the lawmakers could have on their reelection efforts. as always, we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter as well. "washington journal" ♪ good morning. the political feud between president donald trump and the chair of a key house committee that is looking to get information on trump's taxes, financial records, and the phone and email records of key staffers, including his daughter and son-in-law, spilling over into a new round of attacks this weekend. from donaldf tweets cummings' ing elijah district rack and rodent infested. ahead on "the washington journal," your reaction to this

back and forth between democrats and the president. if you are a democrat, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. .ndependents, (202) 748-8002 we have aligned set aside for those of you who live in baltimore. 202-748-8003. you can join us on social media, twitter @cspanwj or on facebook, facebook.com/cspan. the president watching a segment on "fox and friends, prompting these tweets from the president and those have been getting a lot of reaction on cable news, social media. the president saying the following --

host: that from the president on his twitter handle, prompting this editorial this morning from "the baltimore sun." better to have a few rats then to be one."

"the baltimore sun" writing the following -- host: tell us what you think. our phone lines are open at (202) 748-8000, our line for democrats. for(202) 748-8001 republicans. we also have a line for those living in baltimore, (202) 748-8003. we will begin with richard, joining us from the bronx in new york on the democrats line. good morning. good morning.

i wanted to say that i believe white supremacy is interwoven into the fabric of christianity. i'm a christian, a bible believing christian, i believe the bible is the word of god that i have seen inscriptions in the bible, particularly in lamentations, chapter four, verses seven and eight, you can clearly see white supremacy in the bible and in the fabric of christianity there is a white supremacist theme, the propagation of the white image of jesus. i have read books by white christian evangelicals, educated, intelligent white people who are racist. -- its a book called something about television, a very intelligent book describing why television is bad and how we need to read more. it gets to thee point about civil rights being one of the problems that comes

through television. host: thank you for the call. this tweet -- host: let me go back to this "baltimore sun" editorial.

host: that from the editorial page of "the baltimore sun." the other story, from fox news. senator sanders also talking about baltimore back in 2015. that's coming up in a moment. first, gloria calling us from the baltimore area. your reaction to what the president said about your community? caller: i live in the congressman's district. baltimore city, baltimore county, suburban areas. i was appalled and offended by the comments the president made. i have been hearing that elijah cummings has been one of the staunch persons who has been inestigating him on taxes

the administration and he's hast, congressman cummings , so executive experience i'm highly offended. i am a democrat, and they will be registering voters and taking people to the polls to help unseat this president, whoever is running for president is better than who we have an office right now and i hope you can hear the tension in my voice, i'm highly offended. baltimore is a conglomerate of diverse people that live in this district and this is not right. they took one section of west baltimore, took the most horrible pictures they could find, trying to blanket the whole community. that's 700,000 people that live in that district and i'm

offended by what the president said. host: thank you for the call. next we are to sarah on the republican line from jackson, michigan. caller: hello. host: go ahead with your comment. caller: i think that, i think that you know, everything he said about baltimore was correct and he should be going up against that gentleman because all he does is spew lies and hate against everything about the president of the united states and i've never in my lifetime seen a president treated as badly as this one and people get away with it. it's ridiculous. host: thank you. lisa, pocatello, idaho, good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. thank you. lady from with the michigan. this guy, what is wrong with him? that he says all of these things and does all of these racist things if you want to use that

word. what angers me most is that all the republicans that are in office, they just let him get away with it. they don't stand up against to him and say -- you are wrong don't do this. that's about all i have. thank you. host: thank you very much from that for the call. stewart is joining us from apache junction. welcome to the conversation. thank you, steve. i think the reason trump is doing all of these things is because baltimore is the center of several investigations into for theirkushner illegal dealings in both the trump organization and his son-in-law's organization. i think that's the reason. nothing to do with -- trump is just trying to deflect the issue

and put his thumb on the scales of justice, in my mind. right, it is the house oversight committee this past week that ordered the financial records of the president, asking for those tax returns, emails, and whatsapp information from the ivanka trump, jared kushner, and other , including steve been in. this is reaction from ,ongressman elijah cummings democrat from maryland, his district including parts of howard county. on twitter yesterday he wrote the following -- is next, joining us from salinas, california.

your reaction to all of this? caller: my reaction is that this so-called editorial they wrote? it wasn't an editorial. it was excuse. it was an excuse for them to vomit the trail and hatred. this could have been written by a 15-year-old girl. this was a horrible thing that they wrote. nasty, disgusting. there's no comparison to what trump tweeted about cummings. districthat cummings was full of wrath that it is, there's no denying it. so, baltimore doing this editorial was a horrible thing. tweets were the last things on their mind. they commented on anything to almost about how he combs his hair. host: they are responding to

what was said about their community. if someone attacked your community, would you defend it? caller: if someone attacks my community i'm not going to attack them on every single point i can think of attacking them on, no. i'm going to attack them on what they attacked me about. since his district is a rat infested hole, this is what they did. this hatred for trump has to come to a head. people are getting really sick and tired of it. they hear racist this and racist that when the only racial things we are hearing are out of their mouths. they are the only ones typing about color and race. you for the call from california. what i started to read earlier headline,ews, in the asrnie a blast in baltimore a third world country and a disgrace in past comments."

"president trump drawing a torrent of attacks from democrats over elijah cummings district, but just a few years ago, senator bernie sanders -- host: that from fox news. worcester, massachusetts, joseph is next, democratic line. actually calling from boston. good morning, c-span.

how are you? host: we are fine, how are you? caller: i'm supportive of president trump 100% because he's not afraid to call a spade a spade. i see was going on in those communities, i've lived in them, we go to a racket we demand regime change. but we can't get regime change right here in the black community. 1989, houston was ranked number four in murder rates. louisiana, new orleans, the highest murder rates in the nation of big-city per capita. higher than pre-hurricane katrina. there's a lot of corruption going on. maxine waters has been a councilwoman said she was 20 years old, in her 70's now.

charlie wrangle -- charlie .rangle was there for 40 years they can't do nothing for their community. baltimore,me with 60,000 run users. same thing all over, that's why you have gentrification. give the younger generation the chance. there,e will stop you joseph, from boston. the president with the following tweet, quoting judge jeanine from fox news -- host: that from 6:56 a.m. this morning from the president up early and tweeting from the white house.

charles, your calling on the independent mine, your view on all of this? caller: look at that tweet right there. president really wanted to say something, he could have said that ultimate has some problems but no, this guy just keeps on going over again, just storing stuff up left and right. that's all he's doing and he's not having any great policies. i follow all of this, i watch the hearings. one more comment on socialism, they are turning you socialist, this big taboo thing the democrats are doing. i would implore everyone out there who say they don't want a socialist country to a common never take medicare, b, never get social security, see, rid of the fda because we don't need food safety, then get rid of the ctc in the flurry of

other socialist things that we rely on as a country. is that what people are saying? host: thank you for the call. this is how it is playing out in the front page of "the washington post," "trump steps ," andisive rhetoric inside chris van hollen calls it "sickening." "a flurry of outcry as trump slams baltimore and cummings." in 2018, these brief comments from the president about whether or not he was a racist. [video clip] not a racist, i'm the least racist person you have

ever interviewed, that i can tell you. cocoa, florida, republican nine, good morning. caller: how are you doing? host: we are fine, thank you, how are you? caller: i like your comment aboutthe trump -- gentleman responding to comments about the community, but i don't a racisthis became conversation. it seems like when he attacks people and he does do that come if they are not white male, he is racist or sexist. i wish people would stop doing that and start listening to the facts. in attacking baltimore, maybe people should look into it and say -- mr. president, show a little bit more class, but don't say he's racist when he did not say a racist statement. host: from inside of "the new york times," president calls the

baltimore district a raft and raftt infested nest -- a and rodent -- rat and rodent infested nest. line, tallahassee, good morning. go ahead, you are on the air. caller: i'm tired of people just trying to say he's not saying this, he's not saying that. what he should do to say he's .ot racist is stop tweeting he supposed to be the president of the united states of everybody. but he's not doing that. i, for one, and sick of it. host: thanks for the call. ,his headline form cnn "baltimore standing up for itself after trump tweeting that no human being would want to live there."

houston, texas, good morning. caller: i have been to baltimore once. i disagree with sheila jackson she runs a good district. as far as baltimore, my son was an nih studynt to at johns hopkins and we had to stay at a low income place and the guards told us not to go after dark because we were white and we did and we live in a barrio in texas. we went to good markets and we met good folks and we had good experiences. i would like you to ask everyone agreeing with trump if they have been there because i have and i'm native texan. i think some people are just .greeing to the tv depiction trump watches one station and the whole country can't just agree to that. they either go there, look it up, or go talk to people who have been there.

i do like this singling out. i don't like that, it feels wrong for america. that's all i wanted to say. i'm disappointed in the president. thank you so much. deborah, republican line, thanks for joining in. you mentioned the reaction yesterday morning of the president at the white house, before heading out to play golf, responding to a report on "fox cnn, theds," later on media correspondent they're weighing in on the patterns we are seeing from the white house, as well as democrats reacting to the presidential tweets. [video clip] >> the racist connotations of the newest tweets cannot be denied. it's part of a pattern we have seen in recent weeks that has gone back many years, where the president exaggerates urban african-americans you have nothing to lose when it comes to voting for him.

there are factual inaccuracies of the tweets and then there are the moral and ethical problems. this clearly has come from the fox news segment from earlier today, as sarah mentioned. pro-trumptheir talkshow talking about the conditions in west baltimore, which is a place with severe poverty and troubling conditions. it focused only on that part of the district, showing pictures from the area, it's really clear the president saw the segment and tweeted as a direct result. what the president missed factually is that cummings has a big district. urban areas, big areas, there were factual mistakes and then there were the moral issues, the ethical issues. when he tries to target an african-american congressman and describes the man's district has

crime infested. infested of course has deeply disturbing connotations in history. severe on multiple levels, factually, morally, and unfortunately it's more of the same. host: we are getting your reaction to that presidential tweet. also reacting is the daughter of the former mayor of baltimore, now the speaker of the house in california, nancy pelosi, who wrote the following on twitter -- host: and this tweet from stephanie wilson, with a picture of baltimore and one of the low , "if the shoe fits: send us a tweet, @cspanwj. democratic line, fort

lauderdale, florida, lance, good morning. caller: how are you doing today? host: we are fine, thank you. caller: i'm 66, white male, i'm always, at my party always resulting in everything is racist. i watched elijah cummings the other day go after the head of the border patrol and yell at him -- do you think you are doing a good job? this is amanda tried to do that job with the money he's given. the person that gives and that money is a elijah cummings. i would like people to say -- elijah cummings, do you think you are doing a good job? what they say is that the president is racist. what a elijah cummings says is that he works for the people. andif someone attacked me said you are not doing a good job, i would go -- i am doing a good job. i try to do this. this is how i'm trying to work

with schools, work with people to improve their lives. but that's not what i hear, i hear that you are a racist. i'm sick and tired of it and i'm watching the democratic party destroy themselves. the way we are going we will give the presidency back to , we are going to lose the senate and the house. the gop will be in charge of everything and i don't see how that benefits every but -- anybody. to my democratic friends, brothers and sisters, stop telling the lies. stop taking everything is racist. i know that mr. cummings is a great man and 40 years ago he fought for many things. what has he done lately. i will listen to the rest of it off-line. host: thank you. we cover that hearing, it is part of c-span's video library,

200 and 50,000 hours of content dating back to the late 1980's. we commemorate 40 years on the air and we are getting your reaction to the presidential tweet yesterday. this is from jan, a regular viewer, who said the following -- good from baltimore, morning, your reaction to what the president said at your hometown? caller: good morning, everyone. i have been in all baltimore -- been in baltimore all my life. the only years that was outside of baltimore is when i went to school. i believe that what the president said about mr. cummings is exactly right. i don't think it was an indictment of the city, having it was an indictment of the leadership in baltimore city.

mr. cummings is always quick to belittlealtimore to the people of baltimore. the stop stitching video that amounted tode nothing, but cummings came to baltimore and castigated the ,oung people, went back to d.c. presenting legislation to tighten the tampering laws. when martin o'malley was locking .p 100,000 people per year but there was no probable cause for the arrest and they were only made two bolt -- bolster om alleys standing around the state and the country because he

planned to run for president. mr. cummings could not come to baltimore to do something about that, though matter how much the people complained. now, children in baltimore are separated from their parents every day. when somebody goes to jail or when they go to the more. mr. cummings has not been to baltimore to deal with the problem of crime and homicide , butt to castigate people he's crying about immigrant children on the border. the problem in baltimore city is that there are no jobs. rate itr the homicide below if 300 for the first time in four years. and that is because president -- was decreasing the number of people who was to this sanctuary

city. of course the city leaders say it's not a sanctuary city, it's a welcoming city, but i can't tell you what the differences. host: thank you for the call. this from the president, late last night tweeting -- host: among the presidential candidates, there are these tweets. this from senator elizabeth warren, who yesterday tweeted -- host: from kamala harris --

host: let's you back your phone calls. david, texas, good morning. caller: good morning. the murder rate in baltimore since 2014, the riot over

freddie gray and such was in 2015. the murder rate went up 20% in 2015 and it stayed at that same level since then. the murder rate had been about 38 to 40 something per 100,000, which was still very high, up until the 2015 riots and the freddie gray incident, which all the cops were either acquitted or not charged in the incident ultimately. the murder rate, like i said, has gone up since then. trump also was pilloried for a ole commentst s-h he made about countries in africa. i'm looking at a map of the world, 80% to 90% of africa is living on a dollar a day. take your pick of which country is run by a dictator and the conditions therein and it's a

comment about the country, not the leadership, like one of the last caller's said about the leadership in baltimore. it's not an indictment of the people of baltimore, it's an indictment of the leadership of baltimore, like the thing in puerto rico right now. trump is being called racist in a thousand different ways because he was critical of the leadership puerto rico segment they weren't using their money wisely and now look at what is going on there. hundreds of thousands of people in the streets for days and days until he finally resigns and a big heart of what they were wanting him to leave for was the way that he was wasting the they that they got from united states -- or from the federal government, to help them with hurricane relief. you see this all over. i'm just so tired of these people running the grievance machine. that lady, i believe she was a state representative -- might have been of -- i think she was

on the east coast, the one with the recent grocery store incident where she did a facebook post saying she had some white guy had told her, called her the lazy b word to go back to where you came from and the story fell apart within 24 hours. he never said that. a black lady that said that said that she's the one who said that. the whole thing was a mess and blown up so that she could put out a video that was all over the cable news showing this white guy, a cuban and a trump hader being accused of that. like the jussie smollett case in chicago. racism -- people have problems, they are always going to have problems. people are people and they will be that way until the end of time. but check up on the sow's -- so-called racist incidents making the news all over the place and you will find that the vast majority of them will be

hoaxes. i cannot think of a single one that was the hoax, although there are probably one or two of not remembering. i don't know the number. david, we believe it there. this from my low -- -- milo host: and a tweet from presidential candidate, former vice presidential candidate joe biden, also reacting to a donald trump tweeted yesterday -- host: by the way, the 20 candidates will be on the stage this tuesday and wednesday for the cnn debates.

get a chance to see it this weekend with cnn giving c-span permission to air the debates from detroit later this week. we will have schedule information on that, but you can watch that tuesday and wednesday evening, 9 p.m. eastern time, with reaction the next day here on "washington journal." republican line, good morning. good morning, sir. the way i see it, we finally have a politician in the white house that will tell you the truth. that's the problem. you guys in the media are so gullible, you can't handle the truth. i used the va hospital down there in baltimore. i lived there in west virginia. we had to go through that neighborhood to get to the hospital. and it looks like a third world country. you know, when i was in the marine corps i was all over the world and i seen a lot of third world countries and believe me,

when we go through the neighborhood the driver says lock the doors, guys. it's just amazing. you folks in the media are so gullible that you fall for all of this stuff. using the word racist, it used to be a bad word. but i watched the sunday shows last week and i heard the word racist probably 700 or 800 times . when you use a word that often, it has the meaning. if everyone is a racist, no one is a racist, ok? host: just to be clear, we are not using that word, we are sharing with you what democrats are saying. caller: no, everybody in the media uses that word. you will hear it 500 times this morning on this show. the viewers, but not from us. karl, thank you for the call. morning,oklahoma, good

thanks for joining in on the conversation. caller: i have lived in oklahoma but i was adult life, born and raised in west baltimore. my grandmother's house is five minutes walking distance from where the stuff happened with freddie gray a couple of years ago off of north avenue. -- born in 1956, 1974.there at age 17 in my recollection of my time growing up there is great. got fond memories, great memories of the baltimore colts, and like i say, just a good overall association and fond recollections of my time there. , since leaving there in

the last 20 years, i'm sad to say that the city has gone down horribly. horribly. most of the people, might p or group, like i said, age 60 or so , they left if they could, if they could afford to. moved out to the counties. but of course most of us do have family and friends that are still there. emphasis on the democrats, there is a democratic mayor, democratic congressman. larry hogan is the second term republican governor. does he bear any responsible the question mark caller: i don't want -- responsibility question mark caller: i don't -- responsibility? caller: i don't want to get into

who is responsible, but i just want to say that since my recollection things have gone downhill. to simply answer your question, i mean, you can't get away from the fact of who's in charge. now, like i said, you can't get into a blind debate. where i think that the comments went wrong is that during that hearing on border security he kind of got on a high horse and he came down on -- i can't pronounce the name -- host: the acting homeland security secretary. caller: he came down on another fellow public service. the best i could tell, trying to , too, toe can to really awesome -- an awful situation. where i disagree specifically was him being so demanding and more or less coming apart, coming across like he was blaming him specifically for the

conditions at the border. host: we will. you there, a lot of people want to weigh in, but thank you for phoning in from oklahoma, former resident of baltimore. the president tweeting again, reacting to all of this, writing the following on twitter --

trumpthat from donald just a moment ago, three new tweets reacting to all of this. next up is luke, joining us this morning from highland park, illinois. caller: good morning, thank you for c-span. i would like to add the word immature, not just racist, in describing the president. we need a problem solver in the white house, not a name caller. is he going to blame elijah cummings for every problem of the city of baltimore? that's wrong. the president can be a great problem solver. with theget involved problems of america that we know are true.

baltimore has problems, yes, but why doesn't he get in and try to help solve the problems instead of calling people names. like he called that handicapped person on television, he made fun of him. he is making fun of people for their problems. 't is not elijah cummings problems. he is from that area. we need a new president. i'm sick of it. attack,rumps twitter undiluted racism and hate." here are more -- your is more from that article. -- here is more from that article. "house speaker nancy pelosi of california --

host: milton is joining us from baltimore. good morning. caller: i have a comment i would like to make that i would like to address directly to a elijah cummings. over the years, say five or six years ago, iran into a elijah

times.s several i express my deep and greatest sorrow for ever having doubted him. i was going to vote for donald trump. i considered him to maybe be a bridge over troubled water. said youh cummings don't know what you are talking about and we did see. i wanted to apologize to him, sir, i'm sorry, but we are going to fight the good fight and we are going to win. that is all i have to say. host: thank you for the call. from "the new york times sunday , "is that joe biden what the democrats want?" and a piece by molly ball about the front runners elizabeth ward and joe biden. also a look at nancy pelosi, a look at squad.

joining us from san antonio, texas. good morning. hear the people, especially the white folks, calling in about racism. now you see how we as black people felt when they label all , criminals, as lazy all welfare. baltimore, we cannot blame this man for the problems that go on in baltimore. state, i can take you to all 50 states in this country and you will see the same things in baltimore that you will see a lot of cities in the united states. i could take you to my hometown in the state of louisiana, alexandria. every time i go home i get depressed.

we have leaders in this area that are not doing anything for the poor, the middle class. all they care about is that green dollar bill. i'm tired of white folks being so offended. how do you think that black people felt when they labored? black folks as criminals, lazy, on welfare. now when we call out racism, i'm sick and tired of white folks trying to tell us black people how we are supposed to feel. this man has destroyed this year country. we are all at each other's throats now. think with trump as president he would get with these governors to try to do something about each state in each city. host: this to eat -- -- tweet --

and this story from "the new york times," -- us fromthy is joining bethel, delaware. good morning, republican line. i wanted to let you know that i have watched the baltimore news everyday. everything donald trump says is .bsolutely accurate first of all, they televise the runningrestaurants wild. they have televised all of the that take place. the car jacking's last three mayors, two of which have been run out of office for corruption , stephanie rawlings blake had her tenure during the freddie in told the officers

to stand down when the town was burning. larry hogan made noises about running for president. my first reaction was -- cleanup maryland before you start trying to run the rest of the country. he wasn't doing a very good job in areas like corruption of, of, of violence in baltimore, drugs, etc.. mosby, attorney general -- still is, tried to convict police the does it officers during the freddie gray incident. they were exonerated by a black judge. defendthey want to cummings and his history of representing that district, they are not doing a very good job. it has nothing to do with racism

and everything to do with the fact that elijah cummings is a trump hader and that's the size of it. that's kathy, from delaware. the president taking aim at elijah cummings and nancy pelosi. tot: let's take you back august of 2016 during the height of the campaign for donald trump had this to say. [video clip] tonight i'm asking for the vote of every single african american citizen in this country who wants to see a better future .

look how much african-american communities have suffered under democratic control. --those i say the following what do you have to lose by trying something new? like trump. what do you have to lose? i say it again, what do you have to lose? what do you have to lose question argued live in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed. what the hell do you have to lose? host: that was from the president in 2016 as he went after the african-american vote. this viewer saying that the top 10 poorest country -- poorest buffalo county, south dakota, wilcox county, alabama, mcdowell county, west virginia.

this from park storm -- host: on the democratic line, homer joining us from shreve port, louisiana. good morning. appreciate you taking my call. i fail to see what the president -- it's on us like me trying to talk about my son and he's responsible for him -- and i'm responsible for him. he's my house. he's there talking about the people who are the citizens in the congress, everybody, but he's responsible as well. what do i look like trying to take care of my own self house to make myself look good when i'm responsible? thank you. host: thank you for the call. to go back to the editorial from

"the baltimore sun," better to have a few rats then to be one." host: we have not heard from republicans on twitter responding. if that comes, we will share that with you as well. maryland, outside baltimore,

your view on all of this. good morning. are you with us? caller: yes, yes, i'm here. i grew up in baltimore my whole life. i moved about 20 minutes outside of their about eight years ago. baltimore does have a lot of issues. that's not anything i'm trying to defend. but like the gentleman before me said, this is your own house. if you are the president of the united states, everything belongs to you. the governors and mayors under you, you should be trying to help boost them. tact, i seet has no nothing good about him. i want to thank -- i have an issue with some of the folks calling in, like the gentleman from west virginia. calling these issues black , but west virginia, what about the problem with opioids?

the problem of these doctors not being responsible in handing out this kind of medication, this or that, whatever, they don't blame or tear down the family, or bad parenting. putting it on the kids not being raised properly. that's the truth. when it comes to issues around the white community, it's always something separate the and anything that could be deemed as, like i said, bad parenting or anything like that. another point i wanted to get out -- host: very quickly, others want to weigh in. caller: i'm sorry, i lost my train of thought. host: that's all right. allen, republican line, good morning. still, we lost them. kenneth, good morning. trying one more time. are you with us question mark

s?ller: -- with us questio yes, trump is a racist. right now we are in a civil war in america. he wouldn't even admit black people into his apartment buildings. he got sued for that. we know he's a racist. in the olden days when i was coming up we used to do the thing called the joneses. the president has called mr. biden sleepy joe. , if you would call him callingr, he would stop him sleepy joe. ismp is a racist and america in a civil war right now and i thank you for your time. host: thank you. elizabeth is next from california. caller: good morning, trump is an incredible hypocrite.

he spends his time in luxurious properties, mar-a-lago, more time on the golf course. he has a goldplated toilet. he and the republicans voted in an enormous tax cut for the whoionaires in this country spent $50,000 on a ladies or $100,000 on insignificant items. the policies of the democrats is trying to get the money back to the people. we do have serious problems in this country with poverty. .t's a structure the democratic policies that they are fighting for, congressman cummings and nancy , they are trying to line their own pockets.

elizabeth, think you for the call. the tweet from the president yesterday in which he went after elijah cummings. we will show that to you, as we take this call from bob in baltimore. as you look at this tweet in here the calls, your thoughts? caller: i'm from just outside baltimore. i know a lot of people in baltimore. a lot of black folks down in the i guess what you want to call it, the private -- the problem areas? if you go just a little bit north of baltimore, i have been to the state of pennsylvania. all the working class black people live up there now. everybody moves out baltimore. this, it'sget out of one of those places where if you can get out of it, you walk out of the place. whereike anywhere

democrats run. all the places, you've got people leaving in a hurry. where a they moving to? a trump state. that's the reality of it. this elijah cummings guy, report wife getting the high position they're in the corporation where they funnel money to the guy, billions of dollars. what's all of that money for. isn't he supposed to be representing the people in baltimore? which he does not. he's yelling and screaming about run into our to country on the southern border, people who are not even americans. help the black people in baltimore city for good citizens. this tweet also from the

president, just past midnight. he was up late last night tweeting and again this morning. , south carolina caller, republican line, good morning. good morning, c-span. i have a couple of quick comments. i was hoping the president trump would cut back on his tweets. but the democrats are destroying they own self. wait until 2020. you are talking about electoral votes, president trump go with a landslide. democrats doing what you are

doing, you are destroying yourselves. you don't believe in god, you don't believe in our country, you don't kneel for your own flag. host: the last word from north carolina, on the republican line. caller: first things first. to those people offended by donald trump, the only people -- the only thing he is doing is treating you democrats the way you have treated us for 30 years. as for the cities, donald trump is right. i have worked in inner cities my entire life. you can go to nashville, north carolina. of those housing complexes, the children are getting up to go to the playground and have to stay across -- step across used condoms to get to the playground. they get shot while they are there, too. thatnybody out there thinks the democratic party is

going to help the black man, they promised you for 50 years to bring prosperity out of poverty. where are you at today? host: thanks for the call. and to all of you for your calls and comments on facebook and twitter where the conversation continues and we will be monitoring more on what the president is saying. moment, a report looking at the 2020 election and what it means for election security. joining us from the brennan center for justice is liz howard and rachael dean wilson from the alliance for securing democracy. that's ahead on c-span's "washington journal." newsmakers, our guest this week is congressman graves of louisiana. he is part of a select committee looking at climate conditions. the republican represents louisiana. here is a portion of our conversation. [video clip] >> i believe that the committee

was created largely to continue driving this political wedge when in reality if you look at this issue, there are a lot of areas where we need to be working together and cooperating. i think speaker pelosi set this up to try and distinguish positions between republicans and democrats. whatever the reality is on the democrat side, you have seen a civil war occurring there. you have the energy and commerce committee, some of the folks on the climate committee have been trying to gain traction and bitnd and sliding a little and certainly with some of the legislative tactics we saw earlier this year, there are some examples of that and i think you have seen folks advocating for the green new deal also trying to stake their turf or claim. watching this from the republican side has been interesting because we are not sure who we should be talking to are negotiating with. do we have a threat in louisiana?

absolutely. we have some of the lord -- the fastest sinking rates in the nation. we are certainly subject to hurricanes and other intense storms. we had an unnamed storm three years ago that dumped 32 inches of rain within 36 hours in some of our communities. we had a rain just about three weeks ago that dumped seven to eight inches of rain in one hour. certainly we have had some challenges. the reality is when you look at all the threats our state is exposed to, the greatest is how the corps of engineers has managed our river system that ongoing and in future loss of ongoing wetlands which is our buffer from tropical storms in the gulf of mexico. host: monday night on the communicators, ohio

rankingtative -- the member on the house energy and commerce subcommittee on communications and technology talks about recent actions -- region -- recent actions taken by the government. >> almost 50 billion robocalls made every year into this country, it is hopefully going to provide relief to the american citizens out there. it is one ofle say the top issues that people contact me about. it is also the top issue that the fcc and the ftc receive every year is about robocalls. communicators monday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span two -- c-span2. >> "washington journal" continues. host: our next hour focusing on election security. we are pleased to welcome rachael dean wilson, the director of internal affairs for the alliance for securing democracy which is what? .

rachael: we are a bipartisan providing focuses on policy recommendations for countering authoritarian attempts at undermining democracy. host: liz howard is from the brennan center for justice. that is a? liz: a nonprofit think tank. host: let me share with you, this is an editorial. mr. moeller's right to be worried. inside the new york times and online, the editorial includes the following. -- the legislative bottleneck is in the republican-controlled

senate but both parties have done their part to politicize the issue. your reaction? guest: the democrats have come out strong on election security. the republicans have held this up in the senate but i think it is important to look past the partisan bickering and look at where there is bipartisan agreement and that is not a short list. there is widespread agreement that election security is national security and federal, state and local election officials on both sides agree on that. most recently you saw leader mcconnell giving his support for making election security a priority and you also saw senator shelby who is the chair senate appropriations committee reiterate his support for election security and protecting elections in alabama and across the country. host: on that point, rachael wilson, there is the senate select committee releasing a

report that essentially said russia has targeted all 50 states in 2016 and likely to do so in 2020. rachael: absolutely. what you have seen is a consensus around what happened in 2016 and how our election systems were targeted. also seeing fbi director -- this week and you heard robert mueller testify on wednesday that those attacks are continuing and those efforts to undermine our systems are continuing and it is something we can -- we need to continue to evolve our strategy to meet that threat. host: from the new york times editorial quote, democrats are frustrated by the foot dragging of the white house, mr. mcconnell and other reform but the new york times says both sides must focus on minimizing, not stoking tensions between them, abusing the calls of election security for

political points is no way to safeguard this nation. rachael: ike is not agree -- i could not agree more with the new york times. there is plenty of blame to go around as far as making this issue a partisan issue. but we need to now -- what we need to do now is not -- is stop trying to score political messaging points and come to the table behind closed doors to hash out how we move forward. a great place to start is funding to states. if republicans are worried about federal lysing the election or federal overreach, then let's get those states the resources they need to do the job. host: bottom line, jan what we heard about russia trying to influence social media. from your perspective, what did russian interference due in 2016? where did they have the strongest role? rachael: one of the things the russians did was target our infrastructure and they were

scanning voter registration databases and the recent senate report and previous reports from dhs indicate they were looking into all 50 states. can dothe things that we is provide additional funding to the state so they can implement additional cybersecurity protections and upgrades to their voter debt -- voter registration database. host: one of the arguments you are hearing from senator mcconnell is that this is a state issue and not a federal issue. liz: there are 10,000 election jurisdictions across the country. localare state and election officials responsible for the security of each of those jurisdictions. they are going up against authoritarian governments. we cannot leave them to do that on their own. i think we need to provide the resources necessary so that they

can do that job. liz: i think that is true. in the report that we recently co-authored, states are using their portion of the $380 million that congress allocated last year on four main projects and one of those election security projects is implement the programs that provide cybersecurity support to local election officials who are generally responsible for a ministering our elections but don't have sufficient resources to fund an i.t. professional at the local level. host: one of the moments from the hearing with robert mueller. republican will heard with this line of questioning to the former special counsel. [video clip] >> one of the most striking things in your report is that the internet research agency not only undertook a social media campaign but they were able to organize a political rally after the election. reportmittee issued a

saying that russian active measures are growing with frequency and intensity and including their expanded use of groups such as the ira and these groups pose a significant threat to the united states and our allies. would you agree with that? yes. there are many more countries developing capabilities to replicate what the russians have done. sureu alluded to making all the elements of the federal government should be working together. do you have a suggestion on acer to g to do that to counter this disinformation? >> not overarching. is this a single attempt by the russians to get involved or did you find evidence to suggest they will do this again? >> it was not a single attempt.

they are doing it as we sit here and they expect to do it during the next campaign. that final point, they are doing it as we sit here and when they will do it again. guest: you saw that in a senate intelligence report that was released earlier this week. the intelligence community knows that and so do election officials and i think an important point here is that while our foreign adversaries are working to systematically assess our systems and figure out how we are working, we have election officials across the country that are working to further strengthen their systems and our election infrastructure. host: our phone lines are open. (202)-748-8000 is our line for democrats. (202)-748-8001 for our republicans. if you are independent, (202)-748-8002.

what about paper ballots? rachael: paper ballots are very important. we have 11 states that do not have paper ballots. host: why? rachael: there is a lack of funding to switch over to those systems. it is incredibly important that election officials are able to have that backup in case something were to go wrong, to verify those results. host: are they expensive? rachael: they can actually be cheaper than the machines that several states have now. we have 11 states continuing to use paperless voting machines in some portion of their state. three of those states have planned the transition to paper-based voting equipment prior to the 2020 election without additional funding from congress, looks like there is not a clear way forward for the other eight states to implement paper-based voting systems. reminded, there was a

paper vote despite problems with the -- guest: good old-fashioned paper comes to save the day in the day of technology sometimes. host: i was down in florida this past week, the senate republican saying no to the vote put forward by house democrats on election reform. [video clip] consent is somous partisan that it received one republican vote over in the house. clearly this request is not a serious effort to make a law. clearly something so partisan that only received one solitary republican vote in the house is not going to travel through the senate by anonymous consent. -- by unanimous consent. it is important we maintain the security of our elections in our country. any washington involvement in that task needs to be undertaken

and on aeme care thoroughly bipartisan basis. obviously this legislation is not that. it is a highly partisan bill who spentame folks two years hyping up a conspiracy theory about president trump and russia and continue to ignore this administration's progress in correcting the obama administration's failures on this subject in the 2018 election. liz howard, beyond the partisan rhetoric, what is in the democratic bill in the house? what is the objection by the senate republican leader and how did the sides come together? liz: it has several important election security provisions. there is clearly bipartisan agreement on one. it has a paper ballot mandate as we were talking earlier. they are an important election security measure that even president trump himself has indicated he supports.

dhs officials have said multiple times that in order to have a resilient system, we need to be toe to audit the system and audit the system you have to have paper ballots. host: at that point, does the federal government provide funding? liz: i think so. i think the government needs to and the report released by the senate intelligence committee indicates there is an urgent need to replace paperless voting equipment. host: and to your other point? liz: the legislation also includes funding for election security but not just one time funding, it includes ongoing funding which is an important element. i don't think we have a bipartisan disagreement about that need. host: so the republican objection is what? rachael: we need to de-escalate the partisanship on both sides of the aisle around this issue and we can just look at the states to see how they have done it. they have led the way on bipartisanship on election security. arizona is a great example.

a republican governor and democratic secretary of state and they have come together and really addressed election security in a serious manner and i think that all of our representatives in washington should take a note from their book. host: let's get some phone calls. our first from new york city, democrats line. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. i am confused on the republican party dealing with the voting situation, the climate situation, the health care situation. all of those things they seem to be against. this democracy can be lost because they come and go at a moments notice. until we decide we want to spread equality in the united states instead of maintaining white power. it is going to get progressively

worse. host: your response? rachael: republicans are concerned that any legislation will result in some sort of federal overreach into the state authority to conduct elections. as leader mcconnell indicated, this is an important issue and it is not surprising that there is partisan bickering. voting is an important issue, but the senate needs to debate is issue further, but that their prerogative but what they can do now and what they just entered into our budget negotiations. with think they can at least allocate money to the states and local election officials who are using their money for important election security projects around which there was widespread agreement that they need to be implemented and prior to 2020. host: liz howard, counsel for the brennan center for justice and former general counsel for rock the vote and former deputy

commissioner for the virginia department of elections. rachael dean wilson, having worked for a number of senators including john mccain and jon kyl. thank you for being with us. back to your phone calls. oregon, republican line. caller: good morning. curious with the thought coming across that it seemed from the time frames and everything that the russians were trying to get more and more andle into the trump circle to me, it was more like they didn't have a toehold into his campaign like they did the others and they were scrambling to get something on trump. host: did you watch the testimony by robert mueller this past week? guest: yes -- caller: yes. host: what was your take with regards to election security?

caller: mainly that it wasn't done very well and that it was not done by mueller. host: thank you. i would say in the mueller report, that they stated that russia interfered in 2016 in a sweeping and systematic fashion and that something we have seen in other reports from the intelligence community, the senate intelligence report that was bipartisan that came out ,ast week, and other officials it is something that is reiterated by the administration time and again. we also know it did not stop on election day. this is an ongoing threat and as we heard earlier, it is not just russia anymore. there are other authoritarian actors that are seeing what russia has done and taking those tools and tactics and using them against us and it is something we should take seriously.

host: under the help america vote act, the government has allocated money and assistance to states on the issue of election security. we will show you those numbers from a number of key states as we listen to catherine from great britain. good afternoon to you. where in england are you phoning from? caller: a little village where although i am an american, i came back here to be with my mom. watching all that is happening in the world, it is not just america. about the problem is interesting. these adversarial countries are in everybody's elections across the world. we have populism and nationalism

rising and it is really i read theecause report and i watched the testimony and i was focusing on -- he wasueller referring back to his written report and they said he was not giving the right answers but if you take that away and just listen to the answers he gave, he basically said that this government is corrupt. elections.ut the i vote through washington state which i think has an incredibly good system. why mitch mcconnell will not let anything through on the republican side, it has happened again and again and they are always using excuses about being partisan. it is not.

we havecause --ersaries within our own homegrown adversaries within our own system in america. my mother and father brought me up with a little saying. people, -- the greatest people a good man can do is to do nothing. me becausefying to we've got basically a group of people in the white house who -- carryingg under on, business as usual and nobody seems to be stopping him, especially president trump. host: thank you for the call and thank you from watching us on the bbc parliament channel. we will give our guests a chance to respond. guest: thank you so much for your call. it is certainly not business as

usual at the state and local election official level. states are taking and making drastic changes to their policies and procedures just from when i was a deputy commissioner in the state of virginia. election security is at the top of the list for election officials across the country and you will now here alabama recently of state mentioning that now all the conferences for the national association of secretaries of state are all about cybersecurity and election security. any states and election officials are voluntarily implement and projects such as postelection audits that they are taking on because they want to be able to answer to their voters, yes, we are implement and procedures to make sure your vote counted as cast. host: let's go back to this report from the senate select committee on intelligence and i

will get your reaction. we will put it on our screen. quote, the committee found no evidence that the vote tallies were altered or that voter registry files were deleted or modified, the committee and the insight into this is limited. the russian affiliate cyber actors conducted an unprecedented level of activity against state election infrastructure in the run-up to the 2016 election. that is from the cochairs. that because the fear, the concern is that this might be a test for a potentially they could do in 2020. could you explain? (202)-748-8000 as we -- rachael: as we heard, all 50 states were targeted and while there is no evidence that a vote was changed or that voter registration data was deleted, it could be a test. the intelligence committee report did not know. but what is rump -- what is

important to remember is what russia's objectives are in this interference and that is to undermined our democratic institutions and in particular, it is our trust in our elections and our vote. cases, russia does not need to change a vote to so that doubt -- sew that doubt. host: we will go through some of the recommendations from the chair and ranking democrat. number one, to reinforce the state's privacy and running elections to create an effective deterrent to improve information gathering and sharing on threats, to secure election related cyber systems to protect the vote itself and to provide federal assistance to the states. liz: they are all very important recommendations. many of them are in the process of being rolled out currently. howe has been a change in

federal officials work with officials who work with local officials on election security and it is all for the better. that theave concerns federal government is making an effort to take over elections at the state level and i think you will see state election officials and local officials who want additional support from the federal government. host: liz howard with the brennan center for justice and rachael dean wilson with the alliance for security -- for securing democracy. another editorial from the washington post. rachael: there is a bipartisan consensus to secure our elections and how we get there may be a difference of opinion. i know that republicans are

concerned about federal overreach in state run elections but there are over 10,000 election jurisdictions in this country and we need to make sure that each of those jurisdictions has the tools and resources they need to be secure. that is a lot of entry points for a foreign government looking to do us harm. host: if you look at these two editorials, is there a way to have a unified approach to these elections, especially when you are electing members of congress and a president? guest: this is a shared responsibility and your point brings that home. when state can -- when states conduct federal, state and local at least, they need to right now allocate additional funding to the state and local election officials so they can take the ball and implement additional security projects. host: rachael wilson, what worries you the most?

we fear in 2020? rachael: what is most needed is someone who is looking at the whole threat. one of our callers mentioned the widespread authoritarian tools and tactics that are employed by russia but also increasingly these other authoritarian actors. we need to make sure that we are taking a full picture approach and how we combat this and take into account the election security vulnerabilities, but also the disinformation campaigns and the use of fake personas online to increase division, as well as going after campaigns and campaign committees and strategic hacking and leaking strategies. host: we will go to a caller from missouri, good morning. caller: thank you for c-span and bear with me, we did not defeat

russia in the cold war. they went broke. they want us to go broke and trump fulfills this by his tax cuts to the rich 1%, which made the debt go up by trillions, by his inefficient wall. he has spent over $108 million on golf trips which is over three times as much as we spent on the mueller report where trump stonewalled and obstructed retrieved --ueller even though the republicans kept saying he cost us $30 million, he retrieved $40 million so he did not cost us anything. trump's campaign had 150 contacts with russia. his appointments working for him and not for the country, is violation of the moments cross

the conservatives in this country would be far better off if in the primaries, they voted for william weld and i think that the people who are wearing wearings are really mtra hats, make trump rich again. i hope we can avoid any improprieties in the 2020 election and that people really see him for what he is. thanks. host: thanks, from missouri. we will get a republican caller from florida. george, thank you for waiting. caller: thank you. russians meddled in our election. they have been doing it for over 100 years. we should address it with all the force we can. i am amazed at the lack of curiosity of the media and the

press, it is like a fog has descended on them. a cabal of the fbi and all sorts of people trying to affect the election, unconstitutionally. until the horwich report comes out and the dorm report comes out and it is on the front page and people can see what went on wheren't go on, nobody -- is the woodward and bernstein? nobody talks about this. the state department, -- if it is true, i don't know, but if it is true, nobody is poking around --find out except for a few i don't know if they are radicals at fox or whatever but at least they are exposing the problem. at least they are talking about it. a fog has descended on all of these young people. miss wilson said something before, it escapes me but i

disagree. that is all i had to say. about i was thinking anita educate question earlier when she was talking about the various expenses and it made me think about our report and one of the states we looked at with what they were doing with election security funding, louisiana. they are one of the 11 states that rachel and i both mentioned the continues to use paperless voting equipment and they use it statewide. they received $6 million from the federal government to improve election security, just to replace the paperless voting fromment, estimates range $40 million to $90 million. a state could definitely use $100 million and put it to good use today. host: let me go back to what both of you agreed to in your report. you begin by saying state and local election officials are on the frontlines lines of a cyber

war with sophisticated nationstate rivals and other actors involved. how so? we have a lot of entry points in our elections. they are state run and the depend on state and local election officials to run those systems and bolster cybersecurity. they are going up against sophisticated authoritarian actors seeking to undermine our democracy. that is a big ask and something the federal government should provide the resources for. host: your former boss, john mccain was front and center when it came to campaign finance report -- reform. security is front reform? guest: -- a great job leading the charge and sounding the alarm on election security. he joined with senator omi -- amy klobuchar to create the bipartisan bill, secure elections act, last congress and

bill we a foundational can go back to to find bipartisan agreement. host: we will go to california. john on the republican line. , iler: i would like to say think we all agree that [ indiscernible] why have we not the dnc server that was supposedly hacked, turned over to the fbi for scrutiny and third, everyone wants to pay attention to congress and john mcclintock and what he is talking about and

this came out of a d.c. court. host: we got most of what you are talking about with regard to what they call election sabotage versus election security. do you want to address that? liz: i mochas -- i mostly focus on election infrastructure and i can't talk to security of email. spear phishing attacks are something that election officials across the country are very concerned about, where someone not associated with the government tries to entice a female recipient to provide information such as a password to the voter registration database and i think dhs especially has done a good job about promoting awareness of these potential attacks and putting forward solutions. host: can either of you .2 states that are doing it right and conversely those states who are needing to do a better job? colorado does so many things exceptionally well but they use an almost all male in

ballot model -- all male in ballotmodel -- mail in model. it is hard for other states that rely on in person election day voting to copy everything colorado has done. i think the intelligence committee would agree that states that are continuing to use the paperless voting machines are the ones that need to move forward fast. rachael: six different states, how they are using the money that was allocated in 20 need -- from 2018 and what projects they are focusing on and what those remaining unfunded election security needs are and you will see that each state is at a different point in their election security, but paper ballots are a big concern. this -- has piloted

started this cyber navigator program and that looks at training local officials in cybersecurity and recognizing the threat and risks in different areas in illinois. host: you pointed out that in illinois, russian operatives compromised the computer system of the state board of elections. they gate -- they got full access to the voter database in 2016 as the senate intel report showed, they have the ability to delete and manipulate information within thatdatabase, and so obviously is a wake-up call for illinois. it should be for every state in the country. they made real progress with this cyber navigator program. they still need additional funds to replace aging voting systems. att: liz howard, as you look the 2016 returns, 77,000 votes

in michigan, sconce and in pennsylvania gave the election to donald trump. in your report, you say that pennsylvania's election security , it could be the key state in 2020. a provides a number of security challenges, or than 80% of pennsylvania voters registered in jurisdictions still using paperless voting systems. news, theood department of state has directed all localities in pennsylvania to transition to new voting equipment that has a paper record. host: by 2020. liz: by 2020 and all the counties are moving forward. host: another example is oklahoma because you write the following. financial constraints has officials -- has limited officials in oklahoma with discretion all spending -- discretionary spending. liz: it is difficult.

oklahoma was facing one of the worst financial crises in its history. the department of elections that faced budget cuts. at the state level, the department was suffering. things were getting better in oklahoma and they have some great election officials working on important security projects but as you see from their report, the state election officials are continuing to work with dhs and their local cyber command because potentially, there may be more high-priority projects that they have to fund and they certainly -- and they simply don't have the resources to do so. host: let's go to new jersey, anthony on the independent line. caller: thanks for taking my call. a couple points. russians have been meddling in elections for 100 years and we have to keep an eye on that, but what i find mostly is that there

are so many holes in our electoral system now. it has more holes than swiss cheese. recall in the 2018 elections in florida, it was pretty tight and if you noticed -- they kept bringing in that were ines these box trucks and you had these people, mostly democrats, we had to count all the votes and that is what they kept saying even though we just printed up 20,000 of them. solution to that, i would believe, i like the idea of keeping it at the state level because i think that just makes it a lot harder for the people on the outside to break in. host: we will go back to your earlier point. what is your evidence in terms

of these trucks and what is your source? caller: the source was both all the news networks. cnn had cameras outside of where they were counting them and they trucks inat they had the middle of the night back up to the dock and unload what appeared to be balance. host: and you are convinced that was illegitimate. caller: i think that was a little fishy because i think we have an election -- most of the votes come in within a couple days, not a couple weeks later. another thing about what is ishy, what i think is fishy -- let's say you are a college student in new jersey like me and you go to pennsylvania which is under attack. i am registered in new jersey, i go to college in pennsylvania and a register in college. and say registered to vote

everyone is checking off democrat. now i am registered in jersey which i can get a paper ballot through the mail in then i can go vote in pennsylvania. that has been going on for years. people getting paper ballots, that has been going on for years. host: thanks for the call. liz: i am not familiar with the allegations in the concerns he is raising in florida. the brennan center has put out reports, there is very limited evidence of actual voter fraud. but we can talk about is election security and the steps officials are taking to ensure that every eligible voter's vote is cast as counted and that includes using voting machines that have a paper trail so you can go back and check and confirm. rachael: i would also note that one of the things i think our report hopefully shows is that

one time funding is not going to fix this problem. it is an ongoing challenge. threat is ongoing so our strategy should as well. it will take a continued effort to make sure all of these state election systems are where they need to be. host: rachael dean wilson with the alliance for securing democracy. the website is securingdemocracy.org. liz howard with the brennan center for justice, her website center.org. we will go to mississippi, independent line. caller: good morning. i would like your guests to comment on the story about the linkedin billionaire interfering in the 2017 elections -- special

election against roy moore, creating a facebook account that attracted a number of people and it turns out that it was a fraud to try and turn the campaign for the democrats. i would like to hear your guest's opinion on that. host: are you aware of that? guest: i have heard the alabama secretary of state discuss the issue and i know he reached out to multiple social media companies and has worked to address the distribution of disinformation in his state. onst: we are really focused doing toign actors are undermine our democracy and our election system and i can't really speak to domestic. host: i guess the points we are getting from the bipartisan senate committee is that they are not talking about how foreign actors can influence or shape social media but how they can influence the actual returns to the ballots. guest: absolutely.

host: let's go to ed, joining us from florida. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call. election, was it mr. tuten -- mr. pruden the called a large number of trump supporters deplorables? host: you are referring to hillary clinton. caller: that is exactly what i am referring to. we blame the russians for all this stuff but hillary clinton called a large number of american voters deplorable. is this somebody we like representing us as president? host: your other point? caller: what is that? host: you are going to make a second point. caller: i am concerned about prosecutorial misconduct. book licenseou the to lie where ted stevens was indicted for fraud and it was later overturned but that affected the election -- the

election. i'm concerned about what we are doing with our own country. readommend everyone license to live by sydney powell and solemn duty. we as americans don't understand our constitution and that is where a lot of our problems come in. host: thank you for the call. back to the earlier point, when it comes to cyber attacks, what should federal and state officials be looking for? how did they know there is an inside -- there is an outside influence that would affect the results of the election and what are the lessons that can be applied in 2020? state and local election officials need to be talking with federal agencies in a much more effective way than they did in 2016. if you read the senate intelligence report, you see there was so much miscommunication, warnings not getting to the right state and local officials, that a lot of

, buthas been addressed there is more coordination we can do on that front. i like to say in 2016 were flying blind when it came to foreign interference and we are not blind anymore. we know the threat that is out there but it is about getting our systems in place. host: liz howard, one of the , that there9/11 were silos where you had one intelligent silo, another, nobody talking to each other. are they talking to each other leading up to 2020? liz: it is light years away from where it was in 2016. the senate intelligence report, i was struck by what i was doing well i was deputy commissioner while federal officials were reviewing information indicating that russia was trying to target our election systems. today the situation is very

theerent in good ways and silos which existed previously are certainly much better now. host: i want to go back to an earlier point. i think it is worth emphasizing. ,he russians did not influence based on the intelligence and reporting, the actual results in 2016, but based on this report, it could be a test run for 2020. guest: that is exactly right. we want to make sure they don't have the opportunity to do that. that is why we need to spend more money on the states. host: what about other foreign actors outside of russia? liz: russia is not the only foreign nationstate the intelligence community has indicated is trying to target our systems. that the defined china and iran -- they identified china and iran. host: we will go to pennsylvania, thank you for waiting. caller: i was not allowed to

vote in the primaries in 2016 because they said i was registered constitutional party but i know that i was registered democrat because i was registered for the primaries for obama. i was not permitted to vote. blah blah blah. host: have you checked your registration to make sure you can vote in the upcoming primary? caller: yeah. i was hysterical. they would not let me vote and they said i was constitution party but i knew i was already registered democrat. i reregistered. host: did they give you a provisional ballot? me sendthen they had away the ballots but i never said -- the 10 that they didn't help me vote.

it didn't count. host: thank you for the call. having been from pennsylvania, i know that you can only vote in the primary if you are registered in that party. guest: you made an important point. americans need to be involved in making elections more secure and they can play a part by checking their voter registrations that us prior to going to the polls. host: bob is next in pennsylvania, also from pennsylvania. caller: thank you for c-span. i have two points if you will let me get them in. first, they said russia did not change the number of the election, but we don't know that because propaganda gets into your mind and you don't know how your mind is set. you hear enough lives -- enough lies and you start to believe them. that is one of the problems in our country, people believing too many lies.

the second point i would like to make is until we change the electoral system and make every vote in america count, right now we have had two presidents are by the minority, and that is not a democracy. it needs to be changed where every vote counts. if one party gets one more vote than the other, the whole state goes to that person. that does not make sense but that is my point. i thank you so much for c-span. host: but is a different topic for a different day, on the electoral college but if you want to weigh in, feel free. guest: i want to weigh in on the first part about not changing a vote. we are talking about technically within the voter registration databases and systems in florida, i think what you are speaking to is the disinformation campaign by

where in 2016 and that is they are going online through social media channels, choosing the most vice of topics and trying to pull the two signs farther apart. is thing they are good at taking divisions in this country and exacerbating them. point to flag for viewers, that when you are on social media and you are taking in information, think about the source that this information is coming from and make sure you are comfortable sharing that, taking that on board as fact. host: let me go back to one other point from your report. liz howard, you concluded that russian hackers penetrated computer networks in two specific counties in florida. we have in pennsylvania, no paper ballots and two key with whatn florida

the russian actors were able to get into. liz: this is a concern. election officials are working too hard in their systems against attack. i think right now, there are a few machines in florida that not have a paper trail and officials told us they are moving to purchase new equipment so that every single ballot in florida has a paper trail which is really a failsafe. in the event of any interference by russia or any other foreign nationstate, we can always go back to that paper trail and we can confirm that the results are accurate. host: those two counties are? liz: i don't know. that there is no evidence vladimir putin is directly behind this, or is there? guest: rachel can speak to this better as to whether or not the intelligence community hazarded has -- community has identified

that putin is involved. but the mother testimony makes clear is that russia and other foreign nationstates targeted us in 2016 and are coming back in 2020. other companies that manufacture these software -- guest: i cannot recommend specific vendors but there are a variety of vendors that provide election databases and the actual voting machines. these are all vendors that need to be working in lockstep with state and local officials and federal officials to make sure these security measures are what we need. host: when i vote in virginia, i hand them a ballot, it goes into a machine and then that ballot is kept where? when you initially cast it, it is kept at the polling location with all the other paper ballot.

generally there is a container that looks somewhat like a trashcan connected to the tabulator. those ballots are then centralized at the locality level in virginia and then they are retained by the local point of clerk. host: if there is a recount, how do you make sure those ballots are secure and not tampered with? guest: they are kept at the locationch is a secure and in virginia we have a lot of experience with handling paper ballots and that is one of the areas where the senate intelligence report indicates all states need to look at whether they are paper handling procedures to make sure those theappropriate to retain chain of custody for all the ballots. from michigan, we go to henry next. caller: good morning. confluence of events

with trump's racist tweets and now we know what those secret meetings that trump has had with vladimir putin were all about. they were about taking this election in 2020. vladimir putin knows american history. he knows that the supreme court has recently had challenges from the trump administration to kill the voting rights act which has to be renewed every few years, and it has been killed effectively. what filthy donald and moscow mitch and their confederate constituencies are doing right now, they are taking advantage of the advantage they now have. host: a short couple of minutes. from north to phil dakota on our republican line. caller: nice talking to you again.

contesta trump bashing or is this about our security? id's, they don't want people to prove who they are. most of the trouble for our elections is inside this country. if people are dumb enough to listen to stuff they find on these websites, most of that stuff is garbage. why don't we just go back to id's and paper ballots and make everyone say -- proof of the are when they vote? host: we are talking about election security, not the influence that outside actors could have on social media or news sites. liz: i agree with the point that we should use paper ballots in our elections and for that matter, president trump agrees and has indicated his support for paper ballots as well. host: will we get there? guest: we need the senate to

decide the medicine -- the messaging -- put aside the partisan messaging and come together on how they can support the states and the federal agencies responsible for this. host: why has this become a partisan issue, something that many would say is pretty simple. let's make sure the states have the tools they need. where is the political jockeying? that is in washington right now, particularly around russian interference in 2016 but what i can tell you is that the bipartisan senate intel report that was released last week clearly outlines what russia's interference efforts were on the election security front and makes solid recommendations for how to combat that. host: the website, securingdemocracy.org. rachael wilson, working people follow you? liz howard, the website is brennancenter.org.

will we get there in 2020? guest: i think we can. i think we can. there is an opportunity for republicans and democrats to come together for state funding for election security. i think that goes to the whole point to make sure we are in control of the elections. host: you get the last word. guest: i agree. if the senate will agree to give federal funding to states to secure their at a election security in 2020 come i think we will have a fair shot. host: thank you both. guest: thank you. host: the president has been to the this morning, and last night at the host ofng saying he hasds,"

not gotten it done, and the president saying "how can he get it done when he just wants to use his oversight committee to hurt innocent people and divide our country." that is from our president, @realdonaldtrump. taking aim at the so-called squad, four democratic freshmen lawmakers that have been getting a lot of media attention. what do you think? you can tell us about these four representatives, aoc, alexandria ocasio-cortez, representative tlaib, representative omar, representative pressley. we are back in a moment. ♪ >> i was on an airstrip in the remote jungles of diana, having

delegation tour with then congressman o'ryan, and we were shot, congressman ryan was shot and died on that airstrip. members of the press died, when defector of the people's temple died, and i was shot five times on the right side of my body. "q&a," democratic congresswoman jacky spear talks about her memoir, some in anchorage, and fighting back. speier: when people say it was a mass suicide come it was not a mass suicide. drink thisorced to toxic brew by jones, and he had many of his guards surrounding the billion, i am sure to make sure people did as they were told. >> tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span's "q&a."

monday night on "the communicators," ohio a onesentative bob leht communications and technology, talks about recent actions taken by the government regarding the tech industry. latta: when you think about the 50 billion robo calls made every year and this country, it will hopefully provide relief to american citizens. it is important, because a lot have districts in front of the top stations that people contact me about, it is also the top issue that the fcc and the ftc receive every year is about robo calls. >> watch "the communicators" monday night at 80 soon -- 8:00 eastern on c-span2. "washington journal" continues. host: this is the headline from

the "washington post," is the president stepping up his divisive rhetoric as the president slams baltimore and representative elijah cummings. the sweet yesterday morning, "representative elijah cummings has been a brutal bully, when actually has baltimore district is far ,angerous and more dangerous considering the worse in the usa, so sad that he has been able to do so little for the people in baltimore. statistically, baltimore ravens lasted almost every major category jury he has done nothing but milk baltimore. he is calling it a disaster, rat infested," that is from the president yesterday. look at a series of tweets in recent weeks, when the president is taking aim at

so-called squad, and here is carole king, the host of "michigan matters" in detroit your thanks for being with us. guest: steve, it is so great to talk with you. in with want to check reporters from those four representative districts, members of congress of the , of course one of them in your district, representative atlaib. how is that playing out in your area? guest: the squad is getting a but of press nationally, much as younot as might think, and ironically, tlaib has been helped by republicans. in 2012, then republican thernor rick snyder and republican legislator redistricted the area, and she was pitted against another popular democrat, whom she narrowly defeated, and in 2018,

when john conyers left after 53 detroit,is area of there were so many african-american candidates running against her, she squeaks through, and then she won that. tlaib, certainly she is smart, she is not allergic to work, but her politics and policies are not in line with michigan, which is certainly much more moderate. detroit mayor mike duggan, who has been an open early supporter of jill biden, and wayne county and macomb county executives, warren evans and mark capital. much mores is moderate, if you will, and -- butly her policies another thing you can always take as a sign of someone's might. is money. upey is the mother's milk

politics, as we know your fundraising is interesting. republicanwo other freshmen women, haley stevens and swanson feared haley has raised over $1.3 million since january. she is a moderate and is the top raising from minor in the country who is not from california or new york. is lagging behind about $120,000. the progressive views she has are not quite in line with a lot of the democrats here, so it will be an interesting 2020. host: in trying to get a sense of the politics of the state, i know we talked to you in mid, 2016: i remember vividly that you said michigan could go either way, you thought donald trump could when the state, and of course did when, between 10,000 to 11,000 votes. with michigan being so pivotal in 2020, how the national election, the presidential election will play out as president trump seeks

seeks to unseat michiganders in this column. progressive candidate will hurt their chances in michigan, because the fact that there is a more moderate line here. but mother president trump 2016, clinton did not come here, and that was very telling. waslast place he visited grand rapids, michigan, before he won the whole election. rashida certainly, she will have an interesting time in 2020 as well. the same thing at this point, they are running other candidates against her, raising a hand on the democratic side. there are a bunch of african-american candidates as well. as for donald trump, he will keep talking about the squad, because it is playing to his base, those residents in macomb county, where, again, ronald macomb, playing to

his base your we expect to see a lot of canada's between now and 2020, that is for certain. host: that you had a chance to talk to representative tl aib? as she talked about being a target, making them a phase of the democratic party, especially if you watch fox news and others. guest: no doubt about it. i know she is doing talk shows, but no doubt about it, they are playing the face of thisthe squad as the democratic party. there is a reason the democratic party picked michigan to have the debates. it is a huge state, it is a swing state, and the fact that it went for donald trump and 20 6 a.m. tells you all the you need to know. host: regards to the bait, carol cain, what are you looking forward to hearing?

guest: things that matter here, certainly a conversation about manufacturing and education, but i know everyone will be waiting to see what happens between and joe biden and what happens with bernie and everyone else, and it is just going to be an interesting dynamic, and certainly the old chinese proverb is going to be playing out in the motor city this week. host: people can follow your work at cbs is right. detroit. cain, we love checking in with you. guest: thank you so much, steve. host: talking about the squad, the four freshman representative , the president taking aim at them. representative pelosi going after some of the tweets by president trump, it is as friday, house speaker pelosi was asked about her meeting with one of those members, alexandria ocasio-cortez.

democrats from the new york city area-[video clip] speaker: i do not think there was any hatchet. >> well she called you down right -- let me just say this, because i have some level actual joy inand seeing diversity in our caucus. we are the democratic already. ever since i came here, we have been engaged in differences of opinion in our caucus, and that is a good thing. we are not a lockstep, rubberstamp representation of anything except representatives of our district and what that means. so in our caucus, we have our differences. respect that, instead of making a big issue of it, respect that. those are our differences in how we express ourselves as representatives of our district and our responsibility. i have never seen actually, like yesterday we had 219 votes for

the bill. is anyone asking many questions about that? caucus, in unified doing what we needed to do for the american people, although it was a compromise. certainly wanted more, but it was a compromise. when we win the white house and we when the united states senate and we continue to win the house of representatives, and we will have more leverage in the conversation, but i would never even say that it was a hatchet, but i do think that we have to -- we got out today, we had a good meeting. the congresswoman is a very gracious member of congress, so we had a very positive conversation about our districts and how we represent them, our country, and how we need to meet the needs some of the diversity of america and the challenges we

face in terms of issues and immigration and people are respected. host: that is from house speaker nancy pelosi, so what do you think of the squad? our phone lines are open. this is a tweet from one viewer who says representative tlaib represents detroit, calling it "the toilet," complete democratic control, calling it a crime, poverty, roach-and le, while she spends most of her time worrying about the well-being of illegals. good morning and welcome to the program. caller: good morning. thank you for having me on. i have two comments. one is that every time we get into a discussion, it is all about race. i am a black man from mississippi. it is not about race.

when you talk about voter a view, why can't we have voter id, we have voter id to get to the library. why is that a racist topic? trump is right. i am voting for truck. i'm voting for him in 2020. there is nothing racist about that. he is right. blacks want to talk about what is going on in detroit, this and this, but tell me, why are we killing our own babies. is that racist? i want people to step back and look. this lady, omar, if she wants to go back to somalia -- host: thanks for the call could we go to matt in ohio on the democrats line. good morning, matt. caller: good morning. fullmment is i watched the mueller testimony, very close to seven hours, and the thing is,

this president has obstructed this institution of democracy, because what you have done is he a steamcally created for his buddies, and he has ripped us off, you know. he does everything, you know, just for himself, because the thing is, he is probably doing so many business deals in russia and other countries that we don't even know about. it will release his taxes. he lies all the time, you know, and he plays on our worst instincts, you have. i think this has been one of the es,t corrupt presidenci and, uh, it has been one of the most corrupt in ministrations i have ever seen, you know. host: we will go to frank next in selma, alabama, independent line here your view on what they are calling the squad. caller: that is right.

good morning, america. and i just want to say, as a selma alabama native, i have watched the democratic party for years, i have loved them. however, they have no backbone, they have no guts, and i have been a practicing independence since the 1970's, since the ford administration. i supported john anderson, when john anderson ran as an independent candidate. i was also on the committee for ross perot, when we went into our national convention in gettysburg. we are tired of the democratic party not standing up and sticking up for what we truly stand for, the democracy of so much and thank you for taking my call. host: thank you. we will go to morgan in reading, pennsylvania, democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span.

everyone knows that the attack on the four congresswoman was racist and bigoted. wh he is still a racist ore-monger. the united states senate will not stand up for what is right. that is all i have to say. exposed -- trump has exposed the republicans for the immoral garbage they are in the christian church for the immoral garbage they are, not standing up for this man. thank you very much. host: we will go to a next in lancaster, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to say, first of all, i did not vote for president trump, but whether he reads the bible or not, god put authority,rs of whether it is president trump or his squad, to carry out his plan, and until they finish the

plan, they will still be in power and will not be deposed. thank you. host: thank you. karen from winterhaven, florida, good morning. caller: good morning. i just think that mr. trump, you know, in his racist way, he is trying to go after these women, but it is because of their support of the green new deal. they know the green new deal would bring jobs to their area in solar and then went power, so if he can bring that down on a racist level, then he can discredit the green new deal. thank you. host: thank you. from arkansas, richard, good morning. you are next. caller: good morning, steve. it has been a while since i called. host: like to hear from you. caller: i like to consider omar, i mean, she did take the oath of office to uphold the constitution of the united states, in which there is freedom of religion, which she enjoys in this country.

however, she is also a firm believer of the koran. and the koran, there is no other religion. it is not tolerated, period. you are an infidel if you do not believe in the koran. therefore she did one of two things. she is either denouncing the teachings of the koran, or she flat out lied when she took the oath of office. you cannot have it both ways. is out there,p just remember, you, cortez, you, steve, we are all infidels, and i will not change, because the koran has not changed. host: richard, thank you for the call. massachusetts representative ayanna pressley in a recent news conference responded to the criticism by president trump. [video clip] rep. pressley: despite the occupant of the white house's attempts to marginalize us and

to silence us, please know that we are more than four people. we ran on admitted to advocate for and represent those ignored, left out, and left behind. our squad is big. includes any person committed to building a more equitable and just world, and that is the work that we want to get back to. and given the size of this squad in this great nation, we cannot, we will not be silenced. host: that from representative ayanna pressley. joining us on the phone is damien fisher, covering all of this for the "new york daily news." as we look at the squat in particular, representative alexandria ocasio-cortez. thank you for being with us on c-span. we appreciate it. guest: thanks for having me. host: give us a sense of the political strength or lack thereof at aoc has every freshman member in her district and what potentially she will face next year. guest: well, i think she has got

great, you know, she has got a lot of strength from the support in the district. district,% hispanic and although the hispanic vote is not uniform, i think that the have not's statements won him any allies there, and she came out and 1 in a townhome meeting and made much about his statements being racist, and i think that that is just sort of galvanized for supporting the district. you also have to take into account that we're talking about an extremely strong democratic enrollment in both the bronx and where her district is split, and we are talking about in queens alone, it is around 700,000 democrats to less than

100,000 republican voters. bronx, there are about 555,000 democrats to 40,000 republicans, so it is overwhelmingly democrat. she has very little to worry about as far as reelections. there are not a bunch of republican challengers that have appeared. host: let me ask you about the meeting that took place on officeand the speaker's tweeting out a photo of representative alexandria ocasio-cortez, and a speaker, as we heard, saying "there is no hatchet to bury." thatignificant was meeting, and how is it playing out in the new york city area? isst: it shows that she still a democrat, she is still in the fold, you know, i think more than the republicans, she would have to worry about her popularity among democrats.

rumored toe has been -- or at least her group has been rumored to want to launch primary challengers on hakeem jeffries in the bronx. been some talk about lodging primaries against other democrats, congressional democrats. needs, who isgory the head of the queens it goesic party, said both ways, in other words, you try to primary me, i will primary you. so that is really what she has to worry about more than a challenge from the republicans. host: we're talking with janon fisher, the politics editor for "new york daily news." tweet fromhow you a

one of our viewers who writes the following, "it is a three-member squad now. aoc is the virtual speaker of the house after friday's summit with nancy pelosi." have you ever seen a freshman representative have this much influence this early? guest: know, i have not. i think that, to me, it showed foldshe is still in the with nancy pelosi. i took it more to be that nancy pelosi has sort of brought her to heel a little bit and less so that she is the head of the democratic party. talking points a for republicans more than it is in actuality. nancy pelosi said "you have four votes. that's it. for votes." i think that is a way of position, her

power, but she has got a bullet public, and she is using it, but the power of uh, twitter can be overstated, and i am not sure that you know, it anythingwith actionable, that there is real power behind that. host: there were early reports about the delay in setting up in dealing with constituents that matters. has that been resolved? been sete offices have up coming yes, but there are still some issues with constituent services. unlike other representatives, covering alexandria ocasio-cortez is very difficult. she does not talk to the local press. she does not reach out. ut where hernd o appearances are in the district is a mystery. she is accessible only on social media, but if you try to find out where her meetings are, her

public appearances are, i know that she has had some death threats, and some of her staffers have had threats, however, as unelected representative, she has to find that balance between safety, security, and also being a public figure, and i do not think they have found that balance yet. they are extremely difficult to deal with. they try to limit the press that does go to some of her townhall meetings and public appearances. photographers have bee banned -- not banned, but not allowed into her public events. it is not unusual for us to not get any response to requests for comment or just basic information about things that she is doing in the district. host: have you had a chance to sit down and talk with her and discuss her first few months in office? guest: so far, she has refused to meet with "the daily news."

we have sent several overtures, reached out several times to her press people, but she, uh, i do not know what she is afraid of, but she does not want to have anything to do with us so far. politicson fisher, the editor from "new york daily news," joining us from queens on alexandria ocasio-cortez. thank you. guest: thank you. four your opinion on the freshman representatives, three of the four born in the u.s. representative omar born in somalia, immigrating to the u.s.. john on the democrats line, your reaction to all of this. caller: well, i do not like the squad. i have never voted republican in my life. am strongly for gun control, i am strongly for abortion rights, climate control, everything the

democrats stand for, but these women are cancer. i am in labor. i vote for labor. these women that want to open borders or anyone that one to open borders, these people that are coming in are going to take your jobs. believe it. they are going to take your jobs. they are not going to take white-collar jobs, they are going to take blue-collar jobs, and these women support open and the democrat party supports open borders, and i have never voted republican in my life. i cannot stand trump, and i cannot believe i'm going to have to vote trump, because i will not support open borders. that is my number one issue. i do not support open borders. they are killing the middle-class, labor, they killed labor unions, and as long as the ,emocrats support open borders and the is for women or a perfect example of it, they have loved my vote, and i have never voted republican in my life, and i cannot believe i'm going to

vote for republicans. host: john, thank you, from outside syracuse, new york. and this from the president yesterday shortly before 430 eastern time, he wrote "the dems are now coming out of shock from the terrible mueller performance and are now starting to spin and peace many ganter how second bad for our country are they? but they do it anyway. dems have become the do-nothing party." lisa on the republican line, good morning. caller: good morning. i am just calling because as far as the squad goes, they need to take their place, they just got in, and they have gotten in all this trouble. first of all, they took an oath to our country, and they are doing nothing in our country. they want me to vote in every other area except for us. second of all, i think it is terrible that they talk about the president all the time, when he is president. regardless of whether you like them or not, he is the president, so you should shut your mouth. we do not always get we want a

in office, but we have this squad that was to break us up. and open borders, nobody wants open borders, i have never heard that, they are coming in and telling us what to do. i don't think so. they need to put their time and before they start giving their opinions. that is where i say -- that is what i have got to say in providence. thank you. host: lisa, thank you for your call. the white house releasing a the trunkt they said, campaign uses it as a target in 2020. [video clip] she pleaded for compassion for isis recruits attempting to join the terrorist organization. >> representative elect 11 or omar has already made her first move. she asked a district judge for

compassion when sentencing nine minnesota somali-american men convicted of trying to join the terrorist group isis. pres. trump: and she looks down with contempt on the hard-working american, saying that ignorance is pervasive in many parts of this country. ignorance is very pervasive in this country. alsos. trump: and tlaib use the f word to describe the president. rep. tlaib: [beep] [applause] >> you guys are crazy! ♪ she thinks that people with the same skin tone all need to think the same. she said "we do not need any more brown faces that do not want to be brown voices. brown faces that

are not want to be brown voices. can you imagine if i said that? rep. pressley: we do not need brown face that is not want to be around voice. ortez said illegal immigrants are more american than any person who seeks to keep them out ever will be. can you believe that? :ep. alexandria ocasio-cortez but the women and men with nothing on the shirt on their back are acting more american than any person who seeks to keep them out ever will be. if that is radical, call me a radical. distorted] down and call me a radical. call me a radical. host: that from the trump campaign, and "time magazine" as

the cover story "whose party is it? the answer will determine trump's fate." your view of the squad. john is joining us from saint augustin, florida, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. montage,n see from the it seems clear that the house is a mess, and trump needs to keep focusing on them, and i think it will be good for him. host: thank you. we will go to mike here in washington, d.c. good morning, mike. caller: i want to say quickly that, yeah, it works central's favor, alln trump's the residue is keeping the nail on the head. of sarah palin, because she is very well insulated, and she never goes anywhere that she is going to be challenged, because if you listen to the comments she makes, they make no sense at all, and some of them she has even retracted and says "hey, i

may not get all the facts correct, but my heart is in the right place." that is not the way to conduct business. he is going to do great. i did not know her district is that most democrats. so having that amount of democrats where she is commodity not think anybody on the other side is going to be able to challenge her and get her out of there, but they do not have any power, and i think it is working in trunk's favor. magazine,""time "ilhan omar is already at home in the heart of a community in minnesota." good morning. caller: i am sorry i misspoke with the screener. i am a republican. it was probably done by the media, and to me, the label is dismissive, and this plays into arenarrative that people

afraid of others who are different, even before they have listened to what someone has to say. thank you for the call. ruth, you are next from jackson, mississippi. good morning. caller: good morning. i have been listening, and it is very interesting, uh, conversation going on. "the squad," as they call them, are different from what they are used to, and anything that is different will be given inane, and they gave them "the squad" name. they did not ask for that name, and i think people do not understand what is going on with trump, but that is ok. they are going to get some stuff from trump that they ain't going to want. and all these people calling and talking about their point of over trump, i want them to go ahead and vote for trump, because you get just what you deserve from trump. host: and by the way, represent the labor -- representative

c-span radio and also our programming available on the free c-span radio app. from minneapolis, st. paul is the political reporter for "the star tribune," terry ventas. thank you for being with us. guest: hi. thanks for having me. host: talk about representative omar. can you talk about her rise? reallyyes, she entered in 2016 when she delivered a long time -- defeated a longtime incumbent from someone who had been serving the state house for a long, long time, and that election is one of the first somali-american women elected to the state legislature nationwide. raise her profile.

last year, representative keith ellison decided not to run for reelection. generalor attorney instead, which he has been elected to and serving in the seat. victorywoman omar reach in that seat with 70% of the vote. host: there has been a lot of attention for go ahead, i am sorry. guest: i was going to say she became very well-known and got a lot of attention after that election, being one of the first refugees elected to congress, one the first muslims elected to congress, and one of the first somali-americans elected to congress. her brother and how he got here from somalia, can you go over fact versus fiction? guest: there are rumors that congresswoman omar had a marriage to a man that she may

have been related to for unspecified and immigration campaign oning the anonymous message boards and in conservative media. the congresswoman said she had a marriage to a man who she edifies as a british citizen in during what she called it did not pass, her longtime father and husband of her three children that her longtime husband and father of her three children. some sort of family relationship between the two, we have not had heract with the man who was legal husband. this all caps on recently find -- thistate

all caps a to light recently because the campaign finance board acknowledged that the congresswoman had paid an taxrney for fees related to filing issues,, that she had paid taxes when she was married to this other man. she is says that these are rumors meant to hurt and smear her. but the husband now she is married to, she was briefly married to another man. she said she divorced him and her faith tradition before reuniting with her current husband, but they did not legally get divorced at the time. host: we are talking with torey van oot, political reporter for "the star tribune." give us the politics of her congressional district and how the national attention, the tweets by the president is playing out in minneapolis. guest: so the congressional

district here in minneapolis is an overwhelmingly democratic districts, overly blue in the state and the region for years and years. it also have a very high turnout. downtown minneapolis is young millennials. immigrant and refugee populations, the twin cities suburbs. thely educated someone of most diverse district in the state, and it is young. the median age is 34. as i mentioned before, congresswoman omar defeated a long-term incumbent. has a strong base of support. she won 78% of the vote in 2018. and we have seen the president's really is her supporters 100y around her, and over

supporters flocked to the airport to welcome her with a rally, cheering and singing and chanting "welcome home" and other messages of support. hall, on health care, she was greeted with a standing ovation, which is not typically what you see at a town hall on policy issues. so she is seeing strong support from her district. of course, it is not uniform. you know, republicans have continued to be very critical of whistledesswoman, and into constituents who are frustrated with the attention in some way, you know, they want her to be focused on the district, you know, and not in this kind of national fight that she has found herself in with trump, whether she wants to be or not. host: is she accessible to you and others in the media?is she accessible to her constituents ? guest: she does a number of events with her constituents. she is frequently posting on , towards ofotos

local landmarks. advises not tend to many of those to the media, so we are not always aware of them or at them. -- that she has come up with this year, whether it is questions about her marriage in previous tax filings or comments earlier this year surrounding comments the congresswoman made that were criticized by members on both sides of the aisle. she is also different to a written statement in those cases versus an interview, that we have found out the "star is certainly she has certainl out and about in the district, if you follow her instagram. host: and finally, she is lumped in with representative alexandria ocasio-cortez and

representative ayanna pressley and representative rashida tlaib. so how does this all come about, as the reporter following representative omar's career and her now affiliation, friendship, working partnership with her three freshmen colleagues? guest: yeah, i mean, that is not surprise me. noted, all freshmen, similar politics and policies, support. some of them in a similar age range, all very kind of social media savvy. i am not surprised that those members, you know, have kind of stuck together were formed this bond. congresswoman omar, when she was in the state legislature, developed strong ties and relationships kin with kind of similarly young, social media savvy members. host: torey van oot, "star tribune" political reporter,

joining us from minneapolis, st. paul. her work available at startribune.com. we thank you for being with us. guest: thank you. host: back to your phone calls and your view of "the squad," mike is joining us. good morning. caller: good morning. it proves how pathetic trump is, attacking for freshmen congresswomen. think about like in high school, a football player attacking the other team's cheerleaders and thinking they are going to win. and the other day, trump was talking about how they will not fight for their country. well, it seems to me that i he had bone spurs, and he could not fight for his country, so what is he talking about? this president is the most pathetic person on the planet. he is out for himself. he is not for anybody but himself, and that is the way it is going to be. and if any people think it is going to be any different, it is just going to get worse.

he cannot get better. it will not get better. he is a loser, that is what he is. host: we will go to tom in sussex, new jersey, republican line. good morning, tom. caller: hi, how are you doing? youfine, -- host: fine, thank you. caller: first of all, trump is not a republican. he is an outsider. he is looking to start a bunch of trouble, and guess what he is doing? he is starting it. the democrats really basically have picked of their people. i do not know what to say about it. it is like, you know, they think that, you know, this is going to work for them, and maybe it will. i don't know. i don't see it. so that is what i see, you know, i mean, all right, but i. -- bye-bye. host: thank you, tom. let's go to drew in the city. what part of the city are you

from, drew? caller: i am from melbourne and. host: ok. go ahead. squad as a result of what happened with barack obama with the tea party. what is the first thing they do? they look at your race. obama, mr. trump wanted him to be a one term president. all of the republican party's sat on their hands because this black man was president, so now we talk about race? listen, i am going to tell you honestly, the squad is a great inability of white democrats to fight back. white democrats don't fight back. they want to play nice. republicans don't play nice. white democrats -- it is like

the good cop, bad cop thing. why black people follow him, i don't know why, because there is no good cop, bad co, they right? cops come all the democrats play on good cop. "don't worry, we have got your best interests at heart." look at their fellow white minute ago "don't worry, i will keep them in line." host: this is from kk, who we have not heard from in a while, "trump is going after the squad, pissing off every damn woman as well." .ending us a tweet @cspanwj send us a tweet. we will read it. good morning. caller: i have it, but i will use "squad," it is just a sea change.

said a need to wait their turn fear to that of the politics of nancy pelosi. she has been doing it ever since. the president, unfortunately, when he gets his back against the wall, and your previous caller just said, you look at someone's race, you look at their gender, you start using sexist, racist, bigoted terms when you are lashing out, it is kind of like the tammany hall approach to the white house. i think that if the election sprays like it had been, then aoc, look what she did. the incumbent, who pretty much was going to be ordained as the next speaker, from a very powerful city, right across the lines. and it is a generational difference. the guy from the "new york

daily," guess what, folks? no one is reading your paper anymore, unless you are over 50 years old. same with the "tribune," the lady with the "tribune," no one is home with a landline phone answering calls. i have got a neighbor, she has already got called 12 times, because she have a landline phone. she is in the system. not a person in my neighborhood, so i am telling you, that generation, bernie sanders, uncle joe, they are all about the politics of "wait your turn," and they have been telling us stuff for so long -- and republicans! and these folks, the aoc group, they know that they have something, and they can affect our. -- power. and you are right when you have seen this, "have you ever seen freshmen coming to power, and a person of color grab influence so easily?"

they have got to our three ceo's resigned from the company after the interview them, and people do not want to believe it, including the media, who are worried that their days of people reading the newspapers -- it is just, it is gone. it is gone. host: we will leave it there. thank you very much for the call. joining us in washington is laura krantz. washingto politics for the boston globe." ayanna pressley, give us a sense of her rise in your district. guest: thank you for having me. well-knownsley was in boston here she was on the city council for about nine years before she ran for congress, and she was the first woman of color to be on it at a time when it was predominately white men and sort of paved the way for the new

generation of women of color who now sir. i believe there are six now on the council out of 13, so she really was sort of the first to start to diversify the council in boston, and now has an even greater following after she ran for congress. she defeated, as you know, a longtime incumbent in the primary, and that is why she is now in congress. and to follow the massachusetts delegation and her role in the delegation, how much support, what are her friendships like, what are the interactions like among her fellow colleagues in the house and the senators? guest: yeah, so, within the delegation, she had good relationships with the other members. think they are definitely also sort of waiting to see how she will move forward. she obviously has gained a lot of notoriety, publicity as part of "the squad," and i think

there is, among the other members, sort of a wait-and-see approach as to how she will conduct herself. she is the least controversial of the four, it seems, and appears to be trying to work more with the other members of the house, perhaps a little bit more, probably just because she has more political experience, being on city council, and understanding the value of cooperating and collaborating with other members, so i think while they all have a good relationship within the delegation, i think the other members who have been there longer are waiting to see if she will continue to, um, you know, go more of the social media route or really sort of dig in and start filing bills and working with other lawmakers, which she has, she has done,

especially in the past week, she has quite a few pieces of legislation that have gotten attention. based on laura krantz, that, she joined her fellow three freshmen colleagues earlier this month, covered by the c-span networks, but how to shave you being affiliated, being associated with the so-called "squad," as they are being called in washington, by the president and others? guest: i think she embraces it fully, but she does not see it as prohibiting her also from working as what you might call the more traditional route in the congress. i think she thinks it is possible to be outspoken and, um, you know, stand up for the things that she believes in and not sort of break with tradition here in washington, but she does not see those two things as mutually exclusive, if that makes any sense. host: laura krantz covers

politics for "the boston globe," a busy day friday as well covering the pool results, so for that in your comments this morning, we appreciate you being with us. guest: thank you for having me. call,back to your phone we go to glenn joining us from lancaster, california, republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. what a squat and so many other democrats are confused about, we are a constitutional republic, representative republic. they are supposed to represent the people of the united states. they took an oath to the constitution, which they don't care about. there is such racism. i have brown skin, and i am not an immigrant, but i am a native american, a proud member of the cherokee nation, and every time these representatives get up and say that "we are all immigrants," no, we are not all immigrants. and, yes, our inner cities are

rat-filled, there is bubonic plague running around the streets of l.a., they don't even talk about. they do not represent the people. and it is sad, the show right here says we are a democracy. we are not a democracy. we are a constitutional representative republic. we should have an hour-long show about it! democrats, not republicans, a constitutional representative republic. host: thank you for the call. rump has this tweet -- "if t really wants to unseat the four congresswomen, as representative ayanna pressley says?" good morning. caller: good morning. good morning, i am an 82-year-old life democrat, and i have been waiting for a long time for the squad to come along. host: why is that? caller: it is about time the

democratic party had some guts and did something. i tell you what, trump and putin, they know how to divide this country, get a race war started. that is what they are trying to do. putin wants to drop a hydrogen bomb and tear this country apart. he has called them everything from socialist to communist, and you know what people in south carolina call black people, don't you? i will get off the air. host: thank you. we will go to chris in silver spring, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. i think trump is refining his tweets, go back to your home district, go back to your homes, make a difference, you know? some of the worst areas in the

country are run by democrats, you know, that is the truth. i think, i can even take the message a step up from democrats, it takes it from slavery to segregation and now the slums. thank you. host: thank you. jan at this tweet, "i think there is a lot of hair on fire about the squad, but only people who pay attention to politics and people who watch the "washington journal." " andrew, you are next. good morning. caller: yes, they need to do what they was elected to do, serve the people of america, and other cells. -- not their selves. and if they cannot do that, they do not need to be up there in office and in washington, d.c. host: and the back-and-forth between the president and the used for freshman representative, what are your thoughts? caller: well, put it this way, if they do not like america,

then they do not need to be over here. there is to is all it. it is about what they are supposed to be up there doing. host: thanks for the call. we go to marry in denver, colorado. good morning, mary. caller: good morning. , and i'm calling to say i think the squad are wonderful people. they had the courage to run for office. youngre representing people, they are representing immigrants, they are representing people of color, they are representing america, and they are talking about essential issues, like climate and workd medical care for all people and college debt. they represent the youth of our country. i am 81 years old. i am all for them. i know my grandchildren have a

tougher time than i have ever had in this democracy. i am very pleased to represent them. thank you. host: mary, thank you. we want to go back to this headline from the "washington post," "the president steps up and thesive rhetoric," team reporting, including ashley parker, "calling a prominent black congressman's baltimore district a disgusting rat and rodent infested mess, and saying no human being would want to live there. the attack on twitter to congressman elijah, next, who is the chair of the house oversight committee, this past week regarding the situation along the border. to all of you, for your calls and comments, thank you for a lesser being with us. a reminder, "newsmakers" is next. tomorrow, c-span's "washington journal" at 7:00 a.m. eastern is stanfordining us

milani, stephen, the cofounder and research director of the institute for statecraft and research scholar at columbia university. that is tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m.. think you for joining us on this sunday. hope you enjoy the rest of your day. enjoy the week ahead. >> here is what is on c-span this morning. newsmakers is next. the ranking member on the climate