work on several suspension bills and possibly extending federal spending past friday night deadline. axiospan2, at 8:00 a.m., s host a discussion on the criminal justice reform bill. the senate takes up the nomination of joseph mcguire to lead the national counterterrorism center. a.m., an3 at 9:00 discussion on the state of trade between the u.s. and china. house speaker paul ryan delivers his farewell address at 1:00 p.m. from the great hall of the library of congress. at 2:00 p.m., the house and senate veterans affairs committees hold a joint hearing on improving the health care. >> coming up in an hour, the center for american progress and american enterprise institute. they will talk about next steps after a federal judge in texas rolled the affordable care act was unconstitutional.

and 9:00 a.m., u.s. news & world n discusses the federal commission on school safety's report and what it means for school discipline across the u.s. ♪ host: as the year wraps up, so does the tenure of house speaker paul ryan. he will give his farewell address today at 1:00 this afternoon. you can see that on c-span 3 and c-span.org and listen on c-span radio. this is the "washington journal" for december 19, do -- two days before a scheduled government shutdown. -- backing away from the demand for $5 billion for a border wall and other security. what do you think of this move by the white house and what does

it say about the larger issue of border security? here is how you can let us know. for republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. you can post on our twitter feed @cspanwj and also on our facebook page facebook.com/cspan . damien paletta in the washington post highlights a new tact by the trump administration for the funding of the wall. he writes president trump directed his cabinet secretaries fundsarch for any stray that could be repurposed for the construction of a wall. it is very difficult to legally redirect taxpayer money without congress' approval. the same story says this move led to complaint from supporters on the new restrictions on immigration that the white house fumbled one of the top

priorities and never had a plan for how to proceed. mike corey said the president threatened to fight democrats over border wall funding only to back down at the last minute, which made it clear to democrats you would capitulate again. this undermines this president's credibility. if you go to the white house press briefing that took place yesterday, sarah sanders asked many times about the president's strategy when it comes to this request for $5 billion and where the white house stands and here is the response. [video clip] >> we are disappointed in the fact that have yet to vote on something and pass something. when they do that, we will make a determination. we are looking at every avenue available to us possible. the president asked every one of his cabinet secretaries to look for funding that can be used to protect our borders and give the president -- protecting the american people by having a

secure border. doesll see what the senate and let you know when we have an announcement. bolling -- following up on that, what agencies are you looking at? >> the president has asked every agency to look and see if they have money that can be used for that purpose. >> and if they can find that money, does that mean the president would accept a proposal that does not include money to -- >> we want to see what the senate can pass. host: the federal government is projected to send -- spend more than $4 trillion. moving around that amount of money could be considered illegal without congressional approval. on the move by the white house, to possibly avoid a shutdown over border wall funding.

republicans, it is 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. off of our twitter feed, -- says this is a 180 degree flip from his words a few days ago. i suspect chuck schumer used kryptonite on your man of steel. anne-marie on facebook says shut down the government is no wall money is included. nancy pelosi has shown the president who is the boss. it is not president trump. jenny starts us off from lancaster, ohio this morning. go ahead. caller: i asked you this before. since i am the first caller, did i win the grand prize? host: there is no grand prize. what do you think of the president's change of strategy? caller: i think he is trying to do it again and if we are going

to spend all that money to help mexico. every single time, they are talking about shut down the government. security social disability check and she freaks out every time and i have to explain to her that is not going to happen. $5t: the president made billion a priority going in and now he is changing his strategy. what do you think about that? caller: you knows what he is doing. we all cannot know what is going on in the white house, the certain things he is looking at. you don't understand. himcountry wants to blame for everything and they don't respect the president. i bet china and russia have a good time for that. host: if the request doesn't include $5 billion, you are ok with that? caller: not really.

i agree he needs to build a wall. maybe he will get the money somewhere else host:. host:let's go to our line for democrats. this is andrew and mississippi. -- in mississippi. communism about the border wall. the democrats should not let donald trump blackmail them. they need to get him out of the white house. him and his kids. they need to clean the house out. host: let's go to north carolina, independent line. caller: good morning. host: you are on, go ahead. caller: i think we should avoid the shutdown. it is going to hurt innocent people, my family being one of them.

there is no reason we should have to deal with not having paychecks, especially around christmas parade host: is this something you agree or disagree with the president on? caller: i know we need border security, but at least fund the other bills that need to be funded. don't shut down what does it need to be shut down. host: it was about 11 hours ago the president sent out some tweets saying the democrats are -- ng loud and clear it will be beautiful at the same time give our country the security our citizens deserve. it will go up fast and save us billions of dollars a month once it is completed. this is from several hours ago.

the border wall apparently now not being part of that. robert from michigan, independent line, hello. caller: good morning. i love to watch "washington journal." i called on the wrong line, i am really an independent person. i love the way democrats came -- hen and holding trump is a liar. they came out with that new and now they are off the wall with this border funding. host: what did you think about this idea of a shutdown over it in the first place? caller: i don't think it should

have been shutdown just because he cannot get his way. ison't think a border wall the solution because there is a intof other ways to come this country and a wall is not going to stop them. they are building tunnels and coming in with airplanes and around the waterways. it is a lot of money. host: what about this idea of finding money from other sections of the federal government to build this wall? caller: i don't think they should put any money at all. give it to the people, actually, and put money back into the hands.s mainly, support the laws of companies that are hiring illegal immigrants. host: robert in michigan, this

isthe hill reporting it is richard shelby telling reporters tuesday evening that congress may pass a short-term government funding measure lasting until february. it is one of the ideas floated in the senate as congress approaches a friday deadline. shelby told reporters early in the day his preference would be to pass a package of the regular spending bills which have been crafted by the appropriations committee for fiscal year 2019, but a short-term funding measure may be necessary to avoid a partial shutdown. it senate and -- the president and senate democrats failed to reach a deal -- chuck schumer going before cameras yesterday talking about the latest republican proposal for the funding of a wall or funding border security measures and his thoughts on it. here is chuck schumer from yesterday. [video clip] today republican offer

would not pass either chamber. we, democrats, have made two incurable offers that overwhelming bipartisan support in the house and senate. past the 6 bipartisan appropriations bill and a one-year cr for the homeland security bill or a one-year cr for the remaining seven appropriations bills. the president said last week he would be proud to shutdown the government. we democrats don't want to shut down the government. as for the idea of what sarah sanders huckabee said, they could get wall money from nafta or some other part of the government, they need congressional approval. they are not getting it for the wall. plain and simple. where are we? the ball remains in the president's and republicans'

court to accept one of our common sense proposals. hill adding it was mitch mcconnell offering democrats a deal to wrap up by week end. he proposed giving the president $1.6 billion for border fencing and an additional $1 billion for measures.n related from florida, democrats line, roy up next. caller: i just want to say i am sick of this border wall. all it has been is a mess and it will not do anything. he wants to keep the poor people from mexico out and doesn't say a thing about saudi arabia. number one, we have a lot of $5 billion that can be used to feed people and also, health-care, which is a big issue he is trying to take away. i think they should shut it down. i think this needs to be done

now and this will go against him. the democrats are going to look good if they continue to fight and did this done. we cannot keep pushing this down the road every single time. it needs to be fought now. i hate to tell you at christmas, but that is the only way it will change. there is no wall or no problem with immigration. he is treating the system like these people are from auschwitz or something. he is inhumane and doesn't know what he is doing. in sanet's go to morris diego, california. republican line. caller: it looks to me like it is a kabuki dance where both sides roll over and play dead. i don't think they are serious about securing the border and trump, if he can get the money from somewhere else, more power to him. there are not the votes on the democrat side.

there never will be votes on the democrat side. if trump had the courage of his convictions, he would hold out for $5 billion. they are talking about investing $100 billion for inner cities for minorities. billion is the end of the world. i think it is a bunch of smoke and mirrors, charades, nobody wants to go first. in the end, nothing will get done. billion is the end of the there is no money for the wall and there never will be. he ought to wash his mouth out with refried beans. he hung up. let's go to new mexico, independent line. caller: thank you, c-span. i would like to agree with the last collar and i wish you had a chance to follow up with him. there is a problem on the border. the fact people are rushing the

border is a problem. the fact that people are taking jobs at lower wages is a problem. the fact that we are not processing people so they are integrated into society as full citizens is a problem. host: should the president hold his $5 billion demand? caller: i don't know. that is up to him. he makes the decisions and he accepts responsibility. that is the point. if people want to work together and come to decisions, they have to decide what is more important. host: do you support a shutdown over this? caller: whatever it takes. they have been kicking the can down the roads for decades. there is no comprehensive reform that is going to happen until somebody makes a decision one

way or the other. in westt's go to thomas virginia, democrats line. hello. caller: hello. host: you are on, go ahead. caller: i was watching that this morning and i have been a democrat all my life, registered democrat in west virginia. i am for that border wall personally because here is the thing. everybody is living behind some sort of wall whether it is a house or apartment or whatever. grant you the biggest part of them lock their doors when they go to say that -- sleep at night because they want to feel safe. if we love this country, we need to protect it. it isn't it -- it isn't just the army branches, it is protecting our borders. personally, i am for the wall. if that will help the american

people and i am talking about the american people. host: do you support a shutdown to get the money the president wants for a wall? caller: i sure do. i think whatever it takes, if these people don't have enough sense to know they need some sort of protection that will help them out in the long run, maybe not the short-term they are talking about and stuff like that and they can see no further than their noses buried i support him. host: what do you think a shutdown at top wishes? caller: -- shutdown accomplishes? caller: hopefully it is like when you get your fingers squeezed a little bit, you want to do something to believe -- a alleve it. host: the president looking for strategy when it comes to

-- rts to avoid a we are asking your thoughts on the white house's change of strategy and what you think about it. 202-748-8001. democrats -- 202-748-8001 for republicans. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. if a shutdown takes place. -- u.s. postal service would social security checks will be mailed as planned. coverage -- medicaid coverage would continue, customs and border control agents at the border and u.s. troops deployed to the border would work as usual. the services that would stop, including the u.s. department of agriculture and the federal housing administration would see slowdowns in loan processing and

approvals. the government services that would close including the parks service -- unclear what would and whatis time around would happen to federal employees. more than 420,000 employees would go to work without pay. more than 21,000 law enforcement and 5000nal officers forced service fighters -- the cbs news website highlights specifics on who is affected if place.own were to take from ohio, linda on our republican line, hi. caller: i think it is so sad the way they fight over this $5 billion. i feel really bad06 for these immigrants that this congress cannot get something together for these immigrants. they come here and try to make a better life and if they would come the right way. -- in seen people being

with flags and they are waiting and these people are crossing over like they are. we have got to do something. watch this special one night outhis black woman living of her car with two children and she lives in the united states. i feel bad for them and i feel sad for the poor in this country. host: we will hear from ray in raleigh, north carolina. independent line, good morning. caller: good morning three how are you doing? host: fine, thank you. you are on, go ahead. caller: it is time for the government to wake up. all you have to do is take every contractor -- make every --tractor you hire that they proved that they can work in this country.

-- it is time for us to make a stand. if someone comes to paint your house, you should want to see every workers' papers. host: where are you on the idea of a shutdown over this border while funding? they are going to take our jobs, they are going to lower our wages, they did not come into this country that right way. how can they say that when people come into their country physically fighting them, yet it -- for them to come into our country because we are racist -- host: it was new mexico's newest president saying he persuaded president trump to sign onto a development plan in central america in a bid to halt

migration. the u.s. welcomes the commitment by the debt government -- by the government of mexico to promote our shared goal with the countries of el salvador, guatemala, and honduras. the u.s. president has been hostile to the caravans of mostly honduran immigrants hoping to cross into the u.s. and apply for asylum. remains committed to his plan to build a water wall -- border wall. state department says the overseas private investment corporation, a u.s. government agency that invested -- 20 million for infrastructure,

education and governance and the u.s. government requesting $180 million in bilateral assistance for fiscal year 2019 on top of billionbillion -- $1.8 from 2015 to 2018. democrats line, alabama. this is mary from birmingham. caller: yes. i am calling because president trump said i think the mexico government was going to help pay for the wall. i don't care if they build a wall from here to heaven, people is going to be able to come to the united states biplanes, under the ground, whatever. that is a waste of money when people are starving and hungry it is just a shame. why don't they do something in those countries? talk to those governments to

make of them do different for their people and everything? we don't own no country. god owns this world and people are free to go wherever they want to go. host: jody off of twitter says if you think this will be the end of immigration, you will be sad. wall.a says build the they were ok to shut it down for daca. kathy says good, forget the wall. so much good can be accomplished with $5 billion. let the military assist with infrastructure, which will benefit america. ron in henderson, nevada, republican line. go ahead. caller: yes, i believe the president should build the wall. i believe he should shut down the government and do exactly as he said.

everybody on the one side would bring up the amount spent annually on the illegals here in the united like $100 onstates, which is billion. $25 billion to build of the wall, it may not solve all the problems, but talk to people in israel. they built the wall and it worked. every wall has worked. i believe 100% -- first of all, they are never going to beat trump. he will get the job done regardless of the liberals and a medium. thank god for president trump because -- host: if the president changes his strategy when it comes to will youllion request, still be supportive of him if he chooses to abandon that strategy?

caller: absolutely and the --son i will is because this schumer and pelosi -- pelosi apecially, she is billionaire. host: that is ron colling about his support for president trump. a republican from arizona, a sponsor of the bill of the wall, and forced the law act of 2018. her op-ed, we need the wall and the wall will work. it is a protective infrastructure that deters illegal border crossing.

in 2000, the department of homeland security build a wall in tucson, arizona. border operations -- apprehensions dropped -- 95% over nine years. these are a couple of freight -- places where we built the wall and it will work. we can send a message we are serious about securing our border. only then will the u.s. show the wall we have borders -- the world we have borders and they must be respected. chattanooga, tennessee, independent line. then it, good morning. caller: hey, how are you doing today? host: fine, thanks. caller: to your point about the border wall, the president spoke on the fact mexico would be paying for the wall. statisticsad the

that apply to other countries in the wall. i think the divisiveness we are experiencing -- i think we should not lose sight of what is said and hold people accountable. i think protecting america is very important. at the same time, if our president said he will get the money from other places, i don't think he needs to shut down the government until now. from gary inear texas, democrats line. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span and thank you for taking my call. i want to make a comment i think this is a political ploy by trump to cover up some of his failures as president and it's also by the republicans in general, just like you saw in the column.

for two years, if you all remember, they have had control of all the branches of , the presidency, the house of representatives, the were promised an immigration bill and it is not the democrats fault we did not have an immigration bill, it is the republicans fault. now -- it is not very much money, they want to throw $5 billion as a starter for the wall project. miss lascaux was proved wrong .ecause she said walls work if you build a wall along that border, what are you going to do about the canadian border? you are not going to be able to attack this by building a wall and i think this is a the right way. i think a true immigration bill

that addresses illegal immigration and legal immigration. i think that is the way to do it and this is a political ploy to gem up support for a failing president. host: that is gary in texas. we are asking about the apparent change in strategy by the white house concerning funding for a border wall. the white house looking to avoid a government shutdown set for friday, asking for $5 billion in federal funds. we are asking your thoughts on the change of strategy. if you want to call us, it is 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8000 for democrats. and independents, 202-748-8002. in other news, the associated press reported the president is hailing the senate passage of a .weeping criminal justice bill

the president tweeted america is the greatest country in the world and my job is to fight for all citizens, even those who made mistakes. signingking forward to this into law. the bill gives judges more discretion when sentencing drug offenders and addressing prison rehabilitation efforts. passed the senate by 87-12 tuesday night. sending it to president trump for his signature. that is from the associate press -- talkwashington post about his legacy and a congressman's of the role. mr. ryan is -- has always spoke of the initiative of fiscal discipline. the red ink has grown since ryan became speaker soaring from $428 billion to $779 billion this

year. many economists blame the tax cut as the cause of the deficit. ryan and his allies are arguing case they ignore the political reality of the trump forced to seek wins where they can otherwise play defense against president trump's that impulses. he is set to make that farewell .ddress at 1:00 this afternoon from the library of congress, you can see that starting at 1:00 and you can watch on c-span.org and listen to it on the c-span radio app. mike in texas, you are next up. go ahead. caller: good morning. regarding a political ploy, a political ploy is when you say in campaign that -- c-span is going to cover health care negotiations in order to get

elected and c-span never covered the health care negotiations in 2008, 2009. we have over 20 million illegal immigrants in the country. this is not a political ploy, this is about controlling our .outhern border citizens earn three or four dollars a day. i wonder how many people in america earn three dollars or four dollars a day. that is socialism at work. they are fleeing socialism. that is the reality of socialism, it doesn't exist. yes, they are fleeing for a better life, but we need to know why they are leaving. it is not ending. host: what's do you think about president trump's efforts on this matter -- what do you think about president trump's efforts on this matter? caller: he wants to build a wall

and that is the bottom line. he has been consistent with this. we have oceans of illegal immigration. we need to control our border like people lock their car doors at night. we have reasons to secure our own homes. 6 to 8e bringing over pounds of garbage across our border and destroying the desert. environmentalists would be concerned about that, too, i would imagine. host: independent line, will is next up. caller: the president needs to shut down the border, but not just for all wall. we also need reform on the immigration policies. congress sat around too long and not done their job. if there is going to be a to shut downneeds in place andress

forced them to -- through immigration law reform. a wall is going to help, yes, but with these loopholes, we will never fix a problem. host: you mean shutdown for the $5 billion request? caller: shut it down for the $5 billion. at the same time, until congress can get the job done. this has been going on way too long. republicans and democrats have as athe immigration issue dacaical weapon -- we got theire they could not do job. sign ant obama had to executive order. they are using this to get their votes to strike up their basis. host: let's hear from melvin in

new york. caller: what about the other polish, jewish, irish, italians? they are coming in, too. you are doing nothing about them. border. southern what about the other folks coming into this country? host: one of the people responding to the back and forth negotiations in the senate was mitch mcconnell. asked about the status of discussions as of last night and here is his take on it. [video clip] >> we had a discussion about a proposal be offered that i thought was reasonable to both sides to give us an opportunity to, in effect, thread the needle on the border security issue. heard back from senator schumer the author -- offer was not acceptable. i am in consultation with the white house about the way more toand i will have say about that hopefully a little bit later about what the

president is willing to sign. the administration is extremely flexible on this issue. host: cheryl bulger on facebook says to all parties involved, work it out, people. rebecca says shut down government costs a lot of money -- alexander says shutting down the government during the holiday is reprehensible and if trumpers believe they should, they are showing deplorable beliefs. republican line in warren, ohio. al, go ahead. caller: i cannot believe how naive the american people are. our money -- it will never go up. wall will work and these people are so naive. they are not worried about their

kids.or their kids' mexico has to deal with their own problems. these people should stay here and fight to make their own country a better country. host: should the president stick with his $5 billion initial proposal? caller: i would have gone for it all. $5 billion to what we take in every year, that is like $50 to you and i. int: what about this change strategy from the white house as far as working on a deal? caller: he has to do what he has to do. democrats are living better than me and everybody i know. they would not even be in this mess when these -- we are living with them, -- all these people that are for startving a wall, they

taking their names and addresses and they see somebody they can accommodate. yearent $140 billion a taking care of them? what is $25 billion? host: we want to move on to a couple other things. this is the president from his twitter account saying from our country, so many -- much money has been poured down the drain for years. winway or another, we will on the wall. a shutdown is set to take place this coming friday barring a legislative address of the issue and we are getting your calls. you can post on twitter and on our facebook page as well. joe in florida, independent line, you are next up. is i thinkcomment

the president ought to shut the president down if they are not going to give him -- the government down if they are not going to give him $5 billion. $7.807, 2008, our debt was trillion and under obama, it skyrocketed to over $20 trillion. you are talking about $5 billion, that is nicholson pennies compared to what -- pennies compared to what they wasted. wake time for america to up and not sending the -- stop sending the same congress men and senators year after year after year. these people should only have two termed in the senate and maybe four terms in congress. they should not be allowed to be political pundits for the

billionaires and that is what this is. host: what about the proposal from the white house to find them money from other branches or areas of the government? caller: i think they should do it. go for it, but shut the .overnment down those people should not be in the government for so many years. host: let's hear from earl. fromr: it has been back president obama's reelection. there.a hispanic fellow host: hello? host: only because of the sake of time, how does this play into the current debate over border funding? caller: the stronger union states, ok, up north and on the west coast and all, they don't seem to have these problems.

that is what i did last time and there would not be anything done about it until president obama got elected or who ever got reelected. i will extend that to win the millennials get here. what do you think about the president's performance? caller: the union's message on this buy american, hire american. unions have been preaching this for hundreds of years. they don't have these problems appear. host: earl? caller: i am sorry, i cannot hear what you are saying. host: what do you think about the president's performance in this matter? caller: i think the wall is the silliest thing i have heard of in my life. host: let's hear from keith in colorado springs, colorado. republican line. caller: good morning. i was going to comment that the

wall is not the solution to the entire problem, but a solution to the biggest portion of a problem when a person has to figure out alternatives, it have it more difficult this flow come in. building a wall kind of stops the big majority coming in and you can look at the policies comeneed corrections and through the process that was intended. host: what do you think about the idea of shutting down the government over specific funding for the wall? caller: i work for the government and i say stop doing this back and forth, do what needs to be done and get it done. i worked for the government for a few years and last year we had a shutdown for a day. i would expect this to be longer. host: are you currently working

for the government? caller: i currently do. host: what guidance have you been given regarding friday? caller: we have been given -- i have been given none. i have been given none. that is keith in colorado springs. nancy pelosi was asked about the current debate and what she thinks about it and here are her thoughts from yesterday. [video clip] >> the white house has backed off the wall and that terminology. what they might want to do with billion dollars might be problematic. they have to have congressional blessing for most reprogramming. right now, what they offered, we have not accepted. i don't know what the path

might be. it might be a cr. what is happening at the border is shameful. it goes against everything we stand for as a country. host: that is nancy pelosi speaking on the topic of order wall funding and the border specifically. the washington post highlighting several democrats are finding their -- themselves along the u.s.-mexico border to take a look and assessed the situation. by democrats tour was led kevin mclean of the customs and border control commissioner who traveled from washington to meet the group. it featured joaquin castro, the chairman of the house hispanic caucus and the commissioners explained the policies during callinging and castro for him to resign, the commissioner's failure to notify lawmakers --

directed cbp to alert lawmakers if someone dies in the agency's custody. the agency is reviewing the notification policies and he criticized the lack of medical care available to migrants saying the data they question what they did and the agency's inability to respond with adequate resources. to the large number of families coming over the border adding dog -- the girl and her father were in custody toldy 8 hours and he agence his daughter was ailing, the girl began vomiting. she stopped breathing by the time they arrived and her 105.9 degrees. from pennsylvania, matt, independent line. caller: i believe your question to some extent is a foiled because the truth of the matter

is the president has no control over the budget whatsoever by the constitution. they past the law back in the 1970's because president nixon did not want to abide by the government -- the budget the government passed. that law itself is unconstitutional. if we return to a constitutional budget, which is controlled by the house alone, that means for those who are republican, nancy pelosi can pass the budget and tell everyone else to stick it. i wish republicans have the intestinal fortitude to do the same thing. host: meaning what? caller: basically, the house has the authority to pat -- pass the budget. the senate has the authority to pass amendments, but the house controls the purse strings. controls house that

the senate.not host: we will go to the line for democrats. caller: i was going to make a little comment. the wall and all this stuff is basically fodder for trump. to the anybody talks public or whatever, it is pretty much just a distraction. i think we are setting ourselves up for another nixon. as soon as everything comes down, he is going to pardon him and we wasted all of our money. host: one of the other events or news stories that cannot yesterday concerned what are known as bump stocks. the united states claiming a ban on them. the new rule classifies bump

stocks as machine guns, effectively prohibiting them. the u.s. bureau of alcohol, tobacco, firearms, explosives approved the devices in 2010, finding they did not meet the definition of machine guns. on sure whether they could prohibit them without legislation from congress. tens of thousands of bump stocks are in circulation and it is not andr how the atf plans to sure they are returned or destroyed. they are returned or destroyed. a related story in the new york times this morning when it comes to death by firearms in 2017. sarah saying these numbers are from the center for disease control and prevention. they add suicides have historically made up most deaths by firearms in the -- united states.

60% of gun deaths were suicide and 31% were homicides according ,o the analysis of cdc data adding the group is a sister organization of the coalition to stop gun violence. it quotes a -- an emergency medical physician, the director of the violence prevention research organization that said the rise in firearm deaths were a result of the unwillingness to take this problem seriously. we have decided as a country not to do research on this problem, so we don't understand it. he identified himself as a member of the nra. makeup nos shootings more than 1% of all firearm deaths. the task force headed by the education secretary betsy devos on school safety releasing their

report on recommendations on how to improve those. raymond in tennessee, republican line. go ahead, you are next. caller: yes, we are all worried about the mexicans and stuff coming across the border. i am worried about the drugs and nobody said anything about the cocaine and crack being made by the tons being brought over here. we are worried about the opioids, but we are not worried about the crack and the cocaine and everything else running across the border. host: the possibility of a shutdown on the president's performance on this, what do you think of that? caller: the shutdown. the democrats when clinton and obama talked about closing the borders and the wall and

-- it is not about trump. it is about how much we can fight against him. i know they can all come to an agreement even mexico will be worried about us. host: the president changing his mind on that, what do you think of that strategy? caller: you have to do what you have to do sometimes braided changing your mind is not bad. coming up with a solution is always good. a mexico isn't going to help a bit. host: let's hear from tom in south carolina. caller: good morning. the whole instance of the wall is purely symbolic and we have seen trump do this during his entire public career. he puts up symbols. the real issue here is the change of the laws. if you build a wall, they are not going to come through the southern border.

people will come through legally as visitors, overstay their visas. both parties are using this as a political issue to raise funds. on both sides. that is why congress hasn't done anything in 30 years, since the reagan administration. host: that is tom in south carolina. carol off of twitter saying government people will always get their paychecks. who are they kidding? pj off of twitter says if they shut down the government, when they call them back, they should only call half of them back. -- some of the comments on our twitter and facebook feeds. npr reporting amongst others it was a specially appointed federal panel of judges dismissing all 83 ethics complaints brought against

justice brett kavanaugh regarding his conduct at his confirmation hearings. there is no existing authority that allows judges to investigate or discipline supreme court justices. -- misled the senate about activities in the george w. bush white house, angry partisan statements denying charges of sexual assault in high school. democratsagainst accusing them of engaging in liberal conspiracy. that is available on the npr website. kathleen from chicago, democrats line, you are next. caller: good morning. how are you doing? host: i am well, thanks. trump promised the american people the mexicans would build the wall. he said, i guarantee. how in the world can these

people over here in this country claim they love the people here in america when you have people, even the ones that will protect him when he goes on his 16-day vacation if they shut down the government will not have pay? the first of the month will be here in a couple of weeks. these federal workers who have to go to work, they have to go -- pay rent like us and feed their kids. i have noticed maybe one or two migrants come over here and kill . what about all the white guys that come here and do the mass killing? go into these schools and churches and nightclubs? how is the wall going to protect us from that? it is mostly white people doing the mass killing. i don't understand how anybody in this country can stand to say close the government down, i don't care. ask, askperson you them if you worked for a job and

had to go to or three or maybe a month without pay, how would you feel. ? host: pictures of michael flynn over most of the newspapers this morning after his hearing yesterday where a federal judge in washington, d.c. held off from sentencing that -- suggesting -- according to this photo, he might impose jail time despite the contention mr. flynn deserved a lenient sentence. we will go to our next call. this is alton in taylorsville, north carolina, republican line. caller: what is going on? host: you are on, go ahead. caller: i just have a little point to make. instead of spending $5 billion trying to help mexico -- help building their military and help making their citizens more business savvy so they can maybe help contribute to us since we

do a lot of business with mexico anyway. wouldn't it make sense? host: that is alton in north carolina adding his thoughts. the financial page of the new york times takes a look at the foundation -- the trump foundation established in 1988 distribute profits from his best selling book "the art of the deal," to charity. it gained notoriety for using $10,000 of funds to buy a portrait of president trump. it shelled out thousands of dollars for sports memorabilia and appeared to steer donations to causes in iowa to boost mr. trump's portion before the caucuses in the 2016 election. the foundation will be dissolved under judicial legislation. the state lawsuit is seeking restitution and penalties and bar mr. trump and three of his children from serving on the boards of other new york nonprofit groups for 10 years.

in mississippi, we will hear from james on independent line. how are you doing, mr. pedro? host: fine, thanks. caller: when you look at this situation, you think about the history of this country. you think about the history of this country. as long as people were not -- they were doing work for nothing. a lot of people were ok with it. a civil rights came in and people started marching and protesting about civil rights. when african-americans started refusing to do these labor jobs for nothing, they got these people to come over here and work for them and the technology has come in and they are trying

to use these people -- god's people from coming over here because they are labeling them as thieves and murderers and gangs and rapists. that is the same thing they said about african-americans. host: should the border be shut down or not? caller: here is my point. can you hear me? host: go ahead. caller: my point is -- hello? host: you are on, go ahead. --ler: everybody over here they need to say all the people over here, come out of the dark. all these 12 million people, they need to become americans and you would stop all this hate and you have enough people to get on the border and protect the border. host: ok. that is james' point. we will go onto to stephen in

michigan, hello. caller: hello. thanks for c-span. can you hear me? host: you are on, go ahead. caller: as far as the white shutdown, it is crazy that this guy --when is someone going to stand up and tell him, he works for us. we do not work for him. things will get along a lot better. as far as the border wall, shut it down. it cost us $24 billion the last time. he wants $5 billion? $20s willing to lose billion in economic activity? he is a kook. host: last call for this hour. we change topics for the second hour. recent news, a texas judge

declaring the affordable care act unconstitutional. many wondering about the future of the act. guests joining us. will discuss that. later on, we look at the task force recommendation by the trump administration with lauren camera of u.s. news and world report. those conversations coming up on washington journal. ♪ >> when the new congress takes

office in january, it will have the youngest, most diverse freshman class in recent history. new congress, new leaders, live on c-span starting january 3. coming up this weekend on book tv, saturday at noon eastern, the second annual well read black girl festival in new york by patricia smith keynote. >> i did not know much about the problematic down south my parents had come from. i knew the south was steamy because they never stopped complaining about chicago. i knew it was problematic because television told me so. model,flickering floor people who looked like me were cornered by police dogs or doused with ketchup while they sat at lunch counters. i heard about people who looked

like me gone missing, swaying from poplars, swirling in rivers. i heard other names for people who looked like me, names with ugly edges, named to make a smaller, quieter, less boisterous, less ourselves. >> sunday at 9 p.m. eastern, author presents his book, a case for hope. >> you make the case for hope. why is hope important? is there a difference between faith and hope? >> we believe tomorrow can be better than today. we have to fight for it. everybody who came on the hope,s, deeply rooted in that this cannot be the best version of the system we got. we can always make something. even the tax bill, if they can rewrite that on the back of a piece of paper, don't tell me we

have to wait 10 years to deal with mass incarceration. people made this up. because they made it up, we can make something different. >> watch book tv this weekend on c-span2. >> washington journal continues. host: for the next hour, we talk about the affordable care act in light of a recent decision by a texas judge and guests joining us, benedic ippolito serves as the economic studies fellow at the research institute workedly, who previously in the obama administration. thank you for joining us. emily, could you briefly recount what the texas judge said about the affordable care act in your thinking on the judgment? aca wasast friday, ruled unconstitutional because in 2017, congress passed a tax

bill that included a provision that the aca individual mandate would be reduced to zero. this essentially took the heart out of the mandate. legislation was passed other than that in the tax bill. because of this thing that congressman pointed, the judge decided that renders the aca unconstitutional. this is a judgment in a case brought by the plaintiff that numerous scholars on the right and left have called absurd. context, go back to early days. 2008, 2010, aca debates. the three legged stool. pillars,ad the three the mandate, without the

pillars, the stool falls over. that is the concept behind the case. as emily says, i do not know i have heard anyone showing support for the judge's ruling. that includes a number of voracious aca critics. it is unusual to be discussing aca lawsuit and have everyone be in agreement. host: part of the language says congress stated unequivocally that the individual mandate is essential for the aca and that the text makes clear the mandate must work with other provisions. does that one element make sense? guest: there are separate issues. the good policy issue. the legal issue. good policy issue is -- if you're going to structure insurance in the way the aca did, you have to do something to get people to want to buy

insurance, whether incentive or mandate, that is separate. for the policy side, if you want it to work, you need people to go into the market, other than those who want to spend money. on the legal side, it is congressional intent. did congress intend the individual mandate, the aca to exist without the individual mandate/ the judge is saying no. if you look at the quotes, look congress said they could not be severed from the bill. what is odd is that congress literally just severed the individual mandate from the bill. inferring congressional intent through this murky lens of history seems overkill when we can point to last year, when congress eliminated the mandate. host: expand on that and the role of the supreme court. guest: absolutely agree.

what is good policy is different from what is legal. if you look at aca repeal debate 2017, congress had intent of revealing major prohibition of aca including mandate, but keeping others. if you talk to members of congress, even republican members, i doubt anyone had the idea that when they passed the tax bill, they were doing it to get rid of the entire aca. despite the ruling on friday, the most important thing for people to know is even though the aca was ruled unconscious usual, the law is still in effect. it is the law of the land. if you have coverage, it is still in effect. the next step for the lawsuit is that it will go to appeal to a higher court and ultimately to the supreme court perhaps. based on all the other legal

scholarship out there, everyone aside from the plaintiff and the judge think this is a poor argument the plaintiffs are making and ultimately the courts would decide for the aca. guest: to build on that. it does not help that current members of congress are saying, that is not why i voted for the tax cuts, to repeal the aca. the idea that we are inferring congressional intent doesn't really seem to be on strong footing. that is where the case is shaky. guest: what members of congress themselves have said about intent. host: we are talking with our guests. we have divided the lines differently. enrolled in the aca? (202)-748-8000. all others, (202)-748-8001. what is the worst case scenario going forward? lawsuit, this

injects uncertainty into the aca individual market. is it still law? so on. having said that, it is important to think about the timing. argued, it sounded like the judge would issue a quick decision. that was not the case. midterm elections came, no decision, argued, it sounded like the open enrollment, no decision. the decision only came at the end of open enrollment for the majority of states. for most states, it is unlikely to have any effects. i will be looking at the seven states that still have open enrollment going on. we learned last year, as the trump administration, sabotaged what was going on, we had individual strong numbers for enrollment. we might have the old adage proved true, any publicity is good publicity. guest: the fact that the ruling

coincided with the last night of open enrollment, traditionally a night of heavy activity on oath , this- health care.gov was really a political decision, and not one that is grounded in legality. host: when it comes to this, you talked about the numbers, centers for medicaid and medicare, 2018. 11.8 million enrolled. 27% are new customers. most chose silver plans. the average premium before tax credit, $621. what do the numbers tell you? guest: one of the important things those numbers show is even though the number should be higher, we might see modest growth in the exchanges, that

would be happening if not for the trump administration's dialing back, outreach, willy-nilly policy decisions. the overall robustness of the numbers shows the subsidies and regulations, the reforms that allow people to get coverage with pre-existing conditions or at a fair price even though they are elderly. that is holding up the market. it is not the mandate. the mandate is helpful to get people enrolled, whether in the exchange or medicaid or private insurance in other forms and -- without the mandate, the aca is still standing. host: it is the sustainability of subsidies that are causing concern. anyonei don't know that would look at the current state of the exchange and say, we nailed it. what emily describes, is the

case. there is a core group of heavily subsidized enrollees that are insensitive to year-over-year price changes. that is how they are designed. we can quibble. will befact that they there with or without a mandate and policy changes. the challenge to the aca moving forward for enrollment is, how do you enroll people not getting heavy subsidies? the plans are expensive for what you are getting if you don't have a subsidy. thinking about how you get those people to sign up is a challenge. as you say, the sustainability issue. the subsidies work, as the price goes up, you have to spend a certain portion of your income. the government absorbs the price increases beyond that. at a point, that becomes problematic. we cannot spend every dollar we have on health care. there is a limit at which subsidies would run out hypothetically.

we can't spend more than half a percent of gdp or something. whether someone would actually enforce that is a separate question. having a market where the only subsidized and that keeps increasing year-over-year, is a tenuous situation. trying to move away from that to something where we can get regular consumers to want to buy the products would be an improvement for the individual market. host: this is ryan in california, he is enrolled in aca. good morning. caller: good morning, pedro. the idea that you are having a debate is a joke. they are both for the aca. let's not forget, the aca was called the affordable care act. it is far from affordable. it is not affordable for taxpayers or the people who have it. rand paul, get him on when you talk to some sort of person for the aca, he knows the regulations in order to get back

to $30 a month health care. host: you are currently enrolled. what is your experience? caller: it is a joke. it is so expensive, you cannot afford it. premiums are out of control. the taxpayer is flipping the bill. washington journal needs to stop putting on this charade. this is not a debate. these people are for the aca. everyone is against this guy who stood up to the aca and said it is unconstitutional. it is a farce. host: you made your point. a lot of people talk about the cost. guest: we are both for people having health coverage and being able to afford seeing a doctor when they need to or being able to go to the hospital without being financially ruined. the aca has done a lot in the individual markets.

if you have a health history, like asthma or a hip replacement, you could not even get any coverage. away could turn you entirely. aca has made huge strides for getting people covered. 20 million more people have coverage. there is more that can be done. a lot of families are underinsured. they cannot afford cost-sharing or the deductibles are too high. there is more that democrats have proposed in order to lower costs. people on theut higher range of income, not being able to afford coverage. think about other ways we can extend subsidies to make sure insurance is affordable for people, middle-class. guest: thinking about the sustainability, brian is right that cost is an issue. -- ryan. but it is important to think

about the cost facing the federal government. one of the areas where the aca did not do enough, was it did a lot to expand coverage and improve access, but if you're going to do that, you need to take it seriously that you also have to take cost on. i do not want to blame the aca uniquely. it has further entrenched what the problematic incentives are, where we tend as a country to do a good job of subsidizing the heck out of insurance. we do very little to work to reduce the cost of health care at any point. that is true of the employer market, individual exchange, medicaid, a lot of situations. that is a systematic issue the aca furthered. aca but to blame the it is an area where i would say we could have done more. host: joe is in new york. caller: good morning, thank you for c-span.

put inone given thought, medicaid as an option, i heard the guy from california and totally agree with him. it is expensive when you involve the companies. i bounce between medicaid and paying my own way. medicaid was the best insurance i had. host: the idea of medicaid for all, it is very popular. what about the practicality? guest: cap is one of the organizations that has medicare for all type plan. while it is not the vision of american health care i would wish for, medicaid for all would be the more realistic. medicaid, for all the heat it takes, is cost-effective. they do a good job of using managed care providers, to structure networks to be cost-conscious, they negotiate prices aggressively.

if we impose that generally for the entire country? that will markedly change what american health care looks like in ways that are profound. if someone had that as ideal, at a minimum, you would want to incrementally step toward that. if you go towards a program where you have very large enrollment, and a program like medicaid with low rates, you will have an american health care system that looks extremely different from the one we have now. it is a trade-off that exists. host: how do you control cost? guest: in the medicaid program it is simple. they pull the lever. they lower the prices they pay to providers. in the case of medicaid, it is different. there has been a large change in the way medicaid is administered in most states. it is not administered by the states much, it is mostly by private companies.

the companies that are successful at running medicaid managed care plans are the companies that have been successful in aca exchanges. they restrict access a bit so they drive a harder bargain and get a lower price. i do not think that is a crazy trade-off. whether imposing that pricing structure for the entire market is a sustainable or ideal situation is a separate question. host: emily. guest: the bills presented in congress, there are a number of buy in options, medicaid and medicare. senator chris murphy, and others have proposed a buy in. one of the nice features is that you have a program in place with rates set, and it is provider networks. it is an easy transition for people uninsured or unable to afford coverage.

that,r benefit of it is when you have a public option you are also able to use the market to compete. a lot of this mechanism, something like medicaid might be offered on the exchanges, that could also bring down private prices by offering competition. host: george in oak hollow, florida. caller: hello, everyone. socialism is dying around the world, taking over by global capitalism. obama wanted to move further to it. -- womenl us not to do tell us not to tell them what to do with their bodies. you are using the word mandate. why do not use the word dictate. it is ridiculous. if you took away socialized

medicine, medicine would become competitive again. doctors would have to pay to write prices. people use five times what they pay in. one third of that is in the last year of their lives. how do you figure this is a good cause when you keep pushing socialized medicine? england is trying to get down to 18 weeks for a visit. 18 weeks, you wait for a doctor. you see it wrapping up around the world. it is just not working. that is all i have to say. thank you. host: emily. guest: going back to the point about the aca mandate. it is important to look at the aca as a big program. the mandate was one of a number of features. policies that help make insurance affordable. we were not asking you to buy

something that was previously unaffordable. aca had moving parts to try to bring in a healthy market, it offered subsidies to people who were lower income and middle-class to buy private insurance and also expanded medicaid, which is an option most states have taken to allow people to get coverage with zero cost sharing. host: what about his point to the other countries? guest: there are trade-offs. other countries also have lower prices they pay for health care than we do. if you look at other developed nations, a lot of them spend half of what we do on spending. it is not all or nothing. there are things we can do to help bring cost down, which would solve some of the issues with the system. with a public option, or

medicaid buy-in, there are number of ways to use the government power to bring down the cost. host: could other country models work in this country? guest: to some extent. there is a diverse set of health insurance around the world, even when you compare the countries we talk about in western europe. it is not necessarily fair to say they're all socialized. moldnd, perhaps fits that better than the rest of the european countries. switzerland has a set up that is a public partnership that looks like the aca. they have different apparatus, different policies. have within the u.s., we what is a complicated web of insurance providers. the context matters. it is not crazy to think about something like, aca framework or

medicare advantage framework or medicaid managed care framework, where you have public-private partnership that resembles something of the european countries and at the same time captures the competitive features we like and gives consumers options they prefer. york on the in new line for others. caller: two points. first off, the only thing aca has accomplished is to increase the number of medicaid recipients in this country, which ultimately increases the democratic stitch lindsay base. that is a fact -- constituency base. that is a fact. when they refer to the judge's ruling, finding the aca unconstitutional, it was. it was rushed through to increase the constituency base.

they say it was a terrible ruling but they do not give any legal basis for their opinion on why it is terrible. tell us why it is terrible instead of saying it is terrible. thank you. guest: the ruling was bad viewse, not necessarily my of whether the aca is good or not, but because it is based on an idea that the individual mandate is not severed. the republican congress literally severed it from the law. it becomes hard to argue. whether one thinks the aca is bad policy is independent of that. it is fine if you do. it is a good point to emphasize a lot of what the aca did was expand medicaid. folks differ on how they view medicaid. one of the concerns about using that route to expand coverage is

the way we finance medicaid is problematic long-term. states, you design the program and decide what to spend, and then the federal government says, we will pay for all of it. that is not a great way to structure spending. that is not how i would structure my personal finances. certainly, if you're going to go the route of expanding medicaid, one of the things i wish the aca would have considered or empathized with more is how we think about long-term financing structure of medicaid to make it more sustainable. people what we are responsible for? guest: for most medicaid enrollees, federal government pays two thirds of cost. for medicaid expansion and release, a special group, the federal government pays long-term 90% of the cost

forever. we first talk about medicaid financing, one reason why you want the federal government to bear the lion share, is because the government has resources. if you leave financial risk up to the states, like block grants, you open up state variation and punish people for living in states. guest: the federal government does not have its own money. it gets money from taxes, then they ship it back to the states. i would push back on the notion that states could not do it. you're right that they would have more variation in the structure of medicaid. guest: you are saying, states like wisconsin, arkansas, which has kicked thousands of people off for work requirements, medicare, medicaid needs to be a

promise, nationwide, that people who cannot afford health care need access to affordable care. going back to the point about the aca being all about medicaid expansion, that is entirely not true. the larger schemes came from medicaid, especially from aca medicaid expansion to primarily childless adults. 12 million people are enrolled in the new category of medicaid eligibility. that is out of 20 million people who gain coverage under aca. those are broad-based gains, including people of all ethnicities. if you look over income spectrum, people at the low and middle and high and gained. host: you just heard from emily from the american enterprise institute. next up, texas, this is steve.

steve is enrolled in aca. caller: i was enrolled. now i am on medicare. it was not affordable. , it isa lot of people not affordable for them. unconstitutional, i do not believe it is. if that is true, your liability insurance for cars are unconstitutional also. it has to work that way. you have to have everybody on or you have a bunch of sick people who were going to die. certainly, i think, the legal distinction here is important to emphasize rather than the policy. whether one likes the aca or not, this case is rocksolid.

having said that, we have seen cases over the last few years where there has been much more legal disagreement about the constitutionality of aca. not on this issue. that is one thing to keep in mind. it is a fairly narrow specific issue. this case does not have much standing. more broadly, we could differ. host: how many young people are enrolled in this program versus those who are older and was not that the original intent? guest: we should look at aca in totality. exchanges, somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% to 30%, young adults between 18 and 35. first, aca expanded coverage among young adults by allowing them to stay on parent

plans through employer sponsored insurance. emily is right. provision -- it is polled as the most liked provision of aca. host: isn't that counterintuitive? argue it was the worst provision. it is one of the most insane provisions in the law. you set up exchange where you reintroduce regularly distribution and say we will not allow companies to charge old people too much, so it will be more expensive for young people. we know it will be hard to get young people to sign up because it is expensive. the last thing you should do is come up with a new offramp to shuttle 3 million people between 19 and 25 onto their parents

plan and away from the exchange. the economist in me says, that is insane to design a market that way. we are in washington. i understand the politics. it is popular. it was one of the first provisions in effect. good way to get 3 million more people insured. i understand. from a policy standpoint, it is ridiculous. host: what about the idea that it is counterintuitive? guest: we think about the numbers, healthy people in the risk will brings down the average premium. the average exchange premium would be lower in an alternate universe. perhaps the political intent been, that might have been easy to implement. extending insurance to people

whose families are already on sponsored plans. effects cemented aca early in the game in 2010, making the law harder to reverse and reveal. going back to congressional intent. surely that is something congress did not intend to repeal when it got rid of the mandate. host: florida, angelica, go ahead. caller: how are you? host: fine. i don't know howily, to question this. my daughter was beaten severely two years ago. she was in the hospital for a year before she passed away. the aca covered everything. i am now sick. i have blood clots from my heart to my legs and i cannot walk. when i went to the doctor, a week and a half ago, he was

trying to show me how to sign up for the aca. he never did finish it. when i tried saturday, computer bounced me off and i could not get signed up. when i contacted my representatives here in florida, they told me it was too late. i do not know if there is another program? so far, i have been in the hospital for seven weeks and my bill is a quarter of a million dollars. me, since it covers pre-existing conditions, i could get signed up, i would be covered. you know, i am here in the country in florida, and no one seems to know anything. i have never signed up for anything. i have never had food stamps. i do not know how to do it. i am alone. host: we will let the guests respond. guest: thank you for sharing your story. i am so sorry for your loss. that sounds like an incredibly

difficult situation to be in. one, whenyour case is something that tragic happens, medical costs are the last thing we want people to worry about. we want them to take care of themselves and their families. i'm sorry to hear about your situation with the health care website. i don't know much about the particulars beyond what you shared but there is a phone gov, andor healthcare. generally they have had a policy where if you were in line by the deadline and did not manage to make the enrollment, you can still enroll later on. i would suggest trying to get ov orthrough healthcare.g local resources. host: talk about the resources overall? guest: it is a huge issue. this is one of the things that

make insurance markets hard. in particular, if you could imagine a situation where everyone in the country was born yesterday and we all got together and said, how do we want to build an insurance program? it would be easy. we don't know who will be sick. we will structure, we will cover pre-existing conditions. the problem is, we are not doing that. starting a structure where people already have condition. people who sign up know they want to use it. how do you balance that we want people to get covered? it is good to have access. at the same time, we need to make sure we are not just selecting people who are going to be high cost enrollees. covering pre-existing conditions is important. it needs to be paired with things that boost enrollment more broadly into the market so to mix everyone up and not just

have the expensive sick people. guest: one of the things that we have not talked about yet is what could happen if aca were upheld as unconstitutional? something hopefully that would not happen, given how crazy this lawsuit is, but there are a lot of things that go away if aca is revealed. the mandate is gone. protections for pre-existing conditions would be gone. if you look at what the market look like before aca, that is what it could look like again. insurance could charge people more because they had cancer or something tragic like the caller's example. people could be charged more because of something decades ago that they have been cured of. people could be turned away entirely by companies.

aca is not just about coverage. there are other provisions that have helped people, such as free access to contraception, provisions related to public health, improving the health of americans. a lot of different things that touch almost every american that would go away. host: congressional action or concerns, chuck schumer yesterday in the senate talking about what democrats plan to do when it comes to counteracting the lawsuit. [video clip] >> we don't believe the ruling should stand or will stand. the danger it poses is so great we cannot simply hope for the right result. we should do something quickly to allow the senate to be heard and persuade the courts not to tear down the health care law. in fact, we have added weight, because the judge-based part of his decision on legislative intent.

actust act and hope we can bipartisan. senator manchin has a resolution to authorize senate legal counsel to defend aca on behalf of the senate. we intend to force a vote on resolution as soon as possible. every republican who claims to be for protections of pre-existing conditions ought to ote i, on the resolutions. host: is there a fix congress could employ? guest: congress could say, the mandate is repealed. we would be done. the intent would be clear. there is a fix. will it happen? i doubt it. this is a lawsuit, this is not this is state attorneys general and republican governors.

not necessarily going to infringe actors in the republican party. it suggests the republican party, or parts of it, view the lawsuit as desirable one way or the other. it is hard to imagine -- maybe you disagree -- that congressional republicans would break so sharply with state ag's and governors. ,uest: the case is so bizarre upheld is so slim. it is hard to get too far down the road. judge decidedne tenuous legal grounds to declare aca con constitutional does not mean democrats are being held hostage. aca is the law of the land. that should be the standard going forward.

fixesare easy technical that congress could do to reassert intent. repealing the mandate, for example. another solution, if the judge cares about the zero dollar penalty, make it one penny. this is not about technicalities. is active policymaking from one member of the judiciary, which flies in the face of the rule of law. host: mitchell is in chattanooga, tennessee. caller: good morning, pedro. couple things. i do not understand republicans. they are aggravating me a little. house, now the law, the aca. come on. members, ensuring a hell of a lot more people. it gave people more insurance.

cbo look at the analysis. we were on the right track. all the scare tactics about comparing our country with another country, 18 months or whatever -- look i am in chattanooga. we have three major hospitals, three major heart institute. i do not know what is going wrong. we have a dialysis clinic on dam near every corner. something is going on. without the aca, how can we live? this is every other day. hear they happy to have so much access to health care in chattanooga, tennessee. i did not know that. one of the things to think about is long-term, that great access mitchell talks about is a function of the system we have. aca is a part. we have other public pairing including medicaid and medicare

and a large private market. abouts one thing to think through comparisons. everyone to expand aca approach or medicaid or medicare we need to think about the trade-offs. realistically other countries have lower prices because they pay less. if we want to go thator medicait is possible we have a different market. whether that is worth the trade-off is a separate question. host: if i am a provider, how do i look at trade-offs? it affects me on what i can charge. guest: it makes things challenging, especially policymaking. every dollar of cost for the federal or state government, is someone's income. it is more stark when you look at the labor share now dedicated to health care. it is the one part of the economy that always is expanding. the number of jobs tied to this, the amount of money, the

subsidies going to cities like chattanooga perhaps, are really powerful. be aing that is going to big task. i think, even if one wanted to do a medicare, you have to think about more incremental progress, because we are talking about large shifts and provider payment. host: what about the provider? guest: guiding principle needs to be health care is the light, and there are a number of ways we can get there. bringing down cost will require a number of areas to get insurance to everywhere and everybody. it includes dialing back administrative cost, making health care more efficient, and bringing down provider cost. if you look at the numbers on provider prices, we pay more than other countries around the world for the same service,

quality. a lot of markets in the u.s., provider market is highly concentrated. my organization, the center for american progress put out a report, on this, showing that in more concentrated hospital market, more concentrated dr. markets, people pay more than they should in a competitive market. host: michigan, frank, good morning. caller: good morning. i would like, emily brought up something that i would like you to touch on more. basis of the basis, forome of the the aca being unaffordable forgets that there was already a health care crisis before the aca was implemented. it also ignored the fact that it's 2016, action has been taken

to sabotage it -- since 2016. i would like you to discuss that more. my question is, can you tell me more about that? guest: great point. the trump administration is behind some of the reasons why premiums are higher than they should be for 2019, especially in the exchanges. on the theme of sabotage, from day one, the trump administration has tried to undermine the aca. that is bad for consumers. a creates chaos in the market. it raises prices for exchange plans. -- it creates chaos. it is ironic. folks on the right are complaining about the cost of premiums. the trump administration shot itself in the foot by getting rid of reimbursement to insurers for cost sharing reduction to help lower deductibles, payments

and coinsurance because that in turn meant premiums needed to rise in order for insurers to make up the cost. the trump administration has tried to funnel good risk out of the insurancepool by offering short-term junk plans more widely available. this is bad for aca compliant for people whoad need to come brands of coverage covering pre-existing conditions. short-term plans can exclude people for things they do not want to cover in people's health history, they can change rates and put lifetime limits on coverage. that is not something aca plans to. guest: no one wants to go back to the world before the aca. the caller is right. it was a mess in the individual market. different states have had experiments with different regulatory approaches. i do not know that there was any state that was doing well.

the argument can be made that something like aca structure might be revised with different regulatory apparatus around it that my perhaps be an improvement -- that might perhaps be an improvement on the current aca. at this point, it is probably the case. we are still getting aca lawsuits. it is probably the case that the nuts and bolts, the basis of aca is here to stay. host: why do you think republicans couldn't capitalize on a plan of their own or pass a plan of their own? guest: that would have involved having some idea of what they wanted. it was not clear from any discussions last year about what the heck republicans wanted really? is so hard toit

pass legislation, at a minimum, you have to agree on where you are going. we did not get the sense last year. it is easy to play defense. it is easy to say aca is bad. it is hard to play offense. they were not ready to play offense. it was a hodgepodge. it felt like random copy and paste. what about this? do you like that? there was not a cohesive effort. i don't know if that has changed. i don't know if i would expect them to have a cohesive new proposal anytime soon. host: indiana, hello. comment and may a question. -- maybe a question. i think the need to quit messing

with the aca and fixed it, they took the mandate away, which is very important to keep it running. they took the advertisements away so less people sign up, even though more people would sign up if it was advertised more. insured through my work. i became sick. had to go to hospital. months.ere for three luckily, i had insurance. they paid for it all. $150,000. then i had to go to dialysis. i got medicare. thank god. that is very expensive. i know a lot of people probably have to do that. there is no way anybody can afford that.

i got off dialysis in two years, then i had to go without insurance. the $900 at afford month. i went without insurance for two years because aca had not been all the way set up. happy. went in, i was so i am sure a lot of people were happy. i know they need some work on it. it saved our lives. host: thank you, caller. forward, fixes going we talked about several. what others could be done? guest: i don't think any democrat thinks business is done with the aca. there are a number of fixes.

option,t of public which would be a plan offered on the exchanges, medicare or medicaid based, it would make sure no matter where people live, there was always an option for coverage on the exchanges, for which people can get subsidies, even if private insurers do not enter that market. other things include extending the subsidies so people who are middle-class can get help with the dockable's or coinsurance -- with deductibles or coinsurance. extending premiums, so people can be assured that premiums cost no more than some percentage of their household budget. bringing costs down is essential to keeping out-of-pocket costs down, whether prescription drug costs or provider costs or making sure insurance, whether through work or off the private market is affordable.

guest: the bread-and-butter issue that underlies the point is cost. at a certain point, we need to think seriously that we spend a lot of money on health care in this country. on one hand, it solves the problem to say, let's federally fund insurance and give you a subsidy to buy it. that is great. i am happy for the power that she had that option. as a country, we need to think sustainable. we are up to 18% of gdp spent on health care, $3.5 trillion. at a certain point we want to build schools, roads, defense. we need to make difficult decisions. moving forward for long-term, both health of individual markets, employer markets, medicare, medicaid, we need to get out of the mindset focusing on subsidies and more seriously

about -- how do we get serious on the cost? cost,can tamp down the everything will flow. host: oregon, wally. --ler: i think [indiscernible] say, is difficult to intellectually, what is good for everybody. i know someone close to me who had affordable care. anything like a large expense, it was really difficult. they charged a lot of money. a lot of those plans do not pay for them. there is a lot of holes in coverage for the lower cost insurance plans. the doctors that i have talked to, several of them have said,

it is a paperwork nightmare for them to deal with the aca. it is good for pre-existing conditions. i am glad those people got coverage. there is a lot of work that needs to be done. if this is ever going to work for everybody, it has to be revised. i don't hear anybody talking about any specific plans. unless you guys have been on the affordable care act yourselves, it is difficult to say what is good and bad. host: thanks. guest: fairpoint. probably true for emily as well. we hear from a lot of folks, i am not on aca coverage, i have employer-provided coverage. through life go ndc without getting -- life in d.c. without hearing the stories. it is something you often hear.

this is expensive. it doesn't seem like a plan is worth the money. it doesn't seem like it has features i would expect from a plan that costs as much as it does. that is a common complaint. it is valid. what we have seen on the exchange is, plans use narrow networks to keep cost down but ultimately it is hard to keep cost down. moving forward, if we want the exchanges to work for everyone, ultimately, we have got to figure out a way to offer a plant that has attractive features without it being $20,000. -- plan that has attractive features. host: what have we seen from the offerings? guest: for the right person, right circumstance, it probably has value. for some people, it is not ideal. the idea of short-term plans, is

that it is exempt or does not have the same restrictions, so you can offer different types of coverage. for the person who is young, healthy, cash option plan. maybe it makes sense. for more health needs, probably not ideal. i terms of solving the aca, don't know if a skinny plan revolution is what we want to do. i think we need to take more seriously, cost. guest: skinny is a charitable way to put it. a lot of these plans are junk. beyond the fact that they do not have generous coverage, they impose annual or lifetime limits on what you can get, they have pages and pages of fine print on what is not covered or excluded, they pose bigger risks for the system. one being, they might throw away people who think they are

healthy as conference of coverage and raising rates for everybody else. they also, there is potential for confusion. if you go to these websites, you cannot tell what is what. you are thinking you're are buying a comprehensive aca land which will cover you -- aca plan which will cover you should you land in the hospital, later you find out you have an annual limit and you are on the hook for the bill. -- host: what are you looking for specifically? forward, the aca goes we will be looking for an appeal and a ruling at higher levels of judicial system on that case. another notable thing about 2019, democrats have taken back more seat sinc than they have since watergate. in the house, you will see a

more robust debate on how to make this more affordable. that is an important step toward future health care reform. one of the reasons aca repeal failed, republicans did not have hearings on repeal and replace. they had one markup during the year of repeal efforts. democrats want to talk to each other about how to repair the health care system. >> i think emily's point is exactly right. i want is see were democrats in the house followed health care issues. sometimes it is kind of a nice time for them because he got a couple of years where you can see where people start actually coming together and agreeing on things. right now there's been this growing interest in things like medicare for all and by ends and -- and buy-ins and so on.

everyone seems to have a different view on what that means. i is going to be interesting think to see the nuts and bolts of what actually is written down on paper, where do people follow these issues, and what is the future of the democrat health care platform. host: benedic ippolito joining us for this discussion, as well as emily gee. thank you. coming up, we talk about the trump administration's task force on school safety's findings yesterday with lauren camera of u.s. news & world report. we will be right back. ♪ announcer: sunday on "q&a,"

"wall street journal" columnist warren jenkins talks about the trump era. >> i think he primarily wants to be the center of attention. i think everyone is either a friend or enemy, and you can change categories variously. come theis ideas america first thing, is something he holds dearly. that the country has been shortchanged by the rest of the world in trade and immigration policy. in the minds of many of his supporters in miller america -- in middle america, it has heard them. i think that is a sincere belief on his part. announcer: sunday night at 8:00 eastern on "q&a." announcer: when the new congress takes office in january, it will have the youngest, most diverse

freshman class in recent history . new congress, new leaders. watch live on c-span starting january 3. c-span, where history unfolds daily. 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies, and today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. " continues.journal host: joining us is lauren camera of u.s. news & world report, and education reporter here to talk about the findings done by the trump administration task force on school safety. walk us through what brought us

to the point of this report. what led up to it? guest: there was a school safety commission formed by the white house after the mass shooting at parkland in florida at marjory stoneman douglas high school. this was essentially an effort by the white house to take a holistic view at all of the school safety measures and security initiatives that schools should be looking at to prevent some of these tragedies in the future. host: at the head of that would be the education secretary, betsy devos. going into it, what with her hope, or what the -- or what did she set out to do? guest: she did not make too many commitments in terms of setting guidelines and what she would or wouldn't look at. she said she was open to taking a look at everything. and in the report, they actually did. it is a 100 77 page report with nearly 100 recommendations. is often the debate about

whether this report should have touched on firearms specifically, gun laws specifically. it does not necessarily go there , but it does take a more holistic view on things like mental health, how schools should be up security in terms of maybe installing bulletproof windows and providing better perimeter security. it goes into a whole host of different recommendations for school districts. host: what was the justification for not specifically looking at gun issues? guest: this is a very political debate, of course, and they said they wanted to focus specifically on school measures. of course, this got a lot of pushback and has been getting a lot of pushback. basically what they did is traveled around the country for the better part of a year. they visited 47 states, held hearing and listening sessions talking to teachers and educators superintendents, school safety experts, everyone

who might have a say in providing additional information on how schools should better secure themselves, and these were the findings. host: we'll look at some specifics as we go on with our guest. if you want to ask questions, for educators out there, (202) 748-8000 is the number to call. if you are an administrator, it is (202) 748-8001. all others, (202) 748-8002. here is the education secretary betsy devos talking about the release of the report. the report addresses the experiences and expertise of many different individuals. our recommendations can assist state and local communities. ultimately governors and state legislators should work with school leaders and parents to address their own unique challenges and create their own

unique solutions. how schools and communities consider these recommendations will very. their approach should start by fostering an appropriate climate and a culture of connectedness. this report highlights social and emotional learning any number of other recommendations that policymakers should explore. but let three member local problems need -- let's remember local problems need local solutions. ultimately the recommendations cannot supplant the incomparable role families play in the lives of children and and our culture. host: expand on what she said and tell us more about it. guest: it is important to remarry that these 100 recommendations are just that i'm a recommendations. these are not requirements that school districts need to put in place. these are 100 different recommendations that the administration would like school districts to consider in concert with state legislators,

governors, as you heard the secretary say. every decision a school makes is going to be coming from their local, unique perspective. not every recommendation is going to work for every school district, and that is important to keep in mind. host: it also spent a lot of time talking about discipline in schools. why, and what was found? guest: this wasn't really a surprise. the report includes a recommendation to repeal an obama era guideline issued in 2014 by the department of education and department of justice. it is really aimed at stemming the school to prison pipeline. people debate the merits and the reasoning behind the actual guideline specifically, but what is not debatable is that there is an incredible disparity in school discipline. the department of education's

office of civil rights has found are three times more likely to be expelled than white boys. black girls are six times more likely to be expelled than white girls. even just this past april, the government accountability office found that while black students make up about 15% of all public school students, they account for 39% of all students who are expelled. this is an issue, and the 2014 guidance that this report basically repealing put school districts on notice and said if you have policies in disparate result in disciplining, meaning your students of color were any student subgroup are disciplined at a higher rate than others in a we are going to look into this and investigate you. that sort of had a windfall effect. school districts sort of turned thettle more towards

justice approach of trying to discipline students. there's been a lot of debate about whether this should have been put in place but droppedlly it has suspension rates for students of color in some areas that embraced this. it is important to note that not all school districts changed, so this specific guidance the secretary of education has long called for to be taken a look at. host: educators and administrators, it is (202) 748-8000. students or parents, (202) 748-8001. all others, (202) 748-8002. what was it like for teachers under the guidance before? what do they look forward to now? guest: during the background

call with reporters yesterday, white house officials were quick to say the specific recommendation to repeal the discipline guidance was made largely because of the recurring narrative they heard traveling around the country from teachers who were saying we feel really hamstrung by this because of the put in a we are position where we can't really send students to the principal's office, or we are having a hard time figuring out what to do with some of our students who present behavioral problems because we don't necessarily want to suspend them, but we don't have the resources and the training to deal with them in the class. that was specifically one of the reasons why they recommended this. as one aspect of this, and discipline. what about the idea of arming teachers or people on school campuses? guest: they do make a recommendation that school personnel who are highly trained

in how to handle guns should be able to, or that school districts should at least consider arming school personnel that is highly trained. that could include educators. it could also include principals, school administrators. they do make a recommendation that school districts look to retired law enforcement and veterans to see if they could maybe find a position for them within schools. so guidance does go there. they do make a recommendation that schoolit also includes a recommendation that states adopt what is called extreme risk protection orders, which is another gun related specific recommendation, which essentially says an individual who is at risk, perhaps maybe in the middle of a mental health crisis, is prohibited from buying firearms for a limited period of time. host: and what was the reaction

from the education community? guest: specifically for arming school personnel, no one really seems to want that. everyone from teachers, national teachers union to school principals associations that represent superintendents, associations that represent school psychologists, that specific recommendation got a lot of pushback. host: we have calls lined up. our first when is for james on our line for students and parents in pennsylvania. go ahead. caller: yes. thesetement is that constant reversals of obama for theration laws student to prison pipeline is absurd. what it is saying is that we will put you on notice.

that is nothing but an anti-threat. one of the things the schools -- but an empty threat. one of the things that schools have been doing is unjustly suspending children as young as three years old, and having them have police contact. with the police contact, you've given them a record or citation, or making them some type of documentation on their school record. it doesn't make any sense. what we have to realize is that we have an administration and we have people that really don't care about african-americans or latinos at all, and they are so upset with everything obama has done that they are effectively trying to erase anything, even to the detriment of average

americans. host: ok, james. thanks. guest: this was exactly what a lot of the civil rights groups have been pushing back against in the last 24 hours, specifically speaking to the discipline guidance. you are making the same argument that all of the civil rights groups have been making. i should also note that the former secretary of education, king,rne duncan and john came out was a pretty scathing rebuke of this specific recommendation to repeal the discipline guidance. congressman bobby scott, the democrat from virginia who will be the chair of the education and workforce committee in the new congress, said that this was not even a good faith effort to try and look at school safety. really went after the recommendation to repeal the school discipline guidance, and that will certainly be something

that his committee looks at next congress. ,ut this is a really big issue and for years, including under the obama administration, politicians have been trying to figure out how to tackle this issue. the 2014 guidance issued under the obama administration was a way to try and prod school districts to better consider some of their school discipline disparities. the hard thing is it is difficult to do when there ton't wraparound resources help teachers and principals bolster some of those ideas. host: so the overall recommendation of the report, if they are recommendations indeed, do any of them come with some kind of backing of federal dollars? guest: that is a really good point. they don't. the recommendations do not include any sort of funding commitments that federal government. this is really important, actually, because the previous

trump administration when they put out their budget proposal last year actually called for eliminating $1 billion federal grant that schools could use for mental health services and school security. congress ultimately didn't follow through with that and ended up beefing up funding for that program instead of eliminating it, but as the saying goes, show me your budget and i'll show you what you value. going forward, this will be one to watch. host: harris is from alexandria, virginia on our line for educators and administrators. caller: i've been an educator for 12 years in the washington, d.c. area. i spent 12 years in prince george's county, maryland. i have to respectfully disagree with the previous caller who a large extent, society just doesn't care about the black and brown students in the classroom. i happen to be a caucasian teacher, and in my experience

working in very high needs areas and schools, the thing that our students most especially need, the things that are black and brown students coming from oftentimes poor families and more difficult situations, what they most need is structure and discipline. i currently work in a school where the administrators actually support the teachers, which is such a novel idea, isn't it? with the same demographics as my previous school, our school is run so much better. the students know that they can't play adults off of other adults. students can be very shrewd when they want to be. if we are going to go down that road of sending students the message that they can get away with just about anything, our students are off the chain.

if we send that message to students that their actions will not have consequences, we are setting them up for failure. thank you very much. host: thank you. guest: i think it is important to note here the actual impact that the guidance had, the 2014 obama era guidance, had on schools. the school administrators association -- excuse me, school superintendents association, did a poll talking to nearly 1000 school districts across the country and found that only 16% of schools changed their policies in reaction to that 2014 guidance. had at 16%, only 1% negative experience with it. again, the 2014 guidance was just that. it was not binding.

its purpose was to try and prod school districts to figure this out. again, with the recommendation that came out from the white house yesterday, those are recommendations. so school districts are going to have to sit down with their states, teachers, parents, and students to figure out what is right with them. host: mary is in fort worth, texas. caller: yes, i am a retired educator. it is utterly insane to think that a teacher in the classroom should be armed. i don't care if that teacher is any oakley. you are not -- is annie oakley. you are not going to be able to burst onshooter that the scene like in columbine or santa fe or parkland with ar-15s or ak-47s or whatever they had. they are ready to shoot. even the policeman or someone like that cannot combat that. we've got to do something about that kind of weapon and that

kind of person that filling for the ground checks and the inuvo to acquire the weapons. effort tos to be no do this at all because we don't want to combat the gun industry. it seems to be more important than our children's lives. guest: in wyoming, there are already policies in place that allow school personnel to carry firearms. in thing the recommendation the white house school safety report specifies is that the recommendation may be specifically useful for world school districts. the fbi has estimated -- in rural school districts. the fbi has estimated it may take eight to 15 minutes for law enforcement to show up, so that, they say, is why they are making their recommendation. host: it also addresses the

school building itself, as far as designing it or changing it. guest: it recommends schools take a top to bottom look at their structures. reinforce things like windows, make sure they are bullet proof and blast proof, reinforced doors, try to set up stronger perimeter surroundings, whether that be a fence or more security cameras in entry points and things like that. host: how does the report also address students that might be troubled emotionally or otherwise could end up handling a gun? doesn't make any accommodations on identifying and helping the students? guest: it calls for a big increase in funding in mental health, increasing the number of therapists available to students in schools. of course, schools are very cash-strapped, so making that funding available would be a big part of that. it also prods congress to erpa,e for the -- update f

which regulates what information schools can get out. they say there is often this disconnect and questioning among school personnel about what information they can provide to law enforcement. that is one of the biggest issues, especially for students with mental health disorder behaviors and things like that. host: lauren camera from u.s. news & world report joining us, their education reporter talking about these recommendations from the task force by president trump on these issues. you can find the report online if you go to the education .ebsite from north carolina, tina is next. caller: good morning. brocamera, betsy devos's of blackwaterce,

and the nra surrogates, have you thought about the conflict of interest relative to the report as it relates to guns? of blackwater and theand in reference to the caucasian gentleman from maryland, i've worked with at risk students for over 25 years. they need stability. less poverty. love, guidance. and they need it in an environment where teaching and learning occurs safely. because teachers and students are flawed, that is the best reason to keep guns out of the school system. i would like for you to address the issue regarding conflicts of interest first. and the report, how long did it take them to do it? how many schools were involved? i know we can see the results on the web, as they just said. but a report that determines what is being proposed seems to be too short. host: thank you.

guest: actually, senator patty murray, a democrat from washington to of the ranking member on the senate education committee, reads some of these same concerns regarding the nra and sent a letter to the devos asking what the nra influence would be on the committee. to the best of my knowledge, that letter was not answered. commission did four different listening sessions in d.c., alabama, kentucky, and wyoming. they also traveled across the country to 47 states and held dozens of roundtables, many of which were sealed, so we don't really know what was said in them. they did make what seems to be a good faith effort to travel across the country and get the

input of parents, teachers, school administrators, lawmakers, anyone who might have some school security expertise in any way. host: this is freddie from maryland. hello. caller: hello. three quick points. everyone make sure knows this administration is doing a very good job when it comes to schools. if we start with the discipline of children, children go to school to learn. teachers need to have tools to discipline children when they are not behaving well. it is our job as parents to help children to be up to live well. when it comes to food children are not even eating the food in school anymore. the sexual assault prevention, things have changed. in the past, if a child is

accused, you would just be kicked out of school. now the child is able to defend himself. as an african-american, i am just shocked that each time some the administration, we just think we are being targeted. we are not. this administration is just doing a good job. host: thank you. guest: i always like to say that i love covering education because it is not just covering education. you really get a look at all of the issues happening across the country because a lot of the time they appear in schools first. whether it is hunger, as the caller mentioned, issues around sexual assault, homelessness. all of these things percolate in schools first. politicians are under a lot of pressure to try to deal with all of these things, and that is one of the reasons why the 2014 discipline guidance came up in the first place as one of the ways to tackle the school to prison pipeline. as i mentioned before, a lot of

schools are very strapped for resources, so in order to implement those types of disciplinary policies, you really need to make sure you have the wraparound services available. things like mental health services, extra therapists, any number of things. this really is a very thorny debate with lots of different angles for people to come out with. host: this is william. he's in michigan. hello. caller: hi, guys. i'm a retired teacher. a couple of things i would like to comment on. i started teaching roughly in 1964 and retired in 2006. my basic job was french teacher. what i am seeing is there is no discipline in schools because the politicians and so forth you practically eliminated

can't even raise your voice and , you know, whatever the case may be. it is horrendous. how are teachers to teach? i am a very liberal person. i believe parents are not teaching their children discipline. they are giving them almost everything they want just because some of the other kids are doing it. but in terms of the education in the classroom, no. politicians, the the board of education in particular, administrators who usually are a result of politics, are really run in

schools. guest: secretary of education betsy devos made this point a number of times yesterday, that education really starts in the home. one of the recommendations the report makes -- or not a recommendation, but lays out the children really need to have good, stable home situations. parents who love them. people who are there to support them. that is really where it all begins. again, the white house school safety report provides recommendations, and it is important to note that these are things that school districts are going to be sitting down with their students and teachers and parents and figuring out what works best for them. not all school populations are the same, so different things will be able to work in different places. host: one more call from darrell. in virginia. . go ahead. caller: good morning, and thank

you for your c-span presentation that --y important such important subject. as far as gun control, gun rights, etc., we have to ,emember that in past that episs knives, explosives, even pressure cookers have been used for what i call terrorist type events in school or in the boston marathon. aree gun laws thankfully banning the bump stock now. here in virginia, both my wife and i concealed carry. thatrelates to school in the people in virginia have to pass a five question quiz online class9 to pass the requirement for concealed carry.

as far as arming staff in schools, we have to remember that about 10% of the military have actually seen battle. if we are thinking about bringing teachers with military experience into school, number one, they should have battle action ribbon, which is something only military dd 14. host: we are running out of time, select a go to your point. also talk about where we go from here as far as the release of this report. guest: the next step is implementation, according to the white house. they said this is the second step of a three-step process. we have the report now, and they are going to be looking for ways to implement in the future. we spoke about the funding issue. of these recommendations can't really be tackled without an increase in funding. we will see what happens in

terms of whether states and school districts try to be more creative in how they fund, and whether congress has funding for any of the programs laid out. host: lauren camera talking about this report. she is of u.s. news & world report. you can read her story about this report and other related matters. that for your time. guest: thanks for having me. host: until 10:00 we will have open phones. it is (202) 748-8001 for democrats, republicans (202) 748-8000, and independents (202) 748-8002. "washington journal" will be right back. ♪ announcer: sunday on "q&a," " wall street journal" columnist holman jenkins talks about his work in the trunk era. -- in the trump era. >> primarily he wants to be the

center of attention. i don't think he is a racist. the way he looks at people, everyone is either a friend or an enemy. and you can change categories very easily. the america thing is an idea i think he holds dear, that our country has been shortchanged in its dealings with the rest of , and it reflects in trade and immigration policy. the things that, in the minds of many of his supporters in middle america, have hurt them and their economic prospects. i think that is to a degree a sincere thought. sunday at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." announcer: c-span, where history unfolds daily. c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies, and today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, supreme court,

and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. "washington journal" continues. host: if you want to participate in open phones, several ways you can do so. the lines are (202) 748-8001 for republicans, democrats (202) 748-8000, and independents (202) 748-8002. you can post thoughts on twitter @cspanwj. you can also post on our facebook page at facebook.com/cspan. 1:00 today is where house speaker paul ryan will make his farewell address at the library of congress. you can see that on c-span3 at 1:00. you can also monitor it on www.c-span.org and our c-span radio app.

again, paul ryan giving his final farewell address. the president of the united states on the days just before a partial shutdown is set to take place talking about the role mexico plays in a tweet. "mexico is paying indirectly for the wall through the new usmca. far more money coming to the u.s. because of the tremendous dangers at the border, including large-scale criminal and drug and flow. the united states military will build the wall." the senate debate going between republicans and democrats in developing a funding structure for border issues. legislation that needs to be completed before friday, at which a partial shutdown might take place. that is the capital building as we watch these events go on. dan is on the republican line. caller: the discussion on the obamacare that preceded by two

young economists was really infuriating because this is not people who are in the trenches. i don't think they are in a position to say what it's like in the delivery of medicine and what it is like for the physicians. first of all, on the issue of supply and demand, the supply of physicians is still low. medical education is still a like long -- still a lifelong in debt meant -- lifelong indebtm ent. secondly, the code used all over the world for research person is best research purposes -- for research purposes does not fit the actuality of medicine. host: it sounds like you are in a position yourself. caller: yes. third of all, medicine is a very individualized touch and feel your way through the darkness

perfection. -- darkness profession. it is really not that clear cut. host: you laid out those points. what is it like practicing under the affordable care act? what has your experience been like? caller: there have been cases where physicians fall under investigation because they deviate more than standard deviations from the curve. their offices have been raid ed. they been detained without charges for several days. there is this assumption in this country that a doctor is a crook , and that is why he became a doctor. host: so caller, what kind of medicine do you practice? caller: i'm retired now. host: ok. let's go to chris -- or dan in new york. go-ahead. caller: hello?

host: oh, sorry. we already got you. we will go to chris in buffalo, new york. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: talking about immigration. host: he hung up. let's go to charlie in north carolina, independent line. caller: yes. i would like to talk about immigration. i support trump's effort at the border. we have to have borders. these people that are coming over and across illegally, they are breaking our laws. they are not going to respect any of the rest of them. this is all about driving the wages down for hard-working americans down to nothing. that is what these high educated these are things are for -- high educated visa things are for. now they are going after these highly educated jobs.

you people better wake up because they are coming over here taking the jobs, and they will do them for half the price you are willing to do that for. host: that is charlie in north carolina. the front page of "the arizona republic" talks about governor doug ducey appointing martha mcsally to replace retiring senator for the next two years, mccain. held by john it revives her political life less than two months after she narrowly lost the race for the state's other senate seat to kyrsten sinema. it was yesterday martha mcsally made comments of the appointment to the senate. is a portion of that. >> arizona's two senators have worked together for decades. and how we tradition are most effective, and that is how i plan to serve. this is the model senator kyle

served with that i witnessed 19 years ago. i am honored to have the opportunity to serve in the seat of someone who served our state for decades, someone who i had immense respect for, john mccain. john mccain was a giant in the senate, and arizona icon, and an american hero. i am going to commit to holding myself to the standard of service senator mccain example five, putting country before self and always striving to do the right thing for arizonans. our country faces a lot of challenges, but none are as big as the opportunity we have to move america for and secure a brighter, more secure future for all. host: "the arizona republic" also adding it will be the democrat kyrsten sinema who will serve as the senior senator. george is next in orlando, florida. republican line. go ahead. caller: yes.

i am calling about the discussion you had earlier with the ap person and having firearms on employees, teachers and administrators in schools. let me lay the background of what i am. i am 71 years old. i am a vietnam era veteran, so i've had some training not only in europe, but in vietnam. i was not combat. i've had a permit to carry a concealed weapon for 25 years. i've carried one for 14. i am a trained, armed security guard in the state of florida. the discussion about arming teachers drives me nuts because it depends on certain factors that the school -- i don't want to say the school district -- the teachers' mafia, so to speak, support. i believe that any teacher who has the mental capability and intention and appropriate

,raining and carries the weapon not storing it in a safe or something, on themselves all the time would be a valued security situation simply because the fact that no matter what you do before that, when it gets to the end of the thing, the end of the issue, somebody is going to take them on. and i know from the training i had, jungle training, return fire breaks of the expectations of the attacker. host: that is george from florida. s in san to de francisco. caller: yes, i'm a retired teacher of 25 years. i taught in transition. i helped transition students with disabilities to independent life. the i want to say is that

day a person on a campus, administrator, police officer, or the gentleman who was just speaking, the day they pull out a gun and shoot and kill a student or anyone on campus, that person's's will never, ever be the same, nor will that school, nor will that school district. there is no way that someone is going to pull out a gun on a school campus and kill a student and think that that is going to be at. there's no way. there's going to be mass hysteria in that city, in that school district, and that school. i can't even imagine an administrator or a teacher walking around with a gun attached to their waist in a holster, ready to pull that gun out and use it at any time. host: ok.

couple of technology related stories. the front page of "the new york times" this morning talks about facebook. "facebook offers users privacy bing used microsoft's search to see nearly all of users' friends without consent, read private messages, allowed amazon to obtain names and contact information through friends, and let yahoo! view streams of friends' posts as recently as this summer, despite recent sentiment that it had stopped that type of sharing years earlier." that is on the front page of "the new york times." if you go to the business section, writing about russia and the use of instagram to widen the 2016 divide, "according to reports based on a trove of data provided by social media companies, russia's social

media research agency sought to him for tweet that thoughts to infiltrate -- sought to american identity groups, hard and ideological divides, and so distrust. in the american political system. many accounts targeted specific identity groups including african-americans, guns right supporters, and anti-immigrant activists. from vero beach, florida, constance is on. go ahead. caller: hello? about the -- i think the democrats voted to not have exports of horse meat to china, canada and france.

the republicans have had it in the house since 2013. senators mcconnell, mccain, and paul ryan. i also called calamine farms and the kentucky derby managers. nothing has been done. this is america. had ministers preach about sin and going to hell. now they don't say it. any christian would not walk in a high school and shoot innocent people. host: ok. that is constance in vero beach, florida. cnn reporting planning is underway for a "full and rapid syria,wal from troops in a reversal from previously stated u.s. policy made by president donald trump come along signaling his desire to get out of syria even though the u.s. will continue to keep troops in iraq.

the withdrawal would risk diminishing u.s. influence in region."n> -- in the from curtis in mississippi, you are next. you're on. caller: hey. i have a comment to make. i am a vietnam vet. i don't think that is a great idea to armed teachers and things like that in schools. first of all, they had no combat training. i have actually seen soldiers freeze up, and you are already supposed to be having all of this training. so when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, when they are facing the corporate and a person is firing back at them -- is culprit and the person firing back at them, you don't know what to do.

i don't think that is something that is really going to help out. i think it is going to make things worse. ifdon't understand that you've never been in a firefight , you can't understand how the bullets are flying. we don't know how people might respond. that is my comment on it. host: from california in claremont, this is tony. caller: good morning. and i on? host: yes, you are on. caller: i work in a school in california. i was very close to the san bernardino shooting. it was just down the street from my school. we are taking steps in saferrnia to make schools one step at a time. we are not going to armed teachers. that is the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard. there are far too many guns in the united states. i saw a report about three or ox thatars ago on v

said there are more guns than people in the united states, or something like that. there are so many guns out there. the problem is if you don't address mental health, those guns eventually get into the hands of someone who is mentally unstable, and is mentally unstable people are the ones who use them. so you can arm people all you want. we've proven that schools that have people armed were unable to defend against someone who got a hold of a gun and got into a school. so that is not the answer. not arming teachers or putting guns in schools. that is not the answer. we got to deal with the mental health issue. we've got to make schools have one entryway. host: ok. that is tony in california offering thoughts this morning. "the wall street journal" reporting this morning that an american was said to be executed

in syria. courtney mcbride reporting that the family of the 26-year-old illinois native who traveled to syria to provide humanitarian relief to citizens affected by the war was notified that she died in 2016. she had been detained by the regime since february of 2016. officials with the syria emergency task force, the military group opposed to the assad regime, believe she was executed december 2016 following a brief military trial. activists fear thousands have been executed. the syrian government has denied these charges. from minnesota, we will hear from john, democrats line. caller: this is joan. caller: i apologize -- host: i apologize. go ahead. caller: that's all right. when george or 2001

bush took us into iraq and we were already in afghanistan, i called air america to mike have been tonio and one of the -- mike papen tonio and one of the kennedy boys and ask when we would be in syria. they said it would never happen. in thee are entrenched middle east and we are not going anywhere. the story about the lady that was killed in syria, it is just a horrible, horrible thing. but it also helps the administration keep us in syria. we don't belong there. these people need their countries back. we need to all come home and be where we belong. ago,was predicted 18 years and it is slowly coming to fruition, and that is a sad thing. host: that is joan in minnesota. the hill is citing a poll that

says the majority of americans oppose making the country more and areally correct" upset about things people can't say anymore. in the survey, 52% of respondents said they were opposed to the country becoming more politically correct and are upset there are too many things people cannot say anymore. the poll did not give a specific definition for being politically correct. the answers had a large split on party lines, with 55% of those identifying as democrats favoring more political correctness, compared to only 13% of republicans. 33% of independents favored more political correctness. "if the democratic party moves in a direction more to its base on this issue, it suggests independents are going to be tested to stay with the democrats electorally." that was the director of the marist institute for public opinion. jeffrey from north carolina, republican line.

caller: yes. i just have a comment about the school districts talking about having guns in the school. this is an easy fix. very easy fix. all they need to do is get these retirees on disability and social security that's not making enough money to survive, but some of them are retired officers, retired military people. put them on the buses as bus attendants for these drivers riding around with these kids with no attendants to see some of these problem kids that get on these buses. and if they are armed, if you think about it, at a school you've got 15, 20 buses out there with 15, 20 armed people. fromf they just stop kids driving to school as soon as they hit 18, make them when they hit senior you can drive to school.

kids shouldn't be driving to school with guns in the trunks and this and that. that's a very easy fix. host: richard is in illinois, democrats line. your next. caller: i had a couple of comments. trump always says there are fake news. how come the reporters never ask him what his fake about it? and i on the air? host: you are. caller: ok. they say unemployment is down. they never say anything about people don't get extensions. it used to be every 26 weeks, they get an extension. when people run out of employment, that doesn't mean they've got a job. that's when they say that's that's why they say everybody's -- that's why they say everybody's working. that doesn't mean everybody's actually working. host: ok.

we will hear from bill in maine, independent line. caller: hello. i just would like everyone to look at the numbers. ,f you look at school shootings 90 7% of school-aged children murdered in the united states are murdered away from school. 90% of that number are murdered in their homes. the remainder are murdered in their neighborhoods. children?our they are at home, and the neighborhood, or at school. school is still the safest place for children, so we shouldn't forget that. thank you. host: for the hill reporting the house committee on ethics has cleared the democrat representative of arizona for in a settlement he made with a staffer accusing him of being drunk on the job. the panel decided to dismiss the allegation that he paid an

employee in 2015. it was first reported last fall that he arranged for a top staffer to be given a severance forage for 48,000 $395 -- $48,395 after she threatened a lawsuit alleging gree all the -- alleging grijalva was often drunk at work and created a hostile work environment. caller: i just wanted to point out our country is still involved in wars against majority muslims or whatever you want to call it. obvious isreasingly we talk about gun safety and safety for our schools, and that about it. we been told for almost 20 years

that terrorists are coming to our country and they want to harm us. what is strange is all this violence in our country, we have accidents on each side of the aisle that never bring up the fact that we've been at war for 20 years. something about it. we've been told people want to come here and harness -- and harm us, and yet all the violence in our country isn't caused by the war. think about that. how can men of this stuff be connected in this way? host: nicolas is in san francisco, california. republican line. caller: i would like to discuss china for a moment. we haven't discussed china since president trump and president xi made a deal for a 90 day pause in the tariff policy. it was huge for our stock market. we agreed to stop this for 90 days so it fell behind the new cycle, so i think it is

important to remember the powers in this situation have over our economy. compared to our economy, china is becoming very strong. it is true we are the strongest economy, but only to a certain extent as they can affect our goods and agriculture very well. i am curious to see what happens in the foreseeable future in regards to china and the trade negotiations with the rest of the world as well. host: here is sharon in florida. caller: i would like to get back to discussing the school issue with guns. it seems like everybody just wants to put a band-aid on the problem and not get to the root of the problem, which isn't who's going to be handling guns in the school. that's part of the problem, i think. thinking that giving teachers guns is going to solve anything. in this country, we are a violent society. when you look at the statistics, something like 98% of violent crimes are committed by the male

gender. i do believe that in schools and at home, it is important we teach our young men to handle t violencelems without violence and find more reasonable solutions to their frustrations and emotional problems which also ties in with more mental health. giving teachers guns in schools is not going to solve the problem. it is only going to exacerbate it. host: that is sharon from florida, the last call for the segment and the last part of this program. another program comes your way at 7:00 tomorrow morning. ♪ c-span.org [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]