>> friday on c spangs, the brooksings institute, c. amplete privacy and civil liberties officer. and then at noon, the hudson institute, policy on iran. and on c-span 2, veterans' affairs secretary robert wilkie. and at 10:00 a.m., u.s.a. freedom act and phone surveillance. in about an hour we'll talk to c.q. roll call reporter about the house to pass a $15 billion

disaster relief bill and the co-author of "one nation, two realities" dueling facts in american democracy. democracy." [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] [video clip] >> going to have, probably today, a major statement on the border. this is a big league statement, but we are going to do something dramatic on the border. ♪ host: president trump yesterday statementa big league and the u.s. issued tariffs on mexico. we begin with your reaction to the move by the president. democrats, 202-748-8000. .epublicans, 202-748-8001 and independents, your line, 202-748-8002. if you are a business owner and you get your parts from mexico

or a farmer who might be impacted by this, 202-748-8003 is your number. at @cspanwjwitter or facebook.com/cspan. if mexico does not do more to stop the flow of immigration into this country starting june 10, there will be 5% tariffs on all goods imported from mexico. 10%.ly 1, that rises to august 1 it will go up to 15%. september 1, 20%. this will be up to the discretion of the white house -- on october 1 it will go to 25% and stay there permanently if they do not take any action on illegal immigration. why? the president writing this sustained influx of illegal

immigration has an impact on our international life. crime. untold amounts of gang members, smugglers, illegal drugs and narcotics pouring across the border and into our communities. thousands of innocent lives are taken every year as a result of this lawless chaos. it must end now. the white house says they consulted with republican lawmakers, not democrats on this move. this is the reaction they got from chuck grassley, republican from iowa who represents farmers saying trade policy and border security are separate issues. this is a misuse of presidential tariff authority and counters congressional intent. follow through on this would jeopardize passage of the u.s. -mexico-canada trade deal, a

central campaign pledge and what could be a big victory for the country. the white house yesterday triggered a 30 day process that allows the president to put forward to congress that u.s.-mexico-canada trade deal and chuck grassley saying that can be in jeopardy because of this move. we want to get your reaction to what the president did. good morning, eric. you are up first. go ahead. caller: good morning. something needs to be done about immigration. be a people, we need to priority. to me it seems like the democratic party is putting black people first. 6% unemployment rate is something in the black community .

the community i used to live in, they took over. they have jobs, they are working. -- the women are on welfare and stuff. it does not take generations and generations of these people to ine over here and move up class, you see them driving 4, 5 cars and doing different types of things. the money -- you don't have to go along with everything the democratic party does. you are the base and they are going along with whatever you do . they cannot get elected unless they have a high turnout of democrats. host: understood. do you support this move by the president? caller: causing the black community to be suppressed.

we are the last and everything. host: do you support the president's move? all right. philip, we will go to florida. independent. good morning to you. caller: good morning to you as well. i am kind of in a catch 22 because there is only one policy i do agree with donald trump on and that is we have to do something about people crashing the border. no one would want anybody to crash your home and walk in and say i live here. over the course of time that i have been acquainted with the is my opinion, but it is kind of factual, too. once people come into the country and do not learn the language, do not learn the history of the country and they become kind of tribal to the rest of society, that is a counterproductive element to the american gross and what we stand

for. what i am saying is basically they discriminate -- when they get here, they don't hire anyone but their own, who can speak their own language and they have sort of a written code underneath the whole thing. if democrats are going to do well this upcoming election andite the corruption things being made toward the president, they have to take serious -- very serious what is going on on the borders and as far as african-americans are concerned, we did not have any other kind of incentives that have been given to the latin becoming socially acceptable here in society. when you said democrats need to pay more attention to what is happening on the border, the president tweeting out video that is on bloomberg's twitter

feed and shows a group of more than 1000 migrants were apprehended crossing the u.s.-mexico border in el paso, texas. the headline from the arizona newspaper, border patrol encounters largest group of migrants ever at more than 1000 near el paso. this was yesterday. we will go to jim in fort lauderdale, republican. we are asking all of you to react to the president's decision to put tariffs on mexico unless they do more to stop the flow of immigrants. what do you think? caller: i want the democrat party explain to me what we are going to do with all of these people. ads todaymillion want that cannot be filled. how many of those want ads say i need an unskilled person who can't speaking lush? how many -- speak english?

how many? the democrat party is acting childish and we have a grown-up president doing something about it. i will tell you what is going to happen. work and whennnot people get desperate, they start committing crimes because that is the only thing they have. thank, democrat party. our future is going to be very, very dark when it comes to crime. and the need for highly skilled workers that fit in our society. these people are not going to have anything to do. democrats say they can just be here. what? they cannot just be here in a society like ours.

it does not work. host: let me ask you about the economic impact. are you concerned at all? .ake a look at these numbers goods and services traded with $671 billion. our exports to mexico, $289 billion. 5%, 370 $2 up to 20 billion worth of goods imported that would get taxed and the new york times says that would result in a $17 billion tax for u.s. consumers. the goods and services trade deficit is 72 billion dollars and mexico is our third largest goods and trading partner. are you concerned about the impact of this on our economy? caller: yes, i am. it would be nice if he did not have to do that. this is the only power congress has imbued to the president to

use. what is the impact on future crime and social programs these people are going to be sucking out of our economy? the 5% tariffs are going to look puny. this country is in danger from these immigrants. i am telling you right now, there will be a crime wave. they don't have anything to do. the only way they can help themselves days crime. host: the president, the white 1977 is saying under the international emergency economic powers act, he has the authority to do what he did last night, provides the president broad authority to -- following a declaration of natural -- national emergency. he is saying under this, he has the authority to go ahead and .ut these tariffs on mexico

it is in the papers today. if you are interested in reading more. if you are interested in this law, you can go to the congressional research service and they put together a packet on this powers act. they say according to the washington post from this report that this act has never been used before to place tariffs on imported products from a specific country, but it could be interpreted as giving the white house that power. roy in florida. a democrat. good morning to you. caller: hello. how are you? this thing going on with the tariffs is ridiculous because all it is going to do is hurt the american consumer. he has been so tied into this immigration thing when he should be looking at the middle east. they are the ones that attacked us on 9/11. the whole thing about it is

these people come in and do a lot of jobs and anybody that says we don't need immigration in this country is out of their mind. that is what made this country great. everybody, there are shootings, crime by lack, white, hispanic, whatever, but giving people a chance is what these people were made of, not to demonize immigrants. for 35 years, we never had this problem and now donald trump is making it tough on consumers when he gave tax breaks to all the rich. it goes on and on with this guy. he is a very dangerous president and he seems to get away with whatever he wants. the senators are a bunch of lapdogs like lindsey graham. i lost complete respect for him. host: why? on this issue? caller: because they are lapdogs to trump. they let him get away with

everything he wants to get away with, including the house. guy need to impeach this and do what is right for america and quit demonizing immigrants. host: lindsey graham tweeted out yesterday i support president trump's decision to impose tariffs on mexico until they up their game to help with the border disaster. mexico needs to do more. this is what lindsey graham said -- it continues, sorry. this is what he said in 2017. simply put, any policy proposal which drives up costs of corona, tequila, or margaritas is a big-time bad idea. if ask a covert retaliate -- if mexicoese

retaliates against tariffs, look at the exports we send to mexico, these are the top categories. electrical machinery, $43 billion. $34 billion in mineral -- fuel. $18 billion in plastics. agricultural products. in 2018, it totaled $20 billion. we are talking corn, 3 billion. --beans, almost 2 billion beef and beef products, around $1 billion. u.s. imports from mexico. if these tariffs go into place going all the way up to 25%, these are the products that could get tariffed. it is our second largest supplier of goods, $346 billion.

up 60% from 2008. u.s. imports from mexico account for 13.6% of overall u.s. imports. what we are talking about is vehicles. electrical machinery, mineral fuels, optical and medical instruments. why you are seeing a repeat is because a lot of products -- the parts of products that get made in united states get some of their products from mexico. then they are added here in the united states, especially car parts, sent back to mexico, sent back to the united states. you are seeing a repeat of exports and imports because these are the parts that go back and forth between our countries. mike in ohio, independent. good morning to you. caller: good morning, greta.

that last guy from florida is a perfect example of why we are in trouble. we have legal immigration, not illegal immigration. legal immigration is when you come over and go through classes and do the paperwork and you are legally an american citizen. as of now and as of supposedly million illegals cross the border. what about the ones they did not catch and what about all the drugs they brought over because cartels are using illegal immigrants as tools to get the border guards and the border patrol in one place and then they smuggle the drugs over? upset right now, greta, this is ridiculous. exactly what he said he was going to do, which is unheard of in washington. for decades and decades all we heard was we are going to do

this, we are going to do that. now what are we going to do with all these people in our country? host: you support the president's move here? caller: i did not like trump. i did not vote for trump, but trump is doing exactly what he wants to do and now i do like trump and i will vote for trump. everybody i am associated with --will vote for trump. host: are you hearing from the candidates that are running -- what you want to hear on immigration? caller: our immigration, here we go again. trump said he wanted to bus everything to california and new york and then it is unconstitutional and you cannot do that. what are we supposed to do with these people? they are being released every day in our country on the streets. what are we supposed to do, greta?

host: there is a front-page story in the washington post about the u.s. holding minors at the border longer than allowed and what they report is federal law and court orders require children in border patrol custody be transferred to more hospitable shelters. one official said about half of the children in custody, 1000, have been with border patrol longer than 72 hours and more than 250 children 12 or younger have been in custody for an average of 6 days. more from that washington post article. they also note 45,000 unaccompanied children have been apprehended since october along the border. as of may 19, 13,200 unaccompanied children are in homeland security custody. 200,000 migrants have been

detained in the last two months. you can find it if you go to washington post.com -- washingtonpost.com. our brick, good morning to you. .aller: good morning, greta hopefully america will wake up. president trump is doing the best he can. nobody is giving him a chance. i tell you, we have to do something about the people crossing the border. how much can we take in? they are not coming in legally. president trump is trying his best, let's give him a chance. i listened to some of your callers this morning and they are off-the-wall. when you were speaking with that gentleman that thinks they can come into america not through customs and not learn the language -- they don't want to learn, they just want to take

jobs away from the american people. it is unheard of. greta, i really hope things get better for us. host: are you conserved about this move on tariffs and impacting the economy? you having to pay more as a consumer? caller: i am concerned, but we have to do something and president trump is trying. you have to do something, you cannot just let everybody run into america. host: tyrone in new york, democrat. what do you think? caller: good morning. they kill me with you have to do something. something does not mean you have to do anything you feel like doing -- this president is destroying our country. every decision has been disastrous. the tax cut, this immigration policy, this whole situation has been bad.

the fact that these tariffs he is talking about doing is going tobe detrimental to us, also the mexican government and he already stopped giving money to the countries these people are coming from. that is devastating that country -- their country. more are going to be coming here. a wall is not going to solve the problem. we have to have a coherent immigration policy that we are willing to follow and maintain. who is hiring these illegal immigrants? americans. these people coming here are getting jobs with americans. i am also african-american. i don't know how many african-americans are willing to these -- working

kitchens. i don't know any of them. they are not taking the job i want. they come in here and work these jobs americans do not want. if we come up with a coherent immigration policy and we follow it and because we do not want to do the hard work, we do not want to work on maintaining this immigration influx. said we wantnedy to go -- americans do not want to do the hard work. host: on the impact of this, yahoo! finance website says this morning, trump's mexico tariffs will cripple u.s. automakers. 67% ofstory they write u.s. imports from mexico are intercompany trade. this means two thirds of companies producing goods are producing products for their own

supply chain and other manufacturers. the president yesterday in a statement saying this about his decision. workers who come to our country through the legal admissions process, including those working on farms, ranches, and other businesses will be allowed easy passage. if mexico fails to act, tariffs will remain at the high level and companies located in mexico may start moving back to the united states to make products and goods, companies that relocate to the united states will not pay tariffs or be affected in any way. a congressman who represents a district in texas right on the border tweeting out the president's threat to impose tariffs will only hurt american workers, economic growth, and our international security. instead of inflicting penalties on our southern neighbor, we must work with mexico to handle the influx of migrants.

the reaction from mexico, the president of that country said he would send a representative of their government to the united states to work on this today. in the letter to the president, he said social problems cannot be resolved with taxes or corrosive measures. seek alternatives to the immigration problem and please remember that i do not lack courage, i am not cowardly nor timid, but i act on principle. i believe in the policy that among other things was invented to avoid confrontation and war. that from the mexican president. john in florida, independent. it is your turn to tell washington what you think of this move. go ahead. caller: i support president trump 110%. i am a veteran.

i have a masters of international business. what i worry about is the $160 billion we spend on illegals every year with social services, hospitals, housing, and then you give them a job and they spend -- send 50% back to mexico. people say -- one clown from new said 100 feet of the wall will work. the tariffs are going to work. -- maybe we should go down there and show them how it is done. we can at least give an effort. and present -- people say president trump has not done it. the dow is up to 27,000. to 4% plus. host: right now this morning or

overall? caller: overall. we have to stop them. act says youion have to learn english. send them over to all the hollywood elites in california. be support them, you will there sponsor and pay for hospitalization and everything else. 1934 immigration act if you want the law. there is a law for immigration. host: this is how the markets are reacting. u.s. stocks feature global markets after trump threatens tariffs on mexico. wendy in florida, good morning to you. caller: good morning. host: go ahead with your thought. caller: first, i would like for something to really sink in to

the people who are legally here, born here in the united states of america. our president has done every single thing legally possible to him to correct the badly passed laws in the last 10 years that have allowed this flow to happen and continue. hasress, all of congress toused, absolutely refused -- they are still refusing to do that jobs. that leaves one branch, the do dish -- judicial branch, the supreme court. if the supreme court does not act, this will never stop. our entire country will be from 20by people different countries, that is what they are apprehending. we don't know what they are not

apprehending. there are 30 to 40 million illegals in this country right now. host: a democrat in rochester, new york. it is your turn. good morning. caller: i certainly support this president as far as tariffs go. jobs tariffs will drive back to this country. corporations on the others of the border and they are manufacturing parts. parts that used to be built right here in the united states. all the parts were built right here. these same corporations like ford, gm -- across the border

paying absolutely nothing as far as taxes go because that is a free tax zone. put those tariffs on these thisrations paying for cheap labor. they want to send jobs they are because of cheap labor? put a tariff on it. puttinge president is tariffs on companies that import goods, but the company will pass it along to the consumer. pass it on. see what really happens. in the long run, those tariffs will drive some of those jobs back to this company. largest -- are the ag,manufacturers from audi,

volkswagen produce in the country. is a big supplier of fruit and drinks in the latest volley means there may be less joy in margaritaville this summer. americans should be prepared to pay more for guacamole, avocado toast, and other restaurants at -- items at restaurant chains. mexico imports accounted for more than three quarters of the u.s. avocado market last year. mexico is a favorite location for some of the worlds top makers of tvs. about 4ronics makes million. this according to which view -- witsview.

new tariffs could slam companies like constellation brands, the seller of wine and other beverages distributes mexican brands.ona and modelo you can read more if you go to bloomberg.com. joaquin castro tweeting out yesterday, mexico president must not feel tempted or encouraged to abuse the human rights of migrants to comply with donald trump's threats. morning.ood what do you think? with president trump on this illegal thing. they come in and they applied for this and that and they get it and then they are considered low income. .hey get all this free stuff

up.ospitalization goes example, i went to the doctor. this person who hardly speaks english, her co-pay was $10 and mine was $30. everything i have been working for in my life has been going up and up in my taxes and everything. gets allneighbor, he these free things and low payments and all of this stuff because he is considered low income. we are all illegal in this country. none of us got free things, we worked for it. i was orphaned at four years old and i have been working, raised by my grandmother and i have been working for everything i have and i don't think it is

right. i think we should pay attention to the homeless and the veterans first and give the other jobs to the homeless. have them taken in and train them to do all of what we are getting from mexico. stop this all illegal thing. host: let's hear from joe on the border in el paso, republican. tell us what it is like where you live, what is your reaction to the president? i live about two miles from the border and i agree with trump. i was a longtime democrat and now i am a republican. i supported obama, but he did not do anything with immigration in 8 years. donald trump has been in the office for two years. . am a 24 year veteran

i retired here at fort bliss and i stayed, my son is a border patrol agent. 1000 immigrants came across the border in el paso. we cannot sustain that. the hospitals, the care. the veterans get better care v.a. andet going to the i am sick of people saying what should be done on the border in states that are far north. they should come down here and live for 6 months and see what happens. host: what about the unaccompanied -- unaccompanied children that are coming? a lot of times they are going right up to border patrol and claiming asylum and want to be

apprehended so they can get into the country. are you seeing that? what is the impact of that? patrol the border agents, i talked to my son about once a week. he stops over here and checks on me for my health and everything. he has been with border patrol and he has been in santa teresa hitched onto el paso. those border patrol agents worked by two guys and when you get 400 immigrants to come over, my son told me his border patrol place can hold about 200 people. it is holding 400 right now. they have agents, but all their job is a certain time of the week what they are doing is they are busing and going to the hospital every night. we cannot sustain that.

what are we supposed to do with the children? broke intou somebody's house and we had a child with us and we got arrested, they would take the child. ok? where are we supposed to put them? when they are coming over 1000 people at a time. me --n -- explained to host: what does your son say about -- joe, are you still there? caller: yes, ma'am. host: what does your son say about the role the military is playing down there? are they in el paso and are they helping? caller: he does not work with them, that is above what he does. he gets assigned different things. he might be out there one week where he is on an atv for the next week he might work in the building for processing.

they don't really have communication with what the military does. that is their directive from the higher chain of command, what to do. they are not working as a team with border patrol agents. they are working with the agency, but not with them individually. the new york times reports on this story the white house is vague about what actions mexico should take that would satisfy the president enough to postpone or cancel tariffs. the dhs secretary said americans need to increase security at the border with guatemala, crackdown gangs, and help the united states more with asylum-seekers. we are going to judge success by the number of people crossing the border and that number needs to come down substantially.

linda in nevada, democrat. good morning. first of all, this is like another dumb decision in a string of dumb decisions. nothing this so-called president is doing is working. the number of immigrants has gone up, way up. the number of illegal aliens has gone way up. -- that former president obama did nothing is untrue. there were more illegal immigrants, undocumented immigrants during his administration then the last years before him. it illegal immigrants from mexico went way down, the lowest they have been in decades and that is because of -- a lot of

u.s. businesses that opened in mexico and put those people to work. what is going to happen if those companies start laying off cutle because they have to their personnel back to make up for profits they are losing created by these tariffs? those people are going to come across the border to find a way to feed their family because that is why these people come. they need a way to see their family. all we are going to do is make the problem even worse on top of having bad relationships with mexico. the whole thing is a fools folly and i cannot understand how people cannot sit down and think about this and figure that out. that boggles my mind. host: linda in nevada.

we will go to ken in washington, d.c., independent. caller: good morning. happy friday to you. quite a few previous callers sound just like trump. they talk about, they have been in the military and done 24 years and have a masters degree or whatever. the one thing i have in common with them is they are naive. big business drives everything. halliburton than when they profit tiered off a war. -- he sits only the board of a company that holds these children. the money is always going back to them. the naive people that say immigrants cost a lot of money

is because people charge a bunch of money to hold them. i would appreciate when someone is telling a story about a son, maybe they should give their son's phone number so he can give a direct line of communication as opposed to someone who is obviously very confused and naive. host: we will go to janice, a republican. good morning. i get so outraged when i listen to these out of touch democrat voters talking about things they know nothing about, --ting their talking points i have lived here over 50 years of my life in san diego and i know what is going on at the border. at the end of the day, it has never been this ridiculous.

all this concerned about illegal 's children. what about american children? sends their minor baby across the border without apparent and then you want to blame ice agents when something happens to these children because they are coming unaccompanied. what kind of parent does that? that releases their children so they can get into america with no backing. host: how do you respond to someone say they are doing it because that is how desperate they are? the gang situation, political situation in these central american countries is so bad they feel like the only chance for their children is to send them to the united states. here, too.have gangs we are not sending our children without supervision.

i have never lived in a gang infested neighborhood, but i know a lot of people who have. san diego, california, l.a., we have a lot of gangs and a lot more of these gangs coming from other countries do not make it better. to on thei listen democratic side believes every person coming across that border is coming for a better life. there are people taking advantage of the situation. mexico, the cartel, they don't think about american people half as much as they are thinking about illegals and that demo brett -- gentlemen who spoke about americans who don't want to do hard work, this country was founded by americans working hard. we have people coming in here tearing it down because they want to take advantage of the system that affords their legals free housing, free medical, free

everything. i cannot get anything from this system because "my husband makes too much money." host: i will leave it there and go to when nita -- juanita. caller: i have three points to make if i can. in relation to the lady who just talked, last year we had an of children being drugged up by their parents. we had an epidemic down here at the hospital. ?hat is their excuse i cannot be sympathetic to republicans. number 2, like the lady said and i heard the foreign minister of new mexico on npr on his way to washington now.

those things going to mexico, you know what is going to happen? he said on npr. arevery people in mexico doing the same thing central americans are doing. it is a social problem. number 3, the united states only -- we use the majority of the world's opiates. we are falling into what is supply and demand. our country literally eats narcotics. you have a good day. host: in other news, we will get back to your thoughts on the president's decision to impose tariffs unless mexico does more

to stop migration, we will get back to that in a minute. i want to begin with a tweet from alexandria ocasio-cortez. if you are a member of congress and you leave, you should not be allowed to turn around and leverage your service for a lobbyist check. at minimum, there should be a period.eriod -- wait this is from ted cruz, i have called for a long-term ban on former members of congress becoming lobbyists. she responded to the senator. if you are serious about a clean bill, i am down. let's make a deal. if we can agree on a deal with no poison pills, et cetera, just ban, i will code lead the bill with you. his response, you are on.

kevin in ohio, good morning. caller: good morning. how are you doing today? host: what are your thoughts on what the president did, announced yesterday? caller: it seems like it is the same thing like with the health care, what we call the individual mandate -- it is like we are going to pay for that just to be able to make sure our country is secured. i really don't think it is his fault. it goes back to the fast and furious act when they came to what eric holder put in play, which was disclosed and they showed movies of fast and furious just to confuse americans about what was going on. now we have to put protections and borders in place which this president is doing and it is crazy because this is the first president that is actually saying something that he is

going to do and actually been implementing and pushing congress to do it and pushing his executive authority to do it. it is interesting to see how he is going to tax when it comes to these imports coming from mexico. especially when it comes to guacamole and machinery that comes from there. he wanted mexico to play for this -- pay for this. we are going to pay the taxes, i am not going to hurt the american people, but congress has forced the hand because they were saying they are not going to build the wall. there is no law. -- wall. nancy pelosi was saying no wall, but now he is pushing the hand because at the end of the day, it comes from safety and security around our borders. we have past presidents that

gave aid and that has gone out of control. consumers tax that will pay, the new york times says it could be up to $17 billion. david in tennessee, good morning to you, republican. caller: good morning to you. i voted for donald trump. i am a 60-year-old man. i have cancer now. i am dying from cancer. i had to fight just to get medicare and disability. dance acrossals the border and get everything. they are not entitled. is athis country needs president that stands behind what he says.

donald trump is a hypocrite. i voted for the man. now he is showing his true colors. he is a democrat with a republican name. host: in what way, david? caller: excuse me? host: in what way is he a democrat. he sided with nancy pelosi, the leader of the democrats. david in tennessee. the front page of the new york times, files disclose republican hands. statuseved near mythic as the michelangelo of gerrymandering, the architect of partisan political maps that cemented the party's dominance across the country. files on drives showed he wrote a study in 2015 concluding that adding a citizenship to the senses would allow republicans

to draw even more gerrymandered maps. he wrote the key portion of a claiming the question was needed. the supreme court has agreed to take this up and this story is on the front page of the new york times if you are interested in reading more. out of mississippi this morning, the headlines about the late senator thad cochran. the former senator died at the age of 84 yesterday, elected to the senate in 1978, resigned april 2018. he chaired the appropriations committee for a long time. first republican senator from mississippi since reconstruction, died at the age of 81 yesterday.

in texas, democrat. good morning to you. caller: good morning. how are you? i would just like to make one point. donald trump is playing a head game with the american people. these people are coming from el salvador, guatemala. donald trump told the american people he was not going to send money there to help them. he is having more of these people come to the border so he can look like he is doing something for the american people. he is playing a head game working with the republicans. democrats are seeing right through it. this man needs to be impeached, he is not helping any of us. none of these tariffs are helping any americans right now. he is making it harder for all of us. host: in what way, the tariffs? caller: everything is going up for the american people. we are paying more at the stores, gas is going up.

he gave tax cuts to the rich and now they can't pass a disaster bill because it will cost too much. they did not say that when it came to the tax cut for the rich . it is a mind game he is playing with us and republicans are falling for it. they are upset about the border, but the republicans held the senate and the white house and the house and they have never done anything about immigration. all of the sudden, democrats have the house and blame us for everything. come on, people. host: take a look at the numbers from the u.s. trade represented of office, mexico is the second largest supplier of goods. new york times says that amounts to a $17 billion tax for consumers if the president starts taxing at 5%, that is

where he will start. $17 billion at 5%, it will go up 25% if mexico continues to not satisfy the white house on stopping the flow of immigration. more from the u.s. trade representatives, up 10% is what they say. importing up 10% for 2017, 60% from 2008 and u.s. imports from mexico accounts for 13.6% of u.s. -- overall u.s. imports. hi, martha. this ismy response to what are you doing about the people that are hiring the illegal aliens? everyone is upset with the coming over to work, butk,

i cannot work if they are not given jobs and the jobs they are being given are by americans, usually big corporations, agricultural farms are hiring these guys and they are not breaking any banks. i don't see white, black, purple, pink americans taking care of the jobs -- taking care of babies for $20 a month or picking grapes for $20 a month. if you want to stop the flow of immigration or discouraging, you need to stop the people hiring them, which are americans. alan,atlanta georgia, good morning. caller: good morning, greta. a personal note first. with theear that dress triangle colors more often? you look amazing. host: okay. thanks, alan. go ahead. caller: as it so happens, i am

heading down to mexico in a few weeks to vice and property. i have been watching the value carefully. very it would drop -- it has dropped dramatically in the last day. it will continue to drop. for a while, the taxes, import duties, which are called tariffs, but they are just import duties paid by the importer in the united states, prices won't change here because they are paying for the products in pesos and if the peso goes down, it will not make much of a difference until it gets to 10%, 15%. the problem we have, as the last lady said, is there is no easy way to verify that a person is eligible to work in this country and it is really easy to fix. e-verify does not work because it is arcane and a broken system

designed to be that way, but the fix is really easy. one thing that is never mentioned on your show is why people from central america are bringing their children to the united states and i will tell the public why they are doing it. it is so their children can learn american english really fast, as children do. when the children come back, assuming our broken immigration system remains broken, which i trust it will be, they will pass for americans who happen to be hispanic. it takes a few months for a child who speaks spanish to start speaking english with a native american accent to the point that they are indistinguishable from people growing up here. host: what is the motivation to go back to their country and

pass as hispanic american? caller: their motivation is when the children are adults, they will be speaking american english and they will come back into the united states and slip into the system. terry,e will go to kansas city, missouri. democrat. caller: i am in favor of immigration in general. what happens to a stagnant p ool? it rots. immigrants are part of the lifeblood of this country. renewal makes history great. we will look stupid for trying to freeze this country into a stagnant pool. we can solve this problem. we can get comprehensive immigration reform. host: paula, providence, rhode island. independent. caller: good morning. i have been listening to a lot

and someent opinions forms of insightful encouragement here and there. i am not interested in the statistics. what i am interested in is i think being an independent -- i always look at who i think is going to be the best for the job and what i think they are going to do. from the beginning, the hold put has had a big on him, not to mention all the other mishaps and problems he has run into, those walls. i think his major concern for this country is if we are going to have immigration, stop the loopholes where kids come and then you have the left side saying that kids cannot be here by themselves, we cannot keep them separated, we have to give -- get them with their parents.

now you have the kids over here. we are taking care of the kids, which is not our responsibility. we take care of the kids and the left-wing says you cannot separate the kids, you have to bring the parents over here. if you have 1000 kids in custody we are trying to take care of with our tax dollars, my tax dollars taking care of these kids and then you bring over parents that have no jobs, we don't know what kind of job qualification they have. we don't know how many names they will use if they were willing to come into this country to work and provide a better life for their family, they should do it the right way. host: we will take a break. when we come back, we will turn our attention to disaster aid. cq roll call's jennifer shutt will join us to discuss getting federal aid to disaster victims. how the 2017 disaster funds have

yet to be spent. first, here's what happened on the floor of the house yesterday when democratic leaders were blocked for a third time as they tried to move the 19.1 billion disaster aid package the senate agreed to late last week. this time, a tennessee republican kept the legislation from moving on a voice vote. >> the gentleman from pennsylvania seeks recognition. >> mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to take has resolution to anyone 57 with the senate 2157 with the senate amendment. >> reserving the right to object. >> the gentleman is recognized on his reservation. >> i'm standing in the house chamber that is virtually empty. nearly all of my colleagues are absent as the speaker of the

house seeks to pass a $19 billion spending bill. our nation is $22 trillion in debt. trying to past $20 billion in new spending while the majority of congress is not even in washington reflects another act irresponsible big government. this is absolutely without a doubt wrong. it is -- it is no surprise that public confidence in congress is at lows. this issue could be voted on in the next 12 hours. we are each accountable to the american people who entrusted us with their votes and sent us here to work on their behalf. i'm accountable to the people of tennessee. i can say with confidence, tennesseans deserve better than what is being attended here today. i never expected when i came to

washington that i would be asked to stay home while $19 billion is spent without my vote. i urge the speaker of the house to return to her post and call congress back to washington to do the people's work and i object. host: jennifer shutt at our table this morning. cq roll call's appropriations and budget reporter. explain, why does it keep getting blocked, this $19.1 billion disaster aid package? guest: trying to get to a bipartisan agreement on disaster aid is something that has been taking months. there's been a lot of back-and-forth between democrats and republicans over what everyone can accept in this package. we didn't think we would get some type of final agreement before congress left town last thursday evening for their weeklong long memorial day

break. lawmakers and the white house were able to come to an agreement last thursday mid-day after the house had already taken their final roll call vote. a lot of house members had already left for the airports or for their cars to drive back to their districts. it's important for members to get back in whole town halls with their constituents and hold fundraisers and see their families. the idea is once this disaster aid package was reached last was a vote and the house leadership had to decide whether they wanted to pass this through unanimous consent during a pro forma session or weight until monday -- wait until monday. house democrats decided to do it through uc, unanimous consent.

any member of the house is more than 400 nevers can stand up and block it -- members can stand up and block it. host: debbie wasserman schultz tweeting out -- a single republican blocks the disaster relief bill that would provide critical support to our still recovering communities. where is this money supposed to go? what is the impact of the hold up? guest: one of the things i want to say from the top is that if you are in one of the areas of the country experiencing these tornadoes or floods, the first on the ground federal relief is the fema disaster relief fund. that fund has billions of dollars. it's completely fine. it's not like the federal government isn't able to show up and start helping out. what this $19 billion package is supposed to do is help communities impacted by the 2017

hurricanes, the 2018 storms and wildfires and the first few severe weather events we've had in 2019. there's a decent amount of money in here, billions of dollars, for farmers and rural areas who lost crops and livestock. there's money to rebuild military bases. there's money for the army corps of engineers to help them do mitigation projects that are supposed to reduce the impact of severe weather in the future. there's some community develop and block grants to help people rebuild their homes and infrastructure that may have been washed out by storms or destroyed by tornadoes. host: this is what jennifer shutt was just talking about. 900illion to farmers, million dollars for recovery efforts in puerto rico. no money for border operations. this past the senate 85-8. senate, 85-8.

some republicans are saying we need this money. here, easterners and central parts of the country, 202-748-8000. mountain and pacific, 202-748-8001. if you've been impacted by one of these natural disasters, 202-748-8002. we want to hear from you this morning. what is the white house's response? guest: the white house hasn't had any particularly strong response. president donald trump hasn't weeded out anything about this -- tweeted out and thing about this. said it isonway mostly that these republicans are objecting to the process. they feel there should be a recorded vote. they don't like the idea of

passing it through unanimous consent. i spoke with chip roy, the first republican to vot block this, and the second republican to block this. they object to other things as well. they have concerns about the debt and spending. this does not include the money the white house requested to address the surge in migrants on the mexican border. that is an issue congress knows they need to come to a conclusion on. it was originally supposed to be in the package. it was dropped at the last minute because lawmakers wanted to get the disaster aid package through. agree that the price tag is too high and there should be offsets to it? if it is past next week when congress returns -- passed next

week when congress returns, what is the process for getting the money to these states? guest: it goes to several different agencies. they all have their own processes. we've been looking at the community development block grant program, which is run through housing and urban development. it has a few structural issues. that's one of the things lawmakers are hoping to clear up in this disaster aid package. they did a series of three different disaster aid bills after the 2017 hurricanes and andfires to help texas puerto rico start to recover. a lot of that was community development block grant funding. they are designed to help people whose homes could be -- couldn't through rebuilt insurance or fema grants. one of the issues with that program, it is not permanently

authorized by congress. every time a disaster aid bill passes, hud has to issue new guidelines, print those in the federal register. states have to come up with how they want to spend this money. they have to submit financial controls and an action plan and another plan to hud they have to agree on. the back-and-forth can take months. in this case, it has taken several months. john cornyn from texas has given a few floor speeches on this. the hope is when this disaster aid bill gets signed into law, it will speed up that process so these can spend down billions of dollars that have been sitting around. host: bob is our first caller. good morning to you.

aboutuestion or comments this disaster a debate here in washington? guest: there's already money -- caller: there's already money available for disaster. availableready money for disasters. host: you don't think washington should be spending an additional $19 billion? caller: they have been spent what they have -- haven't spent what they have. host: federal money hasn't reached disaster victims. guest: there are lots of different accounts the federal government uses to respond to natural disasters. ground ison the fema's disaster relief fund. they haven't spent all the money. that's a good thing. if fema's fund was in the low millions, we would have a

serious problem on our hands. they need that money to quickly respond when a tornado touches down or a community floods. broadly considered a good thing. they have disaster aid loans they can get to help small businesses recover afterwards. communityd's development block grant program. there's funding through the department of agriculture to help farmers. if a tornado destroys your , this is important to the community. some programs have smaller balances than others. that is something congress debates through the appropriation process. host: what if the holdup was the president's insistence that not as much money be included in this for puerto rico?

how much has puerto rico received since hurricane maria? how much money do they get under this legislation? what is the status of disaster aid for the island? guest: i don't necessarily have a final dollar amount. there's so many different accounts, it's hard to keep track of. in the three previous disaster aid bills, through the community develop anment block grant program, frederico was post received $20 billion -- puerto rico was supposed to receive $20 billion. they have to go through that process. whichever agency is handling that for the municipality or the state, they have to apply. all these different financial controls, this has been a slow process.

that is something lawmakers are concerned about. it is supposed to be cleared up by this disaster aid bill. additional $600 million for nutrition assistance. that is something both sides agreed to pretty early on. president trump was on board with that. there was a lot of behind the scenes negotiating between lawmakers and the white house how to include additional block grants to help people who still have housing issues recover and still help with the massive infrastructure issues that are still unresolved or not fixed completely after these two hurricanes devastated the island. host: indiana. good morning to you. wondering whyjust we send so much money over to a

foreign country instead of helping people around here. , you coverfer shutt budget and appropriations. can you explain the percentage of foreign aid of our total budget? how much does disaster aid makeup of that budget? can you give us an idea? guest: typically, there's two pots of money the federal government spends every year. one of those pots is mandatory. trillion mandatory spending on autopilot unless congress does a massive bill to change how those programs are run. the other portion is discretionary spending. that's about $1.3 trillion. that is determined by congress and the white house every year through 12 annual spending bills. one of those bills is the state

foreign operations spending bill. it doesn't have a high allocation. we don't spend a substantial amount of money on foreign aid and foreign countries. on thes a broader debate umbrella of money spent outside of the united states. we have bases around the world, troops deployed around the world, lots of military contractors working on research and development. one could argue either way whether that is domestic spending more international spending. most soldiers are american citizens. if you consider that domestic spending or foreign spending is probably a contentious debate. host: where does disaster aid fall into those pots of money? is that discretionary or completely outside of those two classifications?

guest: one of the 12 annual spending bills is the homeland security spending bill and fema is housed under the homeland security department. when that bill gets brought up in the house and senate , that's where that debate would take place. the disaster relief fund is not typically an area of contention. there's a formula used to determine how much it should get every year. obviously, lawmakers could plus that up if they want to. it's based on how much they spend in previous fiscal years. host: this isn't considered emergency spending? guest: this is emergency spending. this is not one of the 12 annual appropriation bills. these come up from time to time when we have severe weather. we had a $1.1 billion spending funding for student

health. the cdc got some money to address the issues -- as he got -- zika issues. congress will try to offset it a bit. in situations like this, they might not. host: jordan in north carolina. caller: i agree with the caller from florida saying they are spending too much money on these federal disasters. president that is probably concerned about that. i wanted to get her thoughts on that. we will go to john in pennsylvania. good morning. caller: yes. i wanted to comment about -- we had a flood here about three

years ago. the money they used out of their people, they've been getting their money back from the federal government for their homes. they made them demolish all the houses and they didn't get their assessment value on the homes. to rebuild some of them that they could rebuild, they could get a small loan. i don't think it's used properly, the funds they get. the state uses the money for the roads and stuff. they gave them money for the flood control, but they didn't get their money for the people for the houses they destroyed. host: can you explain how need is determined for disaster aid funding? guest: there's a lot of

different formulas the different agencies use for this. fema is typically the first one out of the gate that determines where the funding goes and how much each community gets. they are sort of the food, clothing and shelter response. one of the things that is important to note in a situation like this, if you're a homeowner, your insurance policy, you have to get the flood insurance program on that. that is something we've seen in a lot of these situations. the homeowner will get the regular policy. you are to make sure also getting the national flood insurance program. that's one of the things we've seen time and time again in these disaster zones. people don't have flood insurance. they are really relying on

nonprofit groups or state and federal government to help them rebuild. these community develop and block grants are important because that's one of the broad help states can use to rebuild these homes. if you have electrical problems or mold that needs to be addressed, that's what these programs are designed for, to help these people rebuild their lives, essentially. host: he doesn't think they are being used wisely. does the government monitor how the money is spent? can they recoup the money if it's not spent appropriately? guest: i'm not sure. on the first question, yes, there very close monitoring -- there's very close monitoring. every federal department has an

office of the inspector general. these are the watchdogs to determine whether or not an agency is wasting money. one thing we track closely is they follow this money and aboutssue reports talking how this aid was used and where improvements need to be made. there's definitely people watching how this is done. the lawmakers and their staff, they all follow this closely. they don't want to have a big scandal where money is being spent unwisely. host: that brings up puerto rico. republicans have said they are concerned that puerto rican officials have not proven they will spend this money effectively. guest: that was part of the debate. this are guardrails in

$19.1 billion disaster aid bill that would make sure there's additional oversight provisions on puerto rico. that is something everyone came to agreement on. it was not particularly contentious. host: larry in st. charles, missouri. go ahead. caller: i've been through the constitution and i've been unable to find anything that permits the federal government to have disaster aid. i'd appreciate if some but he could point that out to me. guest: the power of the purse rests with congress. they have the legal authority under the constitution to tax and spend. this is spending. host: tommy in tennessee. caller: good morning, ladies.

to follow-up up on that previous question, is money moved from one agency to another? do we borrow the money from china or whoever? acquiredhe money being to distribute to the states? guest: this bill, that's one of the objections these three republicans have made, they are concerned that this bill is not offset. we are not moving money from one account to disaster relief accounts. --y are adding this would concerned this would add a $19 billion to the debt. the deficit right now is a bit under $1 trillion for the last fiscal year. it's a very basic revenue and spending like anyone does in their personal finances.

relative. how much taxes, how much revenue is coming into the treasury and how much is going out. it'sry round numbers, about $3 trillion coming in, for trillion dollars going out -- $4 trillion going out. host: clarksburg, west virginia. frank. what happened in west virginia? 2016.: this goes back to the southern part of the state, it was really, really bad. fema, fromart is, what i understand, there was $3.5 million sent down there. this is richwood, west virginia. they only spent $400,000 to help the people. if you go onto the site for the state auditor here, they had

where under indictment $3.5 million was stolen. it's just crazy. there's other towns in west getinia still fighting to their homes built after they were tore down. shouldn'ton is people steal money for disasters. look that up. have a good day. host: phyllis in fort lauderdale. caller: hi. say the united states government needs to make sure this money is being spent properly on the things that it should be spent on. there's a lot of corruption in puerto rico. it is taxpayer money. i want to make sure there's someone looking out for this money. host: jennifer shutt talked

about the guardrails put into this $19 billion disaster aid package to oversee those funds going to artery go -- put a recoat -- puerto rico. a democrat from maryland was in the speaker's chair yesterday lonethe loan republican -- republican blocked this aid from the unanimous consent vote. [video clip] >> we don't think anyone should be playing games with disaster relief. we have americans facing cataclysmic conditions across the country because of these extreme weather events. bedon't think they should playing parliamentary games with it. i heard it was about them wanting to build funding for the wall through disaster relief

legislation. that doesn't fit. this is for disaster relief, people suffering from hurricanes and droughts and earthquakes and so on. it has nothing to do with the wall. the congress already rejected spendesident's request to tens of billions of dollars on the wall. bes not appropriate to fingerpainting on this legislation. the floodot object to insurance legislation. so, that is important legislation, too. i don't really see the rhyme or reason there. host: what stands out to you? guest: putting border wall funding on this was never part of the discussion. the part of the discussion he's referring to, the trump

supplementaln sent funding requests to congress on may 1. they were asking for additional resettlement,gee dealing with these unaccompanied children coming across the border, taking care of them. one of the things we've heard through the last month, democrats and republican broadly that helping these children is a humanitarian crisis. it is something they need to find additional funding for. thesefice taking care of children is very close to running out of money. if that happens, they've said they will pull money from different accounts. that is not ideal. lawmakers were trying to add additional funds to address the situation to the disaster aid

bill. because they cannot get final agreement on the oversight leg thursday, everyone agreed to just pass the peer disaster aid bill. lastersight language,, last thursday, everyone agreed to just past the bill.disaster aid who went friend through hurricane sandy -- the federal flood insurance program said they weren't responsible, even though the family had to flee their home. they said it wasn't due to flood, it was due to wind. the insurance company wouldn't pay because they said it was due to flood and wasn't covered by

property insurance. she had to borrow what money she 401(k) and take on credit card debt. the home was worth far less than her mortgage. that drove her into bankruptcy and ruined their lives. someone should look at the federal flood insurance program. whenever you have two insurance companies, they point the finger at each other. it was so devastating for my friend. host: jennifer shutt? guest: this is one of the issues congress does regularly look at. was a two-weeks extension for the national flood insurance program. biggerll need to do a reauthorization. solution is to

probably call your congressperson, your senators. there are people in those offices designed to do constituent service. they may be able to help with that. it sounds pretty horrible. host: kevin in roseville, new jersey. caller: good morning. yess just calling to say and thank jennifer for explaining these issues. the key word here is "help." i'm surprised these republicans are doing what they are doing to helpthis disaster aid to people who need it. i want to thank jennifer for explaining. end: jennifer shutt, let's with going over what happens next. guest: the house and senate are

both scheduled to return on monday. the senate will be holding votes around 6:30.house this bill will come up. it has broad bipartisan support. it is expected to pass the house. president trump has said that he plans on signing it. this tactic just elated by a little over a week -- delayed it by a little over a week. it delayed the aid by a few days. agencies and departments could have started using it this past week. --eek long delay is not they've been negotiating for months. in that context, not a particularly long amount of time. if you a farmer waiting for reimbursement, i'm sure this isn't something making you happy

with your government. host: when we come back, we will talk with american university's about his book, "one nation, two realities: dueling facts in american democracy." we will be right back. ♪ >> here are some of our featured programs this weekend on book tv. saturday at 7:00 p.m. eastern, the 2019 pen america literary gala. this year, awards were given to andwoodward, anita hill richard robinson. the event was hosted by john oliver. >> pen america is powered by a nationwide membership of writers with 7500 novelists,

journalists, nonfiction writers, essayists, playwrights, screenwriters, publishers, agents -- really? agents get a shout out? good for them. they work hard. [laughter] south --ying on the -- "spying on the -- tony20 horwitz horwitz -- >> my curiosity of how he got --m there two central park from there to central park and cross this divide and try to

understand what is happening at this moment. , scottfterwords pelley on major news events he's covered as a reporter. his thoughts on a free press. his latest book is "truth worth telling." >> what is the fastest way to destroy democracy? , ist war, is it terrorism it another great depression? i don't think so. i think the fastest way to destroy a democracy is to poison information. that's exactly what we are seeing right now. we've moved from the information age to the disinformation age. "> "washington journal continues. host: david barker at our table this morning. book,he author of this

"one nation, two realities: dueling facts in american democracy." he's also the director at the american university center for presidential studies. guest: there's the increasing tendency for americans on either side of the political divide to believe certain things. years,e past 50 americans have become more divided when it comes to their policy positions and views toward candidates and values, what kind of cars we buy and food we eat. over the past 10-15 years, we believe entirely different sets of facts. we have different perceptions of reality. host: how can you determine this? guest: i started looking at this back in 1999 briefly.

i did one research project on it back then. we particular book, collected survey data going back to 2013. we have six different surveys from 2013-2017. we asked people on specific facts as they pertain to the state of the economy, climate change, the role of racism in determining outcomes, attitudes toward whether sexuality is innate or psychological, whether increasing the minimum wage helped or hurt workers. 15 different things we ask about. the relationship between people's different values, the media they consume, their partisan perspective, their identities and how those things match up to the fact they believe, even after accounting for their partisanship, we find

thatincreasing trend people in one half of the country read different things, believe different things, trust different people. they literally see the world differently. host: what is to blame? guest: this is one of the contributions of the book. from the point of view that thinking the media were to blame. looking at partisan media and whatnot, the effects of partisan media. that was our starting point. week spec to do the dominant factor was the rise in partisan media on the internet and cable and social media. we actually found that those things play a role, but the dominant culprit is really

ourselves. basically, this is our own values. we all have experiences, personal experiences, identities and especially value perspectives that we carry with us that are not necessarily based on our understandings of facts but based on our morals. really guidences our perceptions of reality. certain't help when cheerleaders, partisan opinion leaders in the media egging us -- and the media are egging us on. even if no one ever turned into fox news or msnbc -- host: how do you fix it?

guest: our conclusions are pretty pessimistic. we spend a section of the book looking at different possible correctives to this problem. at the potential efficacy of fact checking. there's been a rise in fact checking organizations over the past few years. we are not the only ones who have found this. fact checking is pretty much ineffective. peopleall percentages of change their beliefs based on being corrected. even if they do, it is temporary and they bounce back. it doesn't affect their behavior. they will continue on with the next step of what believing in this particular fact would mean.

one of the more disconcerting findings, especially for a college professor, is that more education doesn't help. in fact, it makes it worse. the people who are most inclined to project their own values and identities onto factual beliefs are the people at the highest levels of education, including people with phd's. how can that possibly be? supposedly, one of the points of higher education is that we become t exposed to different points of view. turns out that that doesn't really happen. what we get through higher atcation is we become better linking up our beliefs to our values. we become better counter arguers. whate better able to rebut

conflict with our point of view -- conflicts with our points of view. host: what's the outcome? guest: we can hope that we will outgrow it. that overility is time, the value divide in the united states becomes narrower. there is some indications of that. the differences between left and right or red and blue america are not that great when you look at people in their 20's and 30's. they are more likely to agree on climate change, agree on

gay-rights, agree on different types of things, certainly agree when it comes to the role of women in society or civil rights types of issues. at least when it comes to those sorts of issues, the tendency to values one's cultural ontoorals and identities one's beliefs may become narrower. the divide will be narrower. however, when it comes to other stuff like differences on taxes and spending and the consequences of a national debt or whether socialism leads to positive outcomes for working , we've seen no reason to believe that people will stop

taking an objective look at the scientific evidence on this. host: what are your thoughts? democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. you can join us on twitter as well or go to facebook.com/c-span. would it help if we had a presidential candidate or a president in the white house that talked in a way that said there is middle ground here? guest: it couldn't hurt. who wentve a president out of his way to do that. the entire basis of the obama candidacy in 2008 was trying to find common ground.

the first administration tried to reach that common ground. what we saw over the course of eight years is these divides becoming greater. arguably, those divides have become even greater since 2016 with a president who takes a different approach. presumably, it wouldn't hurt, but i don't think history suggests we would get back to a state of kumbaya either. host: james in virginia. independent. caller: thanks for taking my call. there's one thing we don't consistently consider. that is the reason we have a constitution. it's to maintain and promote domestic tranquility. that is the environment that promotes the evolving of the

neocortex. promoting thegan toning of the limbic brain sales. butecame not homo sapiens, consumprex. that has matured into the organic chemistry of the brain. proteins result in the buildup of confirmation bias the belief tribe, ort the quantities availabilities of materials are limited, so you must fight for them. we've become social darwinians. survival of the fittest, an animalized condition.

what do we have in the white house now? social is right darwinian taking over a onstitutional republic based the maintenance of domestic tranquility. we are on the precipice of converting to a feudal state. whether we are going to stop ont conversion depends whether people recognize that pain killing enabled the neocortex has been going on since time began. guest: i don't agree with what especially the, biochemistry as it relates to

bias -- as it relates to the rest of it, i certainly understand and appreciate the caller's pessimism. i feel pessimistic like that on many days as well. on other days, i choose to feel hopeful. host: battle creek, michigan. democrat. about: i want to talk obstructionism. say the to me -- let's climate issue -- exxonmobil did their own study of climate change in the 1970's. they found that the science was correct, the scientists were correct that there was likely going to be climate change. they obstructed it and hid it.

there's been obstruction from the scientific -- of the scientific communities from the oil companies ever since. george bush thought global warming was an issue. there's beenh era, far right obstructionism. unwillingness to compromise, certainly among republicans in the senate. obstructionism is a problem. so is unwillingness to copper mice. guest: that's another area of research we are pursuing. -- so is unwillingness to compromise. over the course of the past longer, we've seen a reduced willingness for folks to compromise. it is not a partisan statement

to say that in the house and senate, we have indeed seen more of that historically on the republican side. haven't beencrats guilty of it at times as well. there are many contextual reasons why that might be the case. what we are talking about here with respect to the dueling fact perceptions, that contributes to all event. the oil and gas industry did their own research on this, reached their own conclusions and hid them, that's true. more recently, in the past year or so, we are seeing more oil and gas companies coming on supportxpressing their for increased funding for new technologies, increased funding

to support new energy sources. increase ineen an the percentage of americans who believe climate change is real and caused by humans. in the coming years, perhaps in the next administration, there may be opportunities for progress on that front. down the dueling fact perceptions into three categories. polarization, information environment, and demise of trust and authority. let's talk laura's asian. -- let's talk polarization. what do you mean? starting inve seen the late 1960's and then spiking in the 1990's this so-called culture war, polarization between the parties. we talk about three different

types of polarization. --re's partisan polarization we are talking about this in congress and the mass public. we just mean then democrats and republicans -- that democrats and republicans tend to be divided more cleanly than they used to. more viewso hold that are distinct from each other than they used to. there's really no such thing as a liberal republican anymore or a conservative democrat. in the 1990's, you could find people. there were opportunities to reach across the aisle. there are natural affinities. those things don't exist anymore. there are no liberal republicans in congress.

there are no conservative democrats in congress. the biggest change we've seen over the past generation, what scientists call effective polarization -- affective polarization. republicans hate each other just personally. of the masssurveys public and look at how people see various issues, you see issues, buton the they are not as great as you would think they would be. many americans say they would be disappointed if their son or daughter married someone from the opposite party. they wouldn't have lunch with somebody from the other side of the aisle.

they wouldn't work with somebody on a project. there is a personal loathing that has grown. the second thing, the information environment, is what we were referencing earlier. we came into this thinking this would be the biggest culprit. the rise and partisan media. -- in partisan media, first on talk radio, then cable news, then on the internet, then social media. the third thing, as you mentioned, the decline of trust in informational authorities. whether it is the mainstream media or scientists and academics, the traditional torces people would look to adjudicate these things,

significant chunks of the american public no longer trust the authorities. have something close to a majority indicating republicans think colleges and universities are bad for the country. that is concerning. note -- i should don't want to throw those people under the bus who believe that. it is completely understandable why they might believe that. over the course of the past 40-50 years, the percentage of me, peoplework with like me who work in colleges and universities, identify as democrats and liberals. that does not mean that we are trying to brainwash their kids or trying to push an agenda. it is understandable why people might be suspicious of that.

upon certainly incumbent colleges and universities to try to do something to create a space on campus where conservatives feel more comfortable so they can gain their trust back. host: illinois. don has been listening. an independent. your turn. caller: it's been great listening to you guys. i've been watching c-span since the beginning. i even got my wife watching book tv. i will read his book. i really will. the democrats and republicans are fighting each other for control of the money. it is just stagnating the country. i also know what really causes climate change, global warming, and i figured out evolution. host: and? caller: it's very interesting,

listening to the different intellects here. i will read his book. host: jose in california. democrat. caller: hello. good morning. i would like to address what he said about their not being any conservative democrats -- there not being any conservative democrats. i will just say joe mansion. hin.oe manc i appreciate you guys being so even killed when you discuss keeledlike this -- even when you discuss topics like this. -- i justly one party find it astonishing that i still if the two saying

sides can work together -- one side is clearly not wanting to work with the other at all. one's definition of a liberal or conservative can vary. 20 years ago, we might have manchin as ae liberal. partially agreeing and partially i mentioned a second again. here's a fact. all of the evidence is just that again when it comes to being willingness to reach across the aisle, willingness to compromise and moderate on stuff in the

past 20 years that republicans have been more to blame in congress and democrats have. it is also true when you look at hey, doand ask people, you think that members of your party should work together with members of the other party to get stuff done, republicans tend to be less likely to answer the question in the affirmative. on the other hand, when it comes to our book and our research on these factors up to his, another one of our surprising findings based on the pre-existing ideas that we brought into it was that republicans and conservatives were more nor like -- more lik democratsiberals and to project values onto their fact perceptions. we tend to have that idea because on certain high profile issues in this country, namely climate change, the democrats, facts on their

side, they have evidence on their side, but there is a long laundry list of other things we examine where that is not necessarily true, where the evidence is less clear, more middling. there is a lot more nuance. we again found that the left was just as inclined as the right to just believe what they wanted to believe, regardless of what the evidence said. we also found that when it comes to taking the next step, right, when it comes to the way we view others who hold different factual boys than -- beliefs than we do, we found that the left tends to hold people who disagree with them and greater disdain. if iund that if, you know, think you do not believe in climate change and i view, i'm much more likely than the reverse to say that i am not going to eat with you, i'm not going to go out with drinks with you, i think you are an idiot.

some of the stereotypes about the right being more sublime are no-- to blame are not consistent with what we found. host: we will go to hannover, maryland. connie in independent. guest: thanks for taking my call. caller: i found one of the most significant problems is a misunderstanding that we have to choose between capitalism and socialism. and i feel right now that for a number of years we have been sold a bill of goods that we live in a capitalist society when we don't. right now i feel like big corporations, especially they capitalize all of the gains and socialize all of the losses. and that's a socialistic society. and i feel like what some of the social democrats and justice democrats want to do is they want to socialize some of the as longr the 99%, but

as like the media and other people keep on promoting this falsity, it just continues i think some of the dysfunction in our politics. host: ok. guest: thank you very much. so, in many respects i would agree. i think it is a false choice we are often presented with in terms of socialism versus capitalism, and characterizing our country as i either the water the other. - the one or the other. it has been 100 years at least if not longer, actually, since the united states could be characterized as a lais sez-faire capitalist society. a significant portion of our economy is, you know, tied up in government and we have a significant welfare state. smaller than many european countries certainly, but a lot of people receive their health

insurance through the government. all people receive some retirement income from the government. and so on and so forth. and so, the government, you know, is very involved in the economy. and so, it is to some degree that socialist. it is also worth pointing out when we talkw, about socialism and the united states every talk about democratic socialism a la bernie sanders are some people warren lump elizabeth into that category, it is worth noting this is not the same type of socialism that many of us who are a little bit older such as myself grew up learning about an in school.bout this is not marxism, leninism,not maoism, what this really is is a welfare state. it is not the government idea, right, of the social democrats in europe and the sanders-style

democratic-socialist in the united states is not for the government to assume the means of production, right? a la a communist manifesto. at is not even workers of the world unite. it's simply a very robust welfare state where we have a taxes economy that then people at high rates do deliver benefits. again, it is not radically different from what we already do. in intensityferent or degree, but not in kind. host: edward in washington, d.c. democratic caller. good morning to you. caller: good morning. your guest, you are a breath of fresh air. i'm going to go out and get your book the first thing i'm going to good do today. "one nation and two realities." i'm a proud african-american phd

scientists. ience.ied global sc the global warning is very real. on the two realities in this country we have two photosystem and this president was not elected by the popular vote. he was elected by the electoral college. and the thing is, the reality here's is the fact is he is hurting our nation. i worked for the state to protect-- i swore our nation from foreign interest academies. i want to say one more thing angelai go, merkel has phd in quantum physics. she is a really really smart lady. she said, europe must unite -- stand up to china, we must stand up to russia and she said, also, we must stand up to the united states of america. this is dr. angela merkel in

germany. what is going on in england, they are suffering the same problems. host: are you talking about merkel's speech to harvard, her commencement address? caller: she made a speech recently. she did it also six months ago. she's sayingright now -- host: i want the professor to respond. guest: there is a lot there and i appreciate the callers comment s very much. i feel like i learned from them. youone of the things touched upon was the electoral college. and certainly that is the point of division in the country. it has been for some time now. and it doesn't look like it is going to go anywhere soon. although i agree and perhaps agree with the previous caller, that if we have another outcome 00,2020, like we did in 20

was to be honest i would have to say this point is likely. what i'm talking about is with the democratic candidate getting, receiving the majority of the popular vote and president trump receiving the majority of the electoral ark a degreemay sp of distrust on the left or a our veryaith in institutions of government, and our electoral system, that could be extreme the concerning. extremely worrisome. if people get to a point where they say, you know what? i don't believe in any of the stuff anymore. democracy does not work. our electoral political system does not work. we're taking to the streets. if that happens, that all of this we are talking about with dealing rear -- dueling realities and cultural war is going to go to another level. when it comes to angela merkel and europe and its relations to the united states, it is certainly the case that that our

relationship with our allies, w nato allies, is more strange than it has been at points in the past. i'm confident that if you look below the surface a little bit and you look underneath the rhetoric by both by somend by trump and of the other folks you see that the u.s. and europe still need each other, and they still work together pretty closely on a lot of things. and so, for the moment anyway, i'm going to choose to believe that, you know, europe likes us and we we like them and we are going to continue to be allies. host: ricardo, good morning to you, a republican. caller: good morning, how are you? thank you for your program. it's a platform for us to try to like discuss various points. kind of like university.

for mr. baker, my question has to do a little bit more with -- is there not supposed to be a place where some of the conflicts of our day are discussed. you mentioned the electoral college. you mentioned the structure that we have. is it the case that still people, like they are kind of referring to the public or citizen, or taxpayers for a legal reason and what is the in numeration, like with people like when they vote, the citizens. 5th'shey counted as 3/ still? does it have to do with the act of 1940? can you comment on these topics? the universe is supposed to guide us to some kind of truth. guest: i could try a little bit. so, it's deafblind not the case that any americans rose are

supposedly counted as 3/5th's or anything like that anymore. however, this might be what the caller is referring to. our democracy is anything but one person, one vote. when it comes to the electoral college and especially the senate that is true. by virtue of the fact that you know, our system is set up such that regardless of the population of a given state, every state gets two senators, that means that the people living in california, when they get to vote on the senate, have any individual voter in california has far, far, far less say democratically than say a voter and wyoming or idaho are north of south dakota where timesare literally 20-30 as many people who live in california and new york and texas and florida than liv ein some of those other states and yet they have the same level of representation. the projections indicate that

another 15 years i believe it is, i do not remember the exact date on this, but sometime relatively soon we are going to have 30% of the population of the united states represented by 70 senators. and 70% of the population in the united states only represented by 30 senators. and so, you know, that's an ill-functioning democracy if you democratic republic as one in which each person should have the same level of say over their government. host: we will go to robert. florida, independent. caller: hello. i was going to say, i am old enough, when i was around when ike was a president and we had a tax rate of 91% on the wealthy. ands fast-forward to 2019 what is it now, 28%/ we do not really have a democracy. we have an oligarchy. you book says democracy but we

do not have a democracy anymore. money talks and people walk. on c-span i got a comment for you. when these people call in and say these illegals are getting all of these bennies, have them check check that. they can't even vote. they will get five years in the slammer for that. host: ok, robert. is absolutelyler right about the declining top marginal tax rate over time. in the supposedly healthy on days of the 1950's and -- ha of 1950's in the 1960's following world war ii, we tax rich people at a really high rate. so, then in the 1970's and people started perceive and, rightly or wrongly, i am not taking a position on that, but people started perceiving that top marginal rate was too high. then when reagan came in, reagan and the democratic congress, cut that top marginal rate

dramatically. a little bit during the clinton years. went back down during the bush years. and has gone down even further now. the caller is absolutely right about the description of wealth in the country. that tax rate is not unrelated to the fact we have seen this explosion in the percentage of wealth in the u.s. that is in the hands of the top 1%, especially the top 10%, right? and so, that is one of the things that's fueling our divide as well. it's just, undeniably the case that, when you have such incomec differences and equality and wealth the quality especially, that is not going to have, going to play a role in our politics and the way we view each other. ry clear pattern as

economic inequality has gone up in the united states, so has partisan polarization. so, that is another thing to you talked earlier about something we might be able to do to conceivably fix this. if we could dress income inequality -- address income inequality might overtime lead to some shrinkage in our partisan divide as well. host: professor, i want to get your reaction to alexandria ocasio-cortez and ted cruz saying they could agree on something. and the communication, the worse they use but it starts out with a tweet from aoc. if you are member of congress and you leave, you should not be allowed to turn around and leverage or service for a lobbyist check. i do not think it is should be legal to become a corporate lobbyist if you served in congress at minimum there should be a long wait period. ruz, response. here is something i do not site often. on this point i agree with aoc. i have long called for a lifetime ban for former members of congress becoming

lobbyist. she says, if you're serious, let's make a deal. if we can agree on a deal with no partisan tills, just a straight clean ban on members of kind is becoming paid lobbyists, i'll co-lead the bill with you. and he says you're on. guest: that is really encouraging. i saw that as well. occasionally you will see examples of people working together across the aisle, and congress, including people who have reputation as being highly ideological, right? so, this is an example of that. there was some of that back in between 2008 and 2016, you used to see tom coburn and obama working together. there are examples of jim and half from oklahoma, thought was a very conservative working wi th barbara boxer. of course, the third person they need to get on board and be

"down" as aoc puts it would be president trump. we'll see where that goes. but, actually, this point speech to the previous point as well. if there's an area that i see parties slowly migrating in the same direction on, it is economic populism. so, you see trump's republican party, right, and he has taken over the republican, right. this is not paul ryan's are mitt romney's are ronald reagan's republican party anymore. you see, and folks on fox news on the crossland echoing these popular sentiments. when i say populist and a sense what i'm talking about is a move towards embracing perhaps a larger role for government in the economy. perhaps trying to address income inequality. this thing that aoc and cruz

are talking about is about that, too, about trying to prevent people using their service and government as a means to fatten their wallets after. it goes back to this economic inequality we have seen. the resentment, right -- and distrust that a lot of people both on the left and the right have toward wall street and other fat cats is growing and deepening. and it seems to be something that the democrats and republicans are increasingly in agreement about. when bernie sanders went on fox news for a town hall recently he was getting cheered they sent some of the things he was saying. and so, the difference is, ri ght, that we see the republican party going from a free market, libertarian type of economic one that isrty to willing to embrace welfare state stuff. we're seeing the democratic

party inching towards something much more radical. the two parties are still different but the entire conversation is moving left. if it continues in that way, one of the consequences of that is that we would, overtime, through various policies, see in equality reduce. now, it may have some other consequences that we might not view so favorably. we'll have to see. again, this seems to be some point of agreement and i'm optimistic about -- or at least, i cheer on this new development by aoc and ted cruz. host: in oklahoma city, barber, independent. caller: hi. i'm nervous. so, bear with me. host: no need. guest: me, too. caller: i just think -- we argue about the barter so -- the b order so much.

trump hires those people all the time and it is a fact. he's had to pay off a lot of things, you know, pay their back pay because he will not pay them that is why he likes to hire them. it came out, he fired 20 of them. but we do not talk about that when we talk about illegals. he acts like he is for the border. he's not. he's one of the worst ones. but anyway, on to the worst one for me is to have a president -- i was born when truman was in. i have never heard a president ever not either party, ever, ever stand up there and daily, d aily tell people democrats are the enemy, they are your enemy. and our free press that is so vital to our country, i mean, that is what freedom is about. and put that down every single

day. host: let's talk about the impact of that. guest: yeah, i mean, the caller is right, certainly in degree anyway. i think nixon did a little bit of this, too. the reference to the press as an is somethingstate that nixon said as well. blossoming of the republican distrust of the mainstream media really happened during the nixon administration and did grow. it is been a constant thing. not like this just started with trump. however, trump certainly has seized upon that. he's seized upon distrust of the media that already existed. and is activated it -- exacerbated it or fed it. the caller's right, that we have not seen this level of pug ignatius in this -- pug naciousness towards the press

or the other party for any previous president. it is that style that people object to in this president. lot ofat style a democrats object to in this president even more than his policies. and so, one of the things that will be interesting to see and more than interesting, right, is what happens to the democratic party as a result of this. again, we don't want to act like the democrats have never been guilty of doing some things like this. they certainly have. but the caller's right. the facts are the facts but this president is "worse" if you want to call it that on these grounds. but i think the danger is that the democrats may respond in kind. and that they may want to nominate somebody and have the next democratic president be somebody who disagrees with trump wholeheartedly on policy,

but is highly similar to him in style. so, we'll see if that happens. if that happens there is probably no going back. that can't be goo for the long-term health of our republicd. host: we will go to california. ron, a republican. good morning. caller: good morning, greta, an d professor barker. thanks for the call. a couple of things that always get real is all upset in the first thing is called as skins and shirts mentality which is if you did into real sports as a kid, you live in the neighborhood. all the kids next door, pick teams, and you take off your shirt, you are on the skins team and on the shirts team. the bottom line is we are all the same boat here. we all have the mutual, the same

problems and we have a clear and present danger of global warming which is not global warming. that's a catch phrase for what? overpopulation. nobody wants to deal with that, ok? you've got problems and gun control in this country. they don't tell you, why don't you just drug test people? 90% of these people committed these crimes have drug issues. the bottom line is we have a clear and present danger issue. the people weout choose to put into government that is our problem. so, it doesn't matter whether you are republican or democrat, right or left, those are just catch phrases. the truth of the matter is we need to determine what our priorities are for this planet. and other countries like china and the european union have figured it out. we can't use a completely capitalistic society. we can't use a completely communist society. it's a mix of both.

i will let you come back with your best shot on that one. guest: there was a lot there. a lot to agree with. one of the things i like best was your skins versus shirts metaphor. as somebody who grew up playing football and basketball in the street and playing skins versus shirts. that is consistent with a lot of literature as well that shows that in many cases, right, we do think very tribally and sometimes it does not even have necessarily anything to do with the substance underneath those tribes. if we are part of the red or the republican tribe, we think one way. if we are part of the blue or democratic tribe, we think another way. there is some reassearch that shows you can have subjects come in and arbitrarily assign and to team and and team b get them to engage in various tasks and you very quickly see that people in team a start to

review team b very negatively, very suspiciously, start to attribute all kinds of nasty motives to them, etc. and vice versa. that's i think what i see and your metaphor is great because it means nothing. whether you have a shirt on or not. skinsre shirts versus partisan aspect but that has been exacerbated by the fact that over the course of the past 50 years or so we have seen our social identities increasingly map on to our political identities and overlap. so, right? to a degree that is greater than any previous time in our history, right, you see race, gender, education, religion, etc., all consistently lining up on the same side of the aisle. the gap between men and women on partisanship is greater than

it's ever been and the gap between whites and non-white. the gap between christians and everybody else is greater than it has ever been. the gap between people with college degrees and people who don't is greater than it has ever been. when our social identity is mapped up to politics it is no wonder we tend to view each other so negatively. it's also no wonder we do not talk to each other, because we got -- we don't live in the same neighborhoods. people with the same racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds tend to cluster together. it's red neighborhoods versus blue neighborhoods. our kids do not play in the same little leagues. we don't see each other at the same grocery stores. we don't go to the same types of restaurants. we literally do not encounter each other. and we don't watch the same tv and get the same news. when you roll this together, it

is no surprise we cannot agree on something like, you know, the dangers of climate change or gun control. host: david parker, the book is "one nation, two realities, dueling facts in american democracy." , we are goingack to open up the phone lines and talk about your concerns with foreign interference in the 2020 campaign. ag barr said down with an interview with cbs and talked about the role the fbi is plain to have a robust process in place to stop any interference. we want to know your concerns about it. we'll get to those calls in a minute but first this weekend, our c-span cities tour explores the american story and book tv and american history tv travel to reno, nevada to feature the city's history and literally life. here's the reno mayor.

who talks about their arts and cultural scene. >> reno is in the northern part of the state. thele think that reno is secondary las vegas because we do have gaming her but we are growing out of thise, sort of gaming town that we were known for. we're really diversifying our city in so many different ways. whether it is small business or manufacturing or technology. and i think that is important to be a sustainable city. there are so many different aspects about the city that i think people would be pleasantly surprised. one of them is arts and culture. i think that's been sort of the crown jewel in the art world. burning man. it's an event that is a weeklong. all about arts and culture. they are out there creating artwork like nothing you have ever seen before. we are so lucky to have burning

man right here in our backyard. we are the gateway into the blackrock does it. economic impact, 70,000 people coming into our little airport. and last year, i brought out a dozen mayors to experience burning man and experience a pop up city for many different reasons because a, there's arts and culture but the infrastructure piece. what happens in a pop up city. and the mentality of changing and taking out commercialism. it's a city, that when you walk away you leave no trace. so, mayors and cities can learn a lot from burning man. >> "washington journal" continues. host: and we're back. how concerned are you about foreign interference in the 2020 campaign? it is our question for the last half hour of today's "washington

journal". a reminder for you of what the special counsel found on this question of russian interference in the 2016 campaign. and robert mueller's first and what he says his only public statement about his investigation. here is what he had to say. >> as alleged by the grand jury in an indictment, russian intelligence officers who were part of the russian military launched a concerted attack on a political system. the indictment alleges that the use -- they used sophisticated cyber techniques to hack into networks used by the clinton campaign. they stole private information and then release that information through fake online and identities and through the organization wikileaks. the releases were designed and time to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate. the at the same time as grand jury alleged in a separate indictment, a private russian

entity engaged in a social media operation where russian citizens posed as americans in order to influence an election. the indictments contained notgations and we are commenting on the guilt or innocence of any specific defendant. every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. the indictments allege, and the other activities in our report described, efforts to interfere in our political system. they need to be investigated and understood. that is among the reasons why the department of justice established our office. host: that was robert mueller earlier this week talking about what the investigation found on russia's efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. are worried about 2020 ?

henry, a democrat in new york, good morning. caller: good morning. i am not only a democrat but one who grew up in the cold war world war ii . pulse -- appalls calm most people are about the fact that a foreign country attacked and invaded us. yet it seems like people are treating that is if it is just another piece of news th coming down the pikea. host: so, henry what should be done? caller: we should be at the barricades about this. the first thing that should be done is that we should know what preventstate doing to -- host: we're listening, to prevent? caller: to do, what is each state doing to protect its

voting mechanics and processes from the russians? host: ok. i do not know if you saw a recent hearing we covered on c-span. i want to show you an exchange between the department of homeland security, who oversees election security, the department of homeland security's christopher krebs in charge of cyber security, and elijah cummings on whether this department is ready for 2020. >> your department is at the tip of the spear when it comes to protecting our elections. one of my worries, however, is that dhs and the cyber security and infrastructure security agency do not have enough employees, specifically focused on securing our election infrastructure. according to dhs inspector

general report released in twouary 2019, while dhs has advises to cover 16 critical infrastructure areas. the department at i quote "does not have dedicated staff focused on election infrastructure." the inspector general's office interviewed stakeholders who, and i quote " expressed concerns about adequate dhs staffing," which they reported hindered their development of relationships with the department. how would you respond to that concern? because it is a very serious one. the only people on the federal government that understood elections was chairman mccormick and her team and commissioner weintraub. we came into this thing brand-new. we are cyber security experts. we still are. they are the election experts.

we're the security experts that support. when you talk about the tip of the spear it's a big, big spear. there are a lot of us on this team. so, we support state and local officials. we support the doj and the fbi. this is a team effort. at this point, we have invested with congress's appropriations, to support our election infrastructure team. i have 17 full-time personal dedicated to this issue, but i also have the capability to reach into my entire organization and drawn any resource needed. in the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections in the month prior to the election, i had 550 individuals working at the national, local, state level on elections. that's pretty good. i can do better. we can continue to work with the eac, and continue to work with state and locals, and continue

to invest in our people, get more scalable. and that is my plan for 2020. we will have more full-time dedicated staff. i will have more field staff to ensure that 2020 is the most secure election ever. host: that is the plan for 2020 when it comes to the home and security department. as for the department of justice, william barr sat down with cbs, the attorney general and here is what he had to say about what he wants in place before the 2020 election. >> how is the justice department working to ensure this does not happen again in 2020? >> yes. ando have, i think, increasingly robust program that is focusing on foreign influence in our election process. i talked recently to the director of the fbi about puttin g together a special, high level group to, to, uh, make sure we're totally prepared for the upcoming elections. >> do you think enough was done in 2016? >> probably not.

host: now we turn to all of you. are you concerned about foreign interference in the next presidential election? david in south carolina, republican. what do you think? caller: i've been concerned. from what i know, the electoral college, the size of the college, members from each state, has a numbers of representatives in congress is based on the population. so, if you have open borders and a large number of foreign nationals -- even illegal ones -- adding to the weight of these numbers, that's a direct influence on not only elections but legislation. and we have to remember, and david barker made an interesting point, he was doing pretty good up until then. he talked about how the senate is not representative of the people because two members from

each state. but, remember, the name of our country is the united states of america. and as a federal government grows and grows and is taking over more and more areas of our lives, and i've seen -- host: david, so relate this, though, to foreign interference in our elections. youer: oh, because when have the electoral college, based on the population, and you have people from other countries coming in and inflating those numbers in certain states, that's a direct bearing on the population. but, when we talk about foreign interference, these days, most is talking about russian or chinese influence through hacking etc. hacking of facebook, things like that. and i often hear the assumption that if there is foreign interference from russia, that it's automatically tied to the

investigation that was done against the trunk campaign. -- the trump campaign. it doesn't mean. we already know that was foreign interference from the, from, you know, by the court's applications. we know that. we know it was paid for and sought out by individuals in this country. it's currently being looked at. but this assumption in the mainstream press that foreign interference from russia is at the invitation of trump is just crazy. host: guestok, ok. ingrid, in florida, a democrat, what do you think? caller: it has been on the news russian attacked two counties in the state of florida. it was named washington, hello? host: we're listening. we know the story.

caller: ok, washington county was one. they will not say with the other county was, but contrary to what the previous caller if it was this state and found out that two counties in their state had been hacked by the russians, i think you would be interested. rid.: ok, ing i want to show you and others with the president said to reporters on the threat of foreign interference in 2020. president trump: i think i have been much tougher on elections than president obama. in 2016t obama was told just before the election in september, that russia may try and interfere with the elections. he did nothing. and the reason he did nothing as he thought hillary was going to win. we are doing a lot and we are trying to do paper ballots as a backup system as much as possible, because going to good old-fashioned paper in this modern age is the best way to do it.

host: what do you think of the role and the job the president is doing on this issue? is his administration doing enough? has congress done enough? debroaorah in alabama, independent. caller: i don't think so. i do not think everybody has done enough. everybody needs to read that mueller report and understand what russia did to our country. it was an attack. and i don't know what the states need to do but maybe they do need to go to paper. i hate to say that i agree with that. i don't agree with much he says. he lies so much to us. but maybe we need to go to paper until our government can assure us that our votes are counted and that they ar properly nottede and that we are going to have china or russia or interfering with our elections. host: ok, you mentioned the mueller report from falla one -- volume one pages 57-58, the

investigation lays out the role of the internet investigation agency to reach a larger u.s. audience. purchased advertisements from facebook that promoted the group on the newsfeeds of u.s.. according to facebook the ira purchase 3500 ads the expenditure totaled $100,000. according to facebook the ira controlled accounts made over 80,000 post before their deactivation in august of 2017. and these posts reached at least 29 million persons. and may have reached an estimated 126 million. on twitter, according to that company, in the 10 weeks before the 2016 presidential election, these accounts posted a tweets.ly 175,993 these are russian agents acting like u.s. citizens. wereximately 8.4% of which

election related. twitter announced it had peopled 1.4 trillio million who they thought might have been in contact with an ira account. if you're interested in reading more about that part of russia's social media acts in the 2016 campaign. caller: follow the money. host: we will go to andrea, go ahead. caller: i want to thank you for the call, greta. a couple of things three, bu t one particular. it is different. i've called and numerous time and this time they wanted to know my exact comment. think, i do but not know if they are trying to figure out who the patch through or not. it they have never done before. on to the subject at hand.

of course we've had interference. we have had it for a long time. they will never be able to suss it out. that is the nature of politics. but anybody who is trying to get, anybody who is getting their information off of twitter and facebook should really just reconsider their new sources. people should do more reading on their own, listening to each other, interact with people from the other party in your work, don't ignore each other. and try and hear what the deeper's issues are because on those deeper issues, we are united and if we listen to each other, i think we will be able to calm to a more equalize platform as a united states. andrea, do you think social media companies have a responsibility? have someey do responsibility but we will never get everybody to get straight and clean and suss it all out. i think it is worth an effort. i think it is worth putting time and money into.

but i do not think we should just make that our focus. i think which talk to the american people and say let's all get our news from multiple resources. to, you know, you can go each individual candidates website. they have all their information there and read about them. it is not that complicated. let me state one less thing. i'm with, i'm completely with president trump. fan.a real trump it's interesting because a whole idea of russian interference, absolutely they did. other countries did as well. >> fascinating is the focus has been on trump this entire time went in fact, hillary we already know was presently in bed with putin. she thought that -- for her the entire time and somewhere along the line he changed his mind and did not like her. and trump had nothing to do with it. putin changed his game. she gave him 20% of u.s.

plutonium. she was colluder. i can't wait to see the movie the somebody does. it is going to be a great one. hillary clinton tweeted out the president, yesterday, the president has not just refuse to condemn a foreign attacked atta -- that our democracy, he has failed to protect the country's voting system against future attacks. he the traces both everyday. -- he betrays his oath every day. from the hearing we showed you earlier there were social media executives there. i want to show you what the representative from twitter had to say to lawmakers about what that platform is doing to prepare for 2020. >> we continue to promote the health of the public conversation by countering all forms of platform and it relation. we define platforming it relation as using twitter to disrupt the conversation by engaging in aggressive or deceptive activity. we we have amazing of again progress. in 2018, we identified and challenged 425 million accounts

of engaging in platforming it relation, of which 75% were suspended. we're increasingly using automated detective methods to find misuses of our platform before the impact anyone's experience. more than half of the accounts we suspend are removed within one week of registration, many within hours. we will continue to improve our ability to fight me new political contact for affects the people of people -- affects the expense of people who use twitter. recently the we covered on c-span, representing twitter. there was facebook and others that testified about our election security. we are hearing about your concerns as we head into 2020. do you have concerns that a russian or chinese or another foreign government could interfere? nancy pelosi, the speaker of the house earlier this week in california talked about facebook's role in spreading misinformation. >> when something like facebook

says i know this is false, but it's lie, but we'r showing it anywaye. well, to me, it says two things. one that i was giving them the benefit of the doubt on russia but clearly they, i thought it was unwitting but clearly they wittingly were accomplices and enablers of false information across facebook. [applause] ret b, if you, if you a candidate, whether it is a woman or whatever. img i do get women and people of color and people to run. going totwo, if you're go out there, why would you subject yourself to that, to that? that what disappoints me. i don't care. i can take it.. experience. i can handle it all. if i did not have thick skin i would not be speaker of the house. but these other people are new

to the arena. and they are fabulous people and they have talent and courage and the rest. they have options. if i could do this or that,, say we don't want people without options. that is why we want you to run for condors because you can also do this or that. and so, that negative in the arena, as i say, in the arena, you have to be ready to take a punch. to you have to be ready throw one too. host: speaker pelosi talking about facebook's role in the interference by russian the 2016 campaign. we would go to shirley, mansfield, ohio, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. mr. barr, i don't believe him at all when he states that he is 020king on a plan for the 2

elections to keep the russians from interfering. it's already here. he has fallen in line with donald trump. he does not care one way or the other if russians are here to help trump win. and the counties in florida that the not -- would not tell other county, was a broward county that the russians interfered? williams county, they can'te tell the other county. i do not believe mr. barr. he has done a complete flip-flop on the mueller investigation. he's turning against moeller now that everything is out and he has felt in line right behind donald trump. i don't believe a word he says ever. host: ok. we'll go to chris next, scottsdale, arizona, independent. caller: just while i am picking up my starbucks. i think the election machinery is fine. that stuff, it is the platforms that, like social media.

and the solution is a blackout. two months before the election, would where any political commentary is banned from twitter, facebook, except if you are a candidate. a vetted candidate. your information can go up on facebook or twitter or social media platforms. that is my solution. host: all right. the director of the department of homeland security cyber agency who we showed you before, he talked about the agency's approach for the 2020 elections. >> cyber threats, but it way from nation state actors remain one of the most are treated threats to the united states. perhaps the highest profile threats we face today are attempts by nation state actors to interview in our debt -- to interfere in our elections. our goal has been for the american people to enter the voting booth with confidence that their vote counts and counted correctly. i went to update this committee on the progress made in working with the election committee. our agency, the cyber security

and infrastructure security clear --ur mission is to support election officials and the private sector partners consistent with the constitution existing law and elector tradition. elections are run at the state and local level, but those official should not have to defend themselves from nationstates on her own. since 2016, we've learned quite a bit. we have done after action reviews, the department of justice conducted in investigation and issued indictments in some cases. office of inspector general and the general accountability office and multiple committees in congress have or are investigating what happened and how we can improve our efforts to secure elections. over the last two years, we have focused oftentimes humbling engagements, we have become partners with the election .ommunity for the 2018 election, alongside the election assistance commission worked with all 50 local ander 1400 territorial election offices, six election associations and 12

election vendors. our approach is threefold. first, making sure the election community has the information they need to defend their systems. second, making sure they have the technical support and tools they need to defend their systems. and third, building partnerships to advance security efforts together. host: back to your calls. are you concerned about foreign interference in the 2020 elections? kevin in south carolina, republican. tell us what you think. caller: good morning, greta. well, you when a talk about foreign interference, foreign into mystic interference. joos was -- foreign and domestic interference. has 900,000ch undocumented immigrants who voted in the 2016 election. the fact that the democrats are not one of voters i.d. however, all american citizens must have one to apply for a job, have one to buy a pack of cigarettes, six pack of beer.

we have got to have one to do everything we do in our lives. so, there is no reason. you are required to have an i.d. if you are a u.s. citizen in any state, you have to have one to do anything. so, there is no reason they do not want a voter i.d. other than they want illegals to vote. i don't know any african american people or poor white people that do not have an i.d. i have never met one in my life unless they are under the age of 16 years old. int: we'll go to ruth kansas, independent. good morning. caller: as i understand the mueller reports the vote count itself for 2016 was not compromised. so, the use of paper or electronics as far as that goes, i think is not as important as the facts -- with the social media, that the influence was actually subtle and not so

subtle playing on fears that others, meaning anyone of different than ourselves, that others are the enemy. and by doing so, and then we elected a president, supposedly, who believes that others are our enemy. and we have to be suspicious of others, rather than talking with others, living with others, working with others. so, i feel like it's the hearts and minds of the people. and if we let our fears or those fears influence the way that we vote, whether it be paper or electronic, i think that's where the danger lies. and, yes, we've always had people who have tried to influence us. we have always had countries that have tried to influence. the united states tries to

influence the hears and -- peopleand minds of other throughout the world so they would believe democracy is the way to go. so, influence in an of itself, is not i think going to go away. host: yeah, ok. ruth, from the mueller report, they know that the russian agents created facebook groups that were active during the 2016 campaign that covered a range of political issues and included purported conservative groups. the names they used were stop all immigrants, secure borders, tea party news, black social justice matters, don't shoot us. lgbtq groups. united and religious groups. united muslims of america. these were the groups they formed. ,nd they had followers in

according to the mueller report, lots of followers. 100,000 types of followers, some of these groups had, each of the. and, as i said, according to facebook, these controlled accounts could have reached up to 126 million people. that is in the mueller report in volume one. thhn in bismarck, nort dakota, democrat. caller: hello. my point was slightly after that portion of the mueller report you read, they had talked to the fact that there was a hacked por tion of the dnc computer. i don't know if it was hacked or somebody copied a bunch of filers onto a usb drive and gave it to wikileaks or however they got that there. but that, to me, was more

important. the context of those emails that were published and anybody that one of reading -- wanted to read them could and i read a lot of them. what those emails showed was biasthere was clear against bernie sanders. that's who i supported at the time. host: john, are you ok then with the russian government working with wikileaks allegedly and the mueller report to hack this information and disclose it to the public? caller: i'm not -- i would not entity. with any, any i don't care what country it is or anything. it could've been big business doing it. or anybody who hacks into somebody's email. neverhat i was -- i

emailsout the actual themselves in what they meant to democracy and what they meant to the democratic party. host: thank you all for watching. that does it for today's "washington journal" we will be back tomorrow morning 7 a.m. eastern time. on sunday as well on next week you can watch then. thanks for watching. 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] ♪ >> live this morning here on the ciabenjamin hubner, civil liberties officer will be speaking at the brookings institution and washington, d.c. aboutan