to discuss campaign finance laws and at 9:30 a.m., reporter on proposedberg changes to the clean water act. and we will take your calls and join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal♪ host: good morning and welcome to washington journal. a federal judge has declared the affordable care act , making a newal battle over the law known as obamacare. this decision will likely be put on hold as it is brought to the supreme court. this comes as americans face a deadline of today to sign for coverage in the federal insurance exchanges provided by the law. what do you think is going on with the affordable care act? idea?re a better

we want to know what you think. if you have insurance through the affordable care act and want to comment, call at (202) 748-8000. if you have employer insurance, we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8001. if you are uninsured, we want you to call at (202) 748-8002. if you don't fit in any of those categories that want to call anyway, we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8003. remember, you can always reaches on social media, on twitter and on facebook. texas made out of all the newspapers this morning as it could have a potential effect on health care around the nation. here is what the washington post wrote about this decision. threw a daggere

on friday night, willing to health care law is unconstitutional because of the recent change in federal tax laws. overturned all the sprawling law nationwide. the ruling came of the eve of the deadline for americans to sign up for coverage in the federal insurance exchange created under the law. if the ruling stands, it would create widespread disruption across the u.s. health care system. from no charge preventative services for older americans, to the expansion of medicaid, to the shape of the indian health service. hundreds of provisions in the prized domestic achievement of president barack obama. swiftlyt trump tweeted his pleasure at the predicted,s i

obamacare has been struck down as an unconstitutional disaster. now congress will pass a strong law that will protect existing conditions." in the new york times we have this story. texas struckdge in down the affordable care on friday on the grounds it is a mandate requiring people to buy health insurance is unconstitutional and the rest of the law cannot stand without it. the ruling was over a lawsuit filed by a group of republican governors and state attorneys general. a group of intervening states promised to appeal the decision, which will most likely not have any immediate effect but it will almost certainly make its way to the supreme court. threatening the survival of the landmark health law and, with it, health coverage for millions of americans, protections for

people with pre-existing conditions and much more." president trump immediately went to twitter. in thee heard one tweet story from the washington post. here is another that came up behind it. "wow, but not surprisingly obamacare was just ruled unconstitutional by a highly respected judge in texas. great news for america." we have a caller coming in now. lou is calling from pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. i really don't know much about the law. never studied it and i'm glad i didn't. i studied economics. i think this is a chance now for not alltisan congress, democrats and not all republicans to finally, after eight long years get together, start from scratch and get is a

good health care system. i am on medicare and i am really afraid they will have medicaid for all and i don't want to lose my medicare. it has been working very well for me. i don't want to lose it so now is a chance with the two guys, andsi and mitch mcconnell the president maybe he can actually work as one. forget about hating each other and do something for the american people. host: we will talk to one of the reporters who has been covering wixell.sue, nate good morning. guest: good morning. host: we read briefly from the post and the times. tell us your opinion about what is that we happened in this ruling from texas. guest: last night you get this

federal judge who decided essentially that the individual mandate was unconstitutional. that was the mandate, the penalty for not having insurance. this judge decided since the andate was unconstitutional could not be separated from the rest of the law the entire law was unconstitutional. host: is this the first time a federal judge has called the affordable care act unconstitutional? changed thatas makes this decision come down now? guest: we are not really sure about the timing of this. he has been briefed on this for months. we are not sure why this ruling came out now. it is a new ruling. the law hasrst time

been declared unconstitutional. there was a previous decision where the law was held up, but this one brought -- it was a republican-led lawsuit by 20 essentially red states led by texas where the ruling was. that is what made it unique. host: we have heard from the democrats and the people who like the law. they will immediately appeal this. tell us the route this will take to the supreme court. what judges will hear this case next? understanding, it is going to be appealed in the 5th circuit in texas. thoughts that the 5th circuit is among one of the

more conservative districts to have an appeal, but that is where the case was heard. that is where the appeal will go. --ending on what happened depending on what happens in the 5th circuit, did more than likely goes up to the supreme court. the supreme court generally knows what they are going to hear already and i'm not sure it can get up as quickly. host: what is the practical effect of this ruling? does anything change with health care in america right now or is this a waiting game to find out what the court is going to do somewhere down the road? guest: right. it is a waiting game. practically there is no real impact. the law is still the law. it is still on the books. today is the deadline to enroll in health insurance in most states on the federal exchange.

that is still the case. this court did not have any impact on that. we sort of have to wait and see. meanwhile all the benefits are still there, the law is still there. everything is still on the books. host: you brought up today was the last day of open and roman for 20 -- open enrollment for 2019 coverage. business have any effect on the deadline? -- does that have any effect on the deadline? guest: everyone still has until midnight tonight to sign up. there are a handful of states that have extended their deadlines. generally speaking, midnight tonight is the last time you can sign up for health insurance coverage. that has not changed practically. we will not know until later on what the ruling has done, what sort of impact it has. maybe people--

think the law is not of the books and they don't center for and thator something, is likely to have some sort of impact. we just don't know with that is yet. a is sort of hard to have massive court decision like this, all the press it has been getting and not really have any sort of impact on what people see, what people hear and do afterwards. it is possible enrollment could take a hit because of this, but we just don't know that yet. host: before this ruling came out last night what were the numbers looking by for 2019 coverage under the obamacare law? where they up? where they down? year, compared to last enrollment was down about 12% from the same time we were at last year.

there were about 4.1 million people who enrolled through six weeks this year. last year, six weeks about 4.7 million people. surgewas a pretty decent during the last week. it was the largest one-week boost, the largest numbers we have seen this year. there was only about 934,000 people that signed up last week. -- if you look at week six last year, over one million people signed up. enrollment is definitely down. there is a big surge at the end, the last day or two, but it will need a lot to match last year's numbers. host: will we see any congressional action in this last month? what do we expect to see from the new divided government

starting in january? guest: you mentioned the divided government. i feel like things might have to wait until then. there is not a lot of time in this congressional session left. republicans and democrats are going to be concerned with finding the government and making sure there is no shutdown before they leave for the rest of the session. i feel like there is definitely an opportunity come the next congress when democrats take over the house. there is talk of bills coming out of certain committees that would enshrine protections for pre-existing conditions. there is always the talk of what you do with medicare for all, medicaid for all, medicaid buy-in. these are things democrats seven talking about. and heling has come down gives them a new sense of urgency. the last election was about

people protecting pre-existing conditions. democrats ran on this and won on this. they will want to tackle this, whether or not republicans in the senate -- that's another story. they support pre-existing conditions but it depends on what comes out of the democratic house. host: is there one particular idea that can pass the democratic house and the republican senate and be signed by the president that would resolve these problems we are seeing? really -- i think that would be a challenge. i think getting the parties to agree on health care is a tall task. if there was some way that weryone could say, yes, support people with pre-existing conditions and we want to protect people who have existing conditions, that may be a policy

but it depends on what the policy looks like. so far there has not really been anything put forward that everybody can support. i think i would be surprised if we don't have more partisan wrangling. guest: is there anything else you want to add about this ruling and health care we have not talked about yet? guest: i feel like we have touched on it a lot. this ruling just came out last night so there is a lot still to be determined, a lot to digest. the important thing is to realize this ruling -- the law is still the law. if you have not signed up, you still have an opportunity to sign up. host: what is the deadline today? through midnight? guest: midnight tonight. host: perfect. we would like to thank nate weixel. guest: thanks, jesse. callingt's go to tom

from los angeles, california. caller: good morning. am uninsured.- i i have been paying on medicare since 1964 and never used it. i became very upset at the process with the obama congress. they worked through the judicial process. there were 70 amendments put forth by the republicans. many were physicians. none of them made it out of committee. the process was shut off by the democrats. they did not know what they were doing. , fines andve jail sentences on the general public, you have to do it. my sun has his own company -- my

son has his own company and had the a fine. nothing but beneficial things will happen now because both parties are going to have to work together. i think it will be of benefit for everybody. it points out basically power corrupts absolutely. will be of benefit and i'm looking forward to something -- my own doctor. i asked him what he thinks about it. he railed on me because he is a conservative. himt years later, i asked what does he feel about the ford will health care act. he said it sucks. that is my position. i would love to see something that works. this is 18% of the nation's economy and health care. -- in health care.

i think he will see the competition between states. the market will improve things. andfully it will be better when people are doing something, it is not just one person. everyone is a person. celia from south carolina. go ahead. say -- theanted to first caller that called in -- what i'm saying is the affordable care act was designed for all the states to buy into it. and because we have so much hatred, especially coming towards -- from the republican party that they refuse to buy into it, and that put us all at risk. them -- soo bad for

hard for them to want everybody to have insurance? i just don't understand that. host: let's go to nick from sarasota, florida. caller: good morning. with all due respect to your reporter, he does not know it is talking about. in 2012, after some states sued over obamacare, chief justice roberts writing the opinion, "united states government cannot require its citizens to buy goods and services and pay for those goods and services. the only legal way for the nation to raise revenue is through taxation." this judge's ruling really just builds on that base on the fact you have to have an individual mandate makes the whole architecture unworkable. the only way they will be able to pass a law to be constitutional is to pass laws that do things like allow states to buy insurance across state

lines and all these other administrative and bureaucratic regulations that get in the way of lowering the price. you can't have a program, except now medicare. it is taxed through payrolls that makes it constitutional. president obama said it is not a tax, it is just a fee. you can't do that. it is like a national park. they can charge you a fee but you don't have to go into the park. they can't mandate it. is unconstitutional and always has been. host: mary from philadelphia, pennsylvania. mary has employer insurance. caller: good morning, c-span. i'm a retired state worker. since the 1960's when i was hired, we always had mandated health coverage. medicare wed and

pay 1.45%. if you look at your w-2 form, it will list that. your w-2 form always has what additional medical insurance you pay. we pay 3% in addition to the 1.45%. social security. it was mandated. you had no choice. we had to pay 6.2%. people are not looking at what they are actually paying. it was just a thing where we gave the insurance coverage to the employers, for them to pay the additional expense. people need to follow the laws. those laws are still in effect. the only people that were exempt because it was nothing we could issued to them is if the $300,000, forover a multimillionaire.

they were required to pay their own insurance and required to save further on retirement. look at the laws. if you have pay stubs, you can see you had no choice. permanently out from individuals and they continued to take it out. you still have to pay into medicare. thank you and you have a good day. host: let's go to some tweets from viewers who are writing and on twitter to talk about daca. -- about the aca. " as a family of five, this could literally be life-changing and devastating to lose our marketplace coverage." "it's heading to the supreme court again so hopefully the justices totally kill it this time. it was unconstitutional when it was passed.

it was ruled a tax on the people e destroyed the already got health care reit had destroy thetry." -- already bad health care reit had in this country." reed o'connor, a george w. bush appointee in fort worth, texas, issued this in response to a lawsuit from 20 conservative-led states that fought to have the affordable care act tossed out. they successfully argued the mandate penalty was a critical linchpin of the law and without it the entire framework is rendered unconstitutional. "the individual mandate is so interwoven with the aca's regulations that they cannot be separated. none of them can stand," o'connor wrote."

dee has insurance through the aca. good morning. caller: hello. actually i now have medicare but i did have insurance through the affordable care act and thank god for that because i have rheumatoid arthritis. i had tried the high risk insurance and could not afford it and was without insurance for a while. i am a retired medical social worker and have seen the devastating effects of having no insurance. honestly, there were so many people i know that benefited from having access to the affordable care act. y any grouperstand wh againstymakers would be

having affordable care for none. who had it saves the hospitals, it saves the doctors, and they do support the affordable care act. that is what i have to say. host: let's go to tim calling from alabama. tim is also insured through the aca. good morning. caller: good morning. the individual mandate where everybody makes some sort of payment to the aca, like you -- that iswhat makes what makes the aca work. what i would like americans to look at is there is nothing that the republicans have foot ve put forward

to help people with health care. if they take away the aca and with the new tax plan that trump has passed then they are going to go into your social security to pay for this tax plan. they are going to go into your medicare and medicaid to pay for this tax plan. you will have nothing left but a bone to chew on. you will have no health care at all. the people need to look at this and realize what is going on. this is all lif i have to say. host: the hhs secretary was at a health care event this week. he was talking about the enrollment numbers, the low enrollment numbers on the aca earlier as of midweek. [video] >> the open enrollment deadline.

deadlines are down. >> i would caution one possible hypothesis and why it's important to wait for the open and roman period -- enrollment period ends. premiums are down. we have over 25 new plan offerings, new insurers in the marketplace. you have premiums in many states often 20%e digits, for they work for this on reinsurance mechanisms. if you are not making a choice and auto re-enrolling in the plan, you don't actually show up in the numbers of auto reenrollment until the last minute of the system. remind everyone if you want to call and and talk and talk aboutn

what's happening with the affordable care act. if you have the affordable care act, call in at (202) 748-8000. if you have employer insurance, (202) 748-8001. if you are uninsured, call in at (202) 748-8002. everyone else, if you don't fit into any of those categories, (202) 748-8003. let's go to michael from stamford, connecticut. michael has employer insurance. caller: good morning. how are you doing today? i don't think there is going to be too much of a problem. republicans had eight years, now 10 years to come up with a more beautiful, cheaper affordable care act. trump said he will come out with better insurance for everybody. it will be cheaper, beautiful. piece that all the great people running the whole show over

there. i have a prediction about trump. he will just give up, maybe by the end of the year and just resigned and leave it up to mike pence. republicans, this is what you want. what are they going to do for you? they will take away your health care and you will be left with nothing. that is great. boo hoo. let's go trump. host: john from huntsville, alabama. john is uninsured. good morning. caller: good morning. i am uninsured and all these people who are saying the affordable care act is this great thing, well, if you don't have a lot of income, it is just a nightmare because he have to pay this huge amount for health care. if you're not quite poor enough, just over the line and you don't get a huge subsidy, they have huge penalties.

it is debilitating. they keep escalating and they get ridiculously large. it is not a tax. that is just tortured logic they used uphold the thing. the 10th amendment prevents the central government -- the federal government from having powers that are not enumerated in the constitution. nowhere does it say they need to regulate your health care. people make it up to be a republican or democrat issue, but is an establishment versus the people issue. it was romneycare before it was , and after it was romneycare it was obamacare. it was an individual mandate. it is just a giveaway to the insurance companies where people who follow the diet philosophies, people who eat like to eat in the blue zones have few health problems and

don't need this huge expensive amount of health treatments that other people do. host: let's go to sarah from edgewater, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. i am a health insurance broker. the affordable care act is not affordable. what i have seen is a big rise in premiums. be able tosed to afford the coverage cannot afford it anymore because they don't qualify for the subsidies. we are losing people that used to have it by not buying the coverage anymore because they can't afford it. howss you get the subsidy, can someone afford at 62 a $700 a month premium? that is a rate in maryland. medicare., medicare is a great program but the biggest disservice our

government has done to seniors is by making sure there are now all these drug plans that people have to choose from. every single year i see it so many times over and over again. people don't know how to shop and they don't go and shop. yesterday i got a call from shopody who did not because they did not know how to and the open a roman is over -- open enrollment is over. they stayed in the united health care prescription drug plan that will cost them $20,000 because they are on the wrong drug plan. in maryland alone there are over 20 plans that seniors have to choose from or can choose from. that mostely i think seniors don't know how to do it or they are not able to go online or maybe they have alzheimer's and they can do it. the point is there should be one drug plan for all seniors and

they should negotiate with the drug companies and the government for the lowest drug prices. to the other thing i wanted to say, i think for the medicare -- medicare is a good with thatt even people need to be aware there is no limit on your out-of-pocket expense. it's a good idea to have an advantage plan or have a medicare subsidy that helps you pay for the out-of-pocket expenses associated with that. medicare for all sounds good but somebody has to pay for it. i think our government should really take a look at what they want to do for the citizens of this great nation. thank you. host: lisa from laurel, maryland. lisa has employer insurance. caller: good morning and

thankfully i do have employer insurance. i just wanted to say the affordable care act became unaffordable because the republican governors did not buy into it. in addition you have 30 out of 50 governors who are republican. 20 of them are suing saying it is not -- the aca is unconstitutional. what about the other 10? the problem begins with the gerrymandering so that republicans can win from local elections all the way through to national elections. elections do have consequences. the individual mandate was already eliminated under trump. justice roberts held of the aca was not unconstitutional. they are trying to dismantle and destroy anything associated with a black president's legacy in this country. and of story. -- end of story.

virginiamy -- sammy from virginia. caller: good morning. hi. , and before ice had insurance with my employer everything was fine. i went for one year not insured. it was really not comfortable. i am a citizen. i am 61 now. i don't know why everyone is fighting about what is necessary. from let's go to greg kileen, texas. caller: i sure appreciate your show because you bring a good subject in and you let people listen. i'm glad you let people comment on stuff.

yes. host: go ahead. have a i would like to comment on the fact we are never going to get this insurance thing going because it is about money, it's about insurance companies. they control the farm aid. it is about money. only the taxpayers are putting insurance money out there and they are claiming they are not making it. businesses don't have to pay the insurance. this is all about profit. it is going into the business peoples' profit. they have stolen the country. the insurance companies and lawyers are robbing this country blind. they are bankrupting the country. paid into nothing.

we are hurting because we can't afford the insurance and is never going to happen because it is a private business. you have to have a flat insurance for everybody. a flat tax to control the people robbing the taxpayers. if you don't have a flat tax in this country, we are never going to get our country straight because everything as a write off. it's the same with medicaid. they are cashing in on the medicare and they ran it up. now they are running up medicaid. we will not have it right until we have a flat rate insurance. so everybody can benefit. the insurance company and the government are involved. the lawyers are involved. they don't care. it is all about profit. chiming inkers are on this decision from the federal judge in texas from all

sides of the issue. one of the plaintiffs, incoming senator josh hawley tweeted this. "the texas court declared obamacare individual mandate unconstitutional. now they decipher both parties to work together -- now it is time for both parties to work together to lower health care costs, improve access to quality care for all, and protect those with pre-existing conditions." we also have other tweets from other senator. gop wants to take away protection for those with conditions. they voted to take away those protections last year and are now full responsible for the cruel decision by a texas court. when democrats take the gavel we will stop this insanity." "am dianne feinstein,

district court endangered health care for millions of americans. not only does this ruling threatened coverage for pre-existing conditions, it will undo all consumer protections in the aca and the expansion of medicaid." but go back to the phones and go to john from west palm beach, florida. john has employer insurance. good morning. caller: good morning. my premiums when president obama was in there for eight years went through the roof. it doubled because i was subsidizing his plan. it really was not his plan. if you go back, they were trying to ensure a percent of americans. -- eight percent of americans. eight out of 100 people did not have health care. what did they do? all they did was increase the limits for medicaid. not medicare, medicaid.

the lady before was wrong. the 1.45% goes to medicare only, not medicaid. all this is is a great expansion of medicaid. whenever to get the government involved in this, did rise of the cost of everything. this goes all the way back to 1965. linden banks johnson -- lyndon baines johnson and his great society when he created medicaid and medicare. all that does is make a third party, the government. they are the ones that pay most of the bill, which means you are not paying the true cost of medicine. that is why health care has gone through the roof and you can go over to education, college education ever since 1965, same thing. they passed an act where they will give everybody low-interest loans to go to college. all they did was drive up the cost for college. get government the hell out of my health care and let me pay

for it. host: sandy from orlando, florida. good morning. caller: good morning. i am an employer. i provide health insurance for my employees. i am a small business. i have no problem doing that. i have done that from day one. i do know that some employers who are very greedy don't want to spend that money on their employees. one of the problems i have seen is that the insurance companies, no matter what, will always increase the rates 15% to 20% each year. as a result of that -- i used to pay 100% for my employees. i had to pass some of that onto my current employees to pay 20% of the premium. employee and the

paid her health insurance, if they want family coverage, what happens is the companies like aetna, blue cross blue shield, the big insurance carriers will allow me to have my employees pay for their family coverage. but it is almost as much as what i am paying as an employer, which is about $1000 an employee for them to get this coverage, which is totally ridiculous. problem for my employee to have insurance for their family. one of the things i have always thought is that every child in the united states should be covered because they can't work. may be an adult can work and get a job, and maybe their employer can provide health insurance coverage for them, but a kid can't.

i don't know anything that would be worse than having to choose how to get your health care for a kid. i don't even have children but families are an important asset to the company. i don't understand why there is such a big fight about health insurance. i do think some of the employers just don't want to pay it. they want to keep all the money. and they are greedy. i have always had a problem with this. generation the need -- me generation. can't take care of anybody else but yourself. that seems to be more from the republican side that the democratic side because we have to help people. -- democraticre representative elijah cummings came out to the house floor to

defend the affordable care act earlier this week. here is what he had to say. [video] >> the trouble administration has focused their efforts on sabotaging the aca by making it harder for americans to sign for coverage through acts like shortening the moment period, slashing funding and lowering spending by more than 80% on local in person assistance through the navigator program. because of these efforts there is fear about the future of aca. i want to make one thing very clear. the aca is not going anywhere. despite the efforts of the trump administration to sabotage this law. please know i intend to do everything in my power to keep the aca in tact and make sure people have health coverage that is meaningful, affordable and accessible.

host: al from toledo, washington. al has employer insurance. caller: good morning. i have employer insurance because of a 100% disabled veteran. i was not always a 100% disabled veteran. i have been looking at this health care thing for many years. i am 85 now. live the good life. i know how these things can escalate. one of the biggest insurers to the cost -- contributors to the cost is the administrative overhead. it is duplicated in every office, every hmo, and we get confused because we are told lies. can you keep your health care provider? well, yes you can. provided your hmo keeps her health care provider. provided your health care provider does not move onto another job.

we can't control those things. recently i've had about 14 letters telling me coverage was denied because medicare was built and set of the veterans administration, for this new trace program was built instead of the v.a. -- bill instead of the the v.a. those letters each cost about eight dollars. than the cost of the building agents with their paperwork in their confusion and their duplication because they make mistakes. i have a friend who has been going to a doctor complaining about stomach problems and like problems. -- leg problems. the last time the doctor thought he was on drugs, sent him home to take an aspirin.

he went back the next day. suddenly they are in a rush to get into emergency medical care. he's had two operations. you will have one more. he will lose three toes as a result of the circulation problem, blood clots. not being identified all these years as the problem. it could have been taken care of eight years ago at a minimal cost. and now has cost around $140,000 in the past week and a half. we have to have a single-payer plan. records --cle single medical records. we don't need thousands of people doing paperwork. when it comes down to this item, we are the government. we the people are the government. i heard a comment about the unconstitutional thing. sectiont article i,

eight, given the congress of power to do all things necessary and proper to carry out the intent of the constitution. that means making laws. as the supreme court decided, the affordable care act is constitutional. we pay more because -- we have the moment a child is born in tax liability. we can and should do better anything single-payer is the way to go. insuranceuality care so things like what happened to my friend the last eight years coming to a combination of week and a half ago does not repeat. every doctor should meet criteria. every hospital should either be --n or closed, for the staff

or the staff rejected across the united states if they do not provide quality health care to take care of the patient. anything that is medically indicated should be covered. the standards should be the same and the patient be the same matter where you are. host: lewis from new jersey. lewis is uninsured. good morning. caller: thank god he got that guy off. yes, i am uninsured. underpaying $352 a month blue cross blue shield family of five. $50 when i would show up to a doctor or hospital. after that went, the affordable care act wanted me to pay $672 a month. that is like my mortgage. a $4700 deductible.

that is not the point. where democrats worried about the cost on this thing was imploding after four or five years? everyone knew this was going bankrupt. some states only had one insurer. republicans -- the government said before, they tried to make amendments and democrats blocked it. republicans are trying to save this. democrats don't care about how much money you pay in taxes. thank you. vermont.ert from albert has employer insurance. good morning. caller: good morning. i was in germany a couple of years ago. for fourpitalized days. a very nice hospital. when i was discharged there was

no cost. what you have, and i did a little research, the germans are spending about half as much per capita for medical care. no matter who you are, you are covered and you get good coverage. as far as medical school is concerned, the other thing about germany is there are american residents whose children are going to german colleges at virtually no cost. i am calling to support the single-payer system. that is the way it should be. eliminate all this overhead we have through these insurance companies. that is where all the money is going. that is my comment. host: karen from chester, pennsylvania. uninsured. good morning. caller: i am on my husband's plan for work. when he retires i will be on

medicare because i'm on disability. however i'm not calling to talk about that. the point i want to make and what are two other colors -- callers hit around it. when the plan came out and was voted on, the original first bill, they would not pass it because it was single-payer. ok. they had to give up the single-payer to get the votes for the necessity to pass it, otherwise it would not have passed. i was watching it right on your network. late at night, end of december. everybody is blaming obama. worked for romney because it was single-payer in massachusetts. when they got rid of the single-payer they messed up the whole financial end of it. is should have been broken apart

and corrected. they should have tinkered with it and fixed those problems, but instead of the insurance got what they wanted to get. everybody blamed obama. it was not their fault. i have to give it to him. the democrats did block the republican amendments they tried to put on it. itatched that and they said was not germane. they can be fixed. it just needs to be broken apart. this part fixed, this part fixed. it is crazy. everybody is blaming everybody for nothing. nobody is looking at the real problem. the initial problem was when you took it off single-payer. that is what messed it up. host: joyce from bryan, ohio.

good morning. caller: good morning. i am on medicare. insurancehange my because i have what they consider a pre-existing condition. condition that is pre-existing does exist, but on the other end of how they figure out my payments is a coding system the medical people use to get their payments, which a lot of times are just two or three categories. they pick the one for the coding gets them the most money. i am being penalized for a condition i am not even being treated for, only monitored to make sure it doesn't change. i cannot change insurance

companies. when i tried they decided to put me into a different tier. and set of $149 a month i would $314 because of this condition. other companies would not even talk to me because i was too short for my weight. or certaincations, conditions such as this. my thought is this, sir. is there a possibility that congress would consider insuring child underamerican medicare until they are 18? if they had pre-existing condition after that, they should stay covered but this would cut down on the number of nceple who need insura

through private company and it should drive the rates down. i don't know if it would work but it is a thought. i am in desperate need right now because i think $235 a month and he goes up every three months. this is not fair. that should not be put on the american people. host: let's go to anthony it was calling from colo california. caller: i wanted to make a simple statement about health insurance. into the right, not a privilege. not everyone in the country is wealthy. we need some kind of an aca or similar program that allows for people to have a medical needs taken care of. as i drive down the freeways in california you notice these

large homeless cap's parked it -- unless camps parked everywhere. i'm sure these people need medical care and they are not being served. that is my statement. thank you very much. host: henry from new york. good morning. caller: good morning. a great show. i -- what i want to say is i am on medicare. over 65. prior to that i was a public school teacher and we have a strong union and i had excellent medical care. i am not complaining but i do ofember when the debate president obama and republicans was going on about this act. the republican speaker of the house and republican majority leader of the senate or not letting anything pass. that was a hateful thing to say. obama had every concession on the planet to get for existing

getitions passed -- to pre-existing conditions passed. don't vote against her own self-interest and give a pre-existing conditions. you will find yourself having us nothing. that is my comment for today. host: coming up next we will take a look at student debt with james kvaal from the institute for college access and success. later, campaign-finance laws and the trump administration with carrie levine of the center for public integrity. stay with us. ♪

>> tonight at 8:00 eastern, conversations with three retiring members of congress. sanfordccaskill, mark and dana rohrabacher. they all discussed losing their reelection bid and reflect other time in congress. >> experience is now not a positive thinking government. i like to make a joke. imagine they are wheeling you into an operating room and the nurse says i have good news for you. this surgeon has never done this before. you would go back to gurney up. in government now that is exactly what people want. they want people running for office that have never been around government because they have become so cynical that anyone who has chosen this for a career is not looking after them. is, and thisld say

was part of the blessing of having a second chance and politics after i blew myself up in 2009, is that i have seen and experienced firsthand people's grace, a reflection of god's grace. that is an incredibly humbling journey to walk, particularly in a public venue. >> i have the bolshevik billionaires who i stepped on their toes a number of times over the years who decided i have to go. i was outspent over tender one that i know of now. do my be a lot more when you look into it -- it might be a lot more you look into it by people who are with billions of dollars and don't even live in california. >> watch this conversation tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span and c-span.org. you can also listen with the free c-span radio app. "washington journal"

continues. host: welcome back. we're talking with james kvaal, president for the institute for college access and success. we will be talking about a recent study calling for better postcollege employment data for students to figure out if college is worth it. what is the institute for college access and success? guest: we are a nonprofit organization that promotes portability and equity in higher education. we worked on federal policy and in california on california policy. host: who supports this institute? where do you get your money from? guest: we are funded by some institutes and by small dollar donations. att: you are looking

information students should have before pursuing a college degree. what sort of information should students have? are they getting it? guest: they are not. an important reason for most todents to go to college is get a better job. it is not the only reason, but students say it is the most important. it is very difficult for students to get accurate, verifiable information on how likely they are to get a job after graduating. in some cases, we have seen some deceptive, misleading recruiting practices by colleges that tend to focus on job placement rates because they are so difficult to verify. we outline some steps the federal government to take, states can take to help students get accurate information. host: what type of information is that? is that information about the college itself, different

majors, the salaries that majors can get you if you get a job? what are you talking about? guest: there are a number of things students should look at before considering a college. graduation rates, typical student debt, student loan default rates, and in this case we are focusing on employment measures. we propose giving students a sense of how likely they are to find a well-paying job. are they going to find a job that they trained for? is it going to pay them some minimum amount that allows them to pay their bills? host: are you talking about repaying their death, a living -- debt, a living wage, what are you talking about? employed ask, are you in the field for which you are trained? that is a common measure of

college success now. it is not verifiable. oftentimes that information is not verified. we have seen programs in students design count employed at best buy as being employed in the field for which they have trained. in one case, they counted a starbucks barista because that person had done some graphic design as part of her job. are you employed in the field for which you trained? the second measure, are you making at least a minimum threshold? we recommend something like $28,000 a year, about what a high school graduate makes. we think a college graduate should typically make more than that. if you have two people making $28,000 a year, then you are close to the middle of the income distribution in the u.s. reckoning.

host: what is the federal government role? what is the state government role? what do you think it should be? guest: we have a complicated system of higher education. colleges are regulated in part by the federal government. states regulate colleges and universities. most students go to a public college or university. even if you're talking about a private nonprofit or for profit college, they are regulated by the state. finally, colleges are regulated by a creditors -- accreditors. when you are talking about employment measures, it needs to be verified by actual data. use the datastates they collect unemployment records to measure post completion success.

similarly, we recommend the u.s. department of education use social security records to calculate wages. this would be done in a privacy protected, secure way. there would be no access to individual level information. you would be looking at how well to graduates of a particular college or program do as a group. host: we want you to be involved in this conversation. we will open some special phone lines. if you are a recent college graduate, we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8000. if you are -- that is the only special line we have. if you are a recent college graduate, we want to hear from you about what you thought your degree was going to do and whether you think it was worth it. if you are a recent college graduate, call (202) 748-8000. everyone else

, we want to hear from you as well because we know everyone has higher education on the mind these days. if you are in the eastern her central time zones, call (202) 748-8001. if you are in the mountain or pacific time zones, call (202) 748-8002. we are always listening on , and onedia, on twitter facebook. you can reach us on facebook.com/cspan. what has been the reaction from higher education to this report? our colleges saying this is a good idea, bad idea? guest: it is mixed. we have a number of college leaders who are concerned about fraud and deception in this area. they tend to be supportive. i mentioned fraudulent or deceptive recruiting practices.

a big example is corinthian for-profit national college chain that enrolled 100,000 students. you could think about that being two pennohio states or states. this is a massive institution. a lot of higher education leaders support greater thatards in this area so we can prevent fraud and that kind of deception. we left over 100,000 students holding the bag with student debt and no prospects. some higher education leaders say to us that college education is about more than a job. we agreed with that. we think this is one important measure of college success. host: what are some of the horror stories that you have heard from graduates that feel

they were deceived by the cost they paid coming in? guest: we have seen a lot of students say they felt they were misled. i was speaking to an active-duty military member this week who said he was assured he would find jobs in aerospace with a bachelor degree program he enrolled in. he borrowed tens of thousands of dollars in debt and ultimately learned after a year of unsuccessful job searching that program did not have the credibility with employers he thought it did. he had to return to school to get another degree to get the career he wanted. that does happen. students choosing colleges need to be very careful. this is an important investment. it is one of the largest investments of your life. you need to look at what does that college to graduation rate

look like? do graduates from the college tend to find the jobs they are looking for? host: what is the responsibility of the students here? what should students on their own try to find out before they commit to these programs? we have a responsibility to make sure there is fair, accurate, verifiable information students can access. policymakers are not living up to that responsibility. for students, they need to do their due diligence. they cannot assume any college will get them where they want to go. students should not believe the promises recruiters make to them necessarily. they need to go home and look at that college. there is a great resource of the college sports -- resource called the college scorecard.

call from janet from missouri. toler: i'm a student that school 30 plus years ago. school's a fraud. the government confiscated everything i was not able to graduate. i was out the door. thingtion was the best going for a medical assistant. never happened. loan a -- got a $4,000 that is now $23,000 plus. it's a shame. low income was looking for a future and can't have it.

guest: i agree with that. we have a system where students are borrowing heavily to build a better live themselves and their future. all too often, students and up with a loan they cannot repay for one reason or another. it is tragic. in the case of colleges that thee, that committed fraud, department of education is supposed to write off the student loans associated with those programs if they are w orthless programs and you cannot transfer the academic credit to another college. i would encourage you to talk to the person who holds your federal student loans and see n applicationt a

that program. collegeu brought up the scorecard earlier. can you tell us exactly what that is? guest: it is on the web. you can google the college scorecard. it includes basic information that the department of education thinks students need to know. what are the typical earnings of graduates from that college? what does the student body look like? how much does it cost? it is an next resource for students looking to get the most basic facts they can rely on. host: who would you advise to use this? is this for students, parents, students in school already? makingit is for students college choices and anyone involved in supporting that. it is a great resource for

students, high school students, parents, advisers helping them make that choice. it is a good place to start for anyone trying to figure out their options. host: a lot of information we have been talking about i have assumed has been geared toward under reference. does this go -- under graduates. does this all go for graduate students as well? guest: yes. it should not stop with the google search. they should talk to the people in the field, the type of education that got where they are. i have talked to a lot of students who borrowed a lot of money and were surprised to learn it was not going to take them where they thought it would. host: that includes schools like law school and medical school as

well. guest: gospels have gotten a lot of attention lately -- law schools have gotten a lot of attention lately where people go into a lot of debt to go into law school, and not every law lawyers thatrong the two excellent jobs -- lead to excellent jobs. host: let's go to kim. caller: good morning. good morning. host: go ahead. we can hear you. caller: i am a recent graduate who has my second master's degree. mother.ised by a single student loans and financial aid was the only way i probably would be able to go to college. i heard an interesting statistic int college is for kids

poverty almost a for sure way to come out of poverty. i agree with that. not only did it help me come out of poverty. not all the way. i am still struggling. i have student loans. i'm in a phd program at a big ten university. debt to pay. i think it is too high. i think it would have been much different without college. african-americans, you know, given our history and struggle in this country, we do need a certain amount of us to the intellectuals. a better thing for our community. i'm a public school teacher.

i qualify now for some jobs that , and if i amey lucky, i will find what of those positions. advocate college to students i teach, community college, some college. some students, they don't want to go to college. skilled trades are fine. some sort of training. i tell a lot of people, they say student loans are not good, but $20,000 or you place $40,000 into an education, and you come out with a job that pays $70,000 or 90,000 dollars, you should be able to pay those loans back. theirk people don't keep student loans in good standing.

this didn't want people make it easy to keep your loans in good standing. maybe interest rates should go lower. i think people who work in the public sector like did payachers -- they for all of my perkins loans when i got out of undergrad. recently, i got a $17,000 reduction on my student loans. i think i qualify for other things. for people that work in the public sector, i believe we should get more cuts for a student loan. guest: i think you make a lot of great points. i think it is important for people to remember that college can be an excellent investment. it can be one of the best investments you make in your lifetime. borrowing some money so you can go to college full time instead of part-time is often an excellent decision.

the point i am making is that not all colleges are the same. for most students, student loans are an excellent investment. at the same time, we see students who don't complete, or who complete and it is not what they thought it was. if you are struggling to get a job or working minimum-wage with a student loan, $10,000 or $20,000 can be a real obstacle. i think it is important for people to consider student loans as an investment in their future, but it needs to be made thoughtfully and carefully. host: the caller brought up another issue i want to talk to you about, community colleges. we are seeing a lot of states going towards free community college and some states making college free for students who make a certain gpa.

what researched you need to do on the community college system? what research do you advise people to do when they live in a state that is making a free? you don't necessarily need a four-year degree. there are a lot of jobs you can get with a two-year community college or technical training program certificate. a lot of times those lead to jobs with very good salaries. community colleges are underappreciated. american'suniquely dictation. a lot of countries don't have anything like it. they welcome people of all backgrounds and help move people along whatever their goals are, whether it is moving back into the workforce or starting a long academic trajectory. they are valuable in that they

communicate to people that community college is affordable and within reach. it is important to keep in mind that community college tuition tends to be low in every state. even if your state does not have a free community college program, tuition tends to be low. financial aid is available. the last point i would make is living expenses remain a real barrier for a lot of students. when policymakers are thinking about what it takes to make it possible for someone to go back to school, they need to make sure that students have enough money to pay their tuition and their room and board, textbooks and transportation, often childcare. that standll costs in the way of students earning their degrees. host: what recommendations is your report making to the federal and state government?

who are you making these recommendations to? are you making it to the governor, legislators? guest: we have a system where every college is regularly by the federal government, states, and the creditors. -- accreditors. it creates a messy system. we found one college in texas that was simultaneously reporting two thirds of their graduates found jobs and only one third of their graduates found jobs. both of those results were on the same college website. not only was this information not verified, but even when colleges are following the rules, rules are not consistent. we recommend the federal government bring together everyone that regulates colleges and agree on a single definition of what it means to play someone in a job, a single measure of

employment success that can be verified by actual data. that would give students information they can trust to compare one college to another. host: let's go to marissa calling from kentucky. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you so much for taking my call. the last caller, her points were great. i wanted to find out what it is stop anyeed to do to type of further student loan fraud that has been taking place? a college i found out decided to forge my personal information on a student loan from 2001. the reason this took place was ape thatthere was a r took place on the campus. you cannot throw someone out without doing an exit interview.

i did not have to go to law school to find this out. it is called go do your own research. you have the president of the college, his sister works as the dean of students, and you have the wife under him. we have a ponzi scheme going on. for the past 18 years, this college in kentucky has been fraudulently giving the government paperwork that has not been approved by the office of management and budget. for the paperwork reduction act of 1995, it states no student shall respond to this information. who is regulating these privately ran colleges? we have people who are stealing multiple millions of dollars every day. i am the person that has discovered this horrible ponzi scheme, tax evasion, and

embezzlement that has taken place in kentucky. know what the good people have done. i don't call them good. what they have tried to do is blackmail me by sending me a settlement agreement. -- sue them.them who istion to you is regulating these people? i did go on to the inspector general, oig website, and what i retrieved from that information is there were 15 individuals cited, but you cannot find what they were given citations for. host: who regulates these things? guest: colleges are related by federal government, the states, accreditors.

in the case of fraud, your first stop should be the attorney general of the state you are in. oftentorney general is responsible for bringing consumer cases on the behalf of citizens in the state. in this case, it would be worth researching, i don't know the state of kentucky, but there are often state agencies that license colleges. in addition, the u.s. department , there is a hotline at the inspector general's office. that would be a good one to call. host: let's go to chelsea. good morning. caller: hello. 2005duated from college in at bcti. their name changed twice because they were trying to avoid paying

us. it was found out that they were a predatory college. when i applied, i was told i would get an 18% interest rate. i freaked out. i was like, that is way too high. they pretended like they got some kind of special deal, and they said it was 5%. i have already gone through the class-action lawsuit, which was worthless by the way because all we got was $9,000 for a $40,000 student loan. i am wondering, what is being done about these colleges? when i did this college, and i graduated, i was not given a normal graduation. i was rushed right before they closed down the school. they called me up and said if you don't come down, you are going to have to pay your student loans all at once if you

don't graduate. i was scared. i graduated and got the piece of paper that means nothing because the school was a discredited business career training institute. they changed their name several times. guest: these stories are very powerful. thank you for calling in to share them. it is true, unfortunately, that there are places that call themselves colleges that engage in fraudulent behavior, deceptive behavior. i talked earlier about how you are enrolled in a school that closes, you may be able to get your student loan written off. theyure that is the reason rescued through graduation. i think we need stronger rules at every level, the federal .overnment, the state

one thing that may be has not gotten as much notice as it should is the work that the department of education is doing on the standards it sets for these schools. it is currently revising a rule called the borrowed defense role, which governs whether you have been victimized by fraud whether you can get your federal student loan associated with those illegal actions forgiven. proposaltments t would allow only about 5% of students who have suffered those kinds of confidence is to get their student loans written off. unfortunately, this is not an isolated problem. what we see from policymakers right now is moving us in the wrong direction.

let's see if we can get one more question in from kathleen in ohio. question?t us a quick ofler: i was a single mother three daughters. we had better look at small private schools getting scholarships for good grades and economic hardship. schools, mytate youngest decided to go to the university of colorado. a lot of the fat cats that buy houses in boulder, and their kids could sign up for in-state status, so they could go to school a lot cheaper than the hispanic women claiming the dorms who could not get their students to go to school as cheaply as these rich folks buying houses. i have been taking care of my

80-year-old parents the last couple years. what i see in the nursing industry is these kids are going to two-year schools for physical therapy assistants and other assistant jobs, and they are coming out making 25 bucks an hour after two years of health care careers. i think private nonprofit colleges are another important part of our system. one of the strengths of our higher education system is the many different types of colleges and universities you can get a student loan to go to. you can go to community college, technical college, four-year university, big research university, small liberal arts college. the experience your daughters had is not unique. oftentimes, these colleges offer financial aid packages that mean the college is much less expensive than the published

prices. some of these colleges specialize in taking students from all backgrounds. some of them focus specifically on low income students. excellentbe some investments at these nonprofit colleges. host: where can people read this report? guest: that would be great. come to our website, it is ticas.org. to james kvaal for being with us today. coming up, we will talk to carrie levine from the center for public integrity who will walk us through campaign law and the trump administration following the sentencing of michael cohen and an investigation into the trunk and not grow committee -- trump

inaugural committee. >> this weekend, american history tv marks the milestone with special features. starting today, 9:00 a.m. eastern, we're live from chicago's museum of science and apollo eight the capsule. eastern, and oral histories interview with apollo eight command module commander jim lovell. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's

cable television companies. today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d.c., and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. sunday night on q&a. hadhe american nazi party 20,000 supporters that came to madison square garden. salutere giving the nazi next to a swastika and a picture of george washington. movement in the 1920's and 1930's associated with the phrase america first. looking at the history of the terms of america first and the american dream in her book behol

d america sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we would like to welcome carrie levine of the center for public integrity for being with us today. we're going to talk about campaign-finance laws and what has been going on with the trump administration. thank you for being here. guest: thank you for having me. host: what is the center for public integrity? guest: we specialize in investigative reporting in washington, d.c. i report on money in politics. host: who supports the center for public integrity? guest: we are supported by grants from private institutions and individual donors. host: there has been a lot of talk about campaign-finance law behind the michael cohen

sentencing and president trump's inaugural committee. guest: the federal election campaign act is the main piece of campaign finance legislation that governs how campaigns and candidates can raise and spend money. exactly were the violations michael cohen was sentenced for? guest: michael cohen pled guilty to campaign-finance violations that were tied to the payments to women who were alleging affairs with president trump. the question comes down to whether or not those payments were a campaign expense, were made for the purposes of influencing the election and the campaign. that is what he is pleading these to, that they paid women, that this was a campaign

expects that they concealed from the public. host: president trump has tweeted this week that those expenses were not campaign finance expenses, that they were private transactions. does that make a difference? guest: that is really the question at the heart of this. if they were campaign expenditures, then they would have had to be paid with money that passed through the campaign that would have raised compliance with campaign-finance law and disclosure. he is asserting that campaign-finance law did not apply to these transactions. what michael cohen did is pleading guilty to knowingly violating campaign-finance law. he said they were a campaign-finance violations. the parent company of the national enquirer came to an agreement with prosecutors and acknowledged that these were .elated to the campaign

you have a president saying they were not, and you have ami and mr. cohen and prosecutors saying they were. host: does it make a difference that he pleaded guilty to these charges? this was not determined by a judge and jury. does this make any difference in this case that this was not a determination by a judge and jury? guest: that is hard to say. prosecutors typically don't allow someone to plead guilty to a crime without some corroborating evidence. they clearly believe that it was. it will not make a difference to michael cohen. he pleaded guilty. think the rest of that question matters. does it make a difference to public perception? quite possibly. clearly it makes a difference to the present. host: the charges that were brought against michael cohen, these were not civil charges.

these were criminal charges. is this typical? guest: it becomes a criminal charge because he said he law knowingly and willfully. i would say there's nothing about this situation that is run-of-the-mill or typical. it is all unusual. it is not unheard of for there to be criminal campaign-finance charges in cases where prosecutors believe there was a knowing and willful violation. former senator jesse jackson junior went to jail and served time for campaign-finance violations. you have current representative duncan hunter from california who is currently fighting campaign-finance charges. criminal campaign-finance charges are not something no one has ever heard of. they do happen. host: we want you to join in on

this conversation about campaign-finance law. republicans, if you want to chime in, we want you to call in at (202) 748-8001. democrats, you can call in at (202) 748-8000. independents, we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8002. you can always reach us on social media, on twitter and facebook. some people have brought up the fine that was put against the obama campaign for campaign-finance violations. is that a similar issue? guest: i did not cover that at the time. that was handled at a civil matter. the issue is whether something was knowing and willful. what michael cohen pleaded guilty to was knowingly and willfully violating the law. host: there is a separate investigation we heard about this week about the trump

inaugural committee. guest: it appears prosecutors are looking at how the trump inaugural committee raised and spent its money. it is subject to laws on who can give, and it is administered as a nonprofit and is subject to rules about how the money can be spent. there has been different reporting about what prosecutors are looking at. investigation is not charges. it is not clear there will be charges. it is not clear anyone did anything wrong. there are a few things to consider. ump inaugural raised a lot of money, unprecedented amounts of money, $106 million. as we reported at the time, the donor packages offered to big donors gave them a great deal of

access. you donated $1 million, you got invited to a leadership luncheon, ladies luncheon with the ladies of the first family, cabinet officials at these events. there were packages offering a lot of access. investigators are reportedly looking at whether people gave to influence decisions taken by the trump administration later on. according to the new york times, they are reportedly looking at money from foreign donors who are not legally allowed to give money to an inaugural committee giving through straw donors or in other ways. pro-public a reported this, in campaign may have donors to give money

directly to vendors. there is a lot of reporting about the investigation. it is hard to know what anyone actually did. host: who is doing this investigation? are the same people investigating this issue as are investigating michael cohen? is this the justice department? guest: so far there have been prosecutions brought by the special counsel, mr. mueller, the southern district of new , charges and virginia against paul manafort. there have been different arms of the justice department investigating. there have been some cases, i believe the new york attorney general election has said that office will be investigating certain things about mr. trump's business deals that fall in the jurisdiction of new york. there is a table of authorities investigating things. jack callingo to

from rhode island. jack is calling on the republican line. caller: good morning to everybody there and ms. levine. this situation going on with mr. trump, who i did not support, i as oneted ted cruz, h overlying strategic objective, the destruction of donald trump outright. win thexpected him to election. i did not expect him to win either. when he won the election, it shocked the system. the underlying system, they don't want him in there. lease in quart of the elites in thef d.c. area that are democrats and republicans. trump does lie.

so does everybody else. hillary clinton's foundation, there is a lot of illegal activity there. i am trying to use the right word. we will see if the special counsel is appointed to that. very are very, very, very, different things. there is a dual system of justice. did did what anybody else in these various campaigns, what ted kennedy did where he killed a woman and walked, i would be sitting in a jail cell. a debate last night with a reasonable progressive guy. laws, he on these indicated these areas where trump gave money to a couple of flings, it is a great area.

it is -- gray area. it is difficult to prove. other people have done the same thing. the one strategic objective, and i understand strategic objectives from my background, is the destruction of donald trump. host: is there a different opinion among campaign-finance experts of whether any of this was actually a crime? guest: there is. if you cover campaign-finance long enough, one thing you learn is there is often a different interpretation among experts, and you get into a lot of gray areas. this is a situation that is relatively unusual in some respects. i think one precedent people point to, and the gentleman who it, called maybe alluded to the john edwards case from several years ago where

prosecutors brought charges against john edwards that were about payments to a paramore, and the question was whether the payments should be treated as a campaign expenditure. a lot of people have pointed to that case as precedent. a hungards, there was jury on many charges, and he was acquitted on one charge. there are differences in fact between that case and this. one of the discussions ranging among campaign experts is whether that is a true precedent. the timing of the payments was different. in the edwards case, you do not necessarily have people saying the payments were made to help the campaign. those are differences people are pointing to. i think whether that precedent applies or not, we will have to see how that plays out. host: let's go to dana calling

from washington, d.c., on the democratic line. good morning. caller: great. thank you for taking my question, ms. levine. caller: -- guest: thank you for calling. caller: i remember clearly reporting during the 2016 campaign in the late summer solicitations donald trump was making personally to foreign nationals. he was not making much of a secret of it. is this part of the investigation or under investigation in any way? as far as you know, is it factually correct that he did make these for national solicitations? reportingre was some about that at the time. that feels like a million new cycles ago. [laughter] guest: it is like at this day in history at this point.

i think it is something that drew scrutiny at the time because foreign nationals are not permitted to give to campaigns. whether that is part of what is under scrutiny right now, i don't know. i don't know the answer to that. i have not seen any reporting that it has. certainly the issue of money from foreign citizens making its way into the campaign, being used to influence the election is something people are looking at. nata callingo to from the republican line. caller: good morning. thank you for taking the call. guest: thank you for calling. caller: i guess my comment is probably not going to make sense to some of you. the money situation does not concern me. what he did with all that. donald trump is a totally

different person than anyone we have ever had as president. we all have to admit that. he has a way of doing things that we are not used to. ok? theoncern about money is people coming over here. how are we going to keep them? our tax dollars are going to feed these people. we have children in our city where i live that are practically in starvation, living on the street. i don't agree with people trying to knock down him wanting to build a wall. the little girl that passed away, i sat in my doctor's office the day before yesterday three hours. this girl waited 90 minutes. i don't understand all of it. i am not the smartest apple in the car.

i have a little common sense. we are going to suffer if this is allowed to go on. times. bible feeling this is going to help fulfill the bible. the guy who called and said he was shocked because donald trump one, i want to let him know why donald trump won, us christians prayed together. we talked to the lord about this. i believe with all my heart that this was a god thing. host: we are looking at all these investigations. what is the next that we see in federal court from michael cohen? guest: michael cohen has pleaded guilty. he has been sentenced.

the real question is whether prosecutors use his testimony in other cases and evidence he has provided. he has been linked to the inaugural investigation people have been reporting about this week. i think his testimony and any evidence he has turned over will continue to play a role in other threads of this investigation. situation is the between the michael cohen case and the inaugural investigation? , the timesrently reported this yesterday, evidence he provided about regarding how the inaugural money was spent has been turned over to investigators. he has turned over relative bits of information about the inaugural. whether it will lead to something, we do not know. host: let's go to jeff calling

from iowa. good morning. caller: the citizens united ruling goofed up our campaign laws totally. chinese communist company should not have the same free-speech to affect our elections as local companies. state law be looked at to see if we have some limit that should be placed on corporations organized in that state so that there is better monitoring of just how much into thebeing plowed campaign election system? any campaign donation, not every campaign donation should be allowed to buy elections. just before this washington journal program occurred, you

have an hour-long program about how corporations donate to interfere in judicial retention elections. shouldn't the states and federal government look at the problems we have with our campaign finance laws?] guest: that is a great question. thank you for calling in. states have the ability to pass campaign-finance laws that govern state elections. some of them do. many of them do. they have rules about who can give to state-level elections, such as judicial elections. they are able to restrict that, but they don't have a lot of influence about what corporations and donors can do in federal elections. that is up to congress. congress has to deal with that campaign law. since the citizens united decision came down from the supreme court in 2010, congress has wrestled with different

legislation that would tackle different aspects of it. some people have suggested a constitutional amendment to address it. we will see how that plays out. host: remind our viewers, what is the citizens united decision. guest: citizens united is a decision from the supreme court in 2010 that paved the way for unlimited money to come into elections. it removed restrictions on corporations and labor unions that have been enforced. as a result of that, we have and nonprofits that are able to put money into elections. it has reshaped the way money goes into elections. rulesdo the same fec apply to super pacs as the inaugural funds? guest: slightly different rules apply to the inaugural.

it is not a campaign. has oversight over the raising and spending of money that goes into elections. the different kinds of groups have different kinds of limits that apply to them. for instance, if you give money to a campaign directly to a candidate, you can only get $2700. if you give money to a super pac, which is not permitted to coordinate with campaigns, you can spend unlimited money. you can get unlimited amounts of money. host: let's go to kevin. good morning. caller: good morning. think very much. two issues i wanted to bring up. the stormy daniels payment, according to the fec, if there is an ordinary business expense, you cannot claim that as a .ampaign contribution expense

even if they had filed papers with the fec saying they were making this payment as a contribution to stormy daniels to be quiet, the fec would not allow it. it is like he is being charged for failure to report something he could not report. article, i think it was from cnn, about how the ivanka trump and the inauguration, how she was trying to overcharge people to come stay at the hotel when really the charge from the fec, the charge they are making against the trump organization is that sey were under charging the audis and that somehow equated to a contribution. is he being charged for

overcharging were under charging? guest: there is a lot wrapped up in that question, i think. one is that so far the president has not been charged with anything. he has not been charged with overcharging, under charging, campaign-finance violations. no one has brought any charges against him. it is not even clear that they can. i want to stress that at the top of this because it gets a little tangled when we get into campaign finance law. no one knows as much as i do have complicated that can get and how quickly. there are a few different questions here. what you are alluding to is you cannot use campaign money to pay your business expenses. that is true. the question about the stormy daniels payments is whether they were in fact campaign expenses that should have properly been paid by money subject to campaign-finance law. that is the question with that.

in terms of the inauguration, i think the question you are raising is whether or not the trump hotel was charging the market rate or was overcharging business that came to it through the inaugural committee. i don't know the answer to that. market rate is something that can there eat, obviously -- va in obviously, and the fec the instance of loans has had a loose definition of market rate. the question is whether or not there was essentially profiteering around the inaugural. they may not find any. host: let's go to john calling from massachusetts on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i enjoy your program very much.

i had a couple of questions for carrie. i'm impressed by the name of this organization, committee for public integrity. i had a couple of questions, and i would be interested in this, carrie. have you investigated the slush fund that was set up for congress whenever there was wrongdoings? that would be the first one related to what you're talking about with president trump. the second one would be if you have investigated, were you the people that investigated the bill and hillary fund that they have set up for helping people all over the world? did your organization cover th ose two subjects? if they did, i would be

interested in how far they got. guest: thank you for your question. i think by slush thank you for r question. you may bend, alluding to the payments members of congress have made for other members of congress to settle sexual harassment charges and other workplace issues. that is nothing i have investigated. i largely stick to money and politics, which means campaign money, lobbying, that kind of thing. that is not something i have personally looked at, but there is some great reporting as to how public money is used, campaign money on that. members of congress and how they use campaign money for personal use or other things come up we have looked at that, and that coverage is available on our website, which is publicintegrity.org.

your other question is whether or not we looked at clinton funds. came to their political operation during the 2016 election, we certainly do. we had substantial pieces on the network of outside groups backing the clinton,s and that is also available on our website. thank you for asking. host: let's go to our last callinganother john from trenton, new jersey on the independent line. john, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. that america do not read much anymore, however, i would like to know if this young lady has read jen mayor's -- jim meyer's book "dark money." i am a big fan. i think we have all read "dark and jane mayer

continues to write on an ongoing basis. thank you for coming on the program, carrie levine. having me,k you for and thank you all for calling in. host: we would like to go to open phones. republicans, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002, and we will start right after this break. we will be right back. >> coming up this weekend on booktv, tonight at 8:00 eastern, highlights from former first lady michelle obama's tool across -- tour across the country, promoting her vessel and autobiography "becoming," where she reflects on her time in the white house. obama: the notion that this

named michelle obama, mary to barack hussein obama, was going to go door-to-door, and people would open their homes, be around kitchen tables, and what connected us was our story. at 9:00 p.m. eastern on "after words," former campaign manager corey lewandowski an -- discuss their books. they are indicated by cheryl atkinson. >> i do not want to be a conspiracy theories, but i refer to these people at the november nightclub, meaning they became a fan of president trump after he became elected. they did not support him during his campaign and likely did not vote for him on election day, but they found an opportunity to join and administration, which was young and inexperienced, whic to frame their own agenda.

>> he listened a lot to republican leaders and some advice, and i thought he would do that same thing again. i think during that transition and in the first month or two of his administration, the learning curve was steep, just like it is for every single president of the united states. there is no degree on being president, and it is a learning curve. >> watch booktv this weekend on c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. well, welcome back. we want to start our open phone segments of the phone where you can call in and talk about any public llc that we talked about earlier in the show or any public policy you would like to talk about it all. let me remind you again of those numbers. republicans, you can call in at (202) 748-8001. democrats, you can call in at (202) 748-8000. independents, you can call in at

(202) 748-8002. reading onalways social media, on twitter @cspanwj, and on facebook facebook.com/cspan. we have our first caller. let's go to ann in ohio on the republican line. ann, good morning. caller: good morning. comment ongoing to it they have all of the trump andtions on trun everything before he was elected. all of these people in congress, they need to investigate every one of them, because we seem to do it on everybody else, even though we are broke and we keep spending money. i would like to see every one of them investigated. it needs to be done. this country is so corrupt. it is getting worse and worse and worse. host: let's go to will calling

from mineral wells, texas. caller: yes, sir. merry christmas, ma'am, your wish has just came in. i would just like to say hello, america. are you there? host: we can hear you. go ahead, will. caller: ok, the controlled demolition of the three world 7,de center buildings, 1, 2, is going through a grand jury, architectures, engineers, and richard gates. are you there? hello? host: let's go to george calling from wisconsin on the independent line. george, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? i would like to make a comment here. there were eight charges that cohen played guilty to. dealt with $4

million in income he did not report to the irs, and the judge in the case, i understand, follows the guidelines for the other six charges, and charges related to the payoffs, the charges were incidental and minor compared to $4 million, and i do not see anything on ms. here, which has now ended on my tv. i've not see any mention of the other six charges, which was the lion's. share of the charges that is where i wanted to point out. talk aboutgoing to the charges regarding the payoffs of the two women, we ought to talk about the six irs tax evasion for which he was really sentenced. that is all. host: let's go to bernard, calling from new york, new york

on the republican line. bernard, good morning. caller: good morning. the president of the united states made the statement that enemy ofmedia is the the american people. that is a very serious allegation, accusation, so let's look at it. cnn lies on a daily basis. one of the biggest lies they have told was when that small town, they call themselves the anti-fascists or the antifa, yet they are the fascists. they come in mass, they cover their faces, and they beat the hell out of anybody wearing a trump hat. cnn lied about what trump said. what he said as they were good people on both sides. he made that statement. a cnn reporter said to him "do

you mean the skinheads, the whites of premises are good people -- white supremacists are good people?" trump looked at the reporter in disgust and said "of course not. i am talking about the people who live in that town, and they are good people, and they did not appreciate people coming in and destroying their history or day, trump reports that he makes white supremacists are good people. it is not just a lie, it is the inference that they put on everything. this is all coming from the left. where your real fascism is. those of the people stopping free speech, those are the people doing everything, if you ever read nazi germany in the 1930's or stalin's's russia, you would understand what is going on in america today. for instance, a woman sat down in a welfare office on a bumpy

floor with a child. she was ordered to get out from the floor, but she could not sit there, and she refused police orders. the police then tried to lift her up and take the baby in order to get this woman off the floor. the new york post, which is supposed to be a conservative, but they went all the way to the left. every other newspaper reported it, and so did cnn and msnbc, other'srip baby from arms," brutality and all the rest of this. wentolice commissioner along with this, because he is spineless -- his name is o'neill, and he does whatever the puppet master mayor, the communist mayor here -- callingt's go to al

from new haven, connecticut on the democrats line. good morning. caller: you let that guy go on for too long. i just do not understand. he got all that stuff from fox. what is going on on that border down there? are the border guards out there destroying water in the desert? these people traveling are dying, because with water supplies put out there for them to survive. i do not understand what the trump administration is doing about this. people need to be up in outrage over this. it does not make any sense. what are we doing? this country is just unbelievable, to allow the issues going on in the order. as to how weules are going to process these people, and we need to get back to that. this mess that we are doing is absolutely unbelievable. that is what i am weighing in on.

people need that -- to do some channel searching, because everybody out there listening to that garbage that fox is putting out is just absolutely ridiculous. who: let's go to matthew, is calling from emerson, new jersey on the independent line. matthew, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you, and merry christmas to everyone. this is a totally biased investigation. most people consider it. we -- most people can see through it. and theirats mouthpiece, the media, hate president trump, who is a good man. they hate him with a passion stopse, number one, he the coronation of madame hillary, but just as important, they hate him because he has exposed the fake news media, and here is the hypocrisy, sir.

here is the hypocrisy. my question to everyone is -- when will the democrats and the media investigate mr. keith ellison, where police photographic essa evidence shows the battered and bruised face of the woman he assaulted? is one thing, never mind madame hillary's corrupt foundation, which, by the way, taken tens of millions of dollars people that never took about this, for haiti, the theering people from earthquake in haiti, and they gave them less than 9% and kept the rest. that is not talked about. hypocrisy, and thank you very much, my friend, for letting me speak. host: let's go to linda on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like people to take a

good look at themselves and the president. the president is laundering money. he comes into the united states as president laundering money. russia owns him. he is their man, not ours. he never came here to be our president. he was in debt with so many ,ountries that all these guys they went from one state to another state, other countries buying in. rich, this is a poor man trying to be rich. we need to look at ourselves. thank you. host: this weekend, on c-span booktv and american history tv travel to lawrence, kansas to feature the city's history of literary culture. at 12:00 noony eastern time on booktv, all of our programs on the city will air together in one time block.

here, author and university of kansas professor andrew eisenberg talks about his book "the republican reversal." prof. eisenberg: republicans have a long tradition of supporting the environment that century. to the 19th it was a provoking president, abraham lincoln, who created yosemite as kind of a natural preserve, and it was other republicans, teddy roosevelt, another republican, did a lot in terms of reading national arts, national monuments, setting aside a lot of land for national forests. the public and party had a stronger claim to environmental stewardship than the democrats at that time. i think we started to see the shift away from republicans for environmental protection laws in the middle of the 1970's. the price of oil went through the roof. there were lines at the pump,

there is rationing, and that sapped a lot of enthusiasm for this kind of environmental protectionism out of a lot of people. host: make sure to tune in this weekend to booktv an american history tv as we travel to lawrence, kansas. and was videos of lawrence and all of the cities we visit on the c-span cities tour, go to c-span.org/citiestour. ands go back to the phone go back to chuck coming from winchester, virginia on the republican line. chuck, good morning. caller: good morning. i have a comment about immigration. think back to ellis island in new york, all of the people who island hadh ellis been through ellis island before they were allowed into the united states, and once they came in, they were given welfare, food stamps, medicare. they worked hard.

most of them, italians or whatever, they started their own businesses or whatever, but they were clearly going through ellis island. these immigrants at the border just want to come over, and basically they are getting everything handed to them. andcal, housing, food, there are people who are retired , and they are elderly people, and they cannot even get food stamps. they are getting, i think, $74,000 to cross the border, and taxpayers are paying this. i do not know what happened to this country. go back to ellis island. thank you. let's go to marshall calling from north carolina on independent line. marshall, good morning. caller: good morning. good morning. i just want to mention that i do not understand why trump tower has almost a floor full of

russians, russian mafia, to be exact, and they are bringing in money from russia that they ripped off from the people and dumping it over to trump. severalcash for properties. how does he do that without going through the proper tax channel? i wish he would not lie about everything. every time someone bring something up about him, he changes the subject and accuses hillary, probably, that is the easiest one of doing something wrong, but he changes the subject every time. i wish he would stop lying and be a good president, but he is corrupt. host:, let's go to tyrone who is calling from new york, new york on the democrats line. tyrone, good morning. caller: good morning. call.you for taking my the ruthlessness of the republican party is unbelievable. these people have tried to change the rules time and time

again. us that still telling mexico is going to pay for the wall. why is he asking for $5 billion from the american people? and then he says he is not asking for money -- he is blatantly asking for money, and then they act like they do not understand what this man is doing. unbelievable! are doing things that are against the american andle and against our laws our rights that they figure people do not pay attention. we are paying attention. the reason russia solidly republican party as the party that would turn against their country as they see how the act towards their own people. you see how people act against their own people, and they thought oh, they do not care. thank you.

host: let's go to bob, who is calling from tyler, texas on the republican line. bob, good morning. caller: yes, good morning. thank you. it seems like everything we are in distress about today, and almost every day on c-span, is just because we are not following the rules, and all of our elected representatives are violating their oath to protect and defend the constitution. it is not care thing, within the power of the federal government. education, same thing. the reason costs are so high is anduse the fed is involved, that we have all of the diversity administrators getting almost half $1 million a year. it is crazy. and then campaign finance reform, uh, i sent a tweet to that lady, carrie, and the biggest contributors to the opposition to ted cruz were public universities, the

university of texas was number one, alphabet and google was number two, and it just seems like an extreme conflict of interest to be defeating senators, whether they will try to hold the caution line of public education, which is not, you know, it is not constitutional for the federal government to spend anything on public education. bring it back to the states, all of these things, and the only single-payer health care should be through the states. i guess i have rattled enough, but i want to get back to the constitution. who iset's go to amir, calling from los angeles on independent line. amir, good morning. amir, are you there? we cannot hear you. try one more time, amir. caller: hey, are you there?

host: now we can hear you. go ahead. caller: sorry about that. one of my skepticism's of the robert mueller investigation is of fbieller was director at the beginning of the century and was quite instrumental in leading us to war under the guise of there being wmd's in and, which there never was, we turned the country into ashes and left millions of displaced children, thousands killed, probably in the hundreds of thousands. and we did what we did there. i don't know, the reason i have skepticism is i look at mueller today -- and i am not going

after him as a person. i mean, he is art of the system, but it seems again that we are being led into an guise ofation under the collusion with russia. and of course the report has not come out, and so far we have not seen anything as far as collusion, but it is a reason to be skeptical. that was just my comment. thanks. we have been talking this morning, we have another announcement from the trump administration with another shakeup in the trunk cabinet. tweetedt trump has just that secretary of interior ryan zinke he will be leaving the administration at the end of the year. here is what he tweeted -- "secretary of the interior ryan zinke he will be leaving the administration at the end of the year after having served for a period of almost two years.

ryan has accomplished much during his tenure, and i want to thank him for his service to our nation. the trump administration will be announcing the new secretary of the interior it next week. " we will get more into the in our lust segment -- last segment. let's go to russell. good morning. caller: can you hear me? [inaudible] i can hear you -- host: i can hear you. go ahead. i think companies from the united states to mexico, the mexicanexico, government is teaching these people how to work in the factories, and they are coming up, they are making good wages. there is not immigration coming from mexico anymore. all of these people are coming

from central america because of the drug trade that has taken over their countries. of wish that the people would , like new york, new jersey, ohio, and pennsylvania, that we do not need a wall out here. for someone to go to central america and get rid of the drug cartels. host: let's go to nick, who is calling from albuquerque, new mexico. nick, good morning. i am referring, to the previous segment regarding campaign-finance. my question is this -- i wonder if the democrats' obsession with finance is apaign manage result of the fact that they spent twice as money on clinton's election than trump spent on his. just a thought.

host: let's go to wrong in stockton, california on the republican line. rob, good morning. caller: good morning. hereully i get it admitted to break this down. you can tell that the mueller investigation is not a true, proper investigation. if i had a minute and a timeline on your show to show how that was reverse engineered, how they andd on the trump campaign then started to leak it, if you went and had the testimony, which nellylly orr, headthe wife of bruce orr, she worked ond gps, it shows how it was reverse engineered to be like a coup and

the trump campaign and the trump administration down. that has not been exposed yet. they have not aske exposed all of the documentation of how that peter kept inse touch even after the administration brought it up. push off andng to say that the trump administration lied when we had our fbip working inside with comey. thank you ray much. .ost: let's go to maknate good morning. now, the state governments are being used to myermine democracy in wisconsin and in other states

like michigan and north carolina. take a look of the gerrymandering that one on this past election, people are voting democrats elect them in the status only by 54% of the vote, and instead, the republicans in the legislature have about 60 seats, and the honests to prevent elections by ending gerrymandering by republicans, including attorney general across the u.s., is a disgrace. one of them is the republican attorney general from texas, who basically just brought the obamacare before a conservative activist judge. he might have gotten that josh to tear it up, although i expect that to be overturned in the near future. these are people who basically do not care about democracy, and for all of the people who have gotten help about obamacare, do not care about how they suffer through your actions. host: let's go to steve, who is

calling from north charleston, south carolina on the independent line. steve, good morning. caller: good morning. to refer back to an earlier portion of your show, and i got on a little late, so this point may have been made, but i want to point out the hypocrisy of washington politicians and how they are all more alike than we think. and i am talking about people on both sides. with regards to obamacare, you probably know this, when it was passed, one of the provisions is members of congress and their staff had to enroll in obamacare. they had to get rid of their benefit plan come up with by the way, they paid a portion of that premium, and the government paid a part. gaven 2014, they themselves a little break, they went back to the old way is said ok, we got obamacare, we will make the government pay for us and our premiums. thatstill can write in

they have a spouse, and they can go on their employer's benefit plan. or they can use tri-care. that is all well and good. this whole point is they are doing two things -- they are just hypocritical. and by the way, down here, i am a small businessman. to wasst thing it led unemployment or less than full-time employment, because people started reducing their employees to get out from under obamacare. it is not because they are greedy, like the lady said, it is that it is cost prohibitive. that is one reason trump got elected. that is one of the big problems. thank you for your time. host: for our last half-hour, we are going to focus on changes to the clean water act, and we will talk about the resignation of interior secretary ryan zinke he wit e's ariel wittenberg.

first, what brought long has learned after two years of hurricanes and wildfires. what's the full interview on c-span. here is a little bit about what brock had to say. [video clip] long: it is my job to help the government meet his or her response and recovery goals or preparedness goals and open hopefully it translates down to the local level. >> now we know that 2017 was a big year. hurricane irma, florence, maria costs the government more than $265 billion worth of damages. especially with the california wildfires, what it seem a learned because of hurricanes that occurred in 2017, and what are ways that you can improve how to respond to natural disasters in the coming

year? long: we have learned a major amount. we had record hurricanes. i guess i am bad luck. we put it into perspective. we basically packed years of our history into the 69th in my time period. into that of -- 16-month time period. the amount that we have done is what the agency has done in its entire history. ours forcing us to rethink entire enterprise. fema is not the answer. it is the whole thing that has to be in place to repair to recover. culture, with prepared dealing with finance, getting it properly insured, neighbor helping neighbor all the way up to strong emergency local management covering strong

state-level program, putting in fema to support for the big event, not the run-of-the-mill everyday disaster. >> "washington journal" continuous. host: we would like to welcome ariel wittenberg with us today from e&e news to discuss the proposalinistration's -- from some wetlands and waterways. first of all, let's talk about what the clean water act is. guest: thank you for having me. the clean water act was passed by congress in 1972 and was essentially the first time that the federal government was taking a regulatory role in cleaning up the nation's waters. the things and it back then was set standards for me disabilities treating their municipal wastewater, factories and power pants also treated with wastewater. those are sort of the big impacts of the law at the time, but it also includes

requirements for permits for polluters, and also if you are inng to fill or dredge wetlands or in small streams. host: who enforces the clean water act? if the sun by the justice department, a cabinet agency? who enforces that the clean water act is actually affect -- effective? guest: the environmental protection agency, they regulate what you think of us traditional -- of asluters traditional polluters. the army corps of engineers are theally going out, into field, looking to determine is this a federally protected wetland, and do you need a and fill dredge it? host: the rule change involves

deciding what are the waters of the united stttes. what does that mean? guest: 46 years ago, when congress past the clean water act, nobody defines the term "water," so every administration has had to come up with their own definition, and those have been highly and andy contested in court, they have gone to the spring court three times. host: what exactly is it? guest: that is where it gets tricky. of watershed, let's take the chesapeake bay, everyone agrees that is water of the u.s. you can vote in it, you can swim in it, it is water of the u.s. , the potomac river has constantly flowing river, everyone what a great. it is when you get. upstream that people have these debates. . what if it is a small steam that only flows in the

spring but is dry in the summer? what about one that only flows after rainfall but have an impact on pollution downstream? should be federal government regulate that ? are about the wetlands that next to the streams or maybe not quite next to these streams, maybe thousands of feet away, but again, have an impact on the water quality? is that the federal government's role? host: what is this new epa proposal, and how would it affect the water by the united states definition? essentially, the new trump administration waters of the u.s. proposal is that they would only cover intermittently or perennially flowing streams. streams have to have water at least continuous flow at least sometimes. the streams that flow only after rain, the streams would not be

proposal,fter this and at least 18% of streams in this country would no longer be covered by the clean water act. they are excluding a large number of wetlands in this country. about 61% of a wetlands in this country do not have surface connections to nearby streams, so they will be excluded by this proposal. host: to we have an exact count of how many streams and waterways would be exempt from the clean water act? how do we find out these things? guest: the data we have is imperfect, but we do have some data. like i mentioned, the u.s. geological survey does map into accountakes their different flows commence only 18% but only flow after rainfall, slightly more than that, especially to the west, where that is common. again, the wetlands, the estimate we have is 51% of

wetlands would not be covered by this proposal. does the legislative branch get to make this rule unilaterally, or does this have to go to congress and the courts? guest: it is pretty much left up ,o the executive branc but of course they have to follow laws come anytime you change legislation, you have to follow those laws. another law the trump administration has strict over is regulation and has run into the court. proposalook at the and assessing it, is this an interpretation of the clean water act, and also, are the following other laws? host: we are talking with ariel wittenberg of e&e news about the proposed change to the clean water act. if you are a republican, we want you to call in at (202) 748-8001 . democrats, you can call in at (202) 748-8000.

independents, you are welcome to call in at (202) 748-8002. and we are always reading on social media, so if you want to , for you canpanwj find us on facebook at facebook.com/cspan. so, who is pushing for this rule change? who once the rule change to the clean water act? of industry groups, homebuilders, farmers and ranchers, the oil industry, the mining industry did not like the version of this rule that the obama administration came out with. it covered some wetlands and water ways that you might think oh, that seems dry most of the would covery wetlands up to 4000 feet away from a stream, and somewhat say that is really far away from what most people would consider a waterway, but these are wetlands that, again, do have contributions to water quality downstream.

so those industries are really pushing for this. although it should be noted that the trump administration rule that we have is excluded some waterways that had been protected since the reagan administration. host: since you have been here, we have to say that the current interfere secretary, ryan zinke he, has notified the white house that he is going to leave. does the interior department, which i know covers a lot of public land, do they have anything to do with this clean water act will? 0-- rule? not directly, although the fish and wildlife service can weigh in and say actually, these wetlands that build and are really important for this endangered species, and every thing can be taken into account. host: what is the process for the change here? does that trump administration just say -- this is what the new rules are, and you have to live with them? guest: this is just a proposal.

it will be printed in the federal register, we expect, within the coming days, and then mente will be a 60-day com period. in, those comments are then when they will have to respond, they will have to read all of those it, with a final proposal that we are expecting next year, and undoubtedly, that will be challenged in court. host: we know who wants this rule change. is there anybody who is opposing this rule change already? guest: yes, all of the usual environmental groups who care about these things, also sportsmen's groups are very nervous about this, fisherman's groups, because a lot of the sports fish seasons that people like to go out and fish depend

on the smaller we wetlands and waterways. host: let's go to beatrice, who was calling from hawthorne, new york on our public in line. the interest, good morning. -- on our republican line. beatrice, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: i am fine. go ahead. i find it necessary when water is free and natural, and you make all of these laws pertaining to supposedly sustainability, and that water is your right to protect. water actually comes from god, it is a gift from god, and it is right.al as a matter fact, going back a little bit, the president of nestlé has come out and stated that water is not a natural right, and we do not have rights to this water. it is actually a way of

controlling the amount of water people have. people are now being arrested for collecting rainwater in barrels. it is ridiculous. there is a woman named deborah taveras who has a very wonderful website about all of these water issues. you can look that up, but more importantly, if you go to jahtruth.net website, you will find out the truth about everything, and reality is we ,ave got so far away from truth and they put a yoke around and oppress them, and that is why you have the right is going on in france.

host: let's try catherine calling from illinois on the democratic line. catherine, good morning. caller: yes, good morning. . i grew up in the 1960's and the 1970's, and i remember when the cuyahoga river actually was burning. cancers that are caused by people's drinking water that had a lot of chemicals in it. we are going backwards, and we need help, and i don't know, you statementave this that actions have consequences, and it is pretty serious, i think. guest: i mean, certainly be burning of the cuyahoga river in 1969, it was a major impetus behind the passing of the clean water act, which actually congress passed,

president's vetoed, and they had to override it to get after. host: acting epa administrator andrew wheeler discussed his goal for the clean water act rule change at a signing ceremony earlier this week. here is what he had to say. [video clip] wheeler: when president trump took office, he immediately began in process to remove and replace undue burdens to stifle economic development. at the top of the list with the obama administration's 2015 water united states definition. today, the epa and the water or are proposing a new definition to put an end to the previous administration's power grab. the three overarching principles that i want to ensure this proposal are one, that property owners should be able to stand on their property and be able to tell whether or not they have water that is a federal water without having to hire outside professionals. [applause]

mr. wheeler: number two, that we are clearly defining the difference between a federally protected waterway and state protected waterways. and three, that we are providing the certainty the american public needs and in a manner that will be upheld by the courts. that is why we are closely following the language of the clean water act and the three supreme court decisions. host: does congress have any say over this rule change, and does it matter that the houses is going from public enhanced to democratic hands? guest: any regulation when finalize is subject to the congressional review act, which within a certain amount of time, congress can come to vote. you would need both houses to be democrat for them to invalidate this in that way. have been instances when obama was president and he came

out with his regulations where republicans tried to put writers .n appropriations bills we will see if house democrats try to go that route, but it is unclear whether that would be successful. host: do you think this will be challenged in court, and with this be challenged in federal court or state court? guest: host this is one of the issues where you expect it actually eventually to be back at the supreme court. everybody is expecting it to go all the way. to john calling from hagerstown, maryland on the independent line. john, good morning. how are you doing today? host: just fine. caller: i would just like to say -- let's go to alan, calling

on the republican line. alan, good morning. caller: i want to comment on the clean water act, something that happened when the clintons left the white house, there was a lot of damage called by that administration in the bathrooms and such, in the thousands. and also, there was stuff taken by the clintons themselves from the white house. it was, bute what it was a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of materials. but i want people to be aware that when they left, they took many of the artifacts that were dear to us. who iset's try ray, calling from napa, california. ray, good morning. caller: i think it is

ludicrous that they would water down the epa. i live in the bay area. to they are releasing into the bay? will they be able to release more under this watered down resolution? guest: any bay or ocean will still be protected under this, what we call a traditionally navigable waterway. those waterways have been covered since the 1890's. that will not change under the trump administration. host: let's go to thomas, who is calling from illinois on independent line. thomas, good morning. caller: good morning. host: did i get that right, is it no-- --ler: it is host: wow. a completely different place.

go ahead. caller: i am american indian, and i am 80 years old, and i have seen, experience, and watched as foreigners that have invaded our country from centuries ago, raped the land, raped thewater, people, and all they care about is their dad gum money. people,e european people who still have the european attitude that they can take anything they want or they can do anything they want, because they have the money, they hassled the rest of us, and problem that we have in our country is the europeans that came here and they want to take everything, they do not care about preserving the land or the water or the people if it is not their own immediate family. host: let's try james, who is calling from nevada on the democratic line. james, good morning.

james, are you there? caller: i am here, but i am from mississippi. host: oh, wow, you are from my home state. what part of mississippi are you from, james? caller: hattiesburg. host: down on the coast. what is your question? caller: i am a land surveyor. some people have outsmarted the government on that. theythey call dry land, if land, theynks of dry just donate it to a college and don't pay taxes on it. most of the land i survey, it is not dry, so something should be done, because these people are having to give up land that they have been using for years and years that is not a wetland,

that has nothing to do with wetlands. it is just another government project that some tree hugger dreamed up, because it is not wetlands. it is absolutely not wetlands. host: this is something you are talking about earlier, about the argument about what is water and what is not. this wetland issue, have you seen this argument before? guest: absolutely, and it is true that if you are a layperson, you might expect the lands to be wet, and they could be soggy or muddy or even at times bone dry. that is why this regulation is so contentious, because average people might say oh, that does not look like a wetland, that does not look like water, but the reality is if you didn't go in and destroy it by putting in building on it or you did put some pollution in it, you would see an impact downstream. so it is really a question of

how far up the estuary or the watershed can be federal government go up and reach? of course not all states cover wetlands or regulate wetlands, so in some of these cases in some of these states, those are completely without protection. host: you mentioned earlier you expect this to go to the supreme court sooner or later. what has the supreme court said in the past about the clean water act? have a push it forward, have they pushed it back? guest: their most recent case , andot much help, in 2006 it was 4-1-4. justice anthony kennedy have the standalone, and that they have to have a larger connection to call it a significant connection. george bushama and administrations, you can see small things that might be dry sometimes or might be far away,

because they are saying this actually does have significant impact downstream if you do something to these wetlands. justice anthony scalia wrote his opinion for the conservatives on the court, and he that only waterways and wetlands with relatively permanent surface water connection to larger rivers and streams should be protected, and that is the opinion that the trumpet administration is going with with the regulation. host: how long does it take to these proposals through? will we see a final decision on this from the administration in the next year, next two years? multipleake administrations to make these changes, or does it move pretty fast? guest: the administration is saying that they will finalize this by this summer that said, they were delayed in getting this proposal out. it was originally supposed to come out in august.

ofare expecting hundreds thousands of commenters to weigh in on this proposal, and the trump administration is going to have to read every single one of them and address those concerns in the final rule, and that could take some time. if you are for this, if you're against this, how do you comment on it? guest: is you go to the epa website or the army corps upsite, it will come right once it is published there. host: let's go to laura in tennessee on the republican line. laura, good morning. caller: my question is for the guests, please answer the question as to why you are penalized for reserving rainwater. and spraying on the sides of the roads, around the water supply, instead of like they used to, is mow. penalized for reserving rainwater? guest: not under this

regulation. maybe there is a local ordinance or state ruled that folks are worried about, but that does not have much to do with people putting barrels out in collecting rainwater. go to troy in florida on the republican line. troy, good morning. caller: good morning. questioning whether the new clean water act will address the negative attributes of the geo-engineering that is going on in our skies every day and how it might impact the clean water. thank you. guest: this is not a new clean water act. the clean water act is still in place. what we are seeing is a definition of what the clean water act covers, that is on the ground, in the waterways. host: the science advisory board, what does it have to do with the clean water act? guest: when the obama administration came out with their definition in 2015, before they wrote that definition, they authored what was called a

conductivity report. under reviewed peer-reviewed, and the epa science advisory board also reviewed it and said yes, we agree that this is sound science. have been studies about the different ways different kinds of wetlands, different streams, pollution their heads to downstream water. document, a policy but it says here is a spectrum illusion, and the obama administration took that knowing that justice kennedy wanted to see a significant report on the biological and chemical impact. the trump administration is not throwing out that science -- it is still there -- but they are saying this is a legal question, not a science question, and they said we should have been going with scalia's

interpretation all along. host: just to reference here, what is the next step in this process? for those of us interested in following what is going on with the clean water act, how do we do that? guest: like i said, the public comment period is about to be open, so keep your eye on epa's bsite,e, army corps' we federalregistered.gov. that is where you can weigh in. would like to thank ariel wittenberg for being here and giving us all of this great information about the clean water act. guest: thank you for having me. host: we would like to thank all of you for being here today on c-span's "washington journal." be sure to join us again tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. for a brand-new show. have a good day, everyone. [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]

♪ >> coming up today on c-span, a look at chinese espionage targeting the u.s. will look at the longest-serving republican incident history deliver his farewell speech. after that, ways congress can better monitor spending. >> next, top officials from homeland security, the fbi, and the justice department talk about chinese spies and their efforts against the united states.