, tense, and the great frustration for myself and many people in is conservative policy world the politics are overwhelming the conversation about policy. we are certainly engaged in politics. we live here and are part of this, but would look to peel back some political layers and get to the bottom of what the policy issue should be. newsere has been a ton of this week. buzz feet had a bombshell report that president trump directed his former attorney and fixer cohen to lie to congress. democrats say this is a clear case of obstruction of justice.

how serious do you think this latest report is? tim: we will have to wait and see. d report.uzzfee one of the authors has had some misstatements in the past and questions about sourcing, but if it is accurate, it will be significant. i would rather wait to see and verified that it is accurate. >> talking to your sources at the white house, the administration, and members of congress, where do you think the mulder case is headed right now? is it about two -- robert mueller case is headed right now? is it about to wrap up? tim: we have no indication it is about to wrap up. there is frustration amongst republicans because of that issue come at what point is there and ending on this thing?

they have a lot of people they have been able to pin down on certain charges, but the frustration for republicans is the original purpose of the investigation seems to be secondary to the direction it is going now. if it heads back towards the original purpose, that would make more sense to people. >>-12 touch on the other big the -- i want to touch on other big news this week. the longest shutdown d.c. has ever experienced. where do you see this heading? where does heritage fall on the president strategy on this? he really wants that $5.7 billion in border security. is he making the right play here? tim: i will leave the strategy to the president. what he is trying to achieve is

a worthy objective. what i referenced at the beginning is the problem. we have a fight over $5 billion, and we know why neither side will give in. at this point, we know this is symbolic. it is a political fight, not a policy fight. that is not a great thing for the country. in a stalemate because neither side will blink. even if you are predisposed to thinking a $5 billion wall is not good policy, it is such a small thing. the president feels like he has to at some point get a political win on this issue, and the democrats feel like they are ascendant, that there is no clinical incentive, so i don't know when this thing breaks. to the extent that it is getting

harder, it is impacting the economy, people are missing paychecks. there is more pressure now to in-depth than two weeks ago, and that pressure -- now to end it than two weeks ago, and that pressure will build. -- curious, back in 2013, heritage action was instrumental in the government shutdown. the ted cruz conservatives were in support of that. given that, what do you make of where we are at and all that stuff? >> the 13th shutdown was interesting. tim: at that time, we felt strongly because the open to care exchanges were about to come online, there was one

moment, if you could divert funding from those exchanges coming online, you could stop the law from this test of sizing -- if and when the exchanges come online, it can be hard to repeal it. it turns out we were right. we weren't able to repeal it, as hard as we tried at the beginning of this congress. that was a clear policy fight. we were engaged to strategically put the democrats on the defensive. there are reasons it didn't work out as well as we wanted. >> was it a worthwhile policy fight? tim: i think the border security issue is worthwhile. it is now symbolic. i think that the president has to get the democratic party to a position where they feel like it is a political loser for them to

oppose a small part of border security muscle that is important. >> it seems right now we are at this stage in this shutdown where it is just posturing, political games are being played. you described it as a political fight. this week we sought nancy pelosi resend her invitation to president trump to do the state of the union. president trump in kind canceled her trip abroad to afghanistan and other countries. how do you see -- is it going to , ae some external event catastrophe, a disaster of some sort, or long lines at the airport, tsa agents walking off the job, too into the shutdown? -- to end the shutdown? we don't see how this ends. tim: i hope and pray it doesn't take that kind of event. i see your point.

if tsa agents walked off the job tomorrow, the shutdown would be done in two days. the fact that so many tsa agents are being patriotic and doing their job is a credit to them. an external event like that could put pressure on it. there is no doubt. to the point earlier about what the president did in terms of --celing nancy pelosi strip policy's trip, that merits some applause. important for everyone to not just go about business as usual when we are one month into a shutdown. i think the business as usual should stop and people should be trying as hard as they can to find some sort of compromise here. the tough thing is, the left does not feel like they need politically to compromise comments so that is the problem. right now they feel like they have seen polling numbers that

are not threatening to them and could be threatening to the president and his coalition, and soap that emboldens them to do business as usual, but you need some leader on the left cannot out and say, ok, let's end this thing. i'm pretty certain the president would agree to some sort of compromise. i don't know that as a fact, but i think you would agree to some sort of compromise south of what he has asked for. it could be over tomorrow if that were to happen. heritage to ask about and the role and government affairs. the republicans lost the majority in november. it does take a lot of power away from republicans. what type of impact does that withon heritage action

your main vehicle being the house freedom caucus? do you see carving out your niche as far as being a minority and the situation we are in right now? tim: the most important work for the next two years for republicans is to figure out how to rebuild the governing ed intion that is arrivin our laps and 2016 -- arrived in our laps in 2016. the president show the party would a future governing coalition could look like. wisconsin, ohio pennsylvania, michigan came on line for the wasy because the president not necessarily running an orthodox, conservative republican campaign. that allowed the party to bring working-class voters in. the face of the party was still excited.

suburban republicans were on board. that coalition fell apart in 2018. we saw some strain on that. to my mind, the most critically important thing we do in the minority is to start taking very seriously the question of what specific policies would be needed to be the glue that holds a coalition like that together going into 2020. the president when he was a candidate tapped into the anxiety for those parts of the coalition. i don't think he fleshed them out clearly in the governing agenda. i think some of it was there. it is not holistic. our role in the minority is to help the administration figure out what that governing agenda could look like. so what we want to do at heritage action is going into these districts that were lost in 2018, and a lot have a

combination of suburban republican voters who did not want to vote for the president's party because they were disaffected, and working-class voters we lost in these midterms. go into those districts and figure out how our policies can work in those districts come and then hide light in those districts what the policies are. for example, you would find the president's idea of a middle class tax cut he floated before the midterm election, you would find a straight tax cut to middle-class and working-class americans would be popular in one particular district. if you find that is indeed the case and work hard in the house to begin to put a lot of energy behind that -- say you introduce a petition in the house and say, if we get 218 votes on this discharge petition that allows the minority to put a piece of legislation on the floor, then

we could have a vote on this. you could put enormous pressure on moderates who ran as moderates and ran saying they were not vote for nancy pelosi they would be amenable commodity-type policies, you could put pressure on those moderates to sign the discharge petition. not, and it is because it is a sign of party disloyalty. anger the speaker of the house, nancy pelosi, and put them in a tough spot with their party them a but that shows in the district what is happening there, so that is the work we need to do at heritage action with our friends on the hill, figure out what policies are drivers like that in those districts and begin to formulate strategies on capitol hill to either make this bipartisan, if they want to sign on to it, great, we have made a bipartisan these of legislation going in a

conservative direction, but if not, we talk to her constituents and say she is behaving this way. >> what did you think of the criticism from the republican from new york that criticize the nrcc forip of the i not recruiting women aggressively enough and play in primaries to help women candidates who could succeed in these suburban districts you are talking about? bring more women in the party, that is all the better for us. 100% support that effort and hope she is successful. organization,y but our focus would be let's get women in the party and pushing the conservative solutions we care most about. an interesting time to be

thinking about this stuff. there is a whole the debate on the right right now, the tucker carlson monologue heard round the world last week, lots of debates about economic policy and what is happening to thesees, and a lot of issues are issues that would be bringingable issues to unio women into the party. marco rubio is talking about a paid family leave program. those are the kinds of issues we need to take seriously as a party. susan: 10 minutes left. >> looking towards 2020, how do see heritage action playing in the election? you guys mainly focused on the house this past cycle with mixed results. candidates lost.abi any plan to get involved in senate race this time around? tim: we are formulating those plans as a team to figure out --

in the last cycle, we spent $2.5 million on 13 candidates. we had a split, 6-6, 1 to be to be decided. we felt good given that all those races were pulling in the democrats favor when we got in those races. being able to win in kentucky, representative bar, that was a hard race, we felt good about that. i think what we are trying to figure out is how much should we be doing leading up to the election and how much in the election. right now my focus in the near term, our team is focused on figuring out how to till the soil in these districts on the policies we care about. we desperately want an election where we can look back on it and not just say the republican and flip to the

house back, but they won because of this. you have to have members coming into congress saying this issue played a role in my campaign, and that is the only way we can build consensus around a policy agenda. that is our goal. ,o have a referendum election then to have a mandate coming out of it. it is not good enough just to have the majority. that is one of the things we saw. we had the majority for two years and could have done more than we did if we had spent time going into 2016 being explicit about what specific policy issues we were running on. >> i want to follow up on scott's question. do you anticipate going for more than 13 candidates this time around? tim: i would like to. becausesaying exactly

we are in the planning stages, but i would like to do more. i think you need to do more. , it is repetitive, the conservative movement has got to lay in enough -- play in enough places and make their policies matter in enough places to come out single have a mandate for policy. it is not good enough to just get a majority. you have to have the majority with the will to do something. this is what gives members of congress the confidence to be leaders on the issue. guyse policy question, you the last couple of years, a lot made about the fiscal situation in the country. the tax bill as a lot to the deficit, spending agreements, something conservatives have been critical of republicans for, they don't care about the

debt, the deficit. was that a missed opportunity for the party the last two years? tim: yes, it is disappointing to us, but to be completely candid, the country is not there. there is not a consensus across the country for fiscal sanity right now. especially when you start to say , you can say in general, do you think the government should be bigger or smaller? you get some consensus there. you can say in general, do you think the government should spend less money? but when you specifically way that against specific programs, you run into serious headwinds. you can say it was a missed opportunity, but it means the conservative groups in washington and conservative leaders in congress have to do a better job of persuading the american people this is indeed an issue. it is something we are giving a

lot of thought now two. how can you do something that captures peoples attention on the spending issue that begins p? put them in your cam right now it is a tremendous challenge. >> is that they lost cause at this point? tim: at some point it will become such, a threat for the country economically. we will not have any choice, right? i don't want to throw in the towel on it. group of be part of a people saying this is something that is important. up on it, we give up on it as a conservative movement , then at that point when crisis hits, we don't have a lot of credibility to say what to do, so it is important we don't give up on it. this is something we have pushed our friends in the too.istration on

they do present budgets that are fiscally responsible look but we have to present a budget and rally the country around it. that second part is what is lacking. susan: just a few minutes left. >> someone else in the highlights was steve king, the hardliner from iowa. he received a stern rebuke from leadership. he has been an ally of heritage for a number of years come up but he was rebuked, kevin mccarthy stripped him of assignments for remarks about white supremacy and white nationalism. do you think that was an appropriate step for the leadership to remove him from all of his committee assignments? >> i would -- tim: i would say the remarks were very serious and appropriate they were addressed inside the conference. from what i know, they were addressed in a holistic way, so that is good. that is good.

representative king has been a leader on conservative issues . remarks like that are serious and you have to address them. to the leave it up internal politics of the conference to figure out if they did the exact right thing. >> i think liz cheney went so far as to suggest he should find another line of work cannot effectively saying he should resign and leave congress. do you think that is appropriate? that is between steve king and his constituents. i think it is perfectly appropriate for liz cheney to have a strong opinion about that. it is something represented king has to talk to his constituents about. susan: 20 you think of the early days of kevin mccarthy's leadership? -- what do you think of the early days of kevin mccarthy's leadership? tim: it is early days. leader mccarthy in my

interactions with him and his interactions with our organization, he is always good at telling you where he is at. a doesn't pretend to be heritage conservative, and i don't pretend he is a heritage conservative, but he is a straight shooter. i appreciate that about him. i feel that i can go and tell ,im where we are going to be and he will be straight about where he is going to be on something. that is thethink kind of leadership you need at , and, because the problem especially a great frustration for grassroots conservatives, grassroots conservatives have seen the republican party over the last few years have the house on the senate, and presidency, and there is this feeling that and served as were now in power, but it is -- conservatives were now in power him up but it is not true. this is a coalition government

at best. you have different republicans in the party. you have your freedom caucus republicans, we see the work closely to them. you have your republican study committee-republicans, leadership republicans, appropriators, and the so this is not a conservative majority or minority at this point. i do think it takes the leadership of the conference and they need to recognize they are putting together a coalition government, and that means you have to be a straight shooter with the different parts of your coalition. that is what i hope we see under leader mccarthy, that he recognizes he has a significant group of his conference that are conservative republicans and they should be represented fairly and listen to, but he also has to do with all the different factions. susan: we have two minutes.

final question from either? theny doubt in your mind president will not run for president in 2020? tim: i have no ability to predict what the president will or will not do. hei had to bet, i will bet is running and would be shocked if he didn't. >> will he have challengers in the primary? tim: that is a good question. i think a couple of people are thinking about challenging him. i think those challenges would be unsuccessful and would largely be to prove a point or have a message heard, but i would not be surprised to see one or two people do that. >> which candidate on the democratic side keeps republicans up late at night? tim: there is a fair amount. look, in terms of winning, if they nominate somebody who is also,oderate, but can like joe biden keeps me up at

night. the reason is because he is perceived as moderate come up but has credibility with working-class voters. in 2020the entire game is where the republicans can re-create that coalition of 2016 or not, and losing the working-class voters in a 2020 of election would make it hard for republicans to win. susan: we can end with a quick question. you are fine. that is it for our time. thank you for being our guest on "newsmakers." "newsmakers" announcer: is back with announcer: i reporters with the head of heritage action for america, the policy group for the heritage foundation am a tim chapman. the ideological soulmates of the heritage foundation are the freedom caucus members. they are the minority of the minority. what kind of power will they have from a policy perspective and a new congress? >> you're talking about mark

, the mostim jordan ultraconservative members of the house republican caucus. they have a very small percentage at this point of the entire house of representatives. they don't wield as much power in the minority because they more block their party any from passing spending bills and things like that, just simple legislation, but where they do wield power is they have the ear of the president. they are very close to the president, speak almost on a daily basis, if not definitely a they aresis, and so the ones who have orchestrated this shutdown by convincing the president to stand firm on his border wall. that is the predicament we are currently in. , they are still

very influential in the congress. about tim chapman talked in the new congress with the democrats in power looking for a way to involve the moderates in the coalition building. nancy pelosi has demonstrated herself to wield a heavy gavel. assignmentsn away from people who opposed her speakership, for example. a disincentive for moderates to sign on any initiatives from the republican side? >> i agree. nancy pelosi holds a lot of power in this town come especially over house democrats. you saw what happened in the fight. only a handful bucked her on that. she skated pretty well through that speakers fight. ,he holds considerable power especially over these young, new, energetic house democrats commit even though they still think they have a lot of power. nancy pelosi has a lot of

control, so i don't see these folks bucking her on many issues. i don't see it happening very often. susan: avenue majority would want to come in with a big agenda and get off -- a new majority would want to come in with the big agenda and get off to a big start. normally in a divided government you would see more i partisan negotiations, more bipartisan talk. before the election and we heard about a big infrastructure bill, some kind of bipartisan deal on lowering restriction drug prices. right now in this shutdown with the partisanship and acrimony, it doesn't seem like those bipartisan conversations are happening, so the expectations are low that we will see any big legislation moving through this congress. as the day goes on in the shutdown continues, we are now

at that one month mark, the window is quickly closing. susan: for people who are watching c-span and watch this stuff closely, is there anything you can tell them about what is happening behind the scenes that isn't being reported? >> everything being reported is happening at this point. we are in an intractable impasse at this point. there is no tunneling out of this at this point. the leaders will have to come together and figure something out. democrats don't feel they have a reliable negotiator in the president, and the president has not exactly made himself reliable negotiator. nancy pelosi has democrats in an intractable position, going down to not offering anything at this point. there is a major golf on both sides.

nothing is happening until someone comes to the table. susan: that was the latest story involving the president's lawyer, michael cohen. how much is this town consumed with stories about the white house which have put everything else off the table? >> in the backdrop of this government shutdown is the fact democrats are ramping up their investigation, newly empowered democrats in the house of representatives. they have subpoena powers. new powers that come with the majority. so they are ramping up investigations. that is also creating additional issues on both sides. they are trying to come together. thisnk that in part is why shutdown is lasting so long. susan: do not know what to say to close it. it has been an amazing month. we are going to keep going. thank