meeting on border wall funding with nancy pelosi and chuck schumer. then, the house judiciary committee hears about googles data collection practices. later, portions of politico's women leadership summit and sarahjoni ernst sanders. tonight, on q&a, >> the american nazi party had 20,000 supporters who came to rally at madison square garden. the footage shows stormtroopers giving the nazi salute. the rally was for george washington's birthday. movement a very active that was associated with the phrase america first. >> university of london literature professor sarah churchwell looks at the history of the terms america first and the american dream in her book

behold america. tonight at -- on c-span's q&a. host: our guest on newsmakers this week is the administrator of fema, brought long. broas had -- of fema, ck long. he has had quite a year. two category five hurricanes and one of the biggest wildfires in history. lots of call for folks to go into action let me introduce you to reporters who will be asking questions. mr. nexen, you are up first. would like ton i start with is, i think there are

common misperceptions about fema's role in emergency management and dealing with natural disasters. what is fema's role in the state and local first responders role? >> fema's mission is incredibly complex. it is a lot more than just the response, which is often covered on tv when big events occur. we had a huge obligation to provide billion's of dollars ,orth of predisaster grant mitigation funding. as we are in a position to be providing billions of dollars to help america overcome the last hurricane seasons and wildfire seasons. the best way to describe what we best response recovery is when it is state managed and federally supported. fema is not designed to be a

first responder. it is my job to coordinate the federal government to help the governor meet his or her response and recovery goals and ultimately it translates down to the local level. 2018, it know that in was a big year. because the government more than $260 billion worth of damage. because ofma learn the hurricanes that occurred in 2017? what are ways that you can improve how you respond to national disasters in the upcoming year? >> we learned a tremendous amount. before i took office, the country went 11 years without a major landfall hurricane. to put the magnet to aid -- the magnitude of what happened into perspective, we had a packed 38

years -- we had packed 38 years of history into that time. it is the equivalent of what the agency has done in its entire history. it is forcing us to rethink everything. i fully believe that a bigger fema is not the answer. it is a whole community of folks that have to be put into play to properly repair and also recover. it starts with a prepared culture. citizens being financially resilient. properly insured. neighbor helping neighbor all the way through a strong local emergency management program. putting fema in a position to theort and not run-of-the-mill everyday disaster we deal with. >> there was a point that came out in september. the government accountability office said that fema is overwhelmed by the natural disasters that occurred in 2017.

they also stated there were staff shortages. more than 50% of the personnel was not deemed qualified. in certain roles. . has fema addressed those issues? >> we roughly have about 20,000 employees nationwide. one of the things we typically want to do is a lot of local hires to create a backbone. in puerto rico, we are one of the largest employers right now. we have made over 1800 local hires. the goal is to build an emergency backbone that did not exist before the storm. the whole issue about we are sending unqualified people into the field is not an accurate assessment. we have what is called the national qualification system that has different positions you can go in and try to qualify for. you may send an emergency manager into the field with 30 years of experience that has not yet had his textbook signed off to be a public information

officer out in the field. the qualification system is where that storyline started. we would never send people unqualified out into the field. >> we were talking about gao reports. another one criticized the managerial planning, which was an issue in puerto rico. you plan to incorporate that and set -- incorporate that assessment? was an open and honest assessment. that thatg to argue was such an honest report. to say hey, everybody look inside. this is where we are ok. what it leads to is, a bigger fema is not the answer. we can provide a tremendous capability when it comes to food and water.

generator power and whatever else. the question is, what is the states capacity to do it? do they have their own logistics capability set up? even down to the local level. placere the contracts in to provide their own citizens emergency power, food and water? particularly for major earthquakes. it takes time for declarations to go into play. we are not a first responder or 911. if that is the case and that is , each local government needs to have their own baseline capability to strengthen the whole system. >> could you talk about how fema can help? largestthe dhs's granting body. what is your role in that in helping the local and state emergency managers fill their

capacity so it takes some of the burden off of you? in use ofbig believer the private sector. we are highly encouraging people to set up the contracts to do things. such as disaster cost recovery. how to manage the billions of dollars coming into your community. emergency power. being able to get their hands on generators without having to ask the federal government. we have become more of a block grant role instead of actually doing the job on behalf of the state and local government. we are about to roll out a predisaster toolkit that helps states understand what they should have in place. there are barriers. there are a handful of states in the country where the legislation is -- being able to set up blue sky day. that is where they have to tear the walls down and be configured in a manner where they can do this and reduce the reliance upon fema.

i started at initiative called the fema integration team. . concept. i want to move my staff out of headquarters. and abandon agencies to make sure we are doing training and execution exercises together. making sure we overcome that gaps that they have identified. saying, you need a housing plan. you need these contracts in place. let us help you do that on a blue sky day rather than going through the emergency bid process. >> can i just follow up briefly? you talk about the integration team. you had that place in north carolina. how did that work? >> they were on the ground as everything was unfolding. florence was a tough one because it was a slow moving event. ingave us a huge leeway understanding evacuation processes. they were there for -- they were verifying information on what the state was requesting and what we were able to provide to

them to prepare for the onset of the storm. they are also there to start getting the ball rolling once the declarations are in place. it was great. they are right there. it is not a team that i have to deploy. they are there working with the state. they already have strong partnerships in place. at this point, we have 15 teams that we rolled out. hopefully we will have teams in all 50 states within the next year and a half. experience handling the disasters occurred in 2017, do you need more funding for fema in this year's spending package? it goes back to emergency management. it is like the chair you are sitting in. . it is supported by four legs. each one of the four legs represents a different thing. . the federal government is one thing. is the state and local tribal government. the third leg is the private

sector. the fourth leg is prepared citizenry. when all four legs are present, the response and recovery phases go well. when one is missing, if anything is missing, if the state government is not strong or if the local level collapses, the chair is less stable and disasters do not go nearly as well as they should. the question congress needs to ask is, why are there nine states that do not have their own rainy day fund to support their own citizens if a disaster occurs in their state and fema assistance is not coming to town? we need to start asking those questions. what land use planning is being put into place? at the local level and the state level? the key to disaster resilience is not a bigger fema and bigger budget. the key to disaster resiliency is smart management. they are susceptible to known disasters we have known about for years. if we continue to build a bigger

fema, it puts an unrealistic expectation on the agency that we will never be able to meet. job, there are 20,000 dedicated employees who serve their country and serve others. the average employment is 136 days out on the field. and they did. they get stomped on. they get ridiculed. they are never doing it fast enough. the only way we overcome that is all four of the legs in the chair -- on the chair are stronger. >> the former fema chief michael brown stated in august that he feels the u.s. has not learned from hurricane katrina. do you agree with that assessment? calldo believe that what i hazard amnesia is alive and well. we went many years of rebuilding communities after his -- after disasters without making them

more did resilient -- more resilient. we use what is called section 420 in the stafford act to say we are not just going to rebuild the community back to its predisaster condition. if we are going to spend billions of dollars, we are going to do this right. we are going to factor mitigation into the recovery effort up so we are not having to replace blown out infrastructure again and again. you watch states tear down building codes. it is my understanding that ,lorida, the 2001 building code which proves effective was stripped down this year before michael hit. we need to start asking the questions as to why. i do not want to put fema in a place where we have to hold back preparedness funding or holdback recovery funding until building codes and proper land use

planning contracts are put into place. we make it a point to force communities to get better. disasters youal have talked about, these are all attributable to climate change. how is the agency adjusting to the? are you looking at modeling disasters or are you looking at how you are getting funding? for thethat doing agency in terms of its mission and how it responds to the disasters? probably more than anyone else in your position in quite some time. >> one of the things i recently did was i created the office of resilience. when i inherited fema, there were a lot of stovepipe programs. our preparedness division, our continuity division operated in these silos.

we brought them all together called the office of resilience. regardless of what causes the disasters, how do we work to mitigate and overcome them and make sure that the conversations are coming across? we also looked at things like clement verda bilby -- climate variability. of of the primary drivers decreased an increase periods of activity is the oceans conveyor belt. it is the way it pumps water in and out of the basins. we entered into an increased period of hurricane activity in 1995. onsed to make presentations that in the next 30 years, we are going to be paying for the fact that we built a lot of communities in vulnerable areas and we did not do it to a standard where houses are

elevated or were the wind mitigated. >> we have 10 minutes left. on the topic of hurricane maria, i know there has been a lot of controversies surrounding the death toll. washington university put out a study saying nearly 3000 people died from hurricane maria. the puerto rican government came out there on data. you say time and time again that fema does not count the death toll. don't you think it is fair that fema should be responsible to count the death toll in order to properly assess the damage that the natural disaster caused? >> we are not set up or designed to do that. we do not have medical examiners who can say this was attributable to hurricane maria or this is the death due to heart attacks. i do not think fema needs to be in that role. we have to rely upon the local and state accountability.

and the medical examining capability. it is not entirely functional in puerto rico. i do not think we will ever know how many deaths will be -- were directly attributable to maria. there is a difference. the number that was reported as 65. that are direct deaths were reported like a building collapse. due to drowning from storm surge or whatever it may be. the other direct deaths are always a problem after any disaster. including in florida as a result of michael. people tried to prevent debris falling off their roofs. people die in car crashes. the thing is, you have to look at the studies. neither one of the studies goes through and says, this is exactly how these people died or what the cause was. it was a trend in the numbers off baseline averages over time. we have to look at that. the bottom line is, fema thinks

that one death is a death way too many. we work every day to try to prevent that through $2 billion preparedness grants that goes out to understanding how to do public warning systems. making sure people are heating evacuation warnings. we were trying different things. this year, we started using an emergency alert system to reinforce. the governors were reinforcing the evacuation methods to say get out of here, it is a dangerous place. it goes back to our strategic plan. goal number one is to build a culture of preparedness. a lot of times, people do not understand why they are vulnerable. many people do not understand that storm surge due to a hurricane is the primary reason you see a tremendous amount of damage. a storm surge has the highest potential to kill the most amount of people. people think, my home is under

construction, it will still -- will survive the wind. the people who experienced storm surge in michael are not alive to talk about it. could you talk about your assessment of -- there are people who say fema would be more effective if it was an independent agency rather than a sub agency within a department of homeland security? >> that is a question that has been up for debate. i have a solid relationship with inside the department of homeland security. we moved at lightning speed to get disasters declared. there is great communication. i have a direct line to the president in times of need. there has been a direct line of communication. . i never thought i would have so much direct line of communication with the president of the united states. on the a follow-up

question about puerto rico, could you give us a snapshot on the status of recovery? >> we have a long way to go. it is not we as in fema, the united states has a long way to go. fema is one of the greatest assets to the commonwealth because of the money we put forward. there are other agencies involved such as hud. i think we put over $15 billion to work to do emergency repairs the grid. trying to bring up the infrastructure to where it is no longer a threat to life because it is not working. now is the tough task of working with the commonwealth to say, governor, what is your clear plan to build an energy grid that is resilient, that will make you more economically viable down the road, one of the biggest tasks we have is repairing schools. these are not things that happen

within a week. these are things -- imagine a new school being planned in your community. it takes years to do so. we are trying to be thoughtful and work with the governor to understand. here is how the money works. we have broken it out into sectors such as education and health and medical sectors to try and go in and fix everything simultaneously. you look at the roadway sections. there were thousands of breaches in the roadway sections. -- is always facing unrealistic expectations to make communities work immediately after a disaster. puerto rico has the best opportunity it has ever had to become more economically viable and resilient. it is not solely up to fema to ensure that happens. >> on the recovery aspect, republican senator michael envy is the chairman of the budget committee. he wrote a letter to fema last

month stating that he expressed concerns about fema not properly giving or allocating money to puerto rican residents that were trying to recover from harm -- from hurricane maria. the money was instead being used to pay overhead cost. how does fema address those concerns? >> there is a lot of bad information from the media from the standpoint of how the system works. they are commonwealth contracts or local municipal contracts that we reimburse. before we reimburse it, we do our due diligence to make sure it was competitively bid. the cost rates are competitive as well. we are not being gouged or anything like that. there is a massive responsibility of ensuring this money we put down is being put to work correctly. it cannot be done to quick. we have to be methodical.

did it put back together? when you look at the amount of assistance provided to puerto rico, it is unprecedented. we literally have made 100,000 homes. imagine if i had to come in and fix 100,000 homes in any of the communities they that you live in. question for the congress is, this is the biggest opportunity puerto rico has had. as the commonwealth ready to lead that? rebuilding a power grid that is sustainable for the future. we grant the money to do that. we do not have the authority to go back in and rebuild the grid. that is out to the commonwealth. we try to help them with the planning efforts. this is going to take more than fema to help the commonwealth overcome what happened in maria. >> we have about three minutes

left. about --u talk briefly you mentioned this before. continuity of government efforts. there is not a lot known. can you briefly talk about what that is in fema's role in it? >> continuity of government is making sure that -- what fema's role is to make sure the executive branch of government can work on its worst day. whether it is a public health event or whatever it may be, it is still in a position to meet its essential critical functions. it is a massive job. it requires the ability to make sure the executive branch can work if they have been displaced from a building. if we have seen a reduction in people as read it -- as a result of a public health event. you have lost resources.

effortsds the planning in the process to make sure that happens. continuity of government is not just our responsibility. it is also the responsibility of state emergency management agencies. governor speak to the municipalities and leadership at the local level of government? it is an incredibly complex job. one of the most important jobs on my shoulders in the united states. you mentioned before about the presidential alert system. a lot of people have been hesitant about whether they want to receive that or not given the political climate. given what happened in january in hawaii where an employee accidentally sent a ballistic missile alert. what procedures are in place to make sure that does not happen? >> the alert issue was truly unfortunate.

hawaii were doing their due diligence to test a very important concept for a very real threat. they had been through a series of exercises in being proactive. we always encourage that. unfortunately, a simple mistake was made. from what i've -- from what i understand, it boils down to the digital interface that they were using. now they have gone back and put in redundancies to make sure that does not happen again. the integrated public alert warning system was originally designed to make sure the president could get a blast of information out to all citizens of the united states. we recently had to test that. the system had never been tested. it'd been around for basically a decade. if you do not know something works, you have to test it. that is what happened. we reached well over 200 million cell phones, which is a success. these are systems that hopefully

we never have to use. the bottom line is, the threats are always evolving. we have to be prepared. i cannot afford to sit back and take things for granted. >> fema administrator brock long, thank you for being our guest. >> welcome back to newsmakers. after our conversation with administration or of fema, two reporters -- had a briefwe conversation with the ministry to and he talked about how many times he was called to testify on capitol hill. what are the expectations of a democratic house and the kind of oversight fema might have that it has not experienced before with a republican congress? >> a lot of house democrats i have talked to especially in the house government oversight and reform committee have said that they need to see more oversight on fema. they are concerned that he did not agree or disagree with the

george washington study that found nearly 3000 people died from hurricane maria. he has been hesitant to speak on that. he has always stated that one death is a death too many, but what we will see come january is that more democrats will start conducting or calling for investigations to understand fema. there is a lot of misconceptions about what they can and cannot do. it is going to be a different environment because i do not think that the look back from the congressional standpoint. particularly on hurricane maria of what happened. what were the lessons and what are they doing about that as a result of the things they were able to go back and look at? i think there were some misconceptions about what fema could and cannot do, but i do not think we know the clear

picture of what actually happened. what could they do that they did not do? what are the things that puerto rico should have been able to take care of that they were not able to take care of? >> the administrator made the case several times that the public expectations on fema versus its mandate, there is a gap. what are you learning in your reporting about what the public has come to receive -- come to expect from fema and what it is able to deliver? >> there is a general perception that when a natural disaster happens, fema is supposed to get in there and hand out food and water and do all of the things that first responders are supposed to do. i do not think people understand that is not the role. their role is to back first responders and make sure they have the things they need. the responsibility -- the first responsibility for dealing with those things are the state and

local level as the administrator said. that is a common misperception about what fema's role actually is. a lot of times, you will hear people say fema is screwing something up. that is not fema. they will go, what are they supposed to be doing? there needs to be more education on exactly how these things break out and what their role is versus the state and local role. >> the president in his budget proposal has called for cutting back on some of the programs that fema administers. what is the trump administration's view on how to manage the state and local relationship with the federal government? >> i do not think they truly know at this point. fema is still trying to figure out how what happened in 2017 with the natural disasters that occurred including hurricane irma and maria, the california wildfires, that that does not happen again.

is that there needs to be more comedic case in between the local and state levels and how they interact --h fema -- more going forward, what they want to have is more of a cohesive strategy on how to combat some of the challenges that they faced in 2017. >> in the midst of dealing with these natural disasters we have had, the administrator also found himself in the news for some ethics related things. personal travel back to his home in north carolina. how did that play out for him? >> this revolved around the use of staffers for his travels back home. to make a long story short, he ended up being reprimanded by the secretary of homeland security, paying for the use of

the vehicle. basically, owning up to what he did in the use of the vehicle and having staff go home with him. >> obviously he is still on the job, so he has the confidence of homeland security and the white house at this point. >> he is not just someone who is a political appointee. he is someone who had years of experience in emergency management. >> on the climate change issue, that will be the last. what did you learn about how they are incorporating climate change? >> he mentioned in the interview that they are still trying to navigate how to combat some of the technical issues. first and foremost improving infrastructure. not within fema, but local and state. he was saying there are certain states that do not have proper infrastructure. really not -- it is not

-- it is not really tested in order to -- has avery clear that fema lot to improve on, but so do local and state governments and how do they respond to natural disasters in their community? >> thanks to both of you for asking questions this week. >> thank you for having us. >> on monday, a look at china's belt and road initiative. toide reaching program establish infrastructure and other investments in europe, asia, africa, and the middle east. it is life beginning at 10:00 a.m. on c-span. on the free c-span radio app. james jeffrey, the u.s. special representative for syria engagement joins for a

discussion on policy towards syria. hosted by the atlantic council. coverage begins at noon eastern here on c-span. and on our website and radio app. >> coming up this weekend on book tv, tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern, on afterwards, citizens united president and former trump campaign manager corey book,owski discuss their trumps enemies. they are interviewed by investigative journalist cheryl atkinson. >> we refer to many of these people at the -- as the november nightclub. they began -- they became a fan of president trump on the day he was elected. they found an opportunity to join and administration that was young and inexperienced to further their own agenda. >> part of becoming president,

he listened a lot to republican leaders in washington and took advice from folks that i do not know he would do the same thing today. during that transition during the first month or two, the learning cleared -- the learning curve was very steep like it is for every president. it is a learning curve. >> watch book tv this weekend on c-span2. monday at 8:00 p.m., former federal reserve chair janet yellen in conversation with new york times columnist paul krugman talking about the 2008 financial crisis, the role of the federal reserve, and current risks she sees in the financial market. the city university of new york host the event.

>> c-span's washington journal live every day. coming up monday morning, former u.s. small business administrator karen mills talks about the by policy center recommendation to bolster small businesses. and, the white house proposal to overhaul the postal service. a conversation with kevin cozart. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal, live at 7:00 eastern monday morning. join the discussion. on tuesday, likely incoming house speaker nancy pelosi and senate minority leader chuck schumer met with president trump to discuss border security. the president is asking for $5 billion to complete a wall. house democrats have proposed about $1.6 billion for the project. parts