i hope that what we are really fighting for is to allow a lot of communities who often get targeted on social media, to have the right to monitor what they have to be exposed to. we will give it the old college try. >> thank you. rep. ocasio-cortez: thank you. an answer: here's a look at our live coverage friday on c-span. at noon, legal experts discuss some of the cases that will be on the supreme court's upcoming docket when a new term begins next week, followed by president at the whiteg house. on c-span 2, hillary and chelsea clinton will talk about her latest book about the women -- theyst inspired by are most inspired by it 6:00 p.m. eastern. up on today's "washington fromal," robert wiseman

public citizen talks about conflict of interest among family members of politicians. later, national journals joins us to discuss the politics of impeachment. against president trump. ♪ host: president trump yesterday appeared to widen his appeal to foreign governments to investigate his main political rival. this time it was china. the morning and welcome to c-span's "washington journal" for friday, october the fourth, 2019. we will start the program asking about the appropriateness of seeking foreign intervention or assistance. what is appropriate? republicans, your line is 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. for independents, all others, that is 202-748-8002. if you are watching or listening outside the u.s., that line, 202-748-8003.

you can also use that line if you want to text us, 202-748-8003. make sure you include your name and where you are texting from and on twitter we are @cspanwj. facebook, your thoughts, facebook.com/cspan. we will get to the president's comments, the story about china in a moment. there is new news from the wall street journal and their headline, ukraine to review investigations into firm link to biden's son. it is reviewing past investigations into a gas company linked to former vice son.dent joe biden's thesteps toward reopening cases or implicating mr. biden's son in the process would be the's -- strongest signal it --ld abide by

investigate the company. we look to a story garnering the most news and the headline here in usa today, their headline in the newspaper, trump stirs pot by calling on china. already facing the threat of impeachment for interactions with ukraine, president donald trump embraced the same tactic thursday by publicly calling for china to launch an investigation into his leading democratic rival. the remarks quieted many of the government -- the president's allies and provided ammunition to democrats hoping to convince voters the call in july was not a fluke, but part of a larger pattern of conduct unbecoming of the oval office. president trump made those comments yesterday before deporting to china. [video clip] >> i would think if they were -- it is a very

simple answer, they should investigate biden. should start an investigation into the bidens because what happened in china is just about as bad as what happened with ukraine. , would say president zelinsky if it were me, i would recommend they start an investigation into the bidens because nobody has any doubts they weren't crooked. he had no knowledge of energy, did not know the first thing about it. all of a sudden, he is getting $50,000 a month plus a lot of other things. they got rid of a prosecutor who was a very tough prosecutor, they got rid of him and they are trying to make it the opposite way.

if i were the president, i would recommend that of ukraine. i haven't, but certainly something we can start thinking about because i am sure president xi does not being under that kind of scrutiny where billions of dollars is taken out of this country by a guy that just got kicked out of the navy. all of a sudden, he is getting billions of dollars. they call that a payoff. host: some reaction in the news, the associated press and their headline, not just you carrying -- not just ukraine, the president calls for trump -- china to probe bidens. i have an absolute right, perhaps a duty to investigate or have investigated corruption and that would include asking or suggesting other countries to help us out. we would like to know your

thoughts. how appropriate is that? 202-748-8001 for republicans. democrats, use 202-748-8000. independents, that line, 202-748-8002. first to florida. betty on our democrats line. caller: c-span, i am so happy to be able to speak to you. i am and 87-year-old woman. i have been through a lot of presidents. i cannot believe this president is putting foreign countries over his own people. i know my grandparents went through slavery, but he is acting like the united states are slaves to the foreign people . i cannot believe this. what i am hearing for the last three days, he wants china to investigate people. he wants russia to investigate. i cannot believe it.

i am a black american. i am not a black african-american, i am a black american. i was born in america. host: we will go to new york on the independent line. caller: yes, good morning. i am not sure of any diplomatic language you can say something in public, but investigating corruption -- asking to investigate corruption from one country to another country is not new. about terrorism, corruption, it's a normal thing. he said this in public with russia, please, can you bring in all these emails, whatever. it might not be appropriate, but that is not to say the president

is working with other countries to be elected or reelected. we over blow these things of what the president says and ask other countries to help him get elected. let me be honest with you. with the situation like that, democrats are pumping this impeachment thread beyond any imagination. good economy, president trump will be in office by 2020. host: rockville, maryland, on the independent line. caller: bill scanlan, i am proud to be on with you. you are a great man just like your fellow c-span moderators. i am a middle school teacher in maryland and i just think this a's truly insane. i understand you have to ask this question, is it appropriate? mym a science teacher, but

middle school students understand the idea to ask other countries to intervene or do things that will have direct effect on political judgments and the political race in this country is basically to give up the sovereignty of our own country. i am amazed republicans everywhere -- it is like they are frogs in a pot of water that is slowly heating up. step-by-step, republicans -- everything they stand for is being wiped away by this guy. listen to him speaking. he is talking about hunter biden being kicked out of the navy. he would be so lucky to have been kicked out of the navy, he avoided the navy. he is saying all of these decisions americans should be the ones making should be influenced by other countries and it is insane. host: keith is next on the independent line. our question for you, the appropriateness of foreign investigation, foreign action in

u.s. politics. keith in clearwater, florida. caller: i appreciate the unfiltered news and comments from c-span and i wish the other networks and distributors would follow your model. that really does apply to the question -- 80's kind of obvious, i will have to be an investigative journalist. president incumbent being targeted for political purposes by his opposition party in congress and they came up with this charge or inquiry that he is involved with foreign government trying to influence our elections. he feels since this is already on the table and being used politically against him, he is going to come out with it and give them more ammunition and let it be resolved in the public

debate and it is an interesting perspective on the subject, but i kind of think that is the way trump operates. host: yesterday the house intelligence committee heard from kurt volcker, former special envoy to ukraine reporting on that. the washington post this morning, their headline, trump president toe's launch investigations before face-to-face meeting. they say house investigators released numerous text messages late thursday night illustrating how senior state department officials coordinated with the ukrainian president's top aide to leverage a potential summit between the heads of state on a promise from ukrainians to investigate the 2016 u.s. election and an energy company that employed the son of joe biden. vogelxt, which kurt

provided investigators during a nearly 10 hour deposition revealed officials thought trump would not agree to meet with volodymyr zelensky unless he promised to launch investigations and did so publicly. this is what adam schiff, the chair of the intelligence committee, had to say after the president's comments bringing in china into the mix. [video clip] >> have the president of the united states suggesting, urging foreign countries to interfere in our elections. president learned anything from the two years of the mueller investigation, it is that he feels he can do anything with impunity. the president of the united states encouraging a foreign nation to interfere in to help is campaign by investigating

a fundamental breach of the oath of office. it endangers our elections, it endangers our national security and it ought to be condemned by every member of this body. host: west virginia, lori. good morning. caller: good morning. host: you are on the air, go ahead. caller: i would like to say if the president does something, it isn't wrong. definitely bidens should be investigated and i just think they are doing trump wrong. host: you think they are doing trump wrong? caller: yes. host: lori, thanks for that. marie in charleston, south carolina, on the democrats line. good morning, marie. caller: good morning. host: go ahead with your comments. caller: my comment is i think it

is terrible. we are being laughed at all over the world and i hope everybody weather you oppose or you -- whether you oppose or you are for, take your bibles out. host: alexandria, minnesota, we hear from marlene on the republican line. what do you think about the president's comments and the appropriateness more broadly of seeking help from foreign governments in politics? caller: i don't think it has really anything to do with our politics. it has to do with the corruption going on into our elections and .verything this thing with joe biden and his sun, definitely it had something to do in our 2016 election.

they were trying and did not get it done. i believe what president trump is doing is a fantastic thing. i don't think it has anything to do with his presidency because i believe he is going to be reelected in 2020. host: in a brash public move, trump asks the chinese to examine the bidens to find uproar seeking more foreign favors is the sub headline. the president's call for chinese intervention means president trump and his attorney general have solicited assistance in discrediting the president's political opponents from ukraine, italy, and in one report, britain. a defiant mr. trump pushed back against critics who have called such requests and abuse of power, arguing there was nothing wrong with seeking foreign help. independent line in

bakersfield, california. caller: thank you, c-span. grateful toi am so what you contributed to our democracy. president trump opened the floodgates today. think of all the people, all the people running for congress, for example. the democratic candidate running against kevin mccarthy. what is to stop their staff going down to the chinese consulate in los angeles and soliciting funds from them to run against kevin mccarthy in exchange for some sort of undefined favor down the road? why stop at the presidential politics. let's expand this right into the senate. city council, let me go down and see if i can get money to run here in bakersfield city council and let me go to some foreign

entity. andia, iran, north korea say give me money to run against this candidate? where will it stop? this is exactly what hamilton, madison talked about in terms of foreign intervention in our great democracy. amazing that it is taking place. there -- they are such an assault to our basic civility every day that people have begun to it. numb that is amazingly dangerous for our democracy. host: our question for you about the appropriateness of asking foreign government's help in u.s. political races and investigating political rivals, 202-748-8001 for republicans. for democrats and

independents and others, that line, 202-748-8002. ellen weintraub put out a statement on this that said let me make something 100% clear, the american public and everyone running for public office, it is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection to a u.s. election. electoral intervention from foreign governments has been considered unacceptable since the beginning of our nation. our founding fathers sounded the alarm about intrigue and influence. they knew when foreign governments seek to influence american politics, it is to advance their own interests, not america's. sue in indiana, on our democrats line. caller: good morning. i would like to point out something. it is a two-way street with trump. if he wants to involve foreign

countries into our elections, how about democrats asking foreign countries about dirt on him and his family. it can go both ways. if not, you can take the torch of the statue of liberty that says the highest bidder. have a nice day. host: clearwater, florida. kathy on the republican line. caller: good morning so much. i don't see it as the donald saying to foreign governments onp me get hurt -- dirt biden so he does not win the presidential election. i see the president saying to the foreign government i know there was corruption and the democrats bullied you -- host: kathy? i think that phone call got dropped. we will go to michelle in washington, d.c., democrats line. good morning. caller: good morning.

thank you for taking my call. i wanted to point out you have --ublicans that actually don't they want biden to be investigated? let's give them that. investigate biden. why are we going outside the united states parameters in order to do so? if you want to investigate biden and you are gung ho finding corruption with democrats, okay, you are entitled to that as well. like the young lady said lady saidt earlier, it is in fact a two way street. that means we investigate trump as well. everybody gets investigated, but don't sit there and take trump word for it and not want him to the veryigated for offenses he is accusing the democrat of. how do we get past this? it is nonsense. articlese are a couple

gauging warehouse and senate republicans are on the 8,peachment issue from the 53 if republicans turn on trump, it will happen at once. democrats are inching ever closer to impeaching president trump. some are pushing for drafting articles of impeachment by angst giving. if the -- thanksgiving. at least 20 republicans would have to join every democrat to reach the super majority to remove the president from office . now begins the reading of the tea leaves and the careful scrutiny of every republican senator's statements or silence. will republicans finally break from trump? if it does happen, it will likely take us by surprise. political science have shown us big political changes often come suddenly after long periods of stasis. it seems like the soviet union

was bound to collapse, but up until the moment it did, almost nobody predicted it. look at another piece here from the oklahoma world herald, the oklahoma world herald about oklahoma senator -- nebraska senator ben sasse. this is the headline, americans don't look the chinese commies for the truth. he has a statement in the world herald, the senator from nebraska took issue with president trump urging china to investigate joe biden and his son's business dealings. hold up, americans do not look to chinese commies for the truth . if the biden kid broke the law by selling his name to beijing, that is a matter for american courts, not communist tyrants running torture camps. i will show one more for you, this is a report from nbc and

this is more related to the whistleblower. is senator joni ernst saying whistleblower should be protected. we have laws in place. we have terry on the line. go ahead. caller: i got on pretty fast. i have like two comments. the first comment is didn't bill clinton sign with ukraine and other countries that whenever they need investigations for a, that they must assist the united states? and isn't there one signed also by china? these countries, when the american state -- united states

government ask them to assist, they have to step up and do it. it disappoints me when i heard -- read the newspaper you know yourself that there is another one, win you replied back to them, you got the president wrong, there is no favor he wants. i was disappointed by that because other callers throughout the past have accused c-span of being biased. the reason we say that is because sometimes your guest or your host, when they say things true, we see the expressions. that is how we know you guys are biased. louisville, kentucky, the

independent line. talk about the appropriateness of foreign governments. caller: i am republican, i do not like it. we should have foreign countries investigate -- when i was in vietnam, president trump was a draft dodger. host: front page of the new york times writing about the investigation investigating. that is kurt volcker on the front page. the headline says ukraine envoy blows massive hole in democrat accusations. --epublican lawmaker emerged in the house impeachment probe hole int blew a massive the accusations against

president trump. leaves eldon of new york said the testimony made it crystal clear mr. trump did not pressure ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky to help smear former vice president joseph biden. we also heard from jim jordan of ohio after that closed-door meeting. [video clip] >> ambassador volcker unbelievably knowledgeable about what was going on in ukraine, a true professional in our diplomatic corps, but not one thing he has said comports with any of the democrats' impeachment narratives. not one thing. i will say this, the process mr. toiff set up, he was going try to limit members from asking questions when we started today's interview. the fact he will not let state department council participate, i participated in -- many of us

have, mark and i have participated in a countless number of transcribed interviews . we have never had an occasion where agency counsel was not allowed to participate where there were limitations put on our staff who could be there to assist in the interview and that -- and we have never seen a chairmen suggest members are not allowed to ask questions. if this is how he is going to conduct interviews in the future, that is a concern. ambassador volcker has been impressive and has said nothing that coincides with what democrats are saying with their impeachment narrative. host: some republican members yesterday, former ukraine envoy kurt volcker, asking you about the appropriateness of foreign intervention in u.s. political issues. 202-748-8001 for republicans. for democrats and independents and others, 202-748-8002. you can send us a text at

202-748-8003. include your name and where you are texting from and on twitter, we are at @cspanwj. he did not break the law and the whistleblower apparently was being well-paid to work for schiff. we, the people, want to know more about this person and i believe we will. any explanation as to why schiff did not tell the committee about the report. it is unbelievable not hearing these people listening to you. you have shown the statute and yet they still call and defend this country is in trouble. china has been ripping off america for 20 years with no resistance from political leaders. biden is just one of many to look the other way for profit. a question that keeps running through my mind is what happens when all these countries want the favor returned? the lead editorial in the washington post about specifically the president's

comments on china yesterday, a public abuse of office. mr. trump takes his appeals for foreign help to television. foreignfor a investigation would come directly from the president and absence of any legitimate u.s. probe is a blatant violation of that citizen's rights and the u.s. rule of law. columbia, maryland, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i can't believe what is going on in america. i was born and raised in africa, naturalized as american. i cannot believe what is going on with the republican party right now. they are sitting and looking at donald trump abusing powers. they are going along with that democracy. this is the same thing going on in africa. the leaders in africa, these are

the same things they do, ask for leaders of other nations and suppress the opposition. i can't believe this is going on in america. i can't even believe it. up until now, i read the constitution over and over and i cannot believe this is america. republican party? destroy theg to democracy? this guy has violated the constitution. you can't investigate joe biden? if we have a problem with joe biden, we have the justice system to investigate. ck in new york city on the democrats line. to you andnks listening to your program, i always do. no, actually, to what you

propose. i don't think foreign countries should be invited to our politics. we have a system here that should be subjected to scrutiny thatse it cannot check check with the check that holds everything in order and what we have is a runaway with a person who hasn office here absolutely no credibility. is aay this game, and it pretend that he is within the guidelines of a rationale that is consistent with our constitution, which he has demonstrated over and over again, that he knows nothing or cares nothing about it.

okay. it,mocracy, if you can keep who ever made that statement is so very accurate. we aret a pessimist, but playing politics with life itself. say it is notght entirely unexpected. host: thanks for that. we will go to greg in pennsylvania, republican line. caller: yes, i am calling about the topic today. i want to comment on the fact that i think you are doing a better job than most of the trying to be objective, trying to cite to media sources other than the

washington post and the new york times, who have proven they have hunt.isan dog in this regarding some of the last couple of callers. first, i think it was a founding father who said it is your democracy if you can keep it. maybe ben franklin or thomas jefferson and yet most of the people who would call about that would profess to call the united states racist and those founding fathers are accused of being that. it is interesting how the quotes are selected and that happens all the time. as to the specifics of what donald j. trump is doing. wasn't hillary clinton exonerated by james comey? doing damn left for near exactly the same thing? if it is not a crime according to james comey, then how can it

be the basis for high crimes and misdemeanors, which are the basis for impeachment and finally, finally, i have heard this comment about the treaty that was signed by president clinton about cooperation from other countries. some callers have mentioned it, i have not heard anybody else pick it up. i don't know if that is true or not, but i think it is relevant and hopefully you guys can look into it. host: one of the other figures involved in the ukrainian story is the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine. this story from the wall street journal that president trump ousted the envoy amid criticism. the president ordered the removal of the ambassador after months of complaints from allies outside the administration, including rudy giuliani, that she was undermining him abroad and obstructing efforts to

persuade kiev to investigate former vice president joe biden. they write she could not be reached for comment. she is set to testify before the house committee -- before house lawmakers october 11 as part of the impeachment inquiry. people close to her disputed she did anything wrong, "she was doing everything by the book." her recall from kiev, her relations with senior officials were fraught. she often criticized the prosecutor general for the poor anticorruption record. we go to lloyd on the independent line. caller: good morning. i think it is time the american people wake up. our man, we are outsourcing sovereignty. we think something is wrong with

one of our citizens, we investigate from here. sovereigntyg up our here. this man is off his rocker. i don't know how people continue to support this man. how can we accept looking after our own affairs? if we have a problem like this, we send people to look into what happened. we have given up our independence. is off his rocker. host: to alexandria city, louisiana. this is -- i am sorry, not louisiana, alabama. good morning. caller: no problem. i find it ironic joe biden's own words bragging on this video exposed biden's blackmail with

the ukrainian president by dangling a billion dollar loan deal in front of the ukraine leader, telling them. i watched the whole video, you have 6 hours to fire viktor investigatingas along with other things or i take this deal and i am leaving to go back to america. he was all excited on that video . he said i will be a blank blank. they did it, they fired him. this is cut and dry pay for pay. if this was a republican, democrats would be jumping on that like crazy. no, they want to bisect it and explain this away. it is on video and they want to overturn this election from day 1. democratic. is un

you don't have to like the winner of the election, but you have no right to overturn it. we need to move on to 2020, do your best, take him out if you don't like him or he will win, whatever. we need to know the history and background of all candidates and biden exposed himself. host: democrats line, good morning. caller: yes. i am calling -- it is amazing. i thank you for your patience with some of your callers. treatytom line is the agreement signed for investigation on international crime. the lady that just called from alabama was absolutely ridiculous. joe biden was talking about removing the corrupt prosecutor. c-span can report it, i am sure you have access to it.

this misinformation campaign. this is ridiculous. thank you for your time. host: to the independent line next, ron from california. caller: good morning. anchor for taking my call. i agree with the last caller from alabama. right now, i am questioning why the republicans are playing a quiet role. forward a few stepping in support of trump. why are they not going to him and let him know you cannot talk this way? you cannot use curses. let's look this man. this man came to power by being a businessman, a businessman. he has no sense of what it is to run our great country and at the

same time, you have other nations in this world with all eyes upon us looking at a foolishfoolish character runnine greatest country in the world and they are laughing at us. the other day, putin jokingly said yes, i am about to have some folly in the next election. what trust do we have? and at this time at this very morning, we still have an immigration problem, a health care problem, and we are losing trust. the american people are losing the american people are losing trust weather you are democrat, republican, independent. i am losing trust in our political system. you have many people across our country who do not want to vote anymore. there are people here.

in sacramento, california, mr. in sacramento, california, mr. trump brought us up about our governor. in california, we are mostly democratic, but they are also listening to the voices saying we are not going to vote anymore because look how washington looks right now. we look like a fool across the world and he and democrats, they are losing trust for us. host: we are focusing this first hour on the comments by the president in particular on engaging and asking china's help investigating joe biden and joe biden's family. also other issues related to the ukraine investigation by the house intelligence committee. there is a couple of related stories to the investigation going on by the attorney general, william barr, looking into the origins of the mueller investigation and -- on the 2016 election. the front page of the washington

times, the hunt for trump's spies. the ongoing inquiry into the origins of the trump-russia saga has taken investigators to australia, ukraine, italy, and the united kingdom to examine spies and their trump targets. the national from review online, andrew mccarthy writing about that. strategyicans see the to discredit the bar investigation -- barr investigation? democrats and their notetakers would like the public to believe barr's investigation is an adjunct of the trump 2020 campaign and a grossly improper one. this impression they seek to create is that barr is putting the nation's law enforcement powers in service of trump's reelection campaign. the hope is this will delegitimize not only any information from ukraine, but the justice department

investigation of intelligence and law enforcement abuses of power. larry is with us and watching this morning on our democrats line. thanks for joining in. caller: hello, america. you guys have got to wake up. this guy is a crook. he is an agent, he is a spy for russia. wake up, america. now he wants to get china involved. he has leverage on china. china is hurting because of the sanctions. ,f china finds something on him he will get rid of the sanctions. florida --d in welcome.

really simple. the government -- the president can legally do what his government can do because he is the executive ranch. biden was the point man for two countries, only two, the ukraine and china. you can look at what the biden billionfrom china, $1.5 and out of the ukraine, $50,000 to $80,000 a month. you cannot tell me that is not selling your office when biden's child gets money like that. they are buying biden by giving it to his son. just because somebody says i am running for president, that doesn't mean you can't investigate crime. that doesn't mean you can go after criminals. over $1.5 takes billion out of china and this money out of the ukraine, we have the right to investigate. we have the right to hold him to account. host: appropriate for u.s.

authorities to investigate the biden's or other political issues or is it appropriate for foreign entities, countries to investigate? caller: you are exactly right, the crimes are overseas. where else do we have to look? prosecute going to somebody, you have to look at the evidence. you have no alternative but to ask those countries for help. host: hong kong, this is front page of the financial times, hong kong to seek a mass band of -- antiestablishment protests around the world. planning to use emergency powers facemasks, that might damage the territory status as a financial center. a couple comments on twitter and

.ext, 202-748-8003 karen in delaware says regardless of political affiliation, i would think people would want corruption on both sides of the aisle to be exposed. who in the government uses their position to and wrenched -- to enrich themselves and family members. trump just shot american democracy in the head on fifth avenue in broad daylight. has been 10note it minutes and not a single person identified the so civic -- the specific evidence that would support it. .ennis, next up in maine south portland, maine. caller: good morning, bill. thank you for taking my call. we have fbi offices in quite a few foreign countries and what

our agents do, they help these foreign countries as far as investigating terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, human trafficking, and those foreign countries help us with investigations. that is a point i wanted to put out. i am not defending trump or his vietnam, but go to for someone who grew up back then and waited almost a year to drafted, i know -- i don't know personally, but there were tens of thousands of americans who avoided the draft by going to canada and other things. i wanted to throw that out there. host: sharon, north carolina on our democrats line. your thoughts on the appropriateness of foreign countries investigating. caller: good morning and thank you for taking my call.

i think at the end of the day, we have laws. as long as we know what the law is, does the law say it is illegal for a person to solicit or accept or receive anything of value from a foreign nation? if it is true, whoever does that, they are breaking the law. it doesn't matter what biden did, nixon did, we are breaking up the law. said c-spanler that was being biased by saying trump did not ask for a favor. -- a favor.or rollback the tape and see it. you people are just mad because he is president, that is not true. i can speak for myself. i used to buy donald trump's books.

i used to watch the apprentice. i did not have anything against donald trump. this was before i learned about the park 5 and other things he has done. it is what he has done since he became president that made me dislike this man. host: did you vote for him in 2016? i did: no, i am saying not dislike him. republicans just say you are mad. that is not true. i am not mad he is president. every president we have had, i did not like. i am not mad he is president, i am mad because of the way he has the hate. host: back to the financial times because they have a nice graphic on the ukrainian part of this. the phone call that led to trump probe. the president accusing joe biden of corruption in a case involving hunter. he also talks about in that call, the u.s. is halting

military aid to ukraine on presidential orders that happened around the same time. in that phone call, the graph shows the president pressuring ensky toi -- zel investigate biden. mike pence was asked about the appropriateness of requesting the investigation of the bidens. [video clip] >> those are the same issues the president raced with president zelensky. lackresident spoke about of european support, corruption, on theasked me to carry conversation about those issues and anyone that looks at the transcript will see the president wasn't raising issues that were appropriate and of general interest to the american people. as more facts come out of this and people take time to read the

transcript, i think they will come to realize this is more of the same of what we have seen from democrats. one of the main reasons we were elected was to drain the swamp. i think the american people have a right to know if vice president of the united states or his family profited from his position as vice president during the last administration. that is about looking backwards and understanding what really happened. the fact that my predecessor had a son that was paid $50,000 a month to be on a ukrainian board at the time vice president biden was leading the obama administration's efforts in ukraine i think is worth looking into. the president made it very clear he believes -- he believes our other nations around the world should look into it as well. host: new jersey on the

republican line, go ahead. caller: good morning. i am glad you took my call. i want to make a comment against the democratic congress as a whole. the american people better start waking up very quickly. the reason why our country, and i am an american citizen, the reason why our country is in justturmoil and they were dropped in the lap of our president, trump, he has a mess on his hands. it is only because nancy pelosi, schumer, they are the leaders in discriminating against this president. this president -- he is doing a well fine job. people in this country, i cannot

imagine the american people not thinking on the right basis of this president doing such a wonderful job and bringing our country back on its feet. been destroyed by obama, clinton, and bush, the whole three of them have done nothing for this country and brought us down to the ground. the american people better wake see who is the worst that can be in this country and that is the democratic congress. they used to be good people years ago, the democrats, but no more. that is my comment and american people better wake up and start voting for the person that is going to bring this country back to where it should be.

host: we will go for -- to our democrats line and hear from don in california. caller: i would like to know what these republicans are going to do when they see these russians marching up and down our streets and we are not going to be able to get out of our house without showing our id because this is all about russia. donald trump is all about the sanctions. he is doing everything he can to repay putin for all the money and all the debts and all the favors he owes putin. republicansf you are happy with having this con man as a president of the united states. all of a sudden, now, the laws don't mean nothing. all of a sudden, the laws he is breaking don't mean a thing. you want to talk about immigrants coming across the

border breaking a law, this man has been breaking laws ever since he has been there. this is all bible prophecy. o, daughter of " destroyed, art to be come down and sit in the dirt." host: we played the comments of president trump departing for florida yesterday, his comments about china. here they are. [video clip] >> i would think if they were honest about it, they would start a major investigation into the bidens. it is a very simple answer. they should investigate the bidens because how does a company that is newly formed -- all these companies -- and by the way, likewise, china should start an investigation into the bidens because what happened in china is just about as bad as what happened with ukraine.

lensky, say president ze if it were me, i would recommend they start an investigation into the bidens because nobody has any doubt they weren't crooked. that was a crooked deal, 100%. he had no knowledge of energy. all of a sudden, he is getting $50,000 a month plus a lot of other things. they got rid of a prosecutor who .as a very tough prosecutor and now they are trying to make it the opposite way. if i were the president, i would certainly recommend that. [indiscernible] i haven't, but certainly something we can start thinking about because i am sure president xi does not like being on their -- under that kind of scrutiny where billions of dollars are taken out of his

country by a guy that just got kicked out of the navy. he got kicked out of the navy and all of a sudden he is getting billions of dollars. you know what they call that? they call that a payoff. the court opening its new session on monday. this was tweeted yesterday about a rule change in the procedure. the court generally will not question the lead counsel for the petitioner's repellents -- petition or appellates. -- signal the start of questioning. if you are familiar with oral arguments we re-air on c-span, often the justices jump right in oftentimes to question the lawyers on both sides. an apparent rule change for the attorneys involved. wheat ridge, colorado, mark on the republican line. caller: you know what?

i am looking at this historically or over the period of time, not too historic. biden stopped the investigation by withholding money from the ukraine that they barely needed because they were in dire straits being run against by russia, taking over their territory and all this. biden stopped an investigation and trump is saying go ahead to the investigation again. i think it is a false premise to say it is because he is trying to help his election or something. that may help his election, but we are trying to get to the truth here. why is it alright for biden to withhold money from ukraine? so his son who was in rehab while he was employed several times, he had to go back for cocaine and crack addiction, was it? and he is getting $50,000 a year because he is dad is vice

president. hisde -- biden really loves son and we can move on. why are foreign voters allowed to come in and affect our elections in california and other states where they are allowing people who aren't even born or should not be allowed to vote in this country to vote and they are foreigners? openly.ied he says it was a misspeak or something. schiff lied right in front of all of us and we are listening chiff guy. host: sean in virginia. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call and thank you for doing what you do to educate our citizenry about our political news. my question is simple. we have bodies that investigate

a crime committed by any representative. why does it have to be a president? that is my question, have a right day. host: frank on the independent line. caller: good morning, 10 for -- 10-4, october the fourth. host: that is right. caller: 10 years ago, our -- our leaders of the democrat and republican party decided we needed to be citizens of the world, i think president clinton said. globalism. -- a companylism from another country came in and they went global, they came in and closed our jobs down overseas. i said sooner or sooner or lates will end up in front of congress

-- host: when did that happen, what year? about: my job was lost 2001, when my company left. lost ourthis workers jobs to globalism. they all want to globalism. now, you have got globalism right there in washington, d.c. host: coming up next on "washington journal," we will be joined by public citizen president robert weissman, who is joining us to talk about business and ethics conflict of interest among family members of politicians of all kinds. we welcome your comments as well as we continue on here on "washington journal." later on, national journal's josh kraushaar joins us to talk about the political implications for the race for the senate, the house, and more in the impeachment process. all of that and more, coming up on "washington journal." ♪

>> today at 6:00 p.m. eastern, live coverage of hillary clinton and her daughter, chelsea, talking about their new book, "the book of gutsy women." watch live today at 6:00 p.m. eastern on the tv on c-span 2. sunday on "q&a, the cecconi and ontitution's peter leopold the sea of terrorists -- >> the supreme court eventually ruled on the tomato is a fruit and not a vegetable because of tariffs. ay botanist will tell you tomato is a fruit. but the 8083 tariff on

vegetables and not fruits. vegetables in of new york pointed out that the tomatoes he was bringing in from the caribbean were a fruit, and he did not have to pay a tariff. the battle went on for quite some time. eventually, the supreme court ruled that tomatoes are actually vegetables. it is an interesting ruling that had repercussions beyond just tomatoes themselves. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." "washington journal" continues. host: robert weissman is public citizen's president. he joins us to talk about political families and conflicts of interest. theously, the request of

president into investigation into the biden family. but this is an issue that has affected not just presidential families but families of politicians of all stripes. guest: it has become endemic. as washington has become a more permanent political town, this problem has become more privations. host: public citizen has a new report -- ethic laws are -- require immediate fixes. a number of suggestions in there. what prompted this report by your organization? guest: from our point of view, the president's focus on the purported corruption of joe biden is more than ironic. it is completely misplaced. he is running the most fundamentally unethical and corrupt administration in modern american history. some of the things he is doing are in violation of the law. some are taking advantage of loopholes in the law. the idea of this report is what

happens after trump? what can we do to fix the problems that have surfaced because of the abuses of this administration, and we tried to identify a bunch. host: give us a top couple of ethics violations that your organization sees that the president and his administration have committed. guest: the original sin was his refusal and failure to divest his business holdings pay that is not just an ethical violation, it is a constitutional violation. his businesses are now accepting funds from foreign averments. that is a violation of the anticorruption clause. that started day one of the administration. we have also seen, throughout the cabinet, people from regulated businesses in charge of the agencies that regulate their former industries. for example, we have a former pharmaceutical executive running the department of health and human services. company lobbyist

running the department of environmental agency. that is the norm through the administration. they have done the bidding of their former employers. at theet's look allegations against hunter biden. this is the headline of the atlantic. hunter biden's perfectly legal corruption. prominent americans should not be leveraging their names for payoffs from shady clients abroad. this from the atlantic. when prominent americans have for --ed their goals, how many of us who consider ourselves versed in international relations know that come alongside her consulting firm, former secretary of state madeleine

albright, ran in emerging markets fund run by her son-in-law? that is -- guest: that is what i was referring to. tothe old days, people came washington for four years and then leave. now there is permanent residence in washington. right this ise is a bipartisan problem. this is not an indictment of the republican party nor of the democratic party, person. -- per se. she is focusing on the activities of hunter biden, the source of the accusation from the president, and i think she is right. there is zero evidence he did was illegal. it does not mean it was right. the positions he took in the ukraine and china, it is hard to see how he might have been appointed to those positions but for his relationship with joe

biden. that is not unusual for political families, but it is not a good thing. host: robert weissman is the president of public citizen. our lines -- republicanss, (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents and others, (202) 748-8002. tell us about public citizen. how are you founded, how are you funded, and what is your main focus? we are almost 50 years old. we were founded by ralph nader to be the people's representative in washington, d.c. we are funded by donations from tens of hundreds of thousands of individuals. we do not take any government or corporate funding. our focus is on trying to make the government work for regular people. we have a big focus for consumer advocacy. we are profoundly concerned about the problems of excessive corporate power and how that

undermines the functioning of our democracy. so we have a very substantial amount of attention devoted to campaign-finance reform and ethics rules, because we know it is -- if the process does not work, the outcomes are going to the things that do not work for americans. host: is any appetite for campaign-finance reform? guest: there is huge appetite. congress passed the first signature bill of this congress -- money in politics, pro-democracy reform legislation. that would have come among other things, replace the current campaign-finance system, dependent largely upon large donors -- there is one that relies on substantially -- host: did it come about as a response to the citizens united case? guest: the energy that came from across the country in response leditizens united is what to the passage of hr one.

host: your public citizen report on ethics seeks recommendations for these negative ranch, changes that require immediate fixes -- there is a lot there. a couple of areas. there are four areas. preventing conflicts of interest. ofving financial disclosure officeholders. the integrity of government. let's focus in on a couple of those key points. guest: there are four main points and five or six underneath. first, the conflict of interest, that is the most important one. honing in on trump's refusal to divest business interests. he is able to do that legally because that eventually and conflict of interest rules do not apply, at least formally, to the president and vice president. the basic rules as you either have to sell your business interests or recuse yourself

from matters related to your company. people writing that thought the president can never recuse him or herself, they have to be involved in everything, so we will just trust that the president will do it. previous presidents have done that voluntarily? guest: yes. jimmy carter sold his peanut farm business. so previous presidents have done the first reform we propose is a requirement that the president and vice president divest themselves of all conflict of interest related investments and business holdings. host: has mike pence divested himself of antony holdings? guest: i think so. he has whatever stopper full of he has invested in mutual funds. callswe have plenty of waiting for robert weissman about the influence of politics and families and ethics issues. we will go first to bill in maryland on our independent line. good morning.

i see the solution not as campaign-finance reform but term limits, so we can get citizen legislators in their who will not be in there for multiple terms and start making decisions that are in their best interest rather than the best interest of their constituents and the united states as a whole. the examples you used of the president's corruption, i know you are focus -- in my mind, the want citizen legislators, people who will come in from the private sector, and serve the country for a short period of time and then go back to the private sector. to put all of these obstacles in their way, that will make it less likely that would happen. -- you said itle is illegal for the president to

that are, maybe, on the opposite side, for instance, the oil guy or the to they, -- coal guy, environmental cabinet post, but i do not think that is illegal. if it is, you'll have to inform me. everybody is saying he is the most corrupt president ever, but i do not see it. because if those are the best examples you can come up with to show the president's corruption, i do not think you have much of a leg to stand on as far as him being actually corrupt. guest: those are two great points. on the first thing, but the citizen legislators, which is an excellent vision that you and i would agree on, first, as we talk about congress, it does not really deal with the presidency k but when it comes to citizen legislators, the way we get there is through

campaign-finance reform. what you need now is a candidate for congress who has the ability to raise a lot of money. the people with the ability to raise a lot of money are people who themselves have money and who have friends who have lots of money. if you have a system that relies on small donors and public matching funds, really anyone can run. places that have done this, like new york city, have seen a burst of citizen legislators come in. that is the most important step to try to advance that vision. when it comes to the president, i did not say it is illegal for him to appoint people from conflicted industries. i just think it is totally corrupt. i think it matters a lot. if you have a coal lobbyist running the epa, should not be a surprise he is trying to get the -- gut the epa. if you have someone in the department of interior who comes from the -- oil industry, it

should not be a surprise he is trying to undermine protections of public lands, and he is doing that. have someone from big pharma running the department of health and human services, you should not expect the president to deliver on his promise to bring down drug prices, and he has not. these conflicts are themselves evidence of a corrupt system. but they matter and have affected policy and waste effort the american people. host: on twitter, mark asks how long would it have taken for the president sell each of his real estate properties? would you have called for him to sell or divest and put it into some sort of trust? guest: not a trust, because the trust idea does not work if he actually knows what he owns. the idea would have been handed over to a trustee. sell theee will properties as speedily as possible. but in that instance, the decision would have been handed to an independent person who would have tried to obtain the

best return possible for the property holder. but the president would know that these properties are no longer associated with him and he will no longer have an associated business influence. host: because it is a private company, do we have any indication of how much revenue all other trump companies combined and who is staying at those properties are using those? guest: we know some things. we roughly know how much they are taking in. he has an unusual set of properties, including hotel businesses, which are subject to different accounting rules than regular businesses. in terms of who is staying at them and raising this particular question of are we seeing foreign governments staying at no.e hotels, the answer is we have no idea who is staying ,here except on news reports one intrepid reporter who follows instagram feeds. host: in virginia, democrats

line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a couple of things i would like to say. number one, with donald trump, where is his money coming from? checkso, they need to into why does putin have a house in illinois? a house, that is why trump cannot go against him, because putin does all of his finance through the deutsche bank. host: ok, to ann, republican line, florida. caller: how are you? to thed to say something moderator there and a question for him. c-span did a very long segment kapoor, asentative

democrat. i believe she is from wisconsin. i am not exactly sure. she talked at great length with different things that she was involved with on your show a few months back. having to do with the ukrainian caucus. host: marcy kaptur of ohio. caller: i would like to get her on again and see what this is all about, why we have a ukrainian caucus. the next thing i wanted to say is foundations and trust, having to do with family entities all over different parts of the federal government and state governments have been going on for a long time. clinton, when she was running for office, was explaining, when she got candidates to support her, she got -- took money through -- i wanted to say the foundation but through her campaign dnc, from outside government sources.

she was questioned about that. and she said, on the record, i will take money from anybody that is going to give me some money. host: let me ask robert weissman about that. could she have taken from -- money from the foundation? the clinton foundation itself, she couldn't have you set for campaign? guest: no, she couldn't. i think the issue raised is that the clinton foundation did take money from foreign governments. that quote from hillary clinton -- if ira quality -- recall it givestly -- if anybody money to the clinton foundation for the good work it -- -- i think it was a mistake. not illegal but wrong. especially the fact that hillary clinton was likely to run again, that was wrong. host: phil, republican, texas.

caller: good morning. the doubles of standards. during the obama administration, we saw a lot of things that we did not like, but we did not turn over cars and burn things and get all upset about it to the point that the democrats are. we have people like dortch soros -- george soros. and a lot of bad deals like black lives matter. a lot of people do not understand it. we have the clinton administration that would funnel the money that was supposed to go to haiti, and it did not get there. there are a lot of things that are questionable. a lot of people do not even -- whatnd what went on was going on with the uss forr

mccain had a lot of problems there, and his father was the freight commander. i am a vietnam veteran. i understand a lot of things that happen from other vietnam vets. there is so much conflict of interest that i believe it is mostly one-sided today, like the media. host: a number of issues, there. guest: you are correct in perceiving that i have serious policy differences with the trump administration, which i am pretty comfortable talking about, but that is not what i am focusing on. it is different from talking about the conflict of interest, the ethics violations, and the serious abuses of power that have emerged in the last few days. i said at the outset that i think the ethics problems in

washington, d.c. are bipartisan in nature. that does not mean they are all the same or equivalent. i think this easily -- the things we see in the trump administration are a category unto itself with no president -- precedent in modern american history. we had a lot of differences with the obama administration as well. on the matter of ethics, they were not perfect, but they are the best we have seen certainly in modern times. president obama himself, whatever his flaws were, took seriously the ethics standards of the government. he made that his personal commitment to ethical conduct would apply throughout his administration. with very few exceptions, it did. on that, i think we differ. you can object to a lot of things the obama administration did, but i think you will have a hard time pointing to real conflict of interest of much consequence and certainly nothing like what is pervasive in the trump administration. host: back to the

recommendations on ethics fixes, one of your points is strengthening the integrity of government, calling on passing legislation clarifying that current law bans president's from hiring immediate family. what about the case of having immediate family on staff, in the case of ivanka trump and jared kushner, taking a lead in the middle east for the president? case of joe biden and hunter biden, hunter biden traveling to places where that is right in joe biden's wheelhouse, his portfolio as vice president. guest: as a legal matter, the fact that you ivanka trump and jared kushner are in the initiation seems to be a violation of existing rules. host: even if they are not paid? even if they are not paid. the trump justice department invented a new interpretation of those rules to permit the ivanka trump and jared kushner to

maintain those positions. what we have seen over time in the white house is why it is a good idea to prohibit family movers from having those kinds of roles k they have elevated positions and special access to the president that has nothing to do with their expertise and is entirely due to their familial relationship with him. the president has allocated an enormous responsibility to jared kushner, with which he has no capacity or experience pa he was given access to a national security material that national security expert said he should not have and when he did not have clearance. protectal processes to national security was overridden because of this relationship. havenk it is good not to family members serve, but there are laws and we should tighten it up. host: is there any indication

with jared kushner continuing with his business interests? cassie set those aside during the administration? guest: no. and he is worth up to $700 million. he has handed some of it off to a trust run by his mother, which is not exactly a divestiture. of course, the family business has been involved in seeking funding from overseas interests, including qatar related investment funds. we may never know how that nexus of relationships has affected what the u.s. government has done in its foreign policy, but we should never have to ask the question is a u.s. foreign policy being affected by people's personal interest in receiving funding from overseas governments? host: let's hear from william, democrat line, chapel hill. caller: hi. about ouro ask historical perspective. taught political science

and have been involved in .overnment affairs for 40 years anything toen with the abuses that have taken place in the trump administration, hiring people in that have been --iness heads or violations you can -- the does not justify violation of emoluments or asking forgiveness for having to plead with foreign governments that interfere with our political affairs. is there anything in the last 100 years that compares even remotely to the abuses occurring

presently? guest: the answer is no. for the no precedent wrongful behavior and conduct we are seeing from the administration and from the president himself. there are certain elements with prior parallels, but nothing of the scale or breadth. ii administration, you had a lot of conflict at people running agencies. but in terms of the emoluments because, as far as i know, there has never been anything like that in all of american history. in terms of the abuses of power that are now surfacing, you can probably see comparisons with the nixon administration, and that is the one case where you have high-level constitutional violations that are maybe at similar scale. but even then, if you look at the diversity of ethical breaches by the trump administration, it vastly out places -- outpaces even

president nixon. host: i want to ask about this act enacted in 1938 requiring those acting as foreign principles in a political or quasi-political capacity to make relationshipblic -- disclosure of required administration for still tied by the american government by such persons in light of their function as foreign agents. looking at the hunter biden situation, even the case of the trump administration, is there -- are there possible violations there? is if yout that means work for a foreign government, you have to register that you say you do. you have to then disclose the materials you produce for the foreign government. whatever propaganda or lobbying

material, how to disclose it. there are exceptions, unfortunately. if you register as a lobbyist through the regular lobbying system, you can evade many of the requirements. what people may sense but not know is that has been a major change in the last 30 or 40 years. it did not used to be the case that many americans were in the sense of representing foreign governments. but many people now leave work for the u.s. government, go into the private sector, and take p.r. or related positions working for foreign governments. host: but they are based here? guest: primarily based in washington, d.c., because their job is to leverage with the use to do to work on behalf a foreign governments. this is a bipartisan problem. there has been little registration under this foreign agents registration act. now we are seeing a number of cases being brought saying the

law is on the books and you did not do it. that was one of the key issues with paul manafort. a key issue involving a high-level democratic lawyer, greg craig, who was just acquitted on charges of it and we have seen a surge of registrations since attention was brought to this act. host: what about lobbying more broadly? thinkod of a job do you congress has done in tightening lobbying and ethics rules? guest: main lobbying rules just is registering your lobbying. that law works ok. something we saw overtime was people d registering as lobbyists and inventing new titles for themselves. so they are strategic consultants or historians. host: why would they do that? guest: they did not want to disclose they were lobbying. they just wanted to try to hide

it by re-categorizing it, or in the obama administration, it became the case that you couldn't get a job there unless you had -- if you had recently been a lobbyist. host: clint in stafford, virginia. caller: hello? host: you are on the air. caller: just wanted to follow up on a previous caller's question on the definition of corruption that the guest is using, particularly regarding the epa and director of interior appointments. i see that the definition of corruption typically involves bribery. it would seem that the president ,an on a pro-business platform appointing individuals from someess -- there may be

policy conflicts in terms of what some of the public would ,ee as pro-environmental threatening the environment with policies, but he appointed these people in public. they were approved by the senate, it and that democratically controlled congress has not brought any resolutions to condemn the president for corruption. so although i agree with many of the suggestions that the guest has regarding campaign-finance reform and tightening up some of these loopholes, it seems like a ,trong and inappropriate term determine that corruption by appointing those individuals and then being approved by the senate. guest: that is a fair point. you are correct. i will underscore again that these examples do not involve illegality.

they may be doing things in violation of their recusal requirements, so in that sense of the word, corruption of a criminal element of corruption, these individual cases are not. but i think the system and the public use at the typically uses of corruption, i think they are not just reflective of, they are exemplary of the kind of corrupt system that people are outraged about it although it is true that the president ran on a pro-business, more or less, agenda, the above all ran on the notion of draining the swamp kid when he said that, what he was conveying, what the american people, of all political stripes, feel and desperately want, is that the system in washington, d.c. relies on insiders connected to business leveraging government to benefit their personal and business interests. that is what i think is

happening here. the president ran against that. i think a significant portion of his support came because of that advocacy, and i think he has betrayed that commitment, that he has not just not drained the swamp, he has doubled down and made that the business model of his administration. host: democrat line, detroit, ron. caller: good morning. , i've been is noticing with all the money that trump has been raising for his campaign, as i go through the various programs that i watch on -- internet, a lot of these would you say that is a conflict of interest? they all talk about hating the magarats, yet these

bundles go and ask to support trump. that, i was reading where there is advertising for $500 to become an american citizen in asia -- host: let me follow up on this. ivanka trump's business relationship early on in the administration, what did she do with her clothing line? where does that stand? -- guest: now i think the business is more or less shattered. but early on, you had a surge in advertising from the trump administration for the ivanka trump line. i think that became untenable. they have really backed off on that. host: i want to go back to the public citizen ethics recommendations, your new

report. on nepotism itself, your report recommend passing legislation that bans current presidents from hiring family members. and prohibit a family member from receiving security clearances, except in cases in which the person is independently qualified to receive them. all of those proposals, however, would not prevent incidents like this, the trip earlier this summer, the headline these boys were on holiday -- trump family members promote themselves and business with eric trump and donald trump overseas with the president during the g 20 meetings earlier this year. is right.t there is a set of things this administration is doing that are , either violations of the law or we could make them violations of the law. they should be or they are capitalizing on loopholes. there are some abuses that are not amenable to hard and fast

rules, because you need people to exercise good judgment. that was the trump adult male children, their ongoing business operations are part of -- their business is working for the trump organization. thisen that falls under anticorruption provision. but in general, the idea that they will go around and try to capitalize on the fact that their father is president for their business advantage, that is a tough thing to legislate about or even issue rules about. you just need people not to do it. this is the same issue raised by the hunter biden thing and by dozens or maybe even hundreds of examples in washington, d.c. host: a point on that. will texted this -- the president's family will always benefit, like it or not. did we not just see an ad written -- for a book written by

hillary and chelsea. who would buy that book had bill not been president? guest: c-span is now part of the controversy. i think you are right. but deals are the least of it. at least you are getting something and purportedly you're making the purchase and you want to hear what it is people have to say, but that comment is right. beyond the deals -- of course, it is less of a problem after the person has left office. a little bit of an issue. it is a big problem while they are in office and it is pervasive. it is not unique to the trump administration. host: john is in richmond, virginia on the republican line. caller: hi. really enjoying the show today. i am concerned about bias in the presentation of ideas.

in the case this morning, i do not see how you can talk as long as you have been talking about trump not selling his business when he became president like carter did and not mention the ist that the trump business voluntarily not expanding internationally while trump is president. that seems huge to me. i wish you would present a more balanced set of information. business saidmp it is not expanding internationally. maybe it is not. some investment that were early stages and it was not clear if they were going forward, so it is arguable whether they are adhering to that pledge. even if they are, the huge problem is ongoing business interests and projects in development. they are involved, for example, in a major development in indonesia. resort amusement park,

golf course, hotel complex -- two of them. in indonesia. that project was announced to receive a huge dose of financing from a chinese government affiliated investment fund which has since been pulled back. of giving the announcement that fund correlated exactly when the president gave a favor to a preferred chinese business. was there a correlation? there may have been. even if there was not, the appearance of that is something the american people should never have to grapple with. at the trump hotel in washington, d.c., the saudi government is taking out huge numbers of rooms. the kuwaiti government shifted its national celebration from a different hotel to the trump hotel immediately after trump was elected. are they doing that to curry favor? you bet they are. they even say if we do not stay at the trump hotel, it is effectively double medic

malpractice. so these are affecting our relationships with countries around the world and are undermined in, or should be undermining, the american divisions inh that this administration are made -- being made on behalf of the amerco people. host: paul on the democrats live from florida. caller: good morning. i would like to get back to the topic of the epa. appointing someone , who is ceo of monsanto pro-business. i get pro-business, but down in florida, we depend on tourism as our only business. the only source of money that comes into florida, for the most part, is tourism. when you take herbicides and pesticides and dump them in lake

okeechobee, and that turns the water blue from a blue tide that runs up the coast -- everything is interconnected in florida. we have a series of ecosystems that are all interconnected, and when you allow all of these places to become polluted with herbicides and pesticides, it is killing everything come up to santa bell island, where the torist trade is so critical our economic life here. onto theyou come out beaches, instead of seeing a beautiful, pristine beaches, what you are seeing is death -- you see dead manatees floating up on shore because of a condition where the oxygen is removed from the water -- host: we are running out of time on this segment and will get an answer from robert weissman. guest: we have seen this trump

environmental protection agency do a number of favors for the chemical industry. dow chemical was one of the major contributors to the president's inaugural fund, and soon later we found decisions to deregulate dow chemicals pesticides. we saw someone in charge of chemical policy at the epa, and you can bet she's carrying forward the agenda of the industry. it is true in florida on chemicals, a uniquely vulnerable state for climate catastrophe. but it is not just people in florida who depend on clean water and clean air and not suffering through climate catastrophes. every person on this planet is being let down by this administration. host: the report is available at citizen.org. robert weissman is president of public citizen. thanks for being with us. coming up next, we take more of your phone calls and go back to our conversation about the

president's request urging china to investigate joe biden and hunter biden. later on, national journal's josh kraushaar will join us to talk about the politics surrounding the impeachment inquiry and what may be ahead for those candidates in 2020. ♪ at 2:30 pmt stern, the author of "kissinger on kissinger, on president nixon's relationship with henry kissinger. >> nixon had read henry kissinger's books. he also interested. >> at 10:00 -- >> there was little to do except work. they prepared to search

for oil. >> on reel america, the 1948 the "desert venture" on origins of the saudi arabian oil industry. sunday at 6:00 p.m. eastern on american artifacts, we will preview the votes for women exhibit at the cecconi and -- smithsonian's national portrait gallery. >> she was starting her own business. for state laws. >> at six up -- 6:30 p.m. eastern, author sophia rosenfeld discusses her book "democracy and truth: a short history." >> no one person, sick your, king, specific cast would get to call all the shots. >> explore our nation's past on a mac in history tv every weekend on c-span 3.

>> "washington journal" continues. host: here for the next 15 plus minutes or so, getting your thoughts on the appropriateness of seeking foreign governments' help in u.s. political issues. this after the president on cama called on china to investigate the biting's -- bidens. (202) 748-8001 is a line for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. for all others, (202) 748-8002. send us a text at (202) 748-8003 . it is the first friday of the month. the numbers from the bureau of labor statistics come out on unemployment, with the country adding 136,000 jobs in september. the labor department reporting the jobless rate dropping in september 0.2% from 3.7 in august 2 the .5 in september. your calls in a moment. first, the comments of the president as he departed the white house yesterday.

[video clip] >> i would think that, if they were honest about it, they would start a major investigation into the biden's. it is a civil answer. they should investigate the biden's. how is a company that is newly formed -- and by the way, likewise, china should start an investigation into the biden's. what happened in china is just about as bad as what happened with ukraine. say to the president of ukraine, if it were me, i would recommend they start an investigation into the biden's. nobody has any doubt that they were not cricket. that was their crooked deal, 100%. he had no knowledge of energy, all of a sudden, he is getting $50,000 a month, plus a lot of other things -- nobody has any doubt. they got rid of a prosecutor, a

very tough prosecutor. now they are trying to make it the opposite way. if i were the president, i would recommend that, of ukraine. [inaudible] startsomething we can thinking about. i am sure that president xi does not like being under that kind of scrutiny, where billions of dollars are taken out of his country by a guy that just got kicked out of the navy. he got kicked out of the navy and all of a sudden, he is getting billions of dollars. they call that a payoff. host: the president following up tweeting as president, i have an obligation to end corruption, even if that means requesting the help of a foreign country or countries. it is done all the time. this has nothing to do with politics or a political campaign against the biden's. it does have to do with their corruption.

go to michael on the independent line. caller: hi. disbelief of what is happening to our country. it is a clear violation in the have foreignto governments interfere with our elections. and that is what is happening right now. it is an outrage. it is unbelievable that people would stand up for this kind of corruption. and a final point -- ivanka patentsst had 15 or 16 from china. tell me about hypocrisy. and jared kushner making millions of deals in the middle east, the president's son-in-law. ridiculous. host: david in north carolina, republican line. taking i appreciate you

the call. i want to say that the president is doing what he was elected for. this man was a businessman. he has no political interests until he ran. three made this country to five times better since he got in. the swamp ring, opening his mouth on a whistle -- whistleblower that seems to be made up. all he is doing is exposing these full-time politicians. they have been there 30, 40, some of them longer than that, years. this man did not go in as a politician. he went in as a businessman to fix america, and he has done it. host: thomas in fort myers, florida on our democrats line. caller: good morning. i am enjoying the program. in your first segment, your

phrasing of the question was whether it was appropriate to have this foreign involvement in our elections. my question is why have you not posted, for the audience, the federal election law regarding this? there is a law. you could have had the director of the federal elections commission on to clarify that law on if you wanted to. but to ask the question, if it is appropriate, to me sounds like you're asking someone is burglary appropriate? if it is against the law, it is against the law. the first thing you need to do is look at the law. otherwise, your question amounts, i think, to journalistic practice. host: we did read from the statement from ellen weintraub. obviously, we do not have her on the program, but we read her iteration of federal election laws. thanks for that.

cindy is next in louisiana. you are on the air. make sure you mute your television and go ahead with your comment. caller: yes. i am sort of taken aback by this sort of program this morning, mainly because of what is taking place. just like right now, being censored by c-span. getting a little confused. and gour television ahead with your comment. caller: c-span, i tried to watch and do watch quite a bit. more i watch -- and thank you for taking my call. first i should have added that. but anyway, i am really concerned about america.

i am not going to go into the dems and reps an independents and all of that. that is what is wrong with our country. host: are right. i think we have the wrong caller. now i think we have cynthia. thank you to the other caller. caller: yes. i have two questions. since we are opening up everything to foreign influence, can mexico and guatemala and rightss have the human investigation on the border? would there be a problem with countries censoring the human rights issue where people are dying on the border? wonder ord also people understanding the subtle

-- it was very subtle -- hint for trump to decide it would be ok for his children to work in the administration? major change. casesusa today, vaping increase in other news this morning. 18 died. 1080 second. the number of vaping related lung injuries have jumped. the specific causes of the illnesses are still not clear, according to the cdc in a report thursday. the latest figures coincide with a new mayo clinic study that says toxic chemical fumes, not oils, may be to blame for their vaping related illnesses. the cdc reports from 38 states and the u.s. virgin islands as of tuesday representing an increase of 805 vaping related lung cases and 12 deaths. brent in baltimore on our democrats line. you are on the air.

caller: this is brenda. thank you, c-span. i tried to be a fair person. i started watching c-span because you give a balanced approach. i worry about our country so much, because we have gotten away from fairness and balance. whost wish that the people feel so in their corners would understand that truth is truth and facts are facts. donald trump is not being appropriate. i am in baltimore. and it is not because of what he said about baltimore. i can take it. i am a teacher appeared i learned how to be reasonable. but i wish the american people who are in the corners would really say, you know, listen to all of the truth. you know that expression -- a little bit of knowledge is

dangerous. the thing about biden -- you saw the video. and if you could show the whole story of the video and the fact that they said the corrupt person was put up -- the person was put out because he wasn't being strong enough after that did not benefit biden. let's be reasonable and use logic. nothing about jim jones, the person that people followed, and they never believed he did anything wrong, and of course, he did things, and that is how con people do. they do things the president is doing things for veterans and this and that, but people can do things and be a sheep in wolf's clothing. now this is ruby in germantown, maryland on the independent line. you are on the air.

caller: hi. i guess i have a question. is it considered for a president to request information from a foreign nation as a part of a routine investigation, but this seemed kind of inappropriate. when i was trying to search for the reason why, there seems to be a disconnect. so the president, instead of going through the regular down the dojing it head to the attorney general, giving it to the fbi or the appropriate agency, to find intelligence about the investigation or cooperate with a foreign government, and that is going back up the chain, that process did not happen. the president sent his personal attorney and his attorney

general as spearheading the effort, and that is why it seems a lot more personal and not according to the process. host: appreciate that. we remind you that you contact us -- text us at (202) 748-8003. george in washington, d.c., the biden's should not get a pass from the corruption that happened during the obama administration. the media is not the judicial, yet they are proclaiming his innocence because they do not like trump. bill in michigan, for someone who hates the investigations about him has no problem asking the world to help him. if it is corruption, largest the biden's? a question for those who will vote in 2020. you want a president who thinks he has the absolute right to do anything? up to defend stand the constitution and save this country from trump. leah is in duluth on the republican line. caller: good morning.

let's semper fi this. it is fine for the president to ask foreign governments to cooperate with open department of justice investigations. it is inappropriate for the president of the united states to ask foreign governments to open investigations into specific people. to leverager abuse u.s. policy to force those investigations. , symbol.t, period this is a coup within our government, and america needs to know that. the whistleblower is not a whistleblower. they are a leaker. people said from the beginning of the president taking office that they wanted him impeached. after.s it has been nothing but a dog and pony show from the democrats. where do we really need to look into? why does bill clinton get $3500

for a 30 minute speech in russia? fbi look into the tarmac visit between bill and loretta lynch. there is so much corruption. the swamp is deep. host: democrats line in fairfax, virginia. caller: there are three points i want to make. idea of checks and balances is out the door right now. you have a house and senate supposed to check the executive branch, and that is not happening right now. the only place that is checking him is the house because democrats have the majority. -- ifl always be this way any party has all three branches, they will never check one another. that is how it is going to be. the second thing -- republicans, i am so surprised that the republican leadership is letting this happen.

they are watching this and are turning a blind eye. of all the things this guy is doing, he is completely changing democracy and our country -- host: i will let you go there. one more call from rolando in texas, independent line. caller: good morning. i am calling regarding how mr. trump has trained his oath of office. not only to the united states but the american people. i am an independent. we have several roundtables with friends and family members, and some people did vote for trump and are horrified by it. to are now just in shock as what is going on. weekly them -- we have roundtable get-togethers, and they will not vote for him again. they are not going to vote for him again. they said, we thought he would .o and blow up washington well, he did go and blow up

washington. it is unlawful and it has been unlawful for ages in the constitution. host: we will continue on "washington journal" with a focus on the impeachment process. we will be joined by "national tornal's" josh kraushaar talk about that. this weekend, or c-span cities tour will be exploring the history and literary life of rapid city, south dakota. [video clip] i think rapid city is

everybody's hometown. sometimes it's more like a big town and we have become known as the city of president -- residents --presidents. mount20 minutes from rushmore, the largest president monument in the world. where we havecity former president's on our street corners. so it's very interesting. downtown there are some monuments that are very important. , there is the fear of discussing and being seen as patronizing -- the fear of inaging with this population

a real open and honest way. you do not want to accidentally offend someone and i think that's not just unique around the city. i think our whole nation's of the screen that right now. "washington journal" continues. host: josh kraushaar is " politicalournal's editor. he is here to discuss the politics of impeachment. the politics of impeachment now favors democrats. why do you think that? at national polls. even during the heart of the mueller investigation and his testimony you had a bipartisan majority that opposed impeachment. it only received 35 percent, 40% support.

we learned more about the president's relationship with the ukraine as we saw with these texts. you see in most polls a majority americans supporting at least the impeachment inquiry, supporting the democrats' position. and even when you ask, do you support actual removal of the president, that's about 45%, 48% support at the rally. it is growing. so, that is an opinion that is affecting democratic support of impeachment. how about when republicans are polled? what is the trend their? you are right. the democratic base is

consolidating around impeachment . that's responsible for some of the jump. but independent voters, the one consistent theme is they were overwhelmingly against impeachment a month ago. now they are split and the trend line is moving toward beinghment, moving toward concerned about what they are seeing on the news. republicans -- trump is always going to have the republican base. there may be a few cracks in the armor but you're not seeing much of a shift among his support. host: four house democrats, the train has obviously left the station, but some of the holdouts have begun to support -- max rose, famously, i guess, from staten island. there are the independents, someone like joe cunningham in south carolina. those swingyou saw

district democrats, with national security backgrounds, representing places that trump actually won in 2016, that was a clear sign they were not as worried about the politics. staten island, that is a big one -- he won tv overwhelmingly. he will face a tough race in 2020. the fact that he felt comfortable coming out for impeachment is an illustration of the politics is changing. host: that is a seat that has gone back and forth for democrats and republicans. guest: these are people who overwhelmingly supported giuliani, supported trump. base.re basically trump's the fact that a democrat in that district felt comfortable --

you would not have seen this week a few weeks ago. guest: what has been the president response dust the president's response? -- host: what has been the president's response? has been all over the map. overnight we learned about texts. the president has been offering different defenses. there's not a coordinated war room. there has not been a concerted political strategy coming out of the white house. the republicans are relying on his sweep as there's been and it changes on a day-to-day basis and i think there's a lot of anxiety about public opinion. host: josh kraushaar from guest.al journal" is our

we welcome your calls. i wanted to play you the inner sea chairman. here is what he had to say when asked about the inquiry and what it may mean for republicans in 2020. [video clip] what is your political read and what advice are you giving candidates about impeachment now? >> this socialist democrat that currently occupies the house of representatives, their hatred for this president -- >> wow. wow. >> it is so deep, they cannot focus on anything but undoing the 2016 election. they spent $20 million to get a

report that showed no obstruction, no collusion. now there's a call with no quid pro quo in it -- >> i do, too. please read that. >> in the meantime, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are getting absolutely nothing done. this will be the end of the new houseist majority in the and is why we will win in november. tom emmer, who spearheads republican everything else. what did you hear? the no quid pro quo, that was undermined overnight. it now sounds like there was quid pro quo. that's a statement republican hascials are saying and it been contradicted by new developments. the in rcc has been very aggressive in attacking democrats in trump district for supporting the impeachment inquiry, so they do believe they

have an advantage, especially in the seats that are most conservative that democrats hold, but even in uphold they , 47% ofoned themselves americans in swing districts oppose impeachment and 44% support impeachment. even republican polling shows a shift from where things were. a narrowshowing plurality opposed to impeachment hearings, in swing districts, republican districts, but even those numbers are not that encouraging when you're talking about her republican leaning battlefield and numbers that were much more encouraging for republicans a few weeks ago. to theet's shifted senate for a second. the impeachment bill, most notably, their photo with the article, susan collins, you write these swing state republican up for reelection in 2020. what sort of pressure is she

facing? a very tough in position. if you are in a blue state and , you need to help voters. you can't win without their support. she is dammed if she does. damned if she does. she has been trying to lay low, not trying to deal with the latest controversies. but if you are a swing state republican you are in a tough position. you need from voters, but you also need suburban swing voters. the big battle lines, arizona, martha mcsally, it will be extremely close. the senators are in a difficult position. host: susan collins, does she have a strong primary opponent? guest: not to my knowledge. she has a democratic opponent who's raising a lot of money,

sarah gideon. democrats are pouring millions of millions of dollars into that race. host: let's go to clarksburg, west virginia, independent line. i got caller: -- i got a couple things. no one is above the law. nobody is, ok? the lady from the federal election commission says the law has been broken. and then you have in the constitution, the emoluments clause and the other thing that goes to mitch mcconnell and the oligarchs factory. i am just wondering, have i lost my mind hear? -- lost my mind here? guest: the color brings up an interesting point here is there are some democrats who have said is aact that there campaign finance violation is

the most important point. host: asking for help from ukraine? guest: which it is. are making mistake aspectsing on the legal rather than the political outrage the the president may have pressured the ukrainian president to dig up dirt on his political rival. it focus on the legalese of may -- that is why there is a danger that this hearing is being held at the house rather than behind closed doors. host: next, diane from upper darby, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: how are you today? i have a comment about donald trump. he was born and raised to behave in this manner. to cheat money, manipulate

people, the way he does. to be president, he has all this , for to manipulate himself, anywhere he can. what does it take to protect this country and impeach the president? what does it take? i want to know. guest: it takes 20 republicans in the senate. that is the math. you need 67 votes in the senate. democrats are in the minority in the senate and even if the house does vote on articles of impeachment, which it looks more likely now that will happen, it's going to be very, very difficult -- even if more damaging revelations come out. there's going to be a very big challenge for the republican party to abandoned him. the polls show that trump gets 85%, 90% support among republicans. that has think assistant.

i do see >> emerging in the senate. you have a lot of senators, especially those not up for reelection. joni ernst, another senator up for reelection, was at a town hall where she did not necessarily decides trump's comments, but she did criticize him calling the whistleblower a spy. chuck grassley also said that this week. there are cracks. the problem is you need 20 votes. that is a tall order in our polarized times. host: one of the democrats you noted, check -- doug jones out from alabama, what are his challenges? fort: he is running reelection one of the most republican states in the country. he won because he opposed roy moore in the mill of one of the greatest political scandals in the country. he knows that his time is limited. .o he voted against kavanaugh

he has taken positions like support for gun control that are not popular at all in alabama. he has supported the impeachment heuiry but i would suspect would put his own principles ahead of the politics because he is in trouble the matter what happens. host: michael, republican line, good morning. hey, biden investigated himself -- , you broke up a little bit. i apologize. chicopee, massachusetts on the independent line. caller: josh keeps citing poll after poll after poll. we know what happened. we know what the polls said in 2016 and they weren't true, so why du believe any of these polls first of all? impeached,ident was

which will never happen, prince becomes president --pence becomes president. what do the democrats do? go after pence? i'm sure they will. thank you. politicalt is the place where the republicans are. there is no support for the president to admit any wrongdoing. -- ais a supply side demand side issue not of congress are only following their voters and they represent a lot of trump voters and republicans and they will have a hard time breaking with this president. until we see movement in the public support, the republican party support, you will not see a lot of movement from elected officials.

you mentioned earlier the national republican campaign committee, their poll, the says 47 percent of voters in those target seats support -- 51% oft, 44% of it independent voters oppose impeachment and a battleground states, 49 percent of voters oppose impeachment, in those battleground states. this is the first chance they have had to pull on impeachment, i suppose. host: this is a partisan -- guest: this is a partisan poll. a lot of these districts are pretty republican districts the democrats picked up in 2018. this is not your average voter. these are the swing seat, republican leaning seats that democrats want. other public polls of been more encouraging for democrats, a little more supportive of impeachment.

public domain, support for impeachment was in the 30's. even in republican districts is up to 44% at this point. polling is showing an increase in support. the caller questioned your use of polls. how do you sort through the ones that are really valid and the ones you disregard? guest: it's a great question. there are polls that have a track record, that use appropriate methodology. there's the abc washington post poll. they are usually among the best in the business. but the polling -- there have been issues with polling. the solution is not just to fromt the findings reputable polls. the national polls in 2016,

hillary clinton winning by a few points and she actually won the popular vote. scene pollingthe that was often 2016. the national polls got the job done. glenn in's hear from birmingham, alabama on our -- gwen in birmingham, alabama on our democrats' line. want to ask just a question. i am a 72-year-old senior citizen alabama. it is exhausting. every day we get up and all we hear about is donald trump did this. what is wrong with some people in america? what is wrong with the republican party echo let me say to you. , i really liked the president. but i am american first and a

democrat second. what bill clinton did in the oval office was a disgrace and i did not like it. i still don't. but these republicans, i don't understand their minds. this is america. how dare we defend a president of the united states asking , who don't have any human rights in their country -- host: all right, we will hear from josh. guest: it is exhausting. the most savvy news consumers, you are dealing with story up on story and it can be really overwhelming to digest. that's part of trump about his strategy, i think. overwhelmed the media ecosystem with so much controversy, so much scandal -- even over the

last week for hours the religious six stories that could lead -- there were literally six stories that could lead any newscast. i think the politics operate as the same speed as twitter. i caution people reading the polls, reading senators' reactions. this is different. the scandal is different than a lot of the back-and-forth in the mueller investigation, different than "access hollywood," different than a lot of other scandals and republicans that have been supportive of the president, but i have noticed they have not rally to his defense this time, especially in the senate. that's a leading indicator that suggests people want to see what else is out there because based on the text messages, based on the latest developments we saw, this is only getting worse for the white house. caller mentioned bill

clinton's impeachment. going into the weekend, the president and others were tweeting video of the 1998 proceedings, the words of jerry nadler, the words of speaker pelosi, playing those back as the current impeachment effort continues. guest: partisanship is a hell of a drug. we saw hypocrisy from the democrats. this is a different scandal. this is arguably a were scandal. a lot of republicans criticized the obama administration for not giving enough military aid to the ukraine. a lot of leading voices were outraged that obama was not helping ukraine defended itself against russian aggression. those national security voices in the republican party are going to be very much under the spotlight because it seems like hear the president conditioned

this military aid in exchange for political dirt. this is not just a political issue. it's a national security issue. robert in rent up, massachusetts on the independent line. caller: good morning. i've a few comments. i do believe we have a situation that needs to be rectified because the president -- if -- ands about the constitution worried because they are democrat or republican or independent. we are worried. the president, reality does not matter to him anymore. be violating blatantly the law and this intent is alarming with this

president. we have to wake up, as other people said. we have to understand this is a -- he is taking advice from putin. denying russia is doing anything. he cannot run the country like he runs his business. moneytrying to make his on the back of the country by making deals. these are the kinds of latent violations people do not understand. we cannot fight with each other like this. we cannot have a president that .oes not respect the law this is not normal, people. we have to write the articles to impeach this man. host: robert in massachusetts. that one polladd

that came out was not whether you support impeachment, it was how serious chief on the allegations? and it found that two thirds of americans found that either very serious or somewhat serious. a third of republicans took it very serious or somewhat seriously. republicans are eager to side with the president but there are cracks in the armor. as more news comes out, as more , you willr the news not see an overnight seachange, but this is a level we have not seen. certainly some of the congressional reaction is muted because they are out of town for another 10 days or so. back to impeachment and looking at the bellwethers on impeachment. the congresswoman from northern

virginia, abigail samberg are -- guest: she was one of the first democrats to come out in support of an impeachment inquiry. -- she's one of the democrats was national security experience, really solidified that moment for pelosi to support the impeachment inquiry. she is someone who represents a trump district. one it by six points in 2016. heart of to be the republican country in virginia. it has become a little more competitive. but she is taking a egg political gamble. the district supported him pretty significantly in 2016 and she was one of the first democrats to come out publicly and unequivocally in support for this impeachment inquiry. how she fares tell us a lot

about where the political winds are. two omaha, nebraska next. john on the republican line. --ler: i am just curious adam schiff, he's the head of the house committee overseeing the impeachment and he is making stuff up in his opening statement. if they had enough evidence to impeachment -- two impeach trump, they would go for broke. time and time again, jerry nadler, chuck schumer, they make stuff up. as far as i am concerned, this is a grab power. a little noisy there, john, but his point about raised by ach was house republicans leader kevin mccarthy, what is he trying to do that -- trying to do there? republicanve heard

strategists saying perhaps they would be ok with some sort of censure. we are way too early in the process. but schumer, adam schiff, the chair of the house intelligence trump'se, has become bogeyman and the biggest target among republicans. pelosi a reason nancy picked them to be the quarterback of these hearings. she did not really trust jerry nadler. he had hearings that were a little less organized, more partisan. adam schiff is a very talented prosecutor and good at his job. usually when the party goes after someone, it is because they think he is a threat. she was you think that waiting to give that to him, with his dealing with

international issues and intelligence issues? before, pelosi was satisfied to let the various committees do the room business, but now that the stakes are so --h higher, both for pelosi and substantively, it was clear that pelosi wanted adam schiff to be the face and the leader. terry in dixon, illinois. go ahead. democrats' line. caller: congress is looking into impeachment of the president. but the process ron. just like the call of the republicans. but there's one other thing i wish this speaker would consider.

we know that vice president pence was also involved. i would like to know what did the president know? if the vice president was involved in this, maybe we impeach him, to you will. we are tired of this. every day, this administration is lying and coddling our enemies. north korea fired a ballistic missile from a sob and have we heard anything from trump? i thought he was making america great. host: thanks, terry. josh? guest: one thing we have learned them,s ukraine to number adventure, it's not just rudy giuliani freelancing. vice president pence, it is clear he knew more than he publicly suggested about what trump was doing. in fact there was "washington

, a story that his advisors were trying to distance them from the president's behavior. i do not know that that will be successful or if active. is, is thistion going to affect trump, or will other key administration officials like pompeo, who has been talked about as a possible kansas, willate in it take their fortunes as well. commentsant to play about the whistleblower in the investigation. here we go. [video clip] i brought each conscripts from the president's , president trump's conversation with the president of the ukraine. i was going to bring out. it is in the back there. please do read that.

i did not call for any kind of impeachment, impeachment inquiry. i did not even utter a word that started with i until this week. please take the time to read it. it will only take you about 30 minutes to read the transcript and the whistleblower support. the president is trading defense assets to undermine the 2020 election. and, tom, while we are up in, i guess i am curious how you thend that conversation president of the united states had with the president of the ukraine. host: josh? guest: it is important to understand the position cheri bustos is in. from a trump district in illinois and she has consistently, for months and months, urged pelosi not to pursue if these may hearings until the last couple weeks --

and you saw from that clip it is so serious, it deserves greater attention. that is a big shift and it shows how the politics have changed. it shows that she is willing to go on attention. offense. there may be democratic defectors like joe cunningham from south carolina. democrats from the most conservative districts, but when democrats from the most conservative districts, but when you have a very reticent chairwoman of the dccc not wanting to pursue impeachment hearings and taking the case to her rival, tom emmer, on the republican side, it shows you how it can change so quickly. we aired in the live and you can see it on our website, c-span.org. let's go to west point, georgia,

independent line. caller: hi, i'm just calling because as a veteran of the united is i have never thought -- united states, i have never thought the constitution would be so trampled on by the president whoa has been a draft dodger about things. the whistleblower -- we need that. if we didn't have whistleblowers, it would be much more troubling in the federal government. the president tweeting about the whistleblower this morning. he just tweeted this "whistleblower had the facts wrong about the phone call. schiff never told us about this." he could be a vulnerable senator except that he is retiring,

lamar alexander. what role could he play in a potential senate trial that could follow a house impeachment? retiring officeholders do not have political pressure. they are out of washington in 2020. you have folks like lamar alexander who are establishment, pragmatic republicans who don't have a great relationship with trump, have been critical of him at times. i think if you see cracks in the republican senate it would be --m mitt romney, ben sasse you does have a primary and a competitive election coming up -- but especially from the republicans leaving office. lamar alexander, pat roberts, mike in the.

they feel if they have a responsibility speak out. if they speak out, who knows where the politics will lean and how their colleagues will respond to that. herald" reported this decries trump's opera probe. we have a call from independence, missouri on our democrats' line. whenr: i'm just wondering, nixon was going to be impeached and he resigned ahead of no newsent, there was media to put their own facts out there. i wonder if there were a right-wing media in that day when nixon was going through his impeachment what the result could have been and what the polls would have shown.

there are people to this day who believe that nixon did not do anything wrong. in this day and age when you have a vociferous right-wing media basically opposing any standing facts. that's my question. looking at historical examples of impeachment, what is most interesting is the support for impeachment for trump right now is significantly higher than it was for bill clinton during the impeachment trial in the 1990's or richard nixon at the beginning of the impeachment looking at historical examples ofhearings that took pe 1970's. the reason bill clinton thrived politically, it did not hurt his

party after the very dramatic impeachment hearings in his case was because the public was against removing him from office for what he did. right now we are seeing between 45%, 40% for removing trump from office and all of the reputable polls right now. , i'll think you are going to see the number increased dramatically, but look, that's a eveny high number, and if a small number of republican voters defect, that would be a disaster for the white house. the politics of impeachment now favor democrats. is it too early, and have we heard any word on how the fundraising efforts are going for the politics the dccc, the l races for democrats, and the nrcc. host: fundraising for the trump campaign is excellent. this is helping their campaign. small don -- small dollar

donors, grassroots, they have raised 125 million dollars, a lot of money. this can also rally the democratic fundraiser base -- it hasut historically, but pelosi is very concerned about making this political. she does not want this to be seen as a political exercise. it's hard to say how fundraising will be impacted, but democratic isk and file, the pressure on their members not to make this about politics. host: polling is showing the dccc, 54% support impeachment.

the present of pose impeaching president trump and removing him from office. thepat -- you are right there, louisville, go right ahead. caller: yes, i would like to make two points or thoughts of that is leaving communism and machiavellian out of it. u.s. president trump is a wartime president. a wartime president can do exceptg he wants to do raising the dead and only jesus can do that. the other point is, if you did , andch the president taking all the guns out of biden wants to take biden wants to take

out, using a trillion dollars for a buyback, that leaves open the republic to any foreign entity that wants to invade this nation. right now we are having an amazon senate down in central and south america. businessimmigration coming up here, the reason they are having that senate is ,ecause all of south america under the organization of south which comprises all the nations of south america, including mexico and central america and the caribbean, has to thetributed one penny

emigrants coming up here -- pat, talking impeachment, not immigration this hour, but appreciate your call. we have a photo of adam schiff and the speaker, nancy pelosi. considering appealing to moderate democrats and republican districts to stand with the president -- pursued at odds with fresh political attacks. they say and outreach campaign would target some of the 31 democrats from congressional intricts that trump won 2016, many of whom ran on rebuilding infrastructure and lowering the price of prescription drugs. feelsthis -- guest: this like a dated political

transcript. one of those democrats is cheri bustos. numbers, half the of those 31 districts and trump districts have supported impeachment hearings. max rose is the latest. host: numbers are increasing. guest: republicans feel that they are putting themselves in a more vulnerable position, that trump supporters are going to be with the president again in 2020, but when you look at the polling, you should see the democratic polling on the issue. even the republican polling shows a pretty even split in swing districts. a month ago, republicans were trying to bait democrats and two calling for impeachment. now it's the other way around. democrats are trying to put republicans on the spot by asking them where they stand. the white house strategy sounds like it was based a month ago before these new headlines came

out. host: this is stephen on the independent line. caller: one question that has not been answered by the press or the democratic party on the -- onch went proceedings the impeachment proceedings. no one can name the high crime or misdemeanor he has committed as president of the united states. there is been all this hate and candor. it is leaving to foreign enemies and domestic enemies to leaving the gate open where something can happen in this country. involved should be asking that question. what is the crime or misdemeanor? you cannot do this on narrative and rhetoric. what i'm seeing on the streets and what is being talked about is people are

waiting until the election and they're talking about the local, state, and federal elections and how they are going to boot every darn democrat out of office if they pursue this and the journalism today is not being trusted at all on either side, right or left. wave -- i listen to shortwave munication is a my radio. pointed atis being our country, how idiotic we seem discussing and pursuing this. all right, stephen from pennsylvania. josh? guest: you heard the argument, the argument that cheri bustos made this weekend. she said the president traded defense assets. impeachment is a political process. they believe this is different

than all the other scandals because there is a quid pro quo. there is a trade threat to the ukrainian government to cooperate with some of these investigations into biden in the 2016 likes to get crucial defense aid. now the caller said, our lessnal security may be because we are distracted by scandals, but a lot of those democrats, including seven of those democrats with very strong national security backgrounds are making the argument it is different because the president jeopardized our own national security to counter russia for his own political gain and that's the implications of what we are learning. i do think what makes this -- different is -- four republican national -- for republicans, national security is a bedrock issue and a lot of republicans are not comfortable, at least privately, with what they are

seeing. think thedo you former vice president has responded so far? guest: not very well. when the story first wrote, you expected the vice president to for --some outraged just how he brought his family into the equation. biden is leaving in many polls. two underscore the president is afraid of me, but he didn't do that. the biden campaign focused on other issues like health care, gun control. they really downplayed a lot of the headlines and that changed gave avice president speech countering the rhetoric. a lot of democrats

wonder if biden is up to taking on trump. is that going to make him a strong candidate? he has a dual challenge. yes to get through the primaries. uncomfortable talking about his son' is business. they may not be illegal. but profiting on his dad's position is very swampy behavior and not good politics. i think there was hesitance from the right and camp, not to make a big deal. comparing apples and oranges from what hunter biden did in the ukraine and what the president is alleged to be done. this may be a question where trump gets hurt, but it may also heard the vice president as well. host: we have cap the from

michigan -- kathy from michigan on the democrats' line. just wondering, where is the supreme court in this? we have not heard anything from them. . just wonder can't the democrats order the supreme court to make sure they can get subpoenas. wanted.ll i i do not know how lisa prim court would be involved. i'm not sure why it's the caller is referring to. the fundamental political equation is due the independents turn against the president? do we get 15% to 20% of republicans? do they move against? that's the political math that

formula.he senate all right, here is david on the republican line. caller: i want to thank josh for the great work he does. i cannot understand -- we have gotten to the point now where we believeectives -- i what i see, not what people tell me. you can verify by telling whether it is wrong or right. we have a basic knowledge of what the fact is. we don'ttten so bad

know what right or wrong is. for thek you, josh, great job you guys do. this is why america is great. guest: i will add one area that makes it different than past cannotersies -- i believe that many americans read all 500 pages of the mueller report. --was a 10's, legal document a dense, legal document that person wouldtest have trouble with the review can read the whistleblower report -- it is 10 pages. you can read the rough transcript of the president's call with the ukraine and read the text messages that were sent among various diplomatic officials and you can do it in 30 minutes and is plain english and easy to read and make up your mind. i cannot believe that many

read the mueller report. of leaks, a lot contradictory information going on. this, you have the primary source material. they can read of themselves and come up with their judgments on whether this is problematic or not. joseph, good morning. caller: good morning. thank for c-span allowing people to speak. and i votedpendent for donald trump, hoping he would clear up the political corruption in our country, but i just want to say he should be impeached. the political corruption in wisconsin is just as bad as it is in the white house. thank you for allowing me to speak. host: thank you. hunter is next and lop yet, george on the republican line. caller: yes. i'm an american veteran, first

of all. i believe in the constitution. would like to say i do not think president trump needs to be impeached. the democrats have an agenda i.e. taking pass, away guns, i.e. a socialist society. cannot -- wewe president true to trump and conservatives. that's all i have to say. guest: we are at a polarized political moment. you hear from a lot of republicans who are not necessarily the biggest chump enthusiasts, but they look at the rhetoric from the democrats and they see democrats calling calling foro'rourke -- you see one in sanders supporting single-payer health insurance. very disruptive progressive

policies that make it hard for republicans who may want to back away from trump. that caller reflects that. i hear that more and more from republicans. i can't endorse trump. but have you heard what the democrats have been saying. the democrats have not made it easy because they moved to the left the last couple years to the point where it is difficult to find middle ground. -- there are people that are sticking with him as a counter to democrat behavior. yung kim, lost from -- lost by a hair to gil cisneros.

running for the seat in 2020 again. therepublican party is party of opportunities and i am an example of this. lamar alexander is going into retirement. recruit is this job to candidates? republicans are doing a pretty good job recruiting candidates. not a typical republican candidate. totalitarian a society. that belongs with this news of corruption and the fact that trump is browbeating and allied that we depend on to counter russian expansion.

these are issues that republicans have been largely united on and now trump is making it difficult for them to hold those positions or be consistent with those positions. lindsey graham, for example. they are doing a pretty good job getting candidates and some of the more competitive districts. politicalfaced strong headwinds in orange county. it is hard to see how the political environment will change for the republican benefit. the way politics are going, it will he at least as bad for republicans. bobby from new jersey. we have the house coming in a couple minutes. go ahead.

>> election in 2016. you really think that they are an enemy.

think they're an enemy of the united states? guest: certainly mitt romney thought so in 2012 when he was debating president obama. that has been republican party orthodoxy going back to the soviet union. the republican party has historically been the most hawkish party when it comes to countering russian influence. they made it really difficult republicans.file -- host: that will wrap it up for us. the house is coming in momentarily. josh kraushaar from "national journal." thanks for being with us here on "washington journal." does a pretty program. back tomorrow at 7 a.m. eastern.