new hampshire. and then corey lewandowski discusses president trump's reelection strategy. always, you can join the conversation as well. "washington journal ♪ host: good morning. when congress returns this week, the senate will be debating that $19 billion disaster assistance bill that has more money for then president trump had previously supported. the house has a number of health care bills, live coverage on c-span, as well as the ongoing debate over bill barr and charges of contempt of congress. it is sunday morning, may the 12th, and senators cory booker of new jersey and michael bennet of colorado are in new hampshire today. former vice president joe biden tomorrow, covering all of it as

part of the road to the white house programming. the president, here in washington on this sunday morning. a happy mother's day. we want to begin this mother's day with a focus on women in the workplace and the question of whether or not u.s. paid family leave should be expanded. if you support the idea, (202) 748-8000. if you oppose it, (202) 748-8001 . we are also taking your tweets, @cspanwj. or join us on facebook at facebook.com/cspan. happy mother's day to the mothers, aunts, the godmothers, we want to focus on the role of women in the workplace juggling the issues of being home come in the workplace, and with pregnancies whether there should be paid family leave and whether it should be expanded across the country. we will get to all of this in just a moment, but we want to share with you from house ways and means committee that we

covered, it's about the impact of paid family leave and what it's had on wrote -- employee retention. [video clip] weree lucky ones like me able to cobble things together, at a huge psychological cost, but worthwhile, certainly because my family was not in a position to walk away from a paycheck. i don't know many that could. i certainly will say that my employer one my loyalty by leaning in and making things work for me. i stayed for another five years and was able to make things work for some of my own employees. from the employer perspective we have heard several times today about how expensive and resource intensive and time intensive it is to place a staff person. i think for them it felt like it was worthwhile to make things work so that they were able to retain me as an employee rather

than replace me. my hope certainly is that it was a win-win situation. host: this headline available at usa today.com, why american moms are seriously struggling. joining us on the phone this morning, thank you for being with us very a tell us what you have learned. guest: thank you for having me. a lot has changed from over the last several decades. in 1975, most mothers stayed home with kids. parents are working. --s are breadwinners in for what a for families. many moms are working on their own. many moms want to be in the labor force, others have no choice but to be in the labor for -- labor force. created new stresses,

pressures, and needs for things that didn't exist a few decades ago. host: let's break it down further. you outline all of this in your piece. first, with regards to child care costs and how they have increased over the last number of years. sure, yes. the united states really is an anomaly among developed countries. experts have told us that the united states has the most family hostile public policy of any developed country. the u.s. is the only country in the organization for economic operation and development that leave onffer any paid a national basis and it ranks in the bottom five spending on early childhood education and care. are obviously huge issues for working mothers. again, half a century ago, mothers were home with their kids, they didn't need access to early care.

and now with most moms in the absolutely a's need and the cost for many families is practically prohibitive and in many cases research shows that there are families who live in what are classified as childcare deserts. you have a lack of care even available. host: we are talking with alia dastagir of "usa today," focusing on women in the workplace this mother's day. "why american moms are seriously struggling. we want to hear from you as well. (202) 748-8000, begin filing and you or (202) 748-8001 if oppose that. let me go back to your reporting . you say it's no wonder that moms are stressed, combine a lack of public policy with a culture that lee's mothers on everything from best feeding in public to sleep training and the generosity of a single holiday

starts the pale. can you elaborate on those points? sure, yes. we have this ideal in this country about what it means to be a good mother. we also have an ideal in this country about what it means to be a good worker. to be a good mom's to push her child first. that is often what we are told. or put your children first. to be a good worker in the u.s. economy, we are told, drop everything when the email comes in, when the boss calls to come in early and stay late when needed. just two things are grossly in conflict. i interviewed a sociologist, caitlin collins, for my piste -- for my piece. she spoke with 130 middle-class working moms in sweden, germany, italy, in the u.s., and found that american mothers stand apart for their stress, guilt, and worry, experiencing the most

acute family conflicts. having theseround very high expectations for mothers without giving them any , thert to meet the demands absence of policies like paid leave or affordable childcare takes a huge toll on families and mothers specifically. on the screenut how much you spend some family benefits. only mexico, greece, and turkey spend less. why is that? so that's the million-dollar question. experts are spoke with said a few things about why the u.s. has such family hostile public policies. american be an individualism. we have this idea in this country that individuals are responsible for solving their own problems. that leads into what we heard a

lot from sociologists and advocates who say that culturally that leads a lot of women to believe that they don't deserve support from their government or from their partners. research shows that so many mothers feel like they are failing and they feel like it is their own fault and if they would just work harder and balance better they would be able to alleviate their own stress. many mothers just don't feel entitled to support. this obviously leaves a lot of women, who are busy surviving their day to day, you may not have time to advocate for what you deserve. host: the topic is paid family leave and the phone lines are open. (202) 748-8000 in washington, d.c., if you think it is time to expand leave. if you oppose the idea, (202) 748-8001. what country or countries can serve as a role model for the

u.s. so, we didn't focus quite so much on that in our reporting, but i will say that the research shows that countries that do offer paid leave see huge economic gains. points af the sort of lot of lawmakers and advocates point to is that the lack of these policies is costing the u.s. economy billions per year and the u.s. department of labor said they look at countries that did provide paid leave and said that paid maternity leave in our country would increase women's participation in the workforce. the absence of it causes $500 -- the in additional access of it causes $500 billion in additional economic activity per year. host: and you are bored that ads doing more but moms still do the most. doing much dads are

more childcare than they were half of the century ago. also sort of see childcare as much more of a part of their identity then they did half of the century ago. but we still have sort of deeply entrenched attitudes about who takes care of kids, who should take care of kids. who does a better job of taking care of kids. so, in families still where you have two parents working, moms are doing more to manage the day-to-day of their kids lives. i thought that a really that caitlinoint collins, one of the sociologist i spoke to for the feast, pointed out, was that even in relationships that feel very andtable and a gala terry prior to kids, after having kids, those relationships become much more -- those marriages turn much more traditional and she said that policies are

absolutely a part of it, but that these are cultural attitudes about what men and women are good at. host: our viewers and listeners can follow you on twitter. your work is available at usatoday.com. thank you for being with us. guest: thank you so much for having me. the issue of pay family medical leave, should it be expanded in particular with new moms? whether through adoption or the natural birth of a child? what can be done, what should be done? here is a tweet from mark stone -- host: send us a tweet, @cspanwj. janet, tacoma, washington, your view on this? mothers that have small children, i think they should be with their children if they don't need it financially, but if they do have to have it financially, i think that they

should make sure that they get a morally and reliable person to watch their kids, unless the husband is watching them. if they arethat going to work, they should have a job that is fit for them, that will handicap them, that won't or anything health emotionally otherwise. host: is that easier said than done in some cases? me i had to, with have neck surgery, i need back surgery, i had both hands operated on. it really handicap to me on my job. ,f the job is too much for them they should have a way that it will handicap them other than

just not do it and have a job that will fit them to the rights that will ruin their health like-minded. host: thank you for calling on this mother's day. as a way of background, this is part of the family medical leave act. the acronym's fmla. including the following items -- host: amir is joining us here in washington, d.c., good morning. caller: good morning, how are you doing? host: morning. caller: hello? host: yes, go ahead, please. caller: i'm talking about, just listening, i'm not born here,

but the problem is when the kids who haveung babies to this day, they can't finish school. in government they should put should finishhey school, get married, have kids so they are raised between the mother and father, better to live as kids. this will introduce most of this health care to those kids. it should be the law to finish school and if you don't finish school, you don't get nothing. that.eep on doing somebody who is sick, it's more like young kids have -- they

don't know how to take care of themselves. host: thank you for the call. this from twitter -- this last week, rachel breslin weighing in on the idea of expanding u.s. medical leave what it would cost employers and employees. here is what she had to say. >> workers would pay .2% and the employers would pay the other .2%. workers -- families will really bear the burden. that initially doesn't;, $200 per year per worker and it may not the a lot middle and upper --ome people, but the in him the income would be disproportionately felt by people living paycheck to paycheck and even if you are talking about $20 per month, that's a lot.

>> in your opinion, will the amount of money that that collects fund the family act? >> i don't see how it possibly could. multiply out how much revenue we are bringing in and you compare that to the amount of revenue that would fund about 2.5% to 5.5% of workers taking leave depending on how long that take the leave for. we are looking at 25% of workers saying that they have had leave and have taken leave and so in reality it was only able to provide benefits to 10% to 20% of workers. believe that it had to be stripped down significantly? >> without rationing out about how you could possibly provide the level of benefits specified with a .4% payroll tax. that debate is available c-span.orgite, go to and search house ways and means

committee or family paid leave legislation. the difference between the united states and many other countries is that many are the size of our states and that fate -- paid family leave "should be left up to those places, our government doesn't have the money for them." new hampshire, governor chris sununu has vetoed paid family leave bills, calling them income tax hikes. it calls for a .5% payroll tax that would fund up to 12 weeks of family medical leave at up to 60% of a workers salary. democrats sent the bill in this past wednesday. that he washe said happy to veto this. back to your phone calls, joe is joining us from ravina, ohio, good morning. caller: when did the government become a wet nurse. if you can't afford a child, don't have one.

host: we we will go to rick who is next. good morning. caller: good morning, happy mother's day. i think that we have lost so much. now individual families are the focus. it's like the parents have to do everything. they have to make the income, they have to raise the kid, they have to do it all. in theended family, back earlier days, where the grandparents raised the kids and the younger generation bore the kids, but the grandparents raised them and the younger generation did all the hunting and gathering and supporting of the extended family. i think we have lost an awful lot, thank you. host: how do we get back to that, rick? caller: well, [laughter] there has to be some kind of guidance and some kind of will. but i think that what we have is a real estate problem.

everyone has to have their own home. you know, it just is a breakdown of the extended family and the ability to raise kids with the wisdom of their grandparents. host: stay on the line. i want to remind her audience our phone lines are open, (202) 748-8000 and you support the idea of expanding paid family leave. and if you oppose it, (202) 748-8001. rick, from you specifically what we are hearing from some of our collars and review is what role should the federal government play? thinki think -- caller: i the federal government should get the hell out of our lives and let us do what we can do and should do. all of this top-down instruction about how to live, how to behave , you know, who pays who and how much, i just really -- we are

down the wrong rabbit hole. host: what about the states, then? what role should they play question mark caller: the states? -- play? caller: the states? i don't know, the same thing. you have to have a couple objective, but you can't ram all of this down everyone's throat. hey, rick, thanks for your perspective, we appreciate it. (202) 748-8000 if you support the idea, (202) 748-8001 if you oppose the idea. we welcome listeners unserious xm, potus channel 124, and those listening on c-span radio, a reminder to be sure to get the free c-span radio app. this is the cradle act, legislation cosponsored by jodi ernst of iowa, likely of utah, including the following --

the cradlecalled act, more information is available at senator mike lee plus website. let's go to don, joining us from cleveland, ohio. caller: good morning. happy mother's day to everyone listening. i would be -- put it this way, i don't think the issue is whether or not you could afford to have kids or not and whether or not you should have them were not. the issue here is, first off, should the federal government involved in something like this? .or me i think the answer is no then you have got to look at -- what do our states have to say about this? i think you get closer to the root of the issue here. it's really less of a government issue as it is how we are empowering our local institutions, whether it be churches or other charitable organizations to help take care of people who may need help who

have kids. because of the growth of government, charitable contributions and people volunteering around in our communities. it is at an all-time low. good luck trying to plan a spaghetti dinner or something like that to raise funds for something. it's very difficult. people just don't have those local ties and bonds anymore and we just look to the government. the whole discussion here today -- and it's a good 1 -- is whether or not the government should be running a paid family leave program. what about something else? i think that's a fair west and in this debate. host: thank you for the call. from cleveland, ohio, we are getting a sense of how this debate on capitol hill with various pieces of legislation and how to pay for it, it's called the new parent's act, being supported by two and republican senators, arco rubio of florida and mitt romney of utah. parents can use a portion of

social security benefits to finance paid leave up to three months per child and retirement benefits would be deferred by three to six months for benefit taken or proportional reductions in monthly social security benefits are the first five years of retirement. basically getting the benefits now and paying for it later when you are eligible for social security. this is from roy -- host: next up is elizabeth, joining us from water berry, connecticut. you support the idea of expansion? caller: good morning, happy

mother's day to everybody. i do support it. from my understanding, the family leave legislation is not just for, for example, maternity leave. it's also for emergencies. i can give you an example, i'm self-employed and my father was diagnosed with cancer. he was battling a very hard chemo treatment. my sister-in-law, which she works in new york and i think in new york state they have mandatedfamily leave in new york, she was allowed to take some time off and help me. because a lot of times i had my own business and i didn't have time. we worked together. children and for babies. i do support them on needing to take time off, i'm a mom myself,

i needed to take the time off, but it's also for family emergencies. something like that, we need to support the family and it's great if we have a program like that where you know you are able to take care of your elder parent. host: elizabeth, things for the call. "tap social security? no, tax employers, who are the ones that can more than afford it. they just got a bunch of tax breaks they didn't deserve." a democratic bill sponsored by kiersten gillibrand and rosa delauro is called the family act of 2019 would include the following -- host: dave is joining us from illinois. you oppose all of this.

why? you know, the one with the payroll tax, because you know we already have medicare, medicaid taken out, they put aside over 10%. i live in illinois, you know, our taxes, we just got our property tax, we fund the schools to the property tax. we pay a fortune in that. it just seems like the more they say they are doing for us, you know, good things like education, health care, security, but it's just costing more and more and more. it's really breaking our backs. host: thank you. this is from jodey. host: then there is this beazer

legislation being sponsored by house democrats, including jennifer wexton of virginia and house democratic leader steny hoyer, the federal employee paid leave act, this legislation would grant up to 12 weeks of hate leave for federal workers, the leave could be used after the birth of or care for a newborn, allowing paid leave to place a child for adoption or foster care and allow the care for a child or parent with serious health conditions. cosponsors include carolyn maloney and don buyer. carolyn maloney from new york, don buyer from northern virginia. julia is joining us from indiana. good morning. caller: good morning. yes, i just, i am just always curious as to the government, you know, being non-supportive of the family. when we look at today's headlines and what happens you know, with gun violence in our

school system and we do not support the family anymore. i absolutely think that the more that we can, in our civilized society around the world, paid leave is given to both mothers and fathers to care for their children at home. host: thank you for the call. -- host: your tweet, @cspanwj, send it to us, we will read it. overton, nebraska, good morning. caller: yes, i think there are two problems. the divorce rate in the united states keeps going up and up and up. and also, a lot of these families are living beyond a one , you know, they are living beyond one income. they got campers, boats, their kids all got iphones.

i mean, they are living beyond it, beyond the ability for one income to support them. thank you. host: william, you are next. the question you are asking is whether or not we should expand u.s. paid family leave where the legislation from. the states, the federal government, what do you think? opposing the idea in pleasantville, new york. i want to tie it in with something else. on the anniversary of columbine i did a little research. from 1940 to 1980 there were 28 so-called mass shootings. from 1980 to present, you can check on this, 129. there is a direct correlation between the mother being out of the house -- i think that we have got to go back to the old-fashioned ways, ok? you are a single mom, you got to work, take your leave, earn it,

but for society as a whole, i think women belong back in the house taking care of the house. can't afford you it in today's economy question mark what if you need to incomes? i think a lot of those to incomes go to paying the help or buying the second car. host: what if the man stays home and the woman goes to the workplace? caller: that's fine, i've got no problem with that. host: thank you for the call. let's go to decatur, georgia, good morning. caller: how are you this morning? host: good, happy mother's day. same to you. very important topic. we are called the united states of america. i hear people talking about the government. we, the people are the government. we are called united states of america, not if states of america. a lot of people are talking

about being called the divided states of america. you are on your own, buddy, that's the divided states of america. let's be united states of america. thank you. host: thank you for the call. our phone lines are open, (202) 748-8000. that's the line for expanding u.s. paid family leave. if you oppose the idea, (202) 748-8001. timothy, you are next. jasper, indiana. caller: yes, hello? [feedback] host: turn the volume down if you would, go ahead with your comment. caller: yes, hello? host: go ahead, timothy. caller: yes. no matter who pays for this, in the end we all pay for it. if you have the employer pay for it, he just passes it on to us he's going to up the

price of what he's selling. so we pay for it. it,if the government taxes we pay for it. the end we all pay for it, no matter what. end, that's in the who pays for it. call.thank you for the catherine, douglasville, georgia. caller: good morning, happy mother's day to everyone. host: happy mother's day, go ahead, please. i oppose more government. i think that families can work it out themselves if the employers would give a decent wage. catherine, thank you. from georgia. tonight on "q&a," david marinus is our guest, the pulitzer prize-winning author of the new ,ook -- a good american family he explores his family's involvement in communism and the house un-american affairs

committee hearings during the 1950's. the premiere of the book is tonight, 8:00 eastern time on c-span's q&a program. here's a portion. [video clip] >> what would have been the years that they were communist? >> my mother was a member of the young communist league as a young student at the university of michigan. my father was not, but was definitely a leftist. and then after he came back from the war, i would say from 1946 to 1952. >> you say that you are not quite sure in your book what you ever saw in this -- what they ever saw the soviet union. >> how could you be? >> did they like the idea? why? >> my father at one point said that he was stubborn in his ignorance.

i think they like to the egalitarian ideas. my father i think in particular, and my mother, to some extent, were shaped by what they saw as the economic and always that were more obvious during the great depression. the whole notion of capitalism was being questioned more strongly because of what had happened with the collapse of that system. him the stubbornness was to ignore the paranoia and a murderous history of this -- of the soviet union. our guest tonight on "q&a," with the premiere of his new book, "the good american family." on his own upbringing and the inquiries into the house un-american affairs committee in the 1950's. that's tonight, 5:00 on the west coast. it :00 eastern time.

your questions as to whether or not we should expand u.s. paid family leave. democrats and republicans are for ways to pay for it, tell us what you think. wanda is next in district heights, maryland. tell us what you think. you're on the air. caller: good morning. i support it. what i feel like is that on most jobs you can get disability pay and we pay for that out of our paychecks through insurance companies. why can't they think of something like that? if you pay for it, you can pay for it. if you don't want it, you don't get it. i think that would work, the way that insurance companies do businesses and government. host: thanks. anthony joins is next. you support the idea. why? i do.: me and my wife, we both worked. it was very difficult when the children were sick to have to

come home. i drove a truck. i got home all different hours of the night -- the night and day. you know how many times we had to ask neighbors to watch the kids because i couldn't get home and i couldn't get home question mark wasn't right that we had to do that if she could have stayed home to nurse the kids back to health and to be honest with you, it's good for the entire country when we start watching what our kick that's what our kids do. when i was 16 years old, my mother, my mother and father were divorced, my mother ran the house and i just got out of school. she said to me -- what are you going to do for the summer now that you have no school for select asset and going around and hang out with my friends. well that didn't happen because the next morning i will cap and walk outside and there was a sign in the window that said la-z-boy on couch wants job. i had a job by the end of the day. host: thank you for the call, and -- now a tweet. people working for benefits, not

to accomplish something, and sent us fromck joining statesville, north carolina. good morning, your view on all of this? caller: good morning. hello. host: goodman one, jack. you are on the air. caller: all right, thank you. happy mother's day. either you are a mother or a worker and you should plan for it, just like i had to plan being self-employed. the armors in the wintertime for i ast do this work a taxpayer to pay for you to be out of work in the wintertime. you host:.e thank you. lori, thanks for waiting. from bloomington, illinois. go ahead. i oppose it, i think

that individuals will take advantage of it. i think you should plan for it. are sick, youu can plan for it, you know that things are going to come up, you can plan, you know what to do. people take advantage of the end six. and then they get better and they continue to act like they are sick just because money is rolling in. thank you for taking my call. thank you. again, look at the current family medical leave act, fmla -- host: gerard is joining us next

from baltimore, maryland. supported, however it should be managed by social security and it should be taken away from the employers so that you can travel with it. host: if taken away from social security, it's mean -- it means that something you wouldn't get later than life -- later in life? pay for itl you anyways, pay for it through social security and then there's a reduction at that point, so it would balance out. thank you for the call. janet, edgewood, missouri. hi, steve. sorry, i'm a little nervous. i think that starting with lbj, the unintended consequences of government actions have torn families apart and incentivized to not for an -- not form

families. to be able to afford to have kids, i think that going forward this will be incredibly hard on those in middle employers in the , they will be incentivized to be slightly under 50 full-time employees. i wish you had had an employers line for that size of employer, i would have liked to hear from some. but i think that it will be really, really hard for those employers to lose somebody for potentially three months out of the year, even without paying them. that could be devastating. i know that people -- i guess people think, congress thinks a big0 employees is enough company to have extra money floating around. i find that incredibly hard to believe. i'm self-employed, so i can't speak to that specifically, but businesses,h small

teeny businesses, and i think that it's just people that have never run a company that size, or maybe even work in a company that size, dictating and having no idea at all of the consequences. janet, being self-employed, i'm not sure your status, but how would you deal with the birth of a newborn? caller: [laughter] i don't have to worry about that anymore. i'm way past that age, thank you. think, like several other people have talked about, we need solutions that don't add dictated to us. they should have talked first not with employees and people

who don't know the numbers, don't know the math, don't know how to make is mrs. survive. they should have talked with a whole bunch of employers who have to actually deal with this in real life. for thenet, thanks call. the niece is next, belleville, ill annoy, good morning. good morning. i was going to say that i do support and i was trying to find out more information about family leave. tweet fromis a michael, saying that most states have a family leave act and they will look for federal funding to do this. denise, thank you for your call. david marinus joins us tonight on our q&a program. his latest book, he received a pulitzer prize for much of his including his biography of former president bill clinton. here is another exchange from his q&a interview, tonight on seized and.

[video clip] >> one of the central questions of my book is what is an american, what does it mean to be an american? the chairman of that committee john52 was a georgian, stevens would, voted against every civil rights bill that came to congress and had really been a member of the ku klux klan and some other dark parts in his past. my father, who had been the commander of an all black unit in world war ii, un-american. -- host: you called him un-american. host:we hope you tune in -- he called him un-american. you tune in. on the issue of expanding paid family leave, what you think? caller: hi, how are you? host: we are good, how are you? caller: i might survive. host: well, i hope so. caller: [laughter] happy mother's day, all the moms out there.

-- whatomment is where a key company employee is allowed to take a couple of months off? the obviouseplace thing to that employee was needed to do at work while they work there? vacancy to beis a replaced with a temporary worker, where you hire somebody. leaveen at the end of the , you then have to fire the replacement person? out thatou find somebody comes in and does a better job than the original employee? there's no consideration in the

for the inconvenience and the problems to the employer who of aw denied the services valuable employee while that person is on leave. host: bob, thanks for the call. jim has this. host: pat, good morning to you from asheboro, north carolina, go ahead. caller: since 1988, i've been

self-employed since i was 20 and i'm now 53. i have worked always until the day before i had a son. my body was in better condition than sitting around and waiting around until two weeks before or three weeks before having my child and then when i had him, he was healthy. i was much healthier. home him into a private where the lady kept a few kids and he was only a week old. i went back to work after a week was fine, im, he was a much better person because i wasn't having to do with -- deal with a crying baby all day. work and come home and

pick them up from daycare and be a better parent. host: thank you for the call. this is from new jersey, the trenton bureau of north jersey, a bill to sign the law in february by governor phil murphy . workers in new jersey will be able to take twice as much time off after childbirth or to care undersick family member the legislation signed into law by governor murphy. it also provides workers with larger payments during leave, allowing them to care for more relatives beyond just their immediate families. you can get more details on the website. helen joins us from zanesville, ohio. good morning, welcome to the conversation. caller: hello? host: good morning, helen. employed, myi was mother was dying of cancer. i was able to take unpaid family leave for travel weeks, which i willingly did, but it would have

been so much better if i had been allowed to take paid family leave. i definitely support it. caller: who should pay for it? -- host: and who should pay for it? i ask that because one of the ideas is that it is taken away from social security when you're eligible. others say that it should be an employee benefit paid for by the employer. caller: i would go for it either way. i would go for it either way. i definitely think it needs to be done. helen, thank you for the call. elizabeth, champaign, illinois. johnith us? host: this is -- caller: this is john. host: john, you are next. caller: employees could set up a fund and the company could match it. host: ok.

that would solve the problem. people that don't want to, they don't have to? you are a if relatively new employee within a year or two or haven't paid into it? i'm retired, but i used to work for a company that had paid leave, ok? the people that didn't have families couldn't take advantage of it. so it was one-sided. host: john, thank you for the call. george in bernie, california. where's that located? corner ofe northeast california, up in the mountains. i would like to say this to all of you out there who, just because you don't have kids don't think you're going to need this. my wife recently had a stroke. i was able to spend the last two months of her life with her because of family leave. you don't think this can happen

to you? you are whistling past the graveyard. host: sorry about the loss of your wife terry let's go to cw, joining us from rustenburg, virginia, good morning. good morning. my wife and i got married right out of high school and we had planned for her to study at home but had trouble. i got a second job, a part-time in thethe evenings weekends. we didn't have any financial problems at all. people tend to run to the or something with their hands out to get whatever they want. hard work creates luck. thank you very much. you for the call. couple of tweets here, let me get this up.

host: tom, joining us from waterford, michigan. caller: thank you for taking my call. host: sure. expandingoppose family leave because it is abused so much. i recently retired. five years before that retirement i was on family leave. it was a good thing to have. it was a little difficult getting through the doctors write ups to take care of my .other you expand it, it will put a hardship on employers. i work for a big corporation.

runs 24 hours a day, you can't just afford to let people off as you can replace them. so if you expand this program, i be athat it is going to big burden on small and big companies. plus there is no way to monitor .he abuse of someone using it for example, i'm going to take friday off and monday off to give myself a long weekend. it's just abusive. host: thank you for the call. this is the headline from "the denver post." "businesses with reservations generally support family leave, 60% said that they support the 12 weeks of partially paid leave you this tweak -- -- tweet -- jackson, tennessee, good

morning, welcome to the conversation. caller: yes, i supported. host: why is that -- support it? host: why is that? caller: people get sick, they have babies, that's life. the united states should support stuff like this for the families. if a person did not support it we were jobs, people are working jobs and things do happen and it's natural to have a sick parent. you can get sick and it's natural to have kids. people should be able to spend that time with their kids. like everybody is not being off and just taking off because they want to stay at home. i understand, i work a job, people do stuff like that, but then sometimes people think they staying off when they not sick and they don't tell you their business and they really do be sick with sick kids.

steve --t: this from .ost: heidi is next manchester, new hampshire, good morning. i'm single, 74 years old, retired, i worked for unions my whole life and they always had sick leave for single and for families. i think everybody deserves to have the sick leave. there's no other way you can afford yourself. host: should it be paid or unpaid? caller: paid, paid, in the union, you had union dues, get a few more unions and you make it it naturally. i have never been on sick leave in my life but i have seen plenty of friends that i've worked with and if it wasn't for people,ngle and family they could not have never have survived. i am so lucky, two union pensions in my name besides

social security and i'm single. i think i've done pretty well. support, we need support for families. thank you very much for taking my call. host: thank you. by the way, we are alive today and tomorrow in new hampshire to continue our campaign 2020 coverage. --hael bennet is in colorado a colorado is in new hampshire today, cory booker as well, covering that tomorrow at 12:30 eastern time, live coverage of joe biden in hampton, new hampshire, who by the way will have his kickoff rally next saturday afternoon in philadelphia. we will be live with that as well. check out our schedule at c-span.org. from white plains, new york, dave, good morning to you. caller: thank you for taking my call. we must support extending leave for, especially women are having a child and having of children. the reason, because we are

running into an actual dilemma in america. we get more and more people , coming older and older out of the employment. -- employment area. as such, we must find ways to support those who are putting younger people into the world and who will eventually enter the workplace. if not, we can have an actual problem here. this was observed a number of years ago by a minister in canada when she said that currently they have five working people for everyone collected. the time will come when they may have three working persons for everyone collecting some type of social benefit. host: thank you for the call. another tweet --

host: from ulster park, new york, stephen, good morning. you support the idea of expanding u.s. paid family leave. why? caller: i do. first of all, like a couple of callers said before, if you think you are not going to need this because of a sickness in your family or a child or a grandchild, you are wrong. but my concern with america is -- every time we are looking to expand the benefit for the people, to make life better for the people, everybody asks -- how are you going to pay for it, how are you going to pay for it? but when we begin $1.2 trillion to 65 ofx dollars away the richest families, 300 and 65 of the richest families in this country, nobody asks how we are going to pay for it. we just give away our money. when it comes to any sort of benefits for anybody, like

family leave, like medical benefits, like paying for drug , schools, hospitals, everybody asks when you are going -- how you're going to pay for it. that's my concern. host: thank you. this from mike -- marianne is joining us, next, from manhattan, kansas. caller:6 -- caller: i just want to point out that paid family leave doesn't come from when you fall in sick. it comes when you fill out forms and when you notify your employer from your position that there is a problem for which you will need to take time off. i was a therapist who had clients on disability. many of them had a family member off in order to take care of children if they were

hospitalized. they had to have lots of paperwork that verify they really needed that. i don't think it's a simple matter of spending money on people who want to take long days off. this is about people that really have to be covered when they are not able to function. it's not just psychiatry. obviously cancer is another. we have to travel many miles, sometimes, to get him a therapy. if you are receiving the therapy, you have to have helped or transportation. there isn't any public transportation for that. you have to have a family member that is able to get off work with paid leave in order to get your chemotherapy. it is simple things that people are not thinking about clearly. host: thinking of medical care, from the front page of the

washington post and who is going to be taken care of these people? as health emergencies rise across rural america, one hospital is fighting for its life. viewer,et from another "i would say the ever-growing wealth gap is at least attributable to the u.s. and gold being severed in 1971." doral from georgia. caller: good morning. happy mother's day to all the mothers. administrator to a hospital, i am going to echo what marianne had been saying. that is a lot of paperwork is required to do this, and they must use up a lot of their sick days and vacation days before it

is approved. this is not just give people free money and they stay home. part of the problem is there are a lot of employees who will abuse this, especially if they fmla, or intermittent they will randomly take weeks my and say i need to help sick mother, but it is around the fourth of july, but they leave their coworkers holding the bag. i work for a hospital. it affects them financially because you're going to be without a person that you cannot replace, and you just pay the other people over time. it affects the staff because they have to work more. you cannot really ask the person any questions legally. you kind of have to take that to hr and we will try to work our way through it. those are the things i think people are missing.

i think it does help some families. there are situations when people definitely needed. the number of people we have that we know they are abusing it because you cannot get their facebook page and see they are in california hanging out, and they are supposed to be helping their sick mom. you know, but there's is not much you can do about it. thank you for the call. this is from cq weekly. it is the economy stupid, or is it? issueats facing a tricky in 2020. i have a plan for that, elizabeth warren betting americans are ready for her big ideas. turning to presidential politics in just a moment. joining us from iowa is laura belin, with bleeding heartland. later from new hampshire we will have arnie arnesen talking about new hampshire and its role in

220 politics. you are watching "washington journal" on this sunday, may 12. happy mother's day. simply threeas giant networks and a government supported service called pbs. in 1979, a small network with an unusual name rolled out a big idea. let viewers decide on their own what was important to them. c-span opened the doors to washington policymaking for all to see. bringing you on content from congress and beyond. in the age of power to the people, this was true people power. in the 40 years since, the landscape has changed. there is no monolithic media. broadcasting has given way to narrowcasting. youtube stars are a thing. c-span's big idea is more relevant today than ever.

its coverage of washington is funded as a public service by your cable or satellite provider. on television and online, c-span is your unfiltered view of government so you can make up your own mind. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern, journalist and best-selling discussesid marinus his family and communism. >> what would have been the years they were communists? >> i would say my mother was a member of the young communist league at the university of michigan. my father was not, but he was a leftist. the war,came back from from 1946 to 1952. >> did they like the idea of the

soviet union and why? >> my father at one point said he was stubborn in his ignorance. i think they like the egalitarian idea. my father in particular in my mother to some extent was shaped by what he saw as the economic inequalities that group -- that were more obvious during the great depression. capitalism was being questioned were strongly because of what had happened with the collapse of that system. the stubbornness and ignorance was not seeing the paranoia and murderous history of the soviet union until later. >> david marinus tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us from des moines, iowa, is laura belin

bleeding heartland. which is what? guest: it is a politics website politics,oted to iowa everything federal, state, local . lots of things about iowa. host: you are on the ground, the epicenter of presidential politics with more than 20 democrats crisscrossing the state. what role will i what play in play in the first in the nation caucuses next year? guest: we have never had a field this large. the iowa caucuses don't always determine who the nominee will be, but they do play an important role in figuring out which candidates are credible, and which candidates could go the distance. i think that role will continue for iowa. i have seen about a dozen of the candidates already. that that iso me

not even close to the complete field. i think a lot of iowans will be making up their minds very late. that is what we saw in 2004 in 2008. even in 2016, about 40% of the caucus-goers decided late. i expect that to happen again. host: one of the changes will be what is known as the virtual caucus-goers. explain what that is about. guest: that is exciting to me. can onlyst you participate in the iowa caucus by being there in person at 7:00 p.m. at your designated precinct. some people are shift workers. some people are caregivers. some people because of a disability cannot leave the home or drive at night. previously those people have been unable to participate in the caucuses.

caucuses, there will be six designated times when people can sign up to caucus virtually. they will be able to call in and input up to five preferences in the presidential race. that is exciting to me. it is unknown how many people, it could have been tens of thousands of people who would have been excluded before. we will get the numbers of the people who caucus in person on february 3 and the people who call in. i'm interested to see if there are any differences in the preferences of those groups of people. host: do you think it will change the outcome or change the tradition or dynamics of these caucuses that have been in place since 1972? guest: i think it could change the outcome. the des moines register did a they askedear, and democrats how likely would you be to participate and would you

be more likely if there was a chance to be involved in the caucuses without being there in person? the poll suggested that as many as a third more people might participate in the caucus. it was especially younger people, people with lower the group of people who said they would be in person. and political independence, not necessarily registered democrats. if there are one or two candidates that appeal more to young people, those candidates could do better among virtual caucus-goers. reformhe overall. the iowa democratic party set a limit of 9% is the total number of delegates that can be determined by those virtual caucus-goers. since we have no idea what this could be, but let's say 200,000 people caucus and 150,000 people are in person and 50,000 people

use the phone, that would be one quarter of the delegates by phone, but they can only have 9%. delegates are what matters for going forward to influence who might be the presidential nominee. i am more interested in knowing how many iowans were inspired to caucus. host: our guest is laura belin. she is the editor of bleeding heartland. it is available online. i want to share with you the reporting of the washington post. they worked for obama, they are not supporting biden yet. writing,ngton post "only one of the 21 democrats wants voters to see him as best

able to the established the promise of present obama's third term. the question of who deserves to inherit the mantle of obama's movement, which remains the most potent unifying force in an increasingly fractious party has been the subject of constant debate amongst close-knit obama alumni. candidacyout a biting and demands that he prove himself on the campaign trail is a constant refrain." your reaction? guest: first of all, i would say that joe biden, you might see him as the front runner right now, he starts out in a pretty weak position as a front runner. insiderry gives an angle. looking at the larger group of

caucus-goers, the last full show that joe biden was about twice 7%, bernie sanders 25%. -- 27%, bernie sanders 25%. guests has found that historically front runners that start out below 30% don't win the iowa caucuses. a lot of iowans like joe biden, but there is a lot of concern of whether he is the best person to put forward. he will certainly have a lot of support, as will bernie sanders, but people are looking for other alternatives. with a field as large as this, somebody like joe biden or bernie sanders, who has a fairly broad level of support across the state, they could do well in the delegates. you need at least 15% of support in a precinct to get any delegates. biden might be any one of the

few candidates who gets that support across the state. it is very wide open right now. a lot of people like biden. a lot of people are interested in finding another candidate. the field is very fluid. host: (202) 748-8003 if you are an iowa resident. otherwise we are dividing our phone lines between democrats and republicans and independents. it is early, but who has the strongest ground game right now? guest: i think you would have to say bernie sanders. he started out with a huge list of supporters from 2016, and his campaign staff have been following up with all of those people. he has a very strong advantage in the number of committed supporters right away. we have never seen this level of staffing in iowa campaigns. elizabeth warren's campaign

already has about 50 staffers. are readyr's campaign has 40 full-time staffers. john delaney's campaign has a couple dozen staffers. we have field organizers all over the state working at levels we have not seen in previous cycles. we have not seen that level of staff. there is a cliche in iowa that how to win the caucuses is to organize, organize, organize and then get hot at the end. in iowa, if you have a breakout moment, you have the staff to capitalize on that, people who can right away follow-up with a lot of committed caucus-goers, people who are likely to show up. for instance, mayor pete buttigieg, who a lot of iowans really like and seems to be doing a little better, he did not have any staff here at that

time that his cnn town hall attracted a lot of attention. if he had had a couple of dozen staffers in iowa, he could have capitalized on that more. four (202) 748-8000 democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. if you are in iowa resident, we want to hear from you as well. the number is (202) 748-8003. the first round of debates will be taking place in late june on msnbc, two nights of debates. right now it appears as if all 21 to him credit candidates -- democratic candidates qualified to be on the stage. guest: it's amazing. when the dnc announced the qualification criteria, i thought that would narrow the field. i think they thought so as well. to see so many candidates get

65,000 donors is incredible. democratic turnout was really high for a midterm election. it was high nationally for a midterm. i think the level of engagement will be off the charts next year for the democrats. people are very motivated to do something about this trump administration. host: from your vantage point, a lot of attention on the house iowa, congressman steve king and senator joni ernst who has been dealing with personal issues, the separation from her husband, which she has been public about. would challenge the facts about whether she has been public about it. unfortunately, her lawyers let her down. those depositions from her divorce should have been sealed, but it became publicly known because they were not

sealed. i don't think that is put to play any important role in next year's senate campaign. reelect their incumbents. you have to see joni ernst as a favor. -- favorite. the democrats have kimberly graham is the first declared candidate. she published an introduction on bleeding heartland on friday. eddie morrow is likely to declare. teresa greenfield is another democrat many people see as likely to run. the congressional campaigns are going to be really exciting. iowa has nonpartisan redistricting. all four of our congressional districts are potentially competitive. i don't know of any state, perhaps hampshire because the two districts there might be competitive. i don't know of any state where all four districts could have

spirited races. iowa, the third district and the first district in northeast i want, we had to democratic women 2018. incumbents in we have a long serving kongsberg dave lopes act who is retiring. republicans will be targeting that. representative steve king, who unfortunately gives iowa a bad name across the country, but if he is the gop nominee again, which i expect he will be, and if jd shelton runs again for the democrats, that will be a close race and one that will attract a lot of national attention. today callinggo from maryland. o davie calling from maryland. caller: happy mother's day. it is about time for iowa.

the rest of the country needs to follow the same too. i had a word to say about you earlier segment. i feel the companies need to have health care in place. the same should be there for the kids. so many parents are separated. they don't have but one person. you cannot run a family today on one person. the first point i think was on the virtual caucuses. have beenf democrats talking about expanding pay family leave. is this issue resonating among iowa voters? guest: absolutely. there is a huge shortage of childcare providers in iowa.

iowa has a fairly low unemployment rate by national standards. that does not mean everything is iowans.r working island our wages tend to be low. bloc ine a huge voting the democratic primaries. this is a photograph of the elizabeth warren in the hawkeye state meeting with a young supporter. elizabeth warren has a plan for that, running a populist campaign running on dramatic ideas. this is the question, is it enough? how would you answer that? guest: i have been to several elizabeth warren events. i think she is resonating well. i think the biggest problem for elizabeth warren is bernie sanders. i feel they are competing for a lot of the same voters.

i feel if something were to happen in the debates or some other point in the campaign that would shake people's confidence in bernie sanders, elizabeth warren is someone who could benefit. people have responded favorably to her at all of the events i have attended. she is very warm and funny. she takes unscripted questions. not all of the candidates take unscripted questions at their events. she does. it has been enjoyable to see those events. she happens to have the best organize photo line after these events. have really managed it well and i have seen 100 or 150 people at her events lineup and get their pictures taken. she will stay and take every last picture and then sign autographs for people. it is interesting. i think people are reacting favorably. elizabeth warren is right in the

next. people do like to hear the big policy ideas. events,o to iowa caucus a lot of the reporters might ask questions about process or in thece, but the people audience are asking policy oriented questions, health care, child care, education, those basic issues you hear a lot. host: we have covered those moments with senator elizabeth warren in iowa and new hampshire. it is on our website. on the top of the homepage, you can type in her name where it says search. j in wisconsin. good morning to you. caller: happy mother's day. thank you to c-span. host: go ahead. caller: i am interested in senator elizabeth warren's campaign with that ground roots

cameity and how grassley to the floor immediately and said i need money for climate change in iowa. i appreciate it. thank you again. host: thank you. guest: that's what i hear when i talk to people who are either committed to caucusing for elizabeth warren or leaning that way, they talk about the policy. they love the detail. readers sometimes contribute posts endorsing different candidates. one of the ones she had seen elizabeth warren speak in dubuque, but she is someone on medicaid and the way elizabeth warren talked about medicaid and the way we can improve the system won her over. host: let's go to glenn in new york. caller: elizabeth warren happens to be my favorite choice.

we really need a cross-section of the country identified. concerned -- i should not say more concerned. concernseem a sense of that while everyone is electioneering they cannot overlook the pure criminality of the president? thanks. guest: i agree. a lot of highly engaged people are following that. i read portions of the mueller report. it is astounding that we are even talking about this level of criminality. i don't think that is the top thing on the minds of caucus-goers. i think it is important. when you talk about other regions of the country being important. who is really going to choose the nominee is probably going to be the south again as it was in

2016. i think iowa and new hampshire might narrow the field, but the nominee will have to do well in the south, particularly african-american voters in the south. we have seen that in the past. we will see which candidates have a potential to do better in different parts of the country. host: at blee dingheartland.com, our guest laura belin on the pros and cons off this new -- this new virtual caucus. affiliation, party which is the largest contingent 725,000.oters, how many typically participate in the caucuses?

what do you expect in 2020? the high water mark 2008 when there were about 148,000 people participating on the democratic side. the previous record was 125,000 in 2004. some people thought there might be as many as 200,000 people caucusing in 2008. i thought it was outlandish. to 170,000 closer caucusing. i think it will be closer to the 200,000, and it could be much higher. the iowa democratic turnout in the 2018 midterms was 20% higher than the democratic turnout in

2010 and 2014. democratic engagement is really high, i think because of the by the trump administration and by iowa republicans who control both legislature and the governor's office. one thing that is important about the iowa electorate is we are an old state. more than half of the caucus-goers will be over the age of 50. even with a virtual caucus that might appeal to younger voters. that is something we need to see which candidates can do well among older voters. that might be something where joe biden has a little bit of an advantage going forward. we will see what happens. caucus -- in 2008 when joe biden did not hit that 15% viability threshold in most of

the state come in my caucus, about 8% of the people were for him, and they were predominantly older people. ort: in 2008, you have five six viable democrats running, including hillary clinton and barack obama. if biden holds onto that sport, does that give him the edge in a much more crowded field> ? guest: joe biden and bernie sanders can probably count on being about that 15% threshold in most places. the other thing the democratic party in iowa is doing is they will release the headcount of the raw number of supporters for each candidate. that is not been true in the past. in the past they have only released the delegate totals. it will be interesting to see if joe biden ends up with far more delegates than his share of support. that will be a new piece of information we have not had

because we don't have a primary. we only have a caucus. in the past, they have not wanted to release those raw numbers because they were afraid that would make it too much like a primary. host: the longest serving member of the state switching from the republican party to the democratic party. what happened? longest-serving member, but he has not continuously served. he served for 24 years starting in the 1980's through 2002. then he retired and was a county supervisor for a number of years. he ran for the iowa house in 2016 because the house seat in his area opened up with a return it. he has always been a moderate. iowa, the seen in center of the republican party has shifted so far to the right, whereas andy mccain was a mainstream republican in the 1980's and 1990's, he was out of

step with his party. in some ways the media coverage of the parties which focused too much on donald trump. i published his full statement. he did mention that he did not feel he could support donald trump for president, but most of his reasoning was he was not happy about the way republicans are running the iowa legislature. in the when he served legislature in the 1980's and 1990's, it was more open, there was more debate. the outcome was not always predetermined on the floor. people were listening to each other on the floor. he does not always agree with the priorities his party pursued. he did vote against a few of the high-profile bills from the 2017 and 2018 session. i think this was building. one of the final straws for him this year was that the republicans overhauled a selectiond judicial

system we have used since 1962. it was a great system. it did not need to be changed. they changed it to allow the governor to put her thumb on the scales and make it more political. is a lawyer. i think that drove his decision-making, the autocratic way the republican caucus was functioning. he found he was increasingly not a grain with their priorities. -- agreeing with their priorities. host: we will go to illinois, jill. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have been listening to c-span for 40 years. coverage.te your this morning is a classic example of that. other news media, which is 24/7 constitutional impeachment, the mueller report, which does not have a lot to do with policy, this is a

process that follows the policy, brings the policy issues to the forefront. candidates lot of out there for the democrats. i'm still a bernie supporter primarily. i love elizabeth warren. cory booker is great. small harris is great. is great.harris i worry about the senate not having enough strong progressive democrats in leadership. i would not feel that if those bad if those-- three people stay in the senate to try to bring some sanity back to the leadership in the senate. i am independent because i have is what toolicrats much of them are today. the elites and the people who clinton ande dlc and

the democratic party have been so compromised by the money required to run these days, they won't say anything. lit want to keep that fire under the campaign instead of dealing with the issues. if jerry nadler ever talked about income inequality, i would be more impressed. end is what the republicrat of the democrats want to talk about. host: thank you for the call. guest: i think all the candidates you mentioned, people are going to respond to them. only one of them will be the nominee. most of them will stay in the senate. gillibrand as well. i have not walked away from any

presidential candidate event and thought they really bombed. the democrats are very open to all of these candidates. i think several of them have potential to gain a lot. 2004, john kerry and john edwards were way behind the pack at this point in the campaign. author pointed out there were several times people pulling below 5% early in the campaign ended up winning the caucuses. we have no idea how things will play out. i think it is important to have strong progressive leadership in the senate. i think most of them will end up remaining in the senate. host: laura belin is the editor of bleeding heartland. she is joining us from des moines, iowa. thank you. we appreciate it. guest: thank you. host: we continue our discussion

with arnie arnesen, a syndicated talk host from new hampshire. will be talking with corey lewandowski. thank you for being back. guest: it's a pleasure. happy mother's day. host: absolutely. caller: -- guest: as a woman who brought both of her babies to work or breast-fed, this is a very important day for me because i understand the balancing act women need to do. presidentialurn to politics and the latest numbers from new hampshire. this is the headline from the hill, former vice president joe biden at 36%. mayor pete buttigieg at 9%. elizabeth warren at 8%. it is early. what do those numbers tell you? guest: let me go back to a

couple of months ago. a couple of months ago i suggested that bernie and biden should not run for president, in part because they would suck the oxygen out of the room. nobody bombs. everyone is articulate. so many interesting people running for office. the concern i had was it would be too easy to go to biden and bernie because of name recognition. biden has been running for president two or three or four times. he was the vice president. he has a relationship with new hampshire. having done what was quite remarkable when he ran in 2016 where he completely obliterated hillary clinton in the new hampshire primary. what we're seeing is an interesting situation. something pretty brilliant. while endorsements usually don't matter in my state.

he got the was endorsement of john lynch. let me give you a little bit of a landscape. john lynch was the only governor in state history to be elected four times. lynch what his greatest claim to fame is, this democrat will say he was able to work across the aisle. his first campaign manager when he ran for governor as a democrat was a republican. john lynch has been in retirement since he left office back in 2012. he has been teaching at a business school. he has not lifted a finger for a democrat. john lynch at the same time biden announced for president said he was endorsing joe biden. that means he will work with him, campaign with him. why is that important in new hampshire? i will explain the numbers you just gave me.

in new hampshire, the largest group of voters are the undeclareds. you might call them independents in other states. .hey are 40% of the electorate they are able to make the decision on the day of the primary whether they want to pick up a republican or democratic ballot. adored by the independents. he was respected by the republicans. he has given joe biden that connection to the undeclareds. when they did the polling, they asked are you planning on voting in the democratic primary? not are you a democrat or a registered democrat, but are you planning on voting in the democratic primary? that means undeclareds can say i will pick up that ballot, and more likely than not they embrace joe biden. host: all of this coming at a

price for bernie sanders at the moment? guest: no, let me introduce you to elizabeth warren, cory booker. what is coming at a price for bernie is he opened a door in 2016 for a lot of progressive candidates. as a result you saw what happened in 2018. what i don't think bernie, and it is he also opened a door for a lot of different people to run for president of the united states. as a result, we have this amazing smorgasbord of choices. endorsing issues bernie celebrated, and now they are all talking about it. whether it is medicare for all, raising the minimum wage, addressing gerrymandering, looking at climate change, talking to working folks. what bernie did is almost part and parcel of virtually every single candidate running for

president. what does that mean? even though bernie is running again, he is not the only vehicle anymore. i know a lot of bernie people who are still with him. peoplea lot of bernie who say, that elizabeth moran, i like her. cory booker, i like him. he has seen his support dissipate. what is unfortunate for the moderates in this race, amy klobuchar, mayor pete, john delaney, they don't have the same sort of relationship with the new hampshire voter. when biden entered the race, that sucking sound all went to joe. a lot of those moderates were not necessarily able to hold on to what they were able to create. host: can a woman become the democratic nominee and win in 2020? guest: yes.

out of new hampshire, not a problem. a state where at one point in time every single major leader was a woman. the governor, the head of the senate, the head of the house of representatives, the head of the supreme court. hampshire, female and leadership to hand in hand. in my state, it is easy to see it. it is easy to assume it. does it mean the country is ready? here is the story about women and leadership, talk about the issues, connect with people's lives, be inspirational, understand and comprehend and embrace their fear is their fear is legitimate. i think a woman could win. that does not mean a woman is the best candidate this time around. host: our guest is arnie arnesen, syndicated radio talk show host, friend of this network.

we checked in with her often, especially this time of year. we appreciate your keen insight. we have a line set aside for new hampshire residents, (202) 748-8003. vivian, tennessee, democrats line. caller: good morning. happy mother's day. this is what i was calling about. for years, men have ran this country. look what it led us to. one reason i say a woman is capable of running this country, can you give me time please? i am going to tell you the reason. a woman is strong. the woman takes care for children. the woman works. the woman is the doctor. she is the judge. she is the jury. she is all of them in one. she thinks out her problems first instead of just jumping into them, for instance like war

like men do. they care about health care, education, student loans, medicaid, medicare. strongest.en are the host: thank you for the call. guest: how do i disagree with vivian? let's also remember something else that is interesting. thatof the argument was men were good on the hard issues, and women were good on the soft tissues. what are the soft tissues? the soft issues were health care, education, environment, all those soft issues. what are the number one issues for democrats? climate change. health care. education and inequality. these are issues women know. we have lived the inequality because we earn less than men even when we do the same job.

we are the caregivers. worry about the next generation because we give birth to the next generation. what do we know about climate change? climate change is going to be destructive for our children and grandchildren. i understand why women are leaving on that issue. can women lead? absolutely. are they the right leadership for the right time, maybe. personality matters. the ability to connect matters. whether they can articulate a vision matters. whether they can win all over the country, the rest go, the ,outh -- rust belt, the south and talk about what we need to survive as a democracy and an economy with the challenges of climate change and let's make sure everyone can go to a doctor when they are sick. nobody wants insurance. they want health care. women get that.

is tuesday, february 11, the firm date for the primary, or is that subject to change? guest: it is subject to change. it is always a week after the iowa caucus. we have to be the first primary in the nation. bill gardner is the longest-serving secretary of state in american history. the one skilled he brings to the table is he is agile when it comes to the presidential primary. host: we know what you mean. , republicano iowa from texas. i think all them democrats that are running for president can get back in the

closet given they didn't want to take care of nothing when they was here. everybody out there on tv land, remember, wilford donald trump in 2020. host: thank you. let's go to lori, a new hampshire resident. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. i have been watching. i have been tracking all the different people running. i would vote for a female in a hot tick. it would be no problem. i am so worried that a female president would not get elected right now. i would appreciate it if everyone votes democratic. i am an independent. i'm afraid of trump. i am worried about climate change for my children and grandchildren. i think it is time we take our country back. thank you. host: what are you hearing in that comment?

i was the first female to run for governor in state history in 1992. the woman that ran after me won. we did a postmortem after i lost the election. it turned out that the people that most feared whether i could be elected governor or be a good governor or be the governor were women, not men. my own sex was the most concerned about whether or not i could accomplish it. we were shocked. women between the ages of 35 and 50, not older women, not younger women, but women my age were the most concerned about whether i could actually be governor. except onee woman who has ran as a democrat and female has won.our own fear

is what is controlling this. vote for the best candidates. don't look at gender. if the best candidate is female, she is not only good for you, she is good for the country. she will prove her mettle. host: let me ask you about this senator from wmur, bernie sanders unionizing his campaign workers. how significant is this? predictable, but not necessarily significant. he is saying i am with you. i am a labor baby. i'm someone who understands labor issues. cash, sos flush with he can pay those bills. it is about respecting the people who are doing the work, and they are working and was ours. pay, probablys to

a lot of college loans to pay. this is really putting his money where his mouth is. let me go to joe biden. joe biden has announced all these incredible numbers. he claims he is with working people. he just did a huge fundraiser with someone from kaiser permanente, who is in the middle of a union strike for mental health workers. joe biden still went there and kind of cross a picket line of sorts. know you needto to hear the talk, but you also have to see the walk. bob in north carolina, democrats line. caller: exactly. guest: good morning. caller: there is no person on the face of the more responsible for the war on drugs than joe biden. bernie sanderss

out of this nomination again, a lot of bernie sanders voters were angry and voted for donald trump just to get back to the dnc. they are not going to be able to play those same old games again. host: thank you. caller: joe biden is an establishment candidate. host: thank you for the call. guest: let me say something about that comment. there was a report that joe biden got more coverage in the first week of his announcement than all the other democrats running together. let me remind everyone, there are 22. if you look at the coverage anyway, there has not been a lot of coverage of the females, but there have been of the men. even before he announced, biden was getting coverage about the fact he was thinking about it. for months biden was always there, the veil was there even

though the reality wasn't. you see a lot of the media going to men, and in this case biden. biden is very comfortable. they have known biden for years. my concern is that the media will choose our candidate, and we won't choose our candidate. you saw that with donald trump. how many billions of dollars of free media did he get? blame cnn, fox msnbc. god help us if the media picks our candidate again. you are worried about the dnc. i am worried about the coverage. if you don't cover people, you don't get to hear about their issues. if they only cover a handful of guys, i'm not sure what the choice will be. you might be ticked off at the dnc, i will be angry at the media not giving me the real choices that are out there that are writable. i think that is important. if you have a problem with

bernie, don't blame the dnc. the problem for burning will not be that the dnc put their finger on the scale, which they might be doing a little bit of, but your problem for bernie is that he opened the door for remarkable candidates to find their voice and run. you saw that in 2018. you are seeing that in 2019. a lot of people that are running are running on ideas that bernie showed are real and credible. they may be younger than him, but bernie did a good thing not just for bernie. that is the thing we need to hold onto. he opened the door. was it just for bernie? i don't think so. host: will you endorse anyone leading up to the new hampshire primary? guest: no. i wish the new hampshire primary has, rankedne choice primary. there are so many interesting

and incredible people. you will never meet people in an intimate way the way i have an opportunity to do, the way iowa does, the way new hampshire does. how important it is to get to know the candidates and to be shot. -- shocked. the first guy to announce, you remember his name? host: john delaney. guest: i decided i did not like john delaney. a couple of reasons, i heard what he was saying about the green new deal, health care. john delaney came into my newsroom the other day. he is less than 0.5% in the polls. i was tough. .ou can imagine i can be tough i was tough on him. not only was he sharp, not only was he smart, he had amazing push back. he was able to speak to me about health care in a way i did not anticipate. he does not believe in medicare

for all. he started talking about the health care plan he did support. i'm listening, and that is the german model of health care. he said, yes. i said, you should tell people that. candidates.any good i wish we had ranked choice voting. if we had ranked choice voting, i think you would have elizabeth warren. i think she is everybody's second choice. she is the policy one. need of people don't even to write position papers because elizabeth warren is doing all the work for us, whether it is the wealth tax, day care, college, health care. she is doing all that detailed work, and everyone then assumes all the democrats embrace a variation on a theme. do i have one? i'm lucky, i have four or five. host: the good news is you don't

have to travel to iowa or new hampshire. just this weekend covering beto a work in new hampshire -- o'rourke in new hampshire and john delaney. that is available on the web at c-span.org. kathy is joining us from new hampshire. good morning. caller: good morning and happy mother's day. i am watching this with my husband. where 55 and 56. our daughter is 22. we all voted for bernie last time. it was not a strong vote for bernie because of the choices we had. all of us like mayor pete so far. i have seen many of the candidates. i have gotten a couple of the pete events. i'm amazed at how old are the population is for pete. bernieent strongly for

four years ago. almost to a person many are looking elsewhere come and not because they don't like bernie, but because it is the issues. i see people talking about medicare for all and green new deal and climate change, and they are voting because of the policies. if the fix was in for the dnc, bernie would not be the nominee. i don't think bernie is going to be the nominee because we have an abundance of terrific candidates. it is an exciting time. here's something about pete, seems very intelligent, well versed. i think there is something generationally happening that people are looking away from some older people to the future. i know people who support him who are 80 and who are 20. host: thank you for the call from new hampshire. arnie arnesen. pete, i went by

radio to south bend. he was mayor at age 29. he was elected after he announced he was gay. he figured he needed to tell south bend he was gay particularly because south bend is the home to notre dame. i went to south bend to check out what kind of mayor he was. he is young. he has done the important things. what do mayors do? they understand the buck stops here. you have to live in a safe community. you have to insure your community is able to recover if there has been some kind of economic challenge. i have to admit, i was impressed with mayor pete. moderate tole more conservative than i am. i have a greater sense of urgency that i'm not sure he has. i want to hear him more on the health care issues. i don't think he has the best

agenda when it comes to college debt. at the same time, he is engaging, he is smart. gay mane first openly to run for president of the united states. he is not using his sexual viability.as his he is using it as his hammer. he is able to embrace his personality and away a lot of politicians are unwilling to do. he is able to articulate a message where -- let me share something with you. i have two evangelical students i know. brilliant young men. one is from the virginia area. another one is from the midwest. both of them have contacted me. they are strict evangelicals. they are intrigued by mayor pete. he is crossgenerational.

he may cross those religious silos. another reason this is such an exciting opportunity is that we are able to see so many young faces and new ideas percolating. in new hampshire, democrats are willing to kick the tires. biden and bernie may be in the lead, but they may not get the ticket out of new hampshire because people have the opportunity to create relationships and change that dynamic. host: joe biden is in new hampshire tuesday. he will host his kickoff rally. from arnesen is joining us manchester, new hampshire. how can people follow you on social media? guest: if you go to facebook, the name of my show is the attitude. on all my emails, this is my slogan, an old labor slogan,

pot stirred so this line doesn't raise to the top. we are in houston, mallory, in michigan, we are heard around the country, but the best thing is what someone set of us he sent him to complement c-span as well. the horse race is the horse race. i will let congress deal with the mueller report. what we need to understand or the challenges we are facing with climate change, what we need to understand are the inequality. what we need to understand is for the democracy to survive, we need to figure out what we do with how we do redistricting, why the census matters we need to talk about. those issues that will be driving 2020. if you really, truly understand what the issues are and the

urgency of those issues -- and i mean urgency -- that is why the young people are leading on guns. that is why the young people are leaving on climate change. you know why? because they are diet. i may die in five or 10 or 15 years, but they have their whole lives ahead of them, and if they do not change their leadership, they will not have a good quality of life. our guest is arnie arnesen. bob come on our line for independents, you are on the line with arnie arnesen. caller: this is kind of a statement to the democratic voters out there. joe biden is the citizens united candidate, as far as i am concerned. nobody is talking about repealing that obscenity. if biden is the candidate, in my opinion, they are already polishing the crown up i

washington, d.c., because the next election will not be on inauguration but a coronation, and joe biden will be the reason for it if he is the candidate, the coronation of donald trump. i would just like to impress upon democratic voters that there are better people out there. bob, who is your first choice, if you were to vote today? caller: my first choice is bernie sanders, but like she said, there are other candidates who echo his platform and his philosophy, in fact, pretty much all of them but joe biden. guest: they do. caller: i guess i have not made up my mind completely yet. i have on one candidate. host: thank you, bob. we will go to arnold in smyrna, tennessee. -.od morning t caller: good morning.

how are you this morning? host: i am fine, thank you. arnie -- iant to ask used to be called arnie when i was younger -- but have you seen the documentary called "uncounted: the new math of the election"? guest: no, i have not. what is the premise of it? caller: the elections are rigged. riggedlections have been for years, for decades, and it is about electronic voting machines that don't have paper trail receipts. it will open your eyes to a lot of things, and just one other comment i would like to make it isclimate change, possible, i am not an engineer, to see somessible of the electric -- to power some

of the electric vehicles by instead ofair batteries. the chevy volt, it can run without its batteries, because it has an onboard, electric-powered electric generator. host: arnold, thank you for the call. -- comments, arnie anderson arnie arnesen. is -- one of my heroes because she understands what is happening with a vote. it is not about the voting machines, it is about the impediment to vote, about the challenges to exercise our franchise. i think we should all have paper ballots. it is not such a difficult thing to need to have some sort of a paper trail. in light of the fact that we are beginning to see that anything can be had, i have sort of a love-hate relationship with technology. it is not that i am a luddite, but you know what?

i kind of like my pencil, and i like my eraser. and there is a reason for it. you cannot move my hand, but you can change things technologically. you need at least a paper trail. you need at least a paper trail, and we need to worry about voter suppression. the person we need to support better than anyone else is stacey abrams. a remarkablee been potential candidate for president, not only because she brings a tremendous amount of knowledge and understanding, and i think she is a great or greater, but -- orator, but she also understands what democracy is for, the right to vote. host: by the way, we covered her back in the 1990's. with more than 250,000 hours of coverage, go to the homepage, see where it says "search" type in "stacey abrams," very impressive as a college student here in washington.

the election in 2016 where hillary clinton with 48.6%ubt a win of the vote to donald trump's 46.5% of the vote. caller: good morning. i think hillary clinton has proven that women can win given that she won the popular vote, and they threw everything at her, including a foreign country, and we do not have to reiterate everything again. just in her election so far, with they would give her any coverage, all her polls would go up. it is very disheartening. kamala harris, clove which are, they are all -- amy klobuchar, they are all wonderful. they would be wonderful presidents.

i would hate for that to happen again here to 200 plus years of this country and we still do not have a woman. we would have probably already had a woman had we had a little better, fairer coverage in the media. thank you. host: tonya, thank you for the call. guest: [sighs] steve, that conversation is personal for me. when i ran for governor, the had data and analysis, they one tv channel, channel 9, and if you only have one station and the republican is virtually getting all of it covered, the republican actually had his campaign office in the channel 9 tv station building. the man i ran against for governor was actually the legal counsel to the tv station who was giving him all this access to tv. if you don't see it, you don't know it. if you don't hear it, what can you believe in? what can you follow? it is really important for the media to understand they made a

huge mistake with donald trump with the billions of dollars in free media. don't you dare make that mistake again! you are not only choosing our candidates, but you are showing your sexism. host: arni arnie and arnesen, we are going to check in with you often. guest: happy mother's day, everyone. host: happy mother's day. the firstndowski is campaign manager for donald trump. he is also author of the book "i betrothed: the inside story of his rise to presidency." that is next as c-span's "washington journal" continues. it is sunday morning, the 12th day of may. we are back in a moment.

>> tonight at 8:00 eastern in his first television interview about his new book "a good american family," journalist and best-selling author david mar aniss explores his family's involvement in communism. >> what would you say are the years they were communist? david: well, i would say my mother was a member of the young communist league as a student at the university of michigan. my father was not, but he was definitely a leftist. and then after he came back from , i would say 1946 to 1952. >> did they like the idea of the soviet union? and why? father says it is stubborn and ignorance. i think they liked the egalitarian ideas. my mother for some extent was shaped by what he said was the

economic inequality, obviously the great depression, capitalism was being questioned, what happened with the collapse of thatsystem, and i think stubbornness and ignorance, the paranoia and murderous history of the soviet union until later. tonight atraniss 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's "q&a." c-span bus is stopping at middle and high schools across the country to meet and the winners of our studentcam video competition. we were recently in colorado's rings, colorado with our cable art and are comcast where we met with first prize high school west winners from william j upon her high school -- william j palmer high school. >> for us, it did not take long,

especially with voting rights for native americans on the reservation. that was a shock for me, considering we have been coexisting for a very long time, and they still struggle with voting rights, and gerrymandering seems like such an outdated thing, but it still exists, and it is still a problem, so those are some things we wanted to focus on. >> to watch all of the winning entries from this year's studentcam contest, go to studentcam.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: he served as donald trump's first campaign manager author on the rise of the trump presidency, corey lewandowski joins us from manchester, new hampshire. thanks for being with us on this sunday. guest: good morning, and happy mother's day to all of the viewers. host: i want to begin with this headline based on some of the comment you made in las vegas this past week, that vice president biden would be donald trump toughest foe looking at the race now ahead of 2020. why? guest: well, i think obviously

when you look at joe biden's, 36 years in the senate, eight years as a vice president, he is a man that the american people are very familiar with. he has a lifetime of public service. many as aeived by common guy from scranton, pennsylvania, because he is the persona of being the common man from scranton, pennsylvania, and he is a person who is a very likable individual, and he is not received by the moderates, either the democrats or the independents, as a far less socialist -- left socialist so if the vice president can make it through the progressive primary, which is a difficult thing to do, he could give the president essentially a run for his money, the upper midwest states, all before the president has the opportunity to remind the american people of just what the obama-biden agenda really was for those eight years.

host: on friday, president trump phoning into politico, and this is the headline available online at politico.com, "biden reminds me of myself in 2016." here is part of the reporting from a team of reporters. "resident donald trump sees parallels between joe biden's early search to the front of the crowded 2020 presidential field and his own runaway success in the 2016 public and primary care politicoterview with on friday afternoon, trunk casting the former vice president as the clear if law front runner, noting that he had recently flubbed the name of britain's prime minister, and he compared it to his own entry in a rapid ascent in the 2016 republican campaign. trump actually pulled near -- polled near the top, and no other candidate claimed that

mantle from him." you were there when all of this happened. i was there. many people did not believe donald trump was going to run until he can down the escalator and made the announcement. even on the announcement day, june 6 income of 2015, almost four years ago today, when the press conference was had, many of the mainstream media did not know what he was going to say on that day. by the end of july, just about six weeks later, he was in first place in new hampshire, first iowa, and that was almost completely unprecedented in presidential candidate history, because many countries should see a front runner win two or three states and go back and forth, but donald trump had an opportunity to get out in say there,e pack and obviously claiming the mantle of the republican nominee and claiming the presidency. we see the rollout of jill biden very similarly. he has a significant name id cure the american people know

his name. he has now opened up really what seems to be a double-digit lead over his next closest competitor, bernie sanders. the 18 or 20 plus other candidates, many of them are radar blip on the and do not have the name recognition or the talent to go out and be that front runner. , --ave seen people to judge pete buttigieg, who has gotten some traction, but many, whether eric swalwell, others, do not to command media attention, and this is now going to be a two-person race to the nomination between joe biden and bernie sanders. host: corey lewandowski joining us from manchester, new hampshire. his new book "let trump be trump inside story to his rise to the presidency." on the republican line, good morning. caller: good morning, guys.

i want to thank you for being such an articulate advocate for the president of the united states. you do a great job. i feel like you are a member of my family. you do a great job. there are so many things to come, but the most important thing is that the president get to the bottom of this russia a hoax business and the people that perpetrated must be prosecuted, because you cannot be a nice guy with this thing, because the other side will rip your heart out if you give them an inch, and the president needs to expose who is behind it and these people need to be prosecuted, because otherwise there is a strong possibility the president could lose both houses of congress if this hoax is not exposed. thank you very much. well, peter, your call is spot on, and i think what we're seeing right now is the inspector general of the department of justice, michael horowitz, in conjunction with attorney general barr, continues

to investigate how this entire hoax began, and was there a predicate that was actually founded and warranted? already seen as mr. onewest has already made a criminal referral to the department of justice for the former deputy director of the fbi, andrew mccabe. i think you will see in the next 30 to 60 days additional criminal referrals coming to the department of justice, and i think that will include peter strauss and lisa page, i think orrill include bruiscece from the department of justice, baker, and potentially jim comey. jail,dy is going to go to because the attorney general has been very clear, you can call its lien, surveillance on a presidential candidate, you can call it a number of things i'm but what we know as it is illegal. they were spying on americans based on the predicate that is false document was put in place. just this week, there was a story in the "hill" newspaper

from don sullivan is that weeks after the investigation, we know victoria or her assistant had notes that took place that christopher steele had at the state department 10 days before the five the war and was signed to, and it is that we have get this information out before the november election, so this was clearly political in nature. someone will go to jail, and the american people should never have this happen to any candidate ever again on either party, because this was the greatest abuse of american political power from a few select people because they did not like donald trumps politics ever perpetrated. it is a scary thing, and it should never be tolerated. host: the president saying he was fight upon, but fbi officials say it was part of a routine investigation. do you call it a spy, or was it an investigation? guest: well, it was clearly spying. the fbi never approached the truck campaign and informed them of any activities or suspected activities of people taking place, which was there protocol.

this was political in nature. we actually know bruce ohr, whose wife, nelly, worked in and that the individual who created this benter had a political against donald trump and should not be trusted, but when the fbi source of their five application, they never notified the judge of that. you can call it what you want, but when you were spying on americans, which is what they did on domestic soil, that is a clear violation of the fourth amendment when the information that you provide to the faisal court should not only not verified but was completely tainted, and they knew about the ahead of time, because state department and members of the department of justice notified the fbi to that, and what is important to remember is that the first five the application that they applied for was actually denied because fisa court judge said this onnds like you are spying

americans. first, the application was confirmed within three additional renewals all the way up and through donald trump being sworn in as the president of the united states, so they clearly spied. you call it unwanted surveillance. this was not standard operating procedure, and they never notified the campaign that this was transparent. host: we will go to matt, calling it from north carolina, with corey lewandowski good morning. in new hampshire. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, matt. guest: hi, matt. caller: yes, can you hear me? host: yes, we sure can. go ahead. caller: i just want to call an avid supporter for the trump 2020 campaign. i knowtching in tv, and that he got a raw deal. guest: thank you. the president

tweeted out a moment ago, "think of it, i became the president of the united states and one of the most hard-fought and consequential elections in our great nation. from long before i took office, sick and unlawful investigation concerning what has become known as the russian hoax. i was spied on by the democrats. this has never happened before in american history. it yielded no obstruction, no collusion. they shall never be allowed to happen again." importantre is a very point here. when they were spying on george papadopoulos when he traveled from overseas to london, he met with the diplomat from the australian government. from the onlyngs popular explanations. either the fbi knew that george spied onlos was being when he was overseas and say should it, or they did not know. if they did not know and the australian diplomat was there to gainn or potentially

information from a trump volunteer, he did so with the explicit consent of the british government, which means the british government was spying on the trump campaign. anyway, a clear violation or the fbi does not have the authority to spy on americans overseas, so tothey turn that information a foreign government, that means we know that one of our closest allies was working in conjunction with the american government to spy on a potential presidential candidate, a presidential candidate and his the expresswith consent of the u.s. government. that is a major story. the question is, at the end of theday, who authorized spying on the trump campaign. to susandid it go, rice, the former nationals. isaac, was it been roads, the deputy national security adviser

, and where was the fbi for perpetrating crimes on the american people? "washington post" is reporting an all-out war this morning, "president trump and his allies are working to block more than 20 separate inestigations by democrats the president, his personal finances, and policies, amounting to what many experts call the most expansive white house obstruction effort in decades. trump has shifted from partial resistance to an all-out , many legal experts fear it could undermine for years to come. told, house democrats trump's regime has failed to respond to or comply to 79 request for documents or other

information. the story says the president is blocking aides from testifying, keeping some requests from committees, filing lawsuits against venus, and exerting privilege to keep information about the special russian investigation from public view. your reaction. my reaction is this president asked his staff to go and cooperate, and i have been very forward. i've cooperated with all of the investigations that took place. i testified in front of the senate intelligence committee. as have many other members of the trump administration. the president did not originally exert executive privilege over the mueller report. my understanding is that the attorney general has offered members of congress to view an thatacted portion, except redacted portion that relates to either grand jury testimony or ongoing investigations, and none

of the members of congress have taken him up on that. host: let me stop you on that point. why do you think that is? guest: it is a great question. i think attorney general barr has been very forward facing. he turned over first the summary full redacted report to congress within, like, a week, but there is grand jury testimony that your viewers and listeners should understand by law cannot be released and in any additional investigations, which are transpiring, it would only do harm is that i information is expired by congress. if you want to see a further unredacted version, you are welcome to do that, but you must come to a secure location to view those documents, and the gang of eight of those individuals of the intelligence communities who have that authority have not taken the attorney general up on that. whether it is the president's

taxes or his banking documents, none of that has anything to do with his individual capacity the unitedident of states. there is no requirement under law of president's turning over their taxes. and this president has been very clear, as a private businessman, he does not want to turn over his taxes, and there is no obligation for him to do so. the house ways and means committee has now subpoenaed for those documents. the secretary for the treasury, steven mnuchin, says if you have reason for donaldso trump to turn over those taxes, he would do that, but there is no legitimate reason. the secretary has said he is not willing to turn those over, so we will see what will happen, ,ut this president is one that originally tried to put this investigation behind him by making his staff available, whether that was steve bannon, reince priebus, rick dearborn,

many other people to congress further questions, and they answered them open and honestly without the power of executive privilege, and so now this just seems to be a continuation when we thought once the meal a congress, provided to that would be the end of the investigation. host: one quick follow-up, with regard to taxes, the "new york times" reporting from the mid-1980's to the mid-1990's, donald trump losing over $1 billion. the president simply called it "old information." is that why the president does not want to release his new tax information? guest: i do not know the answer, but it's we go back and look at somebody's taxes from the 1980's and 1990's, what does that tell us about their status today? it does not tell us much. we do know that he filled up the financial statements required when you run for office. he has a net value somewhere north of multi-billions of dollars. he is a very rich individual.

he donates his entire presidential salary since he has been in office. and there is no question that he is rich. and i do not know if it matters if he is worth $2 billion or $10 billion. and if he has lost money over the years, that is what happens, but we know that he is a very wealthy individual, the richest person ever to hold office by far, and i'm not sure what we are trying to glean out of an individual tax return that he has not already had to delineate on the presidential forums when he runs for office, which is his assets and liabilities. can learn from individual personal tax return is how much money they made in a given year, what their care to charitable contributions were, and what their overall taxes are, but they are not about assets. you are not required to fill that out, if you own one house or two or five or 10. going back to the 80's or 1990's, whether 20 or 30 years ago does not give us a picture of donald trump's wealth today. host: tom, good morning, democrats line with corey

lewandowski. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. we just have to realize that this is a trump spokesman and that he is going to reflect all of their talking points they have been talking about for the last two years. trump -- the first question i want to ask corey is -- what personal virtues does donald trump have, if you look at all the faith people in the world, all of the religions, what personal virtues does donald trump have? i can tell you one thing -- he is not a christian. that is for sure. host: corey lewandowski, your reaction? tom, the man i know, i family, he ishis

a man of god, and he puts his family and god above all else. i think that is evident in the closest he has with all of his children that is very important. i think it shows how much of a family man he truly is, tom. you look at his children, his grown children who are either running his business or serving in the administration, and you know that he respects them and always has and goes out of his way, above all else, his job is to make sure he is the best father he can be to his children. i think that is a virtue many people in this country respect and admire. host: why do you think the senate intelligence committee subpoenaed donald trump, jr.? guest: that is a really good question. my understanding is donald trump, jr. had already testified in front of the senate , andligence committee senator bergamot, i believe, what i have read publicly, is that the investigation was now over and closed, so i am not sure in less there is more information why they would ask him to come back and continue to have a conversation.

look, i do not know why that has happened, particularly because many individuals, including myself, have testified in front of a senate intelligence committee for multiple hours and provided them all of the information which is now contained in the mueller report. so i did not know why that is or urr and ranking member warner are looking for, but it is interesting and a little out of the ordinary. i saw senator burr's colleagues are getting pushed back on that, -- use host: let me go back to this from the "washington post," and get the response from senator lindsey graham. "the republicans on capitol hill defend the decision to resist the congressional inquiries," lindsey graham of south carolina saying "if i were trump, i would affect my family and my

interests of the presidency, and i would fight it out in court. oversight is one thing, revenge is another. the democrats say their probes are part of a legitimate congressional oversight." guest: what lindsey graham is raising is a very important is a, and that issue coequal branches of the government of which we all recognize congress is one appeared that being said, you are not allowed to use your political power as a coequal branch of the government to do a fishing expedition. i think if you look back at what the republicans did in the 1990's against bill clinton, they truly overreached, and i think the democrats and speaker pelosi directly, is concerned that the democrats are pushing for an impeachment hearing and impeachment proceedings against even ifsident, which that were to occur in the house of representatives, the ears no chance that the president would be -- there is no chance that the president would be removed by the senate. so it is a futile effort that will have lasting applications on the 2020 election. so i think speaker pelosi is trying to prevent the moderate

in her party right now, which is difficult for her, to try to limit the probes against the president, and what senator has just outlined, which is true, the president has the right to protect his family and the office of the president -- that is not to say you could dismiss what conversation as for as a coequal branch of government, but you do have the records and the power that you are entitled to, and ultimately, if the court has to decide, i think the president is very comfortable in sending these decisions to the super work, their ultimate ability to weigh in. host: we will go to salisbury, north carolina. lewis, you are next with corey lewandowski, who is in new hampshire on this sunday. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning, c-span, and happy mother's day. book, i hear this guy talk out of the side of his neck, talking about the trump administration, how wonderful they are to go against the law. i really find vessel repulsing the we have -- i really find it we have ang that

establishment saying obeyed the laws of the land. word of god says obey the law of the lanphier you cannot say trump is obeying the law of the land. they want to call it a witch hunt. i think the americans have a right to find out what is going on with him and that with putin. if congress asked to bring him in for an interview and he says no, and they give him a subpoena, will he show up? or will he break the law? host: lewis, we will get a response. thank you. guest: if the question is -- is the president going to go in testifying in front of congress, which i do not believe in the history of this republic has ever transpired, yeah, i think the answer is no. the congress has no legal authority to compel the president, or, for that matter, other specific individuals who have attorney-client privilege, to come in and testify. there is something called

executive authority which allows the president to have candidate private conversations with members of his senior staff that are not allowed to be disposable under that, just as you would toh your personal attorney your data not think there is any opportunity for this president or any president moving forward to ever have to be compelled by congress to come in and testify. host: i have to ask you about the president's twitter habits, because he obviousl you obviousw this closer than anyone else. saying therk post" president retreating 60 times in a massive twitter spree yesterday. can you give us a sense of how he goes about this, what his habits are, and what it was like running the campaign with his use of twitter? guest: well, as you know, the president is someone who believes in speaking directly to the american people, and i have he tweets whend, he feels like it and what he feels like.

if he sees an issue or topic that he wants to tweet about, whether his personal tweeting or retweeting, that is what he does. the days of the fireside chat when other presidents would talk directly to the american people or the use of television in a medium where the american people were not accustomed to it by ronald reagan or even potentially john f. kennedy. this is the modern version of those things, which is when something that the president wants to talk about raises to his attention level, he goes out and is very forward facing about it. look, he is probably the most transparent president as it relates to communication in the history of our country, because we know that he is doing this tweeting on his own. we know that it is literally him pressing the buttons on his phone or his device, which is putting this information out, and so we can have a window into the decision matrix of this president than we have ever had before. some will say "maybe he should

not we so much," and others like that, but at the end of the day, this is how the president decides to communicate, which is to bypass the mainstream media and go to his tens of millions of followers, hundreds of millions including facebook and ifer social media mediums, you go back to the campaign of 2016 that i ran and was a large driver via the social media, it was something that propelled him to respond to stories and a very timely manner or to get in front of a story before it continued to be the narrative that he did not want to talk about. that has really revolutionize the way, and i think presidential candidates will communicate going forward. host: did he ever give you the heads up before sending out a tweet? guest: oh, of course. look, there were so many tweets that he had wanted to send out, and if we were on an airplane or we were in a location that did not have a good, strong internet connection we would have to wait on, we would talk through some tweets that he wanted to put

out. most of them he obviously just put out, but on many of occasions, it was staff input, particularly if we were flying around an airplane, he would say "what do you think about this?" andhow about that?", sometimes they just never went out. but look, this is the president communing directly with the american people. that is what the american people wanted or knew that that was an opportunity when they went to the ballot in november of 2016 because of the way that the campaign was run. so he continues to go directly to the american people, and, again, some people do not like oft, but i think a number the american people at least will have an opportunity to look of thesesay some decisions were made by this president. we were made aware of the inside of the president based on his ability to communicate directly characters in a timely manner. i think historically we will look at that, and it will be very important.

host: did he ever say maybe with a smirk or a smile, "hey, guess what i just sent out?" guest: well, there were a few occasions where a tweet when out and i was not next to him at the time but my phone rang or the even else came up from the media saying "what did the president mean by this?" " what was the rationale behind this?" campaign,member the it was a small team dealing with the press. not having the 800 people that hillary clinton had in her brooklyn office feeling those calls, it was a small team of two or three of us, and our phones exploded, and we had to get in touch with the candidate saying "hey, how did this come to happen?" it was something he had seen on the news recently or read about in one of the publications and felt the need to respond. many times, we had to respond. at the end of the day, it was an absolute positive for him to communicate directly with the american people, because by not

being able to do that, there is no way that he would have been able to get his narrative out in such a timely manner. host: will you have a role in the 2020 race? aest: well, right now i have unique privilege, which is to serve with the vice president's political action committee, the great american committee. i am a senior advisor to the. it is a committee that raises money and give it out to candidates at the federal level and also at the gubernatorial level, so that is part of my role working with the vice president directly. as you know, i was ok village of traveling with the -- i still get the privilege of traveling with the president to the rallies, talking with him on a regular basis. i do not know if i will take a formal role in the campaign, but as someone who gets to mitigate with the team on a trailer races, i enjoyed the role that i have right now. host: john is doing is from virginia, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. yeah, i have to confess, i never read the mueller report.

i was wondering if you could tell me, because i thought i had seen it on the news, all i hear from the democrats and from cnn is how he obstructed justice 10 one theyt the only ever repeatedly tried to fire mueller. can you give me other examples of the 10 times they were referring to that are worse than hillary clinton destroy a 30,000 emails? thank you. host: thank you, john. guest: thanks for the call, john. what it said were very important things, number one, there was no collusion. that is the most important finding in the mueller report because after one year, 10 months, six days, and $35 million, the report came back and said there was absolutely no collusion between the trunk campaign, anybody associated with trump, and any foreign entities to try to impact the outcome of the election. number two, they said, bob mueller said he could not obstructions transpired, so he gave that

supervisors,is two one is the attorney general of the second is the deputy attorney general of the united states, rod rosenstein. they both made the final decision that there is no obstruction or it in the mueller report, they cite a series of incidences which if they had followed through on could be construed to be obstruction, like telling don mcgahn not to recuse himself, trying to get bob mueller fired. the truth is, the president has muellerhority to fire but chose not to do that. so they set all of these things could have potentially been construed as obstruction had this been carried out or actually transpired, but because they never transpired, there was no obstruction. so the main findings of the mueller report by an individual and his 12 attorneys, who many of which we know to be not only

clinton supporters, clinton donors, and people who attended clinton's election night function in new york show that there was no collusion, and they made the decision to turn over the obstruction review to the two supervisors, the attorney general and deputy attorney general, and they said there was no obstruction. at the end of the day, the miller report completely exonerated the president from any potential wrongdoing. host: corey lewandowski, let it go to one aspect of the mueller report, volume one, page 89 with a reference to your name. "george papadopoulos wrote a second message to stephan miller that has some interesting messages coming in from moscow about a trip when the time is right. sentsame day, papadopoulos a similar email to campaign lewandowskir corey that papadopoulos had been receiving calls about putin wanting to host the president, then candidate trump, and the

team when the time is right." guest: well, you have to remember the role that george papadopoulos had in the campaign. i am not trying to be disparaging corporate perjurer rid orative.rjurer an bennherited him from the carson campaign. there was a february meeting that george papadopoulos participated in. other than that, i did not have any direct interaction with george other than some emails pure what i find completely stunning is that supposedly these outside of foreign governments were reaching out to an individual who is not a paid individual to the trunk campaign, was originally a volunteer, at no direct access to any of the principals in the campaign, and for some reason, these foreign entities found that they want to reach out to him and try to broker an

agreement to have the campaign or the candidate have an meeting? i never found a credible, i never took incredibly, and i believe stephen miller, who i do not speak for, also felt the same way. george papadopoulos was not a decision-maker in the campaign. and while he attended one meeting of the foreign-policy team, if it were me and i was the campaign manager, which i expecteduld have i that if someone from the russian government was trying to negotiate a meeting between then mr. trump and president putin, they would have reached out to ofelf, stephen miller, one the very senior members of the campaign, to have that conversation. that never transpired, to the best of my knowledge, so reaching out to mr. papadopoulos told me that this was not a serious inquiry. host: we will go to robert in , with corey lewandowski, who is joining us from manchester, new hampshire. good morning. caller: good morning. i have two points i will try to make quickly.

first is, steve, i appreciate your and the rest of the hosts' neutrality, and you cannot respond to the blizzard of lies coming from mr. lewandowski. i do not have time to deal with the 20 will make two really quickly, and that if you will, i will make one other point. number one, with respect to the thiser, anyone who follows will know that the investigation started because our own foreign intelligence services, as well as foreign intelligence services were very concerned about the contacts with russia, between russia and various members of and mr.k campaign, lewandowski will also presumably no but not acknowledge that the gang of eight was told about that and had no problem whatsoever with the faces or the facts of the recent investigation was initiated. host: robert, let me stop you on that point, and we will give corey lewandowski a chance to

respond. guest: robert is just, very candidly, wrong. in the investigation, we now know this, was predicated on a false dossier which was paid for by the democratic national committee and christopher steele put together and was invented directly to members of the state department, specifically victoria nuland and her ohr, and theuce fbi. if you look at the evidence, it is very clear that these are into stories in the hill newspaper just this week with serious credibility issues about that would not disclose it the fisa application to the judge that although the fbi and other members of the department of justice were notified of his desire to have this as a political issue, they still applied for and ultimately received a fisa application as it relates to contact with foreign government. if there was such a concern, why is it that no one from the

department of justice, in its totality, the fbi or anyone else, ever contacted the campaign to say we are concerned about those individuals? the other question is i am certain that the hillary clinton significant contact with advisers from foreign entities overseas. we know that to be true care we also know that their attorneys were dealing with baker at the men of the fbi, trying to encourage them to get a five application in place. why is it that they were never investigated? because there was only one campaign it took $5 million in campaign funds and paid for a dossier to be put together by a foreign entity, by a british spy, and that was the hillary clinton campaign, so let's find out what the predicate was, which was the most important thing, which allowed the government of the united states to spy on government citizens on domestic soil because they did not like their politics. once we find out and find out personhorized that, that

will be going to jail. host: robert, we will let you follow up. caller: real quickly, i do not intend to debate this with mr. lewandowski. i think the facts are clear for anyone who wants to find it. i view mr. trump, mr. lewandowski, and the rest of that crowd as the last gasp of a desperate part of our population that is rightly concerned about change and will vote for this obnoxious,y crooked, the words escape me as to how reprehensible trump is, but they are scaremongering race relations, xenophobia, riling ks, you know, the poor fol who do not know any better, and it is the last gasp, in my view, of folks who are very concerned and terrified of the change that

is going to come whether mr. lewandowski ones that not because of the demographic changes in this country. host: robert, i will stop you hear. we will give him a chance to respond. thank you for the call. guest: you're right, robert, i do not want to debate you. donald trump receive a higher percentage of the blackbaud than john mccain or mitt romney. he received a higher percentage of the hispanic vote. if you look right now, donald trump has done more for the african-american community either through criminal justice reform or the booming economy than barack obama did. at the end of the day, this president put us back on the path of economic prosperity, and that cuts across every age, demographic, race that you can imagine. people are more prosperous today because of the economy, because of the tax cuts that this president put forth, and when you go to the ballot box in 2020, the african americans are going to continue to turn out for donald trump at record levels.

now, you might not like that and hase that this president not done enough for women or hispanics, but the truth is, that is not what the numbers say. if you look at the last filing report, this president receive more donations from women than he did men, and it is five times than any other candidate that the democrats have put forth as it relates to contributions. fact, the disinformation campaign that you want to spread, go over the facts, and we will have a real conversation. host: i just want to share with you, because i know you were with anthony scaramucci in las vegas at the conference, and his line, he is a supporter of the president, that maybe the president should be "sane policies, less crazy." your reaction. aest: scaramucci is obviously show mentored i went out there, and the policies are talking working. benign whites a

house where we do not know everything that transpires every minute of the day is a good thing, but we have seen significant change in the white house when acting chief of staff mick mulvaney has come in. i know that there are less leaks in the white house. i know that the morale is up, the turnover is down, and i believe in the path forward that mick mulvaney is putting in place, and that is that he understands the president. he is not trying to manage the president, he is trying to manage the staff around the president, which i believe is the role of the chief of staff, and he is doing it really well. deregulation, renegotiating trade deals, cutting our taxes, stimulating the economy, having a growth rate at 3.2% and the lowest unemployment in 49 years, it is very difficult from an objective, outsider perspective to say those policies are not making our country better, because, you know, it does not matter who you are, if you are working and you are making more money and your health care is better and we have a better

economy, that is good for everybody, and nobody would have thought that we would have had an unemployment rate at the lowest in 49 years when this president came in, because they told him, and the mainstreaming effect, if you elect donald trump, the stock market will drop by 40%. the exact converse of that has happened. the stock market has been up 40% since election day, and he has created almost 7 million new jobs. host: ken from cartersville, georgia, republican line, good morning. caller: good morning. me unloadfor letting this burden i have been carrying ever since trump was elected. mr. lewandowski, i hope both you and mr. trump an apology. both me and my wife did not vote for trunk. i voted independent. i have nothing but respect for the man. he has done everything he has promised, or try to do, at least

, and therefore we will definitely been voting for him in the future. and as far as the black caller, he needs to check him and his colleagues in the mirror, because they are all projecting themselves onto trump, and it is disgusting. anyway, thank you so much, and that is all i have to say. guest: well, thank you, ken. look, i think it is important this country decided to vote for and send to washington a change agent, a business executive, a man who had no previous elected experience, and he came to washington to do things differently. that has scared a lot of people, because for 30 years, it has been the same foreign policy, which has failed us across both republican and democrat presidential at administration's. this president wants to do things differently. that is renegotiating bad trade deals. we are going to look back, history will tell us that as significant that in it and was as opening up -- as nixon was at opening up trade with china, this president will be as

significant opening up fair trade with china. america first does not mean does meanone, but it we will take care of america first, we will. to nato andhare other countries, but so will other countries. if that dollars you as an american, maybe you need to rethink where your patriotism truly lies. i do think it is fair that we pay our fair share, but other countries need to step up and join the fight to stop global terrorism, and that is what this president has asked for, and that is what those nations are responding to. it is not an easy. he has fought bdc swap and continues to do so. there is much work to be done. ultimately, the voters will decide next november. corey lewandowski, the president's tweet, no collusion, russia host, really followed what you said this morning. do you know what his viewing habits are, how much television,

how much cable he is watching and the reaction from you or others? guest: you know, i do not know. i can tell you that when i was running the campaign, the president would traditionally calmly about 6 a.m. every morning. he would have the morning shows on, whether that was "fox and friends," "morning joe," or whatever the network was at the time. he would talk about what the news of the day was. we would develop a media strategy, if there was a specific topic that all of the networks were covering, traditionally a front-page story of one of the major publications pure we would develop a strategy around that in addition to what we wanted to put forward facing as the communication strategy. my experience has always been we would go to his office about 8:30 a.m., 9:00 in the morning, and if we were traveling, we obviously got on the plane. if not, he would work in office, have some lunch, potentially watch some television, during

the lunch hour, that brief period, and that he would be back up at his residence around 7:00, 8:00 p.m. to really tune into the evening shows. that has been my experience. i do not know what it is now that he is in the white house on a daily basis, because he has got the presidential daily brief and other world events that are transpiring, but that is the way that it worked on the campaign. host: let's go to kathy in kansas. good morning, kathy. caller: good morning. i am not particularly interested in issues and having a discussion with lewandowski, but i do have opinions about the democratic presidential candidate discussion. should bee callers encouraging them to have a greater discussion about foreign affairs, foreign policies, trades and tariffs that this president has employed. i think that those kinds of issues are not being discussed as much as policy is that

congress should be addressing. host: kathy, thank you. corey lewandowski, issues that you think the media should address or the candidates or maybe both? guest: i think as we look at where we are in the world right politicale global climate, there are a number of very significant issues that are transpiring around the globe, whether it is in the middle east, obviously, whether it is with israel and our enemies launching rockets, whether it is in south america and venezuela, i think that we should understand what the other side of the specifically the democrats, their resolution is to some of these problems because many of the democrats, candidly, has said socialism is the answer, and if that is the case, then we have to understand what their ability would be to solve the problem in venezuela. do they support majuro? do they support whguaido?

i think it is a valid point. while domestic policy is always the driver of when people go to the ballot in 2020, i think these world issues -- north korea is another 1 -- that we should understand what the democrats or the democrat field think that they could do differently than this president, and tariffs is a great one, because we have seen that senate majority leader chuck schumer has joined with the president to say that we need to put more tariffs on china because they continue to steal our intellectual property and take advantage of the relationship with the united states. host: eight months before the first in the nation primaries and caucuses. helde primaries were today, corey lewandowski, your prediction, who was the democrats nominate? guest: right now, i am going to be the outlier here and say bernie sanders, because i think he is going to show that his progressive policies are directly in line with where the democrats truly believe. bid joe not think the biden, even though he h

, is going toame id make it through the primaries, because i do not think his friend in washington are going to pick him. i do not think he will be progressive enough. sanders will win big in iowa, potentially win in new hampshire, and i think you will see bernie sanders as the democratic nomine, and if that is the case, it will set up a classic campaign between socialism and capitalism, and i believe it will be a repeat of the 1984 ronald reagan massive landslide victory that donald will receive in 2020. host: corey host: corey lewandowski. a reminder, washington journal. we'll tee up the week in

washington with a white house reporter for politico. and a reporter who covers politics for bloomberg news. later in program, the jennifer jeffrey rosen. a reminder, newsmaker is coming up next. a very happy mother's day to the moms, the grandmothers, the godmothers the aunts. we hope you get spoiled on this mother's day. we are back tomorrow morning. enjoy the rest of your weekend. ♪ [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] withxt "newsmakers" patrick mckenney. and then a conversation with stacey abrams and the 2018 democratic nominee for governor

of georgia. house judiciary committee votes to recommend the household attorney general william barr in contempt of congress. at 8 p.m. eastern, and his first television interview about his new book "a good american family," journalist david -- explores his family's involvement in communism. >> what would have been the years they were communists? >> well, i would say, um, my mother was the member of the aung commonest league as young student at the university of michigan. my father was not but definitely a leftist. and then, after he came back from the war, i would say from 1946 to 1952. >> did they like the idea of the soviet union and why? >> well, i think, my father, he

was stubborn in his ignorance. i think they liked the a gala terrien idea. -- the a gala terrien idea. was shaped by what the economic inequalities that were more obvious during the great depression where the whole question of capitalism was being questioned with the collapse of that system. his stubbornness and his ignorance was not -- not the paranoia and murderous history of the soviet union. that came later. >> tonight at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span's q -- on c-span's q&a. >> once tv was once three giant networks and a government supported service called pbs. in 1979, a small