magazine's annual issue and what is ahead this year. we will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter as well. washington journal is next. ♪ host: welcome to washington journal. on this saturday, january 11, the stage is now becoming more clear. the stage is set for the impeachment trial in the senate of president donald trump. nancy pelosi has decided to begin the process of naming impeachment trial managers to send over to the senate and is transmitted to those two articles of impeachment over to that body. that means is that the trial for this president could begin as early as this week. we want to get your thoughts on nancy pelosi's strategy up until this point and what would you -- what you would like to see in

this process. if you would like to participate ifphone, call (202) 748-8000 you a democrat. republican, call (202) 748-8001. if you are an independent, call (202) 748-8002. you can also post a comment @cspanwj, that is our twitter handle. they ride to that the speaker said that she would move forward next week on sending the articles of impeachment to the senate, setting the stage for the trial of president trump. nancy pelosi withheld the articles for several weeks as democrats sought assurances that the senate trial would include testimony from witnesses blocked by the white house. republican from kentucky made no

such guarantees and said that he mcconnell made no such guarantees. he said he would dismiss the articles against president trump if they were not sent over soon. "a dismissal as a cover-up and it deprives the american people truth,"ruth, get -- the nancy pelosi wrote. there is a lot of reaction coming into this, including this story in the washington examiner -- blunder or brilliance is the headline. mixedpeachment delay gets reviews. first here is the speaker on thursday, discussing the strategy at that point of withholding the articles. >> in the past few weeks since we have had this impasse because they will not reveal the terms of engagement, many things have

been accomplished that are collateral benefit to the discussion. they relate to -- on december 20 new emails showed that 91 minutes after trump's phone call ukrainian president, the omb requested they hold up the aid to ukraine. on december 29, there were public at about mick mulvaney's role. the alarm that the delay caused within the administration. agreement.s not an last thursday, unredacted pentagon emails expressed serious concerns from the administration about the legality of the presidents phone call. bolton announced that he would comply with subpoenas can --

compelling his testimony. others necessitate a fair trial with documents and witnesses. they do not want documents, they do not want witnesses, they may , whichd -- a dismissal is proof that they cannot clear the president of wrongdoing. was speaker pelosi on friday. she wrote this dear colleague letter, which you can read out the top of our website. asked jerry"i have nadler to be prepared to bring to the floor next week a --ement to trans and smit impeachmenticles of it to the senate.

i will be consulting with you at our tuesday house democratic caucus meeting on how we proceed. trial, everyment senator takes an oath to do impartial justice according to the constitution and laws. every senator now faces a choice -- to be loyal to the president or the constitution. no one is above the law. " our first caller is tyrone from new york. guest: i am happy that -- caller: i am happy that the democratic party, obtained the house. i hope that we obtain the senate and the white house. host: what benefit do you see in holding the articles? we also got the possibility of getting john bolton to testify. thelso found out about

dissatisfaction of some of the members of the trump administration about holding the money up. we did not know about that. there are more things that will come out. i know that because that is what this president does. he does not respect the law or the constitution. host: let's hear from todd. todd is in brentwood, california. thank you for getting up so early, todd. caller: sure. run ints are looking to december on four years of failed partisan impeachment and nothing else. usmca, the china trade deal, the space force, and a great economy -- the dow is another record high up 10,000 since donald trump took over. protest, waterl shortages -- the sanctions are taking china down. host: todd, you still there?

caller: yes sorry i am reading. trump's critics says -- say that he asked to advance his own interests, but what about adam schiff's interest? jerry nadler's interests? pelosi's own standards, partisan impeachment is divisive and yet there she asked to prevent this from reaching some kind of solution -- she is holding the nation hostage. the: here's a piece in washington examiner -- the decision of nancy pelosi to hold onto to articles of impeachment. one only subdued praise from democrats. only subdued praise from democrats, while republicans proclaimed that her plan backfired by undercutting

the urgency democrats proclaimed where the impeach trump on december 19. here is representative mark meadows, "there is no way to spin it. " her.rats defended in the washington examiner. rick is calling from indianapolis. how are you? i support what they up losey is doing 100%. because of lindsey graham there nancyll concern -- what pelosi is doing 100%. we have a career criminal in the white house. criminallong list of activities going back to the election. he hasmultiple lawsuits, been accused of 17 different

women of sexual misconduct. if the republican party condone criminal conduct's -- aren't they the party of law and order? support a- they pretty lawless president. trump voters, do us a favor and crawl back to the cage where you came from and leave a civilization alone. host: they write that mcconnell, who has been coordinating with the white house, has enough republican support to move forward without bipartisan agreement on the child's structure. under his plan, senators would wait to determine whether to include witnesses until after the trial had begun. senators would have to be present for the trial. rules, senator mcconnell said, would be similar to those in the clinton trial. there would be a.

of written questions from senators admitted through the chief justice who would subside -- they could voted to summon witnesses, which would require 51 votes to agree. there are only 47 members of the democratic caucus. we have kathy on the line from mustang, oklahoma. iller: all i have to say is think the democrats have been very deceptive and we have people watching major media that do not understand it and degree agree with what they are doing, but it is very wrong. all of the evidence should have been accumulated before the articles of impeachment were drawn. they did not want to wait for due process or the other people. they were in a dire here he -- hurry. they rushed it through. notthey want -- that is

what the senate hearing is for. the senate hearing is to hear the evidence. to see if the grounds for impeachment are valid. this remains me of the cavanaugh hearing, how they did not give kavanaugh- the hearing, how they did not -- i think the democrats have been very deceptive. i think the hate speech -- i am a supporter of our country and it is being led down the wrong path. kathy, while we have you, what would you like a child to look like? as it is in the constitution. whatever evidence they gathered in the house to be presented and vote yes or no. that is what it should be. host: brenda is calling on the

democrats line from saint stephen, south carolina. what do you make of the strategy that has been employed by speaker pelosi? caller: i agree with speaker pelosi and the strategy that she used. durham -- it is about the constitution. a lot of evidence that is being supplied now, it was not -- the president would not let anyone testify. to gathernot allowed all of the evidence that they could have. court and stuff, if they have subpoenaed him, it would have been held up. i agree with nancy pelosi. the comment i would like to make it -- everyone is saying that he will run the economy -- this is just a comment because i have four kids with college degrees. he promised to help the african-american -- he did not.

his supporters should ask the they got less money back last year. i guess they are too blind to see that. to me he only helped the rich. i have four kids with college degrees and they work three or the economynd get is good. he is not helping us at all. the african-american vote -- a lot of my family members voted for him last year because they believed what he said, but they will not this time. host: we want to hear from the president in a moment, but here is run burden on facebook. meaning speaker pelosi, must have threaded enough --ators, he writes, threatened enough senators, he in the to feel confident outcome of a trial.

another commenter writes that what losey did in withholding the articles was not a strategy, but a blunder. after all the huffing and puffing about impeachment, this is such a joke. iother commenter writes that do not know what nancy pelosi strategy is, but clearly she wants to run the senate. bolton?ot call why not allow him to testify? >> you cannot be in the white house as president in the future. andfuture presidents -- have a security advisor, -- i think you have to for the sake of the office. i would love everybody to testify. i would like mick mulvaney to testify at. i would like mike pompeo to testify. i like rick perry to testify. there are things that you cannot

do from the standpoint of executive privilege. have to maintain that. especially a national security advisor, you cannot have him explaining all of your statements about national security concerning russia, china, north korea, everything. host: that was the president sitting down with fox. it ae writes, i would call drop. nancy rules in the house, mitch in the senate. at least she has been able to draw attention to the fact that the not guilty to look particularly unconvincing. we have joel on the line from spring, texas. i really appreciate c-span. host: thank you. caller: nancy pelosi's letter to thatolleagues was rich in

her attempt to urge the republican senators in the line of debate had made an oath to constitution in the face of the farce that was conducted in the house is beyond me. how people cannot laugh at that openly, i cannot understand. that is basically what i wanted to bring up. host: thanks again. that dear colleague letter that that nancy pelosi where yesterday is on our website. you will see a big blue bar -- that nancy pelosi wrote yesterday is on our website. they -- a dismissal as a cover-up, it deprives the american people of the truth. leader mcconnell's tactics are a clear indication of the fear that he and president trump has.

couragey proud of the and patriotism exhibited by our house democratic caucus as we support and defend the constitution. that is speaker pelosi's letter. alex, ellington, vermont, you are up. vermont, you are up. caller: gosh. i listen every morning and it is a great morning. advocacye last direct programs we have left. i reach out this morning in an attempt to cross lines, to make a connection, i take think seriously, i take the listener seriously and i take the nation very seriously. --ope that my per effective perspective could add something here. i am a formal republican -- a former republican who shifted democratic after the financial

crisis. i realized that president bush for obama as a realpolitik maneuver to restore america's credibility on the world stage. the financial crisis hit like a ton of bricks and obama seemed to content to keep the economy on life-support while doing international adventures in the near east. now we have a similar imposter in the white house as obama. i jumped ship from obama in his first term because we saw clearly that he was a large dang his cabinet with people dangerous to the economy. i was up here in vermont. if you can imagine how difficult baracko speak ill of obama as a white guy in vermont -- it made me epically unpopular. thei am appealing to you in

republican party -- i used to be one of you, i like to think that i know how some of you think -- i need you guys to take a good look in the mirror and rinse out the ideology, rinse out the discussion, rinse out some of this hysteria and to this nasty stuff that we have been doing to each other. i need you to take a sharp look at the facts free from the ze of, the biased -- the ha the biased media. you will see that it was correct for and it's a pelosi to hold onto those articles to show how ethically responsible and it truly in plaque a difficult -- implacably difficult leader. i greatly appreciate your time,

but we really need republicans to take a good look in the mirror as we all need to every now and again. host: victor is calling now from vancouver, washington, republican. caller: i just wanted to say, i think that the house abused its power a little bit. i just think that they should have done a temporary injunction against trump, if they thought that he was a not allowed to hold that -- was not allowed to hold that money because there was not fraud or something like that. the house had already -- the congress had already said and the president had already signed a bill to give the money to them, so if you wanted to hold it up, i think you should have, or i think congress should have done a temporary injunction, had a code to the supreme court, and have them figure it out. because, abuse of power? -- that is not

something that gets worked out impeachment style, it is something that gets worked out in the spring court. is tammy next caller from the green river, wyoming. i am a democrat, but first i am a united states citizen. i think that nancy pelosi did the right thing. they had to hold back a little bit. until things come down in the senate. -- mitch mcconnell has his mind made up that he will not do a fair trial. host: what makes you say that about the majority leader? caller: because didn't he say that? host: that is what you heard him say? caller: yeah.

host: ok. let's move on to lou. is calling from pennsylvania, independent color. -- independent caller. understand thet strategy. i have tried to figure it out through the christmas holiday. i think the only thing she really accomplished, if she accomplished anything, is increasing the chances that she will not be second in line for the presidency. i do hope that this is a very fair --al and i mean both sides are presented. i hope it goes very quickly and we go back to governing the country. that is about it. host: thank you for calling. more reaction from capitol hill in the washington post. closeican of iowa slammed

in a staid mentor for creating unnecessary chaos with this pointless delay that may have further delayed the authorization of the u.s.-mexico-canada trade agreement. from the beginning it has been clear what the -- this hurry up and wait tactic was. we now know the answer was nothing. at the same time here is chuck schumer with reporters earlier this week with his take on the situation. [video clip] >> i think she has done a very good job and it has helped our case. let me say i am not only helpful -- helpful, but i think there is a decent chance that we will get enough republicans -- what we say, i am not only hopeful, but i think there is a decent chance that we will get enough republicans to vote for witnesses. if there are no witnesses and documents, we will have the ability at the beginning of the

trial and throughout the trial to get votes and we will get them. mcconnell will not allow any votes. i have asked him three times now -- he has rejected. i do not know why he is so intrinsic and against day -- we have to move forward and do what the constitution commands, which is a fair trial with witnesses and documents. >> have they told you that in conversation? i'm not talking -- any'm not talking about conversations i have had. i do know our public sentiment is. i know that when it is the constitution, it weighs on people shoulders differently. host: we will hear from the majority leader in a few minutes. democrat.aller is a

michael, that will happen next week. what do you make of that decision and how she has strategized up until this point? caller: just a looking at the evidence the way it is, in order to get to the truth, you have to reveal the evidence and you have to reveal testimony that is part of evidence. you have to reveal the hard facts, which was done in the house of representatives. i disagree with one of those colors saying that bribery in the impeachment charges is not briberyrs saying that in the impeachment charges is not constitutional. it is in the constitution -- it is listed there under bribery charges. that is a high crime and misdemeanor. this president is doing everything to deflect from this impeachment. it is obvious. he created this distraction over

in iran, which could end up costing this country as well as other nations. we are looked on in the world as a farce. -- a plot.i, i have she is trying to bring the truth out. donald trump, if you have nothing to hide, go testify. let the witnesses all testify. if you are exonerated, i will let you be exonerated. if you are not, let's see the truth. that is all i have to say. from west calling now palm beach in florida. democratic caller. caller: hey, what is happening? good morning. host: john, what are your thoughts? , i thinky thoughts are for the first time in a very long time, we have an actual president that is really for the american people and not

investing in foreign deals that hurt the american people. it really looks like they have never given the poor guy a break. from the beginning, it never stopped. it really -- they really look like poor losers. this is never going to go anywhere. know any better, it really looks like president trump is going to slam them in the polls. you know? most of us we really like -- we appreciate the job that he is doing and we wish she would continue doing it the way he is doing it. he would continue doing it the way he is doing it. you ask the guy a question, he answers it. when he has a rally there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people. democrats, there's a 25% of that.

at really looks like the democrats is -- it is a complete waste of money. it is completely ridiculous. i just wish that there would be some sort of fairness and honesty on both sides. , they completely overlooks the fact that joe biden and his son got millions of billions of dollars from oversea entities that -- they completely overlooked that. president trump has not done anything that any other president has done. they are just looking for a reason. we love you, president trump. host: john mentioning the president's rally, the rally in toledo the other night. you can watch that anytime you like on c-span.org. just type president trump ohio and it will come up. there is another rally coming in

wisconsin this tuesday at 8:00 eastern time. we also cut the story in the philadelphia inquirer this morning. president trump will be heating up a short town in new jersey. -- shoretown.wn jeff vanhe town of drew, who switched from the democratic party to the republican. vegas. up know from las good morning. caller: good morning, this is gino from las vegas, nevada. the only state -- this is gina from las vegas, nevada. i'm calling in to comment on what nancy pelosi did. i think she is doing a great job. -- mitchonnell: keeps

mcconnell keeps bragging about everyone they got in the courts. job inelosi did a great delaying because we found out so much information in the meantime . we got to see how trump acts i'd -- i don't even want to say it. we found out about john bolton. if she would have taken it to the courts, it would have taken months and months and months, they would have kept appealing. i think they are doing a great job. i love c-span and thank you for taking my comment. host: thank you for your participation, gina. here is mitch mcconnell now earlier this week talking with reporters at the senate trial could look at and at what point they may consider witnesses.

[video clip] >> we have the votes. once the impeachment trial has begun to pass a resolution same,ially saying -- the very similar to the 100-0 vote in the clinton trial that sets up what could best be described as a phase one, which would include the arguments from the prosecution, arguments from the defense, and then a. periodten questions -- a of it running questions. the senators are not allowed to speak during the impeachment trial. written questions submitted either to the prosecution or the defense to the chief justice. during that point -- at that point during the clinton trial, : what wasriateness of

addressed. obviously that is the most contentious part of one of these proceedings. i will be addressed at that time and not before the trial begins. host: senator mcconnell earlier this week -- he writes on twitter the question is whether the gop will allow a fair trial or stonewall. i'm not optimistic about them doing the right thing. this has not happened in a long time. this story is from the bangor, maine daily news. susan collins of maine is working with a small group of gop senators to allow in -- impeachment witnesses. she is working with this group to ensure that witnesses can be called. the story writes, in the republican led senate, the trial could start as early as next week. speak about speaker pelosi's actions. it is a high stake of end for collins.

-- it is a high-stakes event for collins. mccright suppan pressuring republicans to allow witnesses -- democrats have been pressuring republicans to allow witnesses. they voted against collins party in a 99 to acquit bill clinton win charges. theiam, cleveland -- impeachment charges. william, cleveland, go ahead. caller: do you believe in god, or allah, or do you have any faith at all? host: why do you ask that question? caller: because i want you to prove it. show it to me in black-and-white. if you can prove it, then i guess it is a fact. it is demonstrated, it is demonstrated both, and it can be

repeated. you can show it, you can prove it, but when it is just your opinion -- i believe in god, and i both -- have friends who are muslim who believe in allah and i think that is fine too. i have friends who are catholic, i have friends were baptist. the point is, that is what they choose to believe. that is our faith and that is there truth to them. that is their opinion on how they feel about their understanding. too not require them demonstrate some black-and-white fact and if i dead, they would not be able to do it. people -- a crime is a crime. ae definition of a fact is truth that can be proven. it can be demonstrated.

it can be repeated. that is a fact. that is what makes it a truth. ok, william, thank you for calling in your viewpoints. let's go to california. robert is on the line. independent color. -- independent caller. robert, are you there? one more time, do we have roberts on the line? let's try willie. willie, are you there in dayton, ohio? caller: yes sir. it nancyto comment on pelosi bringing the articles of impeachment to the senate. i am very glad that that is going to happen. it is about time that we will get our criminal president out of office. that man is a criminal. he has committed crimes and i guess it is ok with the republicans that a criminal is

leading our country and bringing us to war. i think they are so happy about that. i do not understand. we will do this for about 25 more minutes and then begin our guest to segments, including the story with -- which broke overnight. -- irans we did do it admitted earlier today that its military down to the airliner in which all 100 76 people on board perished. he blamed human error on this -- for this. hassan rouhani, the islamic republic of iran deeply regrets this disastrous mistake. i offer my sincerest condolences. this is after more than a day of pressure from around the world for them to explain exactly what had happened. the new york times -- tehran confirms that they shut down a

ukrainian passenger jet, blaming on what theyased called a sharp, unexpected turn. the person responsible for shooting down the plane will face legal consequences and the majorry will under go reforms to ensure that no other -- no such error happens again. they will give the public a full explanation. that is one of the many stories on iran out there today, which we will get to in the next couple of minutes. mike is calling from bastrop, louisiana. caller: speaker pelosi abused delaying and position the impeachment going over to the senate. she obstructed congress by doing so.

and held up the country for another five weeks, six weeks, through the holiday. that sheas so hastily had to have it presented that she could not wait for everything to go through the courts, subpoenaed through the courts for the people that she witnesses duly served to serve as witnesses. she has done everything that she is charging the president with. i think she is very hypocritical to begin with. she has certainly no prayerful catholic. host: charles calling from dalton georgia -- dalton, georgia. -- i'm sorry charles is in milton, florida. we will get to dalton in the minute.

charles, good morning. would just like to say that everyone in america is innocent until proven guilty. democrats have not proven anything. all they have proven is how ignorant they are. if you are said the same thing that mcconnell said back in the day -- thingpelosi said the same republicans are saying. nadler said the same thing, there stealing our vote -- they are stealing our vote. they just need to get over it. they are hypocrites. host: here is the washington post -- trump hits iran after -- with new sanctions after the missile attack. it is the first concrete response to the attacks this week. it was in retaliation for the u.s. air strike that killed the most powerful iranian military

commander. the u.s. tried to killed the seeing -- killed the senior iranian official in yemen. it may indicate a broader effort to delay major blow. if you move down in the camera, with the camera, rn admits downing -- iran the admits downing the airline. the rest of the top of the front page talks about iraq. pull troops out of iraq part of the ongoing negotiations they're following the vote in the iraqi parliament. there is also this interesting story in the washington journal about switzerland. swiss messages helped to defuse this crisis. hours after the u.s. strike killed soleimani, the trump administration sent an urgent back channel message to tehran -- do not escalate. it was sent via the swift embassy in iran, one of the few lines of --

in the days that followed, the white house and iranian leaders exchanged further messages, which leaders in both countries described as much more measured than the fiery rhetoric traded by politicians. retaliatory- a iranian attack that inflicted no casualties, washington in tehran seem to be stepping back from the brink of open hostilities for now. that is in the washington journal. state mikeretary of pompeo speaking to reporters during a white house briefing where they talk a little bit about the strategy involving iran. [video clip] >> what is your definition of admitted? inent. to happen, going american lives right risk, and we would have been culpably negligent had we not recommended to the president to take out

soleimani. in a briefing earlier this week -- secretary pompeo will be on the hello, the foreign -- the hill, the foreign affairs community desk committee. you can watch that hearing live on c-span3. georgia,ve dalton, good morning. caller: first of all, i would thatto ask why your people takes the oncoming calls asks exactly what you are going to say -- she wanted to know every word that i was going to say before i came on. i do not understand that. i wanted to make a comment. an impartials was free thing to talk. host: it is, donna, i can assure you. the reason they would ask you

what you want to talk about is to make sure the colors are on topics that we can stand topic. we are not making decisions on who comes on the show based on that. caller: i told her i was wanting to talk about what the today.ion impeachment she asked, "what exactly are you going to say?" i have free speech if i'm going to talk on your show, right? host: thank you for your point, donna. would you like to continue? caller: yes, i would like to say the impeachment on the ,epublican side seems to be "let's take care of the president the matter what he has done. no matter what he has done, let's take care of him. we will be his judge, jury, executioner -- which, he will have none, and the democratic

part will not be able to put in are supposed to be part of the impeachment articles." and also i would like to say sayingde trump keeps lock her up at his rallies. --lary clinton the department of justice said nothing was found and joe biden has been exonerated on anything that he had done. pulldent trump wants to irani andnow to the conflict that he started -- iranian conflict that he started. we know what he did. not blind.

we should be able to hear the full truth and do nothing but the truth about what is going on because we are the taxpayers of why are theyand trying to hide things from us? that is the way it is going to go down. do not hide any witnesses, do not let the people see anything -- nothing. soleimani -- he cannot tell us, some of the republicans have worst meetinge they had ever had for foreign affairs. he could not give them anything. is a hidden secret, we do not want to talk about it." people are not stupid. thank you for letting me talk. host: diane is calling from kentucky.

what is the name of your town? caller: it is outside of bowling green, kentucky. i have listen to these people and i hear a lot of -- they start out with the american public really believes that trump is bad, and the american public believes this and that. i do not believe that. i believe trump is a good president. i believe that he tried to withhold the money that went to ukraine because he did not want money to go to a corrupt country. the people that keep telling everybody that he is a bad guy do not -- may be they are not benefiting from the fact that our country is doing a pretty good job of helping its people out. in iran, there are people hanging in the streets that their military kills to show fear. the people that impeached the

president want witnesses, yet there -- when their witnesses came up that were for the president, they do not let them talk. they impeached the president on votedlines and they were against on both parties. thank you for your participation in the program. just a little bit more than 10 minutes left. now thathere we are -- speaker pelosi has written that dear colleague letter, we expect the house to come in next week and take a short boat. they will formally name their impeachment managers for the trial and formally transmit the articles of impeachment to the senate. what happens then, basically, about a day later is that the senate could begin a trial where president trump could begin mid

to late next week. you can see the house action, the final have section here on c-span, than the full senate trial on our companion network c-span2. the preside are will be the chief justice of the united states. ider will bethe pres the chief justice of the united states. the is from 1999 during impeachment trial of bill clinton. he will see them walking in, just to give you a taste what it was like. chief justice request was ultimately signed and by strom thurmond. -- rehnquist was ultimately signed in by strom thurmond. here's a look. [video clip]

>> pleased to welcome you. >> senators, in conformity with your notice -- senators, i have assembled to the senate in conformity with your notice and i am now ready to take the oath. >> place your left hand on the bible in raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the ofal of the impeachment william jefferson clinton, president of the united states now pending you will do impartial justice according to the constitution and laws so help you god? >> i do. january 7, 1999. roberts would be presiding over the trial of donald trump. npr.org reminds us that chief justice roberts may have more prestige than actual power.

it says that the chief justice shall preside over the senate trial of a president. those who envision a powerful role for roberts point to the rules who -- that allow him to make all decisions on questions. in theory that might enable roberts to rule on motions from the house managers seeking to compel testimony. it is the senators themselves who have the first and the last word. they establish the procedures for the trial and can by majority vote overturn any of the justices rulings. his powerlessness was driven home by chief justice request at the beginning of president bill senate impeachment trial in 99. asked how to turn his microphone on, the reply was "you do not."

calling. -- mike is a calling. caller: i have heard decorated soldiers and lifetime politicians who have laid damming evidence against donald ng evidencemni against donald trump. the republican party does not want to hear that. they say that donald trump was looking after corruption when in '18 he gave money to the ukrainians without worrying about corruption. theuption is on the part -- corruption is on the part of the republican party and donald trump. when the republican party is so afraid of donald trump and being voted out, that they do not want to know what the truth is, we

have a big problem in this country. showed aump, you just recording of him saying that he , the the people to testify subpoena doctors who are criminals because if he dodges a subpoena makes you a criminal, but he really does not one that to happen. he did the same thing with the mueller report. he kept screaming and crying how he could not wait to testify, and then he testified in writing. that 50 questions he said he did not remember, or did not know. only answered 11 questions. the same thing will happen here. we will not get to hear the truth because the republican party does not want to donald trump impeached. i think that if we do not have

witnesses, and we do not get the articles that have been held up, and we are doing a great damage to our country and we deserve to hear from all of the witnesses that have dodged subpoenas, so we can know the truth in our country. host: let's hear from kenneth now in over 10, nebraska. good morning. i'm sorry, kenneth, you're in --raska caller: mitch mcconnell cannot -- i'm sorry, kenneth, you are in -- -- knowing i'm sorry, kenneth, you are in arkansas. caller: mitch mcconnell -- how

can mitch mcconnell oversee this trial when his wife works for the defendant? a conflict and the whole world is watching our justice system. these people dodged subpoenas. if i had been survey subpoena -- served a subpoena, i have to be there. the world is watching our justice system. we regular citizens like us, have to go ahead and follow the law. mitch mcconnell should not be over this trial. his wife works for the president. have a good day. host: thank you for your participation in the program. if you have not heard, there is thefewer candidate again on democrat side. marianne williamson has ended her campaign for president. she is a spiritual advisor, started --

she announced that she would drop out of the race. she said she would -- did not want to get in the way of the progressive candidates competing in a tight contest. sanders moves ahead of democratic rivals in iowa, making a point that bernie sanders has edged ahead in iowa. the polls show that mr. sanders was the first joints of 20% of what the caucus-goers if i percent increase from november. 5% increase from november. joe biden is at 15 percent. that is also from the new york times. politico ties the presidential race to money. they're making the point that mike bloomberg and tom steyer's spending binges are starting to pay off. there are the wealthiest people in the race. tom steyer's campaign has had -- a testd to the look of

mike bloomberg, who entered the race, it was the same. suddenly their millions are getting them somewhere. -- tom steyer's ads have lifted him to new heights. meanwhile bloomberg has spent millions in california. boosting him to fifth place in national polls. coverageign 2020 continues today. we will have live coverage of andrew yang, the entrepreneur in bedford, new hampshire. that is live today at 1:00 p.m. eastern. tomorrow senator bennett will be in bedford, new hampshire as well. that will be at 3:00 p.m. eastern. he will be at a house party in bedford. 2020 coverage continues here on

c-span. jerry is calling from over, nebraska. caller: i just hope the next time -- jerry is calling from overton, nebraska. caller: i hope the next time there is a democratic president, the democrats remember what they put this president through. host: dallas is calling from dexter. hello, dallas. caller: hello. independent. i am a retired person. i have time on my hands. i watch essentially every minute of that impeachment hearing. democrats made an adequate case to impeach. in fact, they did impeach president trump and he will always be impeached.

happened that congress took a vacation and the democrats decided that they were going to put pressure on mr. mcconnell because mr. mcconnell said, "i am going to give mr. trump exactly what he wants and that is to be acquitted and it refused to provide any witnesses. the democrats took that time to point out the situation and made it plain what the republicans are up to, so all the republicans can do is either say done and going back to new york or he is going to stay and finish out his term." that is really all i have got to say about that. host: thank you for everybody who called in to send comments and either by text or twitter or facebook.

we have two hours left in this saturday addition of washington journal. we will talk more about iran a moment. jaffer will join us in a moment to talk about iranian cyber threats against the u.s. government as well as -- daniel franklin will join us. he is with the economist. he will talk about his magazine's annual issue and what is to come in the year 2020. plenty more time for your calls. you're watching washington journal for this saturday. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ >> the impeachment of president trump. next week, the house will vote on impeachment managers, sending the articles of impeachment to

the senate. follow the process live on c-span. on-demand at c-span.org/ impeachment, and lesson on the free radio app. our campaign 2020 covered continues. live today at 1:00 p.m. eastern with andrew yang in new hampshire and on sunday at 3:00 p.m. eastern with michael bennet in bedford and at 4:15 eastern, pete buttigieg from las vegas 2, on tuesday on c-span president donald trump in milwaukee at a keep america great rally. watch our coverage on c-span and c-span 2 or listen on the go .ith the free radio app >> right now, we are in the twilight zone in between and part of this is the constitution

is more specific about impeachment that it is about most things. it doesn't say everything and it leads this question as to when will articles of impeachment be presented? to whom, how? in the past, it has gone quickly. as i mentioned with the clinton trial, the senate was not even .n session i am not sure i would use the --d leverage, but >> donald ritchie on the history of senate impeachment trials. pleaseight on c-span's q&a. by. --on c-span's

host: joining us is jamil jaffer. we will get started talking about cybersecurity. guest: it was started by keith alexander. we do cyber defense, so we look --behavioral threats on not just one company, but an ecosystem. host: let's talk about cyber defense. we saw the commentary piece you wrote, iranian cyber attacks are coming. considering where we are in this situation, what are you expecting in the area of cyber attacks? a the it looks like escalatory -- de

situation. we responded with the death of emstom soleimani -- qass soleimani and then they had a debate internally. how big do we go. my assessment was they would come back with a response, but it would not be so big as to provoke further response from the united states and that is exactly what we saw. we saw them come back with a missile attack on u.s. facilities, but done in a way either intentionally or partially intentionally to avoid a big u.s. response. that was a smart move. now the question is what are they going to do next? do they think further response is necessary or will they conduct our level attacks and one of the things we think

remains is the cyber arena. you can dynamically adjust how tough you are being in cyberspace and you can do things that are nuisances. denial of service attacks, slow things down and you can go in data.stroy it is not as binary as blowing up a building, launching a missile, the like. host: we are talking about iran's cyber capabilities. our guest was white house associate counsel to president bush and worked for the house intelligence committee, the senate foreign relations committee, clerk for neil gorsuch in 2017 and here is -- he is here to talk about cyber capabilities. let's do some 101. what is a cyberattack? how do something like that work? how would it originate in a place like iran and who would

the targets be? challenges isthe we use it to describe a lot of things. it can be used to describe the acts of a thief who goes in and tries to steal credit card data or somebody going into conduct surveillance. it can be used to describe somebody who lets you destroy data and break your computer system and make it unusable or do something more aggressive. we use it to describe a lot of things. people get confused. was this a cyberattack? was this hacking? was it theft? in this array, we are talking about nationstate cyber activities in order to achieve a strategic tactical goal, something that has to do with foreign relations or the like. collectinto intelligence, that is the most common type of cyber activity,

breaking into a computer system of your enemy. in the case of iran, the united states and russia and the united states and the united states does the same thing. we go after nationstates to learn what their plans might be. that is one colloquial term we .se on the low end they went into a slot machine and they were able to obtain credentials and went into the main las vegas credentials. they were not able to get into the gaming systems or change the results of a game, but they got information about who was staying in the hotel, delete data, make computers unusable

and that was in 2014. it is about a decision of a nationstate to act. we know nationstates make mistakes. we saw that happen tragically in the case of the ukrainian airliner the iranians shot down. there is serious risk of miscalculation. that is something we might want to talk about. host: that may read the phone number so folks can call in for jamil jaffer. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents 202-748-8002. facebook postings, we will read for everyone else. i thought i read there may be as many as 10,000 attempts every

.inute by iran put that in perspective for us. guest: one of the things about doing things on computer systems all of thesetomate activities. take data out without people knowing or manipulate data so people do not know it has been modified. there you probably want someone on a keyboard working on it. a lot of cyber attacks, we talk about a range of things. toot of those are attempts slow things down, distributed denial of service attacks. where they take control of a number of devices, whether your own ios devices or your thermostat and control devices in an effort to put pressure on another device. basically a lot of, i am here,

talk to me. if you have 1000 voices coming in, that slows things down. i don't know if you have been watching your tv and think slow .own and start getting grainy that is because there is traffic and noise on the internet. a d dos attack does that intentionally to slow things down. host: tell us more about what happens inside iran. devoted to allis of this? iran has a strong military. we saw that in the 1980's. , me and the north players weree top us, the chinese, the russians, even the french and israelis were good about this capability.

the iranians were an up-and-coming player. .e have seen them up their game the reason that matters in cyberspace is because like we were talking about earlier, using missiles, using bombs is a binary situation and you get yourself in a lot of trouble. there for a while before you take action and you can ratchet up and down what you are going. with iranians and north koreans, who are less the terrible -- eterable, were less likely to use traditional tools to affect their behavior and they may see cyber as a way of using an asymmetric tool. they don't have to put their full military against us.

their goal is to test the boundaries with the united states, see how far they can go, push as far as we can and remain at that level of activity. tens of millions of dollars to this effort and in cyber, they made a commitment and have been successful. host: are there any particular cases you can point to we might remember from watching the news where they were successful with a cyberattack against this country? guest: we talked about the attack against the casino in las vegas. there are also well-known ddos attacks against u.s. banks. these are more historic. more recently, we have seen a lot of activity around iran looking at dissidents and the part of the iranians who have left iran. there is a lot here in the united states and many of them are opposed to the regime.

they left in 1979 and they are opposed to the current revolutionary regime so we have seen a lot of activity about iran following researchers, academics,- activists in the united states and those are upsetting and we have seen indictments talking about activities to get into american structure. we saw an effort to get into a .am in new jersey, new york that shows an interest in what the powerrt of infrastructure and that means they are trying to create a capability to stay in for a long time and potentially take action. we don't see them taking action now, but there has been a lot of reporting about russian activities when it comes to american critical infrastructure. we think this attempt might have been a mistake. it might have been a case of mistaken identity.

we think they may have been trying to go into a dam at the -- in another part of the country. it is a concern and something we need to keep a close eye on. host: let's get a call in for our guest. william from pennsylvania. independent caller. good morning. caller: good morning. you sound like a trump hack. that is what you sound like. russia is more than -- of a threat than iran. we have an election coming up soon and we don't want to go through the same balderdash we went through before. guest: i think the caller raises a great point. you are exactly right, the russians are a huge threat to the united states. there are active efforts to undermine the elections in 2016

and our confidence in our electoral system and rule of law, the fbi, our intelligence agencies, the cia and the like. they are likely to target the 2020 elections. we need to be vigilant and stop that activity and you are right to say the president has failed by not calling out that activity and by not addressing that very serious concern. i think the u.s. government has taken serious action to address it. the department of homeland security with the cyber agency within dhs, they are doing a lot of work with the states to get them to up their game and be prepared. elections are primarily bound by the states, so we have to work with the states to do this. one thing states might think about doing is working together with one another, sharing information in real-time about cyber threats coming together.

dhs has taken substeps in that direction. a lot more can done and as we lead up to this election with russians targeting our country and maybe even other nations like the chinese trying to manipulate the views of americans and the conversation in this country, they did it successfully. if i am in russia right now, i am thinking we have done a great job and really succeeded. republicans, democrats are chairing -- are tearing each other apart. democrat-controlled house and republican-controlled senate is unable to function effectively. the work of the american people is not getting done and that is due to the fight amongst ourselves the russians have generated. host: bruce in michigan, republican. caller: how are you doing today? i have a concern about the internet of all things in cyber security. i was reading an article in the free paris -- press and they

said just like computers can be hacked, these driverless cars are like computers and they can actually -- a terrorist could hack the cars so they would all disable their brakes and increase their accelerator. thatuld do so much carnage i don't understand why we are going to this internet of all things. it seems to make us more apt to be attacked. what do you think about that? host: guest: thank you. there are definitely concerns about the huge explosion in connected devices we are using. i walked into this room with an ipad, iphone, smartwatch. at my house i have a nest thermostat and cameras and alarm systems and alexa devices. we all have -- even our refrigerators are talking to us now. you are exactly right to raise the point about all these

connected devices and the fact they may have vulnerabilities and they all access the internet to give us that benefit. there are a lot of benefits smart devices have given us. i was in an uber with someone yesterday with a tesla and his got anr in his car update -- it is amazing the benefits and that is a small -- perhaps not so important benefit, but perhaps the benefits we gain from this technology insertion into our economy and the conductivity at the same time does introduce vulnerabilities. it is something we have to be on top of, so manufacturers need to work together to think about a secure development lifecycle as they develop code, in a way that addresses security. cyber defense is important. we have an interesting theory about cyber defense. when it comes to defending our

country and institutions and companies and people, we typically think it is the job of the u.s. company. we don't expect target or walmart to have search to air missiles to protect against bombers. it would be too expensive to do that and if they did that, you create the risk of miscalculation. in cyberspace, the situation is flipped on its head. we expect companies and individuals, small businesses, large businesses to defend against hackers, criminal gangs and nationstates and when you think about it, target and walmart are not in the business of cyber defense. they cannot be expected to defend one individual against the whole nation state with unlimited resources. one of the things we have been talking about a lot is the need come togetherto to share information and collect

with one another across industries and work with the government to defend the nation and that is a really important cost -- concept. host: what does the government's cyber defense posture, structure look like to the extent you can explain? guest: in the middle of the obama administration, the secretary of defense said it is the role and responsibility of the bargain of defense to defend the nation in cyberspace. the challenge is the defense department does not have the authority, does not have the budget to do that correct an important mission. .e created u.s. cyber command they have leverage to defend the nation and take the fight to the enemies overseas. cyber command cannot see what is happening across the bulk of the u.s. internet because the bulk of it is owned by the private sector and that is as it should

be. we don't expect to have nsa or cyber command patrolling the boundaries. they have to be able to see what they don't see. they cannot defend what they don't see, so sharing information for the purposes of national defense can be important and something we ought to do as a nation. short of that, the government can do more to work with industry. we see that through dhs and nsa and cyber command, but we need to do more. anthere is, at some point, effort by a nationstate to do something more aggressive in cyberspace, i think the american people will look around and say you knew about this threat, what were you doing? it is important for industry and government to get on the same page. one of the challenges we have is there have spent -- there has been a lack of trust. we need to rebuild the trust and get to the point where we are sharing information, working

together tightly coupled together government and industry. host: our guest is jamil jaffer, founder of the national security institute at george mason university's law school and vice president of iron net cybersecurity. we have a call from rhonda. thank you for waiting, you are .n with mr. jaffer caller: good morning. happy new year, america. my fear with this war escalation and cybersecurity has me with almost like ptsd. i am a mess because of this whole escalation, the 200 children that were killed by accident. doesn't even have the backup that we as the united states have to protect ourselves .

i am trying to say they are careless. they don't have the people we have here, so we don't make .istakes that aren't precise i am just terrified. i am not worried about them hacking my computer, i am worried about the electrical ands and our nuclear plants things like that. this is not funny and we need to take it down. we have to take the whole temperature down. they need to put people in there to help trump and his national security team. ngpublicans are really pissi me off instead of helping drum, they are watching our country go down in the toilet. half of the people in the white house, positions are unfilled. arek kushner and ivanka running our national security.

this is crazy and we have to do something. they have to help trump and go in there and stop talking about him. let's stop talking about him and let's start helping him. let's stop this impeachment. i am tired of it. guest: rhonda raises an important point, which is that the president has his national security team that is weakened by a lot of departures. we have people in place that can help the president make important decisions and i think rhonda raises an important point about this question of how we stop the iranians from making a mistake. how do we deter bad behavior? was the decision to go after soleimani -- was it as collateral and did it create attentional for a war in the middle east or did it deter iranian behavior? there was a very hot debate for the last two weeks, we can a half about this question and it

turns out in this case, the president might have been right, this sort of very aggressive in-your-face activity to take down soleimani may have had the effect of quieting things down until -- and told the iranians we have been taking it on the chin for a number of years and we are not going to take it anymore. this president will stand up and stop it and you do not want that fight. it did create the risk of escalation and there was a possibility the iranians could lash out and we could have been in a war. the president got it right on this one, but rhonda's right to raise this question of what happens when you don't have the that isople in place? an ongoing conversation in this country. impeachment is about something different, this question of whether the president did the right thing when it came to the ukrainian president and seeking to exchange one thing for another. when it comes to national

lostity, i think we have that traditional bipartisan national security consensus, the idea that when the president goes overseas, you don't talk bad about him. the idea that when the country makes a decision even though we may have disagreed in the lead up to it, we defend it going forward. that consensus is gone. we are at each other's throats on all sorts of issues and that only empowers our enemies, russia, china, iran, north korea and if you don't think they are watching, they are. what is amazing about this fight we are having in the country and the vitriol amongst our parties is the people responsible are actually the russians. they wanted to create this very activity in our country through their actions and choices and they did it and we have fallen victim. there is a real need. you see spots of bipartisanship on capitol hill. richard burr, mark -- mark

warner working together saying tough things about russia and the right things. we need a lot more of that and unfortunately, we are seeing less and less, not more. i worry as we get closer to the election and rather than coming together and saying russia, china, we will not accept a divide, we will get further apart. there is response ability in the white house and on capitol hill for that. host: michael has this text. could a cyber attack lead to a military response? guest: absolutely. there is often a sense when something happens to you in cyberspace, you have to respond in cyberspace. that is not the case. if a catastrophic cyberattack took place, people talk about the power grid or the banking system. interestingly, we saw the russia attack on ukraine that resulted in significant damage to the national health system, you can see one of those attacks

eliciting an offensive physical world response and that is as it should be. we should be willing to deter whatever activities a nationstate is doing against us in ever -- in whatever way we choose to. when you saw the killing of the u.s. contractor going back to 2011 with the killing of 600 servicemen, the right response was to take out the mastermind of that attack. we did that and that was, in fact, a proportional response to the years and years, almost well over a decade and a half of iranian offensive activity killing americans in that region. host: carl from michigan, please remind mr. jaffer our cyber strike resulted in their escalation of cyber attacks. --st: there is this debate this question about who was responsible. the u.s. never fully admitted

responsibility. there have been newspaper articles to suggest we or the israelis were responsible. this involved an effort to get nuclear program and to essentially make them catastrophically fail. this idea that us going in and doing activity is what caused iran to behave that way, i understand the point and it is an interesting point, i am not sure it is accurate. the iranians have been coming after us in physical space. they have been funding a terrorist group for decades and killing americans and people in the west for years. they have been aggressively countering our foreign policy in the region. , iran has a tremendous amount of influence post the conflict and that is a concern not just for us, but our allies and iran does not have the u.s.'s interests at heart.

if it wants nuclear capabilities for peaceful purposes, we are happy to have that conversation. they are enriching uranium to the point it is only usable for weaponry. that is what that effort was about. when a nationstate, whether it is ours or and allies goes into effects -- to affect somebody else's program, that may cause a response. what we spot -- what we saw was a response, but a response that was measured in -- and thought out. we don't want to get in a thought we -- a fight we are going to lose. host: good morning, mike. morning.od i understand the concern about cyber attacks on our elections, but what i don't understand is for a decade now at least, the right wingers and

and attorney generals have been trying to keep large groups of people they don't agree with from voting. it is not even under the table. they have decreased voting stations by two thirds in places where minorities live and i don't understand why there is no outrage or why these people are not considered treasonous enemies of the state for trying to screw up the elections in the united states. can you address that for a moment? guest: there has been a long debate in this country about voter fraud and ensuring the people who have the right to vote are able to vote and the people who are authorized to vote cannot vote. youshow up and used to be did not even have to show an id, you could just say your name and

cast a ballot. that ensures elections are protected and there is not fraudulent activity. some people refer to it as voter fraud and voter protection and there were debates about is that an effort to disenfranchise groups from voting? these are political debates that have long taken place in this country. i was involved in election efforts in 2004. i did not see anybody suppressing votes in iowa. i ran the voter -- the legal operation when it came to the bush campaign in iowa and i did not see voter suppression even though republicans are often accused of that. it does not mean there are bad -- there are not bad actors. we should prosecute those people. it is unacceptable to prevent a person who is lawfully authorized to vote from voting. we should prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. voter fraud is a real thing and

something we need to address as a nation. this should not be a partisan thing. it should not be people trying to suppress minority votes. we want to assure our elections are clean and well contested and everyone has the right to vote gets the vote. we should work on making elections more clean. people have a lot of debates about campaign-finance reform and there is a lot to say about whether that is good or bad for our election. what was good about the effort was when it was bipartisan. passing legislation -- there is a hot debate about campaign-finance reform, but bipartisanship is something we have lost in this era. it has gotten very bad. the debates across the street on capitol hill are terrible, not doing the work of the american people and the american people

should hold our represented is accountable for it in the next election. host: betty, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question. i have been thinking for quite a while, i don't think the democrats with this whole impeachment thing and whatever, i don't think the democrats are orafraid of iran or russia anyone else as they are of durham and barr. now that we know their investigation is a criminal investigation and they have evidence to support the criminal klapper,tion and from we know he said he was following orders from the president. if obama is found to have committed high treason,

usede firing squad still for that kind of a punishment? guest: on the last question about the firing squad, as far as i am aware, we do not use the firing squad in this country. the last state to use that was utah and not as long ago as you might think. most states use lethal injection. there are debates in the supreme court about the humane nature and weather -- whether it is humane to execute anybody, but to use this methodology of lethal injection. going back to the larger point and thee election russian influence and the investigation into it and the durham investigation, people forget john durham was not loved by the bush administration either. john durham was the same prosecutor who looked into the cia tapes investigation, the

question of whether the cia destroyed evidence of improper activities when it came to the interrogation of detainees. don derman -- during -- john prosecutor.career whatever the outcome is, you will find he will have done a good, serious job the same way bob mueller did a good, serious job. he laid out the facts as he saw the. there is a lot of concerns we have seen particularly after the revelations from the justice department inspector general. also a longtime career official about what was going on at the fbi. i have been involved in the effort to get foreign intelligence surveillance warrants. it is a serious process. people take it very seriously. we have a situation where we have evidence that lawyers at the fbi, one lawyer in particular pretty much lied and

that is hugely troubling. he hid information about carter page. tv and talkedt on about and said looks a lot like a russian asset given what we know. that was wrong because he was working for us. the fact somebody from the fbi concealed that fact to get an order is troubling. it doesn't mean we need to take down the system, but we need to make sure we are going after bad actors, that the judges on the pfizer court are empowered to ask tough questions. we need to empower them to do more and ask tougher questions and it is concerning that we see this activity particularly when it comes to a highly sensitive investigation of political actors in an election.

it doesn't mean if the russians get involved and try to influence or infiltrate a campaign, that we should not investigate that, we should, but we need to do so in a very careful sense and make sure they are doing at the right way and a way that comports with the laws. host: a little bit more than 20 minutes left. i want to ask a couple questions about the news out there. back to iran. washington post, trump hits iran with new sanctions. do any of the sanctions affect your round's ability -- effect iran's ability to do cyber operations? we broke off diplomatic relations after the 1979 coup. it is hard to know exactly how they spend their money and how effective our sanctions are. we know the aggressive approach we have taken beginning with congressionally opposed

sanctions reinstated by president trump after he got rid of the nuclear deal and now with additional activities against the regime itself, we know they have been effective. the iranians are lashing out. their economy is getting tighter and the reason we see this increased level of activity is because they are unhappy with the situation we put them in. they are working to put pressure on them. the question is what effect does that have on cyber activities? oppositet cuts the direction. it may affect their ability overall to do military operations, it tends to be cheaper, more efficient, you have a big effect with a little investment. to the extent they are spending money on something, they are likely spending it on cyber activities, overseas terrorist activities. it is a lot to buy a fancy jet or tank, but you could spend a

lot more money and have more bang for your buck when it comes to cyber and terrorism. that is why i think the cyber threat remains heightened even as we appear to be in a more de-escalate or he -- de-escalatatory situation. iest: i am really -- caller: am really upset and disappointed when i hear someone called in and suggest a firing squad for a former president is appropriate and i think that signifies unfortunately where we are at now because we are so divided and this works into the advantage of politicians, they can keep this president and all these other people that want to stay in power, they will go along with anything he says and as far as iran is concerned, was in it highly inappropriate to send a drone to kill somebody? aren't there "rules or ethics and laws about this stuff?

what is going to happen when somebody else sends a drone to kill somebody here? quite frankly, i have a suspicion and i hate that i feel like this, that this administration is going to use and these of iran " to manipulate laws and our internet system to use it against us as well because that is all this president has to go on, misinformation, he is not a real president and he doesn't care that the country is divided straight down the middle and people are exhausted and our country is nothing to be proud of right now. this is really shameful and it is shameful to sit here and defend all these stupid things. thank you. guest: i think jeanette is exactly right. the idea a former president would be sent to the firing squad is ridiculous and not

acceptable and that is part of the problem with the debate in this country that we are talking about that kind of thing. at the same time, a lot of times we have seen people on both sides of the aisle questioning both the former president's motives and the current president's motives. we say barack obama and his fbi went after the trump campaign to undermine donald trump or donald trump is getting into a war because he wants to avoid the impeachment fight. we have to talk about the issues affecting us. our enemies are taking advantage of this discord in our country. the russians are getting much more active in the middle east. we have seen them have a huge role in syria. and have taken over crimea they owned that land essentially. the chinese are building up islands in the south china sea as they deploy their military. they are clamping down on protests in hong kong.

they have interned muslims in the province. we are seeing a modern-day goo login china and the world is ignoring it. iranians have gone aggressive in the region. north koreans are on the verge of having a nuclear weapon. our enemies are watching the discord. jeanette is right to call that out. at the same time, that cuts both ways. we have to come together as a country. we have an election and that could be an opportunity to come together and find middle ground. i worry because that has an impact not just on domestic politics. we are tired of this harping back and forth, the president attacking nancy pelosi on twitter. it is unseemly and not getting the job of the american people done. people overseas are watching. our enemies are looking to take

advantage of our weakness and they are and we are missing it because we are too busy harping each other. cybersecurity to that a few seconds. -- for a few seconds. what is the average cost of a company to be protected for cybersecurity? guest: it varies a lot. if it were to be destroyed or manipulated, would it make your ability to deliver product to your customer untenable? think about the amount of critical information we are communicating. almost 27 billion mobile devices expected around the world by

2021. that is three mobile internet connected devices per human being around the globe. that is a tremendous amount of the value isnd going up and up. as companies think about their cybersecurity footprint and what they need to defend, the scope is growing. their ability to defend it is getting better. at the same time, there is a concern that -- do our corporate boards take it seriously question what do they have enough cyber experts on their board? are there enough threats who understand the threat who can encourage the board to do the right thing? our chief information security officers, do they report to ceos? if you are going to take cyber threats seriously and it is at the core of almost every american business today, you have to elevate that position

and view it as a core part of doing business and the risk factor you need to calculate four. host: kenny in virginia. you are on with jamil jaffer. caller: i am getting old. the old weapon the sword, you all remember the double-edged sword. i say we check the term, the internet, the ultimate sword.edged a nitroglycerin plant and i fought tooth and nail to keep it off the internet. is our the negative side way and the other side and we have people addicted to the internet. i say we check double-edged sword, it is the internet. thank you very much. imagine ais hard to world today where we get rid of the internet, but an important

point the caller made where he has this industrial system that runs operations or machines in the question is can you keep things like that off the internet? can you keep them disconnected? we talked about this idea of a physical separation, and airgap between systems connected to the internet and systems that may be disconnected. you want to know what those systems are doing, monitor them, say is that machine functioning the right way? i need to know what it is doing and to do that, you create connectivity. this idea we have air gaps between our systems and our information technology systems is going away even though we may try to maintain the separation, it is hard to do. that means you need to do threat the text. you need to watch both and watch connection points between the two because if an attacker wants

if you want to get there, you have to find a way to get there and often it is from an internet connected device across that alleged airgap, so you need detection on both and you need those to work together in a way that allows for the surveillance and monitoring and defense of those systems. , whatfrom south carolina would you like to say this morning? caller: thanks for taking my call. i am concerned about the power is is ity question being updated? i read several articles that were saying the power grid was very old, like 100 years old or something like that and that is why i was wondering if they were working on upgrading.

we have seen a lot of activity in california with challenges with the physical infrastructure of the power grid. i know a lot of these electric transmission generation companies are doing a lot of work in a physical plant to upgrade their own systems that generatingg, electricity and generating it, that is a huge area of concern and they are spending a lot of money to do that effort. they are also spending a lot of money to defend themselves. they know like the health care sector that they are on the front lines of cyberattack. they are spending a lot of time and effort focusing on acquiring the best technologies. nobody will be perfect. the idea you can perfectly defend against an attack is not realistic. the question is how can you get the best defense possible and what can you do to rapidly recover and reconstitute if you are attacked?

we should not expect perfection's one of the challenges is we expect perfection from our government, our industries. it is not realistic. a committed attacker willing to spend a lot of resources, time, and effort and willing to give their lives, it is hard to defend against that threat. what you can do is create as much defense as possible within reality and then be able to rapidly reconstitute and get up and running again, protect the people who rely on your services and make sure you are there for them when the time comes. host: larry from alabama, democratic caller. caller: how are you doing this morning? i have a comment and a question. my comment is dealing with the electoral system. with cyberspace, i understand what you were saying earlier about why the republicans and

democrats not doing anything and a way to stop this cyberattack because number one, they need to get elected. a number 2, if you have the foreign people like russia, iran, china, all of them grouped politicalo help one candidate than what do you think? it is not going to help you. my question is dealing with -- formerobama president for passing a law to sanction and ban this china spying working in china on the military soldiers as well civilians with ipods and iphones. i cannot even remember the name pretty -- the name.

president trump came back along and lifted the sanctions and the ban on the company working with china. i would like for him to elaborate on that a little bit. guest: i am not sure about the specific company, but we have seen action in the obama administration and the trump administration to address the zte.t posed by huawei and we worry if they control the core infrastructures that transmit internet traffic around the united states as well as overseas, they could do a lot of surveillance and damage. in the united states, we have essentially prevented while way from selling their goods, their .ard way -- their hardware congress is making efforts to work with rural and smaller telephone companies to extract that equipment and put in equipment that is more trusted. we worry because our allies and

countries are taking in that gear and using it because it is cheap. the question is why is it so cheap and cost-effective? the chinese government has made an effort to provide low-interest loans and funding to allow these companies to operate below the amount a competitive company would have to and they have stolen property from the united states. there is a reason why an older router looks a lot like a cisco router, it is. they stole intellectual property, avoided that investment and were able to build that capability by having stolen information and intellectual property from the u.s.. the reason that matters is as our economy continues to pivot --ard more of a technology intellectual property is part of what makes our country innovative. if they are able to steal that

property and repurpose it for economic purposes overseas, that can be hugely damaging not just to our companies, but our economic competitiveness. to thisnt ceo referred theft of intellectual property by china as the greatest transfer of wealth in modern human history and i think he is right. it is at the core of what we do as a nation. that is why the obama administration was right to call out the chinese for engaging in this and the trumpet ministration was right to impose sanctions and boot out while way wei and zte. bet of this trade deal might a problem for national security, something to keep a close eye on as we do this trade deal. talked about

government, business, all the devices inside your own home and what we have to watch out for. tell us as regular americans, how should we protect ourselves from cyber security attacks from iran or elsewhere? guest: the best you can do is keep your devices up-to-date. all these manufacturers, whether it is apple and ios or google, your web browser, chrome browser, safari browser, your cost of getting updates and often it is in the middle of something you are working on. remind me tomorrow, remind me later. those involve security updates that will respond to the latest, greatest threat. one of the benefits to internet connectivity is they can push these to your devices. a lot of times we do not want to install the latest ios because it will slow my phone down, but the trade-off of security protection is often better than the downside.

don't wait a month. sure you are conscious about your own activities online. look at the email you get. it don't just click on those emails. often times people get in attacks.hishing it looks like it is from the ceo or hr department, be skeptical. like we talk about earlier, we cannot expect perfection. the other day i looked like i got any mail from the dean of the law school and i responded and it was not it. i said did you send this email? he said nope rate i had to call the i.t. guys. but bebeat yourself up, skeptical. watch carefully. think about what you are doing. recognize that clicking on a link in any mail, you can get yourself into some trouble.

don't just assume the email you are getting from grandma is an email from her and part of it is social engineering attacks are getting more sophisticated because more and more by stealing databases and this information, hackers and nationstates know more about you than they used to. they know who your family is. they can shape these attacks in a way designed to target you very carefully. scott in massachusetts, republican, good morning. in --: i have a comment and a question. isn't block chain the answer to cybersecurity issues? guest: it is interesting technology, this idea you can exchange information without anybody having access to it, all the data is public and validated by sources. one of the concerns is how that validation is done.

if you control a significant portion of block chain, can you influence decisions about what is approved and what is not? we have seen the government actually be able to very effectively take down a child pornography website about 6 months ago, three months ago by decrypting block chain walls. the ability to get into the block chain and understand what is going on as a public ledger is interesting. the block chain is an important step in the right direction, but it can be used for nefarious purposes. we see a lot of illegal transactions, child pornographers hiding their activity and luckily the government has been able to identify those, but that might mean it is not as secure as we thought. there are questions about how secure the technology is. there is a balance about defending cybersecurity and protecting things, one of the

debates we have about encryption. we need it to protect our communications, financial transactions. at the same time, we have never thought the fourth amendment said if the government has a lawful warrant they cannot get into your house whatever -- how can we balance those things? democrat, thank you for calling. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a question i hope is relevant if mr. jaffer could answer. i continue to hear what i consider misleading or completely inaccurate information through the media that obama sent on the pallets and i would like the money explain why had to be paid and why it had to be sent and cashed on pallets.

thank you so much and i will take my answer on the tv. guest: my recollection, i don't member the exact dollar amount and my recollection is that what was going on was there was money we had been holding for a long time that there were assets and money that had been frozen that belong to the iranian government, but we had frozen this money and there was an ongoing debate and we decided the money was the iranians and they had a right to it but because of the sanctions, we were not going to give it to them and that money could have paid victims of irani and attacks and the like. as part of the nuclear deal, one of the deals was something of a side deal was we would return this money we had frozen in the united states for a long u.s. for a long time. i think the question of the cash, and i was not involved in a direct transaction of that,

but my understanding and recollection may not be exactly right, so i don't want the caller to think these are the facts of what happened, but my guess is we had strict sanctions in place, and we could not transfer through banks, so that might have been widely sent it through cash. -- why they sent it through cash. in the aftermath of the soleimani strike, money is fungible. you can use it for different purposes. itiving money to iran, enabled them to buy the kind of weaponry they are using against americans. is that one for one? it doesn't really matter. when you make a deal with a nationstate like iran and give them access to economic resources, they might use that against you. that is a huge problem. jaffer,r guest is jamil

law professor at george mason university. thanks for your time and insight this morning. one hour left in this saturday edition of "washington journal." when we come back, we will look further ahead to the year 2020. we will speak to daniel franklin at the economist. more of your calls. we will be right back. >> this weekend, booktv features three new nonfiction books. saturday, national constitution center president and ceo jeffrey rosen and supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg talk about his new book, conversations with rbg. >> we were married in my

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