at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span for general speeches. at noon eastern the house takes of several bills clued a resolution opposing the president's withdrawal of u.s. forces from syria. on c-span two 8:30 a.m., continuing work on executive and judicial nominations. on c-span3 at 10:00 a.m. the senate foreign relations committee looks at tensions between the u.s. and iran after an attack on sortie oil facilities -- saudi oil facilities. the house meets to discuss recommendations for the u.s. syria policy. campaign 2020 coverage continues with joe biden holding an event in davenport, iowa. coming up in 30 minutes, arizona representative on the impeachment inquiry and other news of the day. at 8:00 a.m., the institute for the study of wars discusses the

impact of the u.s. withdrawal from syria and it date: 30, connecticut represented jim hides on the latest house democrats impeachment inquiry. ♪ .ost: good morning, everyone we will begin with last night's democratic debate on -- and your thoughts on who is the front runner in this race. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. independents, dial in at 202-748-8002. you can text if you send your name and city and state at 202-748-8003. or join the conversation on twitter at @cspanwj and facebook.com/cspan. dialing in, we will get to those thoughts in a minute. let's begin with the debate and the former vice president being

asked about his son, hunter, and his involvement in ukraine. [video clip] speaks for statement itself. i did my job, i never spoke to my son about a single thing having to do with ukraine. we always kept everything separate. there would be no potential conflict. my son made a judgment. i am proud of the judgment he made. i am proud of what he had to say and let's focus on this. the fact of the matter is this is about trump's corruption, that is what we should be focusing on. host: former vice president joe biden from last night. the paper this morning full of headlines that say it was elizabeth warren who seemed like the front runner last night as the washington post puts it. begins with unified condemnation of trump and the wall street journal this morning, warren pressed on health care plan, a democratic debate.

here is one exchange she had with the former vice president [video clip] . [video clip] >> i think their vision is attracting a lot of people and i think a lot of what they had to say is important. senator warren said we can't be running any vague campaigns, we have to level with people. we have to level with people and say what we are going to do and how we are going to get it done. i am going to say people -- something that will probably offend some people, but i am the only one who has gotten something big done. the violence against humans act, making sure we got something done on the affordable care act, a $90 million act that kept us , where im a depression was able to end the issue of gun sales in terms of assault weapons and so the question is who is best prepared?

we all have good ideas. the question is who is going to be able to get this done. >> you started this question with how you got something done. following the financial crash, i had an idea for a consumer agency that would keep giant banks from cheating people and all the washington insiders and strategic geniuses said do not try because you will never get it passed. sure enough, big banks thought us, some democrats fought us, but we got that agency passed into law, it has forced big banks to return $12 million directly to people they cheated. i served in the obama administration. i know what we can do by executive authority and i will use it. in congress on the first day, i will pass my anticorruption bill, which will be back the influx of money and repair the filibuster. we want to get something done in

america, we have to get out and fight for the things that touch people's lives. >> i agree. she referenced me. i agree with the great job she did and i went on the floor and got you votes. i got votes for that bill. let's get those things straight, too. >> senator warren, do you want to respond? grateful toly president obama, who fought so that agency sure was passed into law. host: last night's democratic debate and we are in conversation with all of you, who is the front runner in this race? take a look at who spoke the most. elizabeth warren with the most minutes, 23 minutes followed by former vice president joe biden. amy klobuchar spoke for 13 minutes as well as beto o'rourke and bernie sanders.

duane in south dakota, democratic caller. who do you think is the front runner, duane? caller: it is senator warren, but i would not vote for her anyway. my opinion on this, they did not let all of those candidates speak like they should have. he get to speak? not really. that is who i support. host: you support tom steyer, he had a little over seven minutes. caller: there were only three or four or five they wanted to talk to. they should have left it at that. host: why do you think elizabeth warren is the front runner? caller: because of the polls i all weren tv and they attacking her and not attacking biden. i hope they don't nominate

biden, we will have another clinton on our hands if they do. host: what do you mean by that? caller: her email thing and now him and his scandal with trump , that is going to dog him down just like the emails. .e cannot let clinton win again host: david in oregon. who do you think the front runner is? caller: i am sorry, what did you just say? host: who did you think the front runner is in the democratic primary race? public opinion i think is pointing toward the guy from .ermont, bernie sanders

we are, i don't think theseng enough depth on discussions. people should probably look up daniel she hand. -- sheehand. a class online and it was so enlightening about government. there seems to be so much misinformation being passed around by both parties or lack what runs our on constitution and what its primary purpose was for. host: david says he believes it is bernie sanders who is front runner for the democrats. he will get the endorsement of congresswoman bill hannah omar omar --end -- ilhan

struggled for momentum in the presidential race and we have congresswoman tlaib is also going to be endorsing bernie sanders. johnny in georgia, democratic caller. go ahead. caller: good morning. host: we are listening, johnny. joe bidenthink that will be the nominee. not only is he the front runner, i think he will be the nominee. it will be trump who pushed him up there. he is getting more diversity than any of them. he had done just about half that job before. the bestink biden is

qualified. i think he has done the job before, he knows what the job entails. he can hit the ground running. that is why i think he is the best qualified. host: do you like any of what the other candidates are saying on policy issues like on the economy and health care? caller: i like everything they are saying. just because i like it doesn't mean it will work and that is one of our problems. i think elizabeth warren stole thene sanders' thunder and she jumped ahead of him when he got sick. i just don't think the united states is ready -- i think they are ready for social medicine, but i don't think they are ready for not having the right to make a choice because that is what democracy is all about, making

choices, that you have the right to make a choice. host: last night, pete buttigieg went after elizabeth warren on her medicare for all proposal, listen to this exchange. [video clip] >> no plan has been laid out to explain how a multitrillion dollar hole in this medicare for all plan is supposed to get filled in. and the thing is, we really can deliver health care for every american and move forward with the boldest, biggest transformation since the inception of medicare itself, but the way to do it without a ulta trillion dollar -- multitrillion dollar hole is we take a version of medicare and let you access it if you want to. that is what most americans want, medicare for all who want it, trusting you to make the right decision for your health care and your family and it can be delivered without an

increase. >> whenever someone hears the term medicare for all who want it, understand what that really means, it is medicare for all who can afford it and that is the problem we have got. medicare for all is the gold -- including the person who has just gotten an ms diagnosed us -- diagnosis. we can pay for this, i have laid out the principles. costs will go up for the wealthy and big corporations. -- costs are go up what people care about. i have been studying this for the biggest part of my life. >> i don't think the american people are wrong when they say

what they want is a choice and the choice of medicare for all who want it, which is affordable for anyone, allows you to get that health care. it is better than medicare for all weather you want it or not -- whether you want it or not and i don't understand why you believe the only way to deliver affordable coverage is to obliterate private plans. kicking americans off their insurance when we can achieve that same goal and we are competing to be president for the day after trump. our country will be horrifyingly polarized. this country will be even more divided, why unnecessarily divide this country over health care? host: in to make a, new york, independent. who do you think the front runner is? caller: good morning, greta. host: good morning. caller: my personal opinion, my

front runner is joe biden. i think democrats at this moment let to take a step back, the front runner, which i feel should be joe biden, take on trump. if warren gets in there, it will be the same thing trump did with hillary. he will stock her, go after her. i don't think woman wants a woman president. it is unfortunate we cannot have a woman be a president. we need to vote trump out of office and let the country move on. let joe biden go up there and let's see the best man win. host: tom from florida, republican. caller: good morning. group, i have one word for those candidates and that is,

"seriously?" i think the other candidates, when they look back and try to decide why they lost this race, it is because they constantly let joe biden off the hook. they let him off the hook last night. it was ugly. i would like to say another thing. it is increasingly clear to me the democrat party is the party for people who have given up. i would like to give you a story about a nephew of mine as an example. he recently left the military with a condition, a nervous condition brought up by combat. he decided to finish his degree and after he finished his degree, he could have lived off his disability for the rest of his life and been very unhappy. what he did was said why don't i

check job openings across the nation? he found a fantastic job in indiana and that is where he is now. he is very happy and my message is that the republican party sets the conditions for people to succeed. if you are someone who wants to give up, vote democratic. if you feel like you have the ability to vote -- guide your own life and succeed, vote republican. host: president trump giving his comments about the debate. you would think there is no way candidates could become the president of the united states, now you have -- you see why they have no choice to push a totally illegal and absurd impeachment. do you plan to vote for a democrat in 2020? caller: definitely not voting

for mr. trump. i am of veteran. i want to say one thing before i go on. not all veterans support mr. trump. they always seem to have a gang peoplerals surrounded by in military or police. i just want to say not all trump.s support mr. to go back to the debate we had last night, i really, seriously am upset and i stopped watching because whatn hour i noticed is it is warren, buttigieg, biden, or bernie got all the time. any time a question was asked to mr. buttigieg, the first thing

warren did was put her hand up -- looked right at the moderators, put her hand up to make sure they went back to her and that kept going on all night and you could tell by the 21 and its she got. the people i wanted to hear was mr. steyer. he is a billionaire and i think if he were to go head-to-head with mr. trump, i think it would be a good fight. as far as joe biden, i love him and warren -- they are all right, but we cannot let -- i am retired. i honestly feel the united states needs to be turned over to the younger generation. we had our time and all these old people in there, republicans and democrats need to move on and what i liked about mr. st

12r, he said he would want years, for a person to go into office and stay 12 years and no more than that. i am really upset they did not let a lot of the lesser-known candidates talk. host: part of the reason elizabeth warren garnered 23 minutes of the debate is because the other candidates were going after her as they perceive her to be the front runner, including beto o'rourke, here is the exchange over wealth tax and income inequality. [video clip] >> i think we need to be focused on lifting people up and sometimes i think senator warren is more focused on being punitive or pitting some part of the country against the other instead of lifting people up and making sure this country comes

together around those solutions. a woman i bet in las vegas -- i met in las vegas, working four jobs raising children with thoselities -- some of jobs working for some of these corporations, she wants to know how we are going to help her, how we make sure that her child has the care she needs -- she has to work one job that pays a living wage and senator warren said show me your budget and your tax plan -- she has yet to describe her tax plan and weather or -- whether that person i met wilsey a tax increase -- will see a tax increase. >> i want to give senator warren a chance to respond. >> i am really shocked at the notion anyone thinks i am punitive. i don't have a beef with billionaires.

my problem is you made a fortune in america. you had a great idea and worked for it, good for you, but you built that fortune in america. with workerslt it we all pay to educate, using roads and bridges we all pay for, at least in part protected by police and firefighters all of us help pay salaries for. all i am saying is you make it you make it to the top, the top 1/10 of 1%, pitch in two cents so every other kid in america has a chance to make it. that is what this is about. >> i just want to make sure we are lifting up families that are working and need help through an income taxrned credit like i would do in my administration. >> that is the point. this is universal childcare for every baby in this country. early educational opportunities for every child.

universal pre-k no matter where you live for every three-year-old and four-year-old. >> in addition to that, will there be a wage tax increase? >> no. host: who you think the front runner is in this primary race, that is the question for all of you. mike freeman on twitter says i like -- dislike booker's position on using public money -- he is is mindful attacking is mindful attacking other hopefuls is counterproductive. one of these people will run against trump. mickey texts us and says let's assume warren becomes president, how does elizabeth warren plan to get her plans through congress? clifton in massachusetts, a democratic caller. what do you think? caller: how are you doing? i am from boston, massachusetts, and what i love about senator

warren, she is a realist. there is a reason why in her first run for senate, we called her the people's champion, there is a reason for that and the rest of the world and america needs to understand her values are about family. her values are about all-americans coming up on an even playing field. i am not saying this because i worked for her or i am a constant worker in the political her., i truly believe in she is the front runner in my eyes. i just wish the democratic party would come together so we can aat trump and bring us in whole new direction. i believe we need a woman at the white house to make a change in this world. we need to stop fighting the democrats, independents, and republicans need to do the job people voted them in, work for the people, that is why i believe in elizabeth warren to

be our next president. host: providence, rhode island, independent. good morning to you. caller: good morning. i see mr. biden as the front runner for the democrats even though i am not going to vote for him. situationmy economic from three years ago and how much better it is and just this morning or maybe yesterday it was, there were three different analytical models by moody's. toshows how trump is going steamroll any democrat he runs against based on these models come on how people's economics are today. every day i -- i watched cnn, msnbc, and fox. i watch all three. i go back and forth. i see their numbers, national

polls. warren wins 51-43. .r. biden wins 52-42 all of them have every single person who runs against trump beats trump. the iowa state poll, the south carolina state poll, the florida state bowl, where you win on electoral votes, trump is winning in every single one of those polls, which we are not told. i have always been an independent my lifetime, i have been voting since 1984. for mr. clinton and barack obama. this president is doing everything he says. he may be a little off a little bit on his tweets, that is the only thing i am going to say about him, but if i am looking at the rest of this country and

if it stays the same calm -- come november, trump wins by a landslide. host: cnn was noting president trump along with the republican national committee has as much money in the coffers, around $125 million, as all the democratic candidates combined. george in ohio, independent. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. i appreciate it. the debate last night was a disaster. elizabeth warren says let me be clear, but she does not answer the question and democrats passed medicare in 1965, yet they left out the retirees that at 62.on social security social security penalizing -- penalizes working women.

my wife filed for social security retirement benefits last week. she gets $34 more per month than if she never worked at all. she paid $78,000 into the trust fund, her employer paid the same thing. is that fair? the spousal benefit law, that was written in the 1930's when we had a depression and women did not work. that law has never been revised. if a woman takes time to care for a sick child or elderly parent, she is penalized. host: who is the front runner, george? caller: who is the front runner? there is no front runner. the front runner is donald trump and he will win in a landslide. host: democratic caller. caller: good morning. the person that just got through talking, you are the reason why we need elizabeth warren as president. her plan would take care of your wife's problem and she has

plenty of clues. all you men who think she is not worthy, she is going to win because she has a plan. she is the front runner. bernie sanders is also a front runner. they would be perfect as a ticket. kelsey gabbard was beat -- would be perfect as secretary of state. this woman has been working on a plan. she lays it out, she has the plan and i am going to vote for her and i wish black men would stop talking about joe biden because joe biden is a media pick. if elizabeth warren is called sayhontas by 45, she should thank you very much, i would be inspired to be like pocahontas. elizabeth warren will win because it is time for a woman to take us out of wars to put eyes back into the progress we

were going when we had barack obama in office. host: mark, independent, good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. at first of all, i would like to , they havest caller it all wrong. as far as the front runner of last night's debate, i watched the debate. who the front runner is. the candidates spent the first trump.ur bashing there was nothing on immigration, which was a huge topic. they did not go there at all. i think the moderators handled them with kid gloves and did not holdhe tough questions and them accountable for answers.

when you ask them about certain things, a yes or no question, they say let me first start by saying, answer the question. they seem to deflect. i truly think donald trump is when it steamroll them comes to the general election and that is really all i have to say. host: for those of you who did not get in in this first 30 minutes, we will return to the conversation at 9:00 a.m. eastern time. hope you continue to watch for that part of the conversation. up next, we will talk with debbie lesko, a member of the house judiciary committee to talk about the impeachment cafarellad jennifer will discuss the impacts of the u.s. withdrawal from syria.

♪ >> this saturday on american history tv, we are featuring political cartoons. on lectures in history, the influence of american cartoons on world war ii. >> batman and robin have their fingers up in the "v" for victory sign. >> at 10:00 on railamerica -- reel america, the animated short "hell-bent for election." >> take a look at today's timetable.

only one of these trains can get through to washington. 44 is a single track. harmed the american onboard the win the war special -- aren't the americans onboard the win the war special? a mobile emergency room and like any emergency rooms, what we do, we assess, treat, stabilize, and then we get them out. get out of my er. >> we examine the contributions 30 yearslady pat nixon later. nixon realized republicans were losing some ground on this, democrats were and sheg legislation

worked very closely to help get more appointments, appointments of women in the federal government. past onre our nation's american history tv every weekend on c-span 3. .ashington journal continues lesko, i want to start with your reaction to the last couple days and recent testimony behind closed doors of the impeachment inquiry. we learned yesterday from former assistant secretary there was concern from john bolton down the way the ukraine was being handled by rudy giuliani. john bolton referring to him as a hand grenade and that

instructing officials to go to white house lawyers with what they were learning. you also had testimony yesterday by an official who has experience in ukraine saying he was told to lie low. do you have concerns about what is happening in the white house? guest: i want to say there has been a pattern by my democratic colleagues to undermine the president of the united states and that has been obvious in the judiciary committee since the beginning of this session. for two years, they were trumpced they had proof colluded with russia and that turned out to be not true and then they went to obstruction of justice and now it is the whistleblower complaint. for the president to actually release the transcript of the call, there was no quid pro quo as they are alleging there was.

the president of ukraine said there was none at all and also, the u.s. envoy kurt volker said there was known as well. i am really concerned about the process as well. first of all, there is no evidence, no impeachable thing we have seen. we have the transcript, so it doesn't matter what a secondhand story from a whistleblower says. then you have this process. as you saw, nancy pelosi said they are not going to have a vote like they had for nixon and clinton under democrat and republican leadership. process guidelines, due procedures. he cannot bring his counsel in, i don't know, i am on judiciary committee.

they moved it out of that committee, they put it in intelligence committees and other committees and they don't even open up to the public and other members. there was another member that tried to go into the hearing and got booted out. this is really unfair to members of congress. leaking only selective by the democrats. the only things you are hearing are leaked by the democrats. this is really unconscionable. host: the white house transcript was a memo and in that memo it says this is not a word for word transcript. do you believe the president asked a foreign government for help in the u.s. elections and if so, is that appropriate for a president to do? guest: i don't believe he did and i read the transcript and the whistleblower complaint and

the inspector general said there was detected bias with this whistleblower. if you read it, and i encourage all of your listeners to read it, it starts congratulating the president of ukraine, they had a parliament tort -- parliamentary election, congratulating him on that and going into how other countries are not giving aid to ukraine. that is what president trump has been saying. he was concerned other countries were not giving as much aid to ukraine as the united states is and it goes on to talk about corruption in ukraine, talking about crowd strike, which was a company that was supposed to investigate the 2016 election interference. intalked about biden once

that whole thing. i did not see anything impeachable, i did not see any quid pro quo, there was 1 -- none. this is something democrats have been doing since president trump got elected, they don't like him, they want him to be gone and they are afraid he is going to be elected and this is what this is about. host: here is what adam schiff had to say yesterday about how this inquiry is being conducted. [video clip] >> i think people need to understand the fundamental difference between where we are today with the ukraine investigation and how the russia investigation was conducted, how the watergate and clinton investigation were conducted. in each of those cases, they work -- there were either independent councils or special prosecutors doing the initial investigative work and that was all done behind closed doors. it was done behind closed doors

for a reason behind the special counsel and that is there is a profound investigative interest, but need to make sure one witness does not have an opportunity to read another witness costs -- another witness' testimony. i am sure the president would night -- like nothing better than to let witnesses have the advantage of what others are saying, but there are reasons why special counsel mueller did his investigation before grand jury and not in public site and reasons why the watergate and special -- there is no special counsel investigation going on on the president's misconduct vis-a-vis ukraine, congress has to do it and the reason there is none is because bill barr's justice department said there is nothing to see here and we don't even want to look because the fundamental attitude of the attorney general is the president is above the law.

the president is not above the law. it has forced congress to do the initial investigative work normally a special counsel would do. host: your response. guest: first of all, it is a little hard to believe anything adam schiff says. for two years he said he had proof trump colluded and coordinated with russia, that turned out to be false. in a committee hearing, he makes up a false narrative of the call between trump and ukrainian dy,sident, calls it a paro which was unconscionable and then he says on national tv his office did not have contact with the whistleblower, that turned out to be false. i am sorry, it is a little hard to believe he is not biased and there is a difference between an unbiased special counsel and adam schiff. a special counsel would not be selective information.

he has closed-door meetings, but his staff leaks what they want to leak, this is insanity. if there is no due process, no sets of rules. let's go back to the point that there is no evidence, nothing to impeach the president of the united states. i know they are desperate to take out president trump, they probably think he is going to get reelected, i think he is going to get reelected. to me, this is one thing after another, they are desperate to undermine president trump and it is not going to work. host: we are talking with debbie lesko taking your questions and comments. republicans, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. and independents, 202-748-8002. where in the constitution does it say there has to be a full house vote to start an impeachment inquiry? guest: there is nothing in the

constitution and there is no law about it, but it has been done under democratic and republican leadership in the past with nixon and clinton because citizens -- the president of the united states should have due process. this is a politically biased inquiry in closed-door meetings where democrats are selectively determining what they will leak to the press to influence the media and the american public. this is so unfair, it does not matter who it was, this is totally unfair. host: how would it make it more fair by holding that house about? guest: it would definitely make it more fair because you would have a set up her feet -- set of procedures and guidelines that would give due process. with nixon and clinton, the presidents were able to have their counsel in the room in the hearing cross-examine witnesses,

just general due process rights of any united states citizen, let alone the united -- the president of the united states. they are not doing any of that and then they have this caucus meeting, democrats yesterday and they decided we are not going to put it up for a vote. of course they are not because they don't want vulnerable democratic members on the record. they want to talk about impeachment, but they don't want an official impeachment inquiry with a vote as has been done in the passed. --in the past. host: david in mississippi. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to know where she gets there was no collusion between russia. they met with russia over 140 times. they tried to get information from russia. they have done -- everything the president has done has benefited russia from syria, all of this

foreign policy. i don't understand why doing an investigation where nobody can coordinate their responses is so outrageous. i don't understand. guest: i think your question was where do i get the fact i said there was no collusion with president trump or his campaign and russia, i got it from the robert mueller report. robert mueller was a special counsel and worked for two years, had 28 hundred subpoenas, 500 warrants, 42 fbi officers, spent over $25 million in taxpayer dollars and his conclusion was there was no conspiracy, coordination, coordination with president trump and russia, president from's campaign and russia, no american citizen colluded with russia to influence the 2016 election. i got it from there after two years of investigation.

host: vincent in oklahoma, republican. caller: i really don't know the but if they are choosing stuff he did not do, can pelosi be in trouble, too? guest: i don't know that speaker pelosi can be in trouble, but i think it is unfair to the president of the united states and any citizen, if you are not going to have a vote to proceed with an impeachment inquiry and then have closed-door meetings where there is no classified information, i have been -- so i have been told by members and selectively release what you want released -- what democrats want released to the public -- any american citizen should see this for what it is, it is biased, it is political, it is meant to undermine president trump and influence the 2020 election. democrats had a meltdown on

election night in 2016 when president trump won. they cannot accept you is a duly elected president of the united states. some of them said the day after election they were going to start trying to impeach the guy. this is so obvious to me, it is so biased, so unfair. there is no evidence of anything impeachable, but they are going to continue -- they are not getting anything done for the american public. i think this really hurts the democrats, quite frankly. host: keith in alabama, independent. caller: yeah. joe biden.ring about they said the media investigated him, would that be cnn and msnbc? andt: i don't think cnn msnbc would be investigating joe

biden because they are more in -- interested in investigating and saying negative things about president trump, it appears. i think it is legitimate. last night in the debate when joe biden said something to the effect of he never talked to his son about the $50,000 a month he was getting paid from a ukrainian company or anything about his ukrainian business, how many people really believe he never talked about that? he even said in an interview, hunter biden said if it wasn't i probablys name, would not have gotten any of these deals in ukraine or china. i think it is worth investigating what went on in ukraine and what went on in china. i think he -- it is worth it since joe biden is running for the president of the united states, the american public has a right to know. host: ruth, democratic collar,

you are on the air with debbie lesko, go ahead. caller: since she is talking whyt joe biden right now, didn't president trump get his people in the united states to -- thegate and not have other thing i want to say it is his foreign policy. look at the mess going on right now. it shows he doesn't know anything about foreign policies and we are going to get in a war. guest: high respectively disagree with you. i spoke to a major leader last night and there was a bipartisan aboutg we had to talk syria and the turkish incursion. there were not too many options

president trump had. turkey calls president trump and says we are invading. they have been trying to invade for years now, so we had approximately 24 troops at the syria between turkey and and the only reason they were there was to vet isis members. you are not going to stop 13,000 turkish troops with 24 people. 1000 troops in southern syria is not going to stop 15,000. the alternative would be president trump would send more troops, which would risk more lives, or they bomb turkish troops, which is a nato ally, there are no good options. i respectfully disagree with you, ma'am. host: there is reporting president erdogan is telling sky

news he will not meet with mike stateand secretary of mike pompeo, who have been dispatched to resolve the situation. instead, they will meet with their turkish counterparts. "when donald trump comes here, i will talk to him," is what the turkish president said. guest: as i said, the information i have received is the turkish president called president trump and said we are invading. the military person at the high they wantoke to said to do it for years. no matter if we kept those troops at the border. president trump had to make a decision. am i going to risk the lives of u.s. troops there or what are we going to do?

even if you count of the 1000 in other parts of syria, they are not going to stop the turkish invasion. then you either have to bring in more soldiers and risk their --es or do george, bernie, california, independent. caller: i would like to ask your representative, she keeps saying donald trump is so innocent. it is illegal to dissuade people from testifying before congress.

host: adding onto george's question, is it appropriate for the white house to not follow through with subpoenas? is,t: george, i think it first of all, i disagree with you. i serve on the judiciary committee, so i have heard testimony directly from robert mueller. there was no obstruction of justice that happened. you may think it is wrong, but -- when thischable is such an unfair process and there is given no due process to the president of the united states as has been done under republican and democratic leadership in the past in the clinton and nixon impeachment, i

don't blame the president for not wanting to turn over things to adam schiff, who has lied multiple times and who has these closed-door hearings and they are supposed to be closed-door and his staff tells the media selective things. fair and giveny due process to the president, i agree with the president, why should he participate in this unfair process? host: chris in dakota springs, republican. caller: i agree with that last statement, but my question is schiffu think shift -- will be investigated for his libelous and slanderous statements? onto a censure of adam schiff, but i don't

think anything will be done because the house, the majority of the members of the house and democrats -- that means they are in charge. speaker pelosi has total power to do what she wants to adam schiff, including removing him from chairmanship, but she is not going to do it because they want president trump to be out of office weather they -- whether they actually impeach him or not, they want the narrative to go on and on about undermining the president of the united states and it is really unfortunate because we have a lot of really important things americans want us to do and none of this is getting done. we need to reduce health-care costs, we need to address fixing the border crisis. i have 6 bills alone that would help fix the border crisis. chairman nadler, who is a democrat, is not going to hear any of them. we are not even talk about that -- talking about that. how about the usmca?

this is important to the united states and none of this is happening. i came to congress to get things done, we are not getting anything done. all we are doing is talking about president trump, impeaching him, everything else. it actually hurts the american public not only for things that are not getting done, but what do you think other countries think. this may have been a factor why turkey decided to invade because all we are talking about over here is impeachment. our: larry is watching on line for democrats, welcome to the conversation. caller: thank you for taking my call. my question is if trump is so innocent in everything, why is he blocking everything? republicans spent 8 years now,ing obama and right

they have all kind of things sitting on mitch mcconnell's move which he will not anything until donald trump tells him, so what is the deal? host: as far as bills sitting on mcconnell's desk, thank god he is not hearing them because the few things that have gotten through are so liberal. the democrats number one taxpayerbill, hr 1 was taxpayer -- taxpayer funding of congressional campaigns, who wants that? i have never heard a vote or tell me they want to pay for people's campaigns. that would automatically register everyone 16 years old and over to vote and there is no penalty if you are not supposed to vote. illegals would be registered to vote.

thank god we have a republican majority stopping this stuff. we have a border crisis and instead of actually addressing the border crisis, they actually passed another bill, hr6 that basically gives every illegal that was brought here as a child, doesn't matter if they old, a pathway to citizenship. the american people don't want this, so thank god the senate is blocking it and that is why elections are so important. host: travis is a republican watching in washington. go ahead, travis. caller: thank you, c-span, and thank you for taking my call. i believe the reason it has not gone to judiciary is because of nadler's decision with the clinton impeachment. he basically wanted to guard everything for clinton and they are afraid his comments will

come back against him for this judiciaryiry and the committee, you would have to do -- inn osan -- ocean's open session. all these comments from other callers are saying the representative thinks he is innocent -- all she is saying is -- sheand equal hearing wants it to be fair because it seems like across the united states, everything is becoming unfair. illegal aliens are getting released after committing crimes, it is getting crazy for me. we also heard from adam schiff last night saying republicans are in the room and they are getting the same amount of time to ask questions of these people that are testifying. host: i want to know about what is being said in the room.

i have a conch -- i am a congresswoman, if you are going to impeach the president of the united states, don't you think there should be a fair process? don't you think everybody should know what is going on instead of these secret meetings? i have been told there is no classified information, no reason they should be in these closed-door meetings at all. why are you doing it? why are you hiding this? why not have it in the open for everyone to judge themselves? this is really unfair. let's get back to the beginning of it, there is nothing there to impeach him on. i want to say, i agree with you, it is totally unfair, i do not know why speaker pelosi pulled it out of judiciary committee where impeachments have gone through in the past. my guess is she knows republicans on the judiciary committee, a bunch of lawyers are smart and can retort a lot

of things and maybe that is not the case in the other committees. we would have to ask her. i think it is a bad move because i think the people will see these closed doors, secret meetings, unfair, not a vote by the full house of representatives on approving the inquiry with a standard set of rules for due process get is partisan. host: billy in beltsville, maryland. caller: her response just now was that, she said the theesentatives that are in inquiry are not smart enough. come on, what is she saying? let's go back to the issue about the president. the primaries, he

was the one who publicly said for the russians to hack hillary clinton's emails. if democrats are talking about that and continue to talk about that, it is because of what the president himself said. says she has a selective memory about things. obama won the elections, mitch mcconnell said he would oppose him and they blocked everything. when60 times, the house the republicans had control of it, tried to overturn the affordable care act. next, the president himself went publicly when this inquiry started, or when they talked about it, to publicly threaten in a railway about the whistleblower -- a real way about the whistleblower.

the reason they do things in secret is to protect these people because of how things have been done with this president. host: we are running out of time. congresswoman? guest: i respectfully disagree. this is a serious subject. you are trying to impeach the president of the united states. he has the right to a fair due process and none of this is happening. closed door meetings where democrats are selectively determining what to leave to the media, it reeks of partisanship. i have to disagree with you. host: debbie lesko, republican of arizona, we thank you for the conversation. guest: thank you. host: when we come back, we will talk with jennifer cafarella with the institute for the study of war and later run, connecticut democrat jim himes will be here.

we will return to this conversation about the impeachment inquiry. we will be right back. ♪ >> sunday night on q&a, american university distinguished professor of history alan kraut looks back at policies on managing immigration. >> i would argue some current levels -- ways of nativism, anti-end -- immigration sentiment, xenophobia is not different from we have seen in the past. it seems to be peppered with

acts of violence and ferocity. there have been other acts of violence, anti-immigrant riots in the period before the civil war, anti-immigrant riots in the 1880's. there have been a lot of moments themerican history when anti-immigrant sentiment has been translated into true ugliness. >> watch sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern -- eastern on c-span's q hyundai. of the has live tv wisconsin book festival from ms. constant -- from madison, featuring a former diplomat offering her thoughts on combating terrorism. democratic political strategist donna brazil reflects on her career. ranaary director maria provides a history of latin america. megan phelps roper recounts growing up as a member of the

westborough baptist church. festivalnsin book saturday at 11:00 a.m. eastern, and be sure to catch the texas book festival in november on book tv on c-span two. "washington journal" continues." host: jennifer cafarella is here to talk about the u.s. withdrawal from syria. let's begin with the key players in the region. who are they and what has been happening before the president made this decision? guest: the key players include turkey, which has invaded northeastern syria, as well as the turkish military. we have a large body of turkish proxy forces which are the main forces conducting the offensive on the ground. this includes members of the syrian opposition, members of

the free syrian army, some of which who have had a historic relationship with the united states. host: they are against bashar al-assad. guest: which makes this a complicated operation because turkey is building a counter assad force, but using that to fight the american local partner in the east. iskey's reason for fighting its leadership is kurdish. there is a kurdish militia that conducts most of the capable military fighting. that is known as the ypg and is affiliate-- a syrian of a wider kurdish movement inside turkey, the pkk. president erdogan has warned the u.s. that the partnership with the ypg was unacceptable to him, however he has been negotiating for a de-escalation in the northeast.

that changed during the call between president erdogan where president erdogan announced he would begin an operation in the east. host: i want to show what the president just had to say about this yesterday. he brought up the issue of turkey. >> very strong talks with a lot of people. we want to bring our soldiers back home after so many years, and the greatest war in the world they are policing. they are not a police force. we want to bring our soldiers back home and we are being very tough on turkey and a lot of others. they have to maintain their own properties, maintain peace and safety, and we will see what happens, the delegation. we are asking for a cease-fire. sanctions strongest and we have a lot in store in

case they do not work, including massive tariffs on steel, shipping steel to the united states. they make a lot of money. host: that was president trump talking about the situation in turkey. we will take your questions and comments on this. you were just talking about some of the major players. what about russia? guest: the russians are stepping in to broker a separate negotiation with turkey and potentially the syrian democratic forces, in an attempt push by the trump administration to de-escalate the situation while we retreat. it looks more likely that turkey will negotiate with russia for a new agreement in the northeast rather than with the united states. an agreement russia brokers will not necessarily end the fighting , but could begin a new framework where the assad regime moves in and takes over some

areas, which is a preferable outcome for turkey. the turks are supporting an anti-assad force but would prefer to see the assad regime in control of parts of the northeast. host: why? guest: because of the kurdish element. turkey prioritizes that above others because it relates to turkish domestic politics and security, in relation to the kurdish insurgency. host: talk about the history. guest: turkey has fought a decade-long war against its own kurdish insurgency which has involved terror attacks. the complication in syria is that the syrian weighing of this kurdish movement has not participated in attacks inside of turkey. what the kurdish militia has done is built the governing project in the northeast that is

a potential model or example of what a kurdish insurgency in turkey would aspire for. erdogan claims this is a military threat. that is a bet disingenuous, but it is a political threat to his -- kurdish autonomous or semiautonomous movement. host: what does russia want? guest: two to place the united states as the key security guarantor. that is a gift to vladimir putin who would like to see nothing and than to step in embarrass the united states as we leave by brokering a deal as a priority for the turkish president, and to use that military and diplomatic position that putin has built to expand his -- influence throughout the middle east. host: in the middle east, russia

sells stability. at what cost to russia, and can they afford it? guest: they may sells stability but they cannot deliver it. that is a key aspect of their involvement in syria. they have prolonged the war. they have one major gain for the but these arent overblown because they have not led to stability. there is a new insurgency in the syrian south which russians help the assad regime gain control of last summer and cannot manage to stay above that. it is certainly a pitch putin makes. there is very few alternatives to putin now with the united states visibly retreating. host: how does iran have a role in this? guest: the iranians support the syrian president and are fighting with the russians to

help him assert as much control as possible, but the russians are using that to build up their military infrastructure in light syria for a couple reasons. they intend to use syria to threaten the state of israel, creating the potential that israel will have to fight on two fronts -- fronts. iran has a wider objective to build a hegemonic and security project across the middle east. they seek to link up there infrastructure in syria with iraq for access that can extend iranian power throughout the region, to threaten israel and compete with the united states. host: explain the religious tribal factions within all of this. guest: the complication with the religious aspect is the jihadist movement which includes isis, a

fundamentalist extreme form of sunni islam, the reason why this is particularly relevant is because the kurdish partner the u.s. has worked with is not a relay gives -- religious organization. they are more secular, and this is a source of friction between the local population, which is primarily sunni muslim arabs. this is a claim turkey can make to be stepping in as a sunni muslim powerbroker to fight against the kurdish forces. it creates apparent legitimacy for the turkish president. the dominant religion of the syrians? muslims, which is a limiting factor for a run's ability -- iran's ability to expand. iran views itself as the

leadership of the entire muslim community, not just the shiite community. tribesach out to sunni and are trying to recruit sunni proxies to attract support away from what the u.s. was trying to build with syrian democratic forces, and diversify the pool of fighters the iranians can call upon. host: jake in massachusetts, independent caller, good morning. caller: good morning. i just have a couple questions. how many nuclear weapons do we have in turkey? who guards them and can we get them out if we go into conflict? have athe u.s. does number of tactical nuclear weapons at the airbase inside turkey. i am not sure of the exact number but it is a few dozen, according to my knowledge. the u.s. is considering options to remove those weapons from

turkey, given the extent to which turkey has aligned itself with russia against the interest of the nato alliance. host: who is watching them? guest: they are under u.s. military control. host: how is that complicated? guest: turkey is a nato ally and not acting like it. the alignment with russia is deeply dangerous to the nato alliance and that is why putin has been reaching out to erdogan as a priority, to create this scene he has now created. i cannot stress enough how much of a victory this is for putin that the u.s. has so visibly surrendered to our own native ally, turkey, by withdrawing. host: how is europe reacting, and do they have any sway? guest: the europeans are rightly condemning this turkish operation which includes abuses against the civilian population,

and is a violation of the security agreement. they have little ability to stop turkey without support, so statements of condemnation are important for the moral aspect in addition to signaling at unitysome continued within some aspect of the nato alliance despite turkey's transgressions. president trump is not willing to put forward american leverage on the table. our european allies will not be able to solve this alone. host: jacksonville, florida, brent, independent. caller: yes. , themment is basically u.s. has no reason to be in syria. it is not in our national interest. pkk.ve armed the

they are communists. it is just an offshoot of the ypg of turkey, and there is no reason any americans should die over something that has been going on for hundreds of years. there fight, not our fight. host: let's take what he had to say. we have no national security interest there. we have been arming the pkk, and they are communists. guest: this is a difficult set of overlapping problems. i understand the desire by many do not have to deal with this problem or not put american lives on the line. however, the unfortunate reality is we had to go into syria because this region was not capable of handling the threat from isis, which rampaged across iraq and syria and was using

that terrain to plan an exit kate attacks in europe and the execute attacks in europe and the united states. our choice was to allow them to continue to expand or to do something about it. onlynited states is the power capable of establishing and leading a global coalition to fight this horrific enemy. the challenge is, we deployed to syria in and is thought -- in an attempt to only focus on isis. you cannot separate isis from these wider problems. these problems are so interconnected that we have to have a regional strategy if we hope to end these wars and get out of the region. host: tim in salinas, tennessee, republican. caller: good morning. i think the idea for the problems with turkey as we all know that rural nations

controlled by dictators want legitimacy. we needare a nato ally, to get nato to force them back to their own borders and if they don't cooperate, expel them from nato. guest: the challenge with turkey is there is no current mechanism to expel a nato member state from the alliance. it does not exist. there is not a precedent. that creates a difficult political challenge to figure out how to do that. the united states could have prevented this turkish operation inside of syria. we had forces along the border. it was a small contingent, but it was enough to deter this operation. it is important that turkish -- turkey only conducted this operation after the withdrawal of forces. the nato alliance has difficult decisions to make as to how long

we can accept turkey as part of this alliance. i don't think that has to be the determining factor as to whether we are able to stand up to turkey. a militaryalked to official who said the president had no choice, it was the president of turkey who called president trump and said, i am going in. i have been holding off and i will no longer, i am going to go in whether you are there or not. guest: the president of the united states always has a choice. we have military options. i returned to the fact that this was primarily a turkish proxy force across the border, this was not the turkish army. there were turkish contingents enabling the operation but it is overblown to say the united states would have to go to war with ally -- with a nato ally to prevent this. we are taking too much blame ourselves. if turkey had opened fire on us,

there ally, i can guarantee america would have won the fight and i don't think erdogan would have been willing to risk the escalation. host: gary in eaton, ohio, democratic caller. caller: hello? host: we are listening. caller: it has been quite a while ago, 10 years or however long before turkey got into this war. the person taped that was in charge of the army, they had taped him and i heard the whole tape. it was only reported in the news that somebody had taped a meeting. what was said in the meeting was, they would have a black flag attack on their own troops

to get in that war. that is how bad they wanted in this to begin with and we supported them. host: who is "they"? caller: turkey. guest: there is no doubt turkey has had a complicated relationship with jihadists in syria. beendministration has willing to tolerate a jihadist movement inside of syria. at the start of the war, they calculated that was an acceptable or ideal vehicle for challenging the assad regime, however over time, the turks became a target of attacks from the islamic state. does not mean that turkey is willing to put fighting the islamic state first. it does mean that turkey is trying to play both sides of this war, even before we get to the additional jihadist threat in syria, al qaeda.

turkey has a deeper relationship with al qaeda which escorted military forces who intervened farther west and the northwestern portion of syria. the president of turkey as playing a delicate and dangerous game inside syria and that is one reason why it is so acceptable -- unacceptable he is taking his proxy forces eastward. host: what was life like for syrian kurds before the civil war started? guest: syrian kurds have had a difficult experience. they were displaced from many villages by president bashar conducted father who a deliberate campaign of the arabization of northeastern anda, resettling arabs kurdish communities to marginalize them. that is the reason why this moment for syria's kurds is so

painful. -- kurdish fact in his factions the united states partnered with is not the only kurdish military force inside syria. they have also fought with the opposition, and the ypg is a complicated card chapter -- kurdish actor because they are politically rep -- repressive. they do not allow competition from other kurdish parties, and this is another one of those aspects of erdogan's claim against the ypg. host: how many of the kurds in syria or in turkey are christian? guest: i don't have a number on that. there is a christian community inside syria and some of it has remained aligned with the president. some of the christian community has fought with the syrian opposition and the ypg.

it is a fractious set of communities because that is what happens in a vicious civil war. inre are kurdish communities the northeast that are displaced by fighting. equally as tragic as all the other communities that have suffered. host: what have we seen evangelical leaders be vocal about the president's decision to withdraw from syria? why is there this emphasis on christian kurds? do they make up a sizable part of the population? guest: they are a contingent of the syrian democratic forces. they are a victim of the turkish incursion. there are christian militias that fight with the ypg, and those that fight with the assad regime, a complicated and difficult example of the effect this war has on fracturing these communities. host: dave in jacksonville,

florida, independent, you are next. caller: good morning. a phonerump received call from erdogan on sunday night, the sixth, is that correct? host: yes. caller: with the time change, the time zones, that made it october 7 in turkey, which here is a fun fact. that was vladimir putin's birthday. does that have any significance to the people who read those tea leaves, or was it just a birthday present for another one of those strange coincidences that seem to follow this president around? guest: i think it was simply a strange coincidence. it creates an interesting observation that this was a great birthday present to putin, the u.s. withdrawal, turkey

providing the opportunity for the united states to withdraw. i don't think that is the reason for the timing. california,dede, republican. caller: you sound like a neocon, you want a war and you want america involved but i do not want to see us in a quagmire in the middle east. in the 21st century with becoming energy, it is obsolete, totally irrelevant. the kurds have played both sides with russia for years. even the under sector of dutch under secretary of defense said this. have been playing both sides for years. host: let's get a response. guest: it is true that the ypg

has played both sides of this war and that they had a relationship with the assad regime and have now cut a deal with the assad regime. what is important to keep in mind as we deployed to syria to fight the islamic state, a horrific enemy. there can and should be debate over whether that was the right call or whether it is in america's interest to fight. it is important to focus on the fact that president obama had withdrawn from the region in 2011 and made the difficult decision to redeploy to syria and iraq in 2014 because of the severity of this threat. it was a truly horrific enemy that is not gone. there are 10,000 fighters of isis in prison in northeastern syria that are likely to escape and the conditions of chaos and violence that will follow. maybe as a nation, we are willing to accept this threat of

additional suicide bombs in europe and god for bid, the united states. , am not willing to accept that especially because what the united states achieved in fighting the islamic state was relatively low-cost. this was not a major invasion of the middle east. this was a limited deployment of special operations forces to take down the terrific enemy. what was one of the most successful and effective operations with a partner force in the history of the united states military, so we need to give the defense department credit for doing what it did so well and with relatively little cost, and ask the questions about what kind of threats we are willing to accept. host: if isis is able to reorganize, where do they fight and who do they fight in the middle east? guest: isis is reorganizing. we released a paper earlier this year that demonstrated how isis

has been on a path to resurgence before the american withdrawal from syria. this is not an enemy that needs to regroup. this is an enemy that is already fighting, on the upswing, and will accelerate that's resurgence if it is able to get the presidents out -- prisoners out. isis will fight basically everyone in syria, the government in iraq, and will use the resources, the money, the training grounds in the middle east to conduct attacks abroad. they may be attempting to resume those global attacks. host: where do they get money? guest: from extorting the local population, imposing taxes on them as well as requiring communities to pay bribes for protection and avoid further attacks from i says. the revenue -- isis. the revenue generation is from

the local population in addition to selling limited amounts of oil and other quantities such as drug smuggling. , the commander of kurdish forces in syria says they are facing a campaign of ethnic cleansing by turkey. one milliontimated people have already left border towns. whatever the number, it is growing fast. guest: this is an important aspect of what the turks will do in the northeast. third --s turkey's this is turkey's third incursion into northeast syria. displaced kurdish civilians from their homes and turkey began the resettlement of arab refugees into kurdish homes in a deliberate attempt to change the demographics of that zone.

the kurds have seen this movie before. they have suffered one round of tests ethnic cleansing and that is why they are so alarmed. host: where will they go? guest: some will try to enter into iraqi kurdistan, which is an aspect that could become regional. their only option is to flee deeper south into syria where isis resurgence is greater then in the far northeast, or iraqi kurdistan. it remains to be seen whether iraqi kurds are willing to take refugees. host: brian, woodbridge, virginia, independent. caller: i am impressed with your knowledge of this issue. you are the exact opposite of the guess that was on before. she had a lot of misinformation. the only thing she had that was

true was at the turkish president called up trump and said, i am coming in, and trump responded, i will open the door and get out your way. which is very dishonorable, because the kurdish people are our only sincere allies there. they should have a homeland and modern syria and we should have defended them. saudi arabia and israel and turkey are two face did -- faced allies. they are very insincere. israel saudi arabia, and , you have two trump towers in turkey and israel and saudi arabia, he will not betray them. too bad the kurds cannot have an invitation to build one. germantown, maryland, democratic caller. caller: i want to be pretty

quick. sure which, house or saide, jamie jordan, he -- a right to protection but not anonymity. i wish i would have asked the first lady on their, what is the difference between protection and anonymity? host: i think you are talking about the impeachment inquiry. we were return to that and a minute. what are you watching for next? guest: we need to watch what deal president erdogan cuts with the russians for the northeast. it is possible the assad regime will support the syrian kurdish

ypg and a counteroffensive against turkey. i think turkey will seek to limit that support from the kurds to prevent this from escalating. we will see what russia is willing to offer turkey. i am watching to see whether the assad regime makes its own decision, regardless of what russia tries to broker, to fight against the turks. the turks have invaded syria twice before so they have an additional zone of control. i mention this because the syrian kurdish ypg asked the regime for support to defend the northeast and to take the war to the northwest as well. i don't suspect russia wants that greater escalation and it may seek to contain the scope and scale, but the assad regime has the ability to make its own decisions. -- whatat economic economic sanctions do enough to stop turkey? guest: i don't think they will

be enough because it takes time to kick in and have an effect. erdogan thanks he can finish his -- thanks he can finish his -- thinks he can finish his operation before they kick in. host: we will return to our conversation about the impeachment inquiry with congressman jim himes who sits on the intelligence committee. ♪ >> our c-span 2020 bus team is

traveling across the country, visiting key battleground states in the 2020 presidential race, asking voters what issues they want presidential candidates to address during the campaign. >> i want the presidential candidates to focus on funding programs at public universities as in recent years they have not had as much attention given to them as they should, regarding funding for music programs, reading, some of our ba programs. i would like to see how we could increase funding for those programs because those are definitely an important issue. >> i want candidates to tell me as well as the electorate how they will fix this country's budgeting issues in order to ensure that we can have the money to fund programs for generations, instead of just leaving a mess for future generations to inherit and then have to figure out down the line. >> i want presidential

candidates to focus on gun control, climate change, abortion, women's reproductive --hts, and >> the most important issue is the student loan crisis and how it is crippling my generation. the current career field i am interested in, it is not my passion. i am choosing yet strictly for job security in the hope that maybe one day i can have a house. i don't think the powers that be are really looking at how much this is going to cripple our generation. be athing that is going to major financial decision in the next 20 years of my life will be affected by the fact that i still have to pay off my student loans. >> voices from the campaign --il, part of c's friends

part of c-span's battleground tour. >> "washington journal" continues. host: congressman jim himes back at our table, a democrat. let's talk about how the impeachment inquiry was launched and how it is being conducted. here is the senate majority leader. >> now that speaker pelosi has crumbled and allowed her left-wing impeachment caucus to dictate the house's actions. i don't think many of us were hoping to witness a clinic in terms of fairness or due process. even by all partisan standards, democrats have found new ways to lower the bar. this is about the most consequential process the house of representatives could possibly engage in, overruling american voters and nullifying an election. surely, any such

process much -- must be conducted with fairness and transparency. it must be held to the most exacting of standards and yet, house democrats have wasted no time throwing fairness and precedent to the wind. already, they have denied their republican counterparts certain minority rights like equal subpoena power, that republicans provided democrats during the clinton impeachment. already they have made clear that president trump's counsel will not be allowed to participate in hearings, present evidence, and cross-examine witnesses, all important rights that republicans provided to president clinton. host: your response? guest: i have two responses. whatr one, process is every republican on capitol hill is talking about and the reason is they do not want to engage in

do not have the courage to say what every american knows to be true, a president asking for his own political goals to be advanced by the machinery of the federal government, the state department led by people like rudy giuliani and two individuals who were indicted, they are not willing to say what everyone knows to be true that that is wrong. two, he is simply wrong in what he is saying. there is no rule in the constitution or the house rules or anywhere else that says an inquiry can only be launched by a vote on the house floor. he is also wrong that proper procedure is not being followed. i have sat in on any number of these interviews and the time is divided equally between democrats and republicans. both sides have an opportunity to interview the witnesses. he is wrong the president's attorneys are not being afforded

the opportunity to present evidence. what he is talking about is a trial in the senate. essentialtrial" is because in a trial, the president's supporters would have the opportunity to confront witnesses. what we are doing in the house is more akin to a grand jury proceeding. those happen behind closed doors. mitch mcconnell knows that he is lying into the camera by saying that the protections that would be afforded in a senate trial are not being afforded in the house of representatives. the big point is we are proceeding on this inquiry the way we do with all other committee meetings, what time equally divided between both sides. if this goes onto a trial in the senate, everything mitch mcconnell is talking about, he will be in charge of making sure it happens. host: by not following precedent

of previous impeachment inquiries, by holding a full vote on the house floor, are you not giving the opposition, the republican party a legitimate argument that this is not fair, that this is not transparent? you are not putting people on the record on launching an investigation. guest: we are giving them an argument. whether it is a good argument is a question. couple of impeachment that have happened prior, the house had the vote in order to grant committees subpoena power. that is why those votes were held. today under the rules, committees have subpoena power. the minorities can ask for a subpoena. they need to persuade the majority to vote for that, but they have that authority to ask for a subpoena.

this is largely a smokescreen. decides toer pelosi take this argument off the table by holding a vote, because that would pass, and the republicans do not have the main thing to talk about and have to answer the uncomfortable questions about the president's behavior. if they hold a vote and it their, which it would, argument is equally specious that this is being conducted unfairly. host: what about their argument that this is being conducted behind closed doors? democrats argue it is similar to a grand jury, however republicans like debbie lesko who was here this morning, you say you want to do this behind closed doors and then staff is going out and leaking only what they want the media and american people to know about what is being said. there are good reasons to

do this behind closed doors, the same reason that grand jury proceedings. you can talk to anybody who was a lawyer or did 20 minutes of law school, these proceedings are done behind closed doors to make sure witnesses do not coordinate their testimony and also because in this fact-finding stage, people's mentioned and you get personally identifiable information. you need protection around that process. as for the leaks, i do not agree. they should not be happening. it is not a partisan thing. i have seen both parties go out and leak information they think is helpful to their cause. what the american people really need to understand as the transcripts of these hearings,

once they have been scrubbed of classified information -- that is another reason they have to happen behind closed doors -- once it has been scrubbed of classified and personal information, they will be released to the public. the american public will have the right to see what was said. host: bloomington, indiana, a democratic caller. caller: i have a comment and a question. thank you for taking my call. seriousseems a lot more byn it is being portrayed tonly the republicans, seem not be doing what they need to do by speaking up and telling the truth. i have been watching this for three years and i am very concerned our country is getting

stepped on. i really appreciate you being on. thank you for taking my call. guest: thanks. i do step back every once in a while, because you are talking about things beyond this impeachment inquiry, i do step back every once in a while and remember the previous presidency and remember the way donald trump attacked hillary clinton for the high crime, the deadly sin, the moral catastrophe of having a personal email account, something that it turns out donald trump's children and administration do. that was according to the current president, something she should go to jail for. now we have a president who has sidetracked the official policy of the united states government as it relates to russia and ukraine, for his personal political benefit.

the president has run his businesses and his children's have been making millions and millions while he has president, and he has the gumption to criticize hunter biden. we have a president who regularly calls the media the enemy of the people, who says his political opponents should be jailed. yet my republican colleagues grin and bear it because this is somehow ok. i was there for eight years of the obama administration and obama would've been impeached 10 times before lunchtime for any one of these things i mentioned this president does on a regular basis. host: robert in michigan, a republican. caller: here is why the american people do not understand and do not believe the democrats and republicans. the woman you had earlier said there was no confidential

information for them to have meetings behind closed doors. why don't they have them in the public if there is no confidential information? this way people will know, not, he called mitch mcconnell a liar because he says mitch mcconnell is lying about this, lying about that i don't know who is lying and the people watching your program do not know who is lying. that is why it should be open to the public. lesko saidesswoman she understands there is no classified information being disclosed in these closed-door depositions, so she thinks it should be a public hearing. guest: congresswoman lesko is not in the room. i am not going to say she is lying but she does not know what she is talking about because she has not been in those hearings. i have been. when senior diplomats and ambassadors are speaking freely,

they will awful refer to or use classified information. that's why these transcripts need to be scrubbed. let's grapple with the larger issue the gentleman raised. it is true, the republicans are saying one thing and the democrats are saying another. here is my argument on that. we are all american citizens. we have the immense privilege of being american citizens. what would you rather be than that? that does not come for free and without strings attached. one string attached is that you do the work to become a critical thinker about your government. i accuse mitch mcconnell of not being honest about the fact that the president does not have his lawyers in the house impeachment proceeding. the gentleman who just asked the question or anybody else in america can look up the process on impeachment and see that what

i am saying is true, an investigation in the house is akin to a grand jury proceeding, and they should do work to decide whether the president's lawyers have been in the room. the answer to that question is no so when mitch mcconnell says the house is not doing that, he is not being honest about the rules or what has happened historically. i get it and it is immensely frustrating that people don't touch base to the truth more than they do. again, we are american citizens. we have an obligation to do a little bit of work to understand what our government and the people in our government are saying, and we have lots of opportunity to do that, more than ever before because of the outlets online and on television. i would urge the gentleman do not give up. if you take your duty seriously, you will do the work. host: take a look at the list of

folks who have gone behind closed doors, have and well gone behind closed doors this week. fiona hill, george kissling. mckinley, gordon sondland and ulrich brecht bowl. friday, laura cooper. michael mckinley, who is he? guest: michael mckinley is the secretary of state mike pompeo's advisor. he is a professional diplomat, one of the senior people around mike pompeo, who was a friend of mine. it is important for america to understand that even though the fight is a tough one, there are good relationships across the aisle. like mckinley with his advisor, he resigned4 two weeks ago purportedly because he was

concerned about the fact that amongst other things, people like the former ambassador to ukraine that the press reported was ordered to come home on the next plane, that people like that were not getting the support they needed from the secretary of state, so he will have a view on that. we will talk to find out more about what the secretary of state was doing while the job of the state department to run foreign relations for the united states was hijacked by rudy giuliani and a group of others, whose interest was not in the national security or the strategy of the united states, but getting dirt on a political opponent of the president. host: gordon sondland and aldrich brecht bowl, many people know who gordon sondland is. guest: senior guy and our foreign policy apparatus he was in and around this whole change

in policy or hijacking in policy with respect to the ukraine. sunland appears to have been in the cockpit for that fight and that is interesting, because he is a respected businessman, was not originally a trump supporter , became a supporter late to the game. he has interests well beyond this president. is a ulrich brecht bowl name mentioned in the whistleblower complaint as well. guest: i think that's right. host: subpoenas for documents and witnesses, just want to run through that. pence, whether he had knowledge of trump's phone sunland -- gordon sondland, and pentagon officials, records outlining the delay in military aid to the ukraine.

delay,cuments of the rick perry, documents related to his contact with the ukrainian president, rudy giuliani as well, and the two giuliani associate who were indicted. why is this information necessary? guest: as mitch mcconnell pointed out, the house of representatives is doing arguably the most consequential thing it can do other than declare war, which is an unused power for the last couple of generations. it is not ok to say, we heard in the whistleblowers complaint. we need to build a complete record of what happened. that is important to the impeachment inquiry and whether the president's behavior was impeachable. opponents and supporters should want that to be done well, the

same way evidence and lots of good process would be available to anybody accused of doing something wrong. the other reason we need to understand this, whether it is the president saying he is in love with kim jong-un and north korea, a man who brutally murders his own people, a president who consistently does what vladimir putin wants him to do, most recently by this pullout from syria, we need to understand who is told what around ukraine. we have lots of professional diplomats who have devoted their careers to advancing the national interest in places like ukraine and north korea and russia, and we need to rebuild those efforts and those people's careers and sense of self-worth by understanding what has happened where the president seems to be acting contrary to the american interest. olivia, aingham,

democratic caller. caller: first i would like to go, no nationals! -- nationals! you have been straight up ever since the mueller report. wavered, never changed. i want you on tv. i see you all the time. you have never changed. but i'm sorry. mitch mcconnell, no credence on tv. mitch mcconnell is the same person who said he was going to make president obama a one term president. look how that turned out. i don't believe nothing mitch mcconnell say. the house is paying so many bills. econo has bills on his desk he is not trying to move through -- mcconnell has bills on his desk he is not trying to move through. we need to do some studying,

learn about civics and government. this is what the government is supposed to be doing. they are doing their jobs. they ran rickshaw with clinton's impeachment. him.dent clinton, i love i am a staunch democrat. it was a disgrace what he did in that office. host: you have been in the room. how many republicans have been present during these closed-door depositions, and are they asking questions? guest: yes, they are. that is a very interesting answer to that question because it has not been so much members of the intelligence committee who have been present on the republican side. most questions have been asked by lawyers for the majority and the minority. they are trained in ways members are not. that is an interesting question,

it has not been so much members of the intelligence committee, republican members. it has been the president's most vocal defenders. guess who has been in the room almost every deposition? jim jordan, mark meadows. those and ay been couple of others who have been there. some well accuse me of not being honest, but run any clip of mark meadows and jim jordan on this issue and these are the most fervent defenders. host: rodney in brooklyn, independent. caller: good morning. you spoke about subpoenas just a little while ago, and my understanding is that those subpoenas are issued by the democrats. my question is, representative himes said that republicans and the committee have the right to issue subpoenas but they have to

be granted through the majority, the democrats. are the democrats granting subpoenas submitted by the republicans? according to jim jordan and others, they are not being granted anything, they are just being shunned out. can you clear that up? guest: i can. let me start with the larger point. it is sad that we are at a point where subpoenas are necessary. the white house wrote the legally insane memorandum saying we will not cooperate. likemerica, that would be you get arrested or charged with a crime and say, i am not participating in this trial process. you do not have the right to say that in the president does not have the right to say i will not participate in this inquiry, under any circumstances. sad subpoenas are necessary. subpoenas are issued by

committees. the majority party always has the majority, so the minority party often feels aggrieved. when i was in the minority, i felt the same way. republicans today have every right to request the chairman a that request might be considered. it might be granted. i have not seen them request it today, but ultimately it would be put to a committee vote and i would like to believe that if personublicans had a they could contribute important information to the inquiry, they could submit a subpoena, but they would need to request it and as far as i know, they haven't done that. all: the deadlines have been missed, how are you going to get that information? that's a different and scarily constitutional question.

no one has the right to say no to a subpoena, no more so than you have the right to say no to a demand that you appear in court. yet the president, vice president, rudy giuliani have done that. my republican friends, those who still think the president is in the right here, need to ask themselves a question. there will be a democratic president down the road at some point. you need to ask yourself, my republican friends, how you feel about the precedent being established by this republican president and his friends saying -- sorry, i'm going to ignore the congress. people need to grapple with that a bit. this is one of the ways that we don't have a king in this country. people really need to grapple with that. how are we going to do it? we have two choices. we could ask a court to enforce the subpoenas, we could ask the judiciary to produce those -- to

order the appearance. or -- you hear talk about this on capitol hill -- until the 1950's the power -- congress had a power called inherent contempt. to make a long story short it would result in a trial occurring inside the congress and if it rendered a verdict that someone was in contempt, congress without the assistance of the judiciary -- back then they would jail people in some cases. i think in the modern era we would simply fine people. we would hand down a ruling within the congress that says as long as you don't appear, it's a $10,000 per day fine. host: mike, republican line. i would like to ask the congressman a question. after all of this, you know, how are we going to be friends? i have seen a 16-year-old kid get attacked by a democrat. i heard they was a couple that got a gun pulled on them in a sans club -- sam's club.

people getting beat up just for maga cap.mag a hat -- democrats accuse bush 43 of being a war criminal. now from 45 is a traitor. how are we going to get along? ok, heard your point, mike. raises a question and an issue that i think a lot about. i come from a district that is pretty democratic, the president doesn't have a lot of fans there. there were a lot of republicans. the incidence that he mentions, fights breaking out, violence being used, they are not acceptable by either party. partisans on both sides are guilty of this kind of thing.

i guess it comes back to what i was trying to say earlier about what our responsibility is as citizens of one of the greatest countries that ever existed. one of them is to put some walls around the intensity of our political opinions. one of the ways that we do this and a, you know, maybe this doesn't feel authentic coming from a member of congress, but it's by holding our beliefs with some degree of humility. us are always right. in fact, some of us are rarely right. my point is that when you are 100% sure that this president is a traitor or that this president is the greatest we have ever had, you have got to step back from that and say hey, he's human like everybody else. let me do it right now, i appreciate that the resident stood down from a military attack on iran. i thought that we would be in a war with iran, worse than the war we found ourselves in in iraq. forve the president props

doing something that i'm not sure any president would have done. planes were in the air, the missile attack is ready, and he said no. you just heard a democrat complement a republican president that he does not think a lot of. i think we need to do more of that. understand with some humility that the opinions that we hold our political opinions, they are not fundamental to the universe and that there is a chance we could be wrong. we will go on to steve in albany, oregon, independent. steve, good morning. all right, one last try for steve. are you there? all right, let's try for tom, democratic caller. caller: can you hear me? host: yes, we can, go ahead. caller: i think that the democrats and republicans are there to work for the citizens of the united states. so far since trump has been in, nothing has been accomplished.

i read in the paper that when they retire they are multimillionaires. they only make 180 some thousand per year. what getske to know them to that level, that type of money, other than special interest groups. what they have to do is forget about this impeachment stuff and quit bullying the citizens of the united states and start working for the citizens. i'm a democrat and i'm ashamed of what's going on. they have done nothing since trump has been in. it's totally ridiculous. the citizens of the united states are paying this bill and making all of these of attorneys richer while us poor people -- ok, tom, i am running out of time with the congressman, i will have him respond to you. i guess i understand comes frustration. i work here, i see so many

things i would like to be working on. for me it's transportation infrastructure. i understand his frustration. i have a message for tom which is -- look, you cannot lose faith. your statement that nothing has gotten done is wrong, it's not true. i'm not going to sort of fill a bunch of balloons and open the champagne and say that everything is working fine down here, but under donald trump, arguably one of the most polarizing presidents in our history, we got a major commitment to addressing the opioid crisis in this country. the government came together in a bipartisan way and made funding available to states and municipalities to put narcan in police cars to help with treatment. number two, congress came together just a year ago to pass penal and judicial reform. going back and looking at these three strikes and you are outlaws the resulted in people being imprisoned for life for

dealing marijuana three times on a street corner. i was not a supporter of it, but one of the largest tax cuts in history. again, i think it was a mistake, but i don't get to recall -- get to control everything in congress. a major republican objective got done. i say all that because people shouldn't despair. it's a polarized moment, an impeachment inquiry. turns out that just over half think that that is a good thing. important to understand that maybe it doesn't make the front page, maybe it's not in the chiron on television, but business does continue. it needs to happen faster and more but it does continue as these polarizing exercises are underway. congressman, appreciate your time as always, thank you very much. we are going to return next to the conversation that we had with you earlier today after the democratic debate.

which of the candidates on the stage are the most electable question mark here are the phone numbers on your screen. here is a bit from last night's debate, and exchange between tulsi gabbard and mayor pete. [video clip] >> the slaughter of the kurds being done by turkey is another negative consequence of the regime change war that we have been waging in syria. donald trump has the blood of the kurds on his hands. so do many of the politicians in our country from both parties who have supported this ongoing regime change war in syria that started in 2011, along with many in the mainstream media who have been championing and cheerleading this regime change war. not only that, but "the new york and cnn have smeared veterans like myself or calling to an end to this regime change war. an article came out saying that

assada russian asset, apologist, asset of russia. completely despicable. as president i will end these regime change wars by doing to bring things. ending the jerk tony and sanctions that are a modern-day seas, the likes of which we are seeing saudi arabia wage against yemen, causing tens of thousands of syrian civilians to starve and die. and i would make sure that we stop supporting terrorists like , who have beenia a ground force in this ongoing regime change war. >> respectively, i think that is dead wrong. the slaughter in syria is not a consequence of american presence, it's a consequence of a withdrawal and betrayal by this president of american allies and values. look, i didn't think that we should have gone to iraq in the first place.

i think we need to get out of afghanistan. but it's also the case that a small number of special operations intelligence forces were the only thing that stood between that part of syria and what we are seeing now, which is the beginning of a genocide and the resurgence of isis. meanwhile, soldiers in the field reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed, ashamed of what their country has done. we saw the spectacle, the horrifying sight of a woman with the lifeless body of a child in her arms asking what the hell happened to american leadership. , when i wasthe fact deployed, the flag on my shoulder represented a country that was known to keep its word. you take that away, you take away what makes america america. it makes our troops and the world a much more dangerous place. 12 democratic candidates on the stage last night. which one of them, do you think, is the most electable?

let's go to alex in rochester, new york. i don't think i one of them last night on stage is worth a damn. complainingcrats about protecting syrians? what about americans being killed by illegal aliens crossing the border question mark they want to protect the border? there is not a one of them that is not a running punchline as far as i'm concerned. i am not a trump supporter 100%, but until you show me someone better -- and if the democrats could work with him and move america forward, this is what i'm looking for. there is not one candidate fit to be called my american president on that stage last night. ok.: we will go to morgan, next, nashville, tennessee. hi, morgan. caller: clearly person on the stage who can be donald is the authentic person on the stage, the person who has had for 40

years the right policies. the right choices. that's bernie sanders. i mean, there's no doubt in anyone's mind. half of people, probably more, have taken his policies. in 2016 they were hillary supporters who had no interest in his policies. and now most of them have adopted his policies. why there is so many candidates is the dnc putting them in play to stop his support. that is exactly what has happened. they have divided it up so that he, his valuable voice is now disseminated amongst the usurpers. he wrote the music.

they are a chorus that is singing the music. it's just not going to work, folks. ok, morgan. let me show the viewers a bit more from last night's debate. candidates were asked if the vision of change offered by elizabeth warren and bernie sanders could attract enough voters to be president trump. here is what joe biden and elizabeth warren had to say on that. [video clip] isi think that the division attracting a lot of people and a lot of what they had to say is important. you know, senator warren said that we cannot be running a vague campaign. we have got to level with people. level with people and tell them what we are going to do and how we are going to get it done. i'm going to say some and it will probably offend people here , but i'm dealing one here on stage that has gotten anything really big done. from the violence against women act to making sure that we passed the afford will care act

to being in a position where we took a $90 billion act that kept us from going into a depression. making us, putting us in a position where i was able to end the issue of gun sales in terms of assault weapons. the question is, who is best prepared? ideas.have good the question is, who is going to be able to get it done. started this question with people getting things done. 2008 or adea after consumer agency that would keep giant banks from cheating people. all of the insiders and strategic geniuses said don't even try, you will never get it passed. sure enough, the big banks thought us, the republicans the agencybut we got passed into law and it has forced big banks to return more to the2 billion directly people that they cheated. i served in the obama administration.

i know what we can do by executive authority and i will use it. in congress on the first day i will pass my anticorruption bill that will beat back the influence of money and repeal the filibuster. third, we want to get something done in america? we have to get out there and fight for the things that touch people's lives. >> i agree with the great job that she did. i went on the floor and got you vote. i got votes for that bill. i convinced people to vote for it. let's get those things straight, too. >> senator warren, do you want to respond? gratefullled -- deeply -- i am deeply grateful to president obama, who fought so hard to make sure that agency was passed into law. last night's debate headlines focusing on elizabeth warren.

"first sustained attack in faces attacksand -- war and faces attack -- warren faces attacks on debate stage." she spoke the most, followed by joe biden. buttigieg spoke for nearly 30 minutes. and then you see senator harris, senator booker, mr. yang, castro, tom steyer following with the least amount of minutes. gary, newport, kentucky, which one of these candidates is the most electable? well, if i had to vote for a democrat, i would vote for tulsi gabbard. but she has been attacked by the

press, much like bernie sanders and the democrats have turned their back on her and they will do to her what they did to bernie sanders in 2016. of the day, they can't be trump. there's nobody on that stage, they couldn't go into the whole house of democrats and try to pull out another 50 to try to get somebody out of it. they can't beat trump. thank you. ok, all right. lebanon, ohio. democratic caller. sandersi think bernie 100% is the one who would -- who could be electable. he would bring the young, progressive voters. everyone into the democratic party, they would follow. he is the best one to win. river,ent, crystal

florida, republican, good morning. caller: yes, ma'am. in your pole, i think that gabbard would be the best candidate on the democratic side. what i'm still try to wrap my head around is when the panel was asked about legalizing opioids, they said yes. now that's kind of crazy when your last guest said that there is a crisis and we all of that there is, yet they want to legalize it. that makes sense. host: the debate last night hosted by cnn, they had a partner with "the new york times." it was their national editor, mark lacey, who contributed as one of the moderators last night in the debate. mark lacey was a guest host of this program back in the day. take a look. [video clip] >> and then there is a third story involving kenneth starr. "starr adds to

evidence." four boxes of evidence to the impeachment committee yesterday to buttress his filings from september. of the papers have major headlines on these three stories. all of them broke up. late in the day. friday. we want to hear any comments you have. let's look at "the washington ."st they have a headline saying that president clinton reached an out-of-court settlement with paul a jones yesterday. they called this sexual harassment lawsuit as something that generated the worst clintonl crisis of the career. peter baker writes that after 4.5 years of scorched earth

clinton [noe, audio] sudden end to the case with [no audio] , a "washingtony journal" guest host during the clinton impeachment. you can find more from him if you go to our website, c-span.org. getting his start here on c-span. janet, hello. these candidates is the most electable? caller: pete buttigieg, in my book. host: tell us why. caller: i'm 63 years old, he's very pragmatic. he has a calm demeanor. his policies are laid out step-by-step. i just think that he is a breath of fresh air and it is about time. ok.:

michael, indianapolis, what do you think? i thought it was one-sided. they only had a handful of people up there. i wanted to hear from tom steyer. i think he is the most electable, most qualified person because he knows how this system , the way the finance system of the united states works. i think he would be the best candidate and would make the best president. junction,n, grand hello. caller: yeah, thanks a lot. just calling, i think they are done. they are done for. most of them are for breaking the rules of the constitution. and you know, if they don't like trump, you know, one of your they hadn'tier said gotten anything done. first thing when trump got elected, he reversed the bathroom bill.

thank god for normalcy, because you know? if it wasn't, they would be searching for how to make female urinals right now. host: ok, let's go to paul. you are next. caller: hi, thanks a lot. i've lived in massachusetts for about 75 years. ren i know war [inaudible] [indiscernible] having apologize, we are a hard time hearing you. something happened to your phone. dustin, independent line. caller: thanks for taking my call. there is only one choice, it's clear and obvious, bernie sanders a. messaget changed his for 40 years. he's the most popular candidate in the united states, he has the most individual donors. he won against clinton in the

primary last time despite it being rigged. what do you want? he's the one that will be trump and i look forward to that debate host:. we will take -- debate. host: let's listen to this moment between senator sanders and andrew young. they talked about automation and jobs. [video clip] saidnator sanders, you your jobs guarantee is part of the threat of automation. tens of millions of americans could end up losing their jobs. are you promising that you would have a job for every single one of those americans? >> dam right we will. i will tell you why. in america today, we have a collapsing infrastructure. we could put 50 million people to work rebuilding roads, bridges, wastewater plants, airports, etc.. furthermore, and i hope you will discuss it at length tonight, faces the greatest threat in its history from climate change. the green new deal that i have

advocated will create up to 20 million jobs as we move away to energyl fuels efficiency and sustainable energy. we need workers to do childcare. we need workers, great teachers to come into school systems that don't have the teachers that we need right now. we need more doctors, more dentists, more carpenters, more sheet-metal workers. when we talk about making public colleges and universities tuition free, we are going to give those people the opportunity to get those good jobs. >> thank you. mr. yang, your solution is a universal basic income. why is your plan better than giving everyone a job? >> and for the spirit of a federal jobs guarantee but you would have to look at how it materializes in practice.

who manages you? what if you don't like your job or are not good at your job? the fact is, most americans do not want to work for the federal government and saying that that is the vision of the economy for the 21st century is not a vision that most americans would embrace. senator sanders description of a federal jobs guarantee does not take into account the work of people like my wife, at home with our two boys, one of whom is autistic. we have a freedom dividend of $1000 a month that recognizes the work happening in our families and communities. the fact is, you would know this in ohio, if you rely upon the federal government to target resources, you get failed programs in jobs that no one wants. when we put the money into our hands, we can build a trickle up economy. enabling us to do the kind of work that we want to do. this is the kind of positive vision in response to the industrial revolution that we have to envision as a party.

host: we are asking you who the most electable person is after last night's debate. stewart, democratic line, new york. caller: can you hear me question mark host: -- hear me? host: yes, we can. caller: bernie sanders is by far the most electable. if you listened to the candidate -- the caller about which candidate could be trump question mark he was right. is, of them can, but he bernie sanders is a. . he's the architect of a movement . he's starting a revolution. i'm a small card in the huge wheel of revolution. this is not an idea. this is not a man versus a mandate. this is a movement of people who are honest and want to see good triumph over evil, who want this country to move to a better place.

we are so passionate. as a volunteer, i tell you every single night they look for opportunities to go out and put up posters. my passion will not go away. people ask me sometimes, what other candidate could you vote for potentially? i said to myself honestly, maybe because io cortez, but she is -- ocasio-cortez, but she's too young. forget terms like socialism, communism, capitalism, these different thoughts. think about good versus evil and pick good. host: this from twitter --

host: bonnie, modesto, california. independent. caller: i listened it to the debates last night and the one who has a grip on the job future is andrew yang. he understands that technology is here to stay, where others seem to think that they will be putting in more manual jobs. amyself was looking at klobuchar, but i will back anybody against trump. ok.: bonnie, there. rick, what do you think? i just don't see any policy the democrats putting out for the benefit of the

country. they are just tried to seek power. doesn't need power, he has it. he has given up his pay. everything he does is for the betterment of the country and everything the democrats have ever done is to better themselves and seek power. host: ok, rick. joyce, hello. caller: i think that the american people should wake up. you don't want bernie sanders, it will be socialism all the way. he wants to give everything street. there's nothing free -- everything free. there's nothing free in this world. remember that. host: writers has an exclusive this morning that the u.s. carried out secret cyber strikes in a run in the wake of those saudi oil attacks. this is reuters with an exclusive report on that. newspaper,"hill "house republicans looking to

reverse a vote on censure." "it was revised to include language blasting california democrats for comments regarding interactions with a whistleblower that sparked the inquiry, alleging that s chiff misled the public." craig kaplan tweeting out -- -- host: so, that both happening the house floor. a reminder to all of you on what's happening in the impeachment inquiry this week. closed-door depositions continue. and michaele kent mckinley, talking to the lawmakers conducting the

inquiry. thursday, gordon sondland, along with laura cooper on friday. lonnie, salisbury, north carolina, democratic caller. good morning, you are next. yeah, i watched it last night and i thought it was very interesting. i loved the way that they articulated their different policies and what they want to do for america, for the american people. i for one group of people, but for the american people. i got a charge from -- i mean, anybody who wins, i will vote with them regardless of whoever it is. but right now i know that trump is afraid of biden because he is going through a lot of stuff to keep himit biden to from becoming the nominee. but look, check this out. --ative republicans say the saying that no one can beat donald trump, but donald trump

doesn't believe that. he goes to ukraine in china for help, gerrymandering, and also trying to suppress votes. with a deck stacked like that? how can a person lose? i call him a cheater. anybody don't believe that? look at his actions. trump is a cheater. trump won't even debate whoever becomes the democratic party nominee. host: ok. dan, pennsylvania, independent. yeah, thank you for taking my call. to put it out there, i'm an independent voter who voted for obama, who voted for trump, and i'm also fiscally conservative. bernie sanders is not able to articulate his job guarantees. people thinking that any of these socialistic ideas are anything that can be articulated into a plan that would actually ,ass and be signed into law

they are buying into a sham. none of this is doable. the federal government does not exist to take care of you. the federal government exists to protect you and keep you safe. to keep your rights and freedoms safe. everything else is on you. people need to stop going out and trying to get free stuff. you are not guaranteed anything. your freedom and your rights are the only thing that are guaranteed. last night medicare for all was brought up several times in the debate. here is the headline from "the hill newspaper." "full-scale medicare for all costing $32 trillion over 10 years. -- years." here are a senators warren and clover shark -- clove amy

klobuchar discussing the plan. [video clip] a planll not embrace that says that people have great , get the diagnosis and the insurance company says sorry, it we are not covering your expensive cancer treatment. we are not covering your expensive treatment for what you need. >> at least bernie is being honest and saying how he is going to pay for this and that taxes are going to go up. i'm sorry, elizabeth, you have not said that and i think that we all would to the american people that we will tell them where we are sending the invoice. the best and boldest idea is not to trash obamacare, but to do dot barack obama wanted to from the beginning, have a public option that would bring down the cost of premiums and expand the number of people covered and take on the pharmaceutical companies. that is what we should be doing instead of taking 149 million

people off of their insurance in four years. and whenever i say these things i always hear republican talking points. you are making republican talking points in this room by coming out for a plan that is going to do that. i think there is a better way that is bold, that will cover more people, that we should get behind. >> i have spent most of my time in washington, most of my times the gang one basic question. why hard-working people go broke . one of the principal reasons for that is the cost of health care. back when i was studying, two out of every three families that ended up in bankruptcy after a serious medical problem had health insurance. the problem we have got right now is the overall cost of health care. look, you can try to spin this anyway that you want. i have spent my entire life working on how america's middle class has been hollowed out and how we fight back. i put out nearly 50 plans on how

we can fight back and rebuild an america that works. part of that is we have got to stop americans from going bankrupt over health care. >> senator klobuchar, do you want to respond? >> yes, and i appreciate elizabeth's work, but the difference between a plan and a pipe dream is something that you can actually get done. between thege their candidates over medicare for all. it continued later in the debate. here is mayor pete of indiana and senator warren talking about medicare for all and how it would be paid for. >> no plan has been laid out to explain how a multitrillion dollar hole in the plan that senator warren is putting forward is supposed to get filled in. the thing is, we really can deliver health care for every american and move forward with the boldest, biggest transformation since the

inception of medicare itself. the way to do it without a big hole and avoiding a yes or no question is medicare for all who want it. we take a version of it, let you access it if you want to. if you prefer to stay on your private plan, you can do that, too. that is what most americans want , trusting you to make the right decision for your health care, your family, and it can be delivered without an increase. >> let's be clear, whenever someone hears the term medicare for all who want it, understand what that really means. it's medicare for all who can afford it. that's the problem we've got. medicare for all is the gold standard. it is the way that we get health care coverage for every single american, including the family whose child has been diagnosed with cancer, including the an ms who just got diagnosis. that's how we make sure that everyone gets health care.

we can pay for this, i have laid out the basic principle. costs are going to go up. for the wealthy. for big corporations. they won't go up for middle-class families and i won't sign a bill into law that raises their costs. costs are what people care about. i have been studying this for the biggest part of my life, why people go bankrupt. that thet think american people are wrong when they say that what they want is a choice. the choice of medicare for all who want it, which is affordable for everyone, because we make sure that the subsidies are in place, it allows you to get that health care. it's just better than medicare for all whether you want it or not and i don't understand why you believe the leeway to deliver affordable coverage to everybody is to obliterate private plans, kicking 150 million americans off of their insurance in four short years when we can achieve the same big, bold goal and, once again,

we are competing to be president for the day after trump. our country will be horrifyingly polarized, even more than now, after everything we have been through. this country will be even more divided. why unnecessarily divide the country over health care when there is a better way to get to coverage for all. debate,ter last night's we want to know from you which of these candidates you think is most electable. lita, what do you think? isler: i think tom steyer one of the best candidates and i don't understand why they didn't let him contribute more. i also want to say that i don't think our country can afford free health care, free college, just jump right into that. i think it's something that has to happen gradually. host: beverly, casper, wyoming. could you vote for a democrat? beverly question mark could you vote for a democrat in 2020?

caller: yes, i sure can. host: and who is your candidate? is my candidate. and bernie, if anyone was after my second choice, it would be bernie. host: who do you think is the most electable of the group? know that bernie has more money. this is all about money. ok.: beverly, how did you vote in 2008? caller: 2000 a question mark i voted democrat. host: how did you vote in 2016? caller: i voted democrat. ok.: what republican have you voted for? caller: what republican? i don't know. i just think that the president should have more honor than the

one that we have now. this is an about republicans, democrats. this is about real people. host: ok. they don'tetimes even know what a republican is or a democrat is. they have to do is get their act together. this is a real issue. they need to get legislation going. need to get all these papers that the democrats are putting to the floor going. host: ok. let's go to texas, republican. caller: yes, l.a. on? host: -- am i on? host: yes, you are. as a republican, i did vote for trump in the last election but i won't for -- vote for him this time when he showed me what he really was.

-- this time because of what he showed me, who he really was. cory booker, i'm kind of ashamed they didn't give him more time to talk. he said "i finally got in here. he has got a lot of stuff going for him. he never talks anything about medicare for all. i don't think he is even going to think about that. he knows there's other things much more important. i don't understand why people think medicare for all is the answer to all the problems. it's not. it's going to be a big problem. bob. all right, i want to give you all an update on the closed-door depositions happening on capitol hill. jeff bennett of msnbc, tweeting ,ut recently that kurt volker split -- former special u.s. ukraine, returning to capitol hill today to complete his prior testimony.

remember, he was one of the first witnesses that the committees called behind closed door to testify for an entire day. apparently he's back up there to continue his testimony. macon, georgia, democratic caller, we are back to our conversation about which candidate is most electable. thank you for taking my call. joe biden would be my safe choice, not my best choice. the democratshat are spending too much time on the presidential candidate. the real purpose -- the real person they need to focus on is mitch mcconnell. harry reid and the democrats didn't know how much power they had. president obama could have gotten a lot more done and people would have been more satisfied if it wasn't for mitch mcconnell. even if we do win the presidency this time, mitch mcconnell is just going to stonewall, stop

everything, the whole country going to be back where we are now. safe --e biden is your her first choice? -- your first choice? caller: he is my safe choice, not my first choice. host: how do you think he's handled the scandal regarding his son and ukraine? has handledink he it to the best he can. i mean, nobody's perfect, everybody makes mistakes, everybody do some stuff where they say that if i had had more knowledge, they wouldn't have done it. but i don't see how people now are comparing that to half the stuff the trump is doing and done now. it's like trump has literally the country into this moralist country, evangelicals and everything, but it seems like the whole country has turned away from god, morals and everything because of trump.

i want to show you and others the moment last night where the moderators asked the former vice president about his role in ukraine and hunter biden. [video clip] --my son's statements statement speaks for itself. no one has indicated i've ever had anything to do with his job and ukraine. even when we were the -- when he was the attorney state -- attorney general delaware, there was a conflict. my son made a judgment, i'm proud of what he had to say. let's focus on this. the fact of the matter that -- is that this is about trump's corruption. this is what we should be focusing on. calls. soon, perry hall, maryland. which candidate in the field's most electable?

caller: we focus too much on don'tace politics and we focus enough on the issues and the policies that are going to make america great again, as trump likes to say. one of the great ironies to me the generation that thinks america was great at a certain time, those regenerations, the 50's, 60's, 70's, when the tax rate was much more progressive than it is now. that is what helped to pay for the infrastructure and the that manynd programs older people take for granted, like social security. i definitely want to get this of which is that i am part one of the most underrepresented demographic groups in this country, in the world. i am a person with serious illness. my illness was partially caused

due to medical procedures. so, i'm very well aware of the serious problems we have in our health care system. my life has dramatically changed because of the way that profit and corporate interests have entered into the way health care is studied and done. the money that goes into health care is completely disconnected from the outcomes. people are getting sicker, people are dying earlier. we need someone in there like elizabeth warren and bernie sanders. someone who has been around enough to understand that there is corruption, but that there is also a way to get to a place where things can be paid for. that yes, wealthy people need to pay more. they have gotten a lot from this country. and to a large degree, a progressive tax rate is what

gave this country the standards that we have. also, reasonable working conditions. obviously, elizabeth warren's idea for a wealth tax, the issue of income inequality came up last night. ,ere is beto o'rourke challenging elizabeth moran on this. this --beth moran on elizabeth warren on this. [video clip] the senator i think is more interested in being punitive, instead of lifting people up and making sure that we come together around solutions. a woman that i met in las vegas, working four jobs, raising her child with disabilities. any american with disabilities knows how hard it is to make it and get by already. some of the jobs working for corporations, she wants to know

how we are going to help her, to make sure that her child has the care that she needs so that she only works one job so that it pays a were -- pays a living wage. senator warren said show me your budget, i'll show you my tax plan. thisas yet to show us plan. in my administration if you make less than $250,000 per year as a family, you will not see a tax increase. warrennt to give senator a chance to respond. notionshocked at the that anyone thinks i'm punitive. i don't have a beef with billionaires. fortuneem is, you had a in america, made it, had a good idea, built it, good for you. but you built that fortune in america, i guarantee, you built it using workers we all helped to educate. getting your goods to market using roads and bridges that we all helped pay for.

protected by police, firefighters, we all helped to pay those salaries. all i am saying is that you make it to the top, the top 1/10 of 1%. pitch in two cents so that every other kid in america has a chance. your response? >> i want to make sure that we are lifting up those families who are working and need help through an earned income tax credit. >> that is the point. this is universal childcare for every baby in this country. early educational opportunities for every child. universal pre-k no matter where you live. every three-year-old and four-year-old. raising the wages. turner, democratic, colorado. which candidate do you think could be president trump in a matchup? biden asell, i like

the best chance to win the election. i was impressed with mayor pete tonight. i thought he made great strides forward tonight. i think i have a lot of similarities. farve always wondered how down the line these candidates go before they start looking at running mates. maybe that's not something you want to talk about on your show, but who pairs up the best? the line to put together a great team to beat trump. .ost: ok all right, turner. charles, waverly, republican line. i don't think any of

them has got a chance. i think trump is going to win. it's the platform they stand on. you don't hear that much, i'm old enough to remember when they had a platform and each board on the platform stood for something. and now when i look at it -- i voted democrat back a few years. i have loved it at times, but i had to get out of that party, get away from it because of the platform. their platform, you heard it yourself. legalize opioids. socialists, full abortion-rights, homosexual rights. do your own thing, but don't teach it to my children, in my schools and to my kids. we need to get back to basics. you listen to things and you see what is happening in our country, there is no god. i mean, take god out of everything. trump, i see, is trying to put it act into schools.

i'm not saying that he's a -- i mean, when i look at trump i don't like exactly everything he says. i can't go along with everything he says, but he is standing for what i believe. he has done some changing in our court systems that i go along with. i think we need to get back to basics, the basics of our constitution. ok, charles. i'm going to move on to tom, we have only got a couple of minutes left before the house gavels in. tom? >> yes, ma'am. i think it's a shame we are not having a chance to hear the people who are and have been embedded in the swamp. the ones that haven't been come out ahead every year that they talk. to find out what their views are.

i mean, i voted the first time for obama. you know, i was a regular voter. freenow, they talk about health care for everyone? remember,y to run to you're probably in your mid-20's maybe -- [laughter] caller: we had the thing -- a thing called the march of dimes. when people were in need, the community got out and we supported each other. the problem today is that all we have is the swamp. martin, new york, democratic caller. it your view? -- your view? ironical that it elizabeth moran was talk -- warren was talking about free health care, though she's been voting to keep abortion going since the 70 plus. she mentioned the health care in

this country being gold standard, that's funny, we haven't been on the gold standard since 1913. host: but who do you think is the most electable? we lost them. sylvia? joe biden. i think the swamp is getting bigger and washington, d.c. and , ifar as senator warren believe we could get our health care from disney world. it's a great idea, but it doesn't work. thank you so much. host: all right, bill, california. good morning. hello, everybody. basically, the debates last night, they focused on elizabeth warren. but i'm seeing all of these democratic candidates trying to chase bernie's platform. solid, he is the most

consistent, and he seems to be a righteous individual. i really, really worry about the ethics of our new president. going on the air, asking russia for help during the last presidential debates. asking china for help against the biden. now it is the ukraine thing. it is obvious, you have the senator from arizona on this morning, or the congresswoman from arizona on this morning, just deflecting and calling it partisan when she seems to be the most partisan person i have ever listened to. last night elizabeth moran did a good job and i think everyone is stealing from bernie sanders and bernie has my vote in the next election. host: all right. barbara, what do you think? caller: hi. i'm going crazy with these

people calling in saying we want free health care by voting for democrats. it's not free. we just want them to spend our tax money on us. the republicans are destined to do this trickle down and i don't want to have tax money spent on everything -- anything. health care and education, it's paid for by the tax money. get ready -- get rid of the billion or profits. aree insurance people making billions. billionaires tell us we can't pay for it. which candidate last night could be most effective? caller: i just love all of them. i am so glad they are up there. the are going all over country.

we don't get to speak on the air anymore. i think all of them are getting out there and giving good things. i love all of them. but he'd buttigieg and a and i hope the dnc, i hope they stay out of it this time or we will lose. elected, people, and bragged about it for four months. then it was by nixon. this guy is going to go. whatever y'all do, this guys going to go. we won't give up. this guy is not going to get up there, act this way, be immortal, disgusting, doing things for himself and his kids. he goes on and on about the bidens and can't find anything. let's look at his kids. i don't get it, i don't get it. but thank you. all right, barber there, democratic caller. the house is about to come in here.