impeachment counsel alan baron discuss the impeachment process. ,fter that, rosemary gibson author and senior adviser at the hastings center discusses life-saving drugs at u.s. hospitals. ♪ good morning, and welcome to "washington journal." congress will continue impeachment hearings this week, but before we get to that, a startling report this week shows that americans are dying young at an alarming rate, driving life expectancy in the united states down for three consecutive years. people who should be in the prime of their lives are now seeing decreasing life expectancy. the jumps and mortality rates in states like ohio, kentucky, pennsylvania, indiana, and new hampshire. critical states in the upcoming

20. why are americans young -- diane young at alarming rates? we will open up our phone lines for you this morning. if you are in the eastern or central time zones, we want to (202) 748-8000. if you live in the mountain or central time zones, call (202) 748-8001. text us at (202) 748-8003 and we are always reading on social media, http://twitter.com/cspanwj -- social media. let's set the groundwork, first. i'm going to read a little bit from report here so that you can see what we are going to talk about. here's the article.

now i want to read from you a little bit from the actual report itself. here is what it says.

hear from thes director of the cdc, dr. robert redfield, discussing why the opioid outbreak is a crisis here in washington, d.c. here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> the outbreak of our time is the opioid outbreak. i'm going to stress that i think

there are a lot of lessons for us from what we learned in the ebola outbreak. we don't need to wait for the perfect solution to the challenges that we have with opioid and drug use. we need to embrace science, bring it into the field, to the operational and clinical research and advance this. it is the public health crisis of our time. 130 people die each day in our country from drug overdose. we are making progress. this year it looks like overdose deaths are down by 5%, but we have got a long way to go. but i do think that we need to stay focused. i can remember when i started as an aid's physician in 1983, my patients had 10 survival and look at where we are today. again, the same has to be said for those individuals that are confronting opiate addiction or drug disorder. you have earned me say this before, the first thing we need to do is recognize it for what it is, a chronic medical

condition. not just a chronic medical condition, but a chronic medical relapsing condition. we need to embrace it for what it is, it's not a moral failing. we need to put the science behind this so that we can draw up long-term solutions to this medical condition. on the one hand, methamphetamine is the leasing -- the leading cause of death in more than eight states in the country in science has a long way to go to give us medical interventions for methamphetamine addiction. but then i would just encourage us to realize that if the who and the nih can figure out how to do science that makes meaningful impact in the middle of an ebola outbreak in the drc, we should be able to figure out how to bring science into a meaningful impact against drug use disorder. our phones go to

lines and talk to eric, from pennsylvania. eric, good morning. caller: host: host: good morning, how are you doing today? just fine, go ahead. caller: i want to thank you for bringing attention to this important topic. i'm 32, from northeast pennsylvania. it's a huge issue. everyone i know in my area has died -- as know someone who died from suicide or drug addiction. one of the big things in my area in particular, we seem to like behind the economic prosperity you care about in the united states. wages have not really grown here . a lot of my generation, graduating from college out of the great recession, we didn't instantly get that "american dream," buying the house and having all of these things you are supposed to have any age of 30, 32. a lot of people that i know turned to drugs and alcohol. if you couple that with -- i

speak for myself, i have a wonderful counselor who helps me immensely and my co-pay is $50. i would like to see her twice a month but because of the circumstances i only go once a month. you put these factors together, along with presidential candidates who appear in pennsylvania, seems we get pandered to during the election by republicans and democrats. they come up here and promise they won't forget about us and nothing seems to change. again, i just really thank you for bringing this to attention. it is an epidemic. many people my age, it breaks my heart. i went to a funeral couple of weeks ago for a young man quite went to high school with who committed suicide. it's a problem, thank you for addressing it. let you go, how old are you in due you think that the people in your generation are getting enough health care and mental health support? old.s i'm 32 years

you know what? i think we have come a long way as far as bringing it out of the shadows with mental health being a stigma. myself i suffer from anxiety. most people i know my age do. it's tough with earning enough and, again, the kind of you know , not feeling you are where you are supposed to be at certain points in your life. i have a deductible on my health insurance that is 4500 dollars. click i said, my counseling deductible is $50 co-pay, which you know, coupled with my student loans and other bills that i have, car payments, life in general, sometimes i do, i put a counseling session i may think i need in a put that aside , you know, to cover something else. i think that is, speaking for me, i can't speak for everyone, that's a problem i find. one more question for you,

but are the solutions? what can we do question mark this is your age group we are specifically talking about here. what can be done to help to change, to increase the life expectancy? man, that's the million-dollar question, right? we have to keep promoting mental health. make it, you know, keep taking it out of the darkness and into the light, right? saying it's ok. everyone goes to problems in life. you are not alone. like i said, everyone i know, whether it is a mild anxiety or for some it is crippling. that is probably the biggest thing. to increase access, you know, access to these treatments and again, kind of continue to take the stigma out of it. final thought is, you know, surely with purdue pharma and,

you know, growing up in high school it was much too easy to get prescription painkillers. benzo, valium, seems like they were everywhere. at least here in northeast pennsylvania. you can read the articles on reuters in an other news publications, but these drugs during the late 90's and into the early 2000's were everywhere. let's go to barbara, calling from pompano beach, florida. good morning. good morning. i just woke up and boy, i've got a lot to say. hopkins 45 it at jon years ago about drug addiction and what causes it. these druggies all have very high iqs. the higher the iq, the more susceptible you are to artificial food flavoring and food coloring. there was a holistic doctor in who let me come in there and read his jon hopkins book, a

case history book. they proved 45 years ago that the higher the iq, the more susceptible you are to artificial food flavoring and food coloring. it scrambles the brain. a lot of these druggies come down from up north to go to these rehabs. and there's a lot of them down here. they get out of the rehabbed and they start buying drugs. i can prove why they do what they do. you self medicate when you have high iq. they smoke, nicotine. you notice a lot of them smoke.

then you have got heroin. and then you get the fentanyl in the heroin, causing the death. you are saying that because americans are getting smarter, it's killing them? you inherit the exact iq of one of your parents. they proved that. that is why a doctor's son is more likely to become another doctor, they inherit the exact iq. that's also why you usually marry. apart and have a divorce if you marry a stupid wife and you are smart. let's go to philip, calling from springfield,

massachusetts. philip, good morning. caller: i'm 81 years old. back in 1963i met my wife. in 1964i had to go to a family doctor to get an exam to go to work. , used to at the time smoke four and a half packs of cigarettes a day and he told me they found out that smoking is bad for you and all the doctors were giving up smoking. the sad thing about it is that my wife could never give up smoking. she tried everything, she couldn't do it. fast forward to 2007, she passed away from emphysema. smoket care if you cigarettes or whatever it is. you can't do it is once you get in your 60's, you will die from your emphysema.

that's just the way it is. callingt's go to matt, from philadelphia, pennsylvania. good morning. jesse. good morning, yeah, i think this is a combination of the perfect storm. for the younger people you have a sense of hopelessness that drives them to the opioid epidemic. for older people like myself, the problem i think is the food supply. you know, all the fructose that is nothing more than corn sugar added to our food. so many peopleen now, especially my age, my 60's, coming down with type two diabetes. it and the worst part about it is, you know, diabetes is a very expensive disease to treat. a lot of people don't have the money to treat it. so you know, you have the perfect storm. the younger people with the

opioid epidemic. the older people with the type 2 diabetes. it's no surprise to me, jesse. let's look at some of the places where we have -- where we have seen the increase in mortality. from the report of the journal of the american medical association, we have seen that the increases seem to be coming from the west belt and appalachia. this coming from the report from the american medical association . let's go through it specifically state-by-state and where we see the states with the biggest increase in midlife mortality rates. here with new hampshire, we see an increase of 23%. main, 21%. vermont, 20%. west virginia, 23%. ohio, 22%. indiana, 15%.

.entucky, 15% once again, we are the states and the rust belt and appalachia , they are seeing the most dramatic increases in the death rates for americans ages 25 to 64. once again, what is going on there? keep in mind, you can call in. we want to hear from you about what is going on here. before we take more calls, let's look at some of our social media followers and what they have to say about this. here is one tweet --

host: let's go back to our phone lines into see what you think about why americans seem to be dying young at a -- alarming rates. let's go to angela, calling from texas. good morning. caller: i think a lot of it has to do with addiction. i think that addiction does stem from, you know, mental health issues. i figured out a long time ago that you don't get addicted to something. you get addicted to nothing. feel happy, you can't feel sad, you don't get excited. unfortunately, especially with the younger kids, it is so, it's really prevalent.

you get it almost anywhere. -- you know? myself, and 37 now, i went to rehab. twice. that,enever i did decide you know, i have to get sober, things are bad, things were really bad. my sponsor told me to buy a black dress. because you will be using it a lot. within six months, probably, four people died. most of it was heroin. them, you know, they liked to mix heroin and methamphetamine. you know, it's hard. it's hard to, it's hard to

accept anything whenever nothing is what you want. it columns the storm in your head. these deaths that you're talking about, where they people around your age? older, younger? they were actually younger, probably in their mid-20's. most people do decide to get andr between the ages of 34 37. that's the most typical time somebody decides to get sober. you have to want it. and it's hard. host: having been through this, for can be done more to help? is there anything to be done

that could help? caller: yeah. i think that if you walk into the er because something was wrong, you know? they need to look at that. i needed help. i'm also a schizophrenic. -- i told my husband, something's wrong. something is going wrong. something is really going wrong. i ended up getting a criminal case and i remember none of what i did. i was like -- you know? i wish i could blame that on drugs, but it's mental illness. , things in life happen and you don't know how to deal with it. start usingple do whatever from p a pressure.

told mystarted when i ,ousin something that, you know that was really big for me to share. in she said here, take this, you will feel better. and i did. so you know? people don't really take mental health seriously. they don't understand what it really does to a person. if you don't have it, if you haven't experienced it, yeah, you can see what it does. but you don't know what it's really -- what's really going on. host: let's talk to herschel, calling from cedartown, georgia. herschel, good morning. morning, thanks for taking my call. i live in a small, rural county.

there's been a lot of people who have passed away young and middle-aged. i'm a 59-year-old male. i have seen quite a bit my life. usually people who die from alcohol, car wrecks. things like that. but we have a flood of methamphetamines coming into our . i'm sure our county it's all over the country know. heroin, methamphetamines, fentanyl. that myself, but my child has had issues with it. and the otherr people, she's clear of it now, but it's amazing the number of people to go back and repeat to jail, go to the hospital, go to something and get clean. but then the relapse. until something can be done about the river of methamphetamines, fentanyl,

rolling into a small town, there isn't a lot to do it a small town in you have got to figure stuff out. drugs is not the right way to go. but around here? start andal drugs to then from there it turns into the habit and the addiction. i feel like methamphetamine is one of the worst things that has ever come into this county. herschel, i got to spend time in a small town over the thanksgiving holiday. what is the effect you are seeing in these small towns, these rural counties from these methamphetamines users? other young? which you say they are middle aged? what are you seeing exactly in these small town rural communities? tell me what you see. caller: honestly, it has progressed from say middle-aged too young and old.

i think in the paper not long was arrestedld man for methamphetamines. trafficking, too. but the trap they fall and i think is that it is so strong of an addiction that when they run out, they will do anything. we have a massive amount of siva reza goes on around here. it's all ages. it's like a black cloud that has rolled into the pleasant little country area here and just absorbed people into it. they will do anything for more of it. and now that heroin is here, they make a lot -- the police, i follow than the hallway, they make a lot of arrests and busts where i live and just one county

they just shut down a backyard meth lab with four pounds of it. coolers everywhere of solidified math -- meth. i have a three-year-old grandson and my daughter has been up and out. she is clean and, working a job, thank god for that. but these other people, i swear, some of the young people look like sundays. frank in's go to spanish fork, utah. i'm 72, but i have been involved in drugs by whole life. for a long time. got sober when i was 60. i volunteer at the local county rehab. the people i see there are in the age group you are specifically talking about.

a lot of things can be set on the subject and i'm going to try to keep it to a few specifics here, so i don't lose track. has been said on the program earlier, i think some of the isgram, some of the problem the cause of addiction and as ang to change reality activity. you know, we used to work on farms and that can of stuff and be more active. now we sit around and get paid. the healthy ones that are not addicted get -- they pay money to go to the gym. it.economy is part of technology and the changes that are happening. idleness, myself that it's the devils playground, that kind of thing. as far as a solution, i believe and iehab is helpful

believe it needs to be made available better. i volunteer at this county rehab? -- rehab. people had good union insurance, good insurance policies coming from out of state's. celebrities would come here. go the problems of addiction across all of those economic lines. being someone that has worked at a rehab, is it working? we have seen several callers this morning say that they have seen people in rehab over and over and over again. the rehab being done now, is it working for anyone? it's a very small percentage of people who are successful. but what i always stress about

rehab, you also need to go to a support group, some sort of recovery aftercare group, like aa or na, something like that in your community. a phrase called 90 meetings in 90 days. it is good to get indoctrinated with the 12 steps. everybody copies them. they are good at life exercise. it's a behavioral modification if you will avail yourself of the suggestions they say. the point is he will go to these support meetings and you start hanging around the people who are getting sober and it's very easy to go back and hang out with your old friends you were getting high with. so, when you get out of rehab, that's a big, big turning point there. for the rubber hitting the road. some people get out and od

if they have had a little taste of a program or going to some meetings, even if they relapse, as they keep coming around, you see them slowly over time, you know, start getting sober. but it is still a very small percentage that helps. you know? that actually do get sober. host: let's go to alfred calling from california. good morning. it's a complicated subject and i'm happy to hear people with more experience with regards to their personal life. i'm looking at it from a macro point of view. i think the big problem we have here is the overreliance or ,cceptance of free-market for-profit incarceration. health insurance industry that

is way overpriced. lots of money going to very few people, shortchanging education. shortchanging young people. that could go to communities, to get more recreational educational services to young people who are going to fatten the already fat cats that are the producers of the poisons that are being sent to the small towns. i'm from california, ok? i'm 68 years old. my first friend that passed away due to drugs, i was 13 at the time and he was 14. my own brother passed away as a heroin addict. have some familiarity, a lot of familiarity with this. but not like from a small town. here in california, marijuana is

legal in a think that that may be something that could help, too. believe it or not. it's a, it's, you know, it's something that is intoxicating, but not as toxic and lethal as these other drugs. in september the rand corporation hosted a discussion on the fentanyl and synthetic opioid epidemic. here the drug policy research center director explained for the government can do about curbing the epidemic. here is what he had to say. [video clip] this, looking at how things are starting to spread west of the mississippi, caring more about fentanyl in san francisco and seattle, it really seems like the problem is probably going to get worse before it gets better. i think about all of those

scenarios and slash and receive is the least likely. the federal government, and places swamped with fentanyl, we have got to consider new -- new programs for reducing exposure and we need to get creative about disrupting supply and improve monitoring and surveillance. this isn't a traditional drug epidemic, we can't treat it like one. we don't make specific recommendations or a formal cost-benefit analysis because we think the trade-offs associated with these policies will differ depending on the jurisdiction you're talking about and the resources they have. we try to make it clear that providing more access to mark and in these places, this won't solve the places -- the problem. we need to think about getting out of these markets and reducing the exposure to synthetic opioids. we offer a number of examples of this kind of outside the box thinking.

there are a number of countries where they actually saw -- prescribe pharmaceutical grade heroin to people who have tried methadone multiple times but are still using heroin. in the trials, results are good in terms of reducing the consumption of street-based heroin. also there is suggested evidence indicated it could reduce crime and improve health outcomes. at the federal level this is something we could do with pilot randomized controlled trials. even on a schedule one drug, we can do clinical research on this . imagine some of these trials in a place like philadelphia or san francisco, which has been hit hard. host: going back to our social media followers and those who are texting us this morning, let's see what they have to say.

host: let's get back to the phone lines and talk to brad, from lily, kentucky. caller: good morning. i called in. i am a young person. the general basis i guess of the that younger people

are dying at alarming rates and the cause is skewed towards the opioid crisis. ofch is certainly a part younger people buying at alarming rate it's interesting theider it at the time when american economy has never done better and is performing better for people than it ever has before. young people have more opportunities to know and experience the world in a way that it has never been available to us. turning the life away from the young people with the opioid crisis. there is a higher rate of addiction among younger people. there is now a skyrocketing rate of stds among young people. violence.ore

more guns, someone mentioned gun violence. the different causes around the different problems, not to sound but an old bible thumper, it has to do something with there is a lack or, you know, turning away, spiritually, you know? not saying for a specific religion, but spiritually we are drawing up, going cold. we have been for a long time. brad, how old are you? caller: 26. host: are you seeing people in your age group dying? kentucky is one of the areas they pointed out. well, yeah.

my personal friends, but sure, i see a lot of people my age, my community, southeastern kentucky. lots of people. as you can see, you can see it in young people. , youan see that they are know, something has gone off inside them. they don't have the reason for, you know, being. it's sad, you know? how someone can devote a ministry, whatever it may be, to reaching out there and rekindling the light. these young people, those are my people, you know? it's sad to see. when the world has never offered much, something is happening where it is not

fulfilling. it's not making it complete for us. host: president trump actually went to kentucky earlier this year, earlier this month, the last month, and he talked up the economy of the state. here is what he had to say. [video clip] >> confidence soaring, wages are rising. kentucky is thriving like never before and america is stronger than ever before.

the kentucky unemployment rate has reached the lowest point in the history of our country. that's not bad. thinking ofwe are politics, i want to let you know that coming day at 12:20 pm ,astern live on c-span, we will senator kamala harris is going to host a house party at her -- at ae in knoxville knoxville, iowa. tomorrow live on c-span and warrenorg, elizabeth will hold a town hall with students and members of the public at the university of iowa maine campus in iowa city. stay tuned to c-span for those events as well. we are once again talking about at americans are dying young an alarming rate. let's go to susan in

massachusetts to see what she has to say. good morning. caller: good morning, jesse. i help you had a nice thanksgiving. this is a really interesting topic. there have been several prior colors that made points that we resonated with me and i want to start out my comment -- about two years ago, it may have been not that far out, i was driving to work here in eastern massachusetts and i heard an interview with a notre dame based female researcher who has done exhaustive research on addiction rates and moral america and small and sort of dying rust belt type towns and cities. her research was fascinating. i guess she was a sociologist. she said that the reason communities like that are so addictionass sort of

within immediate families and extended families are the qualities that make small-town life so great in other ways. the close net families. you know? the fact that they tend to just stay among each other and interact a lot with each other because sometimes that is all and have, the immediate external families in these small towns, they all intermarry and it's that closeness. if one or two or more become addicted, the other family members are just more easily exposed to that. because of the close family bonds that make broader addiction possible. i thought that was a really interesting approach. the other thing i think is just the perfect storm of loss of economic opportunity due to the end of mining, deindustrialization that continues. and the fact that public schools

, rural and urban, just are not preparing young people for the 21st century workforce. think maybe isolation due to social media addiction and a binge watching, self isolating. i think it is harder and harder in america. the guy from california hit the nail on the head. as the wealth divide gets bigger and bigger, there are fewer and fewer public services and resources for rank-and-file americans. i think it's a perfect storm with but that notre dame researcher hit on. it's the closeness and thatdependency of families may make addiction in these rural and smaller communities more possible. ok. host: let's go to michael, calling from petersburg, virginia. michael, good morning. caller: hello? host: go ahead, michael, you are

on the air. caller: this problem has been going on for years. nothing's going to change in america. problem,alk about the but it's nothing different. they come here with big problems. everybody cheats. prostitution, drugs, everything goes on in america but they .on't want to face reality if one day they won't face reality, they will know the difference. let's look at a little bit more information on the report. this is from dr. steven wolf, of

the commonwealth center on society and health. to the phoneo back lines and talk to matthew, in

raleigh, north carolina. matthew, good morning. caller: how are you doing, sir? >> just fine, go ahead. i'm probably a special case. long story short, i served for 26 years in the military. went to combat and after 20 atrs, from kentucky, joined 17. i was in kentucky at the time, you know? i was doing some special jobs for the government. sign a nondisclosure agreement, so i have got to be very wary, but you know, rand corporation, you know, they do studies. there are studies have there. . would be interested to know because at the time of me battling a mental illness that i , in a world that,

you know, they wanted to use that as a tool, like help was you tog your arms around push you to the doorway. the kids today, at 18 years old, you know, have two sign up, you .now, for a degree program they got baby boomer mama and grandma most and daddies telling them that this is the path. of debt by$120,000 the time you are 19 years old, dropping out, 77% attrition rate. the people that i don't know, suicide being one of the leading causes, i was sat in rooms with see as a leader and i would people with their legs blown off. i would see people with, you know, that were suffering from addiction to pills that the government were putting them on to try to fix their mental

illness caused by combat. and then i would see the other side of the apple. what i mean by that is that in corporations -- not just going to blame the government and the military, but, you know, pensions being cut just right .efore, you know, the day there is stress. there's greed. you spoke about rand corp. earlier and have you ever considered the fact that the guy who is the founder actually created one of the most destructive bombs? a person that developed weapons that would destroy countries. and now they develop information and do research for the government. stakeholders are congressmen and

senators. so, i mean, they know what's going on. what's sad is people want to blame it on color, sexuality, religion. at the end of the day, it's agreed. i want to remind people to stay tuned, later this week we will be coming back to the same topic and we will talk to the person who wrote the report, the lead author of the study, director emeritus of the center .f the society this show on

tuesday. want to hear more about this study? stay tuned. -- lead author, steven wolf will be on here on tuesday. las vegas, nevada. good morning. caller: i wasn't sure that you would get it right. i call. if you look at the spelling, it's just like friend. host: thank you for correcting me. go ahead. caller: i had a sister who was hooked on a heroin from age 16 to when she died at age 52 by sharing a needle with someone she had there someone who had aids. she died in the mid-90's.

the 90's.in from she was a diabetic who had heroin. i saw it first hand and she explained to me how dangerous it was. my question to her was -- then why are you doing it? she told me that she was sick and she needed to do it. i knew how dangerous it was and i know my sister didn't want that for me. i'm here with all of these young people getting on the heroin. young, they are in their 20's. a lot of young homeless black towns, the jobs, and trump talks about these jobs that he created for black men? not in this town.

my heroin? it's the most dangerous drug. let's talk about pain. most of the time i have some pain. when it comes to prescriptions, don't take it as prescribed. i promise you, you will become addicted. i didn't get addicted because i monitor my own pills. they tell you to take these pills twice today. you need three 10 milligram work tabs. you just don't. to cornell,go calling from arizona. good morning.

good morning. i miss jazz lover. -- i'm a smooth jazz lover and there is an artist out there who has a song called sunrise. his name is rob white. one of the key themes in the song is that tomorrow doesn't come forever. for every living thing, eventually you will have a tomorrow. for the topic you are speaking about, i want to reference the fact that the president speaks about great employment. well, before the emancipation proclamation was signed, we have full employment. how do we deal with the issues of the day. family units are like grenades and dynamite. they have a pin that you can tell -- pull.

individuals need to know when something is bothering them and be able to say it and say i need to pull the pin and stop this or resolve it. if they resolve it, put the pin everywhere else can step away from them because they know they need some release time. .ynamite has nitroglycerin as it ages, it starts to leak. people who don't let things out of them, you know, but build up, eventually they become like dynamite that has aged and they go off, they are so unstable. so, what we have to do is understand that we have to provide for infants and are young children who at some point, we have to start forcing shem to become critical analyst for how they live their lives. let's talk to randy, calling from hager city, wisconsin.

good morning. .aller: good morning, c-span thank you for taking my call here. day, we were all playing in the snow, shoveling our neighbors driveways. springtime.y in the ,owing the grass, busy outside doing something that the house bothering mom and dad. a lot of people in the united states will agree on this. of high school, every male, female, no excuses, general military, you go in and .ou learn the basics you learn respect.

you learn how to take care of yourself. the constitution, saluting the flag. that's two years. when you come out, you have got free health care on the basic level for the rest of your life. probablyears you can get into a real good field. your food is always there on the plate. maybe some stay and make a career out of it. i believe that that would help this country become a lot better than what it is and we wouldn't have all of these riots and all of this other stuff than. that people are doing nowadays. host: let's talk to joseph, new

york. caller: can you hear me? host: we can. go ahead. caller: ok. the doctor who read a statement. pretty powerful. he mentioned 35 other diseases that occur or are occurring. what i want to expand on is i'm a dialysis patient, i'm 75 and i have noticed in the last three years of receiving treatments, young people coming in. nurses saying, and i kind of believe that some of that was through opioids. total kidneye not failure, but they are having their blood cleaned. , thei want to say is conversations on c-span this morning about the subject are very powerful. i look at it like everyone is contributing their experience

and getting a real well-rounded view of the situation. any situation that is not good, like this early death from everyone, you provide that. that's about all i want to say. thanks and good luck to everybody. take care of yourselves. getting early diagnosed with any disease, any troubles you have is what you all need to. host: let's get one more color in. hat is coming from plant city, florida. good morning. i would like to comment on the opioid addiction. it's a symptom of a greater disease of our society. obviously we are empire in decline. this is the result of 30 years of brainwashing. i am going to make a statement

that we all except, including myself, we are brainwashed by a corporate fascist oligarchy that uses us to serve as purchasing and consuming items that they self that we really don't need. consciousness that we all suffer from is a kind of cognitive dissonance. it's no surprise that some of us want to die as a result of the prison that we live in. this, weto come out of have to recognize what is happening. figure out ay to way to work together to overcome it. it is quite a big task. the people that suffer from depression are the ones who are the most unfair -- most aware of the reality of their lives. thank alld like to the callers who called in on this important topic this morning. coming up we talked to daniel .reeman and alan baron

both of whom have worked on past impeachment inquiries. we will talk about the impeachment process and the roles of the house and senate. later, author rosemary gibson de hospitals. this week, newsmakers introduced -- interviewed the executive director of the giffords advocacy control group. the efforts to pass new gun-control laws. the giffords group was started by gabby giffords who was shot and injured in a constituent meeting in 2011. watch today at 10:00 a.m. and six talk p.m. on c-span. >> if the senate and's president. in array checks iile blocking life-saving don't think this is a question of the impeachment inquiry distracting legislators to keep isir constituents safe, this

simply a question of priorities and what we are finding his house are presented as on the majority ran saying they would pass legislation to keep communities safe, they followed through and passed legislation. the senate and president have failed followed suit and we will keep the pressure on. each and every day come we have hundreds of staff advocates, volunteers, thousands of volunteers and supporters across the country who are pushing trump and their senators to take , but i want to be clear, i'm not hopeless at all. marathon ort of a maybe at this point an intermediate distance race. not a sprint. it's been nearly seven years since we launched giffords since the sandy hook shooting.

scenarionk we are in a where if voters continue to elevate and the voting issue, if we bought out the people who block progress that year and a half from now we could have gabby giffords standing in the rose garden with whoever the next president of united states is signing significant gun safety reforms into law. eastern, we are live with senior fellow and wall street journal columnist jason riley. black electedof officials has grown from fewer than 1500 and 1970 two more than 10,000 today. including the twice elected black president. that's the voting rights act. >> he's the author of false black power, please stop helping us. join in the live conversation with your phone calls, tweets and facebook messages. i did not :00 eastern,

university of virginia history professor sarah milo explores the prickle history of tobacco in america in her book the cigarette. she's interviewed by former fda commissioner david kessler. >> smoking at the turn the 20th century in the early 1900s was something almost un-american. it was a slice of the foreign-born and so the antismoking movement of the first two decades of the 20 century kind of road the wave of nativism and thinking about what type of behavior is appropriate for nativeborn healthy americans. >> watch book tv every weekend on c-span two. >> washington journal continues. spending thisbe hour talking about the impeachment process with two men who know the subject very well.

we will start with daniel freeman, first and could have them tell about themselves. alan. tell us little bit about yourself. what your background with impeachment. guest: my background with impeachment starts with the impeachment of chairman of the judiciary committee who hired me to do that. while i was doing that one another one came up of walter nixon. so i did those two and then there was a gap of quite a few years and then i did two more. kent,porteous and judge there have been eight judges and in fact all the convictions of impeachments involve eight judges and have had the honor of handling three of the eight. couldn't do the first one because i think it was in 1803. a little before my time. and i've been very interested in impeachment ever since then. and: tell us about yourself

what's your involvement with impeachment. guest: i worked a house judiciary committee for peter wrote dino after watergate. during watergate he created the position committee staff is the first person to have a committee parliamentarian who knew the rules cold and so i had that job and they keptred me on and in 1994 there was a landslide, a seismic shift in american clinical process and republicans took over the house. the incoming chairman of the house judiciary committee asked me if i would be willing to stay and i was the only staff person for the majority was asked to fourand i have handled impeachments, three judges and a president, i'm the procedural guy with how things are supposed to be done. -- in thise things impeachment process, the way

they are supposed to go or are we seeing some different? guest: we are seeing something different, under the constitution, the house has the sole power of impeachment and ascendance -- senate is giving the responsibility to try the impeachment. beingmpeachment is handled a little differently than any other i've worked on in that the impeachment investigation is being handled by six separate named committees , not the house judiciary committee but the intelligence committee being the lead. under the procedure that was adopted by the house under the chairmanship of the rules the several different committees to their investigation and then they submit their findings to judiciary committee, which under the house rules, has the

authority to write the actual articles or the charges of impeachment. once those six committees get their work done and sent to the judiciary committee, the judiciary committee will go through what the normal process of having potentially hearings and then actually crafting the articles of impeachment. from there, the resolution of impeachment will go to the house floor and there will be votes on the house floor on the articles of impeachment under the clinton impeachment, the judiciary committee adopted four articles of impeachment. only two were adopted by the house. after the debate on the house floor of whatever articles charging president trump with impeachable offenses, then you gather together on the house floor, you pass resolutions would provide for the naming of the managers who were actually the prosecutors and funding and then notifying the senate. than that it's a formal

procedure bring -- procedure. the managers are marched through the capital, from the house chamber to the senate chamber and the manager, the chief manager present the articles of impeachment to the senate. host: we've seen a lot of conversation around this question about ask you. the question is what is in impeachable offense. guest: let's start with the fact that impeachment is not a criminal prosecution even though it sounds like it. it is not a form of civil litigation. it is really unique. it is designed to remove from federal office, it's designed to remove from federal office people who have shown themselves or are federal officers who have shown themselves to be per their conduct of their unworthy --

youit's a sort of cleanse don't have to commit a crime, it could be for conduct doesn't amount to a crime but still renders you unworthy to continue in federal office. is it defined anywhere or is it whatever the people in congress decide it is? guest: treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. we know what treason is and we sort of know what bribery is. high crimes and misdemeanors is very interesting. the first time we encounter it is in the year 1386 in england, it's the first time it ever shows up. what's so interesting is 400 years later the constitutional convention in philadelphia

decides to import that very language into our constitution. but it's very different in the english system you could lose your head as well as your job. it could be a capital offense. and it wasn't limited to officeholders. it could be a private individual. it was run by parliament. when it came to this side of the atlantic, it was a very different process. the only results of being found guilty in an impeachment under our constitution is you are removed from your federal position and then on a separate note, the senate can bar you for holding any future position of honor or profit under the constitution. you can be barred from future federal office holding. very different than being drawn and quartered. ever barredhey someone for federal office. guest: they've done it three times and it's been controversial in the sense there's not a clear rule as to when you invoke that or don't.

the last time they did it was the very last impeachment, they barred him from holding federal office. they become aware of what is it take a two thirds vote or a simple majority in the senate. even that is kind of in the air. practice has been that a majority vote is enough. but there's a question about that. host: congress will come back in on wednesday to hold more impeachment hearings so where are we in the process in congress? guest: we are in the process, that's all i can tell you. you can listen to c-span or anyone of 42 networks jewel find out this is what's going to happen. the question is will the house proceed -- will the judiciary committee proceed to markup ended up articles of impeachment , will they go to the house floor.

everyone seems to think they will on the question is what happens in the senate. under the constitution the presiding officer in the senate is the president pro tem poor of the senate or the president of the senate who in this case is the vice president of the united states. in the case of a presidential impeachment, the founding fathers thought the vice president of the united states should be chairing a proceeding which may potentially land him with a new job. so they asked the chief justice to sit. he sat in the clinton impeachment. that job of providing test presiding over the senate is not heavy lifting because any ruling the chief justice the poseidon officer makes an be overruled by the senate and it happens rarely , but it is a full trial. every senator has to be sworn in to act as a juror and then when

all of the evidence has been presented, whether it's under a special proceeding which we used for the judges to have a several -- subcommittee or have the full senate as we did in clinton, there are final arguments made by the presidents council and by managers and then the doors get closed and alan and i will tell you, we were thrown out of the senate chamber. no one is allowed in while the senate is liberating. once the deliberations are done, than the senate comes back into session for a final roll call vote. of -- iery awesome kind hate to use that idea, but it's an on inspiring spectacle because the officer puts the question separately to each united states senator and they say -- he says house a yusor, guilty or not guilty and that each senator is required to

stand at his or her chair and say what their verdict is on each particular count and in the first impeachment we did, one of the senators had had a leg removed and he just agonizingly rose in his chair and said i say guilty. it was very moving. -- guest:of the thick one of the things we need to -- it isind, it has also a very political process. the decision to impeach is taken by the house and last time i looked, everyone in it is a politician. if you go over to the senate, the same thing is true. it's really the chief justice has a limited role when a president is involved, but essentially it's a political process and once people think that -- keep that in mind, some

of the ways in which it plays out becomes more intelligible because you are not a courtroom. you are in the house and then the senate. guest: eights -- a separate issue has been raised is what's the burden of proof. in criminal courts, it's beyond a reasonable doubt. in most civil cases it's a preponderance of the evidence. there is a middle ground which lawalled the administrative of clear and convincing evidence. every defendant in impeachment proceedings that i'm aware of is always said please use yonder reasonable doubt, the higher standard. the standard in the house of whatever aives is majority of the house thinks it ought to be and they are not bound by any particular standard in the same thing is true in the senate. there were several attempts to use beyond a reasonable doubt in

the senate nor the house, neither have ever agreed to do that. the conscience of each senator is the latest. host: this was the question i have for either one of you. is the senate or house bound by anything that a previous house or senate did in a impeachment process or can they make it up as they go along? guest: make it up as they go along may be an overstatement but the idea that they are bound the way judges typically look to precedent, it is not that rigid either buried somewhere in between. very hard to define exactly. we are going to follow something if they think it makes sense but they are not going to hesitate to overrule, and i'm the wording quotes, an earlier approach if they feel it is appropriate for particulate issue -- particular issues. host: we heard the conversation that the senate doesn't even have to hold a trial, can they just go straight to a vote?

or not even vote at all. guest: just put her in the back shelf and leave it there. if you read the constitution, but there is nothing in there that says the senate has to move on the thing once it comes over. it and letdeep six it stay there forever. guest: the answer to that is in the clinton impeachment, sender robert byrd moved to dismiss the charges. carryat motion did not and the question was asked the last time we talked about this, when can you do that? you can do that at any time but i will give you the quote from a former congressman who was a now california federal judge and he was the lead manager on the clinton impeachment and they asked him about the rules and he said in essence there are a form of rules. until the senate decides to break them and then the rules vanish.

so the only thing i can think of that is required is if they are going to vote, the only way to remove someone is to have a two thirds vote. if you do it by less than two thirds then it will be unconstitutional. limited is extremely possibility of judicial review from impeachment processes. to the judges we worked on challenge the senate process taking in a committee and the federal courts went up to the supreme court and said you are not going to be able to deal with the senate. the senate has these rules and you cannot mess around with them. what is the president's participation in this process? we heard a lot of talk about the house where the president does have lawyers in the room, he can't ask or question witnesses, what is the presidents

participation in this process in the house in the senate? is it different? is there participation. >> there is no real rulebook on this. the analogy i have with regard to the house investigation, and again these are rough analogies would be to a grand jury. they work behind closed doors, the differences they came out from behind the closed doors and put the witnesses on in public. but essentially it's a one-sided process and it should be because it's investigative. trying to figure out is there something here we have to move on or do we just get rid of it. with regard to the senate, again, i think the president certainly is entitled to participate, there is no requirement that he participate and it would certainly be wrong to bar him from having a participating role. right to the rule

which authorized the investigation and the democrats are very careful about saying the rule providing for the investigation was for these committees to continue their ongoing investigations because there's been some objection the fact the investigations weren't authorized. that thee rule it says house authorizes the committee on the judiciary to conduct proceedings and also to include procedures to allow participation for the president and his counsel. is the house is clearly contemplating that and if you got the votes, there is no reason not to let the presidents counsel make the case. host: let let some of our viewers join the conversation. we will open up our regular lines. if you are republican, we want to hear from you at 202-748-8001 , democrats, your line is 202-748-8000.

independents, call 202-748-8002 and you can always text us at 202-748-8003. we are always reading on twitter at c-span w j and facebook. i'm going to go to a quick question from one of our social media followers who wants to know how much will outside attorneys manage or control the process? guest: will they will not control the process, assuming there will be some control. and that is still up in the air. the outside attorneys will have an opportunity based on what the house rules says to participate. but controlling the process, that's up to the members of the committee. guest: one of the things that often happens in trial at the lawyers will object to the admission of a particular piece of evidence. the fact is the rules of evidence don't necessarily apply

in a impeachment process. is used toawyer who trying cases and course -- in court, this is an alien venue. of the councile but it won't be as broad as they might have in a courtroom. host: let's go to the phone lines. calling from arlington, texas on the independent line. caller: how are you doing this morning. full disclosure, i left the democratic party six years ago so i'm a true independent. i did consume about 95% of the impeachment process inquiry hearings, i was impressed with the democrats, they were very statesmanlike, they asked good questions and i was very impressed with the female ambassador who got pushed out by the trump administration. i'm troubled with this whole idea of alternate realities and

alternate facts and the sort of conspiracy theories the republican party has been pushing along with the president and his supporters. we are in dangerous grounds where you have people who nullify facts and truth and promote state run media and want constant praise and balances. they become more neofascist and authoritarian and autocrat like as the years begun -- have gone by. they started with sarah palin when she was -- when she got on the tarmac. no one checked those facts are pushed back on them. troubled with the way this president functions, his supporters function. they vaguely and sometimes overtly talk about civil war. host: have you got a question for us real quick? , there in this process is no constitutional word that says they have to have a trial

for removal, but what type of backlash do you think the republicans will see if they do decide to table a removal trial in the senate? guest: you are outside of my wheelhouse, i have no idea. , it's a political question used to tell my students i'm a guy that knows government, not politics. nobody knowsk exactly what would happen, i think the people would be concerned that these charges were not given an airing in a quasi-courtroom venue. so that both sides would have their side of the issue. but who knows. bob from's go to wisconsin on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, gentlemen. i'm a veteran and a proud

withcan and i'm disgusted this so-called impeachment process which is nothing more than vigilante injustice. , you impeachment process are mentioning that the president -- the democrats are stacking the deck is what i'm trying to get out. it's all one-sided and all for them. i have a right to go to court and defend myself, why are they letting the president event himself? thanks, i support the president, thank you. guest: there could have been ifnesses -- the president -- the president wanted to appear before the house, imagine for one second he would be told no. think some strategic decisions may have been made by the republican party that we are really not going to get sucked into this. of course they are sitting on a royal flush, they know in the senate they have the votes.

so they can sit back and not necessarily get too caught up in the process in the house. guest: the president has the media,nity to use social he has press staff, so he has plenty of opportunity to make his feelings known. but as i said, the rule governing this specifically contemplates the presidents counsel and the president being involved should they choose to do so. host: one of the things we seen a lot of discussion is about subpoenas being sent out by the house in the white house deciding to either ignore them or challenge them in court. how does that affect this process and is there a way for the house to enforce the subpoenas other than to go to court and hope a third branch of government gets involved? guest: it's a slow process, that's a problem. court, it'sgo to

just not going to happen fast enough. especially with a presidential election year coming up. couldory i guess you arrest somebody for ignoring the subpoena, there used to be and there may still be a room in the basement of the capital that they keep people, there certainly used to be. and then they would file a writ of habeas corpus and the judge would get involved again. be recalcitrant and foot dragging, you can pretty much slow the process down and slow walk it's to your advantage. guest: i concur. there is the inherent enforcement authority of congressional subpoenas and you would have to have the house find somebody in contempt of congress were refusing to comply with subpoena and then you could send out the sergeant at arms and put them in that place in the basement, that hasn't been done since 1853i think, i don't

expect it to happen now, but you never know. host: let's just assume the house wanted to try that and asked the sergeant at arms to go out and arrest someone, does the sergeant at arms have the staff or the ability to actually do that by the house speaker was to mark guest: i'm not going there. [laughter] guest: i don't know, but sergeant at arms sounds very powerful. henry from talk to michigan. what is your question. caller: first i would like to register a complaint with you, sir about the call in process that i have encountered. the effect of

either being just a bad glitch in your system or it actually sensors some call ins viewers. i have called in before, been placed on the line to get on air and then my call has mysteriously dropped. at that point i would think we should be able to call in another date, but i am restricted to 30 more days, so that in essence puts me at 60 days before i can call in. we have you on the air, do you have a question? caller: the two gentlemen talking about how we have a different process now with impeachment, i would like for them to tell that gentleman in wisconsin who called in and said , theyesident doesn't have are not giving them the right to defend himself, the president is

obstructing his major cabinet members and the people involved in this impeachment process from testifying under oath. the president could testify under oath. there are myriad documents and proof. if there was exculpatory evidence, gentlemen please let these people know, if the president had evidence that could exonerate him of these impeachment charges, would he not put them forth? and also, remember when lewandowski testified in front of the judiciary committee and alsoit assertive, did that alter the way democrats had to approach this impeachment process? the slow walking through the court systems by the trump administration, doesn't that change how this impeachment process is being handled? because in the past, other presidents who were being impeached actually turned in

documentation and they cooperated. this administration is a criminal administration that definitely does not cooperate with them. host: have previous presidents participated in the impeachment processes by handing over whatever documents the house wanted to see? guest: in the richard nixon impeachment of course it took the unanimous opinion of the united states supreme court for president nixon to submit the tape recordings that were done from the oval office included the famous one. in the clinton impeachment, there were a lot of documents that were requested that were finally submitted, so i don't know what the current administration is going to do but i expect they may wait for some judicial rulings, which as

alan said, is a slow walk. guest: i would say this with ,egards to the clinton process the report that came out. and cited her a lot of documents. material lot of turnover willingly. there to go to the supreme court to get papers and documents with that administration. so presidents have cooperated in the past with the exception of current president. of social media followers are interested in knowing about the fact that the democrats never voted according to them to start official impeachment committee, is that part of the process? does that affect this at all? guest: no. there is no requirement. rule 10 of the rules of the house the committees can induct -- conduct investigations anyplace in the united states.

voteu don't need a formal to authorize an investigation. they could have done that anyway. but subsequently this rule provides specifically for the investigation of impeachment. the originalnding allegation that wasn't authorized, clearly it is authorized now and there is nothing in the house rules that precludes any committee from doing any kind of investigations within this rule 10. guest: i think that is really a red herring and not worth spending a lot of time on. host: what role will senate majority leader mitch mcconnell of kentucky hold in the senate side of this process? we know the chief justice will as president sit of the senate for this process. what role does mitch mcconnell hold? guest: he is the ringmaster.

he will have a lot to say about how things proceed. the role of the chief justice. chief justice rehnquist when he sat in that capacity, when it was over he said i'm glad i can go back and do some real work. itis largely ceremonial, could be a little more occasionally on what comes up. if you can't look to the chief justice to run the show, i think it will be mcconnell's show essentially. guest: and mcconnell will be leading his group of republican senators when they decide how much time to spend on this, hominy witnesses to call. in the senate they had depositions. all of this will be decided by the republican leader and his people being in the majority means you get to run the show. so it's all in majority rules circumstance except for the final vote on whether to remove. host: let's talk to mike calling

from tampa, florida on the democrats line. caller: good morning. host: you are on the air, go ahead. caller: thank you. i have a concern. , obviously report anyone with a passing knowledge of the mueller report knows that this president has committed obstruction of justice, in some cases up to 10 times. this impeachment process we are going through now is just another iteration of the misbehavior of this president, and this is all i think i want an opinion from you guys, this is all because the office of legal counsel said in their opinion that a president cannot be indicted.

if he had been indicted and been forced to answer questions in the mueller report, maybe this could have been short-circuited, what is your opinion? guest: i don't know is the answer to this, but let me give the precursor. i would like to know what the legal definition of the average is. the -- robert mueller was an employee of the department of justice and because he was an employee of the department of justice, he was bound by the department of justice guidelines on whether or not the president could be impeached and the guidelines of the time and still are that a president -- sitting president cannot be indicted and alan i know has some views on that. guest: i think it's unconstitutional. guest: there is nothing in the constitution that gives the president immunity. takes a tremendous step to

without authorization from the constitution. so i think it's unconstitutional. i would be willing to argue that one. i understand nancy pelosi at some point was quoted as saying she was going to take steps to have legislation passed that would obliterate that cloak of immunity that the justice department, since when did the justice department decide things like that? that the president is immune from being prosecuted while in office. that's a very big step that should not be delegated to a department of government. guest: the supreme court has taken april merry step saying that a president is not immune from civil cases. host: but the president is not -- to to indict indictment, the justice department works for the president. guest: it shouldn't work for the president. it is part of his cabinet and yet at the same time it has a dual role of being an

independent department of government that is supposed to proceed to justice. department,tice it's not the president's pet project. now there have been time with -- when the attorney general has become -- had been put on a leash by the president, but that's not the way it is supposed to work. guest: they say justice is just ice. a little bit of heat and it melts. raymondt's talk to calling from carson city, nevada on the independent line. caller: good morning. --s not host: sorry, my apologies. caller: that's all right, i

shouldn't get upset about it. it's not my name. [laughter] host: go ahead. caller: about 10 or 20 years ago there was someone talking with the separation of church and state and the displaying of the name of god in public. shortly after was banned by a very stupid supreme court. the first school shooting started. is if yourying to say take protection away, it's your fault i guess. host: ok. here is a question i have for both of you as well. we know chief justice john roberts sitting is the present

of the senator in the impeachment process, that's his participation. can any part of this process be appealed to a federal court and overturned by a federal court? dan alluded to that earlier. some years ago i think of the 1930's, the senate got unhappy with the way impeachment trials were being held. senators would show up and then leave and there be no one there to do it. rule thatopted a provides for a committee of senators come six are publican in six democrats. they take the evidence and they don't reach a conclusion, then go to the whole senate behind the closed doors and decide. that was challenged by one of , hejudges that participated said i'm entitled to a hearing before the full senate.

they have to sit there and listen and they have to listen to all the evidence and i've been deprived of that. it went up to the supreme court , hechief justice rehnquist wrote the opinion for the court. the judges decided we are not going to get into this until the senate how they have to run their job. three of the justices hedged a little bit and said under the most extreme kind of circumstances if they try to impeach somebody for having red hair, we probably have to get into it. basically what the supreme court said is this is something that's been given over to the senate come we are not going to get into it. a question from one of our social media followers and it involves the senate as well. good hosting senators on weekend

at camp david, summing presidents have never done, the considered witness or jury tampering. can the president invite senators to camp david knowing that these will be the same people who will vote on whether he should be removed from office or not? guest: that's like my date with mariah carey. i've invited her to dinner, but she just doesn't show up. no senator has to go to camp david and i cannot imagine that anybody who is about to vote is going to take that risk unless you are a member of the republican side where you are going to be involved in participating in the trial in the senate and you want to talk to people about how it's going to go and what evidence you will use. i think it's a non-issue. i'm sure there will be members

of the press that will raise it, think that's a real hard issue. guest: this is a political process. it's not a court trial. you certainly couldn't have the equivalent kind of get together in a criminal case in a courtroom, but this is not that. iss a very different, and it at its essence political. if i can go to that point to quote from the federalist papers number 65, alexander hamilton, he was doing some writing beforehand and he said about the trial of impeachment it will connect itself to pre-existing factions and will list all of their animosities come partiality's, influence and interest on one side and the other. and in such cases there will always be the greatest dangers that the decision will be regulated more by the

comparative strengths of the parties then by real demonstration of innocence or guilt. i think that's probably valid today. guest: and i throw in another comment and asked comment from hamilton. inquestit's a national into the conduct of public men. you couldn't summit up better than that. host: we will talk to shannon from palm city, florida on the democrats line. good morning. thank you for taking my call. i really enjoyed the conversation this morning and i think you've just about hit every question i have so far. one of the things i really thought was when somebody brought up the mueller report, do either of you gentlemen have the input on how the existence of the mueller report and everything outlined could set up be used-- that could

against the president and his administration? guest: i think that ought to go to alan, he is the most experienced investigator in the senate or other outside entities have ever used. clearly a decision has been made by the house, by the democrats in the house that they will forgo the mueller report as part of this impeachment process. it is out there, it seems to have kind of withered, it is just not in play. i think they've decided to go issuesarrow with the that have been discussed and where we heard all the testimony with the ukraine. and there are two ways to try cases. a big far-reaching case and then a narrow focus case. they decided to go narrow focus.

it's a one-shot and either it's going to work or not going to work. so i think for all intents and purposes, the mueller report has kind of faded from relevance. greg froms go to midlothian, virginia. i've got two quick questions. how come they haven't brought in an independent counsel or if that's a good idea or not or will that take too long. i know with both nixon and clinton they brought in an independent counsel. the second one is if for some reason that president trump does get impeached and removed from office, at that points what can mike pence do, what role does he play in dealing with president

trump? if he hasn't committed a crime then he doesn't get pardoned but if it does rise to a level of a crime could he pardon president trump just like nixon was pardoned by ford? guest: that's the answer is the gerald ford pardon. as far as the constitution says that the president has the pardon power. so mike pence at the president would have the pardon power, except in paces of impeachment, that's in article two section two. so pens could not pardon him from the impeachment. and he wouldn't do that because if he had the authority to do that then he would basically be tossing self out of office. but as you mentioned, gerald ford pardoned richard nixon for anything he did or may have done and of course that cause a tremendous fury and may have cost ford the election. mike pence as president would then have to nominate a vice

president because as a vacancy in the presidency and then he would have to make sure that that president -- person could get firmed by -- confirmed by the house and senate. guest: i concur with what dan has just said. pence as president can certainly and i don't see any reason why he wouldn't do that, except blowback. probably cost ford being elected. host: we've heard a lot of talk during the house impeachment inquiry about outside witnesses being called in. specifically the bidens. can the senate call whatever witnesses it wants in its part of the impeachment process or is ,here a limit to who can talk

and if the senate decides to call witnesses, is this a committee process or to all 100 here these witnesses? guest: this is a presidential impeachment and the rule that alan talked about is not going to be -- we talked about the judicial impeachments, the reason they did the rule 11 committee is if you have people testifying before the full senate, there would only be two members on the floor. because of their no votes, members are doing other things. that theno requirement members be there in the senate if you're going to have witnesses. that's a decision the senate will make and that's a decision the senate will make based on what they think is best for probably their side of the aisle. guest: i think if they want to

call hunter biden, who is going to stop them? they will do it. the weapon often used in the senate as a filibuster. does that have any play in a impeachment process? two democrats have anything they can do to flow or change anything that mcconnell wants to do? guest: my sense is when you've got the votes, you've got the power, you do what you want. if the taken public opinion is a factor that they don't want to be so blatantly partial to the public resents the way the process is moving forward, but when you have the votes, you have the power. guest: i agree. host: let's take some more calls. frank from connecticut on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. i have a question that probably

the gentleman there cannot answer but it is quite alarming. and a concern. my first question is if you look at the house impeachment in cash hearings and add up the salaries of everybody involved and break it down on a per hour basis and find out how much it is costing our nation to go through this process on a per hour basis, it could be quite alarming and i'm just curious that we don't look at it that way. that's something i think we should look at as a perspective of what the cost of this particular process is going throw. ,y next question is a concern this is not a partisan thing, if the senate and the house is ever controlled by one party and the executive branch, the president, the opposite party, how can we

keep this from becoming an impeachment by convenience process? and i see that in the future whether it's democratic or republican as a real threat to the constitution. guest: on the first question about compensation, i know that at one point when we were doing the clinton impeachment, some of the staff who had been working 20 47, the calculated our salary had gone down to about $1.25 an hour based on the number of hours we were working. as far as impeachment becoming a standard way of dealing with political problems, i don't foresee that, it's a very serious process and i think most members of congress, not all, but most view it as a serious governmental responsibility and they do it as a part of the political process, an important part of the blago process.

and the ballot box is why -- how those decisions are made, not these agonizing impeachments. guest: in the history of the country there have been a total of 19 impeachments. not trials, impeachments just in the house. that is pretty good. it is not abused, it is not willy-nilly. a very serious undertaking, everybody involved in it sees it that way or they should and i think they do. the cost in the big scheme of footnote to it is a a financial statement. so i do not think -- and consider the alternative. do we want mobs in the streets shouting let's get rid of this guy the way you see in other countries? this is a bargain. i don't think the cost is exorbitant at all. as far as the second point he

was making, you are addressing that. that becauset see it sort of a heavy-duty responsibility. day there was the the vote in the house judiciary committee to impeach president richard nixon, chairman -- the chairman, after the vote on the first article when he voted aye and the committee voted to recommend, he went back to his andce in the back room burst into tears. because it we -- it was so emotional for him to of taken this momentous step. i don't think this is something done willy-nilly. host: how has this impeachment process been different from previous ones and what will future impeachment processes take what we've seen in the house right now?

have the democrats made any thates that may go over may be followed in the future and how have they done in the house compared to what other representatives done in past impeachment processes? guest: the main difference is this rule making in order the authorized six committees instead of just the judiciary. every impeachment i knew up before this has done either by having a single member of the house drop in a resolution of impeachment which is referred to the judiciary committee or having the rules committee authorized and issue a rule authorizing the committee investigation. but it's always gone straight to judiciary and in this case it is six committees have a hand in this. that is unusual. but it is still an important, heavy constitutional responsibility.

and i don't think you have seen anybody of the members of the house that i've been able to see or hear about treat this with anything other than the incredibly difficult and important constitutional responsibility it is. host: do you think the democrats have set a precedent by having such a large number of committees or do you think for future impeachment that will go back to having one committee? guest: i have no idea. it depends on what the circumstances are. this is a case where the allegations being leveled against the president relate to intelligence matters and so therefore the other committees row.an oar to it depends on what the next one is if there is a next one. i hope not. guest: let me speculate.

adam schiff, i worked with him for over a year in two impeachments when he was on house judiciary. very very smart, he is measured and does not fly off the handle. guy toeally the ideal handle a controversial thing like this. and i think at least a piece of the thinking getting him involved in this stage of an impeachment inquiry relates to his qualities and prior experience in handling impeachment. by my standards i think he did a -- he did an quite excellent job in handling this and maybe one of the considerations in having him involved. williamt's talk to calling from connecticut on the democratic line. good morning. caller: yes. host: you are on the air, go ahead. caller: this is my comment.

earlier from your guests that there is a condition of the legality ofrsus the this impeachment. and effort many times on about yourhows everyday american citizen not concerned with this impeachment process. that.truly disagree with it is a subject of the day. but the other thing i wanted to ,ay is from my point of view american citizens, every day, they are looking for justice. that ifmeans politicians have to get involved and pass a new law, we should

make it clear that no one is above the law. seriousoing to be a ofdeline for all branches judicial concerns for folks who may not have the authority of a president to make sure that they are getting the same justice that the president is getting , ist my question is this fore statutory all-time indicting the president? year if thef this president happens to not be reelected, will he -- could he face indictment then? 2024 when he leaves the white house, would he still -- with those looming indictment

still be there, should the orocrats overtake the senate be president and therefore remove the guy who is supposedly looking out for everyone, mr. barr? i just want to know, without indictment but it state -- what that indictment stay looming over his head? or does he walk away scott free? aret: different crimes different statutes of limitations, but more or less standard for many offenses, there is a five year of limitations. -- let's assume, for the moment, that the statute of limitations is about to run out. the justice department, in my view -- first of all, the rule isinst indicting a president

just a rule, not in the constitution. so you would not have that problem. that is something that could take place, if there were a serious concern that a president who had committed serious crimes was going to be barred from being prosecuted because the statute of limitations was going to run out. guest: the parallel is we have two systems, the federal system and state system. there were some discussions early on in the trump presidency that the justice department and the attorney general state of new york had worked out some kind of deal with mueller and the new york attorney general that the new york attorney general was going to retain control over most of the major indictable offenses that the

president was liable for, and the statute of limitations would be different. host: has anything in this impeachment inquiry process surprised either one of you, or is everything going as well as it can? guest: that is two different questions. has anything surprised me? with regard to what happens in politics and government, nothing surprises me. what do i think is going to happen? i think that we are going to stay tuned. geez. that is a good one. let me say this -- i watched, very closely, the testimony in the house in front of schiff. i was so impressed with the quality of the people who appeared. it made you proud to be an american. these are the nameless, faceless

people who come every day, get up and serve the country. that was a terrific, positive userise that, so often, we the term bureaucrat "-- "bureaucrat" pejoratively, but these people make the country work. dedicated public servants. smart, committed public servants pay that was a wonderful, positive experience, to see them. host: here is another question -- say the senate decides not to have a trial, which they can. say the president gets reelected and the democrats keep control of the house. can the democrats start the impeachment cory process all over again? or is it like double jeopardy? guest: it is not like double jeopardy for a very basic reason -- it is not a criminal process. a criminal process only affects

-- it is just not a crime. it is an impeachment. in fact, it was raised interestingly. hastings, a judge, had gone to trial -- he had been indicted and went to trial, and he was acquitted by the jury. nevertheless, he was impeached, tried again in the senate, and convicted in the senate to lose his job. he said wait a minute, that is double jeopardy. just for legal purposes, the 10th amendment says nor shall any person be convicted to the same offense to be put in double jeopardy for life and limb. the impeachment is only about your job. has nothing to do with life or liberty. we are not going to execute you and we are not going to take things from you. so double jeopardy does not apply. the long and short of this is he raised this issue before that sentence i dismissed this, this

is double jeopardy. the vote was 99-1. dissent was lone howard metzenbaum. i think it was a lark duty did not take it seriously. host: let's go to daniel, calling from madison, wisconsin on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. very good guests on now. the real important thing is to look at the invisible damage. caller asked about the costs of impeachment. the republicans know that already. 10.rillion divided by the rule of projection is what we have to pay attention to. it will not kick us in the head today, it will be down the road.

we need to be very conscious, the next president, to put it all in good line. and i was also proud to watch those embassy officials. my father is a 40 year military man. i know how the world operates. think 100on used to years old. technology brought it to 15 years old. it is difficult for our world to be global anymore with this type of vendor is -- with this type of invisible damage we already doing to ourselves. do you have a question for me? guest: i have a comment -- the first impeachment i worked on was pursuant to the judicial's abilities and tenure act passed in 1980. the subcommittee chairman was a meyer, whobob kasten i assume you know or knew, as he was from madison, wisconsin. but as far as projections, i do not have any. host: what do you think is going

to happen? what are your projections of what is going to happen? guest: in this impeachment? he will be impeached. i think there will be probably three articles. one based on the whole business with ukraine. the second part would probably be trying to block the impeachment process itself. and then it will go over to the , and, in a partyline vote, he will be found not guilty. that is written in the stars, at this point. host: let's take a couple more calls. chris calling from florida on the republican line. can you give us a quick question? keepr: first of all, i hearing the references to this inquiry is like a grand jury, where i liken it more to a d.a.

's office and all the prosecutors getting together to decide what charges they will bring to a grand jury. where a grand jury and impartial jury is convened where the evidence is presented to them if an indictment can go forward. that is not what is happening here. these are prosecutors talking to themselves. as far as that goes, with adam schiff, he should be impeached first camee, when he out from the whistleblower and said what the transcript was that trump says i want you to , andp dirt on the biden's he totally lied, then trump released the transcript, which was not anything close to it -- if a prosecutor were to come into court and say i have this evidence and this is what it is and it is something they manufactured, that prosecutor would definitely be removed from office, probably disbarred. but with adam schiff, it is an ok thing, i guess.

with the house rules, considering they are making them up as they go along, bringing independent counsel to question a previousdler, at hearing, did not allow the republicans to even have their time, because they wanted to use the time doing their own questioning, and nadler said you cannot question, it has to be someone from your staff -- this whole thing is running roughshod over everybody. the reason people are turning against it is it is so obvious that the democrats are looking to impeach at all costs, and it is a dangerous game down the road. one, you cannot impeach a member of the senate or the house. they have their own internal way of getting rid of somebody. the first impeachment was of a senator, and the process went to a certain point, and then he said, wait a moment, you cannot impeach a center -- senator. you cannot impeach either a senator or a member of the

house. that is just not available. i do not know what else he said. guest: if he does not like the process, people have different views about it. host: let's take one last call. jane on theo independent line. caller: i have two questions. one is is the president not entitled to the bill of rights? the second question is you are just discussing that you cannot impeach a senator, but what is the remedy for them not being above the law and getting that straight? guest: there is a rule in the senate, and it applies to the house, that you can expel any member on a two thirds vote. the senate is the judge of its

own members. the same in the house. i've been on the floor when we have expelled members of the house. so there is that remedy there. and sorry, i did not get your question. guest: i couldn't hear the first part. host: the first part was does the president have all the rights in the bill of rights when it comes to the impeachment process? -- thank you citizen, he has all the rights of the bill of rights. position, probably has more power than any of us, but the answer to the question is simply, yes. host: how long do you think the senate process will take? will it take a long time? do we expect it to last a month? if there is a trial in the senate, how long would it take? bett: i would never

anything on what the united states senate is going to do. we used to refer to the senate, when i worked at the house, as the dark side, where the legislative house bills go to die. but this is so hyper political, i do not think you can make any judgment. this could be done in about 20 minutes. or, it could take months. host: final word? guest: i had the chance to work on the house and the senate side or senator john glenn, when we had a big investigation. i have a lot of respect for the way the senate operates. i would guess this will take three or four weeks. host: we would like to think daniel freeman and alan baron being with us here for a very important discussion on impeachment in the u.s. congress. thank you so much. rosemary, we will have gibson from the hastings center to talk to us about medical shortages of prescription drugs in the united states. we will be right back.

♪ >> the impeachment inquiry hearings continue when house chair jerrymmittee nadler holds the first committee on the, focusing constitution and the history of impeachment. watch our live coverage on c-span 3. extended anler invitation for the president and his counsel to appear before the committee. read the letter to the president on our website, c-span.org/impea chment. and follow the impeachment inquiry live on c-span 3, on c-span.org, or listen live on the free c-span radio app. frank, i wanted to tell you, i hang my head in shame at the

industry, together they conquer -- particularly cronkite. their unfair reporting of these fellows. i think you ought to know that opinion, because you will be disappointed in me down the road, if i did not tell you that. i am just telling you frankly that i think the industry is wrecking all of us. >> well, that is pretty heavy-handed. you can imagine what it was like for the journalists the next day. i am sure he would not call on the journalists who offended him during the press conference. they are wrecking the country, the press are the enemy of the american people, according to president trump. the president -- the press is not the enemy of the american people. "q&a," thep on tension between american presidents and the press.

watch c-span's "q&a" tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. watch american history tv all week on c-span 3. and features this weekend. today at 6:00 p.m. eastern on oral history, from that richard nixon presidential library, hillary rodham clinton and william weld on their experience as house judiciary lawyers during the impeachment query of president nixon. >> it does fall to you, while you are in the house, to examine presidentpower by the . asas circumspect and careful john doerr was. restrain yourself from grandstanding and holding news conferences and playing to your base. whose sideay beyond

you are on or who is on your side. >> explore our nation's past on american history tv, every weekend on c-span 3. >> "washington journal" continues. >> we are back with rosemary gibson, author of "china rx: exposing the risks of america's dependence on china for medicine ." and senior advisor at the hastings center. good morning. guest: good morning. great to be here. host: tell us about drug shortages in the united states. what drugs are we talking about. what drugs are we short on? guest: in the united states of america, we have a shortage of really important medicines. this has been going on 20 years. andave had hundreds hundreds. one of the medicines and shortage right now is a really important blood thinner that hospitals use every single day. there was an article in a local newspaper about a boston

physician saying i do not know if we can do cardiac surgery two weeks from now if we do not have this product. we are walking on a very thin line. we have had shortages of chemotherapy to treat cancer in children and adults. we have had shortages -- and right now, there is a shortage of a really important antibiotic to treat a life-threatening infection. these are life and death medicine. sometimes, we cannot get them, and we are rationing. in therationing medicine united states of america. really remarkable. host: is this hyperbole or is is a real, existing problem? in washington, we hear a lot of talk from a lot of different industries saying that scott is falling here, the sky is falling their -- there. is is a real problem where people's lives are endangered danger because these drugs are not available? guest: this is the real deal. i do not take money from industry. i have no conflict of interest

that i was talking with a physician working to try to get medicines for children with rare diseases. these are not the new, innovative drugs needed. these are the old, mainstay medicines. many, many children are dying from rare diseases because we do not have basic medicine. host: how did we get here? guest: that is a long story and we will get to that. 12 years ago, there were hundreds of americans who died from dialysis, others in the hospital, because there was a shortage of this blood thinner, heparin. that happened because there was a shortage, and we were getting it from china, and china did not want to spend the money, so they put in a fake substitute for the real ingredient, and it turned out to be lethal. shortages are real. people are dying. and people suffer. if you cannot get the right antibiotics and doctors have to come up with a substitute, you

get a second-best antibiotic. that can cause a whole lot of problems. this is real. we just do not count the number of people who are harmed, because it is so hard to do that, but this is a very serious problem that affects all of us. it is not democrat or republican. it does not discriminate in any way. host: how did we get here? guest: we got here because we have stopped making, in the united states of america, many of the medicines that are vital. many of your viewers have probably taken an antibiotic let's take penicillin. we used to have penicillin plants all over this country. rees to have other antibiotic plants all over this country -- we used to have other antibiotic plants all over this country. now we have virtually nothing. if we cannot make the medicine and are relying on other countries -- this is how we lost penicillin. in the early 2000's, china dumped penicillin product on the

u.s. and global market. they made it at a really cheap price. what happened was u.s. producers couldn't compete, so that drove out all of the u.s. producers and producers around the world. and then they raised the price. if we cannot make something, and if we are dependent on another country that is applying the whole world -- it is like oil. can you imagine if lee and the world depended on china for 80% of our oil? what would that look like? that would be a problem. you would have a problem with supply and a problem with quality. that is how we got into this situation. and that chemotherapy drug -- you know why that was in shortage and had to be rationed? the food and drug administration went into the plant and found very serious problems. there were medicines that did not have will potency. they do not have the real active ingredient, which is devastating if you are a cancer patient.

some of those medicines have particles and other things in them that should not have had them, so they had to ban all those products coming from that plant. but because the fda was so concerned about a shortage, he later said he will allow some of it in. this is the situation we are here in 21st century american medicine. it is really concerning. host: you brought up the fda. i wanted to read this quote from your book. it's no in "china rx," one's job in the federal government to know who controls our drug supply. are you literally saying that there is no one responsible for the drug supply of the united states of america? guest: if there is someone who was responsible, we would not have shortages. what the fda does, and they do a good job of this -- they track what medicines are in shortage. they have a website you can go on and see what audits are in shortage right now.

reported, and doctors and pharmacists have to scramble and ration, and people can be adversely affected. that is our system now. we do not have anyone in charge of assuring that we have a full supply of medicine whenever we need it, every person, every day , in this country. that is what needs to change. and it really is a manufacturing issue. if we cannot make things anymore, if our plans have shut down, -- i went on and looked, before the show come out all the drugs on shortage on the e.a. list, and itfda turns out there are u.s. and western manufacturers stopping production of generic drugs. it says that -- discontinuing production. why is that? because they cannot compete with a lower cost of china, which is ramping up its production of generic drugs.

ourt now, about 9% of generic drugs are coming from china. that happened in just 10 years. where are we going to be? and they are ramping up quickly. so where are we going to be 10 years, 15 years from now? there will be 25%, eventually up to 80% of suppliers of our generic drugs. think of what could happen with that. host: since you brought up generic drugs, you are just talking about drugs used in surgeries. we are talking about every day, over-the-counter drugs and prescription drugs, given to americans by their doctors. so we are not just talking about drugs used for surgery, we are talking maintenance drugs as well. guest: that is right. let's take blood pressure medicine. i am sure a lot of your viewers will get calls about blood pressure medicine recalled. there was a hearing in summer at the u.s.-china economic security

review commission, and one of the commissioners, who is retired military, as a commissioner, he took a few minutes during the hearing to talk about his experience with his blood pressure medicine. he said i have three recalled blood pressure medicines. the ingredient came from china. and it had rocket fuel in it. and if i am getting medicines like this, then active duty military must be getting it. so millions of americans were affected by this. that is not something you get in a hospital. supply the hospitals may blood pressure medicine, but you go to the drugstore and pick up the blood pressure medicine, they will say we do not have that one, you will have to call your doctor and get a new prescription. this has created havoc for doctors. they do not know what to prescribe -- with so many shortages, prices have gone up. it is a really difficult situation for so many americans. host: we will open up regional

lines. that means if you are in the eastern or central time zone, we want to hear from you at (202) 748-8000. if you are in the mountain and pacific time zones, your line is (202) 748-8001. and we will open up a special line this morning -- we want to hear from medical professionals. are you seeing this shortage in your hospital, in your pharmacy, in your doctor's office? we want to hear from you. this is something you are seeing? medical professionals, call in at (202) 748-8002. and remember, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. we are always reading on social media, on twitter, @cspanwj, and on facebook, facebook.com/cspan. let's take our first caller, hanover,m pennsylvania. good morning. caller: how are you doing?

the greed that is involved with all of these companies moving out. you cannot get anything but generics now. i am diabetic, taking all kinds of stuff all my life. youlet me tell you this -- are right. you do not know exactly where this comes from or that comes from, yet they have an idea. the administration. i will not mention names -- we get stuff from canada, we get stuff from here -- that is no good. what is the difference? it is all about the greed. that is why i am on generics. i cannot afford to get lipitor. it is all about the greed. thank you, for you looking into it. it disturbed me, what you are saying. i understand you 100%. god bless you all. guest: thank you for the call.

the caller mentioned about you do not know where it is coming from. there was, about 10 years ago, a bill introduced to have country of origin legislation that would require manufacturers as where a product comes from, where medicine comes from, and that was killed immediately. nurses,umers, doctors, pharmacists, we should know where our medicines are being made. we have to do that quickly. china is ramping up production, taking a whole lot of our generic market as western generic any factories are collapsing. we have to do that quickly, or we will be in a situation where china is the predominant producer of our generic drugs. host: does our dependence on china on these medicines, is already causing some of the shortages? guest: absolutely. if we cannot make antibiotics

anymore, if we stop making ingredients for chemotherapy, if we are dependent on a single country -- once again, if we had all of the world's oil, all the country in the world had to go to china to get there oil supply or wheat or corn -- we do not do that. but that is where our medicine supply has migrated. china controls about 80% of the ingredients to make generic medicine. think about that. they make the raw materials, the chemicals, and then they turn that into what makes medicine medicine. it has been a very deliberate strategy, i really smart strategy, crafted over many years. shortage problem is we need to bring some of this manufacturing back home, so we are not dependent on a single country and have to stand in line. orthere is a global pandemic a natural disaster in china, we

will be lining up to get medicines, and china -- any country would keep those medicines to themselves. they will not send them patients and hospitals here. it is a serious problem. host: is it that the united states cannot make these medicines or that we will not? shut down a lot of manufacturing plants. with that goes the talent and skill and knowledge to know how to make them. the next 10ment, in years, where we need to capture that talent to make sure we do not lose it. here is some good news about what is happening to address shortages. there is a consortium of about 1000 hospitals, mayo clinic and others, that have been really concerned about these shortages. so they have set up a new organization, and they are doing something really smart, like anybody would do in any other market. they are looking for new suppliers and trustworthy

countries and giving them long-term contracts, paying a fair price, not a race to the bottom price. and, within one year of start up, they were able to supply their member hospitals with a really important antibiotic. one of these last resort on the life or death reticence. and the finished drug is made in a plant in ohio, and the active ingredient is coming from europe. there are are 13 other drugs in line, and more to come next year, so shortages are solvable. we do not have shortages of anything in this country -- why is it we have shortages of medicine? it is remarkable. but we are seeing hospitals turn it around. we just have to grow this exponentially. we have to do it quickly to have some of that manufacturing back here in the u.s. host: how is this not a national security issue? i assume our military needs all of these medicines that the

civilian population does. i assume they are getting the same medicines everyone else gets. how is this not a national security issue? or is it? guest: it is a huge national security issue. think of what you could do with medicines in a geopolitical context. if you control the supply of penicillin, if you are the dominant use of antibiotics, you can withhold those. you can contaminate them. you can make them look like medicine and have nothing in them. if you want to destabilize a country and demoralize a population really quickly, all you have to do is withhold medicine. like at least someone at the fda agrees with you. janet wilcox as head of the fda center for drug evaluation and research. here's what she said -- lack of reliable supply of critical medicines creates a significant risk to national security, not

just for our military but for all of our citizens. that is just what you were just talking about, right? that is right. you do not have to hack the electric grid or fire a missile to take a country down. and our military -- think of the young men and women in the south china sea on the aircraft carriers. they are looking out on an adversary and they are dependent on that adversary for basic medicines, the ingredients to make them. it is remarkable. but i am delighted, on a positive note, with "china rx" and the hearings on capitol hill, that word has gotten out, and people are now seeing this as a tremendous national security risk that we have to tend to quickly. host: back to our phone lines, let's talk jim, who comes from cheyenne, wyoming. caller: earlier, it was stated no one in the government is responsible for our drug supply. i am wondering who is responsible here.

is there anybody in the house or senate really making a concerted effort to correct this? or does china have such a powerful lobby that it is somehow depressing any political activity to correct the issue? thank you. guest: the first thing that is taking place is that there is national security reviews going on in the federal government to understand where we are vulnerable. -- at aent hearing recent hearing in a subcommittee, this topic came up. on fda provided answers where we were vulnerable. that is the first recommendation in "china rx" -- we have to know where we are vulnerable. i've been surprised, briefings i've done in many different sectors, that people are not aware of it. but that is changing. then we need a plan to escalate this, and how do we use our

procurement dollars, our taxpayer money, to support manufacturing to come back to the united states for various medicines? our military, the department of the v.a., taxpayers are spending millions of dollars a year, and some of that is going to china -- we need to bring that money back home so we can support our workers and communities here and have the security of medicine supply when we need it, every person, every time. robert,t's talk to calling from california. you are a medical professional. tell us what you are seeing. issue goingad this on for years now where we have essential medications, something had to give to people having seizures and other conditions, and it just disappears off the market we have our pharmacies scrambling to find places for it.

i am not big into regulation, but capitalism is failing, and you have companies stop making andntial medications opioids flood the market -- somebody needs to step in and find out what these drug companies' priorities are. guest: the caller is right. there is a drug to treat tuberculosis that has been in short supply, and it has been in short supply many times this is the situation we are in. foreed incentives manufacturers to come back home. you know what the root cause is? manufacturers are going out of business because we are viewing generic drugs as cheap commodities, like buying cheap t-shirts. if you and i go to the shopping mall next weekend and look for

the cheapest possible t-shirt, we will find an save $.10 on it. on adibly, this is, large-scale, how our drugs are being purchased a are looking for cheap. peoplewant to find keep, will find a. businesses are going out of business because they want a quality product. that is what we have shortages. because there are so few producers left. we need to bring that manufacturing back home, support those companies that want to do it right, pay them a fair price, and shortages will disappear. host: i want to read a bit from an editorial you wrote earlier this year about this -- over the past 30 years, a lot of drug and you factoring has been offshore. 90% ofnerics comprising the medicines americans consume, there is not a growing reliance on china for essential drugs. the u.s. no longer makes penicillin, for example, with

the last u.s. penicillin plant closing in 2004. now, the u.s. has virtually no capacity to make generic antibiotics used treat ear infections, strep throat, pneumonia, urinary tract infections, sexually chessmen it diseases, lyme disease, and other illnesses. and when the u.s. government needed to buy 20 million doses of the antibiotic doxycycline after the 2001 anthrax attacks, it turned to a european supply that sourced ingredients from china. this seems to be a huge problem. guest: it is anna norma's problem. problem.is an enormous we need to fix it quickly. it is remarkable how our dependency is accelerating. china has a plan, and industrial

policy. it has an industrial policy. they said their aim is to become the pharmacy to the world. they are on track to do exactly that. a plan and we need to do it quickly. has the tradeect battles between the united states and china during this administration have on the drug supply? has it had any? has china threatened the drug supply because of these trade battles? or has this been a completely separate issue that has nothing to do with their trade talks between the administration and china? guest: for the most part, there were no tariffs placed on medicine coming into the united states from china. but here is how trade policy and our medicine supply came together -- in 2000, we opened up free trade with china, which

meant china could sell products year to the united states without tariffs they once had, so they were cheaper here. within four years, here is what has happened to our medicine. within four years of opening free trade with china, that is when our last penicillin plant closed, when our last aspen plant closed, -- aspirin plant closed, our last vitamin c plant closed. that is when this blood thinner, necessary and surgeries called heparin, that is when companies started buying it from china. so trade policy has a profound impact. we did not protect our homeland when it came to medicine in regards to trade. we got to really do a reset on that, to ensure we have the medicines we need in our country, for national and health security. host: let's go back to the phones. let's talk to david, calling

from texas. good morning. caller: good morning. terrific topic. your guest brought up an absolutely critical issue. on, describing how this happened or how it happened specifically with the pharmaceutical industry, when , perhaps,into the wto because this is such a hot issue in life and death and easy to see, i hope it becomes part of conversation having to do with china in general. they are getting into the wto has led to this sort of scenario and other places, not just medicine hey look at the situation with rare earth metals. they control the world market on that as well, i am pretty sure. i believe they control assets and minds in this country, because they dump things in the -- for control assets and mines in this country, because they

dump rings in the will market, run everybody out of the markets, raise the rates and the price, then they control everything. they do this over and over and have done this 20 years. it is not a mystery. you mentioned lobbying a moment ago. this is one of the big reasons trump got elected. foreign lobbying -- lobbying by foreign countries should be illegal. u.s. lobbying. it is part of the first amendment, or at least it is interpreted that way. but you can ban foreign lobbying. home prices in d.c. were probably become more affordable. lookave to really take a when you have a vice president's son taking a trip on air force two and coming back with a billion-dollar deal. this is not a democrat or republican thing. this is the way the world has

worked, for hundreds of years. we are supposedly not a country with corruption problems like other countries in the world. what you're are talking about, this issue you're discussing, this life-and-death scenario -- our politicians have allowed it to happen. it is happening in plain sight, the way 70,000 manufacturing plants disappeared and all sorts of different industries. donald trump, with his policies, is willing to fight the chinese. at some point, we will get real deals made, deals that include being made to enforce the theft of intellectual property and everything else. this will go on until china is in charge of everything. guest: the caller makes a good point, that there is a playbook here. that china has used. here is how we lost our manufacturing of vitamin c.

there has been an ongoing court case, went to the supreme court. a handful of chinese companies came in and, once again, dumped really cheap ingredients to make a sore back acid, in our -- a sore back -- ascorbic acid. dad drove out all the producers in the united states and around the world. there were a handful of companies that challenged this, saying this is antitrust, against our laws. so in a federal court in brooklyn, a jury saw this for what it was. there was unequivocal evidence. there was no dispute that the chinese companies fixed prices and controlled supply of widening c to the united states. c to the united states. there was a settlement that the chinese companies had to pay. that was not the end of it. the chinese companies appealed in federal court.

here was their argument -- and the chinese government actually came in to u.s. federal court on a put in a brief, and said we required our companies, as a matter of chinese law, to fix ofices and control the supply ascorbic acid and vitamin c to the united states. we required our companies to do that, control supply. and the federal appeals court ruled in favor of the chinese companies. them toe cannot expect abide by their law and u.s. law at the same time. internationalt of comedy -- comity, neighborliness, we will overturn the jury conviction in brooklyn. across administrations of both

political parties, the department of justice sat on the sidelines. there was no one defending the american people and american businesses, to protect our ability to make a really important vitamin. this is emblematic of china's playbook. and a year and half ago, the department of justice did play -- way in, and this case was appealed to the supreme court, and there was a unanimous decision written by justice ginsburg that said that the appeals court probably put too much weight on the chinese government's assertion that it was a matter of chinese law. it has been more than a year since that decision, and the case is still pending in the appeals court in manhattan. this is the playbook here they do it with vitamin c, they can do it with anything. they can control the price and the supply of medicine and everything else.

this is where we are headed. host: we have been hearing about the problem this entire segment. what is the solution? what should be done? what should the government doing right now? what can be done immediately to stop these shortages? what can be done to stop this in the future? about we do not hear shortages of anything in the united states. why is that? because markets fix it. so this consortium of more than 1000 hospitals, they are looking for suppliers. that willy companies make a high quality product, you pay them a fair price, give them a lot of business, you have a long-term contract, so they have the incentive to invest in good manufacturing facilities and even backup. that is how you solve shortages. look for different suppliers.

i was contacted by a group of people that want to sell this blood thinner i keep talking about, heparin, that hospitals need to do surgery. without it, surgery programs will shut down. for some reason, they cannot get anyone to buy their product. and it is coming from the u.s. congress needs to investigate why products are in shortage, new suppliers coming in cannot get their product to market. the market can fix it, but we have to allow the market to fix it, and we have to view this as a national security priority. you know what has happened with our generic drugs -- they have been viewed as cheap commodity. i remember going into the grocery store, and there was a time we could get free antibiotics -- remember that? $4 supply was free, you paid for it. we cannot view our medicines as commodities. as a country, we want them to be fairly priced -- we need to view

them as a strategic asset, like we do oil, like we do food. these drug shortages are predictable. if you have a soul supplier in a country 10,000 miles away, for the whole world, of course there is going to be a shortage. it is just the way life is. suppliers, andew they are concentrated in a certain region, and if they have a history of problems in their plants, guess what? there is going to be shortages. we predict hurricanes in this country. you cannot do anything about hurricanes. we predict hurricanes, prepare -- we do not have any addiction system for shortages. we do not have a plan to prevent them. an effective have response to get in there and deal with them right away. host: let's see if we can get to couple more calls and before we wrap up the show. let's talk mary, calling from

washington, d.c. good morning. caller: good morning. i would love to have available the label made in usa or made in canada, or made someplace respectable. i do not want to be taking my standard prescription from a country where who knows -- they also manufacture fentanyl. the same for pharmacy. why can we not just have a made in so-and-so product? guest: the call is bringing up a really important point p there was a survey done 10 years ago that 95% of americans do not trust medicines from china. out, one ofrx" came the responses i would get from a lot of people was i would remember when thousands and thousands of dogs and cats died because of pet food poisoning from china. trust is everything. if we have rocket fuel in our

blood pressure medicines, it is a real problem. we need to fix it and fix it fast. part of the solution is bring some of that manufacturing back home. what congress can do, congress can provide incentives to bring some of that manufacturing back home. there are good people who want to fix this problem. we have to unleash that talent and motivation to fix it and to serve the american public and countries around the world. we are not the only ones in this situation. there was a dutch public this.sion documentary on this is a global issue. we can bring back that manufacturing, and that will revitalize communities and ring jobs back. host: is there anything you can do as a consumer, when you hear a medicine you need, whether it is a main list drug or a drug any or surgery in short supply -- is there anything you can do? guest: that is a tough one.

that is a tough one. because if hospital cannot get it and your pharmacy cannot get it, how are you going to get it? and you do not want to go on the internet. you do not want to do that. let's try diane in georgia. good morning. caller: good morning. how are you? host: i am fine. go ahead. caller: first of all, i really appreciate this commentary. my qualm is with generic drugs. i was diagnosed with high blood pressure. instead of the doctor discussing things with me about preventive care, i immediately was put on something called diovan. they switched me from that to something else. fast forward 15 years later, about three years ago, i was put called lisinopril.

it was a generic, which i did not research -- the doctors tell us things, we do not research it, we just go for it and do what the doctor says, because we have an expectation that they are in the know. about two days in, all of my respiratory systems shut down. -- my son rushed me to an er. by the time i got there, they went past triage, because everything -- my lips were swollen, my eyes were swollen, couldn't breathe. i ended up four days in the hospital in an induced coma. they literally thought i was not going to make it. now i am at a place in my life where i am looking for preventive maintenance for myself. we do not always have to go to these different drugs because we are told this does not work. we feel like a guinea pig.

we are sitting ducks, unless we do the research on our own. guest: that is a very unfortunate situation the caller talked about. that is terrifying. here is another good thing -- there is a new startup company in connecticut, an online pharmacy, and they do something unique. they test every medicine before they sell it. and they test three batches. of every medicine. lisinopril,y tested and there was significant variation in the amount of the active ingredient in these products. one of the manufacturers product had different levels of the 94%,e ingredient, some at summit 93%, others -- same company -- of over 105%. test oure to begin to generic drugs, every batch.

this is the recommendation i made when i testified to the house energy and commerce subcommittee. we are in a situation where we have to test every medicine before it is sold. smith introduced the indicating emergency drug shortages act, which would include requiring prescription drug companies to share causes of shortages and the expected duration. require them to develop contingency plans. it would give the fda authority to prioritize review of new drug applications and are the hhs and the department of soul -- deferment of homeland security to conduct risk assessment of national security threats when it comes to drugs. is this the type of thing congress should be doing? guest: those are some good steps. the reporting to the government

on your contingency plans, reporting when there may be shortages of the ingredient in your medicine -- i do not know if government reporting is going to solve the problem. here is what members of congress to do -- first, they need have accurate information. they should ask why is that chemotherapy drug in shortage? they need to get the real deal. not that we are having trouble with our suppliers. if the product was banned by the fda because it had huge issues of integrity of their product, members of congress should know that. there was a plant in china that exploded, and it exploded because the workers were not handling the chemicals right here that triggered a global shortage of an antibiotic to treat a life-threatening infection called sepsis. members of congress should know that. we have a shortage of heparin,

this blood thinner i keep going back to. of the rawuch material to make heparin from china. beinge pig publishing is decimated by a disease, so there is not the raw material last time we had a shortage, hundreds of americans died they had members of congress first need to ask or accurate information, the full story, for down the rabbit hole, on why we have these shortages. the second thing that needs to be done is let's get rid of the red tape. make it much easier for the department of defense, our military, and the v.a. to find alternative suppliers, trustworthy customers -- companies, who want to make quality netizens for our military at a fair price and sign long-term contracts for that, so our military and veterans do not have to go without. and that support that manufacturing to come back home,

revitalize communities, and bring jobs back. host: let's see if we can get one more quick call, maybe two. calling from -- caller: i just have a comment. this state of medicine is the state of everything in our country, the state of health care, education in the schools. we have a feeble congress, a criminal president, a bad environment. ofically, i am just so tired iss room is falling, -- rome falling, and i am glad two thirds of my life is over. thank you for letting me speak. host: suzanne from vancouver, washington. caller: my question is are they making our flu vaccine also? because this is ridiculous.

everything is coming from china. we know this. congress knows this. yet their portfolio for financial gain is wrapped up in china's stock. can we make you guys get off your stick, and the fda should be -- we always thought the fda was looking out for the people, but the fda is probably, you know, some corporate conglomerate, and they took away all the testing and all the areas that should be doing what we thought we were doing. we as a people need to stand up and demand that congress, all of our political -- guest: share -- sure. congress passed legislation to enable manufacturing of flu vaccines here in the united states. my understanding is that they are made here. host: we would like to thank rosemary gibson, author of "china rx: exposing the risks of america's dependence on china for medicine" for this

illuminating conversation about drug shortages in america. thank you. guest: thank you very much. host: tomorrow, we will hear from the president of the national constitution center on the impeachment process and robert costa, who will bring us the week ahead for impeachment hearings and campaign 2020. join us again tomorrow morning for another "washington journal ." ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> democratic presidential candidate senator kamala harris attends a house party today of a resident in knoxville. at 12:20 on begins c-span.

senator elizabeth warren hold a hall at the university of iowa monday. watch live coverage at 4:45 p.m. on c-span, online on, c-span.org or listen live with the free c-span radio tonight, for campaign 2020, c-span speaks with presidential candidates deval patrick and michael bennet. deval patrick talks about his background, his friendship with barack obama, and his late entry into the crowded democratic field of candidates. that thek i sensed electorate, the primary electorate was not settled. i think that has been more than confirmed in the visits i've had since announcing in new hampshire and california and nevada and iowa and south carolina. i think there is a lot of room for folks who want both an ambitious agenda and a record of delivering.

announcer: then, michael bennet on why he decided to run for president, his leadership style, and his stance on various issues. the idea of america is for people struggling to be free all over the world and it's not that we are perfect, but we are a beacon to the rest of the and i believe that reestablishing our place in the world is going to be one of the things the next president is going to have to do. announcer: watched c-span this weekend. host: joining us from berkeley, california, the executive director of different joining us -- gifford joining us to talk about gun violence. we have the legal affair staff writer and kevin johnson, justice department reported with usa today. let's begin with reminding our viewers how your group came about. >> well, i actually worked w