results and not his behavior. host: with the heritage foundation, thank you for stopping by. guest: i love c-span. you are the one place in america you can get truly both sides of the for $18.95. >> washington journal continues. host: he is heard monday through friday on siriusxm, saturday mornings on cnn, joining us from philadelphia, michael smerconish . thank you for being here on c-span. guest: thank you for having me, it is nice to be back. host: we can get the conversation you had with your viewers yesterday on c7 -- cnn. you had itabout -- as a survey question. nearly 10,000 people responded saying it should not be included. why? guest: what surprised me about the result yesterday on cnn, and

we get this enormous volume of voting in the span of just one hour, it was completely at odds with the result from telephone callers on my friday radio program. i love conversation about this issue. i have a bias against the s.a.t.. back in the day, i did poorly on the test. i tell you that right up front. i should say my wife and i have four children, the last of whom just completed the college application process. my view is not sour grapes. the kids outperformed me, for sure, and each of the four instances and they are doing terrific relative to the process. i don't like so much emphasis being placed on one exam on one saturday morning. i understand kids will end up taking it more than one time, but in comparison to 12 years, or look at the last three or four years, of academic

achievement in high school, i think we are out of balance and far more attention should be paid with what goes on day-to-day and the high school curriculum rather than the one test. i also understand that by virtue of the common application, making it so easy to apply to so many schools, but in my era i think i applied to only four or five. today, it is nothing for high school seniors to be applying to almost 20 schools at once. i think that is the upper reach. it forces the university -- it forces the college to use that metric as an immediate means to decide if someone is going to get a fair look. far too much emphasis placed on the s.a.t. to begin with, now comes the adversity scale, or the contextual data as the college board had told me yesterday on television. i think it assumes too much.

i think it assumes you have adversity if you are in a particular zip code or attended a particular high school. it assumes if you lived in a neighborhood like mine that all is well, when in fact you don't know what is going on behind closed doors. you don't know if there is alcoholism or opioid addiction that a well groomed front yard may mask. i think it is a step in the wrong direction but i appreciated the conversation i had with mr. coleman, the chief executive of the college board. host: as you pointed out, american university, wake forest university, university of chicago not using s.a.t. or act exams as metrics to accept students. guest: i think the number is more than 1025. they include some of the better-known and better rated schools in the nation. here is what i said in my

commentary and part yesterday, if i had it to do over again for our four, i would give serious consideration right up front, in or about the ninth or 10th grade, we are not going to be a act or sat household. instead, we will take all the money where we would have written a check for some prep course, all of that time our children would have spent in preparation for just one exam, and instead we will say we would like them to be proficient in a musical instrument or would like them to do community service, or take up painting. is over, what. you have to show for it? you have a college admission, but you would have gone somewhere. instead, you could have taken that resource and make yourself a better person, a more complete human being. host: let me take up a second

point, your conversation with jeffrey rosen. the national constitution center in philadelphia where you are. he said something intriguing, he did not think chief justice john roberts in this court ready to take up roe v. wade. guest: to know what is interesting, jeffrey rosen, a really bright guy and i deferred to him on these constitutional issues, but for the atlantic, he wrote an essay about a -- about what a post- roe world looks like. he wrote it in 2006. in anticipation of my interview with him on cnn yesterday, i wanted to read that essay again and you are absolutely right. the point i am trying to make is is that is not a recent observation of jeffrey rosen. he thought that in 2006 when chief justice roberts could not be taken for granted. if you hear some of the

criticism rush limbaugh has had of brett kavanaugh, expressing some disappointment of him not being a pure conservative, the point i would make is you really don't know exactly how they will line up. you probably know how clarence thomas will line up, you probably know how some of the liberal justices will line up, but there are some gray areas among several members of the court. i don't think the alabama case ever reaches the supreme court of the united states and if i was someone in the country watching c-span of a decidedly pro-life point of view, i would be disappointed that alabama has done what it has done. i would be disappointed been very has done what it has done, because those cases are very easily dismissed. the more difficult cases for the court to grapple with are those that limit access to abortion providers. host: let me put another issue on the table. piece, this is the

headline -- numbers 44 and 45 broke the mold. what does that mean for the future of the presidency? centurieshan two until the election of 2008, american presidents all looked alike. they were white and male and each one came to office with experience in military. the african-american -- barack obama, the first african-american president broke the mold. donald trump, who had no military experience or government experience broke the other. it is an interesting argument. if joe biden should win the democratic nomination and be elected president of the united states, then won't we be back on the same trajectory that we have been on for our history until barack obama's election in 2008?

if mayor pete is elected, these obamard factors, barack in the first african-american president, and then here comes donald trump with zero history of electoral history and he wins, the question is which way are we about to go in the 2020 election? either this trend will continue or will not. is 2323 or 24, i think it with bill de blasio in. will we have 23 candidates competing for the democratic nomination had we not just had the experience of both obama and trump? i say no way. the attitude of these elected officials is, what the hell, i might as will take my shot. maybe get a book deal or a cable if when it is all over, even i am not successful. the idea that you did some

requisite level of experience to run is not there, you just need to be well known. host: you will use this tomorrow on your serious xm program, which carries this program every sunday, he goes on to say in their own ways obama and trump were two of the most unlikely people ever elected to the presidency, raising the question is whether voters in the country are using a new lens through which to judge the qualifications of presidential candidates. and trumpies of obama have rewritten presidential politics. guest: i think what is driving much of that is social media, the internet. the fact that traditional parties have lost the power that they once held and today, in order for you to be regarded -- look at aoc. she is probably the best example of what i am talking about for better or worse.

she is a freshman number of congress that argued with the best-known, other than nancy pelosi, and the entire country. no matter -- no longer to someone you to go to washington and accumulate seniority and leadership and then become well known. today, with the benefit of an iphone, you just say things that are provocative, you attract an audience and you can fund raise as a result of being provocative and having that following. you are a superstar. in that respect, all the rules have changed. host: michael smerconish joining us from philadelphia. republican line, go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. having a good job is important. i have several siblings who are republicans the tell me the same. -- so is clean

air and water, so is being civil . so is being respectful. so is keeping promises. so is having a leader that is respected worldwide. so is being informed and intelligent. i am a republican. i support donald trump. so many now, he has let people down who voted for by not being those things. him inill you vote for 2020? look, morality is at an all-time low. division is getting worse by the day. loss of international respect is unmistakable. violence and mass shootings have intensified. not -- that is what i am

not going to vote for him in 2020 and i hope he can change that, by electing someone to the presidency that can make us proud to be americans again. host: thank you for the call. let me pick up the point of a former vice president biden, michael smerconish, what did you hear from him? unity i heard a pitch for and i heard a pitch that made sure he drew a line in the sand to separate himself from president trump. i thought, and this is not an mine, it wasght of the kind of speech you hear from a front runner. he did not take many risks. he said the things he needed to say. did you notice when joe came out aviator, he had those lenses on, there was a skip in his step. he took off the sport coat and rolled up his sleeves.

i think it was as important for him to convey energy and youthfulness as it was a message. the object of it are very important and i think he pulled it off. it was a good start. host: you have interview just about everybody. have you interviewed joe biden? cycle i did, in the 2016 with about 10 days to go in the election. i interviewed him in st. louis. he was doing an event for jason kander. i traveled there on the day -- as the matter of fact, i was the first person to interview him after the anthony weiner laptop was back in play. if you can remember that whole episode, it caused the fbi to tap to take another look at the hillary email issue. it seem like they would not come to a conclusion until the election was over and they came to a conclusion there was nothing there. i was the first person to

interview biden after that subject came to light. i remember when i asked him about it, and i almost caught him off guard because the news was just breaking, he looked at me and said on camera, anthony weiner ha? i am not a fan. it was hard for me not to laugh because it was such a good line. i have had that opportunity. host: our listeners and viewers can follow your work online. frederick from north carolina, republican line, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: good. caller: i am a retired air force pilot and by point that i would that it ise is interesting that the chinese were negotiating well what does until joe biden hit 30 points and then all of the sudden they backed away. my opinion is is that they are

basically going into the muhammad ali rope a dope and are going to try to wait out the election until trump is defeated, because he is probably the only one who would stand up to them. the republicans started the thatse opening, hoping showing our system would open up the country and that has proven to not work. host: thank you for the call. stephen moore who was with us the last hour said he is confident something will pass this year so the president can run on it next year. guest: i guess if you're asking me for a reaction, i understand the caller's observation but i don't think there is a connection. i am saying the chinese walked away from the table at the same 6ers lost game 7 to the

raptors on the buzzer beater. it does not mean they are related. i would be shocked if there was an arrangement made with the chinese long before the general election day. if the chinese are banking on the fact joe biden will be president of the u.s., i would say they don't understand our system because there will be so many bounces of that ball between now and election day 2020 that is almost impossible for any of us to predict which weight will go. host: donna, you are next, st. louis, missouri. good morning. caller: good morning. host: your state is in the headlines because of the abortion issue. caller: i know, it is sort of embarrassing. trump is not just the worst president ever, he is a terrible human being. boss.more like a mob

bernie, not trump, would have one less time if hillary and her diehards had not screwed him over the primaries. they are going to do the same thing for biden, another corporate, like hillary, on the issues. did as good as any human being could do when he took over. he took over after the financial totdown of 2008 when we had bail the banks out for billions of dollars. he did the best he could. i would ask stephen moore, has he heard of visas? my daughter majored in high-tech and companies like disney bring these indians and chinese over get educated here on visas and americans have to train them and they get laid off so these people will work for less. we are going down the tubes. thank you. host: we have to get you one of

the c-span mugs, as well. [laughter] guest: the only mogg i have is the cnn one, if you said be one i will use it. host: there was a merit-based system for immigrants coming into this country. guest: i have yet to see the president make the evidentiary area pitch that i think is necessary. i remember when he addressed the nation going back a number of months and i would hope there would be a ross perot like tape and he would show us aerial footage and graphs, and fully detail where in the problem lies. there has not been that kind of conversation, it has been just soundbites. it leaves someone like me at a loss for trying to understand where do we need an additional barrier? i am sure we do. 2000 miles worth?

i'm sure we don't. it is a light on data and too much with the soundbites. host: another point you spoke about that has been getting a senator amytion, klobuchar had 1.6 million viewers when she did a town hall a week and half ago. senator elizabeth warren said she will not appear on fox. what are your thoughts? guest: short-term, elizabeth warren has the right idea because she is looking to get some wind at her back. she needs to distinguish herself from the other 22. she is not doing badly, she is behind bernie and most of the polls i have seen and he does not seem to have the traction he had four years ago. shines aort term, she spotlight that she is willing to forgo reaching the fox audience and therefore willing -- unwilling to give cover to the

fox advertisers that might have trepidation about continuing to write a check. themayor pete is on network, amy klobuchar is on the network, bernie did a town hall and 2.5 people watched, how toxic it be? i get what she is trying to do. she wouldal election, need fox viewers -- not a lot of them -- but she would need fox viewers to win the election. i get the strategy, if she becomes the democratic nominee, she will probably have to rethink it in the fall. host: joe, you are next. good morning. caller: how are you doing? guest: hello. caller: i was wondering why the media is not looking at the strategy of the democrats right now as one of the common strategies in local elections where you flood a primary ballot

with a bunch of people to knock out the ones you want to -- the one you really want to oppose. i am thinking with 20 people in the race for the democratic nomination, what the democratic establishment is doing is essentially take a little piece off of bernie and say indiana with mayor pete, or pick off rural new york with kirsten gillibrand. every piece comes down and then you chip them away so when you get to the convention, there is no way bernie would get the 50%, because right now we are looking at joe biden at 30%. i think bernie would be able to eclipse him if a lot of these other people were not in the race. host: we will get a response. guest: two things i want to say. steve, let me say this to you ed

c-span folks, joe the nerd is a smart guy who does a lot of blogging and he wrote this provocative essay a few years ago about the static nature of the size of congress. why, if the country is growing exponentially, are we at 435 it used to be a member of congress would represent 250,000 people, now they are more than 500,000. how long will we let that go? that is food for thought. on the issue of the democratic nomination and where it is all headed vis-a-vis the convention, i don't expect biden to stay at the level he is. i don't think that is what the historic model shows. i am not saying he won't hold on and win, but i will be surprised if he walks away with it, especially after the debates begin. the democratic voting is proportionate -- i think this is some of what joe was getting at. it is entirely conceivable -- this is my point, is entirely

conceivable the democrats could arrive in milwaukee without anyone securing that nomination. for those still upset with happened to bernie in the last cycle, thinking that deck was stacked and worrying then about the roles of superdelegates, who by the way hillary did not need, but that became a focal point of bernie supporters. it is entirely conceivable that in this cycle, the democratic nomination will be decided on a second, third or fourth ballot by superdelegates. they don't get a say in the first ballot but if biden or the others don't have it locked up by the time they get to the convention, it could be a very exciting time in milwaukee. host: could you imagine what that would be like? guest: i go back and forth. on one hand i say, what a disaster for the democrats because they would not have a candidate secure in the

knowledge going into the convention that he or she was going to win. that would have a fundraising ramification to it. there would not be a favorite for the running mate. there would be some upsetting of the traditional model. on the other hand, it would be darn exciting. those conventions have become a bit of a snooze. if all the sudden you go into a convention and america did not know how it would end it would be standing on the stage thursday not, i think more people would be watching and would be keyed up about it than ever before in the modern era. host: if you look back in 1980 when ted kennedy challenged jimmy carter, he funneled a liberal at jimmy carter. more recently it was hillary clinton and barack obama in 2008 and bernie sanders and hillary clinton and 2016. candidates, 23, 24 have joe biden who is the front runner in so many progressives, it is a different race.

you will not just have an alternative, you will have 5, 6, seven alternatives. guest: you run the risk that when you leave it is not a kumbaya moment. when you have such disparate interests going in and so me different lanes within the party, what is the likelihood you can come out unified? i get that. that would be one of the most difficult aspects to overcome. host: colorado, independent line, good morning. caller: good morning. guest: hello. caller: what you think about all this stuff? i sit there and watch trump to all this -- he is a poser. why are we not in the gdp? that is a way to fight back with china? packguy gets out of the j -- ian and it seems like

have watched trump say we are going to get rid of it and all his supporters are screaming but nobody is asking, what are we going to replace it with? know,ms like -- i don't are americans brain-dead? i don't get it. host: thank you. guest: the only thing i can say to that is, looking at it differently, he told and he has. inthe 46% who put him office, i guess they are getting the return on what they wanted. there was no prize about the affordable care act. i understand your point. i am one who believes that the only way you can take care of people pre-existing conditions as if everybody is in the insurance pool. the only way you get everybody in the insurance pool is through an individual mandate. the business model

requires everybody have insurance, or we are not going to be able to take care of a portion of those among us. he came into office without having to answer. the question that i just raised, how are you going to protect people? he just said we're going to get rid of obamacare, we are going to get rid of that individual mandate. fact thatking at the it was a heritage foundation idea premised on personal responsibility. socialism, but our attention spans are not that long. andave a good sound bite say i'm going to blow up the affordable care act, that's enough. so have you personally sort through all of this on radio, on cnn, when we listen to you in the morning, we also listen to your commentary action, that's probably equally as interesting if not more interesting. have you sort through all of this? i'm constantly reading in the.

is my extraordinary radio producer who has a hand in the television show as well. morning, 6:00 on a sunday morning, i said to her 20 things that i find interesting. she also got a list from the yesterday, 20 things i found interesting on a saturday. we are constantly looking at what is in the news and then i will make a decision in anticipation of monday morning radio programs, what do i really want to drill down on? the three hours goes pretty quickly. you know my approach. to have aches particular issue i can focus on in the 9:00 hour, a particular issue i like to focus on in the 10:00 hour, and then we lighten the load. more about lifestyle issues and a host of other headlines that did not qualify to make the earth or second hour of the program. i'm always seeking to mix it up is my point. host: when do you sleep? do for ais is what i

living. people often ask that question. to stay conversant in the news. much like you, i am a news junkie. it comes rather easily. if i'm not reading headlines, i'm reading books for interviews that are coming up on the program. book, i went to bed reading it and i read a chapter before coming on c-span because he will be on the program this week and i don't want to fake it. i want to make sure that i've read that book before i start to speak to him. host: chena 124 which also carries this program sunday. we will go to colorado, democrats line. caller: yes, good morning. i really enjoy the show, i remember you back from your radio days. you for beings to

an objective conservative, that is what we need. i know they have a constituency, i know they have a base here in those articles -- those are cults. 4 million people. the ones who do watch it like myself, i primarily watch fox rather than cnn, i'm a liberal. also a fox because i'm communications professional for 30 years. with a masters degree in pr. i have never seen anything like that. i watch it scientifically. you will shift not a single mind. 4 million people. , 1% black. 69 years old, rural or southern.

i don't think you need to that we to us democrats have to support the legitimize business model. it's a successful business model like rush limbaugh, there's no point of us going on any platform. host: thank you. guest: tell it to be good judge who is it -- tell it to pete buddha judge -- pete buddha judge -- i'm not here to carry their water. steve scully asked me whether it was that were in was making the right call and i said by not going on walks, in the short term, she's making the right call because she has distinguished herself from the remainder of the pack. in the general election i think she will need to appeal to some fox viewers. cnn, i have a program on cnn, but i watch it all. that clicker is always in my hand and if you are seated next to me on the sofa, you would see

me watching cuomo, it would see me watching the hannity opening monologue. you would see me watching rachel maddow. at night to go to bed unless i know what everybody is saying. my beef is with those americans who are loyal told me one network, in a bubble, not getting all sides represented. because somewhere in the mix, somewhere in the middle, lies the truth. host: you've made that point on countless occasions to get out of your silo. guest: yes, absolutely. think of it this way. i know that game of thrones is wrapping up tonight. i'm not into the show. a great modelsuch of what i'm talking about. it used to be that if somebody said to you, are you watching sign up, are you watching all in the family, we all knew what the show was, we were all watching

the same thing. now, a person says to you, are you watching such and such show, chances are you've never even heard of it because technology has allowed us to go our separate ways. charles murray wrote about one impact of this. fewer commonny experiences, especially when so many americans are not serving in the military. what i'm trying to say is that the media is just one facet of where we are in our own silo or bubble without a common denominator of other folks. it's time to break out of those doubles and make sure that we are much more aware of what our neighbors are up to. >> let me put another issue on the table. my guess is that this will be part of the conversation into the week. republican congressman from it nown saying that appears as if the president committed impeachable offenses. does this in any way change the dynamics? guest: no.

if you said to me, i have a question or a riddle for you, there is a member of congress is a republican who now think that the president has committed impeachable acts, who is it? he would be at the top of the list. for those who pay close attention, i don't know that it's such a shocker for him to have crossed this precipice. i don't think that the needle moves on the impeachment issue until and unless robert mueller testifies and only if robert mueller testifies beyond that which was in the report itself. unless he gives us a new interpretation of the conclusion , which is entirely possible by the way. i deleted -- i'd like to speak more about the deficiency of the mueller report, but only if you want to get into the weeds. it is nothing that farr -- that barr is going to do, it's not that trump junior is going to

testify. i don't think any of that is going to move the needle because people's opinions are baked in. the biggest favor that build bar did for president trump -- that bill barr differed trump is that, at a time when americans had theworked, but barr report, he wrote that summary level that the president trumpeted as no collusion, no and i think for a small time, americans were paying attention. after all the hype about the report, what did he say? and then we took barr and trump's word for it. it's going to be very hard to get people intellectually to reopen. i don't mean the partisans, but i mean the vast majority of americans to reopen the analysis is let's face it, they never read the report to begin with. they just rely on what they were told. >> thank you for waiting. caller: good morning.

solutionto suggest a for the reparations that are descendents of black slaves, and that would be to establish opportunity accounts and pay the children of slaves every day that they show up to school, pay them more for doing well in school, and therefore providing a form of recognition to people other than their sports ability. i would like you to discuss that and maybe bring it up on your radio show, thank you. host: thank you, john. that i couldhink support the idea where we are going to have a financial reparation to every descendent of a slave now living in the united states. i think the mindset behind programs like affirmative

action, even though we haven't drawn a direct link, was with that in mind. it was in recognition of the fact that some among us, from the get-go, have not been afforded equal opportunity and we want to level the playing field, but not through a direct check writing. that i can't see as being a practical solution. it's another issue that is at least part of the conversation in this democratic primary. guest: well, it is. i thought it would be more of an issue. it hasn't taken hold recently. if we are talking about the role of voters in this process, i think the biggest surprise to me so far has been the way in which joe biden according to the poll well withis doing people of color, particularly in a state like south america, like south carolina. i almost said south america. i guess i did. here's what i find significant. obama ranarack

incredibly strong, as you expected that he would, with people of color because barack obama was setting a new president, shattering one of those glass ceilings. i get that, i remember when frank rizzo in philadelphia ran 1975 and hadand overwhelming italian-americans four. i remember when my mother, who , iver member when she and her sisters were sending $20 donations to people who they knew nothing about other than he was a yugoslav. we support our own and break those barriers. but then after you have had the taste of victory and after you've had one of your own in that office, how long is that feeling last? this is a long-winded way of saying that so far, it doesn't -- and i think this is healthy, by the way.

it does not seem like kamala warranted necessarily black support or the cory booker has been able to do so, but that african-americans had success with barack obama and are now serving the entire field in a way that abb would not have been willing to do 2008. where?nd that comes from guest: my father's side of the family, and i lost my dad last fall, but my father's side is from the austria hungarian empire. growing up we would often say it ukrainian. personig ancestry.com and i've been able to track where his side of the family came from to one of two towns in modern-day poland. my mom's side of the family is completely nailed down. was aher's grandfather cobbler for the last king of montenegro. he actually had the montenegrin equivalent of a royal warrant because he made boots for the king. host: sorry about the loss of

your father, by the way. guest: thank you. host: let's go to larry in illinois. good morning, larry. caller: thank you for remembering that. , i'm having aer hard time talking, pertaining to the people of color. if we are going to do it for them, what we have to do it all the native americans if we were off their land? which youstion i had, will not like at all, but i'm handicapped and everybody that i call a republican or democrat to get information, they always tell me they don't know what i'm talking about or they can't did it for me, and i've even tried calling the white house. looking for phone numbers for senators and representatives of offices and such, and even getting a copy of the robert mueller report. just general information. i'm always told that i can go to

the library or do this or do that, but i've never been able to get it. i do you do that as a person on the radio? guest: i'm not sure if i understand that second question. how do i get the information, or how would i advise you to do so as one who is struggling with a disability? in my case, i accessed the robert mueller report because it was publicly available via the internet. i found it to be unwieldy to read 400 plus pages, i ended up going to amazon and ordering a copy for i think eight dollars that in my case came from the washington post. rizzo,ou mentioned mayor if he were alive today. pete but judge -- tigieg is higher in the poll ratings than gillibrand, even the mayor of new york city.

why is that? guy, he is art likable guy. i don't know if it last. because i think if he continues to progress, at a certain point, you're going to ask questions about whether this is a guy who has the requisite experience to sit with vladimir putin, to negotiate with the iranians. i say that, and then i catch myself because i say well, then again, we were asking the same questions about donald trump four years ago, and that did not hold him back. i do think there will be an accountability for those who don't have a great deal of experience as we think about it traditionally, but we haven't reached that point yet. >> going back to the front page story, a new view of the

presidency, we will go to john who is next from tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, john. caller: there a interesting show this morning. i'm 77 years old, i've been married a couple times and have numerous children, grandchildren. i admire listening to michael it has beenow great to watch his children succeed and become what they are also that hisfe, family tree traces back to numerous ons and uncles -- numerous aunts and uncles. none of us would be here if we were the result of antiabortion parents or ideas. can he imagine a boarding one of his children were having aborted one of his children? because i can't.

i had a boy when i was 16 years old and he's been the greatest son that you could possibly have. host: thank you. guest: wow, what a heavy question on c-span. here is the way that i choose to answer it. i think that the ruby way decision makes sense. it doesn't completely make sense to me as a lawyer, i'm an attorney, and when i read the decision and try to understand how it was reached on an interpretation of the 14th amendment, it's hard for me to see. but as a practical matter, it makes sense. by that, i mean the idea that says that up until a point of viability, the state is not going to have the say. at that point, the rules change. weeksr viability is a 24 or 23 weeks, i'm not sure today. i think it makes sense, i really do.

i don't know how well you can define how the law should apply to that very delicate situation. willn view is that what change the landscape of the abortion laws in this country will be medical advance, not something the supreme court would do. by that i mean if the point of viability becomes 18 weeks because of medical advance, then all the laws will shift accordingly. how about if i say it this way: roe v. wade is the worst possible legal outcome on abortion except for all the alternatives. host: let's take it one step further. do you think that this now sharpen the focus on both sides of the aisle, the role of the supreme court in 2020, the roe v. wade issue, and if you are pro-life or pro-choice, now your enemies. guest: that is a great point, the answer is yes, i do.

if you were to ask me which side benefits more than the other, it is neither. i would think that the pro-choice side is going to benefit. and ich is that, as you are speaking, there is a ton of money being raised by pro-choice planned parenthood type of groups and they are pointing at alabama and they are pointing at missouri and their pointing at louisiana just to name the top three that come to mind. i don't know that it makes sense. in fact, i think it doesn't make sense for the white house. trump, come fall of 20, do i want this to be the issue, this cultural issue? sure, it will file up elements of my base. or do i want it to the economy focused? i would argue that trump is far better served talking about full employment, talking about a dow that is on fire, talking about standing up to the chinese for the theft of intellectual

property, and every conversation that focuses on abortion is one more where i think he totally writes off suburban women and jeopardizes his election. areas,ays well in some but this should not be the overall message. host: lances joining us from florida, democrat line. caller: good morning. michael,ike to say to you are one of the few times i watch cnn because i feel you stay at active and say what you mean. what is bothering me lately, i've been a democrats and 90 that new one when i got the right to vote. i look around me and what used to be a bubble in washington has now extended to most national media. talk and the democrats they think that we are with them, and they are not even close.

what scares me is they are going to lose the house. trump will be reelected because they are just not giving it to anybody because they are being fed on by the media. much, theare you as idea that the democratic party has been destroyed? gop, as little as i trust the democrats, i always believed that the idea with the adversarial system where we bump heads to find the truth, that seems to be an idea that has gone past. i will take your answer off-line. a --: i'm not sure if this if this is a direct answer, but there is this perception that the republican party is on the ropes. antagonistic for the president say look at the way in which he has governed, this is terrible, it has caused the party to be much more monolithic. it is older, it is whiter. the gop is doing just fine.

might be unsettling news for many of you, but the republican party controls the senate, the white house, most of the gubernatorial mansions, and most of the state legislature. donald trump will go, where it's at the end of this term or some impeachment process which i think is highly unlikely, or whether it's after serving a second term. forces who put him in office are still going to be with us. whatever it is we are experiencing right now is not short-term and it's not limited to just trump. the second thing i will say, i had an interesting guest on a radio program last week named richard. his company is called engagous and he is doing focus groups in swing states among swing voters and axioms is his media partner if you want to all or -- if you want to follow what i'm creating from my memory. he recently was with a small focus group of swing voters.

who vote.people they don't just sit back and offer opinions, they have to have a documented history of voting. and they voted for obama and then trump, isn't that interesting? what are they thinking about for the 2020 cycle? the take away from the most was theycused group are not thinking about the same things that dominate the news every day. they are not caught up in the robert mueller report. they are not paying attention to most of the democratic field. they were aware of biden, they were aware of bernie, and they were somewhat aware of elizabeth warren. they did not know her by her policy, they know her by her identity when they were told what are policies are. they just did not associate them with elizabeth warren. my point is, i think many of us are caught up in a bubble and those of us in the business sometimes need a reminder that the vast majority of the country

is not dialed in. not paying attention to the same things. they are worried about employment. there are worried about health insurance, how they are going to pay for health insurance, and a number of other issues that don't get the kind of conversation that they should. host: john, from maryland, thank you for waiting. caller: good morning to both of you. i just wanted to ask a question. our right to vote is a very fundamental point for our country because it basically what our country was developed on and freedom. my question is, i think a bill is passed through the house of congress to do a paper type of voting system where it can't be hacked or interrupted by russia or china. host: michael?/ state look, i live in a where it election day is tuesday and i am shut out.

i'm shut out because it's a closed primary state. and you can say that is on you, join a party. i don't want to join either of these parties. i'm against closed primaries. measures likeese we have in pennsylvania where election day is relegated in general, one day from 7:00 to 8:00 at night. we have no early voting and their absentee voting is only for cause. stay,st dialed in on my but it's typical of what goes on around the country. making itstead of easier for people to exercise the franchise, we instead have state legislators whose day, which side would benefit if we made it easier, or if we took this measure? for example, the age-old conundrum of voter id. i'm all for requiring id being shown as long as it is mindful of what kind of identification cards people who live in this

particular community might have. and if not a lot of people have drivers license is in whatever community this might be, it should not be only a drivers license. my point is, let's be reasonable. boostmportantly, when we voter turnout, we are diluting the fringes. and it is the fringes, i maintain, that have driven us into this ditch. hardard left and the right, leaving the exhausted majority of the rest of us in no persons land. question, irity would hope that in my lifetime, there would be an electronic means of voting with some type of backup system. i fear that the russian effort at hacking in the last cycle has probable the really jolted peoples's confidence as to whether we can ever do that. we do so much with our computers, why can we vote in a similar fashion? host: with a half a minute left,

the president in the state tomorrow. is pennsylvania the epicenter for .1? -- for 2020? guest: it absolutely is and it's so exciting to be a pennsylvania at this time. joe biden has to be the strong biden-trumpa pennsylvania because he could keep in the democratic column those who abandoned the party because they could not vote for hillary. his cnn program every saturday morning, his work available online and monday through friday on sirius xm. >> coming up monday morning we will preview the week ahead in washington.

then a discussion on the proposal to cap credit card interest rates at 15%. be sure to watch washington journal live at 7:00 eastern monday morning. join the discussion. washington journal mugs are available at c-span's new online store. go to c-span store.org. check out the mugs and see all of the product. >> here is a look at some of what is coming up tonight on c-span. "newsmakers" a member of the foreign committee speaks about iran. "you and day" with historian

david mccollough. this torque story of settlers who brought the american ideal west. then >> junius from baltimore is marilyn senator, ben cardin. studio is andrew. he covers congress for political. let's begin with some news over the weekend. we learned that the faa issued a warning to u.s. commercial airlines flying over the gulf. just how concerning is this to you? >> it is good to be with you. it is very concerning. i am really concerned about miscalculation on iran's part or the u.s. part. the temperature could not be hotter. iran is a