he talks about the rising deficit and the state of the u.s. economy ♪ host: good morning, everybody. we will begin with front-page news that prime minister benjamin netanyahu has already d two congresswomen from visiting israel. republicans dial in at 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. and independence, -- independents, 202-748-8002. we will get to your calls in a minute. let's begin with the washington post. thisis how they frame it,

is their headline, israel denies entry to reps omar and tlaib. followed unusual intervention by the president who advisors say is trying to sow divisions by shining a spotlight on its most liberal members. in the new york times, they frame it this way. by enlisting a foreign power to take action against two american citizens, mr. trump crossed a line others have not, exporting his partisan battles between -- and he demonstrated the length see will go to target domestic opponents. the president yesterday sending out several tweets about this. in one of his tweets, he said

the following, it would show great weakness it israel allowed the represented haves to visit. they hate israel and all jewish people and there can be nothing that could be said done to change their mind. for a campaign rally yesterday, this is what the president had to say. [video clip] the need tou feel get involved in the two congresswomen's trip to israel? >> i am only involved in that they are very anti-jewish and anti-israel. i think it is disgraceful the things they said. what they have said about israel and jewish people is a horrible thing and they have become the face of the democrat party. i did absolutely put out a strong statement. if you look at their language and what they have said, if i said it, it would be a horrible

month, to put it mildly. the things they have said, omar, isib, what they said disgraceful. if they want to let them in, they can, but i don't -- can't imagine why they would do it. host: the reaction from the decision of the prime minister of israel by rashida to leave --tlaib. my tweeted this woman is city. i am who i am because of her. because theeakness truth of what is happening to palestinians is frightening. omar --tative ilhan deny entry to representatives of the u.s. government. trump's muslim ban is what israel is implement a.

denying entry not only limits our ability to learn from israelis, but enter's palace palestinian --r brutal realities of the occupation and aligned himself with islam of phobos like donald like donaldbes trump. the statement from benjamin netanyahu writing "as a free and vibrant democracy, israel is open to critics and criticism with one exception, israeli law prohibits the entry of those who work to impose boycotts on israel as to other democracies who prohibit the entry of people who seek to harm the country. in the past, the u.s. did this to other public figures from

around the world. are promoting the legislation of boycotts against israel in the american congress. a few days ago we received the itinerary for their visit, which revealed they plan to visit whose sole objective is to strengthen the boycott against .s and deny israel's legitimacy the organization funding their trip is an avid supporter of those who expressed support for terrorism against israel. as prime minister, i support the decision." thisashington post notes in their reporting from representative omar's office, one staffer told a reporter the representatives had meetings lined up with arab and jewish members as well as planned visits with current and former u.s. ambassadors. david freedom -- friedman and

dan shapiro. a democrat had visited israel through the same pro-palestinian group in recent years using the same itinerary and israel did not object. there is news this morning on this story, the associated press reporting the interior minister has received and granted a request by rashida tlaib to enter the west bank on humanitarian grounds. the minister -- she will not be allowed to enter into israel. your reaction to this story this morning. john in south carolina, republican. you are up first. good morning. i have got to punch the number. you are on now. caller: thank you. i did not know whether i was in early onset or what.

call.you for taking my this is an example of israel emphasizing this power. when it comes to president trump making a statement like that, he has free speech rights. this happens to be the first president that has gone to twitter or other avenues and expressed his opinion, which i am sure is the opinion of a lot of americans. after all, he is elected president. when it comes to israelis, they are always going to air on the on the caution -- err side of caution and i think they are trying to extend an olive branch by letting the congresswoman seek her grandmother -- see her grandmother.

i can see why they would not like them to come. they are selling the seeds of owinglism where ash -- s the seeds of socialism wherever they go. thanks for taking my call and god bless america. host: let me get your reaction to the new york times editorial, -israel he andn un-american. robustld a country with pluralistic democracy barr nonviolent visitors based on their political beliefs? i have to put a comparison of look at what we have done with cair.

it has many routes that go back to the muslim brotherhood and --eral members co-conspirators and we allow them to operate. if i had my choice, i would not let them operate in the united states because of what they have done and what they espouse. that is just me. host: i will leave it there and we will go to robert in kentucky. caller: good morning. i really think that israel dictates america's foreign policy throughout the middle east. whatever israel says, america will rebut and do. mr. trump does not like the congress ladies, he does not his representative omar and crowd shouted "go back to where they came from." she has been here as a citizen

longer than president trump's wife. i think the rhetoric is wrong. i think netanyahu should not be allowed to dictate foreign policy of america because these are duly elected representatives and they have a right to go and one sits on the foreign relations committee, she has a right to see how that money is spent when israel gets $4 billion yearly. something is wrong with that picture. host: the congressional research service at the beginning of this month put out a paper about aid to israel and they note -- you can find it if you go online, they write israel is the largest cumulative recipient of u.s. foreign assistance since world war ii. the united states provided inael 143 -- 142 .3 billion

bilateral assistance funding. from 1971 to 1997, received economic assistance. you should check that out for yourself. in california,d and independent. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. decision.th israel's israel is a sovereign nation, they have a right to decide who comes in our country, not to mention these two congresswomen communistemitic and and if you read the bible, it says if you bless israel, you will be blessed. if you curse israel, you will be cursed. i completely agree with trump

and netanyahu not letting them in. i don't even think they should serve in the u.s. congress, they should be removed for treason. host: the washington post notes omarsentatives tlaib and have said their criticisms are based on policy differences and repeatedly denied harboring animus toward jews or israelis. derek in maryland, good morning. fromr: that caller california was a typical far right idiot who knows nothing. host: let's not call people names. caller: i am sorry, we will talk about that chubby orange guy running the country. host: let's keep it -- caller: i won't say that either, even though he calls people names, but that is okay.

he goes around saying democrats hate jews. 74% of jewish americans disapprove of trump. is undernow netanyahu investigation. his wife is serving time for taking bribes. -- he goes trump around and says democrats hate jews. with this wrong country? these people don't care nothing about israel at all. let's not be caught up in this nonsense. we have next year, november, let's get rid of this guy. with the headline -- the legalhu

cloud over the prime minister's wife has no direct influence on corruption cases facing her husband. hannah in california, republican. caller: hi. i did not hear the whole show, so i don't know if anyone brought this up. when israel was willing to let them in, even knowing what their attitudes were toward israel and negative,h are very they asked them to tour israel and show how people got along together there and showed some of the upside of israel on an officials.ur with the women refused to tour anything with israeli officials, they would not cooperate with

that at all, they were not there to learn anything about israel or experience it firsthand. in my opinion, they were there basically to make trouble the same way they do here now -- this is my opinion, but i have done a lot of research on the internet about both of them and connections toas palestinian terrorists. there is a video i saw about her facebook friends. host: where do you see this and do you trust of the source? not -- i am not on facebook, so i was not able to go and check. it seemed -- i cannot know 100%, but they showed the facebook

page, they showed photographs of her with people who are known supporters of terrorism thanking her for helping her get elected. she does not make a secret about it. caller: -- host: the group she was going with and according to the washington post, they did plan to meet with israeli members of the legislative body there and that was on their agenda. they plant to go to israel. the group they are going with, that other members of congress have gone with to israel before organizationt headed by a palestinian lawmaker and longtime peace negotiator. let's go to ken in washington, d.c. an independent. caller: good morning.

the prior two callers were absolutely spot on. -- they are not necessarily one in the same because when you criticize israel, you are not criticizing criticizing israel and their policy, you are not criticizing every race and religion. ultimately, israel has been doing things that should be criticized for years, even in 1967 when they attacked the uss liberty and killed multiple sailors and torpedoed the ship and never apologized for years, that is neither here or there. when duly elected officials are trying to find how the money is spent -- israel is doing nothing

different than south africa did. the colonial mentality and then you make people that are oppressed or starved or hungry look like they are the bad guys and that is why you have this previous caller that spoke about the congresswoman being related to a terrorist organization or the first caller -- this is the 100 year memorial of people with killed throughout this entire country, but nothing has changed at all. it is unfortunate because i know you have to have a certain bias. it is really to see and listen and engage on what the mentality is, these people have absolutely, no sense of responsibility to other fellow americans or oppressed people. it is unfortunate. especially in a nation like this that does not adhere to those values. in. james, opinion

your reaction to the news this morning? caller: i agree with the last caller and we give israel aid. those people are represented by .he american people i can see this morning you have some kind of bias in allowing people to speak their opinion. you are a moderator. as long as no one is threatening anyone, they should have the right to say what they want against israel. said nelson mandela was a terrorist. states arethe united the only two countries that

continue to support apartheid -- this does not affect everybody the same, it is not personal to you, greta, because you are white. just like trump is saying and democrats pray to put up the number of represented ups who -- jewish and representatives who are jewish. these reps entered as have the right to say and do what they want to. cut the aid off to israel and they had -- they have the right to do what they want to. a large number of democrat representatives are jewish. in the republican party, how many do they have? a races using this as issue and he is going to make --ocratic voters not support

especially voters of color, not support the democratic party. these people have the right to say what they want. , fromon aid to israel that document, $3.3 billion in foreign military financing, of which $815 million is for offshore procurement. in migration refugee .ssistance again, interested, want to learn more? go to crs.gov. this put together by the congressional research service at the beginning of the month. frank in oklahoma, independent. good morning to you. let me see if i can try one more time. frank, are you there? caller: i am. host: all right.

go ahead. fair,: i know you are so but people are calling in in support of israel, you cut them off and ask them questions, don't let them make statements, but the people against israel and all that, you let them ramble on -- that was back in the 1940's, not in the 1960's. you don't check those people's comments. host: it is impossible to be a fact checker of everything goal -- single thing people say. caller: you sure seem to interrupt people in support of israel. maybe i have got it wrong. genesishapter 12 of said people who bless israel, he

will bless and people who curse israel will be cursed. if israel does not want people in there supporting the boycott and the deal, they are well within their rights. in fact, it is law that they cannot let those people in. it is not trump, it is not ofanyahu, it is the laws israel presenting -- preventing those people getting in there. that is about all i have got to say. if you don't believe the scriptures, curse israel and be cursed. the nations that curse israel will disappear from this planet in destruction in the very near future. host: frank in oklahoma and on the law passed two years ago, the new york times says the law was aimed at outspoken supporters of the boycott

divestment and sanctions movement who encouraged individuals and institutions to work to pressure israel to end the occupation of much of the tot bank, grant equality palestinian citizens of israel and allow them to return to the home in which they were displaced in 1948. hollis in illinois. caller: how are you doing? i wanted to make a comment. i don't know if people realize it, but the palestinians were the only ones who let the ship at certain points in europe. they talk about palestinians like they are about trying to destroy israel. they are trying to get their rights like anyone else. host: jean in texas. caller: thank you for taking my call. i want to say i am disappointed

in "washington journal." i used to go to "washington journal" because i could get an unbiased opinion on everything going on. lately, what i see and especially on this topic where trump makes a statement and all of a sudden you are bringing up all these things against trump that say it is his fault. i don't know if anybody can tell the prime minister of israel what to do. i think he will make his own decision and i do not agree with you. everything trump says, you are on him like all the other news media and i am very disappointed. orange, texas. joining us, scott long, senior staff writer the hill newspaper to talk about the members of congress wanting to visit israel.

anddid this trip come about talk about the other members of congress that have also visited israel during this congressional break. guest: good morning, greta. to be clear, there are two trips. the first trip was a much larger congressional delegation led by the majority leader, steny hoyer republican, and the leader, kevin mccarthy of california. they led 40 bipartisan lawmakers to israel last week. some of them are still there meeting with leaders of both israel and palestinian leaders. the trip was sponsored by education arm of the very powerful jewish lobby. clearly the two progressive women have had differences with

apac and decided not to go on that trip, which was available to all members of congress. the women decided they would travel themselves, sponsored by a palestinian organization this weekend. they were scheduled to head out to israel on sunday and that is where they ran into some trouble after president trump urged netanyahu to block entry to these very progressive, outspoken women. governmenthe israeli and the prime minister -- were they aware of the president's position before they sent out that tweet? guest: we don't have any direct knowledge of conversations between president trump and the palestinian -- the israeli president, netanyahu, but axios did report earlier this week that the president was communicating to his top

advisers that netanyahu should block both omar and tlaib from entering israel. certainly president trump's message was known and then yesterday morning as word started to get around that perhaps israel would make this move formal, president trump tweeted publicly urging netanyahu to block the two women from entering the country and shortly they are -- shortly thereafter, israel made the final decision the two women would not be allowed. , thebeing said, since then israeli government has heard a , whoion from rashida tlaib is a palestinian american, who requested a chance to visit her 90-year-old grandmother, who is

ailing, and said this would be her last chance to visit her grandmother, who lives in the west bank and israel did grant to that, so she will be able visit although probably heavily supervised. her 90-year-old grandmother in the west bank. host: these congresswomen have engaged in what people have called anti-semitic tropes and been criticized by those in their own party. what is the reaction from democratic leaders to this decision now by the israeli government? guest: these two women have clashed with their fellow democrats earlier this year, especially when omar said something to the effect that democrats who receive money from apec are more loyal or have more allegiance to israel than the united states.

that offended nearly every democrat in the congress and especially jewish members. democratic leaders and most democrats are sticking with omar and tlaib in this case. they have called it unprecedented for a president to urge a foreign government to block u.s. citizens, let alone duly elected members of congress from entering another country. we have not seen this in recent memory. they say it sets an incredibly bad precedent and leaders are saying this does damage to the whichsraeli relationship, steny hoyer and kevin mccarthy have said is the strongest in the world. just last week, meeting with netanyahu and uttering those types of sentiments. host: how so?

caller: have so? to theaeli ambassador united states, according to steny hoyer in a lengthy statement he put out yesterday, had communicated and given assurances to hoyer that the two women -- that every member of congress would be allowed to enter israel and steny hoyer believes that trust has been violated, that he was misled by the israeli ambassador and put that in writing yesterday, which was quite jarring. that is one example of sort of the frayed relationship we see at the moment between the united states and israel. host: how often do u.s. members of congress visit israel? are these types of trips unusual? two they happen every year? what is the frequency? guest: they at least happen every year.

as i mentioned before, the jewish lobbying group sponsors an annual trip each summer to israel as sort of an educational trip, especially for a lot of the incoming freshman lawmakers and based on some of the pictures we saw from this recent hoyer,th mccarthy and there were a lot of freshman lawmakers on this trip. it has been criticized in the clearly they have a political view and a political agenda, they want strong support of israel and the israeli government. somebody like tlaib and omar, who believe israel has mistreated the palestinians, people like that have been extremely critical of lawmakers joining this fully funded trip

to israel sponsored by apec. host: you can follow his reporting if you go to thehill.c om. thank you. guest: thank you, greta. host: let's show you the recent visit from members of congress. they went at the same time this year. here is kevin mccarthy standing right next to steny hoyer with a group of freshmen and another member of congress behind them talking about their visit. [video clip] meetingsl go to together because that is what we want to show. importantbond of the relationship we have in the middle east. i want to thank you for spending time with all of the -- with all of us. i want to emphasize this is more than 15% of the entire u.s. house of representatives with you right now inside this room. many individuals behind me are

freshman and they know of the bond, but they want to understand firsthand. democrats have gone through that most of this week. republicans have been here for over a week and we will continue on. i want to underscore something leader hoyer is saying. he has been here many times. when we both became leader, it was in reverse order. we both sat down and said the times -- there is times we go to israel, but we go separate times. why don't we speak with one voice? years, last 6 republicans and democrats are here at the same time together. they are here with one voice as americans celebrating the same victories, the bond that is

undeniable for more than 70 years that can never be broken and how can we make it stronger? as the leader talked about, we have legislation on the floor. we have passed some and there is others we would like to pass as we move forward. we are recognizing the moving of the embassy, something that those who ran for president on both sides of the aisle always promised. , a cleare forward message is that we understand the importance of this relationship and the bond that has to be maintained and you have that support in the house. host: kevin mccarthy there and the minority leader standing leader.the -- minority

some lawmakers are over there visiting the country. we are getting your reaction to the front page news that israel anded representatives omar tlaib. israeli interior minister says he received and granted a request by democratic represented of rashida tlaib to enter the israeli occupied west bank on humanitarian grounds. the minister said the congresswoman asked to visit her grandmother in the west bank. marcus in georgia, democrat. you are next in the conversation. good morning to you. caller: good morning, greta. trump is trying to make people think he loves israel and loves the jews. white supremacists don't like jews.

he never said a word when night supremacists -- white supremacists were saying jews would not replace us. host: tony in texas, your turn. caller: good morning, greta. you had a gentleman on there you were speaking with and pretty much everything he said was what i was calling about. i have already heard about tlaib being permitted to go to the but i have kind of a request. one is if you would look up cair. that i believeup omar supports and a pretty much is a terrorist group. they are out to wipe off israel. they want it gone. she supports them.

host: where did you hear that from them? caller: 202-748-8002 i have seen it -- caller: i have seen it. i have seen her at rallies with them. i have also seen omar on stage with these people. i will confirm it myself. another thing. host: i will just let viewers know you can go to the cair website. we have covered events with them if people are interested in going to our website to get an idea about them. caller: there is another group, tyt. i won't give out the full name, i will just say tyt. this is my request. if you are going to bring people on like that, don't let them insult your viewers. he was calling republicans names and it was allowed to go on and

on and on and at the end, a man pointed his finger at the camera and told us what we were if we supported trump. that should not be allowed. they should not be vicious like that and there was another man that called in the other day and . know you have time delay there was a man last week or earlier in week that was allowed to say in full -- i am sorry, i am upset. i have ptsd and i am not in good shape at this moment. there was a man on there that came on and was allowed to say that when obama came out, he was like a burst of light and all the cockroaches went away and then trump was elected to office and when he came into office, all the cockroaches came out. we all know what that means and that is disgusting that you

allow that to be on the air. you could have shut that man off the phone. you could have hit that time delay button and we would not have had to hear that. i put a coffee cup through my television three months ago and i almost did it again. i sat down and called the suicide hotline because i am so disgusted with the things people are coming up with and these programs being allowed to let these people say that. i don't care about their rights, they don't have the right to sit there and call me disgusting names when they have no idea who i am or what i go through. i don't need that in my life. i will turn this television off and i will throw it in the garbage before i watch another program. i won't do it. i will not live this way when

people are allowed to come on public radio. i don't care what their rights are. it is not right when you can block that out. it should not be allowed to be that disgusting and those people to be able to call other people names like that. it is hurtful and hateful. host: we do ask that people keep the conversation civil, there is no need to call people names and we ask that folks do that. we do have a time delay for obscenities and we do employ it play but we ask people to along, it is a bit of a trust that we ask all of you to do that and call in on the lines you are supposed to call in on and that is what makes this program. some people do not play along with it, but most people do. steve scully's tweeting out -- steve scalise tweeting out this

morning -- reps omar and tlaib made it clear there only intent was to spew hate and advocate for's -- policies that would actively undermine the jewish state of israel. we will go to david in georgia, independent. caller: thank you for taking my call and i want to say one thing, you are the most patient to let people say their opinion. all this bias you are being accused of is completely false. i want to clarify some things mr. wong said. allowedtlaib would be to visit her grandmother and he expected her to be monitored. supportses out and groups that are anti-israel inside of israel, the law will be enforced. 2017.w was passed in

law of theks the land, she needs to be ousted from the country. of mauled over that she would be heavily supervised or monitored and that is not exactly what they were saying. host: you are right, the law was passed in 2017, the law by the is really government. there: if she goes out and starts that rhetoric, she needs to be ousted by the country. host: behind the scenes, the washington post notes several jewish democrats who have long been critical of tlaib and omar's positions pleaded with the israeli ambassador on their behalf.ues'

all strong supporters of israel found the envoy to lobby against barring the congresswomen. wednesday phone call with netanyahu proved unsuccessful. let's go to henry in chicago, a democrat. caller: hello. are you there? host: yes, we are listening. caller: thank you for your courage to host this particular topic because you know the united states can do no wrong when it comes to israel. what gives israel the right to say who can and cannot go to the west bank? tlaib congresswoman is going to the west bank. she is going to visit her grandmother, so that is an update to the story. caller: i guess that was recent

news. whatding the other woman, gives israel the right to do that? host: she wanted to go into israel as well. caller: what control does israel have over the west bank? host: right, she wanted to go into israel. the trip was to go into israel as well as the west bank. tweetingcan of texas out i wish all my fellow members of congress had taken this opportunity to learn from all sides, but some chose to follow the inflammatory and unproductive rhetoric and undermine american interest in the region. robin in pennsylvania, republican. caller: hi. i wanted to call and there was a woman that called about the pi ece she saw on facebook. "stand with us" and they

were talking about her family and her sister is on a no-fly , he isut her brother saying that muslims are going to be dominant in canada and there was a lot of things her family -- her ex-husband had ties to terrorism, that is what the woman was listening to on the phones, that is what it says, "stand with us. as fa." as far as omar and her go, i don't believe they belong in congress. that is all i have to say. thank you. host:jay in california, independent. what is the name of your town? caller: the name of what? the name of your town.

is it vacaville? caller: yeah, vacaville. thesituation where omar and other congress lady are not allowed or banned from visiting white, a quick example of politics. rocky got into trouble and -- put his nose into other peoples business and politics had nothing to do with that. host: danny in florida, your opinion this morning. go ahead. caller: good morning, greta. thank you for c-span and all you do. this is the most on but --

unbiased source i have found for media information. and omar, those two are terrorism,pro unashamed. omar has been on the media telling everybody that it makes sense that they bombed the towers in new york city, unashamed. the point is not freedom of speech or whatever. i don't know how in the world our country is at the point today where we have elected two unashamed people in favor of terrorism against innocents to be sitting on our congress and as far as israel denying them entry, that is just smart. you don't let people who have sided with terrorists and condone killing innocents like what happened in new york city

come11, you don't let them into your country unless you are stupid. we should not let these people come into our country that we knowwant to kill us and we want open borders. i cannot believe where we are in our country. i think israel is not a religious issue, they are protecting their country and saying no. if you say publicly you hate us, you want to hurt us, we will not let you in. i think they have a right to do that. host: the washington post says the congresswomen say they have no animus toward israel and the jewish people and both voice to their support for a boycott movement and that was a debate that took place on the house floor recently. the headline from buzz feet about that debate, the house voted to condemn the boycott, israel movement over protests from representative ilhan omar .nd rashida tlaib

here is congresswoman tlaib talking about the importance of free speech. [video clip] >> i stand before you as the granddaughter of a palestinian grandmother who yearns to experience equality, human dignity, and freedom. i stand before you the daughter of palestinian immigrants, parents who experienced being stripped of their human rights, the right to freedom of travel and equal treatment. i cannot stand by and watch this attack on our freedom of speech and -- freedom ofcountry's speech, madam speaker, dissent is how we nurture democracy and grow to be better and more humane and just and this is why i pose resolution 243. all americans have a right, a constitutional right guaranteed by the first amendment to freedom of speech, to petition

their government and participate in boycott. a speech in pursuit of civil and -- rights abroad is protected by our first amendment and that is one reason why our first amendment is so powerful. the government is simply not allowed to discriminate against speech based on its viewpoint or its speaker. the right to boycott is deeply rooted in the fabric of our country. what was the boston tea party but a boycott? what would we be without the boycott led by civil rights activists like the montgomery bus boycott and the united boycott.rs grape some of the advances in equity and workers rights have been achieved through collective action protected by our constitution. americans of conscience have long and proud history of participating in boycotts specifically to advocate for human rights abroad. americans boycotted nazi germany

. in the 1980's, many of us in this very body boycotted south african goods in the fight against apartheid. our right to free speech is being threatened with this resolution. it sets a dangerous precedent because it attempts to delegitimize political speech and send a message that our government can and will take action against speech it does not like. host: democrat of michigan on the house floor earlier this month when they debated on and voted against -- voted to condemn the boycott israel movement. , ana in port allen republican, good morning to you. caller: good morning. youngmber in 1964, i was then, but i remember when the

arafat founded by yasser and in the early stages, it was nonviolent. under his regime, it became associated with terrorism and extremism. it was only when he took over, but initially, it started off as something good. it evolved and that is what people don't understand. israel is what protects the united states, it is the only free country. there are muslims living in israel in harmony with israelis. the plo, i remember growing up as a teenager and a young mother that they were considered a -- regime and they would use the money the u.s. would give them not to build houses and all of that, they used it for their extremism.

if they don't understand their history and how they were founded, they are doomed to repeat it. i think israel should be cautious about who comes in bombardedey are being . why would they want someone come in and start a revolt? a lot of times our representatives travel abroad and insight riots. through yasser arafat and the plo founding. host: rick, austin, texas. independent. caller: good morning. ly calling to defend c-span. i have heard people from both refs trying to blame the

and saying you are not letting this side or that side speak. i am astounded at that. i think c-span has the widest range of political opinions heard and represents the widest .q range of call in shows support for you all. host: margaret, democratic caller, good morning. caller: good morning. that called inan and was talking about how she was hurt by the hurtful speech that some people call in and say, but even though mr. trump is our president, he has incited, he has used certain codewords, he has called mexicans criminals and talked

about how they killed people. own problems in this country,. he is not supposed to be an inc iter. host: the new york times notes reportedalem post theier the letter about visit to her grandmother, "this will be my last chance to see her. accept any restrictions." hi, floyd. caller: good morning, greta. thank you for taking my call. have a couple of comments. i watched c-span a long time and i have never seen them have a

call in for christian people only. i see a lot of things called in for country people, city people, but for christians only, i have never seen that. host: i think we have done it, but not a lot. thank you for the suggestion. caller: okay. is biblical,this what they are doing. it is mark 13. , there was beginning adam and eve and they told them --y could eat of the tree all the fruit trees of the garden except the tree of good and evil. it and she had a baby of that tree. -- limbs onms

trees, but it was limbs on people talking about satan. she had a baby by satan. if you look it up in the king them peopleand run down, they are sitting right outside of israel. that is why israel has so much trouble. you will find out we probably have some of them in congress now. host: leanne in indiana, independent. caller: that was a lot. i feel like people are losing the site that these are people and wherever they are from, whatever country, whatever state, they are not hating on people to wants to go see her grandmother. beingee a person is

suppressed and they want to stand up for them, that is it. this sense that they are terrorists and this hate is just what we see and hear because it is unfortunately promoted. it is divisive and a leader .hould not divide it will change, i feel, because they are doing the right thing. they are doing the right thing as anyone should do. you cannot just treat people like they do not matter. i don't get it. you just have to open your eyes and your heart and your mind and know that it is not okay. people need to look into what is going on and not just hear

something and believe it. and believe it. host: we will take a break. when we come back, we will turn our attention to the 2020 campaign and talk to lanae erickson to talk about the democratic presidential primary and the divide between the progressives and moderate wings. later, paul shinkman will join us to talk about the challenges facing the director of national intelligence. we will be right back. announcer: saturday on book tv at 10:00 a.m. eastern, live coverage from the mississippi book festival, featuring author

talks on american history with eric j dolan. the civil war and the south, with an historian. race and civil rights with professor david towel. with an author and world war ii with an historian. then sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern, afterwards, with journalist natalie wexler, author of "the knowledge gap." >> one reason kids score well on that test is they don't have the background knowledge to understand reading passages in the first place. they make inferences in their lives all the time. toddlers can make an inference, so that is not the problem so much as they lack the background knowledge and vocabulary to understand the pathogen, and that has been a big problem that is overlooked. announcer: watch book tv every weekend on c-span2.

>> sunday at 9:00 a.m. eastern, a washington journal and american history tv live special call in program looking back at woodstock, the 1969 cultural and musical phenomenan. historian david farber, author "the age of great dreams: american the 1960's" joins us to take your calls. >> drugs mattered, but who takes those drugs and why they had the effect they did in the 1960's and early 1970's is against something we are still wrestling with the scholars to understand. the technology of drugs. we have people who have thought long and hard about this. it is imperative as an understanding of not just the 1960's but of the production of history. what drugs we use at a given time and place have an incredible ability to change the direction of a given society. >> call into talk with david farber about the social movements of the 1960's leading

to woodstock and its legacy. atdstock: 50 years, sunday 9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span's "washington journal," also live on american history tv on c-span3. "washington journal" continues. host: at our table this morning, lanae erickson, who is the vice president of social policy and politics at the group third way, here to talk about the democratic primary. i want to talk about a piece you wrote recently in the headline -- "avoiding the fun house mirror effect in the democratic party." what you wrote was every person has their story about the morning after the election day, 2016. what ties these experiences together is the collective miss of shock. shock was a product of the fun distorted ourhat political realities for the preceding year, and it could happen all over in the next 17 months if we are not careful to inoculate ourselves to it.

to do so, democrats will need to look beyond the hyper engaged on twitter, who aligned their campaigns with the vast majority of democratic voters who are looking for a pragmatic progressive path forward to beat trump. guest: that is right. host: first, what was the fun house mirror effect in 2016, and what do you think it will be in 2020? guest: i think a lot of us who are in d.c. get sucked in by hearing the people around us. we have an echo chamber of friends, people on our social media, and we are informed by that and think then everybody in the country feels that way. we know that those feedback loops are not representative. for example, i did not have a lot of people on my social media feeds or friends that wanted to support donald trump, but clearly a lot of people in the country did. weneed to make sure that as are heading into picking a democratic nominee that we are not suffering from the same problem of only listening to the people that we see in front of our faces, only listening to the

inside deltoid crowd, or even the folks on twitter because we realize that even in a democratic primary, they are not actually representative of real voters. host: that is what happened in 2016. what do you think is happening in 2020 to also get that fun house mirror effect? guest: and people are looking at the democratic candidates in the field, there are a lot of people who are not engaged yet. they might say joe biden is my pick because i know his name, or bernie sanders is my pick because i know his name. and we realize that actually a lot of people have not even tuned in yet. there are a lot of democratic voters who will participate in the primary who are regular voters but are saying they are too many people right now, i cannot engage in this, and i need you to wind it down a little before i start weighing the candidates. there is a small proportion of the democratic electorate driving the conversation on twitter, so the twitter

audience, i sometimes call them, are driving the conversation. whether it is about immigration or medicare for all, they are saying this is what democrats want, but nine in 10 democrats don't even treat. -- even tweet. and those who do, they look different in their attitudes and what they look for in a nominee. if you are a candidate or candidate's that who wakes up every day and tries to feel what people want, you are not getting the real view of voters. host: what is third way and why do you care? guest: we are a centerleft think tank specializing in helping people understand democratic voters, voters across the spectrum to try to get to progressive change. we know we have to convince a broad coalition of people in order to bring folks along, and we do not think winning by 50.001 is sufficient to do that and govern and see the change we want to see, particularly right

now because donald trump is doing major damage to our country, our country's values, and to a lot of people in this country, and we want to see him gone. we do not want democrats to get distracted by this twitter and think this is where they need to go when those folks do not represent most democratic voters and most across the country. we want to win, and we think we need to understand voters to do that. host: who are the hyper engaged? guest: what we found is we have been doing quarterly poles of democratic primary voters, and we found one in 10 tweet at least once a day, so 10% are very engaged on twitter. that same group is more likely to visit a candidate's website to go to a rally, to engage and watch the debates, so those folks are watching with a fine tooth comb everything that the candidates are saying. they do not even look like the

rest of the electorate. they are much younger. they are much more likely to say the democratic party needs to move left to win. 54% of them call themselves democratic-socialist, and that is a term most democrats would not associate themselves with. and they look really different. they are younger, wider, -- whiter, more educated than the general population with a different set of priorities. host: what is the percentage? how much of the democratic party of primary voters to the hyper engaged makeup? guest: there are about 1/10 of the overall primary electorate read we are only looking at likely primary voters. this is not about getting to swing voters in the general election. this is just the primary. it kind of happens in every off year that the hyper engaged drive the conversation, and then the primary voters vote for different candidates. it's saw this happen in 2017

before the 2018 midterms, where all of these news reports that the left took over the democratic party, that our revolution were putting up all these candidates. when we came to voting in 2018, a lot of those folks lost their primaries. only 33% of them won their ,rimaries, whereas the new dems the progressives, they cleaned up in their primaries, and in the general, the new dems delivered the house. they flipped already three seats to give nancy pelosi the gavel, and the revolution and justice democrats do not flip a single seat from red to blue. so there is this narrative that forms that the left is taking over, this is who we have to pay attention to, and then democratic primary voters say, i like that person. they sound like they know how to get things done and they are focused on the right issues. host: where do they differ on priorities? guest: a big place where we have

seen a difference is health care. when you look at the twitter folks, they are very interested in single-payer, abolishing private insurance, and even when you tell them about the concerns that folks might have about that thatof a system, and people might have their health taken away or that taxes would be raised and all these other concerns, they still stick with single-payer. you look at the democratic electorate, they do not support single-payer. they support health care for all and the bumper sticker of medicare for all, but when you get into the details, there let, oh, actually, i really want to build on the aca, provide more coverage to people but reduce costs is what they are focused on. health care is a big piece. the other is immigration. we see 64% of the twitter engaged folks want to abolish ice.

that is under one third in the democratic electorate. anti-immigration enforcement harm pushing candidates to go further than the democratic voters really want to go on some of these immigration issues as a reaction to kind of the cruelty and the horrible things that donald trump has been doing. most democratic primary voters want to see comprehensive immigration reform and not abolish ice or open borders. they want to see our country secure and treating people humanely. host: we want to invite our viewers to join the conversation. .epublicans, (202)-748-8000 democrats, -- republicans, (202)-748-8001. democrats, (202)-748-8000. npr reports that they save the word -- say the word electability is used as a fear , but many of the

activists who gathered over the weekend at the conference insisted that is a foolish strategy. biden, who has consistently led early polling, is potentially the worst option for the party, they say, warning democrats could repeat the mistakes of 2016. guest: i think if donald trump concentrates the mind -- and we all want to beat him and we know that has to be our first priority -- that is true among the twitter folks. they say beating donald trump is more important than picking a nominee who agrees with them on everything. host: so that is what unites them? guest: that unites everyone. we want to beat donald trump, but there are questions on how best to do that. we did a deep dive and open-ended qualitative research with a firm called avalanche, and they helped us really figure out what to primary voters mean by electability? they do not really mean ideology . they don't even mean demographics. what they are really looking for is someone who can be strong, show their values and stand up

to donald trump, someone compassionate, and somebody who is kind of a truth teller and can engage with trump when necessary, but also push back on other parts of the party when need be. so i do think electability sometimes gets used in the pejorative way against women or people of color, and that is really silly because what we saw 2018 was people of color and women were the fantastically successful candidates that brought us nancy pelosi's speakership. i think like that, when you are using it to say we only need an old white guy, that is not the right way to think about it and that is not how democratic voters think about electability. host: when you ask people, are they confident in a candidates ability to beat the president, this is a one to 10 scale, the former vice president comes out on top with a little over seven. sanders follows that, reaching

six points. and better or work almost 8 -- o'rourke almost six, and harris at 5.57 and cory booker at 5.55. guest:guest: most of the folks do not have name recognition. everybody knows joe biden and they say, that sounds like a good option, but also they have not taken a look at a lot of these other candidates. those candidates have room to grow. the one person who does not is bernie sanders part everybody knows who bernie sanders is and what he stands for. i think we have seen in the polls a lot of his supporters have seen other options that they are interested in this year, even though last time around they were behind. way to getthird involved and you are supporting some candidates and not others, you are out there with the grassroots effort, how do you get involved in the 2020 campaign? guest: we are helping presidential candidates and folks who are trying to keep the house and when the senate to understand what voters in the

middle want. also, democratic primary voters. we do public opinion research, policy development of proposals we think will resonate with the broad coalition of people, things like economic ideas that will help a broad swath of people have an opportunity to earn a good life. we are not going to pick a horse. we are going to pick whoever it is to help donald trump, and we would be excited to see that. host: who are your backers? who funds you to make this research happened? guest: we are funded by a mix of individuals on our board and listed on our website, and also big foundations to fund a lot of policy work. for example, i do a lot of work on higher education with the big climate team, and we have foundations that come to support that and the idea that there should be more pragmatism in d.c. and folks who are thinking about what do we actually do to move things forward instead of just fighting the extreme?

host: we will go to call per aidy bryant's first in hamilton, caller: host: good morning. caller: there are so many people who have announced that they are running for president. it is confusing. you cannot listen to them. it dominates the news media, regardless of which network you listen to. i wish they would enact election onerm and mandate that no can announce or raise money more than 12 months before the election they want to run in. well, notse people, all of them, but a lot of them are our elected officials, and they are not doing their job. they are out running for president or congress, or whatever. they ought to be in washington doing their job. this is one reason the general

populace thinks congress is worthless because they would rather be out telling us what they want to do rather than doing what we need them to do. host: bryant, let's take that point. guest: i think it is a great point. our election seasons have gotten longer and longer, and that makes it harder for folks in d.c. to concentrate on getting things done. i mentioned higher education. a lot of folks hope we can do a a reauthorization act. folks may say, no, no, we are going to have an election soon, let's not move forward. it is a frustration for many of us, but it seems like it is perpetually election season, and some countries do limit what you can do in terms of when you can declare because we have the first amendment and a robust view of free speech. it would be hard to do under

u.s. law to limit when people could start running, so probably what you would see if you did that our shadow campaigns, where people use super pac's and raise money into that, but not actually say they are running. that is what jeb bush did. he was running for six months before he was running, and i'm not sure that gets us anywhere, the point is taken that election seasons are getting longer and i'm not sure anybody in the country likes that. host: are you concerned on the likes of john hickenlooper drop out of the race yesterday, the former colorado governor -- here is the denver post headline: a fight is on his hands. democrats running in the senate are unlikely to get out of his way, but he dropped out of the presidential race and he was considered a moderate. guest:guest: i think bryant is right that there are too many people in the field. i think john hickenlooper is a great guy who has done great work in the purple state of colorado getting things done, but there are other good options

in the race. problem is not lack of options. hopefully these debates in september and october will wheel down the field. i heard someone say this week it is like the beginning episodes of the bachelor where there are too many people to get invested in any, and you need it to be further along in the season before you pick your favorites. that is where a lot of these democratic primary voters are. they are not giving or choosing yet. they are keeping options open to see who they want to give their rose two. host: alan in illinois, democrat. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i am 72 years old, and i have been a democrat all my life, and i have got situations where my health care is taken care of i the v.a. because i am 100% disabled, and i also have medicare, but the thing about it is people talk about health care.

really, they should talk about health insurance and label it health insurance. be a personppen to who really loves some of the ideas that the far left of in mind, but i would consider myself more centered left. and theete buttigieg idea of the affordable care act been improved on as an option that president obama originally wanted to have. thank you. host: let's take his point about health care because what did you find when you asked democratic primary voters? guest: we just gotta pull out of the field yesterday specifically on health care, and a lot of people like alan are saying them sameic primary voters are i like the idea of a public option to compete with private insurance, something president obama tried to do but could not get done as he passed the aca. they see that is a good option

to build on the progress we have made. to make sure costs are being driven down, which is what people are most concerned about. they are not as concerned about revolutionizing the way we do our health insurance. they really are focused on my health care is too expensive, and how are we going to deal with that. public option may be a good way to deal with that. this is a place where the field is united. every person on the debate stage supports the idea of having a public option, so these back and forth so that exactly whose plan and how to do it mask the fact that democrats want to move forward and make progress on health care and donald trump is actually trying to undermine the aca still in the courts and take away the progress we have made. i think a lot of people like alan are out there saying, i like some things the far left is saying, but when i'm concerned about his progress. host: let's go to john. manchester, connecticut. republican. caller: good morning.

thank you for taking my call. so-calledon, your moderate democrat is pure bunk. from ofse president being responsible for the mess at the border when democrats created it by giving into illegal aliens that if they come here, they will be allowed to stay. supports, even biden supports, to some extent the far left in the democrat you are for some sort of liberalizing immigration . you are for rejoining the paris climate accord, which is nothing government with impulse on limits on the industry in the united states, and even to individual liberties

because people who accuse them who do not line up with the climate change people, they hipstersem of being and drive them into court. you said progress was made by aama and that you support public option. well, public option is the same thing obama told us. you have your own insurance, you can keep it, but there is also the public option. public option, sooner or later, will lead to single-payer and some sort of government intervention in health care. windows rest. all democrats are one with the agenda of the far left, but may be on a light basis. host: ok, so we heard your point, john. lanae erickson, you can respond

to what he had to say but if you can start with the immigration question. are you concerned the argument makingr that caller resonates with centralist democrats when they hear speaker pelosi and other democrats sounding as if they care more about people are coming here illegally than the people who are here, and that argument that republicans make starts to resonate with those type of democrats, so are you concerned about that? guest: i think the entire democratic party is united around conference of immigration reform. we tried to pass in 2013, and voters are right that the system is broken. donald trump did not create every problem in our immigration system, but he certainly is not making it better. he is introducing a level of brutality in response to a genuine crisis that is just fromly, you know, separate american values. we should not be taking children away from their mothers and

jailing people who are coming here fleeing for their lives. bei think democrats need to clear that they are not saying every single person who wants to come here can come. that has never been our policy. that is not where we are headed. there needs to be a process, and there is a process for asylum-seekers who have a legal right to petition for asylum if they are in danger in their country to go through, but donald trump is making it harder for folks to have their cases heard in court, for them to get the hearing about whether or not they should be able to remain. i think democrats need to be clear that we are about smart border securities. that we are about making sure our communities are safe, and we are also about making sure people who want to come here because they are fleeing for their lives can have a fair and efficient process to see if they qualify for the legal right to stay. host: las cruces, new mexico, rick as a democrat. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call.

i would like to say that i agree with your guest in terms of the .osition of our candidate specifically, i think everything reverts to extremes on either side, and i think her algorithm, if you will, is right on. thank you very much. host: ok, jermaine, oakland, california. independent. caller: good morning. first of all, and thank god for c-span. not simply because c-span gives voice to the masses who are usually voiceless, but even in that is-party system misleading the entire country, those of us who are anti-republican also are seeing the deception within the democratic apparatus. third way has an agenda, and third way's by, greta, is to

silence those of us, including -- i am african-american -- your guest is presenting those on twitter as "well educated and white." it is intentional to deceive the people. those of us who are tired of this two-party system defeating the masses do not simply want trump gone, we went to democrats who towered out to corporate america to be gone, as well. so when they come on the program talking about those on twitter do not represent what is really going on in the democratic party , it is because -- and i did not think she would do it -- but she let her true intentions known to further slander senator sanders. and that is because he is the only candidate trying to make it to the white house who is

sincere about speaking truth to parties, bothh parties are being exposed. host: let's get a response. guest: i think like jermaine, a lot of people feel unrepresented by the two-party system. there are a lot of electoral reforms that could make people feel less voiceless. i think i'm really interested in the idea bring choice voting so that instead of feeling like if you want to vote for the green party, you might be a spoiler, you should be able to say, number one, i want to vote for the green party of that candidate doesn't do well, i wanted democrat to an. a lot of people feel they don't have choices they want and that is a big lesson of 2016 for a lot of people who felt neither of the candidates were their favorite choice. but there are some experience he/she is with these ideas about how to kind of give people -- experimentations with these ideas about how to give people

these more and more and give states the impetus to try to reform our election system because a lot of people do not feel the government represents them, and we definitely feel that. host: polls show the president has the strength when it comes to the economy, something he likes to tout. here's the argument he made last night at one of his campaign rallies about why people should vote for him when it comes to the economy. won thet trump: so i election, the markets went up thousands of points, things started happening, you started doing things that you would have never, even though i did not get sworn in until january 20. they refused to do that. let me tell you, if for some reason i would not have won the election, these markets would have crashed. [applause] and that willp: happen even more so in 2020. the bottom line is i know you like me, and this room is a love

fest, but you have no choice but to vote for me because of your 401(k)s down the tubes, everything will be down the tubes. so whether you love me or hate me, you have got to vote for me. guest: -- , his lanae erickson argument is he may not like my style or the way i talk, but the economy is doing well. guest: it was ironic that he finally talked about the economy yesterday when we actually saw the economy start to show signs that we may be headed towards a recession. i think a lot of folks in the midterms, republicans, who wanted him to make this argument. they know and swing places, the best argument this president has his he is helping people economically, and he refused to do it because he would rather run on immigration on demonizing immigrants, on getting his face engaged on social issues, so he gets distracted easily.

i think it is a real question about whether the economy will be good enough to run on next year when it comes general election time, but there is also a question of whether donald trump has the discipline to stay on message, and frankly i think he has shown he does not. host: a new fox poll on foxnews.com shows former vice president joe biden still leads the democratic race and warren climbed into second. that is their headlines per on the same poll, on u.s. today in their paper, their take on the pole, trump approval is down. the trump's approval is down. this is on usa's paper today. on thepproval is down fox news poll. what do you make of it? hast: i think no one really ever liked donald trump among .he swing voters his approval was never particularly high, so looking at approval ratings is interesting but not that informative.

a lot of folks pulled the lever for him, despite the fact they did not approve of him the first time around, so we need to not get over confident about approval numbers because they are similar to where they were when he won last time. we also need to be clear about where those approval numbers are coming from. any national poll right now is not particularly helpful because, for example, hillary clinton won bigger margins in the blue bubble states of new york, california, and massachusetts than obama, but that did not help in the electoral college. we need to make sure this is not just more people in blue places expressing even more upset about donald trump and that we are actually measuring people who are going to decide this election in places like the blue wall. host: let's go to megan. holly ridge, north carolina. democratic caller. caller: hi, there. i was listening to everything

you have in saying, and i think one of the most important things we can do as democrats and the people is come together. it seems to me on the democratic side,and the liberal which is third way, it to resonate with that. it can actually be divisive and split things up. my hope is, going forward, that shows like cnn that i have come to trust, that you will disclose a bit more about the people who as for example that one to have ranked choice voting. this isn't something that is pushed through by the people selling machines, and we have such problems with elections and knowing the gold standard is a paper ballot, it

is hard to see if we can come together with something so important. one thing i have been seeing -- host: i'm going to leave it there because you are breaking up and it is difficult to understand you, but she was talking about trusting rank choice voting. what are your thoughts? affect from all of the investigations we are seeing with policies trying to affect our voting choices, we need to make sure they are counted properly. there are a lot of ways to do that. paper ballots is a good way to make sure that we have an extra check, but they are not the only thing that we need to do. we need to make sure that, for example, russia does not meddle with the voter rolls so people who actually get to vote are not everyonee or not eligible to vote gets to vote because they match a rule, so

there are a lot of pieces to that. both parties should be concerned about keeping elections secure and making sure the entire country can trust outcome. if not, that really puts us into chaos. host: john in latham, new york. independent. caller: hi. i want to be really honest. i think trump is a tremendous president. secondly, one do to be honest with me, are you voting for a recession like the rest of the democrats? guest: absolutely not. i think we all want to see the economy do well, particularly because the people hurt the most by a recession are folks at the margins. those are the folks who have fromed to see some uptick the economic growth, but they are really lagging behind a lot of folks that are in urban areas or suburban areas that have had a lot of job growth. you look across the industrial

midwest where i am from, and that has not trickled down to them. if we have a recession, it will hurt those folks the most. that is something we all need to try to address and make sure that doesn't happen, but i think donald trump has made it harder to do that by doing giant tax cuts for corporations that now we do not have the money to invest in those workers and so he is kind of taking some of the tools out of the toolbox we might use to address or stop us from going into recession. host: several of the candidates have gone to calling president trump a white supremacist rate he is andrew yang this past friday at the iowa state fair. democratic candidates have called trump a white supremacist. others have said they are not going that far. where do you stand then doesn't matter? >> i think we should judge everyone by their words and actions, and in this case, donald trump's words and actions indicate he does have those

beliefs, so we have to call him out on that. >> so is that a yes to the white supremacist? >> based on his words and actions, yes, he is a white supremacist. host: the tech entrepreneur is not the only one. the list include senator elizabeth warren, bernie o'rourke,ete, beto mayor de blasio. is that, in your opinion, an effective strategy? guest: i don't think most voters, either in the primary or general election will make their decision on an issue like that. donald trump has made his colors completely clear. he is fine to hang out with people that are racist, that are undermining our country, that are foreign influencers, and he is willing to work with anybody who is going to help give him power because that is how he operates. that is a huge problem, and he so many normsrbed

in this country that others have not destroyed. colleen there are good sides on a neo-nazi rally and that is insane. it is also not the number one question voters are asking for they are asking who was going to help me put food on my table? who is going to help me send my kids to college? who is going to help me set me up to have an economically future? whether you call donald trump a white supremacist or says he likes to hang out with them, i don't think that is a determining factor. host: let's go to new york, rosetta. democratic caller. caller: good morning. hello? host: go ahead. caller: yes, i am calling because first of all, please, don't cut me off. i just want to say that from now on, we should have it where any candidate wants to run for office, whether it be president or whatever, but especially president, that they should be

vetted. that way we would not have the serious issue that we have now. has been arump problem from day one. from day one. with am very, very upset all the shenanigans going on with the line, the women, sergeant's stick attitudes, et cetera. follow his base and they say they will vote for him in this and that, that there still would be slavery as it was. thank you. host: i think it is -- guest: i think it is true there is a hard-core base of donald trump supporters that are openly racist that one to keep some folks in this country down, and see their success as intention with people of color in this

country, and democrats have no business going after those voters. those are not people democrats should want to endure appeal to, but some people voted for donald trump because they wanted to see big change, shake up washington, show that they were not satisfied with the politics and the choices that were before them, and they saw this as a disruption for it hopefully, those folks have now seen that what donald trump has done is not helping them, and democrats can now be the change candidates that hopefully tap into that same feeling that people had of frustration last time around. befores the squad freshman democratic women representative of the party? guest: i think the squad is representative of their districts, and that is the beauty of the house of representatives. we have some from very blue, very red and very swing districts. those women are exceptionally

good at talking about what their constituents want. they are good at representing a very narrow piece of the party, and they should be there to do that. they do not represent districts that flipped and got nancy pelosi the gavel, and they do not represent places that are going to be the key to winning the presidential election, so i think we need to absolutely listen to their voices and the important issues they are putting on the table, and listen to the voices of the more whomatic progressive folks actually flipped seats in places we need to win. host: say that again, their districts are not presented above the key to win the presidency? guest: that is right. ocasio-cortez's district is extremely blue. a republican would never win in that district, and it did overwhelmingly for hillary clinton. host: but the score there will not actually help when the election? how effective is the strategy to

type a moderate democrat to aoc? guest: i think right now, and when you are in the midst of a is aow 23% primary, there lot of question about who represents the democratic party and their voices are very loud. they are being covered extensively, but once we have a nominee, the nominee will define with the democratic stands for, and they may agree with the squad on some things and not on others, but they are going to be driving their own agenda. right now, when there are primary options in the mix, their voices are kind of an outsized -- outside influence. ast: lanae erickson with third, thank you for the conversation. we are going to take a break. when we come back, your top public policy issue. republicans, dial in at (202)-748-8001. democrats, (202)-748-8000.

and independents, (202)-748-8002 . opening up the phone lines to your top public policy issue. we will be right back. announcer: saturday on american history tv at 10:00 p.m. eastern on railamerica, 1970 film "communists on campus." >> yes, they are communists. there mission proudly proclaims, and our nation seems unbelieving, even unconcerned. announcer: sunday morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern on oral history with aarti kornfeld, detailing how the festival came together. >> i said, yeah, if you took it outside, suppose you had all these people, how many do you think it will be? 50,000. i said, no, 100,000.

my wife said, there will be more than 200,000. just like that. i swear to god, i looked up and i saw that field. of course i was spaced out. i was hoping to have a dream that came through. announcer: at 6:00 on american artifacts, virginia museum of history and culture curator karen sherry on their exhibit on 400 years of african-american history. >> they were not content with their lot. they wanted to resist their enslavement, and they tried to run away. unfortunately, they were not successful. they were captured and punishment for their attempt to escape, robert carter got permission from the court in 1708 to have their toes cut off. nation's: explore our passed on american history tv every weekend on c-span3.

announcer: "washington journal" continues. host: we are back. we will spend about 20 minutes or so here this morning getting your top public policy issue. it can range from politics to policy, republicans, (202)-748-8001. democrats, (202)-748-8000. and independents, (202)-748-8002 . -- (202)-748-8003. join us on twitter or go to facebook.com/c-span. let's get going here through articles print front page, consumer spending helps offset a decline in manufacturing output. you have seen the headlines the past couple of days about a possible economic downturn. this is the wall street journal's front page this morning. you also have an "the washington times" about the president's speech last night new hampshire at a campaign rally. wards for gunntal safety and his proposal on how to move forward after recent mass shootings.

you also have, as we said, "usa today" noting a fox news poll that the president approval rating is down. they also note in the head-to-head match up in the democratic party that the former vice president joe biden leads. today's"also in "usa money section, there is a new report on the irs and cuts to the agency that have cost the united states aliens put listen, the federal government could've collected 34.3 billion more in taxes from the nation's largest corporation by increasing irs resources by less than half that amount. that is nearly 20% of the estimated cap between what corporations paid in taxes and what they owed from 2002 to 2014. this report is from indiana university kelley school of business, the first to quantify the amount of corporate tax revenue loss during the audit process of every dollar of irs budget cuts. you can learn more if you go to usa today on that story and then

"the washington post" has a story about tariffs. china says it will not take the recent round of tariffs lying down, saying that -- "the move by the u.s. seriously violated the consensus reached between the two heads of state in argentina and osaka, and deviates from the right track of resolving differences in consultation." there will be more on that in the coming days as well. your top public policy issue, robert in alexandria, virginia. democratic color. good morning. caller: yeah, i think america is in trouble because the way they had these kids in cages, you can mess up a kid's mind. who is going to say that for years are not, they will be after america? thank you. host: robert on immigration. rick in idaho, republican. your top public policy issue?

caller: top of the morning to you, greta. this is rick, a united states marine for it i would like to bring to light united states social security part if on go to your laptop, click living adjustments, and you will see all of the postings from years, 2018, 240 three when president obama and joe biden took office, they posted a 2010, a 0% 2009 and coda in 2010, and the following 3.61.7, 1.5, 1.7 and another 0.0. what i would like to bring to light when president trump took the oval office as he posted a 2.0 and 2017 and a 2.8%. when you glance at this page, america, you will see barack obama and joe biden are the only ones who posted any 00 -- 0.0% codes, and this report goes back

as far back as president reagan pre-democrats and republicans posted positive whereas barack obama and joe biden did not. my point is if joe biden could not get it right and late years, what makes and think you will get it right this time? god bless president trump in the republican trying to make america safe. thanks again. host: rick, a republican from idaho. and charlotte,t north carolina. good morning. caller: i would like -- good morning. i would like to make a statement about the president and the policies that he has one team to implement. locally, there are enough saying whole within our government have gotten his policies past, and hopefully, the people are waking at this time to make sure

vote him they do go out. host: david, cincinnati, ohio. a democrat. caller: the morning. national debt. we never hear anything about it anymore. president obama was in office and the republicans were all concerned about the deficit. but not now. and i'm disappointed that all the democrats running for president, i have not heard one of them talk about it. it is a long-term problem that we have to address. and we cannot address it just by taxing more, which the more liberal democrats seem to think is the solution. tax the rich. i don't believe that is a solution. heard the other day, our military, where we spend more than the highest other seven

countries on their military, including russia and china.we have to find ways to cut the budget and we have to do it soon before it reaches a point where it is the next generation will not have anywhere near their standards of living where we have today. thank you. host: david, coming up on the program, we will talk to a fiscal policy director at the american action forum, gordon gray. we will talk about the economy, deficits, and this headline from recent days, trump republican ridicule as 3.7 trillion dollars spending hits record highs. they note that the massive 20% deficit increase from last year is only expected to worsen as the president's 1.5 trillion dollar tax plan from 1.5 years ago fails to "pay for itself," as the white house previously claimed three congress also passed another overbudget spending bill earlier this month. the treasury department reports

a prediction on monday $1 trillion deficit in two months at the end of the fiscal year, and analysts noted it is the most money the federal government has spent in the first 10 months in a fiscal year since 2009 efforts to pull out of the great recession. tammy and north carolina. democrat. good morning. caller: good. thank you for the opportunity. i just wanted to share i am not a scholar of history, but just reflecting on prior to the great depression, the economy, everybody was so heavily in debt. my concern is that we are going to see the same thing happening again -- is we are going to see the same thing happening again. the spending for the country is so huge, the deficit, the debt, consumer spending is what the economy is depending upon. and president trump has set us what is going to

happen, but my concern is that he will just [indiscernible] because it does not go with this symbol of being irresponsible. thank you. host: ok, tammy. republican.ida, your turn to tell washington your top public policy issue. caller: my issue is that the vice president biden went to china with his son, and he was dealing with the business people there, and he got $5 billion. next time, he went to ukraine ended the same thing, and then there was an investigation of his son, and he told the president of ukraine if you do fire individually and try to investigate his son, he is not

going to get them help or money. also, he got billions of dollars from ukraine. withhe went on to italy the same type of corruption the vice airplanes, president's airplane. old and he does not know much about the economy. when he was the vice president, he did not do nothing. he did not do anything to help the country. the health care, it was a flop. host: ok, ned. ned republican prayed more on campaign 2020 from "the sportston post's" section, a rebuke of o'connell. matt jones from kentucky is writing a book about senate majority leader mitch mcconnell.

the book imed as a political review of the second most powerful republican in the country will be published by simon & schuster and expected to be released next summer ahead of the 2020 election. radioones post a popular show and host a television show that covers sports and politics in the state and has been a frequent critic of mcconnell for years. in florida, independent. caller: yeah, i was calling i am disabled almost 100%, but i heard talk about program cuts and everything else. i am trying to just stay alive. host: ok, robert and florida. mike, laurel park, new york. democratic caller. caller: hi, greta. the first thing i would like to share is i would like to see an infrastructure bill passed.

we have been talking about it for 10 years. you know, mitch mcconnell would not give -- the republicans would not give obama money for that. to the gentleman from idaho and florida, mitch mcconnell gave barack obama and joe biden $800 billion when the country was falling apart in 2009 and 2010. that is why there was not a call and entries because when obama came into office, and biden, the came in the first month with 700,000 jobs lost. they turned that around with 800 billion. gave president trump to trillion dollars, plus money from coming back overseas and that was done in six months. so, obama and biden have a much better economic record by far the donald trump and all the debt.he has put on our

again, i would like to see infrastructure past once and for all. thank you. southjames, easley, carolina. republican. your top policy issue, james? caller: my policy issue is when we arrest a man for working and we say he broke the law and he was working down in mississippi, and we arrest him and we cannot do nothing about guns, then we are in trouble. host: what do you think should be done? james, what do you think should be done? caller: what i think should be done? well, what i think should be done is guns are like cars, you have to prove you know how to use a weapon safely and you should have to know how to use a weapon safely. you should have to get a permit for it, and you have to go -- host: ok, james, to you and others, listen and talk through

the phone and mute your television when it is your turn. some news this morning on the journalism front from marine corps times.com, here is the headline -- "family still holding out for hope after seven year mark of syrian disappearance of marine austin tice." memories grow. photos of new babies, couplings, and other life moments filled the space overflowing to the point where deborah and mark tice have had to extend the mantle. no matter how full the space becomes, it is never complete because their eldest child, austin, still has not come home. austin marine officer tice was working as a freelance journalist try -- tracking the triumphs of the syrian people when he was kidnapped in august and has been held in an unknown location since august 2012 for unknown reasons prayed he disappeared while reporting from the war-torn country without warning. he was heading home after having

it in the area between semesters at georgetown law. while the family has been in touch with u.s. government officials for years, there is little they can say publicly about what they know about austin' is condition. we will go to michael in new york. democratic caller. caller: hi, how are you? thanks for giving me the time. i just wanted to say that what is happening at the border is just something that we need to address. it is a gross violation of human rights. the separation of children from their parents and the conditions that they are living in is just horrible, and inhumane, and i think we need to do something about that as soon as we can. thank you. host: dan, hillsboro, oregon. republican. caller: how are you today? that guy right there, the guy you just had their, the talking

points -- everybody says the same thing. i have talked to border patrol agents, people from the center for immigration studies. you know, there is a lot going on. if people really want to pay attention and know what is going does not feel safe to go around here, where i live out in hillsboro. you do not know who you are standing next to half the time. anyhow, www.unit edstatesillegalaliencrimereport. com --. right now. so-called good people coming out , you don't know who they are. this guy who was an illegal advocate -- he was for immigration. he just that killed in colorado by a guy who had been deported before. this stuff has got to stop. people need to know the facts. the need to pay attention and quit calling these border patrol --nts and these ice agents

putting people in cages, we all know that obama did that in his reitn. -- reign. everybody needs to pay attention to another thing. the big rally they are going to have in portland this weekend demonizing the right wing guys for coming in here and spewing hate speech -- and they are not .ike that, so you know, everybody thinks they are anti-immigrant, so on, so forth. that is not it. we are for the will of law. i am married to an immigrant. she had to pay $10,000 to come here and live in this united states, low to school. and i am just tired of these people twisting the words like that woman you had on a little bit earlier, saying all this stuff about trump spewing hate. i mean, unless you pay knowtion, you really don't

what's going on. you have got to pay attention to the past. host: another article to share with you from "the wall street journal." president trump eyes a new real estate purchase, greenland. he wants to buy the world's biggest island. the idea of the u.s. purchasing greenland has captured the former real estate developer's imagination. mr. trump has with varying degrees of seriousness repeatedly expressed interest in buying the autonomous danish territory tween the north atlantic and arctic oceans. pennsylvania, an independent -- your cap policy issue. caller: assault weapons. in 2018, 36,000 americans died a gunshot. most of those were handguns. they were done by gang bangers.

gang bangers don't go to a gun store to buy a weapon. gang bangers don't get a background check. weapons, handguns -- that should be brought out, and background checks are not going to help all the gang bangers out there. zoe, maryland, democratic caller. caller: i am so happy that you put me on right after that last caller. yes, most deaths from guns do come from handguns. the problem with assault rifles is a public safety issue. i am not saying we need to get rid of all rifles, but we have licensing for cars. a level, classs b level, class c level. if somebody has proven through classes, through evaluations, through background checks that they are worthy of carrying an assault weapon, by all means,

that just like we have different rights for somebody who drives at certain levels, a class c license -- i truly believe that can besense gun laws made. everybody has the right to pursue the gun that they choose, and at the same time, we can have comfort in the public knowing that not just anybody can have access to these weapons. proper training, proper regulation is really necessary today. in maryland there. coming up, we are going to talk with u.s. news & world report national security correspondent paul shankman. later, we will talk with gordon gray about the rising budget deficit and growing recession fears.

>> sunday on "q&a," doug mills talks about photos covering president trump. >> obviously, he enjoys having us around. despite hisieve constant comments about fake news in the media and so forth, i really feel he enjoys having us around, because it helps drive his message. it helps drive the news of the day, which he can do every day and does every day. he is constantly driving the message. therefore, having us around really allows him to do that. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." watch booktv for live coverage of the national book festival. saturday, august 30 one, starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern, our coverage includes interviews

with justice ruth bader ginsburg on her book "my own words." david troyer. his book is "the heartbeat of wounded knee." "child of the dream." the author of "the british are coming." and thomas malone discusses his minds." er the national book festival, august 31, at 10:00 a.m. eastern, on book tv on c-span2. "washington journal" continues. host: at our table this morning is paul shinkman, a national security correspondent with "u.s. news & world report." he is here to talk about the intelligence community. it's began with the director of national intelligence. explain what this office is. how was it created, and why? guest: this office was created in the aftermath of the september 11 attack. the idea was that the various

branches of government responsible for disseminating for thisnce allows ultimate mistake to happen. this position is designed to be a principal advisor to the president, that also somebody who is able to manage the workings of 16 other intelligence agencies aside from dni, 17 total, and make sure they are working together closely. and the president, the principal customer, is getting the best information possible. host: is the office of the director of national intelligence in charge of all the other agencies? yes, dna isically, at the top of the food chain for the intelligence services. but that is not always the way it has worked, both in practice and in reputation. i have often heard the example -- the first dni, , he went frome

serving as dni to then being the deputy secretary of state, which is technically a step down from the position, but at the time was considered more prestigious. i think if you look at the way it has served in practice, you see examples of people like jim klapper, who went in the aftermath of the benghazi attacks for example, took it upon himself to operate independent of the intelligence agencies, and handle the blowback from that incident and provide protection for the intelligence agencies to be able to follow on work from that, looking at what happened and how to move forward. host: you said the director is the principal advisor to the president. what does that mean on a day-to-day basis? guest: it is one of those things that there have only been six other people who have held this position full-time. it is varied.n,

it is really up to the president to decide how involved the and i operations,y-to-day whether he is there for briefings for the resident's daily intelligence -- president's daily intelligence briefing, whether it is someone the president goes to ford vice. people are looking at that with the new dni, joe mcguire, a much you will be involved in president trump's day-to-day life. he is a former navy seal, career service member. he was on a series of seal teams, including seal team six. that is the bulk of his career. after he retired as a vice admiral, he went on to work in his position most recently, his new one, of heading the national counterterrorism center. it's going to be interesting to see how that experience flavors his background. we have not had a military man outside of the intelligence community. jim klapper had served in the air force as an intelligence officer.

we have not had a military man outside of the intelligence community in this position, gathering at. we will see how he manages all the agencies. host: do we know what president chose him? and what is he looking for? guest: it is difficult to know. he has not telegraphed much about what he wants in this new position. he has telegraphed what he does not want in this new position, and that was dan coats and his deputy, mr. gordon. they were known for being honest brokers about the reality of the intelligence they produced. it seems as though that brand of relationship did not work in the president's mind. ofsaw in the early stages dan coats announcing his lookingnt the president to some members of the republican party on capitol hill. -- thatl follow-on's

got spiked free quickly. host: texas republican john ratcliffe was at the top of that list for the president, and then he told him, we learned from the president himself, "i don't want you to go through this. am a good guy." he has chosen someone else. what is the process now for this nominee? guest: this is what the president discovered in nominating john ratcliffe. you can find somebody you think you can work with. they only work if they can get the approval of congress. came out immediately against john ratcliffe, and people in the gop did not support the position, it is a telling indicator that this man would not have made it through the nomination process. the president is going to need like danor somebody coats, who at least will be able to win the support of the intelligence community and the overall support of congress to the nomination period.

joseph mcguire is the acting dni. it is unclear whether the president will nominate him to be the permanent dni. other potential candidates we chambliss,ur saxby senator from georgia, who has a deep bench of experience, and p hoke's of -- and an ambassador. republicansre the on capitol hill who have to approve this nominee looking for? opinions,differing but which would you say, from the democrats and republicans -- what do you think they are going to be asking? guest: it has to be somebody who has security experience. it is not spelled out, but certainly their own qualification is going to be something that is critically important -- how they understand the way the intelligence agencies work, and how best to manage those agencies without micromanaging them.

and then perhaps most importantly making sure that the theident is getting clearest picture possible about what is happening on the ground, not what the president would like to be, just one of the principal concerns of his onlycs, is that he has asked for information that all lives with his view of the world. remind viewers where dan coats publicly differs from the president. guest: we saw a few instances were publicly he spoke out about russian interference in the 2016 election, the threat that ice is still poses in the middle east, iran's compliance with the former nuclear deal. all of these things were statements that dan coats said publicly that did not quite a line with how the president had a certain things were happening on the ground. you saw it also in the way dan coats took action on his last actions establishing a new executive committee to analyze russian threats to the upcoming election.

that seems to be something that angered the president. did gordon remind you of why she resigned? guest: she was a career cia officer. she worked in other agents, but the bulk was the cia. the reason that alignment works so well is because dan coats had a lot of management experience and time on capitol hill, but not a lot of personal intelligence can -- experience. sue gordon did understand how these agencies worked, .specially the cia they worked in tandem well. it seems pretty clear that she was asked to resign, but she did not choose on purpose. we saw a note to the president saying her resignation was out of patriotism and respect, not herof preference, was language. she just yesterday sent a note thatl of the dna office was pleasant and congratulatory and grateful for her service, but definitely strained in a sense that there should be a

cause for concern, and she was offering a reason why people should not be concerned, which is interesting. sources i'm speaking with in the intelligence community are concerned that the president does not want to hear about the work they are doing, and it matters right now. there are issues that are going to be in place with the new dni as they come in, including russian interference, chinese threatsns in hong kong, -- that matters. when the president says something is or is not a certain way, that shapes the way everybody in the chain of command can go about doing their job. if that is not aligned with the way the intelligence services see a problem is the extent to which china could be deployed its military to crack down on hong kong protesters -- that makes a big difference to people who are carrying out the work of the u.s. government. host: is the president getting two different stories from his

advisors in the different intelligence communities? guest: that is supposed to be the work of the dni. well,ebody can do the job you can have different information and know how to handle it, whether it is knowing -- i am important voice in this room so we can talk this out. what is the state of the intelligence community right now? guest: i have heard a lot of frustration about the extent to which the difficult, hard work they are doing and the long ares they are carrying out having an effect on the man who ultimately makes decisions about the information they are putting forward. it would be interesting for viewers to go back and read sue .ordon's note

it says we need to continue a pace, that there is frustration and concern about what the future holds. pace of thes the intelligence community? what are they working on? how do they go about working on it? are the concerns? you talk a little bit about some of the concerns. it on a daily basis, what are you hearing? guest: there are no shortage of problems to solve -- isis in the middle east, iran a resurgent threat through the entire region, what china is doing right now. these are serious issues that need to be addressed now, not partisan political infighting and bickering, which i think is what absorbs a lot of the opposition. host: how much money does the intelligence community get on a yearly basis? is not entirely known. part of the budget is classified. dollars.of billions of

it is a healthy, significant element of the u.s. government. host: how many do we know of the personnel that work for the u.s. intelligence community's -- communities? they're not as broken down as the u.s. military , where you can find all the people who work for the services. the intelligence community tend to be more quiet about that information. the intelligence community -- how does that work? guest: that comes from the senate select committee on intelligence and the house intelligence committees. we saw the aftermath of the snowden lakes -- leaks. it is a difficult balance of these agencies working to protect what they consider the interest of the u.s. government and the u.s. people, but not being able to do it out loud.

it's seemingly conflicts with the values of people in the u.s. government. people on capitol hill are trying to maintain security we have created while also making sure the agencies are accountable. guest: -- host: what are you working on right now about the intelligence community? what are you keeping your ion? guest: this is a significant story, what happens next. the director himself is going to be a big story, but also who he picks for a deputy. very unusual we do not have a deputy in place right now. command within the director's office right now, ,here is a woman, beth sanner poised to take over as the next deputy. she is also somebody with a lot of cia experience. is going to be a big one and it

is going to shape a lot of what we see next in the intelligence communities, in terms of what priorities people set for the president, and what kind of priorities they direct to intelligence the president needs. host: paul shinkman will be reporting on all that. you can follow his reporting at "u.s. news & world report." thank you for the conversation. appreciate it. and we come back, we talk to gordon gray about the rising budget deficit and growing fears of a recession. ♪ ♪

>> the c-span cities tour is on the road, exploring the american story. >> in many ways, galveston county is a lens, the way in which montana changes. it is one of the fastest, if not the fastest, metropolitan areas in terms of growth in the country. >> we take you to bozeman, montana. >> the most famous formation for dinosaurs is the creek formation where we go to find triceratops and t-rex, two of the most iconic dinosaurs known from that here in montana. ivan doig is an incredibly beloved author in montana, and i think really gives voice to the working people of montana. watch the tour of bozeman,

montana this weekend on booktv, and sunday on american history tv on c-span3. working with our cable affiliates, we explore the american story. "washington journal" mugs are available in c-span's new online store. check out the "washington journal" mugs and see all of the c-span products. >> "washington journal" continues. our table,n gray at fiscal policy director with the american action form. -- forum. center-right a market-oriented think tank, in my portfolio is the economy, tax, and budget. have aow, i don't particularly good story to tell or a lot of great news, unfortunately. host: do you think we're headed toward a recession? what are the indicators, in your

opinion? guest: i think we are headed for some choppy waters. the yield curve inversion of this week is a troubling sign. there are reasons to think we should not overvalue the signal the yield curve inversion sent this week, but it is still a troubling sign in my view. there are policy risks out there. certainly, the trade war is having a detrimental effect on the economy. that is a significant risk to the economy. but we have other data coming in . strong retail sales suggest that fundamentals of the economy are sound, and we don't have a risk of a recession in the immediate offing. some of the signs we have been getting lately are troubling. host: for those who do not know what a yield curve is, including myself -- guest: let me step back and walk you through that. the yield curve is a graph or a plot of interest rates for government bonds over increasingly long maturities.

therities is just how long duration of that borrowing is. we are familiar with concepts like the 10 year treasury bond. that is the government borrowing money from the public for the period of 10 years. traditionally, and this makes sense, if you give somebody money or loan money to somebody for a longer couple of time, you are going to expect higher interest back. that is kind of a fundamental understanding of a healthy economy. the yield curve usually reflects that, that the longer the term, the higher the interest rate. what happened this week is that long-term interest rates declined relative to shorter-term interest rates. that has historically been a signal that investors and forward-looking observers are expecting troubled economic waters ahead. host: paul krugman writes in "the new york times" today from -- "from come due to trump gloom" is the headline.

couple quarters of good economic news, trump officials were boasting that the tax cuts had laid the foundation for many years of high economic growth. since then, the data has confirmed what >> of been saying all along. yes, the tax cut in the economy a boost, a sugar high. dollion dollar deficits will that. but the boost is temporary. in particular, the promised boom in business investment never materialized. i know the economy has reverted, at best, to its pre-stimulus growth rate. agree or disagree? instance i would agree with some elements of what dr. krugman said, but have to disagree with some others. first of all, the tax cut and the spending deal we have seen did in fact have a stimulative effect over the short term. it certainly increased the deficit. tax cuts did not pay for themselves. there are other elements of the tax cuts and jobs act that were more a function of tax reform,

and i think those still hold promise. it is not the case that we can step back and say those are not working, because to do that you have to do an analysis, look at all the data, strip out all the other boys in the data, find out what the tax cut was. meanwhile, you from the presence trade war that is taking the very channel, business investment, that the tax cut was supposed to incentivize and stimulate -- the trade war is having a directly counter active effect. it is taking that very channel and smacking it right in the face. it is difficult to disentangle those. that theit possible president's strategy is a long game and that in the end things could get better? guest: i think that is the right way to evaluate how the president is approaching the trade war. is there a benefit for all the costs? the administration has been trying to tell the american people that we are not actually seeing costs.

i would have to disagree with administration's story there. cost, weif there is a also have to assess what the benefit is. maybe the trade policy passes the test. unfortunately, i am not convinced the administration strategy is one that would realize all the changes we are expecting the chinese to make. so far i am unconvinced that the pain the u.s. economy is taking on is worth what the trade negotiations will produce. host: i want to open the conversation to our viewers, talking about the economy where you live. independents, 8003. 202-748-8002.

the president treats that consumers are in the best shape ever. how do we compare to other countries, and what is happening economies?untries' what impact could they have on others? guest: we are in an increasingly interconnected global economy. that is why the president's trade policies are so concerning . the slowing of growth and the rest of the world has a real effect on the u.s. economy. i am really troubled by the global growth environment. i think that is also animating some of what the federal reserve is doing. host: what is happening in germany specifically? is this part of or related to the president's trade policies with china, etc.? we are seeing a number of economies, a number of our trading partners, downgrade their growth estimates.

are seeing i think global disruptions in all of our trading arrangements. it is not just germany. there is argentina. there is singapore. there is a number of our trading partners that are flashing some warning signs for the global economy. it is troubling. i think it is also animating to some extent the yield curve inversion we saw this week. host: so it does have an impact on this economy, the united states? guest: i believe so. that is why the signals this week are troubling. republican.s a we are talking about the health of the u.s. economy. how would you rate it? ok,er: i think it is doing but i got a real problem with -- ie just thinking that mean, your guest was just giving you an opinion. that is his opinion, which is -- like krugman's work was to me, in a lot of cases. isn i see that china stealing election of properties

and nobody stood up for the american people, and now trump is doing that, you have bad not people -- badmouth people. what are they expecting? that trump should not stand up for these people? are they expecting? that trump should not stand up for these people? come on. this bashing of trump has to end. it really does. host: we will take your point for gordon gray about the president sticking up for the american people when it comes to intellectual property. and currency manipulation as well. i think brad makes a good point about china being a bad trading.global united states -- and brad is correct on this -- needs to take a firmer stance when it comes to china's approach to intellectual property and a number of their other actions around the world. they are militarizing the south china sea.

.hey are a bad actor however, it is not clear that the strategies that the president, that the executive is embarking upon would actually achieve the goals that they are saying needs to be achieved, and it is not obvious that the cost that the executive branch is taking on is worth it. but it would help achieve those goals. we would strengthen our hand if we were to approach china in a multilateral fashion, bring on our allies instead. the president is threatening a lot of our other trading partners with tariffs. i think that actually weakens our -- the recession, the

small communities, especially in indiana, have never recovered. i do not have a problem with it. as a matter of fact, depressive gas in this community went down -- the price of gas when down $.18 yesterday. i see a positive out of this. thank you for taking my call. host: gordon, what about his analysis? guest: thanks, eddie. i think he is identifying what i think a lot of americans have experienced. coming off of the worst recession in a generation, in many generations, a lot of communities have not fully recovered. celebrate in the longest expansion in u.s. history, but it has not delivered the wage growth. it has not delivered the prosperity that i think a lot of us wanted to see. , thatile, we have china is i think violating global trade norms and is -- like i said earlier is a bad actor in

the trade space. you have a president who is taking them on, and vocally. i think that is -- for communities that have been harmed, they can see that as somebody who is sticking up for them. however, the president's approach to china should be evaluated on what it achieves, not what we are seeing along the way. host: what has it achieved so far? guest: so far, we have not seen a change in china's behavior in general. so far, we have not secured a trade agreement with china. right now, we are taking on a lot of the costs with no obvious benefits. and/or other countries hurting more than the united states, as that caller said? guest: with respect to china, we are now on the losing end of that. we have seen china reduce trade barriers with other countries. so as it relates to our trade war with china, other countries are benefiting, not us. host: in new hampshire, a

republican. hi, justin. caller: thank you for taking my call. i really have some questions regarding looking at the short game versus the long game. one of the things i understand is that during the obama eight years, we did not have a recovery. in fact, a very slow recovery. we found the last two years has actually been an expansion. if i recall correctly, two months ago, it was predicted trillionould have $3.4 added on to our economy. that has been revised down to $2.5 trillion. that is the significance of the tariffswith china -- with china. even if they go to 20%, it would be less than two hundred billion dollars. compared to the expansion of it is allion,

relatively small figure. even if we had the full effect of the tariffs, it would have a very small effect on the expansion that we have enjoyed the last two years, number one. number two, with the devaluation yuan, you want -- the when that happens, that makes the chinese yuan cheaper. a dollar buys more periods of part of the effect of the would be chinese goods being cheaper. it is mitigated that way. also, with the devaluation of an, capital has been leaving -- correct me if i am wrong -- capital has been leaving china tour money is more and the fastest place in the world they can come in the united states.

i would think that that would have the effect of decreasing the 10 year treasury rate. the linetin, hang on for me. let's have mr. gray respond and we will come back on you for any follow-up. great question. he hit on a lot of the elements and dynamics in the global economy, so this is a great question. first of all, the u.s., we were expecting something close to 3% growth this year. analysesen a number of that are showing the trade war could reduce that by about half of a percentage point of gdp. that is a lot, if we are expected to be growing at 3%. half a percentage point is growth we need. right now, the atlanta fed is saying we are probably growing at something like 2%. that is higher than the trend was over the previous eight

years, but it is still not a robust enough trajectory of growth to really change the growth outlook, and to deliver the kind of improvement in the standard of living that a lot of americans have come to expect. so the trade war is having an unfortunate and negative effect on gdp growth. with respect to the evaluation in the chinese currency, the chinese did allow their currency to the value relative -- -- to devalue relative to the dollar, but not to fully offset the terrorists. that is showing that chinese exporters are not observing the tariffs. instead, those are largely being borne by the u.s. economy. host: any follow-up? caller: i could follow-up to those but i also have other questions. decreasing the growth down to near 2% -- that is less than our expectations, but it is

better than the one and a half percent we were enjoying for years. also, here in new hampshire, our manufacturing base since nafta decreased 25%. put a 5% of all manufacturing jobs left new hampshire. years, we have had an expansion that all the employers i know say they have people0% to 50% more than they have to, three years -- my wifeam not does a lot of shopping. we know a lot of people, a lot of contacts, and nobody i know said there has been any effect they can feel from the tariffs. also, mr. epstein was talking about having partners in these negotiations. we know from history that trying to herd countries together is worse than trying to herd children or goats.

in fact, some of the people that we would want on our side are not going to agree. examplewo, india for has had even 100% tariffs. they may not steal intellectual property. undermine and extract agreements from companies in order to correct deals with india, but they do have onerous tariffs on our product. host: we have to run at this point. gordon gray, respond. guest: to be sure, bringing together a multilateral coalition to take on china's bad trading practices is a difficult the, and compared to difficult tasks the president has embarked upon in a trade

war, my own view is that it would have a greater chance of success. that, in my view, is the best approach to dealing with china. the goal is to actually achieve changes in china's policies. china is a fairly stable authoritarian regime. it is fairly difficult to compel their practices. in my view, we need to marshall as much support in that effort as we can. host: let's move onto bloomington, indiana, democratic caller. caller: i agree with everything you just said. wondering -- the tax break that was given really did not help a lot of people. --d now we have moscow match mitch working with a russian

aluminum company coming in. i think that is not a good thing for our country. what happened to the tax break? the big corporations were supposed to build these companies, our american companies. i don't know. what do you think about that? thank you for the call. certainly with respect to the tax cuts, it is may be worthwhile to take a step back and breakout about different elements of the tax cuts and jobs act. there are three pieces. the first is the individual tax cuts. that was rate reductions for taxpayers. there were changes to the tax items, claims of credits and exemptions. the second piece is the business tax reform.

piece, there were changes to the international tax regime. certainly in the first part, that is the individual tax changes. the assessment by the joint committee on tax -- that is congress's tax estimator. tax cuts did not apply to the middle-class. however, certainly a lot of attention has been placed on the business tax rate. part of the tax cuts and jobs act, the u.s. corporate tax rate was the highest in the world. u.s. companies wanting to leave the u.s. to go to other countries for tax reasons. one of the good things we have seen in the aftermath of the tax -- after the act

enactment of the tea cga, we are no longer sinuous companies fleeing shores. an incentive to adjust is called expensing. we provide tax incentives for businesses to invest, and they can write off that investment immediately. that is supposed to improve investing in the united states. to translatesed into wages. unfortunately, the trade war is running directly counter to that channel. my concern is that the president's trade policy is basically taking that channel of the tax cuts and jobs act and nullifying it. that is a real problem. host: we are talking about the health of the u.s. economy with gordon gray. las cruces, new mexico, your questions or comments. caller: good morning.

trump likes to talk about the stock market value. but let's remember that the stocks that the trump tax cuts -- the corporations, instead of using that as business development, those corporations did stock buybacks, and the effect was to goose the value of the stocks instead of developing the company. the second thing that those corporate buybacks did -- wagead of giving increases, they get bonuses, so the wages of workers did not improve that much. the second port i would like to ofe is because 30% and 35% stock is owned by foreign investors, those foreign investors pay -- take $44 billion out of our economy every year. so if we are looking at the stock market, i think it is a

sham because it has not been built on real development of corporations. goosed, it has been just by those trump-pence posts. guest: great question. i am glad some of the ethics about buybacks, because there has been a lot of attention to these. i think there is a little bit of confusion about what the tax cuts, particularly on the business side -- how that is supposed to operate, and how that relates to buybacks. the business tax cut is designed to incentivize investment. it improves the outlook for a particular investment. it makes investments more attractive than they would have been prior to the tax change. if the business that has an incentive to invest, it will expand higher and non-resource that investment.

that is the theory that underpins the business tax change there. what buybacks are doing is essentially returning old cash to investors. that is a function of the cash in past earnings that businesses had on hand. it is important to remember that those dynamics -- what cash a business has on hand and what their prospects for future investment are -- are completely different elements. easy to conflate the two, but in this instance, they are separate elements. host: in texas, a republican caller. good morning to you. caller: interesting you started this segment are pretty close to it with a piece from paul krugman. in my humble opinion, i don't believe there is a group of experts in the country or world that has probably been proven wrong more than economists. go back and look at what he

predicted was going to happen with the election of trump, and look what happened with the election of trump. trump accurately said don't judge the success of his policies based on inauguration day. go back and look at what happens the day after. the stock markets took their initial drop listening to krugman for five seconds. and what they ended up doing the rest of that week and pretty much following onto now. the comparison to our economy -- it is an improvement. it is not a fair comparison. during the obama administration, you had zero interest rates. the fed was pumping $50 trillion into the economy every month for years. under trump, we are seeing the interest rate go up. , financialny people folks and so-called experts, said trump was crazy months ago

when he said the fed should have , and now the rates everybody seems to agree that trump made the right call on that. the 2% trump economy right now, to compare that to before, we are really doing much better. the stated goals of the trump economy are offset and mitigated by the trade war, but the problem is if we don't do the trade war now, when? this is probably our last, best shot. in terms of having our allies to work with, it will probably take 10 years to get them together to agree to do anything, and we have issues with all of them as well. the trade deals have not just been bad with china. they have been bad everywhere. why would we pay for times the the tariffour times when we send our cars to europe then we charge them? what would we let the nato

countries pay a fraction of what they are supposed to be paying? how is balancing these things out. we are in a unique standpoint from a strength standpoint. sovereign debt is at a negative interest rate overseas. we are the less dirty shirt while this is going on. this is war. that is what you have had 73% of the farmers being hurt and targeted by china still supporting trump. they say they are supporting trump. he never had 100%. did he lose any -- i doubt it. host: let's take his argument. if not now, when would we make these changes to try to level the playing field? guest: i share his frustration as a practitioner with ability to predict the future. we get it wrong more often than we get it right. there will be a marked change in

the trajectory of the economy as the president took office. some elements of the tax cuts and jobs act were very sound. those clearly have had a positive effect on economic growth. whether those are durable or not is another question. certainly, a lot of those are going to be looked at. in terms of the right approach on the trade front, whether or not we should be doing this now -- if not now, then how? my own view is that the approach did ministration is taking on trade and with respect to china is not a disciplined one. if you look at how the president has announced his tariffs, the degree to which the president does not seem to have taken ,dvice from his advisors even

in sharp elbowed negotiations with the chinese, suggests to me that this is not a deliberate strategy. that is my concern about the outlook for the trade war. i love that previous caller, because i think it is very important to understand that fundamentally speaking i agree with mr. gray. trump is not an economic, international specialist. there are things people attribute to him that he just does not have. and when you look at how he has laid these tariffs out, i have three basic questions. one, when did these issues with china start? people have been talking about china reverse engineering and having these practices for decades, and yet are corporations continue to deal with him, deal with china. when did those issues become national issues?

corporations were fine with that. it was the cost of doing business. i am not telling you china is not a bad player. none of these things are new. if you are going to make a decision to continue to do this with china, i do not get why suddenly my tax dollars -- this becomes a matter of national security. but let's just give that away. the previous caller was talking about how trump has made this. economists said bad news, bad news. people understand the global economy we live in now is never helped by this type of reckless, aggressive, politically driven motivation. economics is about causal relationships.

there is nothing about this administration i have seen that tells me they are executing economic strategy. i want to ask your guest what he thinks. guest: i could not agree more. the develops -- the developments we are seeing -- their hand as a geopolitical actor, as a regional hegemon, the militarization of the south been ona -- that has the rise and that is a function of their strengthening economy. i think your observation is spot on. it is not clear there is a coherent strategy. that is my concern, that the undisciplined announcement of tariffs to me suggests that what

the president is doing is very much just reflecting a fondness for the ability to unilaterally make changes in policy. with tariffs, the president can eventually, to a large degree, flip a switch. financial markets. i think the president has become enamored of that effect. if you look at how he is approaching decisions among his advisors, they do not suggest this is part of a deliberate strategy. that concerns me. it also suggests the cost-benefit i was talking about with respect to the trade war -- that we are taking a lot of costs. if there is not a coherent strategy, it is not a worthwhile policy pursued. austin, will go down to texas. joe is watching on our line for republicans. caller: a couple of comments. i do work for a large company. it has had an effect, a large

technology company. just to say this has gone on forever does not make it right. also, i had a question. everybody that comes on to washington journal who talks about the tax deal has said it has blown a hole in our deficit. revenuesand our tax are up year-to-year. isn't it just a spending problem? guest: the deficit effect -- they are talking about compared -- as wagesdeficit

increase over time, the --lation we have going on are they lower than they otherwise would have been, if we had not done the tax cuts? -- yes,me clearly is the tax cuts have not paid for themselves. revenue is higher than it was last year, but lower than what revenue would have done -- would have been if we had not done that. we have increased the deficit because of tax cuts. i think the question essentially that the policy posed is, is it worth the read inc. we are taking on? -- is it worth the red ink we are taking on? causalhas done the analysis, particularly on the business side, to see if the changes have produced enough growth to make them worthwhile. my view is they won't pay for themselves but maybe it is a worthwhile growth opposition.

i am a little skeptical of that, to be honest, because it was a very expensive tax cut. a lot of the expense was on the individual tax cuts. i don't think there is enough opportunity for growth there to make that cost necessarily worthwhile. it's possible. i just question that assumption. host: all right, california, democratic caller. good morning. i am really more concerned about the economy in the united states. i live in southern california and i see malls closing, and i see homelessness, and children and mothers and families -- and things are really not good with the economy. hishen trump first started campaigns, he said he was going to bring jobs back, jobs back, jobs back. maybe we should bring our jobs back. maybe bring our jobs back from china. because we are short on time -- our jobs coming back?

not seen iswe have not a tremendous amount of jobs coming back from overseas, that we have seen a substantial improvement in the overall employment rate in the u.s. economy. unemployment is near record lows. at the most macro level, the national level, the labor market is really strong. however, you have a couple other things going on that are still problematic. we are still down from the number of workers who were working before the great recession. the caller identified that even though the economy looks pretty strong at the national level, there are still communities that have never fully recovered. believe itn gray, we there. the fiscal policy director with the american action forum. thank you very much for the conversation. that does it for today's "washington journal." a few for watching. enjoy your weekend. -- thank you for watching.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ ♪ announcer: an update about the story we were talking about earlier regarding the michigan congresswoman, that is really government announced within the past 20 four hours that they granted her a visa to visit her gran mother. respondedman to leave , silencing me and treating me like a criminal is not what she wants for me. it would kill a piece of me. i have decided visiting my grandmother under these conditions stance against everything i believe in, and

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