responsibilities, we can institution which he leads because a president doesn't want it. >> an interview with house speaker nancy pelosi. atch it now online c-span.org or at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> house republicans are meeting in baltimore this week for their annual policy retreat. to kick things off, kevin mccarthy held a news conference to discuss the agenda and take questions from reporters on a -- including impeachment procedures. congressman mccarthy was joined by the ranking members of the judiciary and oversight committees as well as representative elect dan bishop won a special election in north carolina's ninth congressional district.

theood afternoon, i am president of congressional institute and am pleased to welcome you to the 2019 house republican member retreat. the congressional institute has sponsored this congress since 1987. we believe it is important for members of congress to get together and discuss the important issues americans are concerned about. care, ar, health vibrant economy, and innovative technology ideas. the congressional institute is very involved in congressional reform. we have looked at reform ideas to make the budget process effective and other solutions to strengthen congress. you can find our research and other information about congress on our website, constitutionalinstitute.org. it is also a brand-new website, so please let us know

how you can report on congressional operations and reform measures. now, it's my great and distinct honor to introduce the house republican leader, kevin mccarthy. mr. mccarthy: please, hold your applause. thank you again. this is our weekly press conference. i brought a couple guests with me today. our republican leader in the oversight committee, jim jordan, who serves on judiciary as well. and soon-to-be one of our newest members and additions to the republican conference who just won north carolina, dan bishop, for all you, congressmen-elect. the press doesn't applaud for you, dan. >> i knew. >> first of all, i want to thank baltimore for having us back. we've had our conference here, as you know, many times before, and we thank the city for having that. today, and the next couple days we will be discussing different policies, looking at -- from the 21st century going all the way from -- continue our economics, from the strength within rebuilding our military but also our domestic issues. when it comes to privacy, when it comes to the environment, we will be doing breakout sessions with a number of members getting

together to work on the policy as we move forward. this week was a very interesting week when it came to washington. i think it's a clear sign or actually foretelling of what's going to happen for the next 18 months. let me just walk you through this week. this week, we watched two special elections in north carolina. both of them won by a republican. some of you, i know, write something much different. you ought to analyze this race. in 2018, this race was won by less than 900 votes, and there were questions whether votes were harvested or not so they had a new election. democrats were able to hold the exact same candidates before. was able to campaign for 17 months. from a financial point of view, that candidate had all the odds and advantages towards them. we had to come from behind. we had dan bishop, who's been representing the area in the state house, come from behind. not only did he win, he improved by more than 400%. the president made a

considerable difference in this race coming in when you watch the turnout, you watch the movement in numbers. just a week away to what they ended up on election day. you watched counties in which the democrat nominee last time actually carried but lost this time. we improved by two percentage points. if we simply add two percentage points across, that's 13 more seats with only six more to go to win a majority. the difference between being in the minority and majority is roughly 116,000 votes overall. so i think it's really foretelling what's happening. then, let's look what's happening inside congress themselves. we got a speaker that had a press conference today that refuses to answer questions what's happening to her chairman in the judiciary committee because they don't know exactly what's happening. you have a majority leader who, i was once last term, the responsibility is to manage the committees. fundamentally had a different definition of what's happening in the judiciary committee than

the chairman themselves. i told you many times before, chairman nadler, if he was a chairman on our side of the aisle, the way he handles his committee, we would have removed him from that committee long ago. his inability to run a simple committee, his inability to know and explain what is moving forward. chairman nadler, when he campaigned to become chairman -- and i'll quote what he said. he said, he would be the strongest member to lead an impeachment right after the election. even though the facts don't play that way, chairman nadler continues to try to move that way. we watched a new poll that came out through democrat voters. democrat voters know more about the democrats' investigation than anything legislatively they passed. i challenge the country can name -- tio name one problem they have been involved. they have an internal battle which becomes an internal war. at first, we watched it was a few new freshmen fighting with the speaker.

and the ideology of the party itself, and they won out. now, we find their own committee chairs, they cannot manage what's going on, nor do they know what's happening, nor do the members of the committee know. this is what the future holds, and that is why today, the next day and the others we'll be mapping out, one, a fundamental agenda to show the american public a better path and better way forward, that we can show the ability to continue to grow. when we watched the economy, the strongest economy we had in more than 50 years. i'll give you a few statistics. for those trying to make sure we raise our wages, we've been able to accomplish that. we are showing a path to do that. not with a mandate from government, but actually an economy that grows. you look at women between the ages of 25-54, the participation rate in the economy is 76.3%. the highest participation rate we have found in more than 15 years. you see we are joined by our

dear friend, doug collins, a republican leader when it comes to the judiciary committee. first, let me turn to jim jordan, our leader when it comes to the oversight committee and a member of the judiciary committee as well. jim. mr. jordan: well, thank you, kevin. let me thank kevin for his leadership and doug in committee. and then of course, congratulate dan. it was a big night, and what a contrast between greg murphy and dan bishop on tuesday evening and what you saw -- and i'll let doug jump in -- what you saw in judiciary committee this week. two days ago the judiciary committee voted to take way americans' second amendment rights without them doing anything wrong and they voted to allow that to happen in a court proceeding where the person who's losing their rights doesn't get to show up and defend themselves. two days later, less than 24 hours later, we had the craziest scenario we had today where is an impeachment, not impeachment, is it an investigation, inquiry? jerry nadler says he doesn't care.

he doesn't want to talk about it anymore. he wants to go after the president. we all know it's straightforward. the reason they want to do this and change the rules in the middle of the game, nine months into a new congress, the reason they want to change the rules, nothing else has worked for him. michael cohen hearing was a flop for them. came and lied 17 times. -- seven times under both. the john dean hearing was a flop. you watched and we all watched the bob mueller hearing. we all know that was a flop. so they have to come up with some way to go after this president because they are bound and determined to do it even though the country thinks it's not warranted. even though they know we shouldn't do it, and the country says in every poll don't do it. they change the rules in the middle of the game. and understand the underlying issue here. the president was falsely accused of conspiring with a foreign state to influence the election. jim comey investigated for 10 months. after 10 months, he found nothing. we deposed mr. comey and he told us that in the deposition. but he still leaks information

to get his special counsel, bob mueller, he investigates after 20 months and said no coordination between the trump campaign and russian influence. -- and russia to influence the election. 32 months, putting the country through this, and what do democrats want to do? change the rules so they can keep investigating and go after the president. it's ridiculous. it is wrong. and everyone in the country deep down understands that. unfortunately, the chairman of the judiciary committee doesn't. what we should do is look at how the false accusations started. and the good news is -- and thank the good lord for this -- bill barr is doing exactly that. but we could help on the committee. the ranking member understands this -- has been pushing for this. why don't we have the inspector general? who, by the way, has been a cash issued a scathing work or mr. comey --t of two days ago when i asked mr. nadler when we would -- when we get an opportunity to question him and ask him about his

report, jerry nadler says, i don't know. i haven't thought about that. stop and think about that. this is the chair of the judiciary committee. with a storied history in the house of representatives of defending basic rules, basic procedures, and basic constitutional rights and that's the response we get from him. so the minority leader is exactly right when he says, what a contrast between what democrats have done this week and what we saw on election night with a big win in north carolina. so i appreciate the leadership of the leader and, again, congratulate dan. i'll welcome him to the podium, the ranking member of the judiciary committee, mr. collins. mr. collins: well, it's been one of the days again in judiciary committee. it's been one great week, though. congratulations. we know what's happening. this is one of the things that we're seeing -- for those of us who travel the country and those in the last month, once you get outside washington, d.c., it was not amazingly gloom and doom.

eeyore only lives in washington d c. everyone where else there seems to be optimism. there's jobs. there are these things happening and people are excited about that. let me touch base really what happened this morning which was a sad continuance what's happened for the last eight months since they had the ability to have the majority. we have continued -- now today -- if anybody could follow the pretzel logic of the committee this morning, especially the chairman, we're investigating, we've been investigating, is it an inquiry, it's not an inquiry. let me make it clear for you. i know many of you have written articles today. let me go back and say, if you say if any of this is new rules today, it's wrong. plain and simple, it's not new rules. these are rules that have been part of the committee structure forever. they are simply choosing to use them now and they are packaging them together to make it seem like it's something more. this is important because when most people across the country only get their news by either a -- you know, a quick line a quick headline or momentarily look at the screen, they are not going to look past -- and the

democrats know this. they know they won't look past "impeachment" and everybody is going to think something's going. the reality is they're pulling a sham. i talked about it this morning. this is nothing more than a filter on a media site. instagram, snapchat. it's a filter that says, i look better than i am. the problem is, they don't look better. when they pull away the core of chairman nadler and the rest of his committee, there is nothing there. it's the biggest empty suit you want to have. they won't admit that basically they have nothing to go on. in fact, if you don't believe me, let's look at a history lesson. in june, chairman nadler and many of his cohorts said when the robert mueller report has definite impeachable offenses in it, robert mueller testifies in july. then in august, my chairman sends out a letter to other committees saying, hey, you guys got anything to impeach on? because we don't have anything anymore. so now when you have jamie raskin from maryland actually coming up and saying, you know, mueller was just a small part of what we're investigating.

how many of you with a straight face in the press corps -- y'all do great report. how many of you believe mueller was a small part what they do? it's not. today as we go forward, here's where we're at. they want this idea they can have it both ways, that they want to pacify those on our committee and their base because i feel sorry for chairman nadler in this respect. he took the mantle of what they didn't know that they couldn't do and that was impeachment. he took the mantle and said, we will go after donald trump because we hate donald trump and now we have majority and we have all this stuff that will help us impeach him and now after eight months, going on nine, he has nothing except smoke and mirrors. a dog and pony show. in fact, the dogs and ponies left and now we have nothing but a show and that's what happened today. thanks. mr. mccarthy: thank you, doug. as i mentioned earlier, there were two special elections. the one everyone was watching was north carolina's nine. those constituents have not been

represented since we were seated. dan bishop got in the race a little later. the democrats had the exact same opponent. financially had an advantage over us. at the end of the day, this tuesday, improved by more than two percentage points. i want you to remind one thing. we have fewer seats to gain to get to the majority than the democrats had two years ago. there are 31 democrats who sit in seats that president trump carried. 13 of them by more than six points. there's one thing i would be concerned about one if i was democrat. the management of the floor today. tell me how are the democrats going to go back and ask for a reelection on what they achieved? all they achieved are investigations that have gone nowhere, to find out they were lies. they watched a party move where speaker pelosi at one time was furthest to the left and now she's considered a moderate in her own new socialist democratic party. she has the title but no longer the power of how to manage the floor.

she has committee chairmen she can't understand what they're doing in committees, especially when it comes to chairman nadler. the majority leader doesn't even know what the committee is doing in his own press conference the week before. the day before. one thing we do know, democrats spent millions of dollars in the belief they can win an election. when you watched who turned out in this election, it just weren't republicans voting for dan bishop. there were a lot of democrats who did not like what they saw inside congress and gave a vote to dan bishop. that's how it was a 2% higher, 400% increase in the turnout of the final election vote to the new member for congressman-elect, dan bishop of

north carolina. mr. bishop: yeah. i can get used to that. i am not all surprised. we have press in north carolina as well. i'm delighted to be here. you know, it's interesting to hear the content of your report because the contrast that i offered voters in north carolina nine is exactly the contrast that's being described by these members of congress today. you had on the one hand a vision of america with a booming economy and more jobs and border security and lower taxes and continuation of american exceptionalism. and on the other hand, what i heard more than anything else from voters, as i passed through the district -- and we have a lot of democrats in our district and i heard it from a lot of democrats is that what the socialist democratic party is articulating -- not only stuns them, it frightens them. not only on the subject of this being consumed with the idea of destroying this president, but also -- which we're hearing more detail about today -- but also their policy proposals, which are outlandish.

and the people of the ninth district -- mr. leader, i think the point that makes clearest, the situation we were in electorally, in addition my opponent was running for 27, 28 months and was the beneficiary of $16 million, $17 million of expenditures from the farthest left sources outside the district, outside the state, he -- we also had a period of sx weeks where we had relatively level playing field financially in this race. and we not only caught him with the help of president trump and vice president pence and great support from here, we caught him and we passed him and we had, under those circumstances, a very clear victory. so i am delighted to be here to

meet -- i will also say, about 85% of the members of this conference financially supported our campaign. the help from here and the alignment, the -- well, the various parts of the conservative movement that worked together, worked in the same direction in this campaign was a marvelous thing to behold and the result was one that i think ought to resound across the country. thanks very much. mr. mccarthy: all right. let's open it up for some questions. yes, sir. reporter: hi. capital intel. my question is, in the oversight -- an antitrust investigation. seems to be a bipartisan issue. what do you see happening in the next few months on antitrust issues? mr. collins: there will be information requests that will

come out. you mentioned bipartisan. i know oversight will be looking at it this from as well. from the judiciary perspective, we need to not go to the one end, this is big, but see what it's like in the marketplace. are they suppressing ideas? are they keeping things out of the marketplace from an antitrust perspective? how do they operate in a new economy? everything that's disruptive and big is not necessarily bad. the question, does it become bad if they act in ways that's contrary to the market and contrary to the privacy issues that most americans have? i think you'll see more of that. the unfortunate part, and i know in the judiciary committee is, we are so preoccupied with taking things from american people and investigating this president that this often gets overshadowed. we will see a little more of that in the next few days. mr. jordan: i will add one aside. this may be one of the few areas where you can get some bipartisan -- you saw this with the attorneys generals in town earlier this week.

this may be one of the areas where congress can work together. mr. cummings and i are working on -- and our staffs, more importantly, are working on the special recognition issue. and there was -- there was strong bipartisan support in the committee when we looked at this issue. i'm optimistic. we are in the stage getting all the facts and make sure the american people will be understanding what's going on. mr. mccarthy: this is a topic in the retreat. there is concern. we want to make sure there is competition. some of the points doug made. just because you're big doesn't mean you're anticompetitive but we want to make sure they are. should amazon ever been able to create -- why shouldn't sears become amazon in they had the catalogs. i believe in the conservative philosophy of private property. shouldn't we know what someone is able to gain? if they monetize it shouldn't we receive that information? we should be able to move it and delete it.

i think those are simple three bases how we should deal with privacy? these are the exact issues we will be discussing here within policy. i'm hopeful we can find a bipartisan answer for this. many times i find democrats take it like a dodd-frank. either they want to break it up or they want to make it a utility. then you get no innovation but then, again, you also have no protection for your privacy. yes, ma'am. reporter: do you guys think that impeachment could work towards the g.o.p. and the president's advantage? especially you guys, do you want to see a vote on impeachment and should democrats mr. mccarthy: we had a number of votes on the floor and they all failed. nobody would want to see impeachment for a personal political gain outside of chairman nadler and a few of him on his committee. this is not something to play with. america is too important to play a political game like this. i think the american people expect us to go to congress. we got a lot of problems to solve. we should work on them. but the entire time -- and the whole reason why nadler ran for

this position is because he said he would be the very best at impeachment. there is no reason to move forward for this. the american people doesn't want it. the only person that continues to drive it is the chairman. even when you talk to their own leadership, they don't know what he's doing. i again raise the point. if you watch the way he handles the committee, from the most basic committee, if he was chairman within the republican conference, we would have removed him simply for his inability how to move a committee. in a proper way. reporter: what specifics, if any, has president trump shared with you what he would sign, what he would support related to gun legislation? mr. mccarthy: the number one he wants to find, is there a way we can solve that these devastating actions that take place never happen again? you know, the president has acted before. i traveled with the president when we flew out what took place in las vegas.

my community itself lost more my community itself lost more lives in las vegas than the entire state of nevada. what we found was a bump stock. a bump stock that was approved from the administration before him during the obama administration. and this president acted. we no longer have a bump stock. we watched when the other shooting in texas at a church, that an individual was able to have a weapon and they never should have simply because the nics, the national instant criminal background check, should have picked up on it. the way he abused his wife, he never should have gotten it. the president had a call with bipartisan senators. he's gathering information, and he told me he will come back with finding the ways to find a solution. he knows there's a problem and he wants to solve it. reporter: and has he given you where he stands on background checks?

mr. mccarthy: he wants to make sure whatever we do solves the problem. so he's gathering all the information, which you should do at the very beginning. the attorney general was in the meeting as well looking at ways, how do we make sure this never happens again? how do we protect law-abiding citizens on their rights as well? that's what he's doing and he'll come forward with where he's going. i know there are a number of things he's looking at. reporter: has he given you a timeline? mr. mccarthy: i think shortly. reporter: the president is coming here. commenting about the city of baltimore and chairman cumming'' district. calling it a rat-infested area. do you think the president should apologize for his remarks? mr. mccarthy: the president made a good case why many major cities have challenges. if you want to take the president's comments, you can go to the former mayor of baltimore. you can go to what congressman cummings had said before about his own community as well.

these are challenges we want to see a change to. this is something the president has been working on. when you look at the opportunity zones that were passed inside our tax bill, this is a clear contrast on either government trying to solve a problem for 20 years and not done it, this war on poverty, or really transforming communities and we find it's happening faster, better investments than others. i think the president made a case, why do we accept the challenges and ignore them? we should accept them. when i look at california, i look at the homelessness, affordability, the challenges are happening throughout the cities. san francisco is now losing conventions how they deal with it. that's a direct contrast in our policies. i think the president coming here symbolizes, yes, he cares about baltimore. he cares about the people who live in baltimore, and he does not accept that you have to stay in poverty. he has found from his entire life how to bring people out of poverty, give them a better opportunity, and that's what he's doing in his job as president, and that's why he's coming to baltimore as well. yes. reporter: chair mccarthy, gray

tv, we represent many viewers who are farmers, agriculture heavy communities. we wanted to ask if congress will be discussing any actions to help farmers who are concerned with the ongoing trade discussions with china? mr. mccarthy: i thank you for your question. i just came from the number one ag county community in our country. agriculture is important to us. we want to make sure we have markets we can sell in. more importantly, we need to make sure we have water that we can produce it and have a regulatory society that we can grow and feed, not just america, but the world, because we know it's a safer product going forward. when you sit and talk to the agriculture community, they know what china has done in the past. they are supportive of this president to get a good agreement, one that's fair, that keeps us for the next generation to be able to farm as well. i've watched that -- i know this discussion is getting closer. i watched that we were at a point that we could come to an agreement.

it was xi jinping that went out. i was with lighthizer and mnuchin discussing ways to solve this problem. president is committed to it. i know when i go out to the farm community, there is no one that supported farmers more than president trump. reporter: a few members of your caucus, liz cheney and rand paul -- pretty explosive fight n twitter right now. he's calling her a war monger. she's insulting his approval ratings. do you think that this speaks to split in the party that's kind erupting over the firing of john bolton? mr. mccarthy: no. it is over national defense. people can have a discussion about policy. that's healthy. the difference is when it comes to the democratic party, you got new freshmen members who are now primarying the number two, the

chairman of the ways and means, the number four, the chairman of appropriations, the social justice who believes they have to purify their party because they want to become social democrats, that's a battle and that's a war and that's a problem the democrats have, not one that the republicans have. the republicans have never been more united. don't take my word. take members on the stage. actually look at the polling itself with this president. no president, not even ronald reagan had as much support within the party as president trump has. no. i don't have any problem with having a debate of ideas and actually disagreeing on ideas. but at the end of the day, they understand that they agree more, that they want tomorrow better than today. yes. reporter: a follow-up, sir. any of your colleagues expressed to you in the manner which john bolton was ousted from the white house? mr. mccarthy: i have not heard that. the president has a right to have people who work for him that he feels gives the best information and works best together.

would you want to have somebody work for you that if you're not working well together, you're having disagreements with? there are a lot of people who sit inside that white house that will give the president different opinion than the president has. that's what he wants to gather, and he wants to gather all the information. if he couldn't work well for him, i want somebody in there who can. reporter: what's the first of your legislative power if you get the gavel again? mr. mccarthy: debt. we have a majority that's taken over, the democrats, the first thing they did was not pass a budget. we passed a budget, just as we did before, put us on a path to balance. we make sure our entitlements are protected for a future generation because it comes into question today. every great society has collapsed when they overextended themselves. we would hope we would solve the surprise billing before it took us to win the majority, but with the democrats, we don't know if

they're able to pass anything in the process where we go. we look to an environment in the future. i think you'll see a number of bills we will produce. 90% of all plastic that goes to the ocean comes from 10 rivers in the world. not one of them in america. but i think the ocean goes to the entire world. we have an opportunity to actually solve that problem. you will find a number of bills we produced going forward. companies that can extract co-2 from the air. there is a concern about co-2. why wouldn't we incentivize the ability to do it? dan crenshaw has a bill out today. we could find ways to unite this country to put us on a path to be stronger. we continue to build our military to be safe, not only here but around the world as well. there are a number of items we would go through. when we look at technology, are we prepared for the 21st century? are we protecting our privacy rights as well? so there are a number of eye items we continue to go with.

that's our discussion and in our breakout sessions. reporter: ok. i'd like to ask you about the administration's plan to reform the housing finance system and some free market critics say that fannie and freddie can't be reformed and it might be better to get rid of them altogether, do you agree? mr. mccarthy: i think the white house and the administration, along with patrick mchenry on financial services have been studied for quite some time. we watched when america had to bail them out. we want to make sure they're secure, but we want to make sure those who need to have capital for a home have the lowest rate possible and be able to prosper and be able to build homes as they wish. this is an area we want to look. we want to protect the taxpayers. at the same time, we want the individuals to have the lowest rate to be able to go. it's not something you can ignore. but it's not something you would say that you just can't deal with at all. there are a lot of ideas out there. that's another issue that we'll be discussing at the retreat as well.

i look forward to talking to you throughout the retreat, and i think you will be at some of our features. we have the president speaking tonight. some people might want to watch, i guess, the democrat convention -- debate. not quite sure what they'll promise tonight. they want to make sure those in an are here illegally will want health care. there are problems we can work closely together. i am proud to have the president coming, after having two new republicans that will be sworn next week, building on an economy that's been the strongest in 50 years. the unique part of this economy, it's not an economy built for one person. it doesn't matter your gender, color of age -- the color of your skin or age. it's helping all. we want to build on that and make america stronger. if there's one thing we should do inside congress, we should pass the usmca. if we pass usmca at a very minimum, there would be 180,000

more americans working. g.d.p. would go up by more than a point. but you know what would be even more important? we would be stronger going into negotiations with china. if you watched last month or new number one trader is mexico. number two is canada. surpassing china. this is something that's making america stronger. i believe it's only one person holding the power of whether that comes up, the speaker of the house. they are more concerned about tearing this president down instead of building america up. i hope that's debated tonight inside the democrats as well. thank you. >> here is a look at our lineup

for friday. on c-span at 10:00 a.m. eastern, countering iran's illicit networks. in the morning on c-span2, house republicans will hold a news conference in baltimore at the second day of their policy retreat. then a discussion on the u.s.-taliban peace process and the potential for sustainable talks in the future. on c-span3, the importance of federal-state coordination during a recession. eastern.t 8:45 a.m. 11:00urday on book tv at p.m. eastern, neil gorsuch discusses his book, "a republic, if you can keep it." in his latest book, "sentinel

incorporated," how labs in china manufacture the drug. he is interviewed. in the old days, if you are a scientist and you published your paper and it went into some university library, obscure, hard to find. in the internet age all of these papers were published online. >> and publicly available around the world. chemists began looking for these files specifically to go through them and appropriate chemical formulas to learn how to make these new drugs. >> senator jeff merkley provides his first-hand account for migrant families at the u.s. southern border. >> advocates have said hundreds

of boys separated were warehoused in a walmart. i went to find out about it. they decided they did not want me to see what is going on, and said they would call the police. then all of america was hearing about cages and secret warehousing of migrant children. >> watch book tv every weekend on c-span2. go shopping and see what is available at the c-span online store, including our new campaign 2020 t-shirts, sweatshirts, and hats. ando c-span store.org browse our products. >> the house debated a repeal of the 2017 tax bill that allows oil and gas drilling in