they have never on to college. host: what kind of jobs are we talking about if we have to repurpose all education is done? guest: no windows were the future work will take us. jobs will get eliminated but what jobs will grow up in their place? closelyave employers involved with the post secondary system, you will be addressing what is coming, as opposed to the old. guest: the last caller made a good point. the recommendations we have are not just aimed at helping the working class. our view is that the way work is going, the economic forces putting pressure on the wages of globaly folks,

competition, automation, innovation, are coming for everyone else. the working class is the canary in the coal mine. host: this is the title of the -- building community, restoring opportunity for the working class. up next from philadelphia. caller: welcome to the world of the african-american community. we have been saying that for 400 years. the jobs online, you pay everything on your own, no benefits. these jobs are not coming back. half of the workforce will not be working again. these colleges know that. they are just taking people's money. that is not what these folks are hiring people to do. they are cutting forces.

they figured out how to make money without paying any out. thank you. host: mr. reed, do you want to start? guest: she makes very good points. part of the challenge is how you make capitalism work for working people. we had between employers and workers and government has held up well during the 20th century is falling apart in the last few years. jobs are not paying enough, in the last decade, 95% of the jobs created were in contracting out with no benefits attached. to experience is comparable a lot of other people. it is not that we are failing to get richer as a country. our economy has grown

considerably over the last several decades. it is just the bounty is not being shared. host: miss jacoby? guest: i want to point out that --and some of the discourse one of the interesting things we ago, the that 40 years working class was about 80% white, now it is 60% white. we think the 20% african-american and 20% hispanic. of the sone problems of the laid-off steelworker in ohio are not that different from the daughter of the latina cleaning lady in los angeles. we think it is important, and not it --ne who was and glad someone who was not a white person from the rust belt called in. the report calls on employers to take a different view and take

more responsibility. about what jobs are disappearing and what is going to be next, there is a big debate about that . i do not think anybody knows. i think the people who think they know are projecting from the present which is not how you figure out the future. jobsnk there will be jobs, in the factory where he did not need a lot of skill, those are going. jobs in the factory where your programming the robot and figuring out what is going on with the machinery, there are going to be jobs like that. that is what we want to use education to train people for. it is not old-fashioned tech, it is industrial maintenance tech. other jobs like that the maybe we cannot foresee. i am one of those people who was little bit hopeful and the question is can we create a system that trains people for it? host: you highlight something called opportunity zones. explain what they are. guest: you'll ask me all of the

techie questions. opportunity zones are positions in the trump tax bill that was a bipartisan position that said if you have a lot of capital gain sitting around you are not realizing because you do not want to pay the taxes, if you take those capital gains and in a distressed, low income, struggling area, we will first let you do for those taxes . if you keep your money there long enough, we will reduce the taxes, and if you keep them there 10 years we will forget the taxes. this is the fact that brings opportunity zones to life. 75% of investment capital goes california, new york, massachusetts. ohio, pennsylvania, louisiana, idaho, they do not get investment. the idea of opportunity zone is can we get investment other places? -- taxgiving tax place

breaks to the upper middle class and investing for the upper-middle-class live. no wonder things are feeling rotten in the other places. host: mike in indiana. you are on, go ahead. caller: i think they ought to pay down the national debt. they need a national debt tax. for stock markets, it should be 2%, 1% for millionaires and billionaires. under a million should be .5%. away.e, take a .5% everybody has to have skin in the game. we need to think about our debt crisis. dollars, if we have that paid -- $721 trillion, you

cannot stop it unless you stop congress from spending. that was not the focus of this report, but that is music from my -- music to my years. -- to my ears. i was working with the simpson bowles report that did a comprehensive plan to take on our debt problem. right that collar is everything should be on the table and we need to come together across party lines. we try to be as responsible as we could in this report by paying for everything we proposed. that is not the case in washington. we have a long way to do go. if you look out there at what is communitiessmall around the country, there are a ton of problems. we are getting older as a nation. we have a lot of bills that are stacking up that we will have to pay off. things are going to need to

change in this town in order to make sure that happens. host: are there current examples across united states that local governments have taken these principles you have laid out and employ them and their working? guest: one of the recommendations we make is for occupational licensing reform, which affects the norma's number of people. in the 1950's, only 5% of the jobs required an occupational license. now 29% do. americans --% of more than 25% of americans are facing the problems. for the most part, these laws make no sense. in ohio, you can become an emt in two months, but it takes more ton a year of training become a cosmetologist or an auctioneer. if you move to another state, you have to go through the process all over again. happily, some states are dealing

with it. arizona has passed an innovative approach where they let workers sue if the occupational license classification bears no relation to the job. come fromot of ideas something a state has tried, something that has worked in another country. we are interested in the way employers and educators are working together. we looked at what is going on and try to take inspiration from that. host: from arkansas, tim is next for our guest. caller: good morning, pedro. thank you to you and c-span. the biggest behemoth on the working class is the federal government. the value of my labor has been stunted since the origin of social security. all of those social security taxes on the back of labor, not

on the back of capital. we have been subsidizing capital in this country since then. it got worse when i was born with medicare. if you want to know why detroit is empty, it is because of the extra 15% on the back of labor, not capital. that is why the shops closed. programs in the state and local is fine until the behemoth of federal government stop spending . they cannot steal unless they spend. until they stop spending and get on the back, you will not see labor rise in value. you will see them subsidized capital again and again. host: thanks. guest: we do not get into issues of federalism. democrats and republicans and that is one of the hardest things for democrats and republicans to read upon. i agree there is a lot of exciting experimentation in the states and we should try to give

it more room to play, cutting back the federal government is a bigger job than we took on. he is wrong about social security and medicare, but he is absolutely right about labor and capital. returns on capital have been arising considerably for decades and much of what the government has done has been to subsidize more of that. at the same time, returns on labor have been flat or declining. working people are getting the short end of the stick and a lot of people who do not keep help are getting more help than they need. host: the current debate of the farm bill, the work requirements for certain types of programs. that is the one of the things you highlight. can you talk about what you would like to see and why this is an important feature? guest: work is at the heart of the working class. , the lot of communities communities are falling apart because there is not enough work or it does not pay enough.

we think people have a responsibility to earn the help they get. we both worked a lot on welfare reform to make sure people had the opportunity to work and they had to go to work. there are already work programents in the snap and we would like to see more pressure on the program itself. often, states and the federal government put out work requirements that are meant to trim the roles, not help people find work. our goal is to help as many people find as much work as possible because it is better for them and also our system does not work without it. you see communities falling apart because work is the glue that holds them together. host: is that job training

you're talking about? guest: there is training. wonky, butet really i like the house version of the reform. this is a tough fight. people quit over at. everybody agrees that the programs, snap program, should do more to help people get jobs. they do not see that is the role, they see it is handing out food stamps. we agreed they should do more to get jobs. we agree there should be jobs available and people should get trained. if you're getting a benefit and able to work, you should be working. , but theund tough point is the thing we agreed upon as a group was that the dignity of work and the paycheck of work and the social responsibility of work was the best thing for working people and working class communities.

we want to help every angle. pay,ore jobs, make more get people the skills they need to get better jobs. when necessary, have work requirements. host: the report is a combination of efforts under the opportunity america umbrella. brookings institution involved. you can find it online. two guests joining us to talk about. jamar -- tamar jacoby of opportunity america. bruce reed is the cochair of the future of work initiative. baltimore, maryland, you are on. this is jonathan. caller: thank you for taking my call. i'd originally called to ask about how you factored in the .ecline of human into the study i'm still curious to hear about that. you are talking about food stamp requirements.

baltimoreal worker in and i can tell you with certainty that the biggest barrier for families working is child care expenses and i'm curious how you view that. first, on unions, i think that is an important part of the much less wages is so of the workforce is unionized now. pressurea lot of other in the system from shareholders and others to reward capital and not labor. there are provisions we call out be the think ought to to get rid ofd noncompete agreements. a lot of low-wage jobs where you

,re working at fast food place 15% of those workers have to sign noncompete agreement so they cannot go across the street. that is designed to hold their wages down. i think childcare is an important challenge for the working class and the middle class and the working poor. this is another area where we want to re-figure the tax credit that currently benefits the upper middle-class and make the childcare tax credit refundable. guest: we do have a suggestion that we have not seen work in america. germanye, especially in , rather than adversarial unions and business, there are what they call work councils. that is when the unions get a sense that of the business does well, we will do better.

can we work together to make the business do well and share the proceeds? we're not talking about replacing unions, but private sector union participation is so low, there is a big gap where there is no conversation going on. we say maybe let's try some work councils could we are not doing it is a let's give the employers an edge, we were trying to say let's give the workers some kind of edge. host: if you want the national debt to go down, you have to thee -- caller: if you want national debt to go down, you have to raise taxes on the upper middle-class. clinton was bringing down the national debt. we get and all of these wars and spend billions of dollars and nobody wants to pay for it and then you say the national debt is going up. when barack obama was in there, he had to raise taxes to keep us from going into a depression.

you want to get rid of the national debt, your to raise taxes, people have to pay for this stuff. you cannot put it on the credit card. host: dave, thank you. guest: bruce said it nicely. everything has to be on the table. we have to cut spending that is being wasted and inefficiency in programs. we have to out some spending so it is fair. we have to have some new taxes. host: from michelle in wisconsin. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i'd a couple of comments or questions. first of all, with the childcare credit a gentleman had brought up about day care. be 24, but from two and a half, when he was diagnosed with autism, until he

got into an adult family home when he was 22.5, i stayed home and took care of him because in our town it is hard to get or day to watch kids care facilities with special needs because they are not equipped for those kinds of things or to meet their needs. in my case, i had to give up my job to stay home. therefore, we were under one income. a mother taking care of a special needs child, there was no programs or anything to help me for my family to make ends meet. families wholot of have special needs children who live in smaller areas have no choice but to stay home and take care of that child until they are out of the education system. if you want to go back to work, then you have to put them in an

adult family home facility. thanks for sharing your story. guest: we have a couple of proposals. ands a heartwarming story, when you hear things like that is hard to go back to policy. we have proposals for the circumstances. family leave, we subsidize a little more family leave. it would not have been enough in the circumstance, but we say eight weeks of parental leave and we encourage employers to offer up to 40 weeks. it is another nudge on employers. childcare, we try to even out the taxes so not so much of the benefit is going to the upper middle class and more the benefits are going to the working class. the private sector does a lot of -- to take that responsibility used to happen the old days when

it was a factory town in the factory took care of people, you need to start thinking more about childcare and more about making your workplace family-friendly. we have this idea we create nonprofits that has worked in other states with the businesses come together and they have a checklist with a chip off -- were they check off things they have done. wonky in response to a searing story like that, but we are trying to use the levers we have. back in may, there were reports that there were 6.6 million job openings. the unemployment rate in october was 3.7%. are there things happening on that front that negate the need for these proposals in the long-term? guest: as the economy heats up, it is drawing people, particularly men, whose jobs dried up and they did not want

to go back to work and dropped out of the labor force. a better economy is drawing a lot of those people back into the workforce. some of the damage that happened around people getting out of the -- it is hard to disentangle what caused what good at the same time, marriage is falling apart, communities falling apart. this education need is still true. people are struggling with his college worth it? thes particularly acute for working class, where probably dad had a high school degree and you do not have to learn more because the factory job did not need more than that. today the factory jobs need a lot more. guyother acute need is the who will lose his job at 38 or 42 -- or woman for that matter -- and as the economy changes a will need to get a new skill. they're not going to go back to a four your college.

that need for different skills is going to stay acute. on a macroeed, level, the president reagan announced -- announced the -- the president announced the renegotiated deal with mexico and canada. how does trade factor into this report? guest: we talked a great deal about trade because there is no question international competition has pushed down wages for a lot of people. we recommended that the government get much tougher on nations that have stolen intellectual property and that is an issue with china. groupance, most of the felt that expanding trade, tearing down foreign trade barriers was still a good thing for everybody, including the working class.

overlook when trading partners are breaking those laws. is danger of the trade issue something we see on a lot of these issues, where on the campaign trail candidates make promises that sound like they're are solving the problem of the working class. and they come to washington do a lot of sound and motion, but really does not make difference on the ground. is the new nafta a much different than the old nafta? i do not think so. to not just treat the working class is some kind of political football where it , but that weds deal with the actual problems on the ground. host: mr. kobe, one of the other

-- miss jacoby, how does immigration factor in? guest: we talked about whether immigration was a problem or solution, and we decided not thely good when you look at impact immigration has, most of it helps grow the economy and create jobs, even when you are -- when who is coming in our busboys and dishwashers. that allows the restaurant owner to open up a new restaurant and employed americans in the middle being waiters or chefs and other activity in the economy. you look at the effect on wages, immigrants have a belly small -- have a very small effect on the wages of high school dropouts. they lower those wages little bit. everybody else's wages increase, including the working class. has beenng class

encouraged to believe that immigrants are there problem and if the immigrants -- if we close the door to immigrants, everything would go back to the 1950's. that is not true. we decided as group, although we had varying opinions, we decided as a group that that is a misdiagnosis and we're not going to fix something we do not think is broken. host: from connecticut, this is elizabeth. you're on with our guest. caller: thank you for taking my call and thank you to c-span for having such great programs. i'd a few quick points and a question. mentionedas been while i was waiting on the phone. i think there should be subsidized universal day care in this country. if you want to help people work at all levels of the economy, the cost of daycare is unsustainable. i'm sure a lot of people do not have children because they cannot afford day care.

the next thing is universal health care. the woman who called from wisconsin, it was a horrible story but i am sure there are many people like her. if we had more comprehensive universal health care like others, i feel there would be programs that would have helped her family and kept her working. transportationis -- i'm not sure i heard someone mention that, but if we had much better transportation in this country. also subsidies. it can get expensive. we would be able to get people moving around a lot better to between a living different communities. duringific question is the last few campaign cycles, i heard different candidates mentioned the need for government subsidies for people

living in appalachia or other areas where jobs have declined to pay for people to move or to pay them living costs while they are training -- the 40-year-old you mentioned, the 50-year-old who needs to train and cannot go to a plot or your college or stop every few years and go back to college. host: elizabeth, thank you for the call. we will let our guests bounce off that. or vouchers tos help people move are a good idea. one challenge we have is a country is that a lot of people are trapped in places where work is declining. since the great recession, they are doubly trapped because maybe they own a house that is not regained its value. without that, they might pick up and move to where the jobs are.

mobility as at a historic low. i think that is an excellent idea. i think we cannot assume that is not going to solve all the problems. , we have toid dramatically increase investment in those communities. we cannot have entire swaths of .he heartland collapsing it came out after our report, unfortunately. towe had had the opportunity weigh in on what amazon decided to do with its headquarters, that, for a lot of us, the indifference of many at the top to the struggles of ordinary folks. of workinglenty

people who could do the jobs that amazon needs done who live in columbus or chicago or pittsburgh were a number of places that put forward fantastic proposals but got amazonover because wanted to be close to well-trained, college-educated engineers. hurdles we putny in the way of people who do not have a college degree. we spend a lot of time talking about the credentials gap, where employers actually only higher people with college degrees for jobs where the people have those jobs now do not have the college degree. it is flat-out discrimination against people in an attempt to change the culture of the workplace and it is so much

easier now, thanks to technology , for amazon to move to the places it moves or an employer to use a job-search engine that filters out everyone who does not have a college degree. ,uest: i want to underscore this investment thing is a big thing. it is easy to blame the federal government for putting his elbow on the scale, but the investment thing is such a big deal. as the companies investigate -- so to silicon valley and see what it is like and then go to northeastern ohio. a lot of it has to do with where the money is going. we saw a lot about how to get employers to act differently, employers and investors. we thought about a lot of different things and there were some in the group wanted to go with pitchforks and some who only wanted to give sweeteners and some in the group who wanted to scold them. it is not an easy game to think about how to persuade employers. i think the best thing is when

employers shame each other. that is how we got places with environmental building is some started to do with the right way and sent to the others, where are you guys? we tried to create incentives for that kind of activity but also where there were sweeteners do morer employers to in a lot of different realms. host: richard in oklahoma. folks. hi, i wanted to bring up something. last week i got let go from a job. i do not fit your other categories, employee or employer. what happened -- what i'm faced with is a medical issue, dilemma. i am 60 years old, not eligible for medicare yet. we have a big problem there in terms of how to life -- how do i

tried to arrange the medical? i have cobra or the affordable care act. $1400 a month. the affordable care act, if you do not -- if i do not want to be 30,000 year for medical bills, i below 65eep my income $840. i am stuck here because a lot of people will not hire a 60-year-old. what i have to do is figure something out. the point i wanted to bring up was both candidates during the presidential campaign mentioned lowering the medicare age to 55 years old. if you did that, a bunch of us i haveolks would say enough money, i can retire, other than this i would have enough money to retire.

apologies, we will let our guests respond to you. guest: i am sorry. that is a tough lot. we do not address it in the report. health care is an issue where republicans and democrats cannot ever find the same place. i do think you are right that it makes a lot of sense to expand eligibility to medicare or something like it for people between 55 and 65. age when insurance gets a lot more expensive and a lot of health conditions emerge. i think we will get there eventually. as i mentioned earlier, we are andgetting on in years

health care is the number one that employers and workers and people who fit neither of those categories bring up. guest: we have to own up to things we left out. sometimes it was because we do not think we can agree and sometimes it was because we do not realize how big a problem it was. the caller before this talk about transportation. as soon as we got out there to the heartland, it hit us in the face about how we had -- about how important that is. give people live in one place in the jobs are a different place, that makes it hard to work. unfortunately we came to the understanding after we finished. we did not get to health care. look at the campaign. health care is one of the biggest issues on people's minds . we do not get to transportation.

there are a lot of things we did not get to. host: one of the things you didn't get to was the experimentation with wage subsidy programs. what are we talking about? you gethe ei tc, where a credit once a year at tax time that helps build your income, we thought maybe getting it once a year is not that effective. maybe you should get it in your paycheck. theidea of a subsidy would -- would be let's pretend you are making $11 an hour and that all we want to get everyone to his $15 an hour. instead of having a minimum wage, maybe the government should pay half of that difference and the employer should pay half of that difference. you would get a paycheck that was $15 an hour, both from the employer and the government and it would not be such an incentive as some of the -- as some of us fear the minimum wage would be to illuminate jobs that do not earn that much. jobs that would

not earn that much. we are not sure it would work but we said let's try to pilot and see if i could work someplace, see if employers will do their peas and see we can make that work and see if that is better for people. we do not know. host: from lakeland florida, employer, this is bob. hello, bob. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a company, we are a metal venue facture or in the model of our company is let's clean china's clock. we are successful in many cases. sometimes we lose. jacoby'ssing miss point, we do by modern, high anded, expensive equipment, we do have to hire programmers and machine operators. ,e also have to hire people like a metal laser cut her for the part that that cuts out.

we have to bend that part. we have to hire break operators. we have to paint that part, so we have to hire those people. operatorsle that are or painters, we also have to hire packers. those are high school graduate people we hire or even less. one thing that stuck in my mind over the years -- back in the 1950's, when i was in high school i had a neighbor who work at a job and he told me he may $90 an hour. this was in 1955. i do not know how i remember that. calculator cpi inflation calculator and according to the calculator that would be worth about $800 a week in today's dollars. i find that hard to believe. i think it proves the point that

the worker's wage has not kept up with inflation. host: thank you for your time. we will let our guests respond. guest: it is nice to hear an employer worrying about the workers wages. i think we do have a demonizing image of employers. i think there are a lot of employers that the colors that .o care about their workers the way the game's rate, it is hard for them to do the right thing. i think the thunderstorm's -- i think he underscores the point we do not know where the future of work will take us. there are funny things robots cannot do. robots cannotes, make the last part of the paint job perfect. in food processing plants, the robots cannot lay out the food so it looks nice. there are going to be jobs. everyone has his idea that pretty soon the robots will do everything.

they will take a lot of jobs. a lot of jobs will change, but we will be surprised by some of what is left. host: mr. reed? guest: we went to see an amazing program in louisville where group of employers had gotten together because they faced that where was difficult to find the workers with the skills they wanted. led by toyota but with a bunch of small employers from the louisville area, they put together their own community college program. it is a two-year program where they recruit kids out of high school who had a lot of promise but do not want to get a four your degree and want something relevant to their lives right now. they had to work half-time and study halftime. they learned those advanced skills that do not require a college degree but are the kinds of things you need to get the jobs this employer was talking

about. what made it work for louisville was it was not just a big employer who was trying to look for one kind of worker, it was a bunch of employers, some only needed a job or two a year. they've added together and found a way to increase the skill level of the entire community. host: from missouri. jim. caller: my concern was interest rates. development, the feds raised interest rates, wall street took a dive. our president complained. wall street went back up. it makes it obvious that wall street is calling the shots. host: thank you. guest: fairpoint. -- there are a lot of

clouds on the horizon for this economy. it is best we deal with them rather than look the other way. -- one thing that is striking about the condition of working people is that we are almost 10 years in to one of the longest economic expansion's the country has ever had. up wages are barely nudging above where they were 40 years ago. i think what is good for wall street in the long run is a thriving, prosperous economy where everybody wins. we should stop worrying about having the greatest stock market rally of all time and be in a

position where people can afford to buy a car and pay their bills. host: there is more of this report we do not have a chance to get to. it is called work, skills, opportunity. restoring opportunity for the american working class. , the president and ceo of opportunity america joining us. also bruce reed of the future of work initiative. to both of you. thanks for joining us. that is it for our program today. another one comes your way at 7:00 tomorrow morning. we will see you then. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2018] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: