gisela discusses the status of the u.s.-mexico-canada trade agreement, then seth siegel talks about the safety of drinking water in the u.s.. -- electric assist consumer testing kits and privacy concerns. "washington journal" live at 7:00 eastern this morning. join the discussion. and now, more about next week's congressional agenda with more georgian leader steny hoyer and majority whip steve scalise -- minority whip steve scalise. they came to the house floor and spoke about surveillance on congressional members and the impeachment process. this is half an hour. remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. i would be happy to yield to the gentleman from maryland. >> i think the gentleman for

yielding and i apologize for a little bit of lateness, here. on monday, the house will meet for morning our debate, 2:00 p.m. for on tuesday and wednesday, the house will meet at 10:00 a.m. for morning hour debate and 2:00 p.m. for legislative business. on thursday the house will meet at 9:00 a.m. for legislative business. members are advised that votes on thursday could occur later than usual. it is now approximately 12:30 when members could get out, i want to make it clear that on next thursday, we may go later and the usual time that members are expected to leave. we will consider several bills, madam speaker, under suspension of the rules. a complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business today. the house will consider h.r. 3, the ejy la cummings lower drug

costs now act. this legislation would lower prescription drug costs for every american, every american, as well as level the playing field for american patients and taxpayers. last year, house democrats promised to lower health care costs by lowering the price of prescription drugs for the people. and we are proud to deliver on that promise this coming week. in addition, madam speaker, the house will consider h.r. 729, the coastal and great lakes communities enforcement act. this bill is a package of bipartisan legislation that protects vulnerable coastal and great lakes community impacted by the climate crisis. lastly it's possible the house will consider the ndaa conference report. other legislation is possible as well as we come to the close of this first session of the congress of the united states. i yield back. mr. scalise: i thank the gentleman for yielding back. i would like to ask, i know there were a lot of good faith gerkses that continue on the

united states-mexico-canada trade agreement, usmca. we have been having productive conversations, meetings, some potential changes that i know we're negotiating with the other countries involved as well. does the gentleman have any idea if we may be close to bringing usmca to the floor for a vote? i yield. mr. hoyer: the answer is, i hope so. as the gentleman probably know, we have made some proposals back. mr. neal has talked to representatives of the mexican government about this, and representatives of the canadian government about the enforcement issue which has been somewhat the holdup. as the gentleman knows, both the speaker and i voted for nafta. we believe that what is being worked on now is an improvement to nafta. but it's only an improvement if you can enforce its provisions. as the gentleman knows, over the last two decades plus, there's been no successful enforcement action issued under the present

nafta. when the speaker and i voted for nafta, we voted for it on the theory that it could be enforced and there's a sidebar agreement. unfortunately, as the gentleman also knows, the sidebar agreement did not lead to effective enforcement. as a result, i know that enforcement is being discussed by mr. lighthizer and i want to say we perceive mr. lighthizer as representing the administration and negotiating in good faith and as an honest broker and we are appreciative of that fact. we are now, as i understand it, don't hold me to this, but as i understand it, we are in discussions with the mexican government as to whether or not they will agree to some of the enforcement actions which implies there is a general agreement between the administration and ourselves on what should be or could be

included to affect enforcement. in answer specifically to the gentleman's question, i will be very happy if we can get agreement and bring this bill to the floor as early as next week if it's ready to come. the problem, as the gentleman knows, is there's a process that needs to be affected and -- but i will tell the gentleman that the speaker and i both would like to see this legislation , sed as soon as possible if the context, we have effective enforcement included. mr. scalise: i share the gentleman's interest in getting this passed as soon as possible. the jobs benefits to our couldn'tly, 160,000 new jobs, and better trading relationships with canada and mexico as well as the message it sends around the world, there are countries likea pan that would love to

negotiate better trade deals. this has to come first to prove we can get trade deals done. i appreciate that your side has been working with ambassador lighthizer. i don't think there's been anybody working harder and in good faith than ambassador lighthizer. hopefully we can get a final agreement we can bring to this floor and we stand ready to help deliver the votes to pass that legislation and hopefully as soon as possible so our country can get those benefits. i do want to shift gears to talk about where we are with impeachment, but specifically something that came to light just the other day when the report from chairman schiff came out, there were of course multiple hearings, public hearings, some in secret but at no time did it come up that the chairman was spying on people using phone records and subpoenaing phone records. that wasn't discussed in those conversations in the hearings. and yet in the final report, it

seemed like there was very selective targeting of certain people by the chairman in this listing of phone records that he had been subpoenaing. from what i've heard, chairman schiff has over 3,500 pages of surveillance on people. whether it's members of the press, which he did spy on members of the press, members of congress, and who knows who else. it's a real concern. a real concern that we don't know what he is doing with this, why he's doing this. sit being used for political retribution, which is a serious concern? but my question to the gentleman is, i'm not sure if you are aware of how much data there is out there, i've heard reports of 3,500 pages of phone records. how many members of the press are being spied on by chairman schiff in how many other members of congress are being spied on? and why is this going on?

is this something that the majority party condones or encouraged? or was it a surprise to you as it was to us? i yield back. mr. hoyer: i would say to the gentleman, i don't accept his premise, madam speaker that mr. schiff or the committee spied on anybody. they do have records, apparently, and the gentleman asked me how deep my knowledge is i will tell him frankly not very deep. but i do not accept his premise that either mr. schiff personally or the committee spied on people. they did receive information as a result of subpoenas and discovery with reference to what -- what was going on. what were the facts. but i would have to get greater knowledge of the information to give the gentleman a broader response than that. in terms of volume or substance.

mr. scalise: would the gentleman yield? we have expressed deep concern about this when we found out about it. it wasn't something discussed in the hearings and yet it shows up in the report. it seems to be designed in a way to seek political retribution to people at the -- that the chairman might have had disagreements with, which is an abecause of power if that's what happened. so the questions are, number one, with the press that is a serious concern. that the chairman of a committee is using federal subpoena powers to spy on our seek phone records of members of the press who have a job to do. we might not always agree or like some of the articles they write but they play an important role in our democracy and in many times they talk to people in candid discussions where they have anonymous sources. is the chairman trying to go after anonymous sources of members of the press?

how many other members of congress is the chairman spying on? this is unprecedented. i've never seen a chairman of a committee abuse their subpoena power to go after other members of congress that they have political disagreements with or members of the press that they have political disagreements with. that's over the line. it's an abuse of power. whether or not the gentleman is aware of the days, why would there shall a necessity to secretly be holding phone records of people that he will selectively leak out to punish his political enemies? that's something we ought to be concerned about. we don't know a lot because we haven't been told a lot about it . if there are 3,500 pages of phone records, we ought to know that. and what the chairman's

objectivesr we ought to know that. how many members of the press the chairman is spying on and how many other american citizens. it's a concern and i would hope the gentleman would work with us to stop this and not allow the chairman to use his power whether it's members of the press, members of congress or legal people across this country. and i would yield. mr. hoyer: the gentleman yield? mr. scalise: i yield. mr. hoyer: we do know by the fact that the president has abused his power and the gentleman does not want to speak about that. the facts were testified to in the committee. the gentleman, like the president, seeks to distract -- i reject out of hand that either mr. schiff or the committee spied on anybody. did they pursue discovery so

they could get the facts and the truth? they did. i don't know -- i'm not a member of the committee, not a member of the intelligence committee and i'm not privy to all the information that may be available, but i reject again out of hand that either the chairman or the committee spied on people. now, the gentleman has been a member of this body for some period of time and i'm sure he watched what went on in benghazi, thousands and thousands and thousands of pages received by subpoenas. cooperated by the administration, the obama administration, or mr. burton who was chairman of the government oversight committee. thousands and thousands and thousands of pages of subpoenaed evidence or information. but i will frankly, madam

speaker, look look at this information and -- because i believe it is a very serious and egregious accusation that mr. schiff or the committee spied on anybody. and they may not like the discovery process or the information that was accomplished by the discovery process. they may be upset that it did not absolve the president of the united states from clearly abusing his power as president of the united states for his personal gain. but i have no reason to believe and no evidence has been offered just a bald face assertion that somehow, madam speaker, mr. schiff spied on people. i reject that and believe that to be totally without merit. and i yield back. mr. scalise: i would hope the gentleman would work with us to get to the bottom of this.

the gentleman said he is not aware of what the chairman is doing, neither am i. but i'm concerned with what the chairman has done. and i will yield in a moment. but he selectively put in a report the names of members of the press, of members of congress who he has had political disagreements with. he didn't put the names of everybody else in there. if he has 3,500 pages of reports of phone records of people he has been spying on, he won't share all of those people that he is spying on but selectively leak out members of the press who have written articles that maybe he has zeed with. that is frightening. that is an abuse of power, but we don't know because the chairman won't share the details of what he is up to, but he did selectively put it in a report that wasn't discussed in the hearings. it raises alarps and concerns and i would hope we would get to

the bottom of it. mr. hoyer: he said he was in my position of not having a lot of information, yet he makes conclusions and assertions and accusations that are not based in fact. he continues the process argument that the republicans have made over and over and over and over again. why? because they do not want to address the facts of this case, because they do not believe correctly that the facts are on their side. so that i would hope we could move on. we'll see whether there are any facts to sustain what the republican whip has asserted. i believe there are not. but i'm not going to continue to argue process here. there will be a time in the relatively near future when we will argue substance, the constitution, the laws of this

country and our oath of office to protect and defend the constitution of our country, our national security and the integrity of our elections of the i yield. mr. scalise: we are beyond the process arguments because we are into the details and the facts have been clear that the president did not abuse his power and the president did not commit impeachable offenses. the mueller report confirmed that and even the witnesses. the witnesses that the democrats were brought forward, can you name an impeachable offense? not one. can you name bribery, after quid pro quo wasn't getting them to where they were going. can you name bribery. even the witnesses this week. why they were there, who knows, but not one of them could name any wrongdoing. but what we do know is over 100

democrats in this chamber voted for impeachment prior to the phone call with president zellens ki, voted for impeachment without any facts because that was the objective was to impeach the president because they didn't agree with the results of the 2016 election. haven't laid hopes or dreams, none of which have come to fruition and the two people that are really most pertinent are president trump and president zellens ki because they participated in the phone call and both of them said nothing wrong was done. the president thanked president trump that president obama didn't give him and he said there was no pressure and got the money for additional aid that he requested. those are the facts. and i would yield. mr. hoyer: $391 million to say he wasn't intimidated.

and the witnesses to which the republican whip referred, 75% of those witnesses, three out of four said they believed that the offenses that were testified to by some members of the white house and the national security, by an ambassador, by a deputy assistant to mr. pompeo, that mr. pompeo has said is a very credible individual, they all testified and based upon that testimony, witnesses concluded, three out of four, that, in fact, they believed the offenses that were discussed were worthy of impeachment. so i don't know what hearings the gentleman was listening to, madam speaker, but the hearings i listened to had three out of four constitutional experts saying very emphatically, that, in fact, if those facts were

true and of course we are not going to be tried here but in the united states senate, all we do in this body under the constitution is to see whether or not effectively if there is probable cause to believe that, in fact, an abuse of power occurred. the three experts who testified yesterday said it was and one expert said it was not. 75% of the experts that testified and frankly, literally, hundreds and thousands of editorial writers, op ed writers and citizens of this country have said this is an abuse of power. the senate will make that conclusion and will decide whether or not in the trial phase of this matter to indicate that the evidence is not overwhelming that was alist ted in the hearings by the intelligence committee, see no

evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. i yield. mr. scalise: the gentleman is acknowledging that they are going to pass impeachment of the president because he is saying it is going to the senate. all four witnesses this week said they had no firsthand knowledge of anything that happened and they were giving their opinions and not one of them voted for president trump but some testified that they have given money to democrat candidates for president who were running against president trump. hey were actively engaged in defeating president trump and they are giving evidence that they have seen acknowledging they have no firsthand knowledge themselves and they are biased because they are campaigning against the president but you brought them in to show they are objective witnesses.

at least under oath they acknowledged they have a political bias. all of the witnesses said they voted against the president said it was abuse of this committee to impeach a president based on him exercising his rights and following the law, which part of the law says that the gentleman from from maryland and the speaker of the house voted for that require a president of the united states prior to sending hard-earned taxpayer money to a foreign country to ensure they re rooting out corruption. the old rain -- reagan doctrine trust but verify and we determined that. and we have high confidence that the president is following through on rooting out corruption and the money was released prior to the money deadline and there was no investigation or announcement. let's keep in mind the bias of those witnesses, but ultimately

the people of this country i think are deciding this already, but the people of the country are the ones next year should select the president of the united states, not some people who have said since 2016 that they didn't like that election and are going to try to impeach the president. mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for yielding. one of the facets of this conversation always is that i believe the republican whip adopts premiseses that are not supported by the evidence. ambassador sondland, a contributor of $100,000, maybe more, to the trump campaign in 2016 appointed by president trump and sent to represent the united states abroad, testified and in fact, he heard believed that there was a

relationship between releasing visit91 million, having a at the white house to confirm the united states' continuing support for ukraine, our ally nd friend assaulted by russia, which, of course, putin is , ambassador sondland made it very clear that those were the conditions for that money being released. this is not hear say. this is not democrats, this is somebody who is a substantial supporter and apparently the whip believes that if you are a supporter of somebody else, you must have a bias. apparently now ambassador sondland had a bias for or maybe

against, because his testimony is firsthand, not hear say and that, in fact, his testimony is there was a relationship between that. now what i said, madam speaker is not what the whip -- republican whip attributed to me. what i said was, the process, not that we have made a conclusion but the process is this house under the constitution has the responsibility, if it believes and we'll see if the judiciary committee concludes that, if it believes that there's probable cause to think that either bribery was committed, an abuse of power was committed, a solicitation of a foreign government to participate in america's elections, if it concludes that, then the process is not that we make the decision, yes, those are the facts, it is to be tried in the united states senate under our

constitution. and they will then conclude like a jury in any case in our courts will conclude whether or not those facts lead to the conclusion that abuse of power was committed. so, i just want to make sure the gentleman characterizes what i said. a conclusion has not been made. what i said was, the facts seem to be pretty clear, however. there does not seem to be much difference, and the president of the united states himself gave to us and the public a -- notes of the conversation he had. by the way, i would like you to do us a by the way, i'd like yo to do us a favor. that was under the context of the president withholding money. mr. mulvaney says, it happens all the time. get over it. i don't know whether the american public will get over it or whether the house or senate

will get over it or not. but that was the attitude of mr. mulvaney. of course we did this. it's always done. get over it. we'll see what is concluded. let me -- one more point i want to make. says over 100 democrats voted. 2018 times, in 2017, in 25 2019, prior to that july phone call, articles of impeachment were filed. three times the democrats, the majority of democrats voted not to proceed and moved to table those resolutions. three times the majority of democrats voted -- there was no rush to judgment. and very frankly, prior to this

july 25 phone call, and the whistleblower having the courage to come forward and say to the inspector general, i think this is of concern, and the inspector general making a determination that, yes, this was a serious matter requiring urgent consideration, and that transmitted to here. a re that point, there was democratic party who was saying, whatever our personal feelings may be about the election, or about this president's operations in office, was that there was not sufficient evidence on which to move forward. and we were having hearings and we said, until the facts are such that we feel it is timely and appropriate to move, we would not move. so there was no rush to judgment. 2017, 2018 and 2019. rejected.

a rush to judgment. majority of democrats. i made a couple of the motions. to table. so, madam speaker, -- motions to table. so, madam speaker, we're now proceeding as our constitutional responsibility dictates that we do. and we will see what happens. but all this talk about process, all this talk about -- and i reject any assertions with respect to mr. schiff and/or the committee, is to distract. we'll focus on the facts, we'll focus on the evidence, we'll focus on what the reasonable conclusions, bationed upon that evidence, will be -- based upon that evidence, will be at some point in the future, if the judiciary committee makes that determination that they want to recommend the house considering such action. i yield back. mr. scalise: i thank the gentleman for yielding. hopefully we get to the bottom of whatever chairman schiff has done with these phone records. do want to correct the record.

ambassador sonland was asked under oath, in committee, has anyone on the planet shown any direction between a link between financial aid and investigations, anyone on the planet? and under oath he said, no. that's clear, that was on the record. so i just wanted to make that clear. look, we're going to litigate this. we're going to debate this for hours and hours. mr. hoyer: will the gentleman yield? mr. scalise: briefly i'll be happy to yield. mr. hoyer: he said he thought there was a prid pro kyo. as the gentleman -- quid pro quo. as the gentleman pointed out, he had a substantial bias. appointed by mr. trump as ambassador to the european union. his response was, to that question, i would suggest if there was a bias from these witnesses that testified yesterday, simply because they supported him, the same would apply to mr. sondland. when asked whether or not there was a quid pro quo, his answer was yes. i yield back. mr. scalise: when asked under

oath whether or not he had any evidence of any link between investigations and money, he said, no. and the bottom line is, the president, president zelensky, got the money. the quid pro quo that was being alleged didn't happen. president zelensky got the money. there were no investigations. but this will continue anyway. clearly over 100 members had made up their mind prior to the phone call. i know we're going to continue this debate over the next weeks. hopefully we get beyond it. deal with other issues. but with that, madam chair, i woul >> coming up in congress next week, the house will take up a bill to lower prescription drug costs. they will debate by wednesday. in the senate, debate and votes on executive nominations, john sullivan to be u.s. ambassador to russia replacing the current ambassador jon huntsman. and dr. stephen hahn to be fda

commissioner. >> next, former commander of u.s. nato forces in afghanistan, oneral john nicholson military and diplomatic efforts in the country. the retired four-star general spoke about leading the forces and the 41 member nato coalition in afghanistan, and how he sees to country moving forward after decades of conflict in the region.