hosted by the washington post. returningy the senate executive nominations. at 8:00 p.m., president trump holding a campaign rally in panama city, 40. on c-span3, the house judiciary committee meets to debate a resolution to hold attorney general william barr in contempt for not providing a redacted -- an unredacted copy of the robert mueller report. border officials testify at a subcommittee hearing. congressman ralph norman from south carolina discusses the mission and goals of the anti-socialism congress formed by house republicans. california representative judy chu is gus's efforts to -- discusses efforts to obtain president trump's tax returns. an upcoming

vote to hold attorney general william barr in contempt of congress. we will take your call so you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. [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: it is the "washington journal" for may the eighth. our first hour looks at the rising cost of prescription drugs. the kaiser foundation tells us a liver -- a little over a third of all americans take 1 to 3 prescribed drugs and a third say they don't take medicine because of cost. here is how you can let us know this morning. in the eastern and central time zones, it is 202-748-8000. in mountain and pacific time zones, it is 202-748-8001. if you want to post on twitter,

you can do so at @cspanwj and then you can also post on our facebook page at facebook.com/cspan. the kaiser family foundation conducted a health tracking poll taking a look at the topic of prescription drugs and here is some of the findings they discovered. when it comes to the share of americans who take prescription --gs, 1 to 3 drugs of those polled who do not take prescription drugs, 38%. that changes when you go to the age of 65 and above. to 54% -- toises the topic of 4 or more drugs and 11% responded saying they don't take prescription drugs. taking a look at the cost and how they deal with it. for those that pay less than

$25, 45%. $50, 23%.5 and 17% of those polled say they pay more than $100 a month when it comes to prescription cost. there was a hearing yesterday on capitol hill taking a look at the issue and it featured those who represented the industry asked about the cost of prescription drugs and those who patientted patients -- advocates. [video clip] >> we completely agree patients should know what they are going to pay. that is not necessarily the price. what they actually end up paying at the pharmacy counter is different. under the medicare program in the part d program, any patient -- any of us could go to the website and look to see -- you can enter your exact drug and it will tell you exactly what you are going to pay under a bunch of different options you have.

that is the place it is working very well. itsma recently amended voluntary principles on direct to consumer advertising and we added a principle that says essentially that manufacturers should send people to a website where they can get more information about the cost and affordability of medications. this is an important way to provide information to individuals because that is key in their decision-making process. referring to i am happens to be on the board of universitya large college system and everywhere he has gone, he has asked what is the price of this treatment? no one within the entire system knows. that, i find, very disturbing. may.nator, if i

it is possible today, using to havegy that exists, a system where my doctor can punch in my insurance system and tell me what the cost of my drug would be and the average sales price, if it was a part d drug, for example. the main thing is to tell me if i give you this drug, -- we cannot do that now, but we could if we chose to and patients and doctors would know the impact of prescribing physicians. host: more of that available at c-span.org. now we turn to you to tell us your experience, especially what you are paying and how you deal with those costs. eastern and central time zones, it is 202-748-8000. if you live in the mountain and pacific time zones, 202-748-8001

. you can post on our twitter feed . many of you posting on our facebook page. with more on this topic, here is greta. host 2: back to that tracking poll you referenced. a majority of adults say prescription drugs have made their lives better, but most say the cost is unreasonable. 79% say the cost is unreasonable. when they asked to those they surveyed about profits made by drug companies, they said -- those polled say that is the largest contributor to prescription drug prices. 87% said it is because of profits made by pharmaceutical companies. asked the most trusted drug companies -- few trust companies to price products

fairly. 49% said they do not trust the 19% companies too much or said not at all to develop new, affective drugs and they found the majority of those polled favored actions to keep .roduction cost down 88% said make it easier for generic drugs to come to the market and 86% said allow the government to negotiate with drug companies to get a lower price for people with medicare. that follows 80% that said allow americans to buy drugs imported from canada and 76% said lacing an annual limit on out-of-pocket drug costs on people with medicare. these steps -- should the government take these steps to lower the cost of prescription drugs? host: lorraine says my ms injectable edge -- medication

costs for a weekly shot. my co-pay was $25 a month and after i retired, it went up to $2000. i was able to get co-pay assistance through the company and now i pay no co-pay. i would have to stop taking a medication that has cap me stable for 15 years. have ans fortunate to employer funded health care. my share is $126 a month. of -- threeee month months of medicine by mail. for coverage he received under the aca. as a nursing student he + would not have affordable coverage otherwise. if you go to the website good rx , they list the popular -- you may take some of those and

can tell us about those. number one on the list is lipitor followed -- prilosec -- those are some of the popular drugs that have been prescribed in this first quarter. let's hear don's experience. good morning, you are first up. caller: hi, how are you doing? host: fine, thanks. caller: i am a natural doctor, so i would like to say something about drugs. number one is these drug companies have gotten to our courts and our government and they are controlling it and they -- getting away with they are polluting our children's bodies and our bodies

and it is all sanctioned by the fda and the ama and the cdc. host: when you say you are a natural doctor, what do you mean by that? caller: i am a chiropractor. host: what about the cost overall? caller: a lot of these things can be solved without drugs like infections, cancers, and a lot of them are caused by these drugs they are prescribing. the antibiotics, they let them over prescribe them and they have superbugs. host: let's hear from bill in wisconsin. republican line, go ahead. veteran. am a i don't have any problem with

the price of gout -- price of drugs because it is all covered. host: how many drugs do you take currently? caller: about 4 or 5. host: if you did not have that covered, what would be your estimated cost, do you think? caller: it would not be cheap, i know that. host: when you go to the v.a., everything you get is totally covered and you don't have to pay co-pay or anything like that? caller: i am 100% disabled. host: that is two experiences when it comes to the topic of prescription drugs. you can add yours to the mix. 202-748-8000 for eastern and central time zones and 202-748-8001 in the mountain and pacific time zones. one of the questions that came up was why the u.s. pays more when it comes to prescription drugs versus other countries. here is some of that response. [video clip] >> you go to a country and they say this is all we are going to

pay for that drug. is that what you are saying? >> in a lot of circumstances, yes. >> for you to make money, somebody has to make it up. >> i don't understand. says i am going to pay you that much and that is it. why don't we tell them to pay more? >> i think that is exactly what we should do. >> why don't you do it? >> i think we should use trade agreements to do that. you mean individual companies? >> exactly. >> because they don't have the negotiating power. especially in a single-payer system when you are going up against the government and they say take this prize or leave it, you don't have much choice. >> senator, if i may say, at the hearing held at the senate finance committee all the companies were asked if they make money, do they make a profit in the other countries and to a person, they said yes.

they are still making profit, it is just they are making a whole lot more from us because we do not take steps to protect americans. >> may i make one comment on that? it is rational for the drug companies to take low prices in other countries because the marginal cost of producing the drug is relatively low. if they take this, they get a little more money, a little more profit. if they leave it, they don't get that money, but they have to make research and development somewhere. i would be cautious about legislation that would tie u.s. prices to other countries in part because we may end up getting a lot of leave its in other countries and especially poor countries where a drug company will not sell. bloomberg on its website highlights data from the organization for economic cooperation and development.

for the top spenders per capita back in 2016 based on u.s. dollars, lowest on that list is sweden followed by luxenberg, greece, spain, austria, france, ireland, then germany, which you heard referenced, switzerland, and most on the list, the united states. host 2: this from the kaiser family foundation as well. who has difficulty affording prescription drugs? take a look at two categories. those that take 4 or more prescription drugs, 35% said they have the most difficulty. also in that category are folks between the ages of 50 and 64 years old before they can get on medicare. 30% of them have difficulty paying for prescription drugs. also those only in fair or poor health.

the kaiser family foundation also found out that when they take a look at who would do a better job politically of keeping prescription drugs down, take a look at this. in market competition, these are democrats. 56% believe in government regulation. if you are an independent, 51% said market competition would do a better job keeping prescription drug prices down while 31% -- 35% said we need needation -- 39% said we regulation. the kaiser family foundation found 63% of americans think there is not as much regulation as there should be when it comes to limiting the price of prescription drugs. 62% of independents.

the websiteecrets highlights contributors from medical corporations and contributors to capitol hill. million followed by the shar research at $1.6 million. express scripts about the same. it goes down from there. eli lilly at $1.1 million. $938,000nd johnson at and more of that available if you go to opensecrets.org. chandler in cleveland, ohio, on this topic of prescription drugs. caller: thank you. i am calling from cleveland ohio. i am 77 years old. i take one prescription per day. about three months back, i brought -- but a supply of 45

pills and i take half of them. it costs me $50. refill, 30 back to pills cost $150. i ask why the price had gone up -- i don't understand this. one pill costs -- one dollar and $.11 three months back. host: if you bought more in bulk, it was lower, but when you only bought a $30 supply, it increased dramatically. caller: they did not have enough supply, so they gave me 30 days.

of price has gone up. finally i was able to bring it down back to the same price. directly witht those prescribing the medicine to negotiate that price? caller: i talked to costco pharmacy and explained and finally he said let me go back and give you this. host: mike, good morning. caller: good morning, pedro. even think me out to about this topic. i am a biochemist in my 30's and my wife is a nurse. it shapes the way i think, i feel. i have four points i want to mention. workse being a nurse, she

at a hospital and sees so many people who their quality of life is so drastically impacted by their disease and a lot of the time, this disease is caused by lifestyle, whether it is eating, stress-related, whether it is finance related, whether it is because of a lack of community, mental health, all of these things we are starting to understand in the last 10 years really contribute. if you exercise poorly, they contribute to autoimmune diseases, cancer, digestive issues. host: highlight your concerns about the price of drugs itself. caller: the price of drugs, the second point i was going -- first, lifestyle. everyone, change your lifestyle. it will make your life a lot better and you will not rely on these drugs which shoot up the

cost. all these diseases people are going to the hospital for and cang prescription drugs for be prevented and that can bring the price down. secondly, greta was going over this private versus public polling issue. i don't even think that is helpful because it splits the issue into two things at such a basic level. it almost hurts people to think in that way. it is more nuanced than that. host: bob, rhode island, in wake field talking about prescription drug pricing. caller: good morning, pedro. you have one of the best programs that ever came on television. i have been watching for years almost every morning. i called because there are so many things about drugs, there is no way to cover it all. one of the things that peeves me

more than everything is the ability of these companies to broadcast products on ifevision, advertising as the person listening to this ad is the one that should be making the judgments about this and ask your doctor. if they have a doctor, wouldn't the doctor be telling them? i have one little comment related to that and that is one of the ads -- many of the ads show people, usually a high end drug andon about the how great it is and how it helps them prevent heart attacks and everything and then it shows exercising and doing yoga and eating -- this last gentleman hit the whole topic right on the head beautifully as far as i am concerned, they show the person and if the person did those things they show this

person doing, they would not need to take the drug. doctors have told me personally in my care. i take a couple of drugs. they are reasonable now because they are generic and i am not paying a tremendous amount of money. i can afford it. experienceis bob's not only with advertising on drug prices. you can add that to the mix as well at 202-748-8000 for the eastern and central time zones and 202-748-8001 for the mountain and pacific time zones. as we go throughout the hour, we will focus on this topic. other things happening in the world and washington particularly when it comes to the president and his taxes. host 2: the treasury department -- treasury secretary steven mnuchin missed the deadline to handover the president's tax returns to the house ways and means committee. however, the new york times front page has this story.

in the red, trump tax figures show over $1 billion in businesses and losses. the data comes from printouts from mr. trump's official irs transcripts with the figures from his tax form, the 1040 for 1985 to 1994 and they write trump's businesses continue to lose money every year, totaling $1.7 million in losses for the decade. year after year, mr. trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual american taxpayer. his core business losses in 1990 and 1991, more than $250 million each year were nearly double those of the closest -- the new york times says they were able to get this information in this story. while the times did not obtain the president's actual tax

returns, it received information in the returns from someone who had legal access to it. the times was able to find matching results into information on top earners. removed.ng details it also confirmed significant findings using other public documents along with confidential trump family tax and financial records from the origins of the president's wealth. this is a lengthy story and you can find it online. the president up and tweeting about the story. real estate developers in the 1980's and 1990's more than 30 years ago were entitled to massive write-offs and depreciation, which would, if one was actively building, show losses and tax losses in almost all cases. much was nonmonetary, sometimes contender -- considered

tax-sheltered. you would get it by building or buying, you always wanted to show losses for tax purposes prayed almost all real estate developers did. it was sport. the information put out is highly inaccurate fake news. the new york times also notes the state senate in new york is new yorkt trump's taxes as well. a manhattan democrat confirmed the state senate had enough votes to ensure passage of a bill allowing the commissioner of the new york department of taxation and finance to release any state tax return requested by a leader of one of three anyressional committees for legislative purpose. host: the previous caller pricing. ads for drug

the wall street journal has a theyat drug prices and if should be disclosed in ads targeted directly to consumers -- proposed rule that would require the action. it's part of the blueprint for in the hopeg prices consumers will pressure manufacturers terrain and the cost. michelle off facebook says my brother-in-law rationed insulin because it was expensive and when up paying a huge bill his insulin dropped too low and he passed out. another viewer adding the profit margin is 15% and it has been that way 20 years. apple operates at a 25% margin, but that is ok.

feed --ant to post our this is gary, hello. hi.er: and they are starting to advertise that more and more people were coming down with it or so. when you hit the dough knothole drugs andthree or 4 have private insurance, you can get it for five dollars. i was forced to go on medicare at 65. there is no alternative. it is the only drug made and it is made in germany. medicare, this part d plan, it is a gyp. you might as well not have anything because they don't pay hardly anything on it. host: what do you mean by that?

give me an example? caller: this drug. you mentioned quite a few other drugs, lipitor and stuff like that. whis some of the people's ole social security check to get these drugs. -- it is not what it seems. when you go on medicare with these drugs. host: federal spending when it comes to prescription drugs in 2017 -- when it comes to spending my medic -- by medicare part d, $155 million. medicaid, $68 billion. let's hear from scott in georgia, thomasville. you are next up. caller: good morning.

what he was trying to tell you was that particular drug is not on the drug formulary in medicare part d and you don't have coverage for it. private insurance would cover it. that is what he was telling you. all the people who think we need to have government health care, there is health care and then there is good health care and when you don't cover things, it is easy to have insurance that is not real insurance because you cannot take what you need. my comment is i am in the insurance business, by the way. a cancera drug that is drug. we know, for the most part, people in america are going to charge. part of that is making sure the market understands what the prices are. this drug is right at $700 per pill and it will keep you alive

if you have certain types of cancer. if you cannot take that drug, you don't stay alive. i hear what everybody is saying about the lifestyle and all that, but there are times you have to have a medication. do the math on that. host: what does that mean for affordability then? for those that need that drug. caller: that is what i mean. i am saying -- i don't necessarily have an answer. i am pointing out a problem. transparency is huge. it needs to be told. i am in the insurance business and if i have to -- this is exported from california. you have to get the drug from california and i know people that have been on the drug for four years. times $700.imes 365

that is how much has been spent. the answer is -- one answer is certainly transparency and that is where government needs to get involved and say you cannot charge that much. website takes a look at the popular drugs that increased in price. drug price-- this .ising 51% that was followed by companiesious drug and increasing price and it shows you if you go to the website goodrx.com. tulsa, oklahoma, hello. is very confusing about all the tiers, but it is

simple math. why don't we go back to cost per pill and taxpayers pay for research and development anyway. we need to go back to like a windfall profits tax bracket, put that money back into funding. i have been to mexico. i have been to canada. we pay the highest price in the world for prescription drugs and it is not necessary. i would like to see a price list. why don't we get amazon and walmart and all these different people to make it a free enterprise issue instead of these complicated tears -- tiers. costs $100 to make it. host: what are the differences for drug prices when you go to these other countries like canada, mexico? about 75% were saving in canada -- mexico and 50% in canada. would buy.ugs we

flonase, we would pay $19 a bottle and it was $60 a bottle in the u.s.. host: the drug you listed, is that the only prescription drug you are on? caller: i am on some generic heart medicine that is like $10 a month, but you can buy it in mexico for two dollars a month or one dollar a month. host: let's hear from john in new york. caller: john in new york. my prescription bill last year was over $10,000. i smoked for 56 years. my doctor says i am very healthy at 85 except for my lungs. used to be $3.99 when i first took it and now it is up to over $500 and politicians keep saying they are going to do something about it and they don't. host: what should they do? caller: drugstores are calling

doctors, this is the honest to god truth, drugstores are calling doctors saying mrs. brown is in here and she can only afford five pills. this is the country that mate -- the people that made this country great and they cannot afford their medicine. highlighted some of the responses to those rising drug costs. 29% saying they did not take medicine due to cost. 19% saying they have taken an over-the-counter drug instead. 12% of those cut a pill in half or skip doses altogether. karen, good morning. caller: hello. are you there? host: you are on, go ahead. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have been lucky. i have not had a bad experience with prescription drugs. i am a lung cancer survivor and

i had two colostomy's, both of which were reversed. when i went through crohn's disease, i was on indigent care. i had to beg churches to pay for my bills because i could not work and my husband had left. the medicine i am on now, i am .n prescription drug part d i have been real lucky and so far, my medicines are not uncontrollable. the pharmacy i used, they also have their own plan to pick up prescriptionsor that my plan will not pay for. one of those prescriptions, i end up having to pay $15 a month, but it costs like over 100 something. my sister, who does not have any insurance and is highly allergic to yellow jackets to the point

she would die, she cannot afford .o get an epipen i think one of the reasons for the rising cost of medicine in is because there unions -- the companies need to maintain profit margins and that is basically all it boils down to. host: let's hear from harold in alabama, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i am a cancer survivor and my wife was diagnosed with cancer 2018. andd a heart attack one day i had my stomach removed. i do not take cancer medicine,

period. i pray on the good lord to take care of me. i worked for many years and i .ould not work -- youam hearing is don't know when you are going to have something happen to your life and the guy talking about bills and stuff, they helped. i worked until i was 67 years old. it hurts my heart to see people and make a profit. you don't need that drug. like the opioid, you don't need that. i have been taking oxycontin

since it first came out. it does not even bother me at all. is alabama. let's go to indiana. walter, go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. there is a quick story i will tell you an analogy. when the american indian was no longer useful for their tribe, they would take their tp and go in the wilderness and wherever they think heaven was. i have never taken medication in my life except a vitamin. i have all sorts of hitches and problems and this and that. i feel whenever the good lord is ready to take me home, i will be taken home and i would rather spend the money on a good cigar whiskey.ottle of irish

we spent the whole day talking about medicine. i think attitude has a lot to do with it. about those others that depend on these types of drugs? would they take a different philosophy than yours? caller: then they are screwed. if you think the end game is living so you can stay in a cannot go toand the bathroom by yourself, i would rather have 50 years, 60 years of an enjoyable life. staying aroundy longer. indiana.t is walter in one of the exchanges yesterday, this topic of prescription drugs

took place in hawaii. mazie hirono and a top policy professor taking a look at issues particularly when it comes to drugs like insulin. [video clip] >> if you are familiar with the patents on insulin, are you? >> i am not familiar with each patent on insulin. generally, yes. >> maybe the professor is familiar. i wanted to ask about evergreening. example -- he said it is one example of innovation. i would like to ask with regard to these kinds of drugs, the patents granted on -- granted on insulin over time, whether they truelly represented innovations. >> i think it is important and something to be agreed on is -- cannot carry

the same drug. something new is being created. otherwise, they are obvious and invalidatedhould be . these hearings on prescription drugs available to you when you go to our website at c-span.org. type in that search word in the box and it will show you everything we have taken in recently and during the course of our time at c-span. here is more from greta. host 2: an update for our viewers on the back and forth between the house judiciary andittee led by democrats attorney general william barr. a 10:00 a.m. hearing is set for holding the attorney general in contempt. our coverage will happen at c-span 3 at 10:00 eastern time, c-span.org, or you can donate --

download the app. the assistant attorney general sent a letter to jerry nadler, taking issue with this meeting, this hearing that will be happening today and he writes this, you can find this if you go to the house judiciary committee website. invoked --nt i hereby request the committee hold a subpoena in a band's and delay any vote on whether to recommend a citation for contempt for noncompliance with the subpoena pending the president's determination of this question. if you go to the house judiciary committee's website, you can find these letters being exchanged between the house judiciary committee and the justice department and you can also find the back and forth

between the house judiciary committee and don mcgahn's lawyers on the white house. the house chairman, jerry nadler, sent a letter to mcgah n's lawyer yesterday after receiving a letter from him saying the president, look at this headline in the wall street journal, the white house telling don mcgahn to rebuff subpoena for documents related to mueller. that prompted a letter from jerry nadler where he writes this to the former white house counsel's lawyer, turning to the other requirement of the subpoena that mr. mcgahn appear to provide testimony. i expect the committee will hold in contempt unless the white house secures a court order directing otherwise. further, even if mr. mcgahn is authorized to invoke executive privilege, he still is required by law to appear before the committee to provide testimony

and invoke executive privilege where appropriate. that means the house judiciary committee, not only do they want documents from don mcgahn related to his conversations with the president about the special counsel, but a want him to testify and if the white house were to invoke executive privilege, the committee is saying we will hold him in contempt of court as well. we will see if they do that today with the attorney general. host: martin is next in arizona. hi. caller: good morning. also good morning to america from beautiful arizona. as far as drug prices are concerned, all one really needs to do is follow the money. senators and congressmen sit up there on their deists, so -- dais, so pious and you look at

the money being made by politicians and it is obscene. family members with stocks and stuff like that. littleienced a stroke a over a month ago, so my speech is a little affected. just follow the money. that is why there is so much resistance to reforming pharmaceutical prices and i saw that firsthand after my stroke. it is phenomenal and very painful. he would like to think -- you would like to think your country wants to be fair and honest with you. unfortunately, it is not. ne is next in maine. hello. caller: i wanted to mention a drug. there was a lot of anecdotal adamant's -- evidence it was

helpful helping people who had forms of depression that were not treatable successfully by other drugs. because that was an off label use, doctors were charging --rbitantly to administer it that could be administered on label and covered. because of all the restrictions around it, you have to be in the doctor's office two hours, it is exorbitantly expensive and so easy tocause -- it is commit suicide, it is easier to buy a gun then get medical treatment. all of the restrictions around this medication, there are not those restrictions around medical marijuana. there are not those restrictions around -- i am an old person, i

am on a blood pressure medication that makes me really woozy and has personality .hanges involved i think 80's really tragic. off facebook anita saying my antidepressant was $15 for a 90 day supply and this year my co-pay was almost $200 for the same script. anita says her son has special needs and his medicaid is's better than my husband's employer based health insurance. becky saying it was appalling last week when my granddaughter needed antinausea medication. seven days of that costs $211. mike is next in pennsylvania. caller: this is mike. host: you are on. caller: i don't know.

i sometimes think i live in an alternate universe. i am on medicare for five years and i have what is called an advantage plan that i pay $65 a month for. i have two prescriptions, one -- cholesterol and one for they are good for 90 days. i keep getting the impression a lot of these people calling in are not aware of what is available for them and they have not looked into it or gotten the proper information. i don't know if that is possible or not. host: what would be the cost of those drugs if he did not have insurance? caller: i don't know. i haven't looked into that. i know i pay my three dollar co-pay for each one and that is why i have the insurance, isn't it? host: max in florida, hello. caller: hello.

my point is this. i have listened to a number of the people call in. they point out quite accurately you can get the same drugs in canada or mexico or other countries for significantly less then you get on medicare or part d provisions. a major reason for that, i believe, is the fact that insurers for medicare and the other health insurance are national orgotiate international prices because there is no justification for being able to get exactly the same drug in a neighboring country for far less than you get it here in america. that is something that needs to be addressed by congress and has been resisted strenuously by lobbyists who have paid

substantial dollars to keep the drug cost high and keep extending patents with shaky reasons. thank you. in the pagescardle of the washington post has a different viewpoint. you can see that online. she writes drugs may be small part of health care spending, but it is the cost we are more directly exposed to month after month. americans think the difference is unfair because it is. americans arguably get a pretty good deal from all this overspending. the oversized profits pharmaceutical companies collect in the united states encourage them to do research and development in the hopes of earning sweet returns. the rest of the world essentially free rides on america's willingness to pay more. if the united states enacted european-style price controls,

less research would be done and that would mean losses to human welfare. aug companies have offered cure for hepatitis c, a treatment for drug resistant miraculous rates for near terminal cancers. from detroit, michigan, darrell. caller: this is darrell from detroit. i want to thank you for the show. we can understand how much the pharmaceutical companies have their hands in the pockets of congress. it is even to the point where they advertise commercials on tv that tell you that death can be a side effect of using our drug. that is how pathetic it has become. cansolution is in 2020, we come in the voting booth and vote out every single incumbent in office. that is all we have to do. we will give a freshman the

break because they do not have enough sonority to get on the pharmaceutical payroll. host: what makes you think freshman eventually would not take that money? american people demonstrate how mad we are about pharmaceuticals paying off congressmen, they would keep their hands out of the pie. host: let's hear from chris in milwaukee. caller: i am calling about the guy who said it is lifestyle. maybe some people, it is. i can tell you honestly that i come from a long -- line of diabetics. i was never obese, i walked three miles a day with my dogs and i became diabetic. i come from a long line of diabetics. my daughter was only 26 years old when she got sick and got rheumatoid arthritis and her

drugs today cost her thousands of dollars. jumpands, not counting the in insulin prices. to say that -- to blame everybody -- she was an active 26-year-old, loved to be outside and what did it get her? is is in her 50's now, she disabled, she is really sick. i think it is ridiculous that you blame people for lifestyle. what about the pollution and everything else? what about all of that, that we live with every day and don't have any choice over? it is terrible what they are charging. host: that is chris in milwaukee. that goodrx website lists the 10 most expensive cities. milwaukee on that list coming in at number 6 with prices about 4.5% over the average.

new york topping the list followed by san francisco, los angeles, philadelphia, san diego . after wisconsin, milwaukee, birmingham, alabama, sacramento, california, seattle, washington, and little rock, arkansas. barbara, pittsburgh, pennsylvania. go ahead. caller: yes, sir. yes. i would like to say i was listening to the congressional conference yesterday and they had, of course, a representative som a pharmaceutical company the pharmaceuticals could be involved in the talk of the congress on that subject. what he and he thought was really going to make everybody think these medications are costing millions

and millions of dollars. they may be costing millions of dollars, but the thing he did not say is they are making trillions of dollars off the medications. secondly, there are a lot of people involved in the pharmaceutical business who are not honest. the drugstore. i went to the drugstore. i had to go on a trip. i had already ordered my pens for the use of diabetes which, from my insurance company, i would get 5 pens in a box for $40. i thought, i am going on a trip, i will go to the drugstore and have the doctor prescribed 110 -- insulin pen. i knew my order would be delivered at my house before i got back from my trip.

$45 forstore charged me one pen where my insurance pens,y gave me insulin five for $45. host: jeff is next in spring hill, florida. caller: thank you for taking my call. first of all, i would like to say i think you should have people there with you discussing the benefits of universal health .are when it comes to prices what we have right now is a system where the american people are held hostage by the medical industry. if you had universal health care , we could go as a country anywhere we want in the world and say, you don't want to charge us reasonable prices, they will.

now you have a competitive situation where people are vying for america's business. we would be able to get rid of the corrupt system they have. i had a full knee replacement and the cost was 135 thousand dollars. if i did not have insurance, that is what i would have paid. instead, the hospitals, the doctors, everybody settled for $20,000. they knew it going in, they knew what the price was, but they $135,000. the best way to do this is supply and demand. the entire country puts demand in one place. the suppliers have no choice but to do business with us or we will go to one of their competitors. int: let's hear from bill

georgia. you are next caller: caller:. thank you so much. there are a couple of things i want to point out. number one, only in the united states and new zealand are drug companies allowed to advertise tv. when they say they spend -- for every one dollar they spend on research and development, they spend eight dollars on advertising. this might bring the price of those drugs up. we have to keep in mind that insurance companies are in the ,usiness of collecting premiums -- paying

host: what are you paying for those drugs now? guess: high pay -- i grand total maybe $30 a month. host: is that with insurance help or aside from that? caller: i am self-pay. i don't have any insurance help. host: let's hear kathy's perspective in palm harbor, florida. caller: hello? host: hi. caller: hey. i would like to add something --ye have lung disease something. i have lung disease. i was taking a prescription. i am going to say the benefactor

was eli lilly. that was $5,000 a month. month.about $200 a the generic came out on that and for theay $1.83 generic. there is no excuse for that. to lilly was gouging that begin with. there was no way that drug was $5,000 a month to begin with. i understand the research was done there, but that is too much of a difference. host: one more call. this is from john, louisiana. caller: i will piggyback on what that man said about the different cost. i am retired military, so i have try care for life. my wife got a prescription and the pharmacist said this is going to cost $75 co-pay, so i asked more about it and there

are three other drugs that are the same thing and all i did was pick up the phone, call my doctor and said the one you prescribed, how about prescribing this and he said it does not make any difference to me, so it is a bit of a responsibility of the consumer, which i am, till account for the drug that he finally gave which was the same thing with a different name and was only three dollars. this co-pay thing, people have to accept the responsibility that they themselves need to make an effort instead of just ok, it is a big expensive drug and i have to complain about it being expensive. with a little effort you might have gotten it cheaper. they have no individual responsibility and that is just a comment you might think about. host: he will be the last call on this topic. coming up you will meet south carolina republican congressman ralph norman, here to talk about

the mission and goals of the recently created anti-socialism caucus. that coming up after this news update. host: we will start with the ninth circuit wall street journal headline, trump's back to mexico asylum policy stays in effect. a federal appeals court ruled the trumpet administration can, for now, continue returning central american migrants to mexico while their request for asylum is adjudicated, a surprise victory for the trump administration. this may come up today at the senate judiciary subcommittee hearing. we are covering that on the humanitarian and national security challenges of the southern border. 2:30 p.m.derway at eastern time and you can watch it on c-span3 and also c-span.org.

theers reporting that secretary of state, mike pompeo made a surprise visit to baghdad and warning of iranian activity. from reuters this morning, the secretary of state plans to the to britain to talk with prime minister over brexit. we are watching the secretary of state's travel as he was in finland yesterday and made a surprise visit to iraq. of the trumpolicy administration likely to be a topic this morning at a senate appropriations hearing on the defense budget with the secretary of defense, patrick shanahan and general dunford. that will be at 10:00 on our website.

now over on c-span two , speaker of the house nancy pelosi will sit down with the washington post for an interview. you can watch that on c-span2, c-span.org or listen along for free with the c-span radio app. former governor john kasich wrote an article, arguing that the federal government should be giving states flexibility on infrastructure and let them manage it. the former ohio governor is considering a presidential bid, a challenge to president trump. you can watch coverage of our road to the white house if you go to c-span.org. we have a road event tonight with the president at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. he will hold a campaign style rally in florida. you can watch that on c-span2,

c-span.org or the free c-span radio app. host: representative ralph norman serves the state of south carolina. he is a member of the budget and oversight committee. also a member of the newly minted anti-socialism caucus. good morning to you. guest: good morning. host: how did that caucus come about? guest: it started in february officially. the otherewart was representative with me. our motive, since the discussion is all over the country with democratic candidates, socialism and those who embrace it, is to spread and talk about it, what it is, give people more of an understanding of free markets versus what socialism is and basically just education for people all over the country.

when i speak to jr. high schools, the number one topic i get is why not socialism, so it is more of a communication opportunity and i think we will see more congressman joining in. host: is this from the influx of freshman congress men -- congressmen coming in? guest: i don't think in the history of this country, we have had a number of candidates coming in who were openly promoting socialism as a change from capitalism. a combination of them being --cted to congress and also i am a small business person. i did not start out making a career in politics. i made it in the private sector which is capitalism at its best. it is highlighted now where in the past it has not been. host: if you see this as an

issue, what is the work of the caucus? is it more education or pushing back against legislation you may deem socialist in nature? guest: what we are about and the opportunity we have is related to that family in rural america where the father goes to work in the construction field or whatever his line of work is. that is how he brings home a paycheck and as a contrast, the socialistic model which is more government and government control, and our message to tell that family is the way to get ahead is to incentivize people to go to work and do their best and recognize their talent is through the capitalist system and it is a fun topic to talk about but at the same time it is a scary topic when you have so many people who don't understand

it and they use countries that really are not socialistic in a true sense, norway, sweden or denmark. we've got venezuela and cuba and russia. it is part of my job as a congressman to educate people and i am a product of the capitalist free enterprise system. host: (202)-748-8000 four democrats. republicans, (202)-748-8001. an independents, (202)-748-8002 if you want to talk to the representative about these issues. democrats who accept the socialistic label are few and far between, the republican party has conducted itself irresponsibly in this capitalism whens socialism debate republicans do not like a government program, they

flagrantly call it socialism. what do you think about that argument? guest: it is not as small as it used to be in the fact is it is so vocal now. look at aoc, omar who are pretty saying socialism works. look at bernie sanders. the way i explain it to that high school sophomore is just government intervention. the government taking more of all of us are in politics. if you don't believe it look at the top party paycheck and the net party paycheck. not going toney you, but to government and that is what we are about and that is what we want -- it is our duty

as it comes up, i bring it up because i think it is a real you getnd the only way that young person to understand it is to relate it to how it affects their life and most young people have had jobs, most young people have seen the net amount of a check. host: we have some calls lined up. the first one comes from new jersey, richard on the democrats line. you're on with representative ralph norman. caller: i would like you to talk to -- talk about socialism as it relates to western society. in europe, they consider themselves socialist in a lot of the opposing has been fascism, on the extremes. socialism and fascism. we don't understand socialism

but we never talk about fascism in this country and trust me, there are plenty of fascists here. established by a group of stiffs and basically fascism, as he said could -- could also be called corporatism, where corporations and only those who are well-connected run the country. thatpeople would believe the corporations and well-connected do run the country here. we are a lot closer to fascism here and we are to socialism. we have a couple socialist programs such as social security and medicare and welfare, but sweden and denmark and norway, they consider themselves socialist countries and they are nothing like venezuela, give me a break. guest: i would agree that corporate america has been at

the table of government subsidies and have played a big part in the cost of politics. whether it isow getting a contract or getting some type of a payout from the government, that is where the private individual comes in that hopefully will be elected to congress to say no. inrepresent that mom and pop rule america who are supporting a family. big corporations provide jobs and are huge in this country. most big corporations started off small but where they have controlled congress and control dollars that come to them, i would agree, it has gotten out of control. that is part of the reason it cost so much to run for office and for the campaigns to fund what they are doing. andmentioned sweden

denmark. those are smaller countries. they make a product. norway and denmark are oil-producing countries. sweden has 10 million people. we have 335 million people. we are a bigger economy. and is why now is the time, this country has so many social programs that have been good but it is out of control and i am doing what i can to put that in perspective and to have limited government so that the individual can succeed. host: you heard him reference social security and medicare as socialist programs. do you agree? guest: i would not see it is a social lace -- i would not say it is a socialistic program. it started off in the 1930's. you had 16 people working for everyone receiving the benefit. it started good until they started raiding the chest and the dollars. that is why we have to change.

social security is a great program. it is not a social program because it is our money. to go bankrupt in 2035 is not an option. that is the disadvantage of government taking over in a socialistic country that has been completely socialistic. we have to stop that and limit it. host: republican line in massachusetts. this is brian. caller: i would like to tell the representative i think you are doing a good job down there in the district. i would like people to lighten up. you have a good sense of humor with your joke about abraham andoln, with the justice the firearm on the table. i have two questions for you. what do you think of that nuclear deal and what do you

think about the impeachment thing? you can answer either one. i will take your answers off-line. guest: i will answer both. the green new deal makes no sense. they would wreck the economy. to do away with planes and cows and -- the whole concept is crazy. why it was put up, the question that was not asked is how are you going to pay for it? that is the question everybody ought to ask. we are $22 trillion in debt. the green new deal would just put us more in debt. i think the public is catching on. as far as impeachment. impeach him for what? this president is doing a great job. for two and a half years he has had a roving economy. the average american business is expanding. in my district, it is a total success.

you have your issues but the optimism in this country, the low unemployment. we had 350,000 new manufacturing jobs. he is bringing it back, versus what we had been through the previous eight years. findrats are struggling to something to get on mr. trump about. president trump is not beholden to anybody. he is a businessman. we need more business people in washington, d.c. i am not a politician. fact of impeaching, they are searching for straws. the mueller report did not turn up anything and they are mad about it. that is my answer to that. they are not going to get anywhere with impeachment. where the votes come from the senate -- where would the votes come from in the senate? they are trying to keep the

narrative going in the media until the elections. as lindsey graham said during the kavanaugh hearings, i hope they never get the power. hopefully they will not. host: in fairfax, south everett -- south dakota, democrats line. talked the last time i to a congressman, i was talking about health care. lay out a price in pharmaceuticals. in capitalism, they highlight -- they lay out a price. none of you people do that. explain to me how that works. kies -- you guys are kind of bought by these people. marx was the one that said capitalism does not work and we

stepped on people because they were trying to break the people with prices and greed. you need to get out of the pockets of these people. guest: let me say i agree with you. transparency in pharmaceuticals is what we need. this president is pushing to have the prices between the pharmaceuticals and insurance companies where everybody can see what they pay. i agree with that. as far as being in the pocket of corporations, i'm sure that is true with some people. people are imperfect, but there is a growing sentiment of those of us who come from the private sector is to not be into that. a perfect example of this is donald trump. he does not need their money. he is not taking a salary. he financed himself. he is an example of what you

just said. i applaud the president and what he is doing. it is going to take a wild to reverse the awful trend that was set under the previous administration. it is going to take some radical changes to get the country back on track. the number one threat in my opinion is insolvency. the national debt, we have to start making cuts and from being in washington, d.c., any change is hard but we are up to the task and there are a lot of us who believe in that and will vote that way. host: you talk about transparency and the prescription drug market. what do you think about transparency when it comes to the president's tax returns? guest: absolutely not. the mother report is a good exam -- the mueller report is a good example of them grasping at straws. they will pick apart his tax

returns like every other thing. the issue they have with the attorney general who made a summary statement. that is all he did. the first question ought to be who has read this report? jerry nadler the day after it subpoenaing the unredacted report. the tax returns, i would fight that. as mick mulvaney said, the democrats are up to no good. there is nothing he can do right. it is time to fight them. host: the issue of contempt against the attorney general? what do you think about that? attempt, is a futile and contempt for what? 13% of the report was redacted. executive privilege -- the president did not reject anything. we have to -- we have been this for -- we have been through this for two and half years. 19 lawyers, 500 witnesses. this movie has been running for

that long. they just did not get the outcome they thought, which would indict the president. now they are going after any little thing. that is the thing about the tax returns. there is nothing he can do right in their eyes. it is time to fight and i think he is doing it and he is not going to give them anything. host: this is from virginia. brian, hello. first of all, the annulment clause was not a little thing like the congressman said. that is legalized bribery. has a lot ofeport evidence about obstruction of justice, but you guys just think it is ok. our founding fathers established democratic socialism with government of the people. the definition of socialism is not getting rid of capitalism.

it simply means community involvement for all in decision-making and control of resources. that is why countries like china and russia still have capitalistic institutions because democratic socialism does not get rid of enterprise. you have corporations with a feudalistic plantation model. democratic socialism establishes cooperative initiatives with all the people being employee owned and operated. that is democrat socialism. it is not the end of capitalism, it is just a different form. instead of the plantation model where only one person or a few people have the abilities. host: we will let our guests respond. -- guest respond. as an you mentioned china example of socialism that works. you want to talk to the companies we talked to in the

different businesses that have had intellectual thefts stolen. china requires a 51% government ownership where they control the votes. i would disagree that china is anything but a socialistic dictatorship to be honest with you. right,stitution, you are is by the people and for the people. that is why the capitalistic system works. is it perfect? no, you have winners and losers. the bottom line is the capitalistic system has allowed the country to grow to the economy we have, the wealthiest country in the history of the world. that is why we are able to do the great things we have done throughout the course of history. we have liberated people and we have had the money to do that. i disagree with you on the countries you cite. you might as well cite cuba and venezuela. host: wyoming is next,

republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to ask the congressman if he supports the farm bill because there is nothing more socialist than the farm bill. i worked for the department of agriculture four years and i watched nothing but wasteful spending, taking money from working-class americans and giving it to people who have assets in the millions. it is strictly socialism but the politics of it create a situation where congress won't look at it at tivoli -- look at it objectively but the republicans turn around and fight against the affordable care act but pass a bloated wasteful farm bill. guest: i agree with you.

the farm bill in particular the snap program has a lot of fraud and abuse in it. people want to get their crops from america, not china. i voted against the farm bill the last time, it was a close vote. farmers thatbigger pretty much are the only ones food have auce our huge influence and we want to encourage more small farmers to get into it but i agree, there are changes we have to make and when the farmers come in, my first question is, how can we help the programs that are initially put online to help people? it has gotten out of control. you are right, the snap program is a welfare program. we have to make changes and we

have to have congressmen asking more questions. it has outgrown its use. let's go down the line. medicare, medicaid. we can have changes that really affect the bottom line and that is what we have to do. 218have to convince congressmen. that is not an easy task. i am excited. all we can do is lay out the changes we need to make. i am asking those farmers to help us help them and to identify which they can do that will help them out. host: our guest serves on the budget and oversight reform committee and is a member of this anti-socialism caucus. your background is in real estate development. what type of development did you

do? guest: we started out in single-family housing. we ended up, we migrated because i knew charlotte, north carolina , a suburb had gotten into a bunch of projects. we built shopping centers, hotels. we do a lot of leasing. we buy land through 1031 exchanges. there is no better example of capitalism then the real estate thanample of capitalism the real estate of element world. host: there is that new york times story today about the president during his times is a real estate developer, $1 billion in losses over a decade. he describes in a tweet, that developers in the 80's and 90's were entitled to massive which showed tax losses in almost all cases. can you relate to any of that in your experience?

guest: absolutely. tax laws were different back then. you could start a project that would initially lose money and would shelter income but you would invest in projects that were in the red, through shelter income and produce products you hoped would produce a positive income later on. there is no better example of free enterprise. those businesses that turn around and make a profit. we have to start finding profit. we -- i want everyone to make a profit. we took advantage of the tax laws. it was legal. the president did the same thing. in most businesses, real estate businesses that were small or big, it is the same thing because why would you do that? losses a common part of real estate development? guest: absolutely.

you take a tax write off on that. but you had to replace it. one hotel that when you walk in, you can tell the carpet is worn-out and has to be replaced. that has a depreciation on it. we do it all the time. what the president is talking about back in the 70's and 80's was a lot more under the reagan administration. you had write-offs to encourage putting your money in other projects. host: let's hear from maryland, anthony, democrats line. caller: how are you doing? guest: how are you? caller: i'm fine. i have been in small for 25 years, a cleaning service. small businesses have lost a lot of credibility. corporations and , a lack of regulation.

they have kind of corrupted the system if you will. corporations, with the crisis and the money that small businesses have lost. we had the financial crisis over the last 20 years. when congress should have stepped in and stopped a lot of this stuff, they have not done anything due to a lack of regulation as well as the constitution, which we all should be abiding by. about the $22 trillion in debt. what has congress done about that? what has big business done about that? without regulation, nobody is doing nothing. guest: let me answer you this

way. as a small business owner, i applaud you for putting your neck on the line and going to work and starting a small business. here is what i would suggest to you. regulations that directly affect you, comedy times have you picked up the phone to call your congressman to say i need this regulation removed and this is why and how it is hurting me? how many times have you called your senator to say you are paying taxes and this is what i need for my business to thrive so that i can pay more taxes to support our schools and law enforcement and different great things we support? you small business person, can only answer this, do you become involved? the corporations are made up of people and they have gotten their way because of complacency. we should have stopped

immigration a long time ago. we need to know who is in this country and i have been to the border, but i would take issue with needing more regulation, maybe let's looking -- with look at cut some regulations and if you look at what this president has done, a lot of what the economy is doing today is because he is taking them off because they are burdensome, so i would say as a small business, don't be on the sidelines, get involved and you ask yourself, how can i take action to help my business? host: you have an effort taking a look at first responders. what is that? guest: first responders is codifying a ruling that after you retire, it is tax-free. the injuries that first responders have his catastrophic. it can't get a second job to support their families, so what

retire, youer you are exempt from federal tax. that is the least we can do. host: ralph norman who serves the state of south carolina, a member of the budget and oversight reform committee and a member of the new anti-socialism caucus. we thank you for your time. guest: my pleasure. host: coming up we will hear from democratic congresswoman judy chu, talking about the efforts to get access to the president's tax returns. host: an update on today's house judiciary committee to hold the attorney general in contempt. jerry nadler tweeted out last night that tonight in the middle of good faith negotiations with the attorney general, the department abruptly announced it would instead ask president trump to invoke executive privilege on all materials subject to our subpoena.

jerry nadler telling cnn this morning they will go forward with their meeting to hold the attorney general in contempt and we will have coverage of that on c-span3 starting at 10:00 eastern time. you can also watch on our website or download the free c-span radio app. speaker of the house nancy pelosi this morning on c-span2 talking with the washington post had this to say. [video clip] pelosi:si: -- rep. this contempt is about holding the mueller report in an unred acted way. whether it is about sources and methods. i appreciate protecting sources and methods. law enforcement concerns. that is not a reason to give us the report, it is an excuse not to give us the report because we all agree that certain things should be redacted.

the administration just said we're going to make this executive privilege. that does not include his not showing up to testify before the like judiciary committee his safer senate majority. lying.ot include you cannot lie under oath to congress because you are lying under oath to the american people. that is a whole other thing. for the purpose of right now, in terms of withholding the information, the unredacted version of the mueller report for the american people to see and to know. host: joining us is represented

of judy chu, a member of the ways and means committee. she serves the 27th district of california. guest: good morning. host: now that the treasury department has refused access to the president's tax returns, now what? guest: the chair said this morning he would go straight to court. he could have issued another subpoena versus going to court but it is clear the white house is not complying with any subpoenas, we might as well go straight to court and i believe the law is clear. this is the law that says that the chair of the house ways and means committee shall request the returns of any individual including the president and that the irs shall comply. , ite is no if, and, or but is a clear law. that is why our chair is going to court. host: what is the nature of the court proceedings?

guest: it will talk about the thatimacy of this law and it shall be kim -- it shall be complied with. host: we saw in efforts to get other documents, the contempt for the attorney general. could this apply to the treasury secretary? guest: it could. we are going to pursue the legitimacy of the law itself and talk about that issue. host: in part of his response, secretary mnuchin said he has determined the committee's request lacks legitimate legislative purpose and the department is therefore not authorized to request those returns. talk about that lack of legitimate legislative purpose. guest: he is trying to say that there is some kind of other purpose other than oversight. however, the supreme court has been clear in at least 10 decisions saying congress has overight of oversight

affairs of this nation and that oversight should not be second-guessed. clear that wely are within our right to request these tax returns. by the way, presidents have voluntarily summoned their tax returns over the last four decades. they have done it voluntarily because the american people want to know. if we are going to have this person making decisions that affect our whole nation, these decisions which affect so many people and livelihoods, we need to know what is in those tax returns. host: if this goes to the higher purpose of oversight, why request six years of tax returns? guest: it is because the transactions that occurred in his businesses happened at least

two years prior to the transaction itself. we are looking at the time in which he was campaigning, and of course his current presidency and the two years that were prior to his campaigning. that should cover the bulk of the information that we need to look at. host: judy chu with us from california. you can ask us questions at (202)-748-8000 for democrats, republicans, (202)-748-8001. independents, (202)-748-8002. how speaker pelosi speaking about the topic of the tax returns this morning. i will have you listen to what she had to say and get your response. [video clip] >> how far would you go on that front? could you hold the secretary of treasury steven mnuchin in contempt? some democrats have raised the prospect of arresting the treasury secretary if he does not comply. rep. pelosi: let me say we do

have a little jail in the basement of the capital. [laughter] but if we were arresting all of the people in the administration, we would have an overcrowded jail situation and i am not for that. getting to the committee , the chair of the mate -- of the ways and means committee, he has a path and again, all of unprecedented. one of our options is to go directly to court. >> it is probably going to be settled in court? is the way wehat are going to do it. host: if court is the first part of the path, what other options are there if that does not succeed? guest: this will continue in court and probably to the highest level of the court, so i

believe that is the clearest path at this point. host: our guest is with us and here for your questions. michael in texas, democrats line. you are on with representative judy chu. this is the way equal rights are allowed. the house power first, the senate confirms and the president seconds it. go back to the house. when they ask for the tax returns from trump, if he does not want to comply, you get a subpoena and you have the police right behind you and you put him right in jail. cut his staff. you have the power of the purse. the senate confirms the executive branch. you have the power of the purse.

if they don't want their money, cut it out. i guarantee they would give up what you are asking for. that is michael in texas. caller ist the pointing out is that the law is clear, that we have a right to these tax returns and the american public has a right to see what are in those tax returns and so yes, we could issue another subpoena but at this point we are wasting time and that is why we are going straight to court, to get what is lawfully, should be in the hands of the chair of the house ways and means committee, and that is the president's tax returns. the kind of tax returns that american presidents have voluntarily revealed over four aredes and now, candidates

revealing tax returns because when we see -- when we the american public are voting for the person who will have the most power in the united states, we should know what their finances are. we should know whether they have paid their fair share of taxes and whether they are complying with the law. host: republican line from maryland, walter. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. caller with that prior that the dems want to take trump to jail. it has been looking like that for the last two years. i appreciate all of the news coverage of this but i think the news coverage has actually caused all of this problems because of the extent of hatred the dems have for our president. i want to know where in the constitution does it say that

the president of the united states must turn his taxes over to the government? show me that and we will go for it. host: it is very clear -- guest: it is a very clear part of the law, passed in 1924 after the teapot dome scandal. this was a scandal in which administration officials were found to have given very big breaks to big corporate owners and it rocked the administration and the united states. in an effort to stop future corruption, they passed this law. at that time, it was only the president that had to write -- that had the right to see anybody's tax returns without question. this law was passed to make sure that there were three individuals who could have access to any tax returns and

one of them is the chair of the house ways and means committee and that is where this current request is coming from. host: mary is in boston on our independent line. representative, i think the american people have moved andeyond the tax returns they would like you people to focus on what we care about, which is what is going on in this country which is probably the most important thing, which is the immigration situation. i just wish the democrats and republicans would get together and work together for the country and i'm sure 90% of the country feels the same way. stop playing the games. thank you very much. on thewe are focusing most important issues the american people are concerned about. this week we are voting on bills

that will preserve our affordable care act which has gotten 20 million more people the kind of health insurance that they need so they can live a long life and take care of their families. thate voting to ensure they will be the ability to have insurance regardless of whether there is a pre-existing condition and we are voting to fix certain elements. the affordable care act will make it viable. we know that health care is the most important thing to so many people, but at the same time we are pursuing other kinds of concerns that the american people have, one of them being good paying jobs and infrastructure. we know that our roads and highways are eroding and that people are taking longer and longer to get to their jobs and so we want to pass an infrastructure bill that will

ensure we can fix these things up but it will be a huge boost to the economy and will also provide for hundreds and hundreds of thousands of jobs that will make sure people can feed their families. theirthey renewed previous author -- offer to provide information concerning the committee's stated interest on how the irs conducts -- of the president. why is that not enough? guest: we need to actually see the president's tax returns .hemselves one of the functions of the irs is being held up and whether the present -- whether the irs is doing a proper audit of this president. that is an important question we are trying to answer. in fact, if we figure out that is not being done, we think that

it might be good to have something in the law that it should be a mandatory audit of the president. it is a practice of the irs. host: could that be done without the president's tax returns? guest: i would have to ask why it is that presidents have revealed their tax returns over four decades. it is because the american public needs to know what the most powerful person in the unit states is doing with regard to their finances. they need to know whether the president is paying their fair share of taxes and in the case of this president, we need to know whether he is benefiting personally from this big tax cut bill which give 83% -- which gave 83% of its benefits to the top 1% of this country.

why was so much more given to the wealthiest in this country? does it have something to do with the president's personal finances? host: from our line for democrats in virginia. go ahead. caller: good morning. my question to the representative is from what i understand, this law has been in place for several decades and mr. mnuchin and has violated the law -- has violated the law. butow we are going to court why is mr. nguyen -- mr. mnuchin not in court for breaking the law? guest: you are right. the law is clear and mr. minutia is -- mr. mnuchin following the lead of the president and not complying with the law.

we think at this point, that this question should be answered by the court and the law says that the president shall provide -- it is the irs that should provide it. the president should not be interfering with the revelation because the irs already has these returns. the irs is supposed to give these returns over and there is no if, and, or but. we think this will be settled by the court. host: ohio on our republican line. ann. caller: i have noticed ms. chu did not answer the question about immigration. what i would like to know is, if you can go back into trump at's taxes for 10 years, why can't we investigate everyone in congress, the senate, all of their aides and staff and what this is costing us every year

for all of these investigations where they are not doing their job? they are supposed to be working for us. they are not. they act like they are the most, as far as log goes, that they are above the president and everybody else. they get things the american people don't get and it's not right. they need to be investigated. every one of them. reason that we a need to have the president's tax returns. that is because he is the most powerful person in the united states. he has the sole ability to sign federal bills into law and has exclusive power over an entire branch of government. he has paid his fair share of taxes and whether

there are conflicts of interest that are preventing him from carrying out the law in a way that should benefit the american people. there are lots of questions and that is why presidents have voluntarily disclosed their tax returns. four decades of them, whether they are republican or democrat, they have voluntarily complied with this and this president should be no different. api: this story reported by that lawmakers are working on getting access to the president's state tax returns. could that be a benefit for you? guest: this would indeed be important for us because it will reveal information, even though it is a state tax return, it will reveal the information on his federal tax returns. i think it will be very important for us to see and already we see that the new york times has come out with an article this morning which shows

that the president had a , ande's worth of losses astounding number of losses and that he declared that his finances were so much better. in reality, for two of those years, he had the highest loss, $250 million, more so than any other taxpayer in this country. that is perhaps a glimpse into what we might see. we don't know, we won't know until we see those tax returns are self. host: if the tax returns go to the ways and means committee, what is the likelihood they will be revealed to the general public? guest: we have a process that is clear. the tax returns go to the chair, and then there is possibly a private meeting that is

confidential with the house ways and means committee. if the house ways and means committee deems that it is necessary for us to reveal them, we will take it to a vote and then it is revealed to the house that point in time, it can be revealed. host: what criteria will be used to determine if these records need to be revealed? guest: if there is information that is important for the public to see, it would certainly be relevant for the public to see this. at this point we don't know, and that is the whole point of oversight. it is so we can see whether an audit has been done, so we can see whether the taxes have been for, so we can see instance, what the new york are therecle,

incredible numbers of losses that have been claimed over this time. we also want to see whether there is income that has been derived from foreign government. host: from nebraska, mercedes on the independent line with representative judy chu from california. caller: thank you for having the show on. that the scandals in the 20's is what changed the lobbying laws but in the 70's, they had change those laws back because bigger corporations could lock -- could lobby the and the laws that keep donors secret -- and also, i have a question, if trump and barr and everybody are in contempt of congress and technically have committed

perjury, isn't that what clinton got impeached for in the 90's? he said one simple lie and this is pretty worse than anything that has happened. that is all i have. guest: let me say that no president has been impeached. there were two impeachment proceedings that occurred. president clinton was not previous, nor was the president that had undergone these proceedings. threatenedon was with impeachment but he resigned before the impeachment proceedings took place. one thing we know is that congress has legitimate oversight duties. we need to see what is going on with these presidents and all of these efforts to not comply with the subpoenas is not right. this is not what we should be doing in this government.

we should be allowing information to be shared. we should have our government officials testifying before our house committee and they should be talking about what is really going on. we want to know what is in that mueller report. we want to have the full mueller report so that we can know what has been going on wet -- with this presidency. cnn says the president was impeached in the house and was acquitted in the senate. guest: the house voted on impeachment but you had to go through the proceedings. the house starts the proceedings and in the senate acts like a jury but you have to have a two thirds vote of the senate for impeachment to go to its full conclusion. host: monique from d.c., democrats line. caller: good morning to c-span.

i want you to continue doing a great work in congress and keep going hard and don't give up. keep digging until all of the facts and the truth comes out about this so-called president. the irs taxy that cut that the republicans passed was a joke. i i hear one more person say got so much money back on my taxes this year, they are lying. say, president ways.is a pimp in so many he has not paid any taxes because what he does is he counts his losses. he tallies up all of his losses so we can outweigh a certain

amount that he would have to pay in taxes and he has been doing this for years. no american bank will loan this man a dime. that is why he ended up having to go overseas to get money to help sustain the wealthy life that he has. guest: thank you for that. the new york times article that came out yesterday showed that moredent trump indeed had claims of tax losses in his businesses than any other 1991 thatn 1990 to amounts to over $1 billion worth of tax losses he claimed and our taxes should not be a support. president trump is claiming that he did it so he could make more profit off of other businesses. it is not a sport. he should be paying his fair share of taxes just like the

rest of the hard-working americans in this country. let me say you correctly point out that the tax bill that was 2017d by republicans in was just for the wealthy because 83% of it went to the top 1%. what alarmed me is that it made the inequality in this country even worse. 1% have asw, the top much as the bottom 90% of americans in this country. it is getting harder and harder for americans to make ends meet. they might have a job. they might be working hard. but they are having a hard time just paying their bills, just paying for the co-pays for their health care coverage. that's not right, when they have

to worry so much about just healthy, justlves making sure they are not in the in the hospital and not going through bankruptcy just because of their health care costs. host: year is to indulge owner, florida. republican line. in deltona,im florida. republican line. caller: you want to ditch the tax cut. and the problem you guys run into is this. if people go and look at their incomeurns, what their was for this year compared to what it was last year, the refund might be a little bit less. but they earned more money in their paycheck. ok? people, thethe rich higher upper echelon are going

to get a bigger tax cut because they pay more in federal taxes. ok? so that right there is a fallacy. ok? my question to you is this. ok? what legislative purpose do you have for looking into the president's tax returns. ok? personally, you did not answer the one gentleman's question if from ohio thatn ask you where it states in the constitution that it is a requirement of the president of the united states to take and show their tax returns. again, it's not in the constitution. it is a law that was passed in 1924. it's nearly 100 years old. a scandal result of that occurred, the teapot dome scandal. yes, this congress passed a law that said that three individuals

in the united states and one of them being the chairs of the house ways and means committee may ask for the tax returns of any individual in the united states including the president. and it says that the irs shall comply. not may comply, but shall comply with that law. and that is so congress can do its oversight. what we haveular, here is a situation where we want to make sure that the most powerful person in america is held accountable. he is showing that he paid his fair share of taxes. and that he is indeed being manner by the irs in a that is supportable. and that he doesn't have conflicts of interest such as with foreign governments. we need to have that information because this president can have

influence over so many areas of the u.s. government. host: representative judy chu, member of the ways and means committee here to talk about the president's tax returns. thanks for your time today. coming up, we will be joined by the hills national security morgan chalfant to discuss the mueller report. president trump said a friday deadline to strike a deal with china on trade. if they cannot come to an tariffs willrtain go from 10% to 25% on friday. the president tweeting the reason for the china pullback and attempted renegotiation of the trade deal is the sincere hope that they will be able to negotiate with joe biden or one of the very weak democrats and continue to rip off the united states for years to come.

guess what, that's not going to happen. i am very happy with over $100 billion a year in terms filling u.s. coffers. the reaction on capitol hill told foxn cramer yesterday china has not negotiated in good faith and potus is right. ranchers whond firmly support this president have had many difficult years recently and they both countries to strike a deal. senator jon tester who is a democrat from montana on msnbc last night. says the recklessly escalating trade war is forcing folks to pay more for everyday goods. an opinion piece that says the strategy is an effective, more

it places california's robust economy at risk. foreign companies face significant challenges conducting business in china. these requirements expose american firms to risk of ip theft, cyber threats and business disruption. in addition to addressing unfair trade practices, president donald trump's administration -- we must take that challenge seriously. in the st. louis dispatch, their editorial board rights farmers report suffering financial ptsd as trade war threats escalate. neveray that the winning seems to stop from rural supporters of president donald trump. his effort to sabotage the affordable care act has had

devastating effects on rural health care. opioid addiction rates are reaching acute levels and the stresses of trumps trade wars are causing serious mental health issues for farming families. as the soybean and corn futures continue to take a beating. soybean sales to china declined by more than 57% as of january. farmers who have a front row seat on the effects of climate change made to question the wisdom of supporting a president who refuses to knowledge there's a problem. and if they want their financial fortunes collapse among trumps trade war, they must ask how much more of this winning can we take. host: joining us now is morgan chalfant. walk us through today's house judiciary committee hearing concerning the attorney general.

aest: it promises to be pretty explosive morning. jerrold nadler has scheduled a vote to hold william barr in contempt for failing to turn a full unredacted copy of the mueller report. host: the likelihood is that it would pass but what are republicans going to do at this hearing? certainlyublicans are on the side of doj. they say the attorney general has taken steps to really work committee and provide accommodations that are consistent with the law. they have accused adler of essentially -- nadler of essentially asking barr to so i think wew

are going to see republicans really on the side of seo j -- doj. host: will the case be made by that the vote takes place? guest: we will see a lot from republicans pushing back on it. there was quite a lot of development last night with doj saying the attorney general would recommend the president to invoke executive privilege over .he report should they go forward with the vote because they have tried to make accommodations. nadler defended the department's efforts and said that nadler has made unreasonable demands that would essentially require the justice department to ignore the ongoingcompromise investigations. host: that meeting slated for 10:00. our guest here to talk about it if you have questions for her.

(202) 748-8000 democrats. (202) 748-8001 republicans. (202) 748-8002 independents. how does don mcgann play into this? is a star witness for democrats as they move forward on investigations into trump. mcgann was featured prominently robertial counsel mueller's report which the attorney general made public last month. democrats want him to appear publicly to testify and turnover .ocuments to them an extensive trove of documents that all touch on the investigation. the white house instructed mcgann to not comply with the and he's doing so now to the chagrin of democrats. host: if the subpoena documents are withheld, what other recourse is to these committees have?

-- if you bid public testimony and continues to stonewall their document request. formally house hasn't asserted executive privilege over the documents the committee is after but signaled they would do so in a letter last night or yesterday. that is something i think we will see play out in the coming days. host: has robert mueller said he is going to testify? guest: robert mueller hasn't said much. the committee says it's negotiating with justice department and the special counsel and wants him tentatively to testify next week on the 15th. nothing formal has been the president who has previously said that it was up to barr to decide whether and kindhould testify of expressed ambivalence to it

over the weekend tweeted that mueller shouldn't testify. he certainly made his opinions known. host: can the president at this point order robert mueller not to testify? still an employee of the justice department. it's unclear precisely when his tenure will come to an end. as long as he is still an employee of the justice department, barr does have control over his testimony and could delay it. the attorney general said he has no problem with the attorney general testified -- with him testifying. is morgan chalfant of the filter and we have calls lined up. our first one is from mary, las vegas. democrat line. go ahead. barr is the cover-up

attorney general. he killed the special investigation into the iran contra. his son-in-law works in the trump administration. congress to do their job, this congress is doing their job. you better look to mitch mcconnell who isn't bringing the bills to the floor for a vote. furthermore, overturn sanctions on the russian who just gave him $200 million for his reelection campaign. it's all connected. host: we will let our guest respond. very clear that the democrats and the attorney general are coming to a head in their confrontation over the mueller investigation. the trump administration has signaled it will fight democratic investigations and that is something we will continue to see play out going forward. the justice department has insisted that it is trying to continue good faith negotiations with the judiciary committee.

nadler last night in a statement said the legal arguments underlying their threat of using notutive privilege were anchored in fact and he accused the justice department of obstruction. host: tim in franklin, wisconsin. republican line. hello. being in the 1% income in this country and being a veteran, i would like to know what you are saying that the tax cuts have created a benefit for the 1% when we pay the most amount of taxes. my sons and i are paying half a million each more in taxes because of the discrepancies in the tax bill which in fact help the poor and put many people off of welfare. the second question is where in

history -- i'm going to stop you there. our guest is in here to talk about that. let's go to lori in michigan. independent line. trying to getst through the mueller report. i'm not a lawyer. i'm not a political expert. throughing to get volume one and it scares me to death. so i don't understand why people it's over,ell say move on when it's clearly not over. my fear is nothing's going to be done about it. trying tot russia did influence our elections. and i don't know what's going to happen to get my democracy back. host: i think the new phrase being used is case closed in this matter. guest: i think there are some in congress pushing forward to try

to find ways to stop russia from meddling going forward. the trump administration have said they are taking steps so they haven't been very clear about any systematic approach at this point. reintroducedill this morning that would bring more transparency to political advertisements. there are some efforts but we saw christopher wray said yesterday there's more to be and i think for many it is still a process of learning about what russia did and how the threat is evolving going forward. tellsk the mueller report us a lot about what was done in 2016 but i also think that could be fundamentally different from what we see going forward and i think now the public is focused on this and members of congress in washington are focused on figuring out how to respond to

the threat going forward. host: democrat line from virginia. caller: being that the russians object it was not only to influence the election but so division in the united states, to where move forward we can determine whether or not or justifiable for the executive branch to tell other members not to comply with a subpoena and also has this ever happened in recent u.s. history where people are being told to actually break the law? have seen past administrations tried to exert evadeive privilege to document requests like this. the trump administration has taken a much more vocal and sweeping approach. i do think we will see a lot of this play out in the courts and in some cases

it will delay the investigations. in cases where the white house doesn't necessarily have an argument. there are some cases where rightfullyrivileges asserted in those cases will be decided probably in favor of the white house. as we see these investigations move forward and any sort of battles play out in the courts, we are going to get a bigger picture of how congress moved their investigations going forward. appeared fbi director in the senate yesterday. why was he there? guest: he was there for the budget request. up in ae of that ended discussion over terms. talk about what he said. guest: this was triggered by the attorney general's testimony last month. he said he believed the trump campaign manager's spied on and

said he was looking into whether or not any unauthorized surveillance or improper surveillance occurred on members of the campaign. this is a term that has drawn out for democrats because it implies there something nefarious about what the fbi did. said a lot ofay different people use different colloquial phrases to describe surveillance. he said what's important is to get to the bottom of -- to ensure that any surveillance is authorized and he said that the was frightfulal in making sure that that was gone. host: did that garner any reaction? i think director ray was deliberate and saying he other't use the term but

people have different ways of describing what the fbi does. there was some nuance there. host: from maryland, republican line. caller: this is what's going on. for the first time into many decades, the black community is seeing economic prosperity. that is why it democrats are trying to distract people. this mueller investigation is over could democrats are looking like sore losers. this is ridiculous that this country is looking like a banana republic. that thed pray

president understands that he is at war against these people and that he's going to use his executive power to declassified all these fisa applications because he was spied on during his campaign. host: a little bit of explanation about the revealing of those records he was talking about. guest: trump-pence said she wants to declassified and released various documents -- russianthe investigation. he said last year that he was ordering the justice department to do this but then backtracked saying there were concerns raised by allies. version was released

but it was heavily redacted in places that could compromise intelligence sources and methods. are reallyocrats zeroing in on the obstruction angle because the special counsel didn't reach a conclusion one way or another. they want to know what mother's logic was for not doing that. obviously we saw some objections in a letter that was released last week that mueller raised. host: the justice department and inspector general is conducting its own investigation. guest: they are conducting an investigation into whether the should --ed the lord lawful procedures in the russian investigation.

barr said last month that he expects the review to be concluded either this month or next. it's unclear whether the investigation expanded beyond the application to the foreign surveillance court which is where the fbi must go in order to have approval to spy on an american and we will get more information into the contours of the investigation. caller: i would like morgan chalfant to speak to the bias demonstrated by the special counsel in the people he selected for his team to prosecute the special counsel project, specifically andrew weissman who was denounced by scotus for prosecutorial misconduct.

it was a vote against andrew weissman. thank you and i will hang up. >> republicans have criticized specialup of the counsel's team. there have been details revealed about the past of some of the prosecutors. a lot of this has gone on behind the scenes and mueller is a well-respected former head of the fbi. widely characterized as somebody that's independent, that's committed to investigating facts and not being driven by medical motivation. obviously there have been complaints about members of mueller's team but i haven't seen a ton of evidence that they were biased in the course of the investigation.

host: john in minnesota. caller: this is joan. that's ok. mitch mcconnell's wife is on the cabinet of donald trump and he will never ever go against trump on the emphasis that his wife might lose her job if he doesn't toe the line. so the hall congress is tied up with this one family and i don't think people are aware because her name is different that she is his wife and people need to realize that there is a connection in that cabinet and that is why nothing will be done about barr. aboutg will be done anything from this republican while his wife works for and sits at the side of donald trump.

host: yesterday the topic of the special counsel came up with the fbi director. we will play a little bit of what he had to say. bars appearance last week. one thing was asked to him, would he have a problem with mr. mueller appearing. he said he didn't have a problem with that at all. do you think it would be helpful to appear before congress? would you have a problem with that? >> i have had nothing but good experiences working with him over the years and nothing but good experiences working with the attorney general. for me. be helpful >> that's really a decision

between the special counsel, the department and the congress. host: what is the fbi director's input in this matter? it shows again mueller is a widely respected professional who takes investigations very seriously. barr has been a friend of his for a number of years. of course the relationship got a little bit more complicated last week and certainly the fbi director giving his endorsement of the special counsel's conduct is helpful to the special counsel as he tries to uphold his findings. i also think it's important to note that ray kind of deferred to barr on the decision. the administration is really deferring to barr at this point on whether he should appear before congress. host: from ohio. republican line.

caller: the democratic -- seems to be committed to searching around in the garbage dump of politics. there is no appreciation for this country coming from that group except complaining about america and americans and i hope these things will change and the democratic pod standing for party of death because they support the killing of human life is the sad commentary on our political system and i hope america truly is waking up and realizing with this president and his administration has done -- save america from the death throes of this party that has turned so ugly sadly. host: from kansas, you are the last call. caller: the doj made the report on redacted in a private setting. i was just wondering how come no democrats have gone to read it. two republicans

that have read it in a private setting but no democrats. >> doj has made it less redacted of their report available to select lawmakers including other leaders of the judiciary committee. nadler has not gone to look at it but he is very firm in his demands for access to a more fuller version and he wants it to be available to more members so it can conduct their oversight. -- doj has taken issue of the fact that -- it would be beneficial for more substantial panelsion on what the needs with respect to the underlying materials in the report. host: morgan chalfant of the hill. thank you for your time. the house judiciary committee meeting today to discuss those issues of contempt.

we are going to take your calls on what you think about that process. (202) 748-8000 democrats. (202) 748-8001 republicans. (202) 748-8002 independents. comments on make our twitter feed. we go to those calls we will hear from greta brawner. >> a federal appeals court granted the trump administration's request to leave its back to mexico asylum policy in place during litigation. so this case making its way through ports in california. said that the policy can stay in place while it's being litigated. to come up before the senate judiciary committee. there's a subcommittee hearing today on the humanitarian security challenges on the southern border. 2:30 eastern time is when that starts. you can watch it on c-span3 and

you can download the free c-span radio app. another tweet this morning from senator chris murphy. trumpet iran strategy is blind escalation. no endgame, no overriding strategy, no way out. it's just escalation for the sick of escalation. that's wildly dangerous and inexcusably done in that order. traveling to iraq yesterday to talk about the iranian threat. that's a 10:00 a.m. eastern this morning. you can watch it on our website. also today in politico is the story of negotiations on capitol hill over disaster aid relief. mitch mcconnell telling he'sters yesterday that

aiming to pass some sort of disaster aid compromise before sidesal day as the continue to negotiate on that unit and then the hill newspaper reporting this morning that the house intelligence committee is getting in on the act of requesting documents from the department of justice. the committee chair adam schiff and the ranking member sent two letters to the justice department and the fbi in march and april requesting all materials obtained or produced by mueller in the course of this investigation. they also asked for mr. mueller before the committee. reporters and photographers are on mueller watch across washington, d.c. these days. he had dinner on monday night in georgetown with nci s actor david mccullum.

this from an ap reporter sending out the picture. you can see the story if you go to the new york post. host: your calls on the efforts by the judiciary committee. that meeting taking place today and if you want to watch it it's at 10:00. aboutl take your calls these efforts for the next half-hour and you can call us on these lines. (202) 748-8000 democrats. (202) 748-8001 republicans. (202) 748-8002 independents. on can also post thoughts our c-span wj twitter feed. raskin saying all systems were go about this meeting.

it was jerrold nadler meeting with top democrats on tuesday afternoon. raskin said that nadler would to bringatus report -- a contempt resolution to the floor. theer said monday evening department agreed to meet with the stash -- staff. this was all leading up to efforts today. enough thee soon committee were that will take place. you can monitor that on c-span3 as people start filing in. more of that closer to the top of the hour at 10:00. judith is up next. caller: the president has surrounded himself with people that are only for him. he has put people in office,

taking people out of office that aren't for him to put people in office that are going to protect him. and especially barr. he said he would be very clear as to be not just on the president's side. however, i don't think that's the case. i don't think anything's going to ever happen to the president when he does something wrong. he just encases himself all the time with people that are just for him. and that worries me a lot. host: trudy's next from washington. republican line. caller: i'm very concerned number one that nadler should the rich using himself from that committee because of his son at an attorney the that was representing

attorney general of new york, silverman. he had to step down because of sexual harassment charges. but nadler has access to all of those files. that was number one. ander two, the fact that he cohen performed on the tv all over our nation and was having a kentucky fried chicken celebration calling our attorney barr.l chicken host: in illinois. independent line. go ahead.

caller: i'm very independent. i am not republican nor am i democrat. , it is the matter nadler and the judiciary committee that's in contempt. barr's contempt is a justified contempt. nadler and the committee had no business telling barr that he is deposed by be committee lawyers after testifying to the incompetent barr having to be deposed by the lawyers, what's next? will the house of lawyerstatives lobbies in party lawyers be voting place of the legislators while they are off at a junket

enjoying themselves next? host: that's thomas in illinois. we will hear from mitch at his weekly party strategy lunch. one of the things he talked about was democrats and the mueller report. we had two years from alert to take a look at this. he filed the report. is on the internet. everybody can see it here it's over. over. i can understand why our friends on the other side are disappointed. they have than looking for some way to overturn the 2016 election for two long years. this is an objective evaluation of what was alleged by a guy that everybody knows has no ax to grind and he filed a report to its time to accept the recommendations of mueller's report and move on.

host: that was mitch mcconnell speaking to reporters after that event yesterday to talk about the status of the mueller report. another reaction came from the senate minority leader, chuck schumer. talking about the issues of the mueller report. while my friend the majority leader wants to say case closed, i don't blame him. prosecutors said publicly that the product -- conduct of the president amounts to felony obstruction of justice and that in any other case goes prosecutors would recommend bringing charges. mover leader says let's on. it's sort of like richard nixon saying let's move on at the height of the investigation of his wrongdoing. of course he wants to move on. he wants to cover up and he wants to silence. on one of the most serious issues we face.

whether a foreign power can manipulate our elections. the wellspring of our democracy. sincere than is put election security on the floor. let's debate it. put sanctions on russia on the floor. let's debate it. he doesn't want to move on. he wants to run away. facts thatawful relate to the wellspring of our democracy. foreign interference in our election and a president whose lawless. that's what he wants to push under the rug. this ise he would say all done. it's not done. president on his twitter congressman jim jordan saying the real

obstruction of justice is what the democrats are trying to do to this attorney general. in baltimore, maryland. shawn. you are next. caller: it's clear to see what the republicans are doing. i'm pretty sure the mueller includes evidence of some type of obstruction of justice and they are basically just trying to sweep it under the rug and move on. i don't understand why the democrats aren't able to see the full unredacted report. and ibout transparency think the american people deserve transparency.

whether you are a republican or democrat it shouldn't matter. host: mike is in north carolina. republican line. caller: good morning. democrats are just putting this facade on. they just can't over -- get over thatlection and god prays william barr will open up this investigation and how it got started from peter struck all the way to obama. host: richard from missouri. go ahead. caller: if there is nothing to hide, what did they have against letting everybody see the report? the more they try to hide it the more it looks like there is something there.

let the sunshine in. if there's nothing there, let them investigate. rich people don't pay tax. everybody knows that. they've got tax lawyers. host: let's hear from jeff. caller: the stuff that is going on with barr and the republican party is just a travesty. that if theyforget were in russia or china the people they're trying to protect , they would be shot for their views. so if that's what they would like to do and just destroy this country. sorry for them. i was a republican and now i'm an independent. republicans call

americans anymore. they are traitors. thank you. we will go to the house and then the hearing taking a look at the attorney general will be on c-span3, c-span.org and our radio app. you can monitor that starting at 10:00. here's greta brawner. judiciary democrats are going forward with it after negotiations fell apart last night with the justice department. the assistant attorney general to jerry nadler saying in the face of the committees threatened contempt vote the attorney general will be compelled to request that the invoke executive privilege with respect to the materials subject to the subpoena. i hereby request the committee hold the subpoena in advance and delay any vote on whether to

recommend a citation of contempt for noncompliance pending the president's determination of this question. out todayer tweeting the committee will also take a hard look at officials who are enabling this cover-up. in the meantime the committee will proceed with consideration of the contempt citation as plan. doj will think better of this last-minute out first and return to negotiations. tweeting bill barr published the mueller report online and all of the law on redemptions. even working with the special counsel on the process and democrats still want to hold him in contempt. this is not serious. this is the height of political desperation on full display. the house judiciary committee is also asking for don mcgann to give his records and documents to their committee and they also

want him to testify. the house judiciary dems tweeting out in response to headlines that the president is going to invoke executive privilege, the white house counsel's letter did not actually invoke executive privilege. any claim of executive privilege has been waived as to documents the white house voluntarily disclosed to mr. mcgann and his counsel. nadler went on to write a letter to don mcgann's lawyer saying turning to the other requirement of the subpoena that mr. mcgann appeared before the committee to provide testimony, i fully expect this testimony will hold mr. mcgann in contempt if he fails to appear before the committee. even if mr. mcgann is authorized by court order to invoke executive privilege he still is

required by law to appear before invokemittee to executive privilege where appropriate. democratscommittee want to hear from the attorney general. haven't. today.e holding this -- they also want to hear next week potentially may 15 from robert mueller himself. in two weeks time, they want to hear from don mcgann, the former host:house counsel to house judiciary democrats twitter feed highlighting that hearing today. this is what's going on on their twitter feed. barreen wells saying that is falling the law and democratic colors don't understand that and 90% of the report is unredacted.

democratic colors don't comprehend what they hear. caller: she's right. democrats don't understand what's going on. democrats in congress want to hold william barr in contempt for refusing to break the law. it is illegal for him to turn over the complete unredacted report and they know that. this is the most sickening thing i've ever seen in my life. they talk about a threat to our democracy. ask the democrats what they are doing today. you're looking at the room where that will take place. in trenton, new jersey. caller: i would like to talk about democrats and republican. showing to the younger generation in school?

we need love. we don't need to fight. when something is wrong, just say it's wrong. that justgo on like fighting. we have to understand each other. we are here to work with the generation that is coming. who is teaching? host: in oregon. independent line. >> i can understand why the right might have contempt for the law. been demonstrating contempt for the law for more

than 10 years now by defying the marijuana laws throughout the country. it appears to me that we all have contempt for the law. thank you. in plano, texas. republican line. caller: good morning. i'm one of those deplorable republicans. the rules, following the laws that the democrats set up after the next and watergate and i don'tn understand mr. nadler. he is as dense as i am when it comes to the law. host: senator elizabeth warren the senate floor talking about mueller report and then talking about the topic of impeachment. here's what she had to say. >> the information that has been given to us in the mueller report clearly constitutes

adequate information to begin an impeachment proceeding in the house of representatives. times mitchw many mcconnell for the rest of republicans want to wish that away, it's there in black and i urgen the report to every republican in this chamber. i urge every republican and democrat in congress. i urge every person in this country to read the mueller report. robert mueller makes clear that the president of the united states worked actively to obstruct justice. there's enough here to bring an impeachment proceeding. and for this body for congress to back up from that and say that protecting the president is more important than protecting the constitution is not only wrong, it is a violation of our oath of office. i'm here to say one more time in public, this is not a fight i wanted to take on but this is

the fight in front of us now. this is not about politics. this is about the constitution of the united states of america. oath not to try to protect donald trump. we took an oath to protect and serve the constitution of the united states of america. way we do that is we begin impeachment proceedings now against this president. host: in iowa on the democrat line, this is randy. caller: there is so much to comment on. caller that earlier the republican party has become, their obstruction has become treasonous. there are thumbing their nose at the constitution and what really matters, the truth. because the truth changes from administration to administration

and the republican party. it used to be that the deficit back big deal but we are to tax cuts and ignoring the debt. so i'm afraid that with what was earlier in the show about the and the way that the administerson public policy for the american people that we are looking at donald trump's seventh bankruptcy and that will be the bankruptcy of america. host: scott from new york. independent line. caller: good morning. i have been calling since 1998. i got on washington journal and said donald trump is going to win the election. everything are prophesies on c-span washington journal came

true. watchaid last week and mr. barr sit in the hot seat senators which he was less than truthful, less than cooperative in that hearing. truth is what everybody wants to lie about it. this is where we are at today. ofould like to tell all these so-called christians out there in this world that believe in the end of time when jesus comes back on a white horse, he knows the truth. host: here's greta brawner. >> the house judiciary committee can find the back-and-forth by the democrats on that panel. from the letter that was sent to the justice department yesterday to house democrats, this is the argument they are making about

theirontempt resolution argument that now the justice department has to ask the president for executive privilege. the attorney general made available a minimally redacted version of the report that excluded only grand jury information which could not lawfully be shared with congress. in response you immediately served a subpoena. demanding production of the and theredacted report special counsel's entire investigative files which consist of millions of pages of classified and unclassified documents. the has offered further accommodations to the committee in particular to expand the number of staff members who reviewed the minimally redacted report to discuss the material

freely among themselves and to allow members to take and retain their notes following their review. these --sed hope that would allow the parties to engage in an full discussion regarding possible further accommodations of the committee's additional expensive request. unfortunately the committee has by escalating unreasonable demands and scheduling a committee vote to recommend the attorney general the hilton contempt of congress. that resolution can be found if you follow c-span's capitol hill producer. he tweeted out that resolution. you can find that if you follow him or go to the house judiciary committee's website. host: mary gay scanlon is the vice chair. out this tweet saying

the doj and this administration continue to obstruct justice and stonewall our efforts to conduct oversight. no one is above the law. also ben cline of virginia saying today we are debating whether or not to hold the attorney general in contempt of congress for refusing to break the law. here is based in texas. republican line. caller: good morning c-span. i want to touch quickly on the doj resolution letter which i completely agree with the doj on their stance. i believe attorney general barr is just doing his job in the place that he's in. i feel the senate committee kind of made it into a circus show.

the second part apparently that wasn't the least kind of had to summarizedts of a version of what obstruction may have looked like. i think that's what attorney general barr was trying not to as ifem make it look like it were an impeachment proceeding and i think she's really just trying to hold together the fabric of this nation. getting very aggressive with each other. making nasty comments well we should just have an object to view of what we're trying to do in this situation here. ohio, democrats line. go ahead. caller: i am thrilled we are calling out william barr about this. this has an long overdue. people deserve to hear the truth. people are finally taking this put ane hands and we can

end to blame democrats for everything that has gone wrong. elizabeth warren is doing the best thing by telling it like it is in front of the committee and we are making sure that all of our constitutional rights definitely get exposed as the people against this administration. we need to stick together and that's how we are going to clean up america. also we definitely need to sign a petition to block donald trump from having any further activity. from mike in hear south dakota. democrat line. a simple way to clear up everything and make all the people of the country happy would be to have the president come before the congressional committee and answer all their questions. then everybody would have the answers they are looking for.

host: eva's next from california. good morning. caller: good morning. what i have to say, the jury is not out for the mother report. i see that the justice department started their investigation with mueller prosecuting. barr came in like a defendant. the votingy which is body has to have all the report to be able to release that decision. if barr doesn't want to give the report then he's under contempt. when the justice department works like that and black males the voting power. host: the house is just about to come in. we'll go to richard in georgia. republican line.

caller: what about when hillary clinton's emails were under subpoena? the house of representatives is coming in for its daily session. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c. may 8, 2019. i hereby appoint the honorable james p. mcgovern to act as speaker pro tempore on this day, signed, nancy pelosi. speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 3, 2019, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour debate. the chair will alternate recognition between the parties. all time shall be equally al he located between the parties. and in no event shall debate continue beyond 11:50 a.m. each member other than th