testifies that a sentence best at a senate subcommittee hearing on his agent see -- agency's 2020 budget request. republicans will bring up a measure to shorten the time allowed for debate on certain executive and judicial nominations. c-span3 the house judiciary committee holds a meeting on allowing subpoenas to be issued for former trump administration officials to testify on the mullah report. -- mueller report. a house oversight sub samiti here's -- subcommittee hears special testimony from the committee in charge of afghanistan reconstruction. up in 30 minutes, representative kim schrier of efforts to invalidate the affordable care act. at 8:30 a.m. eastern, debbie lesko talks about the

administration's border and immigration policy. and at 9:00 a.m., former u.s. ambassador to nato, ivo daalder, on the 70th anniversary of nato. [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: good morning. it is wednesday, april 3, 2019. in the house will be to briefly at 9:00 a.m. eastern to prepare for a session where jens stoltenberg will address members . the house judiciary committee will vote on whether to subpoena the full mother report and senate republicans -- full mueller report. we are also tracking congressional reaction to the president's threat to close the southern border. we begin the "washington journal " by asking which story you are most interested in today in

washington. republicans can call at 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. you can also catch up with us on social media. on twitter it is @cspanwj. on facebook it is facebook.com/cspan. a very good wednesday morning to you. we take you to the lead story this morning in today's washington times. it focuses on the president's threat to close the southern border. it puts the economy on the line. yesterday in the oval office at a meeting with the secretary-general of nato, president trump was asked about the economic impact of closing the border with mexico. [video clip] >> sure it will have a negative impact on the economy, it is one of the biggest trade deals in the world we have just done with the usmca. me, trading is very

important. security is what is most important. we have to have security. this is what this denim is all about to my right -- gentleman is all about to my right. we will have security in this country. all you will hear me talking about is trade. let me give you a secret, security is more important than trade. we will have a strong border, but we will have a closed border . when we close that border, we will stop hundreds of millions of dollars of drugs from coming in. tremendous amounts of drugs come through our southern border. i am totally prepared to do it. we will see what happens over the next few days. host: the president's border closure threat just one of the stories we are tracking today. we want to hear from you on phone lines as usual for republicans, democrats, and independents. when it comes to the idea of

closing the southern border, it was the topic of conversation on capitol hill. mitch mcconnell was asked about it and here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> the president has discussed closing the border. atwe certainly have a crisis the border, i think the president is right about that. closing the border would have potentially catastrophic economic impact on our country and i would hope we would not be doing that sort of thing. host: usa today this morning with a breakdown of some of the potential economic impacts in their money story on the front page of the money section of usa today. about $1.7 million in goods crossing the border every day, the effects would dwarf the fallout. the story notes the u.s. $300 million in goods

last year. $502 billion across the border in trucks and trains last year according to the commerce department. more than 13% of all u.s. imports come from mexico and shipments makeup a third of auto and auto part imports. .0% of imported fruits some discussion about the potential move the president talked about in recent days and it is just one story we are tracking in washington. plenty more going on including that joint session address by the secretary-general of nato this morning. the house judiciary committee meeting at 9:00 and you can watch that on c-span 3. they will vote on whether to subpoena the mueller report. senate republicans are moving closer to considering using the

nuclear option to speed up the process of president trump's nominees to lower judicial courts. phone lines are open. up first in brooklyn, new york. a democrat. go ahead. caller: good morning and thank you. i would connect the climate story to the mexican border issue. it is well-known from all the reports that the u.s. is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gases in the world and climate problems here and elsewhere and yet we are not taking responsibility for closing many of the long-term drafts in this country. there was a story on cbs last night that spoke to individual farmers driven off their rent -- their land because long-term crops were failing because of droughts. it is likely we are continuing

to those droughts. when we say we are going to close the border against people trying to flee these problems, it would be equivalent to setting a fire on your neighbor's property and charging them for trespassing for trying to escape the fire if your property is the only way out. we are causing that problem and we should be taking responsibility for abating climate gases -- greenhouse gases and adjusting our policies toward these countries to maybe help them invest more in solar and wind technology to replace the jobs they are losing in agriculture and help them stay on their own land. in the current policy of trump is just mindless. host: the topic you bring up fits into the discussion of washington. we are tracking the senate appropriations committee, they are hearing -- they are hearing with andrew wheeler. he will be going over the epa's budget proposal for fiscal 2020.

you can watch that on c-span 2. it gets underway early this morning, about 8:45 a.m. mary is up next in maryland, independent. good morning. what are you interested today in washington? talk about medicare and social security. i think some of the people pushing for medicare for all do not understand that social free given not a amount, that is money that comes out of the paycheck you work for. medicaid money comes out of that social security check, $138, i believe, or somewhere around that. if there is going to be free medicare for all, we are going to get back the money we put in it as working people that

contributed to medicare and the other thing is medicaid is different from medicare. i wish they would -- the people that are pushing medicare for all our confusing everything and the need to really look up whole medicare, social security, and medicaid system. thank you very much. ohio.kay is next in what story are you tracking today in washington? the lady agree with who just spoke on the medicare, social security issue. medicare is a pretty good scam going. hello? host: go ahead. caller: hello? host: we have to have what? ourer: we have to have paycheck -- every paycheck from the first one we get, money gets taken out for medicare and we are not even allowed to use that

insurance until we are 65. that's a pretty good billing process. the second thing i am going to comment on is closing the border . yes, we need to close the border and we need to change that when you are arrested, you get sent back to the country you are from. we need to investigate who is sponsoring the trucks bringing these people up and how many of these people are vaccinated? it's not a coincidence we have a measles outbreak with people who may be coming up without measles vaccinations. host: a lot of discussion the past couple of days has been the closing theact of border. does that concern you? are moreafety concerns important. we have a group of people working very hard and we have a oncework ethic and i think we get this mess cleaned up of

this silent invasion is what i call it, we can get back to doing what we do best, creating jobs and working hard. america is not the nation of immigrants, we are a nation of citizens and we need to be orderly. i cannot drive 70 miles to a school zone when it says i have to go 20 and there are two reasons i cannot do that. it is the law and it is a safety factor. host: when you say you want the border closed, how long do you want it closed for? iller: i think -- actually think we should stop sending money to mexico, venezuela, guatemala because only the people at the top of the jug of milk are getting money until they decide to have their own border. i believe we should close it until they handled this problem in their own countries first. ohio.that is kay in

we talked about the president's threats to cut off foreign aid to the northern triangle to honduras, el salvador, guatemala if you want to go back and watch that, c-span.org and you can search on the washington journal. you can search by dates on the washington journal as well at c-span.org. justin is next in oklahoma, republican. go ahead. sir.r: yes, my initial comment on the border shutting down. i am from a younger generation. looking at this as far as the economical standpoint, we should see about closing the border in my opinion for at least seven days to see where we would be at as far as this economical standpoint. journale wall street takes up this topic and they call the president's threat a potential blowing above the border saying president trump is threatening to shut down all

legal crossings at the u.s.-mexico border. let's hope this is a negotiating bluster and not a plan. it's hard to imagine a more self-destructive decision. a shutdown would distract of the real -- democrats,essure on not on innocent americans who benefit from legal order commerce. william is next in massachusetts, an independent. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: on the southern border, trump doesn't bluff. i don't know why he wants to do it because he ran on free-trade. understand is in the 1980's or 1990's, it was

like 8 pesos to one dollar. now it is 22 pesos to one dollar. the other point i don't get is cutting off the money to people in honduras and those triangle countries. if i am of municipality and i get money from the state or the government, i have to show how i spend it. can we see how they spend it? host: that is a topic we talked about yesterday about foreign aid. i would encourage you to go back if you are interested in that topic, spent about half an hour on it. you can watch the -- search the washington journal for all our programs. this joint session of congress will be taking place at 9:00. the house will gavel in briefly and prepare for that joint session. members will gather around 10:15 or 10:30 or so.

that joint session will begin at 11:00 today where members will hear from jens stoltenberg about the 70th anniversary of -- not the united nations, nato, the nato about the 70th anniversary of nato. here is one of the comments about the 70th anniversary. nato faces a resurgent cold war, is the headline, the column by david. russia has stepped up provocative military action and is increasingly aggressive. an interesting chart in the washington times today on a topic that has very much come up when it comes to nato, it's defense spending by countries, the nato guideline is each nato member spend 2% of gdp on military and defense spending.

the united states spent about 3.39 percent of gdp on defense spending. the other members of nato not living up to that 2% guideline. you can see all the way down the list to luxenberg that spent just .54% of gdp on defense spending. certainly a topic president trump has talked about before, his efforts to get nato members to contribute more of their gdp to defense spending. the president talked with jens stoltenberg in the united states yesterday about the united states's relationship with nato. [video clip] >> we have seven of the 28 countries currently current and the rest are trying to catch up and they will catch up and some of them have no problems because they have not been paying and they are very rich.

we are looking at the 2% of gdp level and at some point i think it will have to go higher than that. we are at a level of 7 out of the 28. the united states pays for a very big share of nato, a disproportionate share. the relationship with the secretary-general has been outstanding and i think tremendous progress has been made. you showed me this originally yourself, if you look at the charts and the different things and go back 10 and 15 years and it is a roller coaster ride down in terms of payment. since i came to office, it is a rocketship up. we picked up over 140 dollars of additional money and i think we will have 100 billion more in spending by the nations, the 28 nations who are going to have, another $100 billion by 2020 or

a little bit into 2020. tremendous progress has been made and nato is much stronger because of that progress and it is a great honor to have you with us at the white house, thank you. will that joint session take place at 11:00 a.m. this morning, 11:00 a.m. eastern and you can watch it here on c-span. william is up next -- bruce is next in alabama, a republican. go ahead. , i think donald trump ought to close the border. something has got to give with what is going on. all these people are getting dispersed around the country. he doesn't know where they are at and they show up for their trial, it is just a mess. i say close at and be done with two.for at least a year or

any trades with mexico, let it come by land or sea. it will be easier to find the drugs because it is either in the airplane or on the boat. line fortha, democrats, good morning. caller: my comment goes to the people who want to see the border closed. i am wondering if anybody bothers to look at the fruit and vegetables in the grocery store. they all come from south the border and we just went through nebraska with heavy rain and flooding due to the snow, something like 80% of the state was underwater. nebraska should be your wheat and your corn, i think. them.int is, we need we need the products coming through the border crossing. yes, give them the money and let them spend it on some x-ray

machine, some technical thing where they can scan every semi that goes through and no drugs will get through. i had another item. the united states shares a responsibility and what happened during world war ii after the concentration camps for the jewish and other religious people. after they were rescued, some of them stayed in those camps for as long as five years before countries would take them. the majority of them ended up going to israel five years after they were freed from the nazis. we have already been guilty of refugees.ng some anne frank's father bagged for people who knew him from his country to help him come to america with these two girls. they died in concentration

camps. anneved for years reading frank's diary. host: bring us to today and the 70th anniversary of nato because i think that is where you started. caller: i started with the border crossing being closed. host: right, in this topic. caller: on closing the border and a lot of people were calling in favor of it closing and i say we need the products from south of the border. host: that usa today story we referenced about the economic impacts talks about some of the fruits and vegetables and other products that might be impacted, most affected would-be avocados, the shortage would be acute because of the recent multistate avocado recall, a planting season that hasn't even begun in california and forecasts systeming a weak growing

. ground beef might also be in short supply. the price hike could be 10%. a border shutdown would cripple the produce industry in border cities like arizona where 60% of winter vegetables pass through daily headed to u.s. grocery stores and restaurants. that is from usa today if you want to read their wrapup of protect -- potential economic impact. linda in minnesota, go ahead. caller: i am a first time caller. this might be a comedic response or tongue-in-cheek, but when we first heard about president trump closing the border, the first thing that hit my mind was closing the whole border from texas to california? if he could close the whole border, what do we need walls for? does he think all the drug dealers and illegals are coming through border checkpoints? i don't understand how this is possible and to me it seems

ridiculous. the economic thing, i can understand. you have your trucks coming through the border checkpoints. the illegals and border dealers -- drug dealers are climbing over fences and coming through tunnels. how are you going to lime the whole border? if you can do that --close the whole border? and if you can do that easily, why do we need to spend billions? host: you can call in once a month on this program. 30 years -- 30 days from now, we would love to hear from you. michael is a republican, go ahead. caller: c-span and i just think this border situation is much worse than advertised on so many of our media outlets and it is huge. there were 100,000 apprehended or coming over last month.

i cannot remember how much as opposed to 60,000 was the high point all of last year. our border is being destabilized completely. by who? for what reason? i don't know, but i do think they want to destroy this country and there are so many risks associated with all these people coming over. we know what they are. i think the 10% increase in the price of vegetables is a small price to pay to maintain our sovereignty and prevent all these illegals from coming over. i think trump is doing the right thing. host: what would be? too much in your mind? ? you say it is a small price to pay, what would be the breaking point for you? caller: to me, there is no breaking point. this is a huge crisis humanitarian and otherwise.

there is some reason, and i don't know what it is. it is not just political refugees coming over. someone is encouraging this and i think it is a shame our politicians don't have the will to understand how important it is for any country to maintain its borders. host: that is michael in pennsylvania. we mentioned one of the other stories we are tracking is the ongoing movement of senate republicans towards possibly invoking the so-called nuclear option when it comes to speeding up the confirmation of president trump's nominees. roll call with a story about the action yesterday. the senate inched closer to using the nuclear option to slash the time for debate. senators blocked by a vote of 51-48 a -- an effort by this mcconnell to bring up a

resolution that would set a new standing order, the support of 60 senators would be needed to advance the debate. the resolution picked up steam as republicans fumed democrats periodically require the use of all 30 hours -- which mcconnell --oritized the nuclearof using option to cut off debate and streamlined that nomination process. here is some of the debate that played out on the senate floor. [video clip] to 1400 congress, 1200 positions require the senate's advice and consent. under this resolution, 277 of those would get the full 30

hours of debate and that would be, of course, the supreme court, circuit court, and cabinet level positions as well as people who serve like that. 277.is that leaves a bunch more, over 1000, that could only get two hours. two hours for what are lifetime appointments. hundreds of these positions. hundreds of these positions are lifetime appointments. i believe in this place they once called the world's greatest deliberative body, it is to back these people. it is our constitutional duty to fully vet our federal judges. men and women who receive

lifetime appointments to uphold the rule of law in america. it is our job to make sure the people who are nominated to the most senior positions in our government are competent and qualified. othershould respect each and acknowledge that if this body is going to do legislation and personnel, no one can lock up the body and demand 30 hours of time on a nominee when actually we use 4 minutes and 22 seconds. if we want to shift it off of judges and shift into executive nominees, recently, we had a demand for 30 hours of additional debate time from our democratic colleagues for the bureau of labor statistics nominee. they demanded extra time because they were so controversial. on this floor, there was exactly

zero minutes and zero seconds of .ebate on that actual nominee this is not about actually debating people whether qualified or not qualified. this is about preventing president trump from getting nominees by locking up the floor and making sure he cannot actually hire staff or put people on the courts. this will be reciprocated in the days ahead to every democrat president and will be done to every republican president in the future if we don't fix this now. host: some of the debate on the floor of the senate yesterday. we have a few minutes left in this segment to hear from you about what stories you are most interested in today in washington. jay is waiting in california, republican. go ahead. .aller: good morning, c-span i am a republican. i have never voted for a

democrat going back to gerald ford. i don't think people understand why these people are fleeing from honduras and guatemala and el salvador. it is because of the money sent down there by americans. americans for their illegal drug use that are feeding the gangs and the drug cartels and the violence and corruption in the military and the police and their government and they have no other alternative but to get the heck out of there. they are just poor people. when i hear president trump wants to close the border, i agree with that. i think we should build the walls. at the same time, we need to say we are not going to keep helping them with aid, we need to increase the aid. i don't know if we need to help them with military, but we need

to find a way to help them stop the problem that we are creating by sending billions of dollars. when you google it, how much illegal drug money goes to these andtries from the u.s. europe and other places -- host: what do you say to those folks when we talk about this aid and some of them called in yesterday when we talked about this on this program, that continuing aid is throwing good money after bad? caller: we need to find a better aid toprovide better -- the places it needs to be taken to. by taking away the aid just makes the life these people are living that much more dangerous by ouris caused addiction to illegal drugs and the government sends $500 million down there,

but americans send billions down there in illegal drug money. host: jay our last caller in this first segment of the "washington journal." turn ourwe will attention to the affordable care act with representative kim schrier of washington and later, we will talk to debbie lesko of arizona about immigration and border policy. we will be right back. ♪ c-span.or oncoming up this weekend book tv saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern, we are live in annapolis maryland for the annapolis book festival.

sunday at noon, financial author ad journalist joins us for live conversation about her books and career. at 9:00 p.m. eastern on "after words," vicky ward examines the anders of jared kushner ivanka trump. on q&a, douglas brinkley talks about his book "american moonshine: john f. kennedy in the great space race." >> he thought fdr's new deal was too big. what he did was beyond social security and things. he built the tba grand coulee dam and eisenhower had the highway system. kennedy is thinking what is my administration's big public works thing?

what i admire is he picked the right number, technology. the computer chip gets developed in the late 1950's. modern aviation starts kicking in. when jack kennedy runs in 1960, there are no computer science classes at universities. by the time he is killed in dallas, there are computer science classes everywhere. air travel is were placing automobile and train travel in many ways. .eople are flying many more it was the jet age and space age and kennedy made that the cornerstone of the new frontier. >> sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. >> "washington journal" continues. host: democrat kim schrier represents washington's 8th district. she spent 16 years as a pediatrician. when and why did you decide to politics?m --to

guest: i never planned on running from office, but the 2016 election was a turning point for me. as a pediatrician and a mom, i really think about the next generation of responsibility. whether that was health care, taking care of our planet and climate. ultimately, it was the attacks on health care that got me to run and i met with my congressman about that first trumpcare bill and how dangerous that would be for my patients. days later he voted for it and i decided to run against him. host: who was that? guest: that was dave reichert. host: you often say you believe health care is a right. what does that mean? guest:guest: i absolutely believe health care is a human right. whether we have the option to save our lives or surgery should

not depend on our wealth. i think that is a completely elitist view. to think a child who is poor should not have her appendix removed is wrong. host: what sort of services should be guaranteed if health care is a human right? guest: i think the affordable care act did this really well. they had 10 essential services that included primary care, immunizations, screening tests, those are the things we need covered. if we want to catch diseases early and have the best shot treating people and making sure they stay healthy, that is where you go. host: are you happy with the affordable care act? guest: i think it was a first step and it was a great go at a first step. -- i happen tole have type, 26 million people like me who otherwise could not

get or afford insurance suddenly had access to this peace of mind and life-saving ability that they did not have before. we are seeing that prices are too high and we still have very high prescription drug costs and they need to be worked on. we should not be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. host: if you want to join this conversation with democrat kim schrier, phone lines are open to do so. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, 202-748-8002. a series of tweets from the president from monday night talking about health care and the affordable care act. the president saying everyone agrees obamacare does not work, premiums and deductibles are far too high. all, whichre for would cause 180 million americans to lose their beloved private health insurance.

republicans are developing a great health care plan with far lower premiums and costs than obamacare. it will be far less expensive and much less usable than obamacare. a vote will be taken after election win republicans hold the senate and win back the house. republicans will also support pre-existing conditions. the republican party will be known as the party of great health care. in the meantime, the usa is doing that at than ever and respected. your thoughts? guest: how to impact that one? how about we watch what he does and not what he says. we have seen the cards that were on the table when he had the presidency and the house and the senate, they came up with two health-care plans both of which bombed. the american public said they did not like them and they wanted protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

those protections would be gone, they have shown us what they have and it does not respect the american consumers. we had a resounding result where people said we don't trust this administration. democrats want to give us health care and bring down costs. host: do you think health care will be an issue in the 2020 election? guest: it will absolutely be an issue and the president has made it more so by putting it on the table. if he has a plan, put it out now. if he wants the people to have the ability to make an informed decision, that needs to come out before the election so we have time to mull it over. host: kim schrier taking your phone calls. jennifer is up first in colorado, and independent. caller: good morning. guest: hi, jennifer. caller: hi, there. is ridiculous.et

sorry. guest: no need to apologize to me. caller: i was talking about trump's tweet, not you. guest: i know. caller: i am a retired nurse and there are things i watched for the better part of 38 years. a lot of waste, a lot of not diagnosing things right the first time. just incredible amounts of waste. withu combined the waste the greed and all those things, wayhave cost -- there is no to fix health care unless you fix the cost. when i hear someone who has a plan for that, i am just going to jump out of my shorts. i don't see how you are going to do that. gdp, one of the

last games in town that people can become extremely wealthy. if you have a position on that, i am willing to hear it. host: stay on the line for a second. congresswoman? guest: i think you bring up a really good point. there is a lot of talk about single-payer, all those things. the bottom line is we spend a lot on health care. we spent twice as much in this country. that is twice as much as they spend in canada. there is a fundamental problem about the cost of care in our country and it absolutely needs to be addressed because it does not really matter who is paying. high. cost is too it sounds like you have been a nurse for 18 years, i have been a pediatrician around that realm if you count residency, 20 years. there is an art of medicine, there is a science of medicine, and sometimes it takes a while

to get things right. i don't think that is ultimately the problem, but you are absolutely right the cost needs to be addressed. host: in your experience as a nurse, what was the biggest change when the affordable care act was implemented? what was the change you saw in the doctor's office? caller: can you ask that last little part again? host: what was the biggest change in your experience in the switchover from what was before the affordable care act until after it was implanted? i really didn't notice a big change in anything. stillll due respect, i argue with the congressmen respectfully that it is not efficient. the health care system is not efficient and no one cares because someone is going to pay for it in this country.

efficiency has to be improved and that is going to help control costs. greed.n, of course, the i did not really notice a huge change because i went to private insurance. i noticed a $300 to $400 a month again. my husband and i now pay $1300 a month because we are privately insured. increased cost and i don't really see that it improved. and i did love obama, by the way, but it did nothing. host: thanks for the call. guest: i would love to respond to that as well. i think you made some really good points, initially, cost came down and after this administration came in, some of the subsidies an individual mandates, stuff that really kept sabotaged andre

prices did escalate. i heard stories just like yours. a family in my district who earned just over that 4% of the poverty level, that area where you do not get anymore subsidies, they are paying on average $1300 a month for a family of four, which is not sustainable. last week we introduced legislation so no family pays more than 8.5% of their income on health care. that family would see their rate cut in half. that would be an astounding benefit and relieve a lot of the pressures on people who do not get subsidies under the affordable care act. host: danny is next in virginia, republican. good morning. caller: i agree with the last caller except for the obama statement. i am trying to figure out how is the affordable care act such a wonderful act when he said it was going to lower cost, when we

said we were going to keep our doctors and insurance companies. we lost everything. we lost all of our medical practitioners, we had to switch everything. we pay $4200 a year more. how does the congresswoman say cost went down and costs when down -- everything was great until trump came? i don't agree with everything trump does, but you cannot blame it on trump when everything started with obama and aca. guest: prices were increasing slowly, stabilized, and wants all of those protections were taken out, prices escalated. that is what you would expect an insurance company to do when all of a sudden their risk full goes up and they don't have insurance, they protect themselves. this is the role of government and these price controls are exactly why we did what we did last week saying this was a great first step and now we need

to do more to make sure americans are paying reasonable fee is to have health care coverage and that is where that 8.5% came from. for the people getting subsidies, they are doing great, but there is this large group of people who did not qualify and who are feeling that pain. host: bob in texas, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you very much. can you hear me ok? host: yes, i can. caller: first of all, let me thank you for "washington journal." it is the most wonderful program i have ever listened to. i don't have the expertise these ladies and gentlemen do about health care. i am 84 years old. i have been a carpenter for 64 of those years. i did learn to add and subtract and it just seems to me, i

cannot get my head around the fact that if you take away the most expensive part of health is -- are you ready? insurance companies. if you take that away, health care has got to come down. also, there is another thing that bothers me and i have seen it in my time. there is a lot of fraud and abuse in hospitals and some in doctors. you need to take that away. if you take the biggest cost of health care away, it has got to come down and i defy anybody to tell me insurance companies are not the biggest cost. thank you very much. guest: i think you make important points. numbers wise, i think we are all frustrated with overhead costs,

but i believe some of the bigger costs -- the cost of prescription drugs and care in general and our procedures and then the cost of care at the end of life. i think we need to look at how whiche use -- studies and ones. as jennifer pointed out, making sure we have electronic medical records that communicate so we don't have duplication of care. point you make is valid. host: jack from north dakota wants to know if you have read the obamacare legislation to see what is in it. guest: that is funny. the obamacare legislation is thousands of pages. what i know are the topline issues and all of the benefits -- a lot of what i see in my patients in terms of what they see in terms of elevated cost.

i am well aware of what is in obamacare even having not read all 3000 pages. host: the wall street journal but the headline talking about what president trump was talking about putting off the republican health care plan after -- until after 2020, but this lawsuit is moving forward in texas to overturn the affordable care act and we saw the trump administration change filings on that to support overturning the aca. can you talk about the future of the lawsuit and what that means in meantime? guest: it is incredibly worrisome. people in my district are --firmed that was ultimately the crocks of this, the part about protecting pre-existing conditions been -- from being priced out of the marketplace. it is worrisome. host: republican, good morning.

caller: high kind of find it ironic. number one, i thought obamacare was a joke. any time the government gets involved, they end up messing it up. every state in the united states has an insurance commissioner. if you have a problem with the way your insurance is being done, say pre-existing conditions, why don't the people go to their insurance commissioner, write letters and talk to them? the insurance commissioner can go to the state legislature and i think change the laws it would work a lot better -- private insurance if it is able to take and go across state lines. most states do not allow say louisiana to come into florida where you get the competition.

going back to your pre-existing conditions, i heard this and i think it is a falsehood. i have family members who are diabetics. they take shots, they take medicine, they have never, ever been denied coverage by the insurance company and it is private insurance. i grew up, i had allergies, i had asthma. i also lost my hearing in one of my ears. i have never, ever been turned down for health insurance coverage. i think it is a big fallacy that gotle go around and say i diabetes, so i have been denied coverage by the insurance company. of all, from when il experience,

graduated from my residency program like i mentioned, i have type 1 diabetes. i looked into going into private practice and it was so expensive that there is no way i could have done it. i have always worked for a large company in order to have insurance through my company and that is a case for so many people in this country. i consider myself lucky and i don't know exactly what your insurance story is, but you can have private insurance through an insurer and not have your declined.ned -- over time, things changed and insurance companies would do nefarious things like we will cover you, but we will not cover your pre-existing condition for the first 6 months. by having the affordable care act, we have gotten rid of this ability to be a bad actor and pretend you are in an insurance company and really covering

nothing. i saw it firsthand, i saw it as a pediatrician. our job is to protect people who are not having that good experience. host: the other issue you brought up is this idea of selling plans across state lines. guest: i think that is one option, but i have to tell you if i were an insurance company, i don't think i would be competing to take care of the sickest people in the country. when this is purely a free-market process without any toe of government in helping protect the people who most need protection, then people who are riskier investments will simply not be invested in. you have to look at it from the point of view of an insurance company. i know people talk about government being too big. when government works well,

medicare, let's take that as an example, people love medicare and now we have seniors who do not go bankrupt because of medical costs. people love social security for the same reason. we used to have seniors in poverty. when government works well, and i believe this is a government really can work well and work for the people in this country, i think we should all be grateful. host: herbert is next in maryland, a democrat. good morning. herbert, are you with us? we will go to reed in washington, line for republicans. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning, c-span. and good morning, mrs. schrier. i want to criticize c-span. if a caller is not on the line,

why shouldn't you stick to the same side of the aisle? host: if you want to know how it works, i have the next three calls lined in and there was not another democrat on the line, so i went for the next one, republican. we rotate through lines, but if there were, i could jump down and do that. thank you. caller: great. i stand corrected then, i thought that was different. i have a couple comments i want to make. first of all, the most important cost -- part is the cost is the problem. not the insurance companies. insurance companies make less than 3%, not to say there is not flaws in the design, but the representative said when government works well, this is a state issue, there is nothing in the constitution that permits the federal government to give i screamed to everyone. -- ice cream to everyone.

it belongs at the state level. pre-existingo conditions, if you are an insurance company -- if it is your money on the line and somebody wants to sign a policy and you know they have a catastrophic disease and they are going to start to pay you $500 a month or $1000 a month and immediately the bills are going to be $5,000 a month, tens of thousands of dollars for operations, how -- why should the government be forcing private business to write those policies? sort of like the policies where the obamacare policy required me to pay coverage for pregnancy and a woman to pay coverage for her prostate exam. that is -- that sort of one size fits all approach to health care is a total problem. we need this to go back to the states.

why doesn't the government make it tax-deductible? i spent $12,000 a year for health care coverage and with a $6,000 deductible which is almost doubled. why not allow us to have that deducted right off of our earned income credit? that helps people. thank you, c-span. guest: you raise a lot of important questions. i will start with what you said last, there are tax credits. we expanded those so people who buy insurance can take that benefit in their taxes. you also talked about the cost of care, i agree the cost of care in this country is too high. the issue of an insurance company and why would they take on a high risk patient is exactly why we need to have everybody participating. if you only have sick patients, patients who already know they need care buying into a system,

insurance companies will go under. that is the whole principle behind why we need to have everybody participating. the healthy 18-year-old will count of -- kind of counterbalance the 60-year-old with diabetes and that is how you minimize risk. the other thing that helps the insurance company that the affordable care act did was have a reinsurance program. if one insurance company happens to draw the short straw and get most of the people with severe illnesses, they have coverage. it distributes the risk and makes it so everybody in this country can get care that they can afford without breaking the system. host: we saw the president tweeting about putting off a new republican plan until after 2020. some democrats running have put out plans on things like medicare for all, a single-payer system. do you support that sort of

change to health care in this country? guest: here is what i think. one of my concerns is that we are having sort of a purity test in the democratic party right now and i believe there are lots of ways to bring down cost and make sure families don't go bankrupt because of their medical costs and that every family can afford the care they need. there are many ways to do this. i don't think we have the luxury of time to rollout a whole new system to blow up the system we have and the steps we took last week are big improvements again with making sure nobody pays more than eight point 5% of income on their health insurance . i have already proposed a public option, which is another great thing. there are two counties in my district where there is only one provider, which means there is a monopoly and no competition.

having a public option that in my bill is medicaid with an improved medicaid and improved reimbursement rate, that is one way to have competition and put pressure on cost and bring cost down. host: livingston in massachusetts, independent. good morning. there are three components to health care, the patients who need the care, doctors who provide the care, and the insurance company. they make a profit and put nothing into the bucket and come out making profits. they tell the doctors how much they are going to pay for the service so the patients have no argument in that and say it makes no sense. the insurance companies are only in a certain part of the country

. don't come to the places if they can't make a profit, they close down. i hear what you are saying and it is deeply frustrating that health care has become a for-profit industry. it is deeply alarming. the affordable care act was created in a bipartisan fashion. it was built upon a system that we already have which is a capitalist system that uses health insurance companies that are in the business of protecting themselves and making money and making shareholders happy. like what is being discussed now, medicare for all was brought up then as a way to take profit out of our health care system and was resoundingly

rejected by a lot of the country. compromisent to be a in building on the system we have. host: we will have to end it there. democrat kim schrier joining us on the washington journal for the first time. up next, we will return to the topics of today in washington. we are covering the continued reaction of president trump's border closure threat. the house to dish eerie committee voting today to subpoena the mother report and the nato secretary-general addressing a joint session of congress. which topic are you interested in? start calling, and we will be right back. ♪ , athis week on q&a historian talks about his book, american union -- american

moonshot. big but deal was too what fdr did well was beyond social security. deyouilt the grid cooley -- the grand coulee dam. picked there is he right number, technology, the computer chip gets developed in the late 1950's. modern aviation starts kicking in. runs, time jack kennedy there are no computer science classes. by the time he is killed in dallas, there are computer science classes everywhere. air travel is replacing automobile and train travel in many ways. hub airports are being developed all across the country. age,et age and space kennedy grabbed onto it and made

that the cornerstone of the new frontier. >> sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's q&a. coming up this weekend on book we areurday at 10:00, live in annapolis maryland for the annapolis book festival. , an author joins us about her book in career. at 9:00 p.m. eastern, investigative reporter vicki ward investigates the career of jared kushner and ivanka trump in her book. watch book tv this weekend on c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: a busy week in washington, a busy day in washington. we want to know what you're interested in chatting about. republicans can call in, (202)-748-8001.

democrats, (202)-748-8000. independents, (202)-748-8002. start calling in now. we will take you to the house briefly at 9:00 this morning. the house will gavel in and gavel out quickly as they prepare for a joint session that will take place at 11:00 this morning. we will hear from the secretary-general of nato this morning. he tweeted about the address he will give members of congress saying he is putting final touches on his address to that joint session, marking seven years of the transatlantic partnership in nato. you can watch that address here on c-span at 11:00. some of the other stories we are tracking. continued reaction to president trump's threat to shut down the southern border.

the border ultimatum puts the economy on the line. story today about republicans continuing to move towards the nuclear option when it comes to president trump's judicial picks. the move comes after democrats blocked president trump's nominees on lower court district nominees and also on some of his confirmations to administrative posts. democrats using all 30 hours of debate. republicans looking to trim down that debate to just two hours. we will see what happens, if they actually invoke the nuclear option. tracking,story we are the house judiciary committee will vote to authorize subpoenas for the mother report. the story from the washington journal, house democrats threatening subpoenas, demanding the complete version of robert mueller's report on russian interference in the 2016 election.

today. taking place you can see that taking place on c-span3 today, also online at c-span.org. coverageee all of our today. that judiciary committee markup of the resolution happening at 9:00 today. taking your calls this morning. what story are you watching? philip is in orlando, florida, independent. caller: good morning. good talking to you. the bottom line i am concerned about is the disruption in the climate and all other things going on behind the scenes that they are not telling us. destroyingflooding, much of our corn crop in nebraska. those people are out of their homes.

that is just a small level of how expansive this is going to be, especially in the next couple of years. i don't hear all of titian's addressing it. is not understand why it being covered as much and also the stratosphere, aerosol injection element. theare we talking about most threatening thing to survival man kane has faced -- mankind has faced more often? host: in 30 minutes you might hear those topics brought up when andrew wheeler, administrator for the environmental protection agency goes before the senate appropriations committee. he will be talking about the trump administration's budget for the epa. we are airing that live on

c-span two this morning and also on c-span.org. next out of baltimore. caller: my name is nikki. i agree with the former gentlemen's comment that we need to talk more about the environment. we need more information about what this administration is planning. we need to understand why we are not supporting green jobs. we have a wonderful democratic nominee from the state of washington who is -- who has devoted his life to improving the environment and bringing green drums -- green jobs to the state of washington. we need to discuss the actual headlines we are living through

that are going to contribute to the prosperity or demise of our grandchildren. host: thank you for the call. freda is next in north carolina, republican. caller: good morning. my comment is about border control. i think the president should congress,border until all of them, remove the incentives for coming here illegally. aboutare you concerned the economic impact? a lot of discussion about that, about what would be kept from coming into the united states, probe -- from produce to carports and everything in between. about: i am not concerned the economic effect.

is maybeof the wall 10% of what we spend annually in caring for and maintaining illegal immigrants in this country. upwards of $90 billion is spent to maintain illegal immigrants in this country. our ongoing effort to keep you updated about the things happening today in washington. we are joined on the phone by a congressional reporter for the hill to talk about the efforts in the house to reauthorize the violence against women act. good morning to you. it is a measure that has earned opposition of the national rifle association. why are they getting involved? guest: that is because democrats have a provision to reauthorize the violence against women act that has been in limbo since december, when there was a government shut down because of a provision that would extend --

current law if someone is convicted of domestic violence against a spouse or family member, they can no longer own a gun. what this bill would do is extend that to stalkers and people who are convicted of abusing dating partners. that would close the so-called boyfriend loophole. the nra is opposed to this provision because they say it could be too broad or ripe for abuse. if someone sends threatening messages on social media, they worry that could prevent someone from owning a gun. there are domestic violence advocacy groups that say that is far-fetched. that means this bill is likely going to pass along party lines and it looks like that provision may be stripped out by the notte where they are interested in crossing the nra. host: was that part of the violence against women act that

expired back in december? guest: this is something democrats have been pushing for a long time. it was originally offered as a separate bill by congresswoman debbie dingell, the wife of the late john dingell who was on the nra board of directors. she has shared this story she had growing up with a father who was abusive and had until illness and a gun. she has described how she lived in fear as a child of her father. she has been pushing to close this so-called boyfriend loop for a long time. democrats push for these changes along with other provisions regarding transgender women and native american women. host: in general, what does the violence against women act do? guest: it authorizes grants to the justice department to assist

women who are survivors of domestic violence. it provides resources for women shelters. it 8 -- it is aimed at helping women who face domestic violence. host: how long has it been around? guest: since 1990. is facing allegations of inappropriate touching. he was one of the main people behind this law. it is one of his signature legislative accomplishments. host: is there a final price tag on this reauthorization? is something democrats have been pushing for a long time. the money issue is not as much of a controversy in this debate. provisions,f the the gun provision as well as

protections for transgender people and native american women. host: for viewers who want to see this play out on the house floor, when is this happening? guest: the houses taking up a procedural motion today and they will debate it. they have 40 amendments they are planning to debate. the final passage is expected tomorrow morning. host: christina marcos covering it all for the hill. thanks as always. guest: thank you for having me. host: back to your phone calls. continues left as we to get your stories. a few of the stories we are tracking, trying to keep you up-to-date on. frank has been waiting in idaho on our line for independents. what is on your mind? caller: that foreigners can come in and get anything from our federal and state governments.

you would support shutting down the border? caller: of course i would. shut down the border and kicked all of the foreigners off of our welfare and food stamps. why is it a foreigner can get all of this stuff? host: are you concerned about immigration in general or just illegal immigration? caller: we should cut down all immigration. we have enough pockets of foreigners in this country. we should run them all out. anyone who supports the foreigners is a traitor. host: what does it mean to assimilate and become an american? caller: to join the american mainstream. host: what is american mainstream? caller: where everyone speaks english, first off. everyone carries an american flag and not a foreign flag in this country.

host: gary is next in alexander, new york. a republican. wished thatst everyone would quit going back ,o the way 2016 ended up especially democrats and independents, and understand that the people voted, the mueller report came out. it is what it is. move on. democrats havehe accepted anything that has one, he because number was outside, not a politician. he won and they are still upset with that.

inside d.c.he pot and did what he said he was going to do. maybe a lot of publicans don't agree and a lot of democrats don't agree, but this is what we were handed. the is forgotten is governing of this united states. it is not happening. all they are doing is fighting with each other. host: you say president trump said he was going to do. what are the thing -- one of the things he said he was going to do on the campaign trail was get rid of the affordable care act and replace it with something better. are you concerned about the announcements the president made of a republican plan coming out after 2020? caller: that upsets me because it goes right back to the first two years that they had the

house. republicans did not get anything done. you can go to the top of that branch when they had the house, the senate and the presidency and did not do anything with it. it is either hidden democrats in the republican party and then politics all over again. we have to face -- we have to fix the inner structure of the united states. in new york they just passed a bill overnight again. everything is going to get fixed. western new york and the infrastructure is terrible. it has to change somewhere. we will hang on until it is there. i think he is doing a great job and has a good shot at making it in 2020. at his weeklyy

press conference, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell talked about his efforts to speak with the president about replacing the affordable care act and the timing for that. [video clip] >> we had a good conversation yesterday afternoon. i pointed out to him, that view onepublicans dealing with comprehensive health care reform with a democratic house of representatives, that i was fine with senator alexander and grassley working on prescription drug pricing and other issues that are not a comprehensive revisit the issue that we have the opportunity to address in the last congress and were unable to do so. i made it clear to him we were not going to be doing that in the senate. that andy he accepted

that he would be developing a plan that he would take to the american people during the 2020 campaign and suggest that that would be what he would be ifocating in a second term there were a republican congress. we don't have a misunderstanding about that and will not be doing comprehensive in the senate. int: about 10 minutes left this segment, to hear about what stories you are tracking in washington. dave in california, democrat. caller: i would like to talk about health care. we have to take profit out of it. people going on and getting sick. on the border thing, when people come here, the very first thing, all people that come here, any employer that hires an illegal should go to jail.

-- you start putting these employers in jail, that will fix the problem with illegal immigration. people should be allowed to come here but they should do it legally. i wish you would wear a hat once in a while. host: your question or comments about health care, what do you think the best system is to take profit out of health care? caller: you are always going to have to pay for it. the best way to take it out is you have to raise taxes. we have to raise taxes. we cannot be the policeman of the world and expect we are not going to pay for everything. the best thing to do would be to figure out a way to pay for it. everyone should have health care. as long as you have profit and these companies making money off of people getting sick, you will never fix the problem. i talked to you once before.

going to jail for committing a heinous crime like that not see who killed all those people, he will have health care for free for the rest of his life. regular people cannot afford it. host: scott in maryland, republican. caller: good morning. typically i am a strong supporter of trump's policies. border, i closing the would like to propose he use an emergency order to implement because we already have the capacity to expand around the country and then have congress lock it down as a permanent requirement and immediately you will not have an immigration problem if everyone is required to use it and penalties are implemented accordingly. with health care, i could afford health care prior to obamacare as a small business owner and

then i went eight years without health care because just every year it was doubling and even then -- even now it is so expensive. unfortunately the republicans do not have the backbone to effectively deal with it and take it back to a competitive health care system. those are my two points. host: this idea of expanding and mandating e-verify. why don't you think that has been more front and center in the debate over illegal immigration? caller: that is a good question. both republicans and democrats like to -- like the cheap labor. they have different motivations along with that but they like having cheap labor that flies under the radar because the reality is, businesses will often shortchange their business

model by using illegal aliens in order to get profitable. i am in construction, i have watched businesses that hire illegals to give themselves a competitive advantage. if you need that in order to be profitable, then you need a new business model. thertunately, not republicans or democrats are willing to really step up to the plate and truly deal with this problem. they are just making a good show for the lambs that are citizens. host: does your company use e-verify? caller: we do. it is very easy to use. to buy moreave servers but the system works and it is in place. i don't even see the president offering this as a solution and

i believe that if you implemented e-verify tomorrow and people knew that there was no way they were getting a job unless they showed up on that system, you would not have these caravans flooding into the country. they are not coming here for vacation other than to get free off of social services from the government. they are really coming here for jobs. host: has the use of e-verify put you in any sort of competitive disadvantage to other companies that don't use it? caller: i think so. i noticed it over the years. a lot of my subcontractors, the way they get around it is they will have a couple people that are on the system because we require everyone on the job has to have legal status but they will sneak people in. we just monitor it. it does give us a competitive

disadvantage. host: thanks for chatting. tony is next from missouri, independent. caller: good morning. i wanted to comment. bald is beautiful. host: thank you for that. caller: on the border wall, it seems like we are talking about roosevelt's new deal and the new border wall deal would be to put the immigrants to work building the border wall. they could build it out of solar panels and use windmill power to hold it up. we could dig a river across the border and put in hydroelectric plants and sell the electric kick -- the electric to the mexicans to pay for the wall. host: kerry is next, democrat. caller: i would like to touch on a few topics. the reason i believe immigration allnever been fixed is that

politicians, right and left, have a fight they have to contend with which is nationalism on one side and then the need for labor on the other sign. right now we have some 10,000 people a day retiring and we need that young labor coming in to support our system. that is why i don't think it has been fixed, because we have a need for it. i also agree, we need medicare for all. seniors already have it, the people that vote. they already have their health care taken care of. they have what the rest of us want. the biggest concern about government is corruption. i believe our whole government has been taken over by corporations and lobbyists and it does not matter what team you are on. if you have corporate democrats and corporate republicans, they are going to be fighting for the interests of those corporations.

even though 70% of americans want this or that, they don't get it because we have no power. i would like to see a candidate running for president that will talk about that with strong policies to back it up. host: that is kerry in virginia. a few comments about e-verify. twitter, dan politics rights in, e-verify will not be made mayor -- mandatory because politicians rely on business -- on big business coming into their pockets. insist trump would never on e-verify because he has been in violation at his properties. ted is in texas, republican. caller: i hope the white house is listening. a very easy solution for the situation on the border.

outsi and schumer have put what the democrats want. there has been funding set aside. solutiond be an easy is as these folks come in, detain them and put them in some folks call, some them concentration camps. guidelines that pelosi and schumer have set. theseasy to name one of and let people see it for what it is. it becomes very transparent. we do the best we can with what we've got. host: what do you think people will see? what thehis is democrats want and we give it to them but we give credit where it due.

it is very transparent. they can see what it is. host: our next caller is in north carolina, independent. caller: it is good to be able to speak on c-span. you are looking good with the baldhead. have with thei border situation is i feel english should be an official language so you can't go in get a job if you were not able to speak english. they come into the united states and they will take over an area. i work in a warehouse where the management has become hispanic. there able to speak in spanish. african-americans and other workers who don't understand spanish cannot hear what they are cover sitting about -- conversating about. they are talking about work

performance in spanish. that is not fair to americans. here in charlotte, they have taken over real estate where you can't rent a property now without going on -- going in and seeing spanish people in the positions of renting apartments out. they are giving discounts to each other. a property may be $600 a month and an african-american will come in and they will rent it to them for $800. don't stand with it at all. host: your proposal as english as the official language, you would also want english to be mandated to be spoken in the workplace? caller: exactly. if english is not mandated in the workplace, then we don't have any way of controlling the work area because they are able to speak their own language which is very powerful and

african-american workers and white american workers have no idea what they are talking about. they can talk directly in front of you about you, about your work performance and you have a manager that is speaking spanish to another lead that is speaking spanish and it is totally racist. it is racist against americans who were born in this country. host: you're talking about managers talking about you. couldn't they use email to talk about you without you knowing about it? caller: i am talking about work performance on the floor, on the job. even if you work at a mcdonald's and if your manager is spanish and the person working on the grill next to you is spanish and they are talking to each other amongst each other and you've got an african-american working on the fryer. this is racism against the african-american because he does not know what is being spoken

about with the co-worker and the management. english should be the official language in the workplace and it should be the official language of the country. that cuts down a lot of it. host: our last caller in this willnt but sec around, we be joined next -- but stick around, we will be joined by representative debbie lesko to speak about immigration policies and later will be joined by former u.s. ambassador to nato, ivo daalder to discuss the 70th anniversary of nato. stick around. ♪

>> this week on q&a, a historian talks about his book, american moonshot, john f. kennedy and the great space race. >> he goes back to fdr and thought the new deal was too big but what fdr did well was beyond social security, fdr built the grand coulee dam and eisenhower had the highway system. kennedy thinks what is my administration's big public works thing? what i admire is he picked the right number, technology. the computer chip gets developed in the late 1950's. modern aviation starts kicking in. in 1960, kennedy runs there are no computer science classes at universities. by the time he is killed in dallas, there are computer science classes everywhere. air travel is replacing automobile and train travel.

hub airports being developed across the country. it was the jet age and space age and kennedy grabbed onto it and made that the cornerstone of the new frontier. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. coming up this weekend on book tv, saturday at 10:00 eastern, we are live in annapolis, maryland for the annapolis book festival. sunday at noon, financial author and journalist -- joins us for a live conversation about her books and career. at 9:00 p.m., investigative reporter vicky ward examines the careers of jared kushner and ivanka trump in her book. watch book tv this weekend on c-span two -- on c-span guest: -- on c-span2. >> "washington journal"

continues. host: representative debbie lesko from arizona joins us. we are expecting a hearing to vote on a subpoena to the justice department to release the full mueller report. can you talk about whether you think that should happen and how that might happen? guest: i personally think it is ridiculous. attorney general barr has already said he plans to release the report as much as required under the law. for chairman nadler to want to go through the effort of subpoenaing the report, the full report and basically wanting classified information and grand jury information released as well is totally inappropriate and unnecessary. host: when you talk about classified information, is that something that members of congress should be able to see in a classified setting, even if

it is not released to the public? guest: we can see it in a classified setting but in the history of these democrats, they seem to leak a lot of information. host: what do you expect to happen today at 9:00 when this committee gets underway? guest: judiciary committee is interesting because every single controversial issue in the universe goes through that committee. there will be a lot of back and forth. we may spend hours discussing this but to me, the bottom line is the attorney general has already said he is going to release the report. president trump has said release the report. it is going to happen. they need some type of time to go through and make sure they are following the law by redacting classified information and information that has privacy issues because of the grand jury.

nadler know why chairman is doing this. i serve on three committees, the rules committee, judiciary and homeland security and there is a common theme. undermine the president of the united states. that is what it is all about, the 2020 presidential election. host: what do you make of president trump's friend to shut to shuttrump's threat down the southern border? guest: i sponsored legislation last year and voted for it that would have not only given more funding for a border barrier but also change some of these loose immigration laws like the asylum laws. that is what needs to be done. also would have given legal status to daca recipients. i was willing to compromise. unfortunately not one democratic

member of the u.s. congress voted for it. the bill failed. if we would have passed that bill, we would have solved a lot of the problems we see today. it included mandatory e-verify which i saw in your last segment. unfortunately not one democrat voted for it. host: why hasn't e-verify become more front and center in this debate? guest: we tried to pass it last year. it even included legal status for daca recipients. it would have tightened up some of the credible fears in immigration laws that we have so we would not have this incentive of thousands of thousands -- thousands and thousands of people coming from central america being attracted to our country and having cartels encourage them. this is a problem that only congress can solve. they need to solve it.

host: congresswoman debbie lesko with us for the next 20 minutes. the house will gavel in at 9:00 this morning, briefly. if you want to join us for this conversation, the phone lines are open. republicans, (202)-748-8001. democrats, (202)-748-8000. independents, (202)-748-8002. a republicanst, from florida. caller: the border wall is very important to keep more from coming. if president trump was able to control that part of it, he would also be able to control the fact that he wanted to do something with what you referred to as the anchor babies that were already here, born from illegal ones. bought their citizenship

papers for $400 years ago, illegally and they are here now. us, we are the ones who need to deal with this. there were all kinds of problems. standing around talking spanish and we don't know what they are saying. they call themselves immigrant workers. how is an immigrant worker who , how are theynges driving $80,000 truck and the kids are driving $80,000 vehicles to school? some legitimate concerns and we do have an emergency at our southern border. it has been a problem for years.

previously, there was a solution that would have helped the problem, a bill last year in congress that would have provided funding for a border wall so that we can divert all the people to the ports of entry where you can handle them better but it would have tightened up asylum laws. what is happening now is cartels are encouraging people from central america to come up here. secretary nielsen says cartels get paid $6,000 per migrant. to them, these migrants are not -- our money. they don't care about these migrants. doctors without borders has said one in every three women are being sexually assaulted, raped. secretary nielsen said girls as young as 11 years old in these caravans have to be tested for pregnancy. this is atrocious what is happening to these women and

girls and it is because of our loose immigration laws. , cosponsored and voted for a bill that would have given funding for border fencing, tightened up asylum laws so you had to have a higher threshold for credible fear and would have also mandated e-verify so that all employers would have to check to make sure they have legal employees. it also would have allowed daca recipients to have legal status. to me it was a common sense measure. unfortunately not one democrat voted for it. host: one issue the caller brought up, do you think we need to we -- do you think we need to rethink birthright citizenship? guest: we need to solve the immediate problem at our southern border. these asylum laws need to be fixed. i have a history in the arizona state legislature of working in

a bipartisan manner. i got pension reform done, tax reform, all in a bipartisan manner. i find it frustrating in washington that it is so partisan. to me, the democrats don't want president trump to succeed on anything and it is all about the 2020 presidential election. can hope they see that we come together in a bipartisan fashion and at least fix the asylum laws so that it is not a magnet for these people coming thousands of miles. jersey, mike is waiting on our line for democrats. ,aller: i love the new digs seeing the capital out there in the background. it adds a lot to the conversations. be about theould

immigration and the one program that mr. trump wanted to take the money away from, the golden triangle, it is not a lot of money. it is around $400 million. you had a guy on the program talking about it. the programs are very successful. they help the poor people that would help the country to not make their people come to the united states. i think that is a horrible thing to look at, getting these programs put in place. about how people want mr. trump to not be successful. i don't think that is true. we have to hold our leadership to a certain standard and it would be wrong to not do that. you probably did it when mr. obama was in office. thank you for taking michael.

-- thank you for taking my call. guest: as far as my comment on a coordinated effort to undermine president trump, i see it firsthand and there -- and it is unfortunate. when we have the organizational meetings which basically, you -- the very first meetings of all three committees i am in, the opening statement from the democratic chairman was basically saying bad things about president trump, so i knew it was starting there and it seems very coordinated. all of the witnesses coming forward, so that the democrats can ask them questions and harass. it is unfortunate. i really have a history of working with both republicans and democrats to get things done and that is what our country wants. they want us to get things done and work together.

i am the cochair woman of the women's caucus in congress. i work with the democrat chairman from michigan and we are going to try and get some bipartisan legislation together. what was his first question? host: i want to follow up on you working on the congressional women's caucus. you were elected in 2016. there was only one republican woman elected in the 2018 election. some 35 democratic women were elected. does that disparity concern you? guest: i want to clarify that i was elected in a special election. electional primary took place in february 2018 and a special general election took place in april. 7 and gotn in on may

reelected for another two-year term. was?question host: are you concerned that there are not more republican women? i want to encourage more republican women to run and win. we had quite a number of republican women running this last time and we also had a lot of money -- the democrat spent a lot of money, millions of dollars to take out republican women and quite frankly i think it is a strategy on the democrat side because they want to continue the message that we don't have a lot of republican women. it is unfortunate. i plan to help other republican women. host: susan is waiting for you in florida. independent. caller: thank you for taking my call. comparisonive you a about the immigration situation.

first of all there is a difference between migrant and immigrant and i wish people would get that straight in the news. ii, i don't know if people realize that the united states had a quota system. the only took x number of people from each country who were affected by world war ii. also you could not just come over here. you had to have a sponsor in this country who paid for your and, who found you lodging paid for your medical, food and everything until that person or family got on their feet and were able to take a job. we did not have translators. i respect every language on our globe. they are all important but we did not have translators.

what the cities in the government did, the schools had night classes and i know because i was dragged with my parents. it was funny because every nationality somehow pronounces things differently. it was a riot to watch. they learned how to speak english, how to read and write. they learned more american history than our kids today. they had to have that in order to become citizens. they had to wait five years to even vote or anything like that. before we ever left the other continent, everyone was treated like a herd of cattle. everyone had to line up and got foot before we ever set into the united states.

guest: thank you. you bring up a really good point. legally immigrates one million people per year. yearillion people per legally immigrate to the united states of america. it is the people that try to get into our country illegally that is the problem. right now our biggest problem is at the southern border. i am from arizona and we have huge problems there. in yuma, we have people trying to dig under the fence. thousands of people showing up. customs and border patrol are overloaded, overcapacity. there are not enough detention centers, not enough judges and so they are releasing them into the public.

charity organizations that are trying to help illegal immigrants are overloaded. they are past capacity. this is a real problem as far as your experience. yearsed people, adults also one english and of my sons who is now 25, his classmates just spoke spanish. i helped them learn english in a class setting. these are good programs and i help they continue. we have to solve the problem at our southern border. this is a crisis. it is a humanitarian crisis but also a national security crisis. they are so overloaded at the southern border. we don't know if there are bad people coming in. gang have been reports of

people coming into our nation. this is a problem. understand people that say this is not a crisis. all they have to do is turn on the news. host: we had a couple callers advocate for making english the official language of the united states. would you agree with that? guest: i think people should learn the english language. i don't think that right now that is a high priority. i support that people should speak english if they are going to immigrate here. our top per year ready right now, but i think we should focus -- our top priority right now, what i think we should focus on, we should secure our southern border. we need to change the asylum laws. letterry nielsen sent a to all the members of the

homeland security committee and she asked us, please change the law. one of the laws she suggested we change was that they be able to deport people back to central america. right now they can't. they can deport people to mexico but not central america. i plan to introduce legislation, the lawyers that write up our legislation, currently have my ideas and they are writing up legislation. i plan to introduce legislation to solve some of these immigration problems. unfortunately the democrat chairman of these committees probably will not let my bill go through, but i am hopeful. i am always hopeful we can get things done and i really hope that my democratic colleagues, open upwhom i like, their eyes and see we have a

crisis at the border and need to do something. host: five minutes left before the house is expected to come in briefly. john in florida, republican. caller: i have a few comments. this is an invasion of our country and an act of war. they need to close the border. our president needs to close the border today. they will never stop coming. mexico will never stop them. these dacas are as illegal as their parents were. our finances paid for their schools and medical and housing and now you people want to keep them in this country. president trump

threatening to cut off foreign aid to central american countries. what do you think? guest: the president has suggested cutting off foreign aid. most of my constituents don't understand why we give so much foreign aid when we have so many problems in the united states. there have been reports that this aid money is going into the wrong hands, that there is corruption in these countries and it is not going to its intended purposes. haveee with you sir, we do an invasion on the southern border. the president has threatened to shut the border. the thing is, if you shut the ports of entry, the people will go through non-ports of entry and we physically don't have enough people to stop every

single person rushing over the border. i don't know if it will solve the problem. maybe if the president does shut stops,der and the trade maybe mexico because of the money, will then decide that they are going to try and enforce their southern border more. we will see what happens. host: chris in washington, d.c. is next, line for democrats. caller: wonderful to speak with you. how come republicans have been and haven corruption abdicated their oversight responsibilities? why have you been soft on corruption? guest: i don't think we have been. quite frankly i don't know what you are referring to. if you have specific examples i would be happy to address them.

for two years now, democrats have been saying, including the chairman of the house judiciary committee, that there has been all kinds of collusion with russia. as you just saw from the summary from the mueller report, there has been no collusion. i don't know what you are talking about. people,ans are good democrats are good people but we need to work together to get things done and stop the mudslinging. ground andn the every single committee i am in, it is obvious to me that there is a coordinated effort in the house of representatives by the democratic leadership to undermine the president of the united states and it is all about the 2020 presidential election and that is unfortunate. host: the house getting ready to come in, briefly ahead of this

joint meeting of congress. we will be hearing from the secretary-general of nato, discussing the anniversary of that military alliance. what are your thoughts on whether nato is needed today as much as it was 70 years ago? guest: nato plays a role and i was able to go over to the united kingdom in december and we talked about the role of nato and we talked with members of parliament as well. i agree with president trump that we need to reserve our national security and do what is best for our country as well. both,in terms of doing quickly, what do you expect to hear from the secretary-general? guest: i don't know, but i will be there. host: and we will be there now on the house floor.