against him. donaldday, president trump holds a rally in orlando, florida, officially launching his run for a second term. p.m. eastern 8:00 on c-span2, online at c-span.org, or listen live on the c-span radio app. >> this week, the chairman of the house committee joining us from louisville. thank you for being with us. >> good to be with you. >> we also have sarah ferris with politico and jennifer with roll call. let's begin with the budget control act. you face another fiscal deadline. remind our viewers how we got to this point. and the budget cap. >> thank you. in 2011, there was a special committee of 16 members of the house and senate.

their goal was to come up with a deficit reduction plan. the process was under the budget control act, which ultimately passed, they set in motion a system called sequestration. the idea was if these 16 people could not come to an agreement on a way to reduce the deficit, there would be automatic budget cuts put in place. the budget control act as a 10 year duration. it expires after 2021. right now, if we don't by statute increase the budget levels that are part of the budget control act, we will face cuts in the next fiscal year of about $125 billion. relatively equally allocated against the defense and nondefense side.

>> we have this cliff you are talking about. there is also the crisis of the debt ceiling which could have catastrophic effects on the financial markets. if congress can't agree to raise that. i want to know, how much of the burden is on democrats to find a solution that can work, a deal with republicans, if it is not an ideal situation. democrats during the shutdown were able to wait out president trump until he basically decided to reopen the government. but the situation is different and there are very real consequences. how do you see democrats is trying to address that situation? >> when we came out of the shutdown, we passed an agreement on spending levels. the house and senate. we all thought it was a reasonable deal. it wasn't perfect from our perspective or from the

republican perspective. it continued funding at a reasonable level through 2018 and 2019. until september 30, this year. as we approached negotiations for 2020, we said now we are in the majority, we should expect no worse a deal than what we negotiated at the beginning of -- at the end of the shutdown. i think republicans in the senate understand that very well. if left to just the house and senate, i think we would be on already havingt reached an agreement. but this is not a two-sided negotiation. sideds a three or four negotiation because sometimes the president and the white house has two sides. we are not sure what the white

house will agree to. the talks have blown up, as we saw when the president walked out in a meeting with speaker pelosi. this past week, the senate republican senators went to the white house to talk about a budget deal. democrats were not invited. that is not exactly the best way to negotiate either. hopefully we can get a deal, we can deal with the debt ceiling. we have a statutory debt ceiling in this country. we are the only country in the industrialized world other than denmark that has one. i wish we could repeal it. but we reach it periodically. because we continue to run deficits. and then we have to, congress has to act to raise the limit. we have to do it again probably by mid-july. we could go later. i think the safest time is mid-july, and that would keep us

from potentially defaulting on our debts, which would be a disaster. >> would you like to see the debt ceiling addressed with the spending caps, or is there a -- is there some negotiating room? >> i would personally like to see it negotiated as part of the caps deal. mick mulvaney, the president's chief of staff, i don't think he wants to do that. i think he wants to go as close to the edge of the cliff as he can because he thinks that gives some negotiating leverage. he would like to see deeper cuts, particularly in the nondefense side of the budget. i think secretary mnuchin of the treasury would like to do a deal that includes the caps as well as the debt ceiling. get that done as soon as possible. the house and senate, i think, are not going to have a problem as long as we can get some sort of cooperation from the white house. >> could you explain what

democrats want? you say you do not want less of a deal. what is it exactly democrats want? >> in the original budget control discussions, there was some legislative history. the sides agreed in principle that however we treated the defense budget, we would treat nondefense spending the same way. what we asking for in this negotiation is, we would ask for an increase in defense and nondefense spending, that those increases be at least equal. if you are increasing the defense budget by $15 billion for instance, you would increase nondefense spending by $15 billion. i need to clarify because it is important, a great deal of the nondefense discretionary budget involves national security.

security is in the nondefense portion, the fbi, the fda, the faa. a lot of people think, the nondefense side is social programs and that is far from the truth. >> in addition to disagreement about how much to raise spending levels, there is disagreement about whether to do another two-year deal or one deal. would democrats be willing to accept a one-year deal or do you only want a two-year agreement? >> we would be willing to accept a one-year deal is the nobles -- numbers worked out right and met our priorities. we would much prefer a two-year deal because that takes us out of the situation of having to go back next year and another round of sequestration. nobody wants sequestration. the reason this was put in was

everybody thought it was such an overly destructive process that no one would want to do it and there would be a greater incentive to reach a negotiated solution. but true to form, that was not enough of an incentive, so we are stuck with it. the appropriators certainly hated. -- hate it. even hal rogers said it would be absurd to try to meet the country's needs at sequestration levels. there is no appetite for these are coney and -- drug coney and -- draconian cuts that would emerge if we could not do it statutorily. if we get a one-year deal that is appropriate and suitable, absolutely. >> i am going to ask about an issue emboldening a lot of members of your caucus. that is the issue of impeachment. you have said in the past you

think this is inevitable. it is something that democrats are going to have to begin, starting to forcibly remove the president. what do you think over the next several months could galvanize the rest of your caucus to that position? and do you think that needs to happen this year or is there a chance the caucus would be willing to do this in 2020 even though it is an election year? >> i think it would be unfortunate if we had to wait until next year. wait until next year to start the impeachment process in the election year. i think that would be unfortunate. it could happen that way. ultimately, our leadership might decide the only way to get side isentiment on our to wait a little longer and see what other evidence emerges from his investigations we are conducting. mentioned, i cosponsored

an impeachment resolution in the last congress. i am convinced the president has committed multiple impeachable offenses, the latest being two days ago when he said he would accept campaign opposition research from foreign government , which is clearly impeachable and clearly a crime, if he were to do that. i do agree with speaker pelosi. there are other investigations going on into other possible entanglements with foreign governments, financial indiscretions, the emoluments clause where he is benefiting personally from his position in the white house. i think we ought to let these investigations go forward. but we ought to do it as expeditiously as possible. think, if we get to an impeachment inquiry, i don't think we ought to wait until next year. we ought to initiate it this year. >> a majority of the democratic

caucus does not currently support an impeachment inquiry, including after what the president said this week about accepting help from a foreign government. it's a not think that puts them on the position of impeachment, is there anything that could change their mind? is this where we will be for the next year? >> i think what you're seeing in the democratic caucus is a significant majority that wants to follow speaker pelosi's lead. and think that's the right course of action. i think if you also asked our caucus, do you think the president committed impeachable offenses, the vast majority would say yes. do you think he has committed criminal acts? the vast majority would say yes. i don't think there is a whole lot of distance from one end of the caucus to the other as to what the president has done. but the course of action has

less unanimity, you might say. >> in terms of timing in the legislative agenda moving the lawmakers in the house, senate, and administration months to read a disaster aid to bill. it has been 6-7 weeks since the white house sent its supplemental spending request to address of migrants crossing the southern border. these are two issues everyone agrees need to be addressed but it has taken a long time for lawmakers to get in a room together and start negotiating. what does that mean for the other big-ticket, must have legislative items down the road like spending caps and debt limit? , do your spending bills think we could be well into december before we see results? >> it is certainly possible. the atmosphere for cooperation on normal legislative activities is not very good right now.

it is not conducive to getting things done. we passed a lot of important bills already in this congress. the majority leader of the senate, mitch mcconnell has said, he has called himself the grim reaper because he intends to kill virtually everything that comes his way. i'm not encouraged we can make progress on important priorities. one of them being immigration reform. in terms of the appropriations bills, we are moving expeditiously. that's what we spent this last week doing. we will be doing that in june. steny hoyer, the majority leader in the house, has pledged our appropriations work will be done this month. we are in for a lot of long nights this month. the senate has its own timetable. they are going to markup their appropriations bills to a different set of numbers than we did. but again, i don't think they are going to be so far off we couldn't conference and come out

with an agreement. the question is, what will the accept?use except -- there is no way to know what the president will do or even whether the president and mick mulvaney are on the same page. >> you guys have passed more than a half dozen of your agenda items but none of them have been signed into law. there haven't been any significant bills other than appropriations signed into law. do democrats need to acknowledge this reality and focus less on messaging bills and the kind of bills you would like to tout to your base and focus more on items that can be done? creating a dreamers bill that has republican support? or a violence against women bill? these have all been democratic hills -- bills we have seen. >> exactly. there has been overwhelming support in the country to create a pathway for dreamers.

also overwhelming support for the violence against women act. there is universal support in the country for universal background checks for gun purchases. there is universal support in the country for doing something about prescription drug prices. we passed some very important restriction drug price legislation that republicans say they want to deal with. i don't see why this should be any different than anything else. senate,t saying to the as our bills or don't pass anything. that's not how regular order works. but at least deal with them. take our bills and amend them if you want to. they are not willing to do that. they are not willing to help us meet the priorities of the country, and that is disturbing. but we will keep doing that. we are not passing messaging bills, we are passing bills that deal with problems that are very serious in this country and we will continue to do that. if the republicans in the senate continue to obstruct them, we will go to the campaign trail next year and say give us a democratic senate and president.

we have shown you what kind of government you will get. >> you have about 60 freshmen members going home to campaign ahead of 2020 who may not have legislation to tout that they are able to get signed into law. does that concern you? how can you address that before it really starts? >> i am not sure that is the way voters cast their ballots. i think the number one thing any candidate has to do, in my opinion, is to demonstrate empathy. voters want to know you understand the challenges they are going through. their priorities and values. you may not have a solution but you understand them and played you will work on them. i think that is why our candidates did so well last year. they talked about health care and the string paying -- strain paying for health care has been on many americans. they know how to do that.

they have done it in many cases. they flipped republican seats which is not easy to do. i have confidence they can go home and talk about what this democratic house has done, how they have anticipated. -- participated. many of them have important positions. many are chairing subcommittees. they can talk about those areas and as long as they talk about them in a way that reflects their understanding of the way people live, i think our members are going to be fine. arehe 2020 campaigns already in full swing. i want to ask if you have any plans to run for senate or a preferred candidate you want to see challenge mitch mcconnell. >> i have no plans to run for senate. i would love to see -- i think we have potentially two excellent candidates. one whom a lot of people know around the country is amy mcgrath, the former air force

pilot who ran for a congressional seat last year and barely lost. she developed a great following here in kentucky. a great political operation as well as a national following. i think she is looking at the race seriously. i believe she is going to make the race. if she doesn't, there is a guy named matt jones here. he has a statewide following. he has a sports radio talk show. he has a lot of conservative republican listeners who i think would vote for him. but i think amy is probably the see --arget of the dsc dscc. i have talked to her. she is dedicated to public service. it will be the beto

o'rourke ted cruz race of 2020. >> the democrat in the beto-ted cruz race, the democrat lost. do you think a democrat can win especially against mitch mcconnell? >> it will be interesting. if the race were in 2022 or 2018, i would say there was a much better chance. it is hard to tell with donald trump at the top of the ticket. he still is popular in parts of kentucky. on the other hand, mitch is very unpopular throughout kentucky. his approval rating is right around 30% and his disapproval rating is over 50%. one of the questions is how much the top of the ticket will affect the senate race. the way i look at it, there will be no presidential campaign in kentucky next year. there hasn't been in years and i don't anticipate there will be next year. but there will be $50, $60, $70 million spent in the senate race.

i would think most kentuckians would be focused more on the senate race than the presidential and that would give amy a chance. >> i want to go back to the work of your committee. you tried this year to put out a budget resolution that could reach the floor. that was unsuccessful. there were some\run progressives fromlso -- some backlash progressives but also centrists. is there anything you would have done differently to get that resolution to the floor? or is this just the reality of the caucus you have? >> that is a great question. i think we felt if we had had a little more time, we could have gotten a budget resolution we would have passed. on the other hand, it was not going to pass in the senate. nothing close to it. we were constrained to the time we had because of the commitment to appropriations in june. when you backup the timetable, the appropriators needed to

start working in their subcommittees. we had very little time to get a budget resolution done. instead of that, we tried to get a statutory cap piece of legislation done. we got it out of committee but again, we did not have enough votes on the floor. instead we passed a rule that deemed those numbers. that's what the appropriators worked on. i think if you take that resolution we passed on the floor and all the appropriations bills, by the end of you will june, see what the democratic budget looks like. the fact that we were not able to pass a resolution, it would've been nice to do that, that it was never going anywhere past the house. rather than waste time on that and keep working and still not get enough votes on the floor, we decided to take the route we did. >> will that be a sign of anything to come over the next several months as you have to

get key bills, potentially avoiding another shutdown? are these tensions between progressives and moderates, do you think that will pose a problem? >> i think you will get a hint of that next week when we vote on a bill. we have five appropriations bills we have packaged together. they include the defense budget and also the health and human services budget. those are generally the two that divide the caucus. we have a lot of members who don't want to vote for increased defense spending. and we have a lot of members who think we should spend more on the human side, human investment side. i think the vote on that will give you an idea whether it is going to be a problem going forward. >> time for a couple more questions. >> you are the chair of the budget committee. that holds a lot of weight in washington.

how often does that role come up when you are back in the district? how much do your constituents care about that compared to other things that happen in washington? the legislative accomplishments and investigations. >> they don't talk to me about what happened to the budget resolution or why we did not pass that. they are not interested in process. to be honest, right now my constituents are asking me how are we going to get rid of donald trump? that is the number one question. we have constituents interested in health care and education. the environment. but they are not really interested in the process. in terms of the budget process or even the appropriations process. they are not interested in how much we spend on individual programs. they are interested in living their lives.

>> the house has successfully passed a hand fill of smaller bills related to the affordable care act. drug pricing, smaller pieces of legislation. do you think voters, after handing you the majority last fall are expecting something , bigger? something more on the scale of obamacare in 2010? there has not been a lot of legislative action out of the house in health care. >> that's an interesting question. i suspect many of them do. i have a very strong contingent of situates who are for medicare for all. who are fortuents medicare for all. which actually means different things to many of them. i think overall, they are not really that focused on what we are doing. they are more focused on what is happening in kentucky with medicaid. we have a governor who has done everything he can do over the last three years to undo the most successful expansion of

medicaid in the country under the affordable care act. we have a governor's race this year. our constituents are focused on what is happening in kentucky, probably more so than washington. >> tariffs have become a large part of the trump administration's economic policy and foreign policy. where there is a new news cycle almost every day on. some of them led to retaliatory tariffs from other countries. whiskey. bourbon is part of that. how is that impacting the economy of your state and what do voters think about these tariffs? especially how they are impacting the bourbon industry headed into 2020. is this going to be an issue that ranks with health care and the economy and things people consider when choosing who to vote for? side, bourbonbon

is an $8 billion industry in kentucky. it has almost tripled in the last five years. the retaliatory tariffs really do not affect bourbon domestically. what they do is affect the ability of distillers to export their products and expand their markets. they are very concerned about that but i'm not sure the citizens are. on the other side, we have lots of soybean farmers in kentucky. they have been devastated by the chinese backing out purchasing soybeans from the united states. we have two major ford plants in my district. we have a toyota and general motors plant in kentucky. the third-largest auto making plant, state in the country. these tariffs, particularly those threatened against mexico, even of the president has backed off of them, those are the things that our people are really concerned about. they would devastate our auto industry.

the supply chain between mexico and the united states is a huge economic factor in kentucky. they are very concerned about it. the global headquarters of ups is in my district. is in my district. they want as much trade as possible. to the exten

calling for these cuts. mick mulvaney was one of the biggest advocates. democrats and republican leaders of the so-called establishment are trying to talk them out of this decision. there are only a couple of months until september 30. they are going to be gone for several weeks, and that is something they have to address sooner rather than later. the senate and the house have

not made much progress. >> don't want sequestration. do not want that. we have heard from republican leaders as well that no one once these across-the-board cuts. one of the other things important to remember, even though the fiscal year does begin october 1, if they have until the end of december to reach an agreement and workout their final bills, because the sequestration would not take effect until 15 days after the end of this session. most likely sometime in january. there are several months for them to reach a deal. one of the good signs is it seems like everyone agrees they need to increase spending caps, and there have been a few meetings between senior

administration officials and republicans and democrats in congress. if they didn't reach an agreement there would be a drop-off in discretionary spending that would affect several the pentagon and homeland security. >> jennifer shut, we will ended there. thank you for being on "newsmakers. >> c-span's "washington journal," live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up monday morning, we will preview the week ahead and washington with washington examiner whiteout -- white house reporter stephen nelson and zach cohen. discussion on the legal

and oversight battle between white house and congress over the mueller report with james schulz, a former associate counsel of the trump white house. be sure to watch c-span's "washington journal," live sunday eastern it -- monday morning at 7:00 eastern. here's a look at our live coverage monday. on c-span, senator mark warner will discuss china's strategy to control technologies of the future, including 5g wireless and artificial intelligence. that gets underway at 12:30. is the u.s. global leadership coalition's annual state leaders summit held in washington, d.c.. alex a czar, former michigan governor jennifer granholm and for pennsylvania senator rick santorum will be there. on c-span2 at 4:00, the washington post held a summit on free speech. texas senator ted cruz is among

the speakers. >> presidential candidates senate -- senator amy klobuchar and pete buttigieg spoke at last dinner inhat blue richmond. it is their largest annual political fundraiser pregnant after speeches by members of the congressional delegation and other commonwealth leaders, senator klobuchar address the more than 1500 guests at the gala. >> while. thank you. what amazing crowd. hello virginia democrats. are you ready to beat donald trump? of you ready to get rid betsy do boss? paint yourdy to legislature blue?