later, we will talk to former transportation department inspector general mary schiavo about the faa's decision to ground the boeing 737 max airplane. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ host: reuters reporting the house of representatives most likely will attempt to vote to override president trump's expected veto of a border emergency declaration -- that expected to be tuesday, march his desiregainst to use the declaration to gain access to funds for border wall construction. this is the "washington journal" for march 15. we take your calls about the vote that took place yesterday. you can see highlights at c-span.org. you can talk about the override vote and the republicans who voted against president trump,

all of that. 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. independents, 202-748-8002. ,f you want to join us online @cspanwj is how you do that on our twitter feed and facebook.com/cspan is how you post on our facebook page. here is some of the look of the headlines in states where senators voted against the president. dayton start with the daily news. ohio senator rob portman joins the senate majority to terminate trump's national emergency. moving to the miami herald, they had -- highlight the two boats with marco rubio joining alongside portman and others against the president. rick scott, the junior senator from florida voting to support the president yesterday and if you go to the salt lake tribune, they highlight the two senators

from utah, mitt romney, mike lee among those 12 republican senators who voted to override the president's emergency declaration at the border. senator lamar alexander one of those republican senators voting to terminate the national emergency voted yes along with roy blunt, susan collins, mike murkowski moran, lisa of alaska, rand paul, rob portman, mitt romney, marco rubio, two others joining that list. pat toomey of pennsylvania and senator roger wicker of mississippi. those are the republicans who voted against the president yesterday. one of the highlights from the papers comes from the raleigh news and observer highlighting the vote of thom tillis saying the headline tillis reverses court, votes to support trump on national emergency declaration. thom tillis voted thursday to

support the president and his national emergency declaration. tillis announced his change thursday afternoon saying conversations with trump administration officials and -- potential changes that would affect future emergency declarations convinced him to vote the other way. you can see that exchange that took place on the senate floor at c-span.org. here is a bit from thom tillis yesterday. [video clip] >> a lot has changed over the last three weeks. a discussion with vice president and a number of senior administration officials and collaboration with my colleague from utah. it's a serious discussion about changing the national emergencies act in a way that will have congress speak on emergency actions in the future. the white house has been gracious and patient given my initial position in working with today, having as the president make a statement that he is willing to work with

us. i suspect we will hear more from the president. we also heard from leader mcconnell and i was trying to remember, i don't know if it has been done before, but leader mcconnell took to the floor and said he encourages this discussion through the regular order and to work on a bipartisan basis to move and measure forward through the homeland security committee and this forum for a vote. i will work on that and hopefully gain consensus on a bipartisan basis after temperatures have cooled and we can move on. in the meantime, i think we have to recognize we have a crisis at the border. 76,000 people crossing illegally in february alone. host: that was thom tillis voting against the resolution of disapproval in the senate yesterday. 12 gop senators voting for it. we can talk about the vote overall and the work of the 12 senators. if you want to call,

202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. .nd independents, 202-748-8002 some of the opinion pieces out of the vote yesterday, this is the wall street journal, trump loses the senate. the gop opposition is more sincere because it comes at political cost. mr. trump has been banging away on twitter that a vote to override is a vote for "open borders and nancy pelosi's agenda." it's never easy to vote against day sitting president of one's party. mr. trump should be careful not to test the limits of gop senate loyalty. he will need those votes to sustain foreign. several republicans joined democrats to vote on a resolution that aims to cut off involvement in yemen. watch out at the white house. if republican senators feel more abraded to show the president --

liberated to show the president the lack of consideration he is showing them. by today highlights an op-ed ken paxton and curtis hill adding jeff landry in support of the president saying the executive order is a proper use of executive power. they write with no solutions coming from congress, the president is faithfully executing the duties of his office by invoking a law congress already passed. in declaring a state of emergency, president trump is using pre-existing statutory authority to address a legitimate crisis created by --less misconduct at our lawless conduct at our southern border. our president is protecting our country's borders through means contemplated by congress and used many times by past presidents for matters less directly threatening. you can read more of those thoughts if you go to the pages

of usa today. in arizona, this is christian calling on our republican line. hi. again. hi, good morning, thank you for taking my call. i think it is so ironic the 12 republicans and all the isocrats who are saying this an overreach of power and violates separation of powers, thetheir very own body is body that has the ability to amend the national emergencies act. we hear all this talk about authoritarian -- and how trump is abusing his power. we have actual american citizens blood.urdered in cold their homes being burglarized. illegal aliens walking directly

into their home and killing them , burying them alive, and yet we are supposed somehow have self -- self-righteous indignation just because it is trump who is the one writing the executive order or the proclamation on national emergency and not a single one of these senators would dare come out and say what is in the proclamation about how the president ordered the army, the navy, and the air force down at the border. i would double dog dare any of these senators to come out against the military in this proclamation. host: let's hear from jimmy in north carolina, democrats line. caller: i tell you what, this is nothing but a joke. the republicans for years, at least the last 30 years, ran around with the constitution,

throwing it in everybody's face and you see what they really think about the constitution. when it comes to power and getting their way, they don't care about the constitution. they don't care about the bill of rights. they don't care about the rule of law. all they care about is power and getting their way. as soon as a democrat gets in office, you know what they are going to say? there is an expansion of power here we cannot tolerate. you have 12 republicans voting with democrats, but they know the president is going to veto it. it is getting to be even your station -- it is getting to be theater. acts getting to be act 1, 2, everyone knows what will happen and it will go to the courts and the republicans more so than democrats are praying the courts overrule it. in northt is jimmy

carolina. reuters saying when the house of representatives comes back from break, they will likely attempt to override -- and override vote to the expected veto. that override vote expected in 26.house on march jim is next from georgia, independent line. hi. jim in georgia, go ahead. caller: congress has again abdicated their responsibility. they find mechanisms to hide behind the president so they do not have to fulfill their constitutional duties and on sensitive or urgent matters, they find a way around it by hiding behind the president. now when the president uses the power congress abdicated, they want to carry on about it. the solution to the problem is

we've they do not want to grant the president emergency powers, change the law. host: you are critical of the 12 that voted for this? ofler: no, i am not critical anybody other than the entire congress who continues to hide behind the president on issues they think might be damaging to their political careers. host: this is off of facebook. when it comes to yesterday boston vote saying -- yesterday's vote saying he can veto it. david saying they signed their commitment to go against the constitution and the oath. treason is unhandled in the civil courts, treason is handled by military tribunal where there is more strict interpretation of the constitution. he finishes by saying it is bad, very bad. caret in brooklyn, new york, republican line. caller: hi, i agree with the

previous caller about congress abdicating their responsibility. the question is is the national emergency declaration constitutional. it might be. in the constitution, the legislative branch should have that authority. host: from stafford, virginia, dan. republican line as well. good morning. caller: good morning. i support the president or the move to call this an emergency -- whatever folks en masse march or move in formation carrying a flag other than the united states, they may be peaceful and allies, but when they broach or breach the border carrying a flag of another nation, that sounds like an invasion to me. if they were carrying american flags saying we love america so much, we will wave the white flag or the american flag, i would be much more supportive.

it is the army, navy, air source -- air force, and marines that went to the border. host: what did you think of the senators that voted yesterday? the 12 specifically? caller: i will be careful as to what i say. i would say they have their prerogative and the constituents that elect them or they have to face and represent may have some opinions or emails and they sent -- host: the washington post talks about reports on what was going on behind the scene, saying the president's personal pleas and pressures were among missteps by the white house. the administration failed to give opposing dop senators legal opinions, project details, and

other information requested about the national emergency. according to lawmakers on capitol hill aides, vice president pence was unwilling to make comments on behalf of the president even while serving as his main emissary to negotiate with republicans. for some, it was not clear if anyone, including the president, could have persuaded them to support the emergency declaration because of their constitutional concerns. in ohio, democrats line, robbie. go ahead. caller: yes. this is robbie brown. is i am a is democrat, but i am changing my ticket to republican. they want to charge trump for breaking the law or unconstitutional, what he has done. all democrats do is give everything away.

they won't even open the borders up. -- that is all bull crepap. if people don't wake up and see the light. if we let all these people over here, we will be in the same shape they are across the border and they need to get together and people need to wake up and see the light. host: what did you think about the vote of senator portman then , who voted in support of the resolution of disapproval? i think he should disapprove of it. that is what i am saying. he is saying open up the borders. host: let's go to iowa, larry on our independent line. caller: i think they are right

on stopping trump on his emergency declaration mainly because of the fact that guy is getting too power-hungry. he is getting scare tactics. $6wants to build a wall for billion. you could have one security every quarter of a mile for 15 years and give them $100,000 a year. that would be more safe than putting up a stupid wall they could crawl over or climb -- crawl under or cross -- climb over. he lies constantly. he is a draft dodger. host: what did you think about the votes of republicans yesterday? those 12 votes specifically? caller: i am proud of them for standing up to him. i don't know how come the 32% of the population believes that guy. host: that is larry in iowa.

this courtesy of the new york times which shows a picture of susan collins, one of those voting with the 12 republicans. in a volley of phone calls with senate republicans over the last few weeks, the president warned of the electoral consequences of defying him and dismissed concerns about the constitutional precedent of his order. mr. trump tried to cajole a handful of members to vote his way, emphasizing a vote against border security would be noticed by the party's base. it highlights the work of rand paul, the libertarian who frequently bucks his party in support of the nomination for the resolution. the president flew into a rage and called mr. paul to the man he reversed himself. according to the new york times, the senator refused to do that. one of those who took issue yesterday with the president's approach to this was mike lee of

utah and talked about the constitutional concerns and specifically concerns over the move to centralize power. [video clip] >> centralization is not unity, it is surrender. the kind of government our founding fathers were trying to protect us from. political elites often reassure each other.ure no one cares about the process, they insist. the constitution is all process, that's the point, process. the constitution doesn't resolve political differences, it lays out the processes by which we are supposed to resolve them. rushing that process does not override disagreements. it escalates them, ratcheting up politics into an all-consuming

war of outrage and contempt. my democratic colleagues, some of them would have us believe this vote is about president trump and president trump alone. it is not. it is about much more than them. eal foriberal elites z centralized power. host: the senate rejecting the emergency declaration with 12 republicans supporting the effort. 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. independents, 202-748-8002. this is from texas, republican line. george is next, go ahead. caller: yes, sir. them 12 republicans are turncoats. they are just like the democrats. every one of them did not go to the bathroom --

host: the president sending out a tweet yesterday on yesterday's vote and his perspective saying i look forward to vetoing the just passed democrat-inspired resolution which would open borders while increasing crime, drugs, and trafficking in our country. i think all the strong republicans who voted to support desperatelyity and needed wall. that is from the president's twitter feed. stacy and marilyn, democrats line, hi. maryland, democrats line, hi. caller: i think they are heroes and people need to ratchet down the rhetoric. we had mass shootings in mosques because people are willing to declare an emergency that does not exist. are there issues?

for sure. --we have an invasion as a at the southern border? are there people breaking into homes that are here and immigrants? no. it is wrong and our country will suffer for it if people do not ratchet down the rhetoric. host: you are talking about the rhetoric of republicans critical of republicans who voted yesterday? caller: yes and the rhetoric in general that there is a true emergency at the border. if there was such an emergency, congress would declare a war. certainly we would not need a president to use the national emergency's act in the way he did in order to fulfill a political promise. he is a chief provocateur and we will suffer for it if we do not calm down individually. host: we will continue to calls on this topic. since the president -- caller mentioned the news in new

zealand, the shootings that took place at two mosques. 49 people killed. one man in his late 20's is charged with murder and two explosive devices were found attached to a vehicle. it was shocking because it took place around friday prayer. police urged people to stay away from mosque until further notice. so the calls back on the senate about yesterday in maryland, independent line, cliff, go ahead. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. you mentioned senator lee earlier and i respect him a lot. he is a solid constitutionalist. however, he missed the point. the power he is talking about was ceded to the president by the congress. precedent for declaring a national emergency.

been 30, 30 one national emergency is in effect right now and anyone who doesn't believe there is a crisis on the border is either lying or they have their head on backwards. facebook page, "why did republicans join forces with democrats who hate our country? " i hope he will veto. democrats want to the vote of illegals to destroy the united states. sandra becker says usurping the constitutional rights of congress by a president isn't something that should be ok by that body of government whose first duty is to uphold the constitution. you can post on facebook and our twitter feed. in chesapeake, virginia, we will hear from don. go ahead. caller: good morning.

they are putting a lot of children at risk. they just throw kids over a fence and they are going to injure, kill, just to get into our country. it needs to stop. these other republicans that voted against trump are probably on their way out anyway. i am just glad to see a lot of democrats are waking up also. that is my point. host: detroit, michigan, david is next. democrats line. caller: yes, good morning, pedro. give me a second. don't cut me off. some of your listeners may or may not agree with what i am going to say. this wall sensation sounds so reminiscent of the 1980's with willie horton. when you have an individual like lies and you come up

--h this and nadja and very this imaginary fear approach -- it used to be, we don't want african-americans to live in our neighborhood because they bring prostitution and drugs, it's the same thing. this is the same playbook that has been played since the 1890's. -- you haveple someone who will try to stoke fear into white people and make them think these people are gonna come over here and rape you and kill you. host: the vote yesterday, what did you think of that? caller: it was appropriate. it was right in alignment with the constitution. we cannot allow someone like trump to come in and come up with this fabrication.

it wasn't an emergency because he could have done something different. that is what he said. i am paraphrasing. host: the new york times editors taking a look at yesterday's vote. the obvious burning question is whether these boats are outliers or a signed republican lawmakers are rethinking their blind loyalty to a president who routinely confuses public service for personal gratification. as for the rest of the republican congress -- conference, it is difficult to imagine what level of presidential outrage it would take to spur lackeys to sign up for the integrity of our constitution, much less the american people. that is the new york times editorial and what we will be talking about for the remainder of this hour. 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. and independents, 202-748-8002. you can talk about the vote

overall that took place yesterday. you can talk about the 12 republican senators involved as well and post on our social media sites. tom in fort lauderdale, republican line. caller: good morning. thatabout the other veto happened in this whole process? we had a bipartisan commission on the budget that ended up with a puny $1.3 billion for the wall. the democrats on the commission vetoed the border patrol. border patrol showed them every possible reason to increase funds for walls and what did the democrats say? we don't believe your numbers. when it comes to lying, who is really lying? are you going to believe the people actually at the border and experience and see and calculate everything going on down there or you believe the democrats who have nothing but political ambitions to defeat

donald trump? botherubio, don't even running, you are the trader -- a traitor to people who voted for you. congress is a check on the president, but also, the president is a check on congress. the safety of for the united states. we lose 75,000 young adults in this country to drug overdose coming across our borders from exit. 90% of them and they are not borderming from the terminals, they are coming across the border where they cannot be found. host: let's hear from sandra in texas, independent line. caller: for me? host: yes, go ahead. caller: he is really kind of wrong. i think you ought to look to

border patrol. they are understaffed and work really hard. they need more border patrol. you could double the number we have. you could add more x-ray machines and that would help. the drug problem is mostly drugs andng in in trucks and cars stuff that has been modified so you cannot find them. host: yesterday's vote, what did you think of that? caller: pardon me? host: the vote yesterday on the emergency declaration, what did you think of that? caller: emergency, no, no, he does not have a need for an emergency declaration. i live in el paso, don't give me that. the way he treated those people and those kids and those -- i cannot so think of a nice word to say about it. unhumane,humane --

terrible. host: the washington examiner highlighting ted cruz and two most republican senators, including ben sasse, ted cruz, and thom tillis voted against the resolution to overturn trump's emergency declaration. to the border needs better enforcement and could use more laws, but it is up to congress, not the president to appropriate money and it should be up to congress, not the courts to make that statement emergency powers are not intended for cases the president wants something congress will not give him. congress delegated by statute. every conservative should have reported the resolution of disapproval. every member of congress should take this emergency as a signal it is time for congress to take back responsibilities it so casually shed over the years.

you will find that op-ed -- editorial in the washington examiner's website if you want to look it up for yourself. freddie is next, democrats line from illinois. hi. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have a question. can you tell me what a nationalist is? host: i am sorry, i missed that first part. caller: a nationalist. host: i won't give a definition, but tell me what you think it is. caller: i think it is a person affiliated with the right-wing left radical organization. am i correct? host: and how that all relates to yesterday? caller: yesterday, i agree with the voting of the republicans taking side with the democrats and i am thinking that perhaps why congress will not agree with

what is right for this country, the majority of them must be trump's 32% as was base. there was a mass shooting, i believe it was in new zealand yesterday and this young, white man, 28 years old, said he was not with a radical organization, but he had affiliations with the nationalist people. host: we will go to paul in chicago, illinois. republican line. caller: hello. host: you are on. caller: my name is paul. hi, pedro, how are you doing? good morning. i think this wall needs to get put up. in chicago, the violence is unbelievable. shootings, drive-bys, carjackings, and i believe it is the drugs causing this to happen. this is a problem. just like the other gentlemen

before said 74,000 people died in a 12 month period. could you imagine if we lost that many soldiers in a war? the media would be all over it. yet there is no talk at all. host: when you saw what happened yesterday in the senate, what did you think? caller: i think those republicans need to get on board. i think they are going to have trouble staying in congress. host: you think there will be political ramifications for this? caller: i do, definitely. this is every city, not just chicago. there is violence and it stems from the drugs. host: that is paul on the republican line. it was chuck schumer, the minority leader, giving his thoughts on the resolution why it caused him concerns. [video clip] >> if a president can invoke an

emergency because he did not get his way or she did not get her way, without real cause, without is ouremergency, woe republic in many ways, in ways the founding fathers feared. i know this is a very difficult vote for my friends on the others of the aisle, much more difficult than ours. we all know the president is extremely popular in the maybe a fewarty for good reasons, i would say mostly bad, but he is. we know he has been vindictive, contemptuous, calling out people who oppose him. it is not an easy vote. i take my hats off to those members on the others of the aisle who have let principal rise above party, who understand

what the constitution requires this afternoon and have agreed to vote against this emergency. i would plead with those others who haven't made up their minds to look at this moment in history. this is not an immediate moment, you can before the wall or against the wall, you can think what we are doing at the southern border is inadequate, but that issue pales before the issue before us. that is how far an executive can reach when congress does not want to do what that executive wants. host: it takes two thirds vote on the house and senate to overturn a veto and the washington times takes a look at history when it comes to the vetoes given by various presidents and how many were overturned. the most accredited to ronald reagan, 78 overall with 9

overridden. in the middle, bill clinton, who had 37 bills vetoed with two being overridden. the least, barack obama with 12 vetoes, one overridden. in that chart available in the washington times website. this is dave off our facebook page. thesend glad he will, folks are just -- think that through when they pass laws expressly allowing this. facebook is how you can post as well as our twitter feed and you can give us a call on the phone lines. in florida, independent line, tony, go ahead. caller: good morning, pedro. i am disappointed beyond sometimes expression in the congress, the senate, the house, the senate, and c-span. the ignorance is palpable.

i don't have all the facts to know if this is a valid emergency or not, i suspect it is. i don't even care. they passed a law. this is now out of the hands of legislature. if they don't like the law, they need to repeal it. this needs to go to the courts for review. whotor mike lee, so i am -- i am glad never made it to the --reme court, host: what about the actions of your senators? rubio and -- caller: ignorant. it doesn't matter which person it is trump possible wall just ignorant. host: rubio supported the -- senator scott disagreed with it. caller: that's fine. it's the wrong place.

what they should have done was they should have passed the , asked the supreme court for expedited review because this is where it needs to be. it's like nobody does civics. host: let's go to curve us in north -- curtis in north carolina, democrats line. caller: go ahead and build the wall. go ahead and build a wall around texas and go to the gulf coast, louisiana, and all the other gulf coast and go around florida and then go around florida, georgia,-- host: let's stick to the vote from yesterday, what did you think of that? brave, evene 12 are though they are republican, but they are brave and they have common sense. this president doesn't even have common sense, let alone any educational background.

host: that is curtis in north carolina. the story this morning deals with a hearing that took place yesterday on the senate side, talked about what could potentially happen if the president does get his emergency resolution. it featured the acting defense secretary pat shanahan saying he arrived on capitol hill for his second ever public testimony hoping to make the case for a national defense budget to compete with china and russia. hour meeting half demonstrated how the political grenade the president has thrown at the defense threaten to undermine his ability for top officials to secure stable funding for vast reshaping of the american military. shanahan was hoping to receive the president's nomination to serve on a permanent basis thought to placate cash what military construction projects could be delayed to

free up money for the wall. it was at the hearing yesterday, which you can see on our website, that the acting defense secretary patrick shanahan had an exchange with tim kaine over this issue of military funding and projects that could be impacted should the president get access to the money. here is the exchange. [video clip] >> i feel completely sandbagged. the service secretaries have had that list. they have had the list. service secretaries have been willing to share the list of those projects. you are going to send it to us after the vote on the emergency declaration? members of the senate are entitled to know from where these moneys will be pulled and the fact that you come here today and say you will give it to us after the vote this afternoon -- your service secretaries and chiefs have had these lists and when we asked them to send them to the committee, they said we cannot without the permission of the

sec desk. were they only available in the last half-hour? >> first of all, senator, i think the situation is being misrepresented. there has not been a deliberate attempt to withhold any information to this committee. theet me state this to you, staff has been reaching out to service secretaries and saying send us the list of unallocated projects and they have been told they cannot do that, it has to come through theosc and you are now going to produce that list today after we have a vote at 1:40 five? this information is highly relevant to the voters -- senators voting on this emergency declaration because the question is should a president be able to declare a nonmilitary emergency and ransacked the pentagon budget for $6.1 billion?

i think we are entitled to know where the money might come from, especially because you just said this is a multiyear declaration. i don't think you giving us that list today after the vote when we have been asking for it for a month is a good faith response to the request of this committee. host: that hearing before the senate armed services committee featuring the acting defense secretary patrick shanahan you can find at our website at c-span.org. they talk about that and other topics. speaking of international issues, the associated press reporting the north korean leader kim jong-un will decide whether to continue diplomatic talks to maintain his moratorium on missile launches a nuclear test. the vice foreign minister, including the associated press said he was deeply disappointed by the failure of the two sides to reach any agreement at the hanoi summit.

they have no intention of compromising or continuing talks unless the united states takes measures that are consummate to the changes it has taken such as the 15 month moratorium on launches and test and political calculations. nebraska, line from this is catherine. hello. caller: hello? host: hello. you are on. caller: thank you. i am a 70-year-old woman who served from -- moved from california when i was 18 to hawaii and now nebraska. i am so tired of people calling us who voted for president trump deplorable. that man is doing everything he can to try to help the people of the american -- united states live better lives and democrats are blocking him at every turn. he gave them every opportunity to vote the right way to protect our southern border. obama is the one who started

putting kids in cages. i am so tired of them saying that and when 75,000 illegals are coming over and you see duis and car accidents and murders and so on and democrats are sitting on their hands doing absolutely nothing, they gave him no choice but to declare an emergency. it is an emergency. yesterday,ctions of particularly from those republicans, what did you think of that? caller: i think it is deplorable. they are getting a lot of money to do that job and they are not doing it. the president is not doing this for selfish means, he is doing it to help the people of the united states, not for personal gain. host: that is catherine from nebraska. rollcall has a list of the senators voting for the resolution of disapproval. among them, lamar alexander of tennessee adding the retiring lawmaker supports the president on border security, but the emergency declaration sets a dangerous precedent.

for theess appropriated literary hospitals, barracks, and schools inconsistent with ath constitution i swore an o to defend. our next call comes from john in sparta, tennessee, democrats line, hello. caller: i say let the man serve. we voted for him all the way, sir. host: what did you think of the actions of senator alexander? caller: i think he is a good man, let the man stand with trump. host: tina from pennsylvania, independent line. caller: good morning. how are you? host: i am well, thanks, go ahead. caller: i am so disgusted with my senator, pat toomey. i am a republican and i stand with president trump 110%. i moved to pennsylvania from florida. i was in high school in the 1980's when we had the haitian

refugees come over and it was horrible. i moved to democrats when the democrats opened all the pain clinics and we had the influx of opioids. pennsylvania is riddled with heroin and fentanyl overdoses and yet pat toomey is going to allow and stand and say no to a wall? here is an idea, get the guard down there, let them do their exercises, let them build their barrier. this time, don't destroy them. we need this wall. host: senator toomey was quoted in the philadelphia inquirer saying he supports the efforts of build a border wall, but thought the national emergency was a very important separation of powers issue. what do you think of his statement? caller: no, it is something that should have been done years ago and finally we have a president in office with the backbone to do it. this should have been done in

the 1980's. the welfare system is being drained. our families, american families that have two parents working that have children do not qualify for help. we have kids going to school hungry, but an illegal can cross over and say i just want to be here and stay on welfare for 20 years and i know this to be a fact because i was a caseworker in florida. host: do you think this vote from senator toomey is going to cost him politically, do you think? caller: absolutely. we are already working on getting him out. host: that is tina in pennsylvania calling and talking about the vote of her senator yesterday. don in iowa calling on the republican line. you are next up. caller: i think these people calling our little bit confused. president trump is our president and he knows what he is doing. they forget he prayed at the

wall in jerusalem for god to give him wisdom. i believe that happened. these republican senators that are against that, president trump is against the declaration. of the emergency, he is for, the wall, he is for. the declaration, he said he did not want to do that. here.he has another plan i believe that plan, whatever it is, is working out not for him, but for we, the people. host: what did you think about the number of senators who voted against this? caller: i think they may be part of the plan. i think they are right. the declaration is unconstitutional and president trump knows that. host: from washington, d.c., democrats line. hi. caller: good morning. just a comment on the vote of

the 12 republican senators who finally came to their senses enabledald trump was for a couple of years. they were not really pushing back on the insanity of immigration from the very beginning it -- with the travel ban. i think it is over-the-top. republicans know they need to push hard on the congressional vote. they did the right thing. i don't think it's a national emergency. i think it was propaganda from .he beginning on a border wall the united states is an ally to mexico. you don't put up walls between allied countries. i realize we have this border immigration issue, but we have had it for 40 years, 50 years in every pairs that in -- president that comes in does the best they can and we have the 2006 defense act. george w. bush worked on that, immigrationd on the

bill at the time for amnesty and that sort of thing. what is missing here is i say hello to immigration reform. republicans as well as democrats have not pushed out a good reform on immigration. if you are going to do border enforcement, that is all they have been doing, showing the country that enforcement is the number one issue when actually we need to change laws and do some things that are different. host: have to leave it there. rollcall highlights the votes of the 12 senators. among them, roy blunt of missouri saying blunt is a senior appropriations member and the only one to support the termination measure. he raised concerns about the president -- precedent it would set. he served several terms in the house before running for the senate in 2010. marty lives in missouri and st.

louis, independent line, hi. caller: how are you doing? my issue is i know people who went down to demonstrate for what was going on where those kids are being held and separating kids from families crossing and see those kids have been held back and it is not right. the other thing is a wall is unnecessary when all they can do is use modern technologies to beef up security and use that instead of spending money on this wall which is going to take money from people who really need it. the other thing is tunnels have been dug from mexico all the way to los angeles and a wall did not stop that and the drugs and other things coming in legally from cars and things that have been modernized to do that. they want -- if they want to get

drugshere, they can shoot over the wall and things like that. host: senator jerry moran had this to say, i share the president on of securing borders -- beyond his constitutional limit is something i cannot support. the twitter feed shows a picture of the legal pad in which he sketches out his thinking leading up to the decision. if you want to go to the twitter feed, it sketches out point by point as far as his thinking on how he came to his conclusions. you can see that off is twitter feed. in california, john, republican line. caller: good morning. i would like to say i disagree with the republicans that voted to block this. pass al had a chance to reform and they did not do it. aca,p had a reform with d

overstaying your visas, neither the house or senate passed it. it set up for this emergency declaration. one thing i want to say about the wall is i never heard on the news the wall is going to last 25 or 50 years. it is a one-time expenditure where you get an asset. one guy said we will put a border guy every 100 feet or so, that will be a yearly expense of $5 billion. this is a one-time expense of $5 billion and when you depreciate over 25, 50 years, even a hundred years, the cost is minimal. it is the cheapest and most effective way of securing our border. host: that is john in california. some tweets this morning, this is a off of facebook saying when it comes to the veto, i am glad he will. rebukeays it's a major

to america, not the president. we want a wall, we want people to come here legally. a wall will allow porter patrol to focus on specific areas and slow the fall -- slow the flow. plenty of people commenting on our facebook page. in a few minutes we have left, we will continue with your calls on this vote. a short pause if you allow to talk about the work of our c-span cities tour, three vehicles that travel the united date on a yearly basis looking for stories, talking to authors, and historical events. this stop is in cedar rapids, iowa. if you go to our book tv and american history channels, c-span 2 and c-span 3 on the weekends, you can find out about history and literature. this features cedar rapids mayor bradley hart talking about the iowa slot of 2008 and the impact on the city. [video clip]

>> cedar rapids, iowa is in east central iowa, the middle of the country, the heartland of the country. the defining era or moment is the 2008 flood which, at the time, was the fourth worst natural disaster in u.s. history. 10 square miles was underwater. 5000 families were displaced. we had like 8000 properties flooded. most people told us it would be a 15-20 year process to rebuild. i would say we cut that in half. there is still work to do, but we have, recovered in so many ways. we did not used to have downtown housing and now we have thousands of units. we rebuilt neighborhoods, created programs that make it easier for young families to buy and get into homeownership and we lost 1300t --

homes that had to be torn down. those areas are being repurposed into amenities everyone in the community can enjoy. to make sure it doesn't happen again, we have a formal permanent flood protection system planned for both sides of the river. we have already built levees that when we had flood scares in 2016 and last year, those portions of our flood protection system already in place helped us. we will have flood protection on both sides of the cedar river. it's the number one priority. we cannot let that happen again. host: you can see more by making sure to tune in this weekend. you can watch the video of cedar rapids and all the cities we have visited on our cease and cities tour website. from virginia, patty is next up,

democrats line. thanks for waiting. caller:hi, can you hear me ok? host: you are on, go ahead. caller: i understand people are frustrated about what they perceive as an influx of immigrants that this society is not ready to take care of and that they think we need to take care of and that they are draining our social security. i under stand -- understand people perceive there is a problem. however, obama administration policies led to a steep decline in immigration flows and an increase in sending them back home. we were on the right track. buttonicks this hot let's get everyone angry about an issue that was actually under emergencypins up this

urgency we are being invaded insane rhetoric and i am shocked at the people calling in this morning and their lack of understanding of government, lack of understanding of the practical problems with a wall they think is going to be impenetrable. trumpreally shocked that has brainwashed these people to the point where they are ready to give up balance of powers, like high school government 101, this is how our government maintains control in the executive branch. host: that is patty in virginia. from pennsylvania, republican line, dwight, hello. caller: my first point is i think the most weight should be given to the citizens of texas, arizona, new mexico, and california dealing with this issue and we should pay

attention to their opinions the most. i do not see this as an absolute crisis. trump himself said it could be done more slowly. i applaud my senator, to me, for taking that stand and having some control over this. we need to address this as a humanitarian crisis, it is much larger than that border. we have a huge influx of drugs from airplanes and submarines all over our ocean borders and the canadian border. host: the last caller from pennsylvania made the cases and said the vote could cost senator to me politically. do you think that is the case? caller: not on my part. it may, but i support his controlling of the process. call for this topic. in our next hour, two guests are

joining us to talk about the college admissions scandal that we heard about this weekend and the implication it has for college admissions. mary amselem and michelle cooper will join us for that discussion. ivo -- mary schaivo will discuss the recent 737 maxg of boeings aircraft and the role the government and industry play. that is coming up when the washington journal continues. ♪ >> we are happy to announce the winners of this year's c-span studentcam video documentary, titian. answering -- competition. answering the question what does it mean to be american? we received 3000 injuries -- entries from 48 states.

congratulations to all of our winners. our first prize middle school winners are even chan and hana lee from eastern middle school in silver spring, maryland. industry andood companies like burger king and wendy's and a -- kfc serve. it is something that provides our nations value and is part of what makes us america. >> our first prize high school and to justin winningham luke from winter park high school in winter park, florida. honoring america's right to a free press. they are also our fan favorite winners and one an extra $500. extra $500. >> being an american is so much

more than our national pride. >> amid the flurry of fake news and other media controversy, we forget the important role journalism plays in our nations survival. winners are jacob and riley. from urbandale high school in urbandale, iowa. >> did you know that it is almost the 50th anniversary of the tinker of the des moines court case. >> it helped give first amendment rights to students. john and mary beth tinker were armbands, leading to their suspension. >> first prize for high school west goes to christian and avery from william j palmer high school in colorado springs, colorado. for what it means to be american, voting. importantthe most ideals implement it in american government was that every man is represented. this is what makes us american. voting.

the concept that everyone who was affected by government can sustain their government. >> the grand prize winners of from0 are mason and eli the international academy of north texas for their video, what it means to be american. >> our american institution is one of the most unique in the world where students have the powers vested in them to hold the government accountable. the greatest thing about the issue of corruption in the united states is the citizens -- areost cases, people willing to recognize the nation's fault when the politicians do not. >> c-span has given away $1 million in total prizes to the winners of our student cam video documentary competition over the last 15 years. the top 20 will air on c-span in april. you can watch every documentary online at studentcam.org.

>> washington journal continues. us totwo guests joining talk about the college admissions scandal. we are joined by mary and slum -- mary amselem and michelle cooper. thank you for joining us today. we both know the incidents. let me start with your staff reaction of what you thought -- snap reaction of what you thought and what are the invocations. guest: when i heard about the current scandal, i was not surprised about it. these issues have been a long-standing and certainly there are many flaws in our college admissions progress -- process as well as our higher education system. they disadvantaged students of color and low income students. i was not terribly surprised, continually disappointed but not surprised.

guest: when i first heard about the scandal, it was concerning for all americans watching. it should not be shocking. we have long had a higher education system that favors the elite in our country. fact andins the indicates what a society we have. maybe americans should be thinking about college alternatives. host: expand on that. guest: we have one option for students after high school. we are telling them go to college. we are seeing that the college system is ingrained in a lot of these scandals we are seeing. we are seeing a lot of students graduate without skills necessary to obtain different jobs. we might need to think about jobs that create a dream line -- streamlined between -- streamlined. guest: i want to make sure we do not do, unconsciously, create pathways for the rich and the poor.

without some intentionality, that could easily happen. parents may not have made that top school, what would you say to them, concerning the process, overall? guest: what this scandal has brought to life for us -- like is -- light is the way the families have engaged in extreme and illegal behavior. we still have legal practices that favor the elites. the early admissions process. the legacy admissions process. we have financial aid policies we could be what doing for low income students. that is at the higher end level. we have the problems -- these problems at the k-12 level. you may not have access to counselors or access to someone who can give you test prep and tutoring that can make your applications far more competitive.

so, i think we need to be very aware that we are doing certain things on the legal side, as well as the practices we know others are engaging in illegally. host: what about the issues she described? are those concerns? guest: absently. these schools are getting blank checks from washington. that does fuel a lot of the bad behavior americans are looking at. i think if we put a check on some of that money and put some ifnward pressure on prices, students are willing to walk options,pursue other we might see schools be more for students. host: if you have questions for them and ask them about the scandal or process, (202) 748-8000 --(202) 748-8001, if you are an educator. (202) 748-8000 if you are a student.

and (202) 748-8002, if you are someone else. of what wast presented and we will get your response. >> this case is about the widening corruption of elite college admissions, due to steady application of wealth, designed with fraud. there can be no separate college admissions system for the wealthy. and there will not be eight separate criminal justice system either. justicearate criminal system either. thousands of hard-working students strive for admission to elite schools. as every parent knows, these students work harder and harder every year in a system that appears to grow more and more competitive every year. that system is a zero-sum game admitted student through fraud, and honest student was protected. host: he says there will be no separate college admissions for

the wealthy. is that something that can be monitored or reverse? -- reversed? guest: it is something americans want to see check. people can buy their way in. it is concerning. i am not a legal expert but it is clear that the law was broken. existing laws were broken. i hope we see those involved pay for that. host: ms. cooper? guest: i agree. what this underscores is that we have racial and socioeconomic termination within our higher education system. i have been studying this stuff for years and i know it exists. this is a blatant and clear example. it is hard to deny that this is something that is morally wrong and practically something we should not continue in our higher education system. we should not be creating this process and we know it does happen. we should be mindful of the fact we have incentives or institutions to continue this bad behavior. the rankings system is an

incentive to bring in wealthy individuals to improve the institutions rankings. we have how we deal with donors. anors can help to buy institution if they give the right amount of money. there are all of these various things. i want to keep us aware that we can solve the scandal and still have other problems if we do not be intentional about solving those too. host: were you surprised about the avenue of the testing system and the sports aspect, were you surprised? guest: not really. i am disappointed. i am certainly disappointed and i am disappointed because for every student that got in inappropriate he, that took a way a spot from a student who has worked hard. studied hard, went to school, took the tests and studied for the tests. all the things we told him or her to do and it still was not good enough. that as aat

reflection of something is wrong with me, i did not do the wrong thing. really, it is a broken system and the system does not serve you well. guest: absolutely. americans are 1.5 join dollars in student loan debt. trillion dollars in student loan debt. americans deserve to know it is going toward -- their money is going to be spent well. and the playing field is even. we are seeing that that is not the case. we need to be thinking about we working -- reworking our policies for higher education. michelle cooper of the institute for higher education policy joining us for this discussion. we have calls lined up for you. we will start with jane in connecticut. you are on with our guests, go ahead. caller: i have to take exception amselem's comment

with bachelor degree -- bachelors degree obsessions. this is a discussion about a scandal, not about seeking alternatives for education. that is just a complete misdirection of what the topic is. the real question i would like to see them answer is why do the privileged and the wealthy feel that they can have an advantage by going to a -- through a side door to have their spoonfed children enter into a high, elite college at the expense of all of those that are poor, or highly educated but do not have the means to get into the schools? was completely inappropriate to what the topic will -- is. host: let her respond to your question. guest: the two topics are related. no one wants to see the wealthy by their way into college. that is not fair but as long as we get a blank check to those

institutions, there is no incentive for them to change their behavior. we need to tighten the strings. think that everyone is outraged at the fact that these individuals were able to buy their way into these top-notch institutions. i have not yet heard of anyone who is not yet bothered by that fact. what i also want to make sure is we do not think this is only something happening at the elite. we did a report called inequities persist. we looked at public flagships. public flagships are doing this as well. we need to be mindful of how these policies, early admissions, things like legacy admissions are having a negative impact on low income, working-class and students of color. host: how do you change the idea of legacy admissions? guest: i think we have to work with the institutions. to your point, we should not withhold or wholeheartedly accept --

my hope is that this scandal provides us the catalyst for real change. ist: do you think the system so baked that you cannot make these changes? guest: we have an accreditation system that is hostile to innovation and change. which is why if you look from new york to california, our four year bachelor's degree schools look similar. we have an accreditation system ranked by washington. if we had more of a free market education and had that service and accountability measure, we might see it -- different institutions pop up more. that will not happen until we tackle our outdated accreditation system. guest: i agree that it needs improvement. that is clear. i worry about a free market. i feel like this incident is an example of what happens when you allow people to be obsessed with free markets and economic

outcomes and return on investments. it leads to bad and sometimes even immoral behavior. from the students and parents in virginia, jay, hello. caller: good morning. -- thereon for you is was a recent scandal at harvard where there were a bunch of who were being discredited against. what about the fact there is affirmative action and things that permit -- prevent students from being admitted to higher institutions? guest: the thing about affirmative action is that sony people believe affirmative action is taking a space away from somebody who is deserving of it and that black and white or latino kids who might benefit --

what the scandal has shown is that we cannot believe that. that is not true. that is not how affirmative action works. clearly, we cannot assume that people who are at these institutions are so much more deserving than people who are seeking to apply who have been blocked by years of discrimination. guest: i think the caller is correct that the asian american experience is a perfect example of unintended consequences that might come from affirmative action policies. if we are concerned about equal access to education, we would agree that that starts at the k-12 level. we want to ensure people have the chance to get through the door of a college university and we need to make sure they have choice options. host: when it comes to affirmative action, should it be part of the process of getting them into college? guest: that can defer, based on colleges. have someat we can unintended consequences that

come from prioritizing race and admissions. host: such as what? guest: the asian american extremes is a perfect one. when you pursue filling quotas in an admissions process, that might disadvantaged some students who are otherwise well-qualified. host: would you agree with that? guest: until racial discrimination is no longer a problem, there is a need for affirmative action. host: a journalist wrote this. they said that college admissions with mayor-based systems disappeared long ago. plenty of the competition and filled by many applicants against each other based on race. ms. cooper, what do think about that? guest: i would want to spend more time digesting everything that is there. what speaks to me immediately is

i am looking at the final part of it. we assume that there is not discrimination already in these processes. the whole quality of test scores or thinking, we have seen the scandal -- with the scandal that people are paying people to take the tests for them. i don't understand why we continue to create this idea that we have this meritocracy and that others who are of a different race or of a different income level need to do so much more. we need to jump through so many additional hoops and hurdles to prove our worthiness when we are working really hard. you have students who are working day in, day out, doing each and every thing they are supposed to do and they still have to come up against these hurdles time and time again. we see evidence of wealthy individuals going through side doors. that does not sit well with me and it should not sit well with the american people. guest: the solution is to provide more options. -- if the satwn

is shown to be raked, we should have multiple pathways. it does not make much sense that we have the sat and the act being the pure barriers to college admissions. guest: especially when we know they are racially biased. host: from connecticut, bill, go ahead. see -- the amount they put on was ridiculous. to other fair students, look at all of the deserving, white people that are denied a job because black people took them. it is probably thousands of them. host: to the students themselves, what should happen to the students that were entered through this program? should they be removed from the

school? guest: i used to work at an institution and they had to sign an honesty code of ethics. so, cheating and fraud violates that. it seems like that would be because for suspension and expulsion. guest: it is unclear how much the children would have to clean that. whatildren did not know their parents are doing, i would feel for them. was this an issue that celebrity's were involved or with the -- it had been an issue otherwise? guest: i think the celebrities status helps make it much bigger. and the thousands of millions of dollars that this gentleman who was the center of the scheme gained helped bring it to the forefront. for years, celebrity's have not been the focal point and we have done nothing. i think it is a great

opportunity for us to have a national conversation about the integrity of our institutions. host: in ohio, this is in our students and parents line. brendan, hello. caller: i wanted to ask about what the current lawsuit -- the , it applies lawsuit to 50 schools spending over $5,000. do you think these schools should be refunding these fees? and where should we go from here to protect the integrity of the admissions process? lawsuits, i am not aware of the specifics. the fbi is on top of this. they are digging deep. i spoke to a legal expert who says he thinks this is just the tip of the iceberg. we will need to dig deep and see how the scandal goes. if 50 people are already involved, i imagine this is something that has been going on for a long time. guest: i agree.

i am not familiar with the details of the lawsuit so i cannot speak to that. i agree with your sentiments that this is probably the tip of the iceberg. we will have to wait and see how this -- like host: from maryland, deborah, hi. morning, thank you for the topic. come to these things light, there is another area that needs addressing. i agree with the two ladies for sure that this brings light to various inequities and issues. they almost make the names not visible. the indicators that would say it is a boy or a girl, that might separate people. they base it all on credentials of theects that are part

equation. i wonder if that would help. i wanted to make a comment. in all of the answers as i am listening, believe it is ms. i hope i hope your -- have your name correct. i am hearing a constant issue about race. my sense is that in this country, racism is deep and strong and it is unfortunate and it is painful for anybody. in this particular discussion, it is coming from ms. cooper that white people are bad and that if you have money and you are white, god help you, you're obviously a bad person. that is not true. it is also not fair. it is extremely racist. people work hard. do white people have an easier time in certain areas? undoubtedly. is that incorrect, sure. we should all be equal all the time. because you come from some money or you are white and have some money, you are a white, privileged person and aren't you bad? guest: i am glad she pointed

that out because none of those things she said were intended in any of my commons. what i am talking about are the racial and economic injustices that are apparent in our higher education system. not that i am calling anyone a racist but i think we should be looking at our policies to see where we have unintentional bias toward people who are lower income and working class and people who are people of color. , as as something that worthy effort -- is a worthy effort for higher education and a lot of different industries. i am not calling anybody a racist. i am looking at the components of this scandal and what it means for higher education. host: what policy would you start with? guest: if i were an institution, what i would do at this moment, taking this as an opportunity to have an important conversation about equity within the institution, is look at policies that favor the elites. look at policies that really do from lowinder progress

income students. look at these policies and say , especiallyo better recognizing the demographics of today's college students. the demographics of today's college students, many of them are overwhelmingly low and moderate income students. they are overwhelmingly people of color. they are overwhelmingly adults returning for their education. we need to see that our policies are supporting these students. nothing racist about that. i'm trying to figure out ways to support the students. host: where would you start, specifically? guest: i would start at admissions and financial aid. that is what helps students get into the door. i see nothing wrong with starting literally right there. that opportunity gives us a chance to talk about things like early admissions and legacy status. also looking at financial aid policies and institutional aid to see whether or not those aid dollars are being targeted toward the students with the

greatest need. in some cases, that is not happening. in many cases, that is not happening. in the cases that it is happening, it is not happening to the degree that is going to help low income families. host: where would you start, miss mary amselem? guest: i would put downward pressure on tuition prices. this is an enormous problem to solve. --ween 19 99, and 2016, the 19 99 and 2016, the admission price has more than double. i think we should absolutely start there. host: what do you think is the bigger striver of college costs? federal loans have encouraged colleges to raise tuition prices. not to sound like a broken record but i think we need to tighten the strings little bit. so that students have more options and have private lenders compete to have more students

with loans rather than have a guaranteed loan systems. host: will you cut off access to some of those students that she talked about? guest: hopefully that would not be the case. the private market only controls a 10% share of the markets. they are not offering competitive prices. the hope is that if we do have a competitive market for student loans, then lenders can come in and provide loans to students. again, the second tier of this is diversifying higher education options. ensuring students not only have a pathway to the four-year bachelor's degree but they can have online education courses. and high-quality options that we do not see right now. host: what do you think? guest: we actually have the private market involved in student federal loans and they were -- had the private market involved in student federal loans and they were taken out because they were not helping students pay loans in a timely

way. if we were to go back down that route, i do not support that, there would have to be lots of conversations about what are the guardrails to make sure we are not going to be repeating some of the problems that we have already seen. but to the point of round tuition costs, there is more constrained to be put on tuition costs. host: from st. louis, missouri, elizabeth, go ahead. caller: thank you, pedro. i am so grateful that you provide a forum for citizens that is open. lady of color, i would just say this. i am so, overwhelmingly grateful, that you are at least ,n the company of two people

one happens to be a caucasian, but they share and understand, better than you realize, the inequities. i give you kudos, all three of you for having this discussion and the courage it took the white woman to speak up. because it is hard, when you're white, to speak up against these things. --these obvious host: i think we get what -- where you're going. across all lines, do you think people are outraged, generally about this? guest: absolutely. as a country, we should not be afraid to have conversations about tough issues. that is probably one of our biggest problems. we are so quick to cut off certain conversations that make us uncomfortable. i think, to the caller's point

about being in the company of two individuals, there is a lot we all agree on and there are things we disagree on. we all know how to have conversations that create manners for several conversation and collective problem solving. if nothing else, maybe we should recognize that that is what we are trying to encourage institutions to do as well. we see that there is a problem. we see there are students hurting grade we know who these students are. we can do zip code analysis to find out where they probably live. why not start there? to's figure out -- not how pit person against person -- put figure out we are here to improve higher education systems. you brought up the testing system itself, what are your issues with it? guest: i am not an expert on all things related to testing but there are evidences that the

testing system does not work for some students. within the context of the scandal, they clearly see people were paying another individual to take the test for them so that that could give them a leg up in the college admissions process. that is clearly unfair. host: who are these students? guest: there has been evidence to show it is racially and culturally biased. i am not an expert on all things related to testing. in the context of the scandal, we see evidence that testing is something people are putting a lot of weight and if this is on. we need to figure out ways to make sure that folks do not make sure -- do not feel like they have to game the system. host: are colleges changing their tune as far as the sat and act? guest: i think a few. i am not sure about the actual number. a few of them have illuminated the test as a part of the admissions process completely. guest: i am not a testing expert

either but my impression is a lot of colleges are identifying the problems with the sat and act. we should talk about them. i am happy that there are celebrities involved in this case because it is giving us the opportunity to have a national discussion about this. guests, mary , welem and michelle cooper will talk for the next half hour on the college of -- topic of college admissions. caller: thank you for having me. i actually have a comment that i wanted to share. i am a recent graduate and i currently am a teacher in the 11th grade public school system. while we werethat having this conversation, things like this happen and this is directly related to when scandals erupt and it is

isticularly -- whether it rich or white, -- assuming affirmative action is taking away from people, people do not realize that affirmative is not that because you're black, you have a leg up and you can get in. they're still doing the testing that is necessary to get them to do -- into the university. institutions -- studies have shown the necessity for having different types of students in the classroom.

you are asking a question for students, instead of asking questions that students in the inner city will never experience. not asking them if they are able to acknowledge this skill. host: you put a lot out there. guest: i did not quite catch the question in there. i think that this gets back to the topic of equal access. i mentioned before, starting with our k-12 system is a great place to start because if we are failing them on the k12 letter -- level, not much matters when they walk through the institutions of higher education. oft: i think there are tons things we could be focusing on in k12. there are tons of things we need

to be focusing on in the higher end. have thee need to higher institutions take a hard "our ourthink about policies reflective of the kind of institution we say we are and the face we want to present to the society?" host: do you think changes need for sports scholarships and the like? guest: i am not the athletic person. [laughter] guest: i don't know. i don't really know the rules and regulations of how sports play into this. apparently, some of the scandal shows us that people saw that as an opening into the system, whether it was through rowing or something like that? you put another face on a different body. the things that were happening were egregious. that is appalling. we certainly should not be doing

that. if i am an institutional leader, i want to know what have i done, what are my practices, what kind of messages must i be conveying, even unintentionally, that would let someone think that is what they which -- should do to get into my institution? guest: i did not go to college on a sports scholarship, either. it is all about transparency for me. if you are touting yourself as a university that is all about academics and allows someone through a sports program, that is a problem. host: in maryland, an educator, hi. the commenter was speaking about affirmative action and i keep hearing about the asian experience. sometimes we lose sight of the fact that we have an expense as well. the applicant experience --

african experience led to the redistribution of wealth. thinking wels are need to diversify the number of students, i don't see any problem with that. number one. students should find other schools to go to, i totally disagree with that. income, --of low we fail to realize that some of towards are skewed students that graduated from elite colleges. tell -- to tell students they don't have to go to the colleges, there are people who will only look for those colleges. colleges, iflite they are truly invested in bringing in students that might not be able to afford to go to the school, they have to think about the investments or

adoption and high school and k-12 so they can provide the .esources to those schools learn theudents can things they need to do and also have the information to get into those colleges. you start. guest: i think the color is right that we need to look at the institutions of k-12. he said we need to have a proper investment in our schools. if you look at spending on k-12 education over the past few years, it has only gone up. we have not seen the needle move in test scores. i would encourage everyone to start thinking about maybe an investment is not the problem with our education system. maybe we need to be thinking have options in d.c. that done amazing things for students. host: ms. cooper?

guest: when we are talking about disenfranchised communities, we need to make sure we are investing in ways that make sense for those communities to get the proper leg up so that we do have an affordable playing field. whether or not you're adding various alternative programs, you still have to recognize that there are some students who are going through that traditional pipeline. we cannot let them slip and fall through the cracks. host: you mentioned a report your organization put together that highlights six universities. ohio state, indiana, the university of illinois at our bana, why did you highlight these schools? guest: we were looking at the great lakes region for that project. we were looking at their racial and socioeconomic diversity to figure out whether or not they were doing the things they could be doing to ensure that students from different racial and economic backgrounds were enrolled in their institutions. what we found was that there is

room for improvement. the findings that we saw at those flagships, you may find them at various other flagships all across the country. that is why we need to be opening this up to higher education, broadly and saying to our public and private, what are we doing unintentionally or intentionally to not serve these students? ihep.org. if you want to find that. legacy students, what is the issue and what is the concern? guest: your parents went to the institution. for many low income families, their parents did not go to college. that puts them at an immediate disadvantage because they do not have that on their application. they do not have an application they can fill out that says my mom or dad went to that school. host: what do you change? guest: i don't see a lot of value in it. if we are working to make sure

economic -- we have economic diversity. i am not sure how legacy helps that. host: what about legacy as part of the process? guest: colleges have the right to have autonomy over their admissions base. it is about transparency and offering other options. colleges know that students don't have other options out will continue these policies. if we talk about not liking these policies, may be colleges will change their tune. they will not do that until we have other options. host: does it take scandals like this to change thinking? guest: i hope that was not the case but sometimes, that is the way washington works. host: ms. cooper? guest: i wanted to talk about transparency. one of the things this scandal has shown us is what happens when colleges are not transparent. people can navigate the system because it is not clear and transparent enough for the average american to understand.

that is a problem. we need to be figuring out ways to show that we have the proper data and proper analytics that -- and that people know how to use these tools so they can see what is happening. that do you get a sense colleges put that information out there or is that something you have to find when it comes to those statistics? guest: the way the process works is that the more informed you are, the more you know. if you are a first generation college student and you are the first in your family to go down that path, you know less. you are probably also a student who was at a public school with a very high student of color ratio. counselore student to ratio is an average of one: 400. -- 1: 400.

so, we do not want to create provisions where people feel like the only way i can get in is by figuring out how to be in the system. host: how do you improve the transparency process? guest: our accreditation system is supposed to take care of that for us. it has fallen short of what americans would hope for. funds, ae federal school needs to be accredited. we are seeing that our accreditation system has failed to have that baseline quality insurance for students. students are trained to figure out information themselves. they are trying to figure out what the graduation rates are and how much debt they can expect to graduate with and what kind of job they will have after trade this is a broken system and we need to think about reforming it. host: -- guest: better quality data needs to be available to students. host: california is next. out our line is ajay, -- on our

line is a.j., hello. caller: i took the sat and there was copies of it floating around in 1990. it is the same old story, thank you. host: does the college floored -- board play in this as well? guest: it is unclear how much they were involved in the scandal itself. host: the testing system, that there is changes needed there. guest: yes. i touch on this before. -- we touched on this before. the problem is because they have a monopoly over the system. if you want to have access to higher education, you must go through this process. the sat changes constantly. k-12 schools are common core and if you do not go to one of those schools, you have problems with the sat. we need to think about creating more tests.

host: let's go to d.c., an educator, this is mark, hello. caller: thank you for taking my call. hopefully i can open up the discussion able to bed. i have a question. my first question is what is it about right now and this time that has caused the federal government to prosecute individuals for water being wet? within the fabric of the constitution, it is a social construct -- contract saying we hold these truths to be self-evident that everyone be equal. they killed an individual. to have sex with an individual is to understand that individual is a human. the constitution is an invalid contract. the only way to get rid of fraud is to rewrite the constitution. host: how does this apply to the

college admissions process? guest: -- caller: high-level education results in jobs. parcel bias is part and -- host: anything to add to that? guest: not really. here's betsy devos'take on this. she said it is disgraceful to see anyone breaking the law that gives a children an advantage over all others -- others. any comfort in that? guest: is encouraging. i am glad she issued that statement. i am hopeful that when she looks into this, they will look into it, starting with that frame of how are we serving today's students. guest: i think the color touched on this a bit at the beginning.

this is not simply a situation where my student went to this school, i will donate to your library, that has gone on for a very long time. this is quite a different story. i think it is important to underscore that. ais was a group of parents in very elaborate scheme where they have this fixer go and bribe prompters of sat taking and photo shopping pictures, this was a different thing than what we are used to. the law was certainly broken here. it is encouraging to see the secretary commenting on it. host: from ohio, ben, go ahead. guest: -- caller: thanks, pedro. the dots are connected as far as student loans that happen to be

backed by the interest paid by the government. i am not seeing how this can be a good thing for the students. do that,ahead and we it will increase the principal right away. it is going to be very expensive. government currently makes money on student loans. the meaning to cut this. thanks for listening. guest: i think it is great that we are bringing the conversation back to student loans. marketvate, student loan , before, the government was subsidizing. it was a far cry from the free market we would love to see. if we do have multiple, private lenders, they would compete like they do in our economy to offer

the best price for students. interest rates are arbitrarily set by congress and students have little control over what happens there. a reemerging of that space, the federal government would have to step back. we would have a variety of options for students and we would see prices go down. guest: right now, the average student loan debt is close to $29,000 a year. i am tired of seeing that number inched up each year. that is a problem that we all would agree needs to be fixed. we need to start on the front end of looking at college financing policies and how can we reform the system so that the system works better for students. we talked earlier about tuition status. --alked about the need-based we need to be looking at what are the levers that we can pull to relywe do not have on student loans at all. from low income

families are required to pay 150% -- 157% of their family's income to stay in college. for a high income kid, that is 14%. that discrepancy is huge. higher education is replicating the have and have-nots system. that is not supposed to be the case. it is supposed to be the great equalizer. let's look at the financial policies on the front end because student loans is something that happens to us as a result of the policies that happen. host: where do you start? guest: i am looking at tuition. i am looking at merit aid and the merit-based aid. is it something we need when we know that our lowest income families are having a heavy burden. host: as far as looking at these front ends, is it about how much is awarded? guest: how much does college

cost, how much does it need to cost and how much do we help students finance it? guest: i have been looking at income share agreements. purdue has them playing with it. i find this really exciting. the school is heavily incentivized to make sure a student is getting the best education possible because then they get paid more. that kind of skin in the game is badly needed. it highlights the fact that colleges are being -- not being held accountable. if we have income share agreements, students are not taking out huge loans and paying a manageable percentage of their income once they graduate, i think that is the way forward. , hello.om new york, kay caller: i feel like we are missing a much larger picture in our discussion. attorney, i focused on the 50 plus parents who were

blatantly violating our criminal laws. ofse were tightened in many our industries. the food industry, the fashion industry. the one i find particularly ofcerning was the cochair one of our top law firms in this country. this person rose to the top of violatedirm and then our criminal laws. tohink this is speaking pervasive corruption in our country at all levels. it is not just our educational institution. i did not have the privilege because i grew up poor, in a rural area. host: what would you like to address to our at -- guest when it comes to -- guests when it comes to college tuition? caller: i think the system

completely needs to be reformed from the bottom up. it does not work for poor people at all. i suppose that is not the first time you have heard the system needs to be reformed. you have suggested as much. guest: i am glad to hear people calling in. it shows that everyone is frustrated and everyone is fed up. i really hope that we can all use this moment as a catalyst to do something. and not continue -- when the news cycle ends next week or two -- we do not go back as business as usual. many peoplee are who have known about this who have been frustrated for quite some time. the fact that it is now out in the open and the fbi is involved, it has given it a bigger headline. it allows people to talk about

it in ways that i do not think we were talking about it last week. guest: i think this has been a trend for a long time in this scandal puts a cherry on top with the frustration americans have with college these days. and --us said go hard work hard and go to college and more and more parents are seeing christ is happening on college campuses today. they are seeing students graduate with skills that don't match the skills they need in the workforce. i think people are fed up with the system and want to see it reformed. host: matt is from connecticut. caller: thank you for taking my call. a great topic. one comment and two questions related to the things we have been discussed. the comment is, like most americans, i am disappointed when this came out but not surprised. when you look into how members of congress get children into

schools -- istwo questions, there discussion about costs. the tuition costs are going to keep going up. like to hear comments on the specific costs of college. if you do these tours and you take your kid on the tour of the college, you will see that there are elaborate practice facilities, which is great. they have cafeterias that are 24/7. they have a major for about everything. even though the 80-20 rule applies. host: cost being what factor, what is the other? is is: the last question there somewhere you can go, she talks about accreditation being broken, you cannot figure out the graduation rates for

specific degrees. if you get a degree from an engineering school, you will get a job. if your in degree x, you probably will not. guest: i think the color hit on a fantastic point. we are seeing a ton of money being imported to these universities and they are not necessarily being spent on high-quality faculty. they are being spent on dorm rooms and administrators rate that is not necessarily what students are signing up for. it is not what parents want to be paying for. they want to pay for their child's education. tightening the string on these programs would encourage focuses to desk colleges to focus on the academics. -- colleges to focus on the academics. the accreditation issue is important. we need to look at individual programs being accredited. it is a binary system. you are either credited or not. we might say your biology program is accredited but we

need to take a look at your literature program. that information should be readily available to students who want to apply. guest: i completely agree that we have a problem of transparency. the fact that the color is having to ask this kind of a question means we do not have that information readily available that he can easily find that out. that is a problem. money andost a lot of we should be more transparent. they should know about admission rates as well as non-tuition expenses, which have a big impact on how much students really have to pay for college. we have been talking about campus and the things that go into making that campus what it is. for a lot of low income students, they are struggling to pay tuition costs, as well as that room and board or whatever other nonacademic fees that come to mind. the rise ofr about

online universities and online colleges, does that you alleviate what is going on or does it produce more consequences? guest: i am not sure. even as we have other providers in the system, we still have to make sure the system is one of quality. until we are clear about the issues around transparency. , until we are clear about graduation rates and make that data readily and clearly available to students and families, then we are adding another component without addressing the problem of the system. online education is a fantastic option for students who do not have the financial means to travel or attend college. they can have access to the best economics professor in the country. that is an incredible thing we can do with our technology. remember, whento the scandal,are in they are looking at the brick-and-mortar institutions. we want to make sure we are

creating a quality system that anyone can take advantage of. one more call, in minnesota, sharon, hello. caller: thank you for the topic. i have two things. one, i do not find betsy devos' comments comforting. that is who she is. these kids who are a part of this scandal, they should not be allowed to be at the school. they should be booted out and start from square one. everybody has a fair shake. kick them out. they did not get in there fairly. let's see if they can try to do it the right way. host: you are both speaking to the college -- a student who is in the process of admin, what would you say to them? guest: i would tell them that college is a good opportunity. it is a way to have a good life. do not be swayed by what you see happening. continue to do the right thing.

us folks like the three of fix the system for them. guest: it will certainly take a long time for us to do that but hopefully we will get there. guest: we will start. guest: it is certainly discouraging for students applying to college to see the system is rigged. i would encourage students to still pursue their dreams, whether that is college or not. i would encourage them not to buy into the obsession we have host: mary claire is with the heritage foundation. heritage.org is the website to go to. michelle cooper of the institute for higher education policy, ihep.org. coming up, we will talk with the former transportation department mary schiavo.ral, schiav let conversation coming up on

"washington journal." ♪ angela examines russia's foreign policy and international goals in "putin's world." she is interviewed by the nevada democratic congresswoman who serves on the house foreign affairs committee. >> are you a little more optimistic that if we find common ground on arms control that we can be a partner with putin? >> his popularity has fallen by 40 points since he was elected last year. public opinion data show the majority of russians don't want civility -- they want change. they want a better economic situation. many understand that having this antagonistic relationship with the west is not the way to go if they want greater economic growth. sunday nightrwords

on c-span2. watch american history tv live on saturday. annual abraham lincoln symposium, hosted by the abraham lincoln institute and the ford's theatre society, brings together lincoln's colors to highlight the president's life, career and scholars toncoln highlight the president's life, career and legacy. nina on how lincoln was remembered in new deal america, david on lincoln's relationship with frederick douglass and michael on lincoln as president-elect. watch american history tv this weekend on c-span3. "> "washington journal continues. host: joining us now is mary

schiavo. she served as the former inspector general for the transportation department from 1990-1996, here to talk about airline safety and recent things considering a couple of boeing aircraft. good morning. guest: good morning. host: the front page of "the wall street journal" highlights the decision by the faa to ground the max 8 and max 9 from boeing. guest: it was long overdue and very necessary. the united that states could take a position that they cannot find anything wrong with the plane -- it was really a word game -- they took the position that there was nothing wrong with the plane, it was safe to fly, when two were -- the 250 people dead second, they don't know the cause for it. we had statements that looked completely insane to the rest of the world. for them to finally come into

line, i'm afraid it was too late. host: can you explain the statement from the faa and what you found wrong with it? guest: after the lion air crashback in the end of october promised ag had software fix and manuals update. they did the manuals update. foras a black box warning how to spot if this was occurring and then another part to determine what to do, how to troubleshoot it and turn off this system. they were also going to make software changes. that was the subject of an airways directive in december. it seemed to have fixed the problem. there was a great debate raging behind the scenes. are you going to put a limiter on the plane so that the nose

cannot go down more than a small deflection down when this occurs or could it go full nose down and the pilot can't overcome that? the human body doesn't have enough strength to pull that backup. this debate was still raging when on march 11, after the ethiopia crash, the faa issued in the statement we will order boeing to have this fix in place by april. it sounded like they had some sort of fix in place, but they didn't. the debate was raging on. behind the scenes, there was no resolution for what to do. southwest pilots were meeting with boeing. behind the scenes, they were doing one thing and on the surface, they were doing another. when they pronounced the plane was airworthy and they had no

reason to say otherwise, they were saying no one has bought the evidence on a silver platter. when we issued the airways certificate, we relied on boeing's inspectors and boeing told us it was ok. until we get some other evidence, we are not going to change our airways certificate. that is not the same thing as representing to the world that you are the foremost aviation safety agency. that is when they dealt of the image of the united states as the aviation leader of the world a blow. how much sway does boeing have to say these are the issues? what does it say about the current condition of the faa if boeing has that kind of say? guest: boeing has had that kind of sway for decades. boeing is not alone and really controlling the debate and

certification process. that's how the faa over the years has really deferred to the industry. we found the same thing back when i was inspector general. we looked at the certification process of the 777. the plane everyone came to love when it rolled off the assembly it had some glitches, too. it,ere tasked to look at the office of inspector general. i had a lot of great out-of-doors -- auditors. was selfated that 95% inspected by boeing. that might have been a good thing because the faa doesn't have that capability, but we found specific weaknesses. the faa was very inept at looking at overseeing,

inspecting, evaluating any software projects, be it a 7 with 150pl77 computers and 7 million lines of and max 9 arex 8 nexgenble -- or the highe air traffic control system. the faa was not very good at it. when we did the 777 review, they said that. we don't know if the code is any good. we don't know if the code works. we don't know if the software will do anything. all we did was look to see if boeing followed our procedures. that statement sums it up. it's not just boeing.

i don't mean to suggest that boeing has done something nefarious. s.at's the way the faa roll unfortunately, in this case, a lot of people died. host: if you want to ask our guest questions about aviation in the call 202-748-8000 eastern time zones, 202-748-8001 in mountain time zones. , when you hear the president say it takes an i.t. person to fly these planes, what is your reaction? guest: it really doesn't. the president is very busy. i assume he doesn't have time to dig deeply into the aviation safety statistics.

when every modern advancement with aircraft -- most of the life-saving ones have relied upon computers -- collision avoidance system, ground proximity warning systems, the advanced weather systems, microburst warning systems, the new air traffic control system, all of those advances have translated into improvements in safety statistics. have better models aviation safety records. you have toy that, crunch through a lot of numbers and statistics. those are lifesaving improvements and those rely upon computers. you don't have to be an m.i.t. rocket scientist to fly. i got my flight training before i went to law school.

i'm not a rocket scientist. you don't have to be that to fly a plane. youryou do have to have is aircraft manual has to tell you and your training has to tell you everything that can affect your flight control of that plane. that comes back to the 737 max 8 and max 9. before the indonesia air crash, the pilots were not told that the plane itself would take over and the pilots cannot forcefully override that will nose down deflection -- full nose down deflection. that is a control issue with the plane and the pilots should have been told. host: can you explain how manuals come into this? if you are in the middle of the situation, how does that work? guest: a quote by donald douglas

, founder of douglas aircraft he always said, "when the weight of the paper equals the weight of the plane, then you can go flying." they are separately certified, separately improved. they are such an important part of that plane. i have worked plane crashes where a mistake in the manual down to the plane. -- downed the plane. to ther can be ascribed manual is not telling them what to do. i've had cases where diagrams were reversed in the manuals and no one had done a manuals check. the 737 has been around since 1967. the manual has been around since

19 627. you adapt the plane and change the plane and it gets better and you do other things to it. -- the manual has been around since 1967. when you make major changes, you have to have a manuals review to go back and say does this still make sense given what we've done to the plane. has anyone gone back to reevaluate the manuals? that will be one of the things investigators look at, whether those manuals have been updated. -- weed a plane crash found the manual started out as manual,air -- queen air then a king air manual -- there were errors in the manual that had been there for years, since the beginning. in that case, the manuals had

not had a major review process and overhaul. if you don't tell people how to do things, you cannot expect them to do it properly. system. check the trim trim system motor is on, it is working. it does not say check the directionality of the trim system. make sure the motor is running in the direction you commanded with the electric trip. you cannot expect people to guess what to do. they are busy professionals. you have to tell people in the manuals what to do. 202-748-8000 for the eastern and central time zones. 202-748-8001 for the mountain and pacific time zones. mark in kentucky starts us out. caller: i would like to ask to what extent are the current culture of deregulation in washington has caused this issue

with funding problems within the faa and their decision-making process. guest: great question. i've seen that over several decades. interpreted --s this is generalizing, of course -- deregulation was interpreted as a carte blanche. airlines and manufacturers believed they had much more freedom to chart the course of their operations, their developments of new planes, etc. the faa saw that as a cue that they should defer more to the industry. they did and they have. deregulation said to the faa that they are now in partnership with the airlines, the manufacturers and other aviation interests. you can find faa statements

where they say the airlines are theircustomers -- customers. they believe they are in partnership with the industry. deregulation set them -- send them cues that they aren't the cop on the beat anymore. they are one of the folks at the table in the industry. that is not their role. we have to have a cop on the beat. we can trust the airlines, we can trust boeing, but we also have to verify. that's what we expect, the american people expect. max disasters told the world that maybe we are verifying -- aren't verifying. deregulation plays into that. their vision of their mandate that they are a partner in the aviation industry plays into that. maybe the shutdown played into

that. i have a number of cases ongoing, we are waiting for parts to come back from the government, and the shutdown delayed that process. did it belay them working on the 737 max 8? the investigation will play that out. -- did it delay them working on the 737 max 8? host: what kind of information are you looking for from that box? these black heavens boxes are the newest versions of the black boxes. the cockpit voice recorder has 25 hours of recording. as we now know from the lion air 8ash, the first 737 max , that hadctober recordings of prior flights.

including ones where they had some problems and had written up problems in the squawk log. that gave them clues as to what was going on. of course, they had recordings of the lost flight. that 25 hours of recording will be valuable here because they will be able to hear if there any problems before. and precisely what the pilots were doing to fight this. did they have problems understanding the instructions? it will really give a picture of how a human being was approaching this software and control surface problem. the flight data recorders are really advanced, with 1000 parameters from various parts of the aircraft. this will give the investigators a split second by split-second

snapshot of what was going on. it will give them the cause of the crash. .s soon as they download it host: a viewer from twitter says is it the artificial intelligence crashing these planes or the humans trusting artificial intelligence crashing these planes? guest: it's what they call flight laws. human beings making decisions about what they want the planes to do by themselves. engines --ut the new that's what makes the max 8 so palatable -- they had new engines, it was supposed to be a better performing plane, more efficient, more powerful. they found the nose tended to pitch up, which is dangerous because it can stall the aircraft.

the human beings made the backion instead of going and looking at the balance issue, they decided to have the computer, they programmed the software into this system to counteract that basic weight and issuee issue -- imbalance by pushing the nose back down. they wrote the algorithms to do that. investigators will question that. was that a good thing for the faa to approve? correction, system the plane is not airworthy. they will be asking whether the humans made a mistake in saying that is a fix to this pitch a

problem.- pitch up host: another question from twitter -- i can use southwest, they made their statistics public, had 90,000 hours and 40,000 cycles, meaning takeoffs and landings. that gives you an idea from when airline. that's when airline -- one airline. there was an instrumentation problem in the cockpit and the angle of attack indicators were not agreeing. the reason this doesn't happen , you didn't have a malfunction of some of the instruments the system takes its cue from.

mcas read that as time to the trim nose down. jay inet's hear from new hampshire. are thesewas curious, new 737s still having cable surfaceson the flight or is it a fly by wire set up? deeply angryas about not having some information from the software manufacturers. can these planes be controlled from the ground? they are a combination. they are not a true fly by wire.

it was based on the traditional 737. , no passengerre aircraft are controlled from the ground. the federal aviation administration has tested that out. there have been test flights with large aircraft which could carry passengers. the faa test that capability a decade ago -- tested that capability a decade ago. maybe that's what the president meant when he said pilots wouldn't be necessary. they are now and they will be for the foreseeable future. that is not a capability of doing that. are not getting in a drone and just sitting there for the ride.

they do have to fly the plane and they do have the actual control services at their input. that's why they were angry they weren't told. school -- backd when i learned to fly, you could feel the plane. the touch on the controls told you an awful lot. there have been complaints that over time, that ability to have the touch on controls is gone. the safety statistics say over have the improvements helped and the statistics have gotten better. host: enough from washington. go ahead. -- edna from washington. caller: i read your book.

i'm just putting forth the idea that what government needs is to have people with better -- they don't have a lot of the technical knowledge support needed in all areas across our society. that includes everything from banking to agriculture to international studies. there doesn't seem to be enough thehe faa did not have people to really supervise the industry and say this type of software is likely to fail every so many cycles or so forth. we need better people at the top of our society. do to the would you faa as far as changes in light of what were talking about? guest: the caller is absolutely right.

i wrote about this in my book. the leadership changes so the faa-- i argued for administrators should have a term. during my time in government, i served under six or seven different administrators at the faa. they tended to be fairly political, they tended to have an airline background, sometimes not a technical background. they accepted at face value what their rank and file told him. sometimes, the rank-and-file is terrific. that's where your real expertise lies. somewhere up the chain, and usually turned into a political issue. interestsolitical follow the money. if a certain state or district

has an aviation interest, they will argue one way versus another. we called then congressman from a certain time, there was a bit of a brain drain and the faa deferred more to boeing. is tolution, of course, require these high standards of the faa. faa were secretive, circle the wagon agencies. they were suspicious about change -- it would take a culture change to get that going. 9/11 delta may blow -- delta them -- dealt them a blow. they were in charge of security and didn't do it. they lost a lot of people then,

too. they are still recovering from their past failures. it concern you that we still have an acting administrator? guest: it depends what that acting administrator does. i worked with many acting administrators. some were good, some were not. it depends on what his real constitution is, to make changes to make sure the faa is turned into a stellar cop on the or if they will continue to look at themselves as another partner at the table with boeing. perhaps the largest computerization software project in the world and the 5g network

integration and all that -- a huge undertaking. i don't think they are on top of it. host: from arizona, brian, go ahead. caller: the former inspector general's spot on with her comments about the evolution of tech hubs. i used to work on the maintenance side performing retrofits as a former boeing employee. we used to find errors in tech manuals, maintenance manuals that dated back 15 years to previous models of that same aircraft. the explanation was the government approved it without reviewing it because it's been in the manual for so many years. she sounds a spot on to me. thank you. guest: thank you.

i learned that by working a crash. that's often how you find the errors. it was a crash in massachusetts. there were these errors. that it takes loss-of-life to find these mistakes. there will be congressional hearings and they will address these issues. governmentderal requires of airlines is that they follow the federal government checklist. that is exactly true. they have a checklist of things they check when they look at an airline. most of this is performed by designated inspectors. when the faa inspector comes, they look to see if the inspector has checked all the boxes.

the airlines have a certificate manager, the overarching inspector. those inspectors are often colocated with the airline. the criticism of that system in the past has been that they have gotten cozy with the airline. i don't think that would disqualify an inspector, as long as the inspector is fully sndependent and fully reviewe everything being done. with thism we found it becameover time, very laissez-faire on the part of the faa and they rubberstamped the inspectors until something went wrong. then it's going back and retracing steps and playing catch up. by that time, the damage to the reputation has been done. formerur guest is the

inspector general for the faa, mary schiavo. john from cleveland. caller: with all of the software reliance, there is no reason why we cannot have backup measures as a last step. just like any privatization of free-market things, over time, the standardization of service for the airlines, some of them i do know one -- thing, when you cut corners and spend more money on advertising, the maintenance manuals are not kept up, they don't take care of the maintenance -- they cut

line and thebottom bonuses are the name of the game. the congressman go along with it. right.he's absolutely the evolution of the faa and inspection oversight is something that is not a good trend. this problem of making money versus oversight, that's why the faa needs to be independent. we had several issues we were investigating. we had a worldwide effort with undercover operation uncover bogus parts -- the faa put in writing and sent a letter, stop this investigation, this is hardly something the airlines need when

they are drowning in red ink. we didn't stop. it was stunning to me that they wanted to do this balancing act and come down on the side of the economics for the airline. that was back in the 1990's. it does get in the way. you need very independent but people who are enforcement minded. they don't mind being a cop. the faa doesn't like to be a cop. guest: from ohio -- host: from ohio, rich. caller: great discussions. thathing that seems to be the black box ask exist -- boxes --st, we don't have them yet it should be required that in 24

hours, they get back to where they should be so we can diagnose it. switches from weual to automated because will run into a lot of places where computers are involved. we had that problem right now. we have off switches that are visible. if something went wrong, i'm shutting off the machines. problem onairbag cars. turn itas allowed to off because the insurance wouldn't let it happen. i love the comments on the black boxes. last october, i was at the international conference of

plane crash investigators. the issue at that conference was black box technology and next-generation black boxes. to be at that conference when the world is searching for black boxes at the bottom of the ocean focusagain, a lot of technology sog there will be one continuous streaming of data, which airlines complain about because it is expensive, or having a system so that when the airline is in trouble, the black box sends its data and the data is streamed so the airline hasn't. -- has it. they stream data back and forth already. but not to the extent that the black box does.

they will make it so you have the data immediately when something goes wrong and you don't have the chance of losing the black box at the bottom of not survivingr or a fire. that's the next generation technology they are working on now. the other thing that was discussed with having injectable black box -- injectable black box, iejectable black don't think that's the solution. black box technology is perhaps on the cusp of getting better. host: how much is done by computer and how much is with a hand on the stick? guest: depends how you want to fly. right now -- it depends on if the airline orders the plane this way.

the whole thing can be done by computer. most pilots hand fly to take off and land. the asiana crash in san thecisco six years ago, problem they got into, that was the one that hit the seawall coming in, they had a problem, they were flying it but had switched off some equipment but didn't realize the speed production computer was no longer functioning. you are to make sure not relying on the computer to do something you should be doing if you hand fly. visual approaches, we had the other incident where an air onada flight almost landed top of several airplanes on the taxiway.

you have to take the place of a whole lot of instruments and keep doing that visual instruments we sweep. illinois, maria. caller: hi. heard,tion -- i haven't into do have a young adult computers -- will the investigation be able to show in either of these two accidents whether or not the software was hacked? wereere a real concern serious thought -- or serious thought about while planes are in flight, on the computer

that there's hacking ability to create havoc for the pilot? guest: absolutely. i'm glad you brought that up. there is tremendous concern in the industry about the ability to hack air traffic control, aircraft, airports, the ability to hack into those systems. that's a huge worry for the air traffic control system nexgen, something called adsb, which will keep planes separated all around the globe. there's tremendous worry about that. to insulate those systems from hacking and determine hack attempts on the system -- that is being built into the system. that protection has to be there. the same thing on the aircraft.

whether the investigators will be able to tell if the plane was hacked -- they will. they will be able to tell from the black boxes where the command inputs came from. host: from michigan, this is philip. think groupou decision-making will become mandatory in the future? how do you feel about the challenger going down because the administrators failed to look at the information properly to save the people from dying? absolutely. it does take a bunch. that's why the industry and the faa -- we credit the ntsb for this one -- that's why crew resource management is mandatory in the cockpit.

you have to be discussing with each other if someone raises a concern -- if one of the pilots ,ays we need to do a go around you have to act on that. by requiring that challenging, aviation has gotten safer because of that. they called for years for mandating this system in the cockpits. this constant challenging and reviewing of different decisions along the way. that is something the faa oversight inspectors need to look at. not only that they checked every box, but how they get to the point where they say we did this process. the processes themselves are supposed to be approved by the faa certification process. how youcompletely,

arrive at your decision is sometimes as important as your decision. host: john from kansas. caller: the boeing -- up until the early 2000's, it spent a lot of money on research and development. when they moved to chicago, they became more interested in the finances and big dividends for everybody. they forced their research and development onto their suppliers . foreign for the 787. change.here was a i think the change came before the 787. and the just-in-time deliveries came with the 777. there's a movie about that.

they had hundreds of suppliers around the world and they were in charge of -- they took the specs from boeing, but they created and produced and delivered just-in-time for assembly. boeing was proud of the fact that that was a global aircraft differentrom 157 major companies from around the world -- i used to know the country count on that -- it was a different approach to assembling aircraft. and all theattle suppliers and designers in one area. it became an extended process. to the far-flung corners of the earth. boeing was proud of that process, a lot of people worried .

maintenance is now outsourced. the majority outside of the united states now. we had a very important case we worked where it was bogus parts, it was a mechanic for united that spotted it because he worked on this particular part of the airplane for 26 years and he knew exactly what it was supposed to look like. that technology, that capability, all those great minds are now largely outside the u.s.. that is a blow to our industry. it might affect our position as the aviation nation of the world. served fromchiavo 1990-1996. we thank you for your time this morning. guest: thank you. host: we will go back to the question we started with.

the senatete side, rejecting that emergency declaration by president trump. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. if you want to call and share your thoughts, it was 12 senate republicans banding together to deliver president trump the biggest rebuke of his presidency, voting to disapprove of his emergency declaration for the southern border. one of those senders, senator mike lee of utah. >> it is surrender. surrender to the kind of monarchical and abusive sort of government that our founding fathers were trying to protect us from. political elites often reassure other thatsure each these deviations from

constitutional norms are somehow victimless endeavors. no one cares about the process, they insist. the constitution is all process. that's the whole point. the constitution doesn't resolve our political differences. it lays out the process by which we are supposed to solve them. lingo suicide is not resolve our disagreements. it escalates them. does not those aside resolve our disagreements. wouldocratic colleagues have us believe that this boat is about -- vote is about president trump alone. it's not. it's about much more than him, much more than them. feel forral elites centralist power. host: mike lee one of 12 voting including susan

collins of maine, jay moran of kansas, lisa murkowski of alaska, rand paul of kentucky, mitt romney of utah, marco rubio from florida and roger wicker of mississippi. the usa today editors highlight the 12 republicans and the other 41 in the mix yesterday, saying approved donald 's national emergency aimed at redirecting billions of tax dollars to fund his portable. -- his border wall.

the veto is expected in later march. line,higan, independent we will hear from brian. hello. caller: i left saudi arabia in 1981. we had a great conversation -- i war withinld be in a that region in 20 years. home, when i was stateside, i knew our biggest security problem wasn't with the latinos or mexican people at the border. that was our most vulnerable point. this has been going on in my

head for 37 years now. we have to decide whether we will remain a sovereign nation or not. host: relate that to the actions the senate took yesterday. caller: they are lightweights. they are showing that we do not wish to remain a sovereign nation that controls its borders. the amount of people we have here that we cannot afford -- we are below water. we cannot afford these people. we haven't even put a dollar amount to how much it costs. my nieces are latino. this is not against anyone. host: let's hear from sylvia and virginia. republican line. -- in virginia. caller: i believe the republicans that voted no were in the right. we don't want to end up like venezuela. we need to be taking extra money and going down there and assisting them with their horrific problems.

relateow do you yesterday to ending up like venezuela? caller: the executive branch has too much power. i believe i republicans are stopping that -- our republicans are stopping that. with too muchp power. it's human to want to much power . -- too much power. we could have the same problems that venezuela has now. host: from texas, democrats line, charlie is next. caller: being from texas, i'm a little more familiar with border security than a lot of people give us credit for. i know there's some things going on down there that i don't agree with, but i disagree with trump using the emergency funding to

try to build a border wall that i don't think we need. i think we can do it with other means by electronic surveillance or whatever to get that accomplished. i think it's a waste of money, time and effort. host: independent line next. this is from delaware. roland, go ahead. caller: i'm an independent voter. i'm going both ways. i go for the person i think is going to do a good job. i've been on that border. i have family down there. i've seen what's going on. i know the people coming across , that we have a serious problem. anybody that thinks one million people plus coming into the country illegally is ok obviously has screws loose.

enough of all this democrats and republicans fighting each other over this. we have to have it. we also have to have security for this country. i'm seriously concerned about china and the military and what they are doing to this country. if we don't step on these google and these guys who are helping them out, we will go down the tubes. host: roland talking about the events in the senate yesterday. you can add your comments in the time we have left. 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 for republicans. independents, 202-748-8002. this is from reuters. the u.s. hopeful that it can continue to hold denuclearization talks with north korea. officials saying north korea may suspend negotiations. >> do you think the attacks on

y hamper your ability to have negotiations? you ofatly accused creating an atmosphere of mistrust and hostility. >> first off, they are wrong about that. there. we have detailed conversations. the counterpart the north koreans have put forward for me -- i have a vague recollection -- from a visit previously. we've had professional ourersations to represent respective countries. host: the president sending out a tweet when it comes to the

shootings in new zealand. 49 innocent people have so senselessly died -- the u.s. stands by new zealand. firing intimacy. republican line -- byron in tennessee. republican line. caller: they have a daily chart that shows the cost for the illegal aliens that is updated daily. about $54 it's billion, that is billion with a b. c-span needs to get someone from to have them present this and show exactly what's costing -- host: as far as the actions in the senate yesterday? what did you think about that? caller: i disagree with it.

i support president trump. i think we need to close our borders. that's a definite thing that needs to be done. we are a sovereign nation. we need to act like it. host: samantha in washington, d.c. caller: i'm calling because americans don't want to know the history worldwide -- this man is a precursor to what the brownshirts and had learned that did.r's -- and hitler we have people calling and spewing a level of hatred set out by the perpetrator in the white house. host: how did that relate to the actions yesterday in the senate? caller: finally, congress has awakened to the fact that they wild over our run

constitution. he doesn't care about the constitution. washington,y in north carolina, i believe. go ahead. caller: i would like to say i appreciate the republicans who stepped forward to block trump and his grab for power. they looked at the alignment between him and putin and saul how you in -- and saw putin had just grabbed power. they realized they were going to lose their seats come 2020 and they didn't want to see the democrats do the same thing. i'm an independent voter. i vote both ways.

12 -- respect for the follow what our statue of liberty says. send your hungry, send your scared -- i want us to be america. the america that was great before. saying lindsey graham blocked a resolution calling for robert mueller's report to be made public after it passed the house unanimously house 420-0. the reason the good special counsel's report shouldn't be made public." that prompted a tweet from president trump saying if there acknowledged and

his appointment was made by the the special -- counsel should have never been appointed and there should be no report. russian collusion was nothing -- utah is next. robert, go ahead. what did you think of the votes of senator lee ann romney -- lee and romney? d- senators lee an romney? caller: i respect senator lee. i stands on his grounds -- believe the rest of the republicans are just doing it

out of hatred for trump. they have no real love for this country. i'm listening to your other colors. -- other callers. they are talking about how much trumpets and all of this -- trump hates and all of this. what they are spewing, themselves, is nothing but hatred. host: last call on this program. thank you for watching. we will see you tomorrow. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] ♪ >> c-span, where history unfolds

daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d c, and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. >> shootings took place in new zealand at two mosques full of worshipers attending friday prayers. here is a headline from "the new zealand herald." "christchurch terrorist act. 49 confirms that." -- confirmed dead." "many of those affected will be members of our migrant communities. new zealand is their home. they are us."

this from u.s. ambassador to new zealand scott brown. "we stand with our kiwi friends and neighbors and our prayers are with you." secretary of state mike pompeo spoke about the shooting a short time ago. sec. pompeo: i want to offer my personal condolences to the people of new zealand in the wake of the mosque attacks in christchurch. united states condemns this hateful assault. we pledge our unwavering solidarity with the people and government of new zealand in this hour of darkness, and we stand ready to offer any and all assistance. on the like to comment votes to end support for saudi-led coalition fighting in yemen. we all want this conflict to end. we want to improve the dire humanitarian situation. but the trump administration fundamentally disagrees with

curbing our assistance for the 70-led coalition -- saudi-led coalition as a way to achieve these goals. the senators who voted aye said they want to end bombing in yemen and support human rights. whose human rights? lies, care about yemeni he was up for the saudi effort to keep yemen from turning into a puppet state of the republic of iran. you would want to stop iran-backed houthis from launching missiles into riyadh. lives inre about arab the region, you would support allied efforts to prevent iran le acrossnding ru the mediterranean sea. if you give about the livelihoods of people around the world, you would understand that iran and its proxies should not be allowed to control the shipping lanes that supply yemen. we are deeply aware of the humanitarian crisis in yemen,

and we deplore it. the united states has given more than $2 billion to help the youngi peoples -- yemeni since the start of the conflict. saudi arabia has given over $500 million in 201811 as pledged an additional $500 million this year. the islamic republic of iran has provided zero dollars for humanitarian assistance. yemeni to alleviate the people suffering is not to prolong the conflict by handicapping our partners in the fight, but to give the saudi-led coalition the support to defeat the rebels. i met with martin griffis yesterday. we hope that the agreements can be made to deescalate, but we must make sure that this crisis comes to an end. >> tonight on "newsmakers," larry kudlow, the president's chec