recent developments in ukraine and russia and how they impact the u.s.can join the conversatin facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. host: good morning. it is saturday, january 18, 2020. while much of the attention was focused on the senate impeachment trial, this week was a busy one on the trade front. the senate overwhelmingly passed the u.s. mexico canada agreement on thursday. we begin this morning with a question on trade. do you think the u.s. is winning the trade wars. if you do, (202) 748-8000. if you don't, (202) 748-8001. you can also send us a text.

that number is (202) 748-8003. if you do, please include your name and where you are from. catch up with us on social media. on twitter and on facebook. a very good saturday morning to you. you can start calling in now. we want to show you from the senate floor this week, former george bush trade representative senatorrent ohio rob portman. [video clip] nationave seen become a -- the culmination of nearly three years of efforts by this administration to deliver for farmers, businesses, and consumers. this is a big week. while the media is focused on impeachment, here we are on the

floor talking about something that directly affects the constituents we represent. allink it is positive in three areas, china, canada, and mexico. in a way, it is like the world series and a super bowl trade in one week. these are big agreements that make a big difference. host: rob portman from the senate floor this week. a quick recap from some of the major provisions of those trade agreements, starting with phase one of the u.s.-china trade agreement. china will buy $200 billion worth of u.s. goods over two years, and the u.s. will cut tariffs in half on $120 billion in chinese products. china will stop forcing companies to transfer technology to chinese companies.

also measures aiming to stop china from devaluing its currency. president trump has promised phase too quickly in the future. when it comes to the agreement,-canada it includes increased access of dairy and poultry products to canada. members must produce 75% of an automobile to be carefree. to nafta'sme changes dispute settlement system that was so controversial. it extends some copyright laws, and the usmca sunsets in 16 years. it was passed by the senate overwhelmingly this week. president trump is expected to sign it next week in the coming days. one of the senators who voted against it, bernie sanders was

againsthose who voted it. this is bernie sanders talking about his opposition to usmca at the cnn presidential debate. [video clip] >> the answer is we could do much better than a trump led trade deal. this deal, and the proponents acknowledge, will result in the continuation of the loss of hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs through outsourcing. the heart and soul of our disasters trade agreements, and i'm the guy who voted against nafta and permanent normal trade relations with china come is we have forced american workers to create against -- compete against people who earn starvation wages. every major environmental organization has said no to this agreement because it is not even have the phrase climate change

in it. given the fact that climate change is the greatest threat facing this planet, i will not vote for a trade agreement that does not incorporate very strong principles to significantly lower fossil fuel emissions in the world. from thattor sanders seen in debate. is the u.s. winning the trade work? if you think the u.s. is, (202) 748-8000. if you think the u.s. is not, (202) 748-8001. this is todd from california, thinks we are winning the trade wars. why is that? the chinese economy that was doing worse under the tariffs while our economy is

still strong. as for the climate change thing with bernie sanders, i don't understand that because in my opinion climate change is not real. since we are trying to buy more of our agricultural products to , it is nice for the u.s. economy and the entire world is in economic danger. this is the editorial board of the new york times today. they give the u.s.-china trade deal and incomplete grade, is it doesbad news not do much to address the long-standing problems in the economic relationship between the u.s. and china. it does not address china's

practice of subsidizing state owned enterprises. tariffs onso leaves chinese goods substantially intact. the average tariff will stand at 19.3% compared to 3% when mr. trump took office according to one analysis. analysis from 2018 and 2019 finds americans are paying the full cost of those tariffs. mrs. richard from florida, says we are winning the trade war. why do you say that? caller: because it is benefiting america. the amount of money, $200 billion coming in, farmers benefiting, and america is benefiting. , i thinkre benefiting

we are winning. are losinghinks we down in texas. why do you think that? caller: the reason i think we're losing is because the trade america is involved in does not reach all of the communities of america. when we talk about black trillion,over $1.5 that is more than mexico, which is part of the trade agreement, more than spain, more than of theia, but many parts community where black people live is isolated out of the mainstream economy. the trade of america is involved in does not reach all folks. we have a serious problem when that happens.

if we talk about free trade zones and tax cuts that donald trump and the congress initiated that is supposed a great opportunity zones to have census tracts to talk about these areas that are not involved in the economy as far as capital gains and have to have investment in these areas. ,e have had enterprise zones all kinds of mechanisms to alleviate these areas of disparity, even in our rural areas. many people are left out of the economy as a whole. host: what does work? what would work? you talk about opportunity zones and other things that have been tried. what do you think would work? caller: we need a 21st century

economy. host: what does that mean? caller: the investment needs to be in the people. there needs to be living wages. living wages means they are paying more taxes, and the government is able to provide a more stable social security system, provide programs to alleviate and have a self-fulfilling prophecy. when we have the top 1% receiving all the gains since 1970, and we are celebrating dr. king's birthday. most americans have been in a recession. recession, butt most americans have never had a booming economy. , a 50 been a recession year recession. host: do you think it will help that one of those provisions we talked about in the usmca that

at least 40% of the cars that are made in the built atco-canada are $16 an hour? caller: we need people to have to sustaincation these gains. you are going to put jobs in the community. that is what happens to people in the midwest. they were able to go and get these fabulous jobs. they were making great wages, but they were breaking unions up , and these people were not able to maintain quality education because of poorly qualified teachers with a high turnover rate. i would submit that we need to nationally board certified teachers and career technical

education. that would help sustain these communities that have been left out. it is more like in economic embargo. host: thank you for the call this morning. just a couple of the other labor specific provisions in usmca, trying to pick out the things that apply to the conversation we are having. mexico agreeing to provide for the recognition to the right to collective bargaining. the parties agree to labor rights as recognized by the international labor organization. that part about the wages being at least $16 an hour for workers making a good portion of the cars in the countries. morning thehis question, do you think the u.s. is winning the trade wars?

david thinks we are, out of massachusetts. why? if winning is bringing us closer to a level playing field, then the answer is yes. i think we have a long way to go. i think your conversation with regard to prevailing wage -- are you with me? host: yes. caller: the question goes to wage and regulations. manufacturers like ford, chevy, and other manufacturers have moved outside of the u.s. to capture lower costs of labor and avoid some regulations. agreementet a trade where whatever is made in china, mexico, or canada, they have to pay the same wages we would pay are, then we are reaching

form of social and economic parity, which is a cause that is championed by the democrats. that is what we have to reach for. need the union agreements with regard to the labor so much in mexico or canada or china. what we need is them to have to costs and the same wages that would be paid here in the u.s. that could be dictated by the government. you don't necessarily have to have the unions reaching in. host: you think we could have done better with usmca? caller: there is always room for improvement. what the specifics of the improvement are i cannot outline for you, but i can say philosophically the goal should

people in america do not paying terrible wages to people in china or i don'tr even canada think americans, particularly democrats, want to subsidize their life on the back of the working poor in china or mexico. president trump certainly believes the u.s. is winning the trade wars. this is the president after signing phase one of that u.s.-china trade deal. [video clip] >> with this signing, we mark a sea change in international trade. at long last americans have a government that puts them first at the negotiating table. first in trade and every action we take with incredible enforceability.

as we move on, i look forward to continuing to forge a future of greater harmony, prosperity, and greater commerce between the u.s. and china. this is something that is going to lead to an even stronger world peace. we now have a big investment in each other and in getting along with each other. this deal is phase one. we will probably be able to conclude it with phase two. it is something we all want to get done. it will be a tremendously big deal. this is something that is going to be so special to our manufacturers, farmers, bankers, service people. no one has ever seen anything like it. this is the biggest deal anywhere in the world by far. host: that was president trump on wednesday from the white house. china, anment with

executive agreement, does not require congressional approval. that did not keep senators from weighing in. one of those senators who opposed the u.s.-china agreement was senator chuck schumer. we will play you what he had to say after we hear from larry. you think the u.s. is not winning the trade wars. why? caller: there is just no way. under ronald reagan and clinton they gave away everything we had, our industry, to china. good back in the 1960's. you compare it today, we are in a drug economy. our country is hollowed out with corruption. we're just not in a position to

compete with anyone. host: tell me about your part of industry in phoenix. what have you seen when it comes to trade agreements? industry is building houses and stuff. up we are doing is covering the actual irrigate of all irrigatable farmland we used to have. now all we have is concrete in the cities. the place is horrible squalor, really. drugs. the they rule. it is horrible. everything, we cannot afford anything.

host: thank you for the call from phoenix this morning. this is senate minority leader chuck schumer talking about his opposition to the u.s.-china trade deal that was signed by the president on wednesday. [video clip] does notreement address the chinese government's massive subsidies to industries devastating global markets. addressement does not the unfair preferential treatment of china's state owned enterprises, subject to control by the chinese communist party. the agreement does not address china's illegal dumping of articles into the u.s. market at artificially low prices, putting american companies out of business. the agreement does not meaningfully address china's into theft and intrusions the networks of american

companies, which has stolen a generation of wealth and jobs. millions of jobs and probably trillions of dollars over the years. not adjustent does the fact that significant financial harm has already been made to american farmers, many of whom have watched their markets disappear and have gone bankrupt in the time it took to make this deal. i supported the president taking tough action on china. i was rooting for him to succeed. i said over and over again that trumps -- my views on china are previous trump's then administrations. for deal does nothing workers. ar that president xi is laughing at us behind

our backs for giving away so much for so little. the administration in order to win at all costs has thrown american workers and businesses overboard, and they will be the ones left to face the consequences. host: senate minority leader chuck schumer from capitol hill. .aking your calls is the u.s. winning the trade wars? (202) 748-8000 if you think we are. (202) 748-8001 if you think we are not. raymond thinks we are not. caller: the arrangement under which all nations benefit the most from international trade is free trade. anytime government starts regulate and trying to such trade, all nations suffer from it.

host: you are concerned about the tariffs and the trade wars in general? caller: absolutely. host: let me bounce this off of you, raymond. finish your comments. caller: i was going to say one of the previous speakers talked about arizona losing its homelandto development. land tohas more arable use for future production of food than almost any other state. water from thee central arizona project.

host: that is raymond in arizona. just thinks we are winning the trade wars. go ahead. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i appreciate what you all do to bring fair and balanced news to everybody. i think we are doing great on the trade deals. the previous administrations with nafta, it destroyed the textiles. i used to work in textiles. finally, we have a president that is putting us first and bringing jobs back to america. i think we are winning entree deals. it cannot help every -- on trade deals. it cannot help every aspect of society, but one previous caller was talking about farmers with

nafta. bearing in manufacturing, and i have seen jobs leave and go to mexico, canada, all over the world. my company was a german-based company. they have been in south carolina since the 1960's. the jobs really went out. under previous administrations, i have seen people with masters degrees making $16 an hour. i have a son-in-law that just got an associates degree from community college and is making over $100,000 a year with a two-year degree. you could not do that 10 years ago. you could not do that 20 years ago. host: are the jobs coming back to north carolina and where you used to work in south carolina? caller: yes, sir, they are.

the plant i worked at is expanding every year. every year since president trump has been in office or before that? caller: really since the last year a obama was in, things started coming back in the metalworking trade. since trump has been in, it has exploded. they are working seven days a week, 20 hours a day. the plants, they are running out of workers. they don't have enough workers. host: that is jeff in north carolina. this is the headline from the column in the week magazine, asking did the u.s. win the trade war? it depends on what we were fighting for. this is from one of the final paragraphs in that column.

he writes, by attacking nafta and china, trump gained enormous credibility with americans who had been hurt and had been told by both parties that they simply had to adapt as the price of progress. trump went to war for them, and now he's bringing home victories, no matter how small, that may make them forget that they suffered in the war itself. do you think the u.s. is winning the trade wars? if so, how? us what you are seeing in your community. caller: we are not winning trade wars. this usmca is just a continuation of nafta. ruled by theas itld trade organization that is unfair and discriminates against mexico and canada for us to know the origin of our meat

products. trump did not get that this trade deal takes away country of origin labels. when you go to walmart, you see your stakes, and there will be no country of origin label. they will take the food inspection, the ones that were in control of those labels, and now president trump is saying that is just a marketing ploy, so they will take away the concern for health and market it so that those who voluntarily label their food, they will use that technique to make sure those labels are right. i think it is ridiculous that when you go to the store,

everything else on the shelf has a label. even your bananas, everything has a label. the fruit processors have such power over this administration -- food processors have such power over this administration, they bought him out. host: what line of work are you in arkansas? caller: we build houses. i sell cattle. we now have them vaccinated. we are holding them 90 days longer than we would normally. .e are trying to make a market i'm not asking for subsidies like the crop farmers. we use their crops. i believe when you go to the store, you ought to know the origin of that product. it seems suspicious to me that president trump would not want

us to know the origin of our meat. host: got your point. this is roy out of las vegas, things we are winning the trade wars. why do you say that? caller: i agree with the last caller. i was not aware of that country of origin thing. that was a little bit disappointing. when i was watching the senate vote on the chinese deal, i thought schumer voted for it. all the troubles in the last 40 years or so, congress had a chance to do something about, and trump has only been in for three years. why did they not do something about it in the past? that you said you watched senate vote. what stuck out for you? the senate vote was on usmca,

although they did talk about the china deal on the floor today, but since that is an executive agreement, they don't have a vote on that. there was a major vote on usmca, 89-10 passed. joining 52s republicans. then.: it was the usmca i got my fax backwards. sorry about that. host: totally fine. you mentioned chuck schumer. this was his statement after usmca. we heard his comments about the u.s.-china deal. these are the comments he put out on usmca, despite the fact it includes good labor provisions, i am voting against this mca because it does not address climate change. instead of advancing global

climate security, the trump administration provides significant incentives for manufacturers to move their jobs from the u.s. to canada and mexico. refusing to include any mention of the climate crisis in the agreement. the agreement includes many of the same flaws of the original nafta, which i voted against. morning.our calls this we are taking the first hour of "washington journal" to ask this question, is the u.s. winning the trade wars? (202) 748-8000 if you think we are. (202) 748-8001 if you think we are not. tony in georgia thinks we are not. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. host: go ahead. caller: my mother used to have

robbing -- a saying, peter to pay paul. i'm not an expert on the trade wars, but i am concerned about the subsidies to the farmers. that seems a lot like what we up ating, propping them the expense of the deficit and the taxpayers. my fear is if we are living in another bubble, and we're heading towards a cliff and the policies we are living under right now, i am concerned because the current administration has a history of robbing peter to pay paul. host: what is your line of work? caller: i am a retired construction worker. host: thank you for the call.

we have tony next, florida. thank you. i am kind of a c-span junkie. sunni onr seeing set your show two weeks ago. thought nancy pelosi and chuck schumer wrote this usmca act. arm forch a shot in the organized labor, and we know organized labor funds mostly the democratic party. these unions jumped on the deal, which they are not releasing the details from, it is full of goodies for the democratic party, they would not give trump an inch. he makes george bush is budgets with john boehner looks so

conservative with the growth to with a lot has had of democratic big issues. deal, he at his last sells himself as a dealmaker, $1.4 trillion for the next nine months, and all he can get for his border wall is $1.4 billion for his border wall. what makes us think this usmca is really good? he just wants to make deals to make deals. -- alllso supposition. why haven't they laid everything efinites? they could buy this or that. after watching the deals, how controlledts have

this country, even with him as president, with no senate and no house, this guy is no dealmaker. i don't want him sitting at the table for me. here are some of the labor provisions in usmca. mexico providing for the recognition to the right to collective bargaining agreements, international labor standards, the requirement for wages for the construction of automobiles in those countries. one of the democrats who supported this deal is senator sherrod brown out of ohio, a democrat who has been opposed to that major trade agreement has come to the senate floor in the past. went to the floor this week to talk about why he is

supporting usmca. [video clip] >> i will vote for a trade agreement for the first time in my career. i will vote for that agreement because of the work my colleague from wyoming and i did to protect american workers for the first time ever in spite of the intransigence and lining up with corporate interests because our trade agreement for the first time ever put workers at the center of this agreement. every trade agreement i have seen in my time in congress, nafta, central america free trade agreement, columbia, south every one of, these trade agreements were written in secret by corporate interests to serve corporate

interests. workers were never at the center of these agreements. one of my proudest votes in the house was against nafta. all of these trade agreements were written by corporations to maximize profits and compensation for executives and to enrich stockholders, always at the expense of workers. host: senator sherrod brown on the floor of the senate. is the u.s. winning the trade wars? we have been taking your calls and looking for your tweets and text messages. lizzie saying, everyone knows the trade between the u.s. and china has been unfair. how can anyone say we are not winning? richard says, people who say we are losing think the trade wars were started by trump. we should not be trading with communist countries, but if we

do so, we should level the playing field. we are not winning the trade was. the american people are paying the price. there should not be any trade wars. -- has trade this sent sent products overseas. terry, you think we are winning the trade wars. why? caller: in honolulu, because we are a democrat state, we are being throttled, prevented from growing and enjoying the benefits of the national economy. all you have to do is look at the unemployment rate, the lowest in 50 years across the in therecord growth stock exchange. being so love means everybody is working. we're the only country on earth right now that is growing at the

pace we are growing at. no one can compete with us. hasar, donald trump fulfilled every promise he has made. these trade agreements are just going into effect. you have to give it a chance to work. clearly, i expect them to work because the man has been honest and straightforward up to this point. you have to ignore so much positivity to believe we are not winning the trade war. ever we aret time straightening the situation out with china, and they are not going to get away with taking advantage of us anymore. we are definitely across the board winning on the trade war. host: thank you for the call. what time is it in hawaii right

now? are you still with us? of indiana.o jd out you think we are losing the trade wars. caller: unequivocally. red china, been watching since 1979 when brian lamb had basically a card table out there and shoeboxes. host: i have seen those clips of those old shows. we have a bit more to work with now. caller: yes, it has really gone upscale. it is phenomenal. you all do a great job. losing unequivocally. good show, good window dressing. butappearance of a victory, there is no victory. red china led by the dictator whipped xi jinping has

the supposedly great donald trump. i had high hopes for him about really taking on red china and doing something. ,e are seeing the same edict hide your strength and bide your time. they are hiding their strength and biding their time. then we will see the real horns come out. china has already militarized the south china sea. we can no longer control the south china sea. hugeve basically ceded international shipping lanes to china short of war. i see band unfortunately as somewhat -- see c-span unfortunately as somewhat derelict in addressing this. i think we should see a myriad of china experts beyond dr.

pilsner, who was a lackey for china for years. i am concerned about the telecom oligarchs who run the board at c-span that the tentacles of implicitly reached into their corporations, and they are afraid to step on red china. step up ande c-span really start bringing the truth to the american people that red china is not the old drunken soviet union. these are hard-working, lean, hungry, 1.4 billion people who are the enemy. host: that is jd in indiana. let me assure you that there is a firewall between the board, the cable executives, and the editorial content here at c-span. they have no say on the editorial content of what we do.

i promise we will have more segments on china. we have had plenty that you can go through in the c-span video library. thank you for watching for so long. hope you continue to watch. sabrina's next out of north carolina. caller: good morning. good morning. with these trade agreements, we are focusing on other people. we need to be focusing on our own. if we want these jobs, we are going to have to quit bellyaching and opening up our own market. we are going to have to take some of these regulations on these businesses off. the insurance companies are taking a huge chunk out of our businesses. an american worker costs twice as much because the insurance companies are taking a big chunk of that. we put our medical insurance on

the businesses. our workers went from 30 to 42. how are we supposed to compete in the market where they don't have all these regulations put on them if we have too many regulations in our own country? we cannot just sit here and bellyache that they don't have these regulations. we are going to have to find a way where we have will we need, but we can still do it cost-effectively. host: thank you for the call from north carolina. speaking of the tar heel state, c-span's cities to work this dsekend -- cities tour, hea this weekend from asheville, north carolina, to chapel hill, north carolina. we will be there all weekend tv., starting at noon on

-- booktv. the scandal at the athletic department. [video clip] >> the university was willing to concede that this fraud had occurred. for the longest time, they wanted to deny that athletics was in any way a driver of the scandal. the revenue sports bring in roughly $90 million a year. that pays for all of the other sports. all of the other sports are able to operate at a high level thanks to that revenue that football and men's basketball bring in. calf.the fatted this is one reason why unc and other big-time institutions are always reluctant to look too

closely at what is going on in athletics. you don't want to imperil that revenue stream. host: make sure to tune in this weekend, booktv and american history tv as we take you to chapel hill. can see all the cities we have visited on our cities to cspan.org. the question we're asking you this morning, is the u.s. winning the trade wars? (202) 748-8000 is the number if you think we are. (202) 748-8001 is the number if you think we are not. this is donald who thinks we are not. why is that? caller: first, i want to say thanks for c-span. i have a point for both treaties. for the treaty with mexico, the washington post reported a year

ago that the factories that do laborve 60% $16 an hour , they would have to pay a very high import tariff, , if they brought the car in under wto, they would only have to pay 2.5%. i thought that was an extraordinary statement. both of them agreed with what the washington post said. that does not go anywhere. it seems to be a shell game.

this one, trump put caps on .hina tona says, ok, we are going buy your grain again. he created the problem, and that he solved the problem by reversing his actions. that is a quid pro quo. what is the result? it is going to buy votes for drunk in the 20 -- trump in the 2020 election. host: on the idea of the executive agreement, fox business taking a deeper dive

into that. unlike the usmca, president trump can sign the executive agreement and then avoid an extended congressional approval process. administration describing the deal as a contract and not a trade agreement. poweresident is using his 301, which is an executive agreement, said robert lighthizer last february. the constitution gives the president the right to enter into this. froman learn more foxbusiness. just a reminder on where we are with usmca. the senate did pass that agreement this week.

it still has to be passed by the president, expected to do so later this week. still ratify the deal. the deputy prime minister is expected to introduce legislation in the house of commons in the coming weeks and said she would press forward with ratifications when the u.s. did. mexico has ratified usmca already last year. you think we are losing the trade wars. why is that? beler: part of it has to what i saw on pbs newshour yesterday. from publicerson citizens global trade watch. it was the director lori wallach. host: she has been on this program quite a bit.

go ahead. caller: she has been a critic of nafta for years. she was explaining there are some good things in there for workers and so forth, but one of the bad things she listed was the fact that we are going to be importing meat from other countries that does not meet our fda standards. what are we going to do about it? are we going to all turn into vegetarians? i'm in texas. i'm not a vegan. it does worry me. that is something that should not have been overlooked by either party. i don't understand it. host: if you want to hear more videos inwallach, 34 the c-span video library,

including most recently on this program from the end of november in a roundtable oncussion we had about usmca november 26. georgia.im out of good morning. you think we are winning the trade wars. why is that? caller: basically because i am an optimist. thank you for c-span. great program. basically, i'm an optimist. infrastructure in this country that we have a leg up on a lot of the competition around the world. america has done so much also anon that that is edge that we have. we do have a lot of competition. the fact that the wage disparity between countries is so great is

life andto our way of our standard of living. that is something that is going to be addressed. this aboutthing in the environment, global warming. that is probably the most concerning thing that i would think should be addressed in any trade negotiation. host: let me just jump in. there are some provisions in usmca when it comes to environmental protections. this is from the u.s. trade representative website listing some aspects of this large deal. here are a few things. usmca includes new efforts to unregulateded and

fishing on whales and sharks. reduce marine litter, enhanced inspections of shipments containing wild flora and fauna, but as you pointed out, bernie sanders with a lot of concerns about the lack of citing climate change. we showed you chuck schumer's statement from earlier. go ahead. i'm glad you brought that up. i was unaware of that. i am glad to hear that. that is going to be very good. with china during the olympics, they had to shut down their factories. they had to shut down

transportation just so people could breathe. countries, china, they have whole towns and villages that have disappeared from cancer because of toxic chemicals. have ifanother edge we we are able to maintain our environment because of these types of regulations. very glad to hear what you said about these aspects of the trade agreement being in place. if you want to read more, it is available at the u.s. trade representative website. that is where that information came from. obviously plenty of reporting on that as well. thank you for the call from

georgia. this is jeffrey out of new york. good morning. caller: good morning. good morning. before i make my comments, i would like to invite you all to come to auburn, new york. we are the home of william seward house and harriet tubman house. we would like to see you feature our local historic sites. host: i will pass that along. it was a big week for the bus because we got our new wrap of the bus with our campaign 2020 logo on it. i will pass that on. caller: i would like to bring up a documentary. it was made in the early 1980's. nation, how walmart they hard balled with

manufacturers to lower prices. they only did short-term contracts in those days. every time you renegotiated, you had to lower their costs. this forced a lot of manufacturers out of the u.s. to mexico or china or india. i come from a factory town. this town used to have 50,000 the 1960's. now it is down to 25,000 people. we have lost so many manufacturers over the years. it is not just been nafta and china. host: what specific industries? what did they make? know isthe major one i american locomotive company. it was sold to bombardier out of canada. employees at a0

time. we had a general electric plant having 300 employees. we had a lot of other smaller companies. is hanging on by a thread in auburn. in the last five years, it was sold to a german corporation now a chinese corporation. we lost an air conditioner manufacturer. so manylost manufacturers. i can go on and list probably 20. host: i appreciate that. for people who are wondering, auburn in the finger lakes region, west of syracuse. go ahead and finish your comment. caller: we are in a tribal between rochester, syracuse, and if the cut, beautiful area.

our biggest industry is tourism and retail. i blame companies like walmart, target, and kmart for wanting their prices to go lower. so they could keep their prices low. be good paying raise your family on one income jobs in the u.s. it is part unionbusting and part going for the lowest common denominator. host: thank you for the invite for the c-span bus. my producer able to find a picture of what the new wrap of the c-span bus looks like.

look for it in your communities around the country as we had call, and ifor one more did want to show one more story. we have been talking about the usmca and u.s.-china agreement. europe is next on the u.s. trade agenda as the white house contemplates its next steps. finds itself as the most urgent threats for tariffs, washington and brussels announcing steps, but the negotiations have not made much progress. charlotte,ll from north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. host: are we winning the trade wars? caller: no. they are fooling us. i do not know much about the

trade war, that i have been listening to people who know and we are not winning period. work, these people out of hundreds of thousands of people on the street, the unemployment rate is higher than people think. people think the unemployment rate is low, it is not. what about all of those people living on the streets? they are not counting those people. thank you. host: one more text message for you coming in from hartford, kentucky on whether we are winning the trade war. alreadythe trade war is lost but it does not matter because trump will go on. farmers have lost billions of dollars but will continue to vote against their own interest. that will do it for the first segment of the washington journal. plenty more to talk about -- to talk about including richard o'leary carmona, chief operating officer of the women's march.

we will talk about the march and the role of women voters in campaign 2020. and later, brandon straka is discussing the movement to help democrats leave the party. we will be back. ♪ >> four seconds to play, caroline will win -- carolina will win it. >> basketball is very important,

it is part of the culture, and when you come to school in north carolina, a lot of the people that come here want to be part basketball,women's or carolina athletics. it is part of a fabric of this community and life in the acc. people do take it seriously. onc-span's cities tour is the road exploring the american story. this weekend, we take you to chapel hill, north carolina. eastern on c-span2 the tv, local authors on history and culture, including the scandal. >> for many years we had all on this campus imbibed the myth of dean smith as the paragon of virtue. as the master of doing athletics

right. and, i think we convinced ourselves that a scandal of this kind could not happen at unc. onsunday at 2:00 p.m. american history tv on c-span3, we will learn about the city's history including howard lee, chapel hill's first african-american mayor. >> i only ran because of one person who said to me, you should not run for mayor because the time is not right. i had been hearing that all my life, as a black person living in the south, i have only been told that the time would not be right, and i decided to make it right, and that is when i declared i would run for mayor. >> watch c-span's cities tour of travel -- chapel hill. working with our cable affiliates as we explore the american story.

>> "washington journal" continues. host: rachel o'leary carmona joins us, the chief operating officer of the women's march which takes place today in washington, d.c.. what are you marching for? guest: an america that everyone can say yes to. over the last four years it has been increasingly disturbing path that we have been on where we see kids in cages on the border, fires in our country, we are seeing assaults on women's rights, and abortion bans from extremis who have been waiting for the type of political court that trump has created. we are marching for a future where we are all safe with no exceptions. they the page says that are gathering for feminist leaders across the country. what does it mean to be a feminist? guest: what it means is that you

want equal rights for all women. this is about having the rights that are guaranteed to all of us by the constitution, and that is what has been so disturbing about the trump presidency. it is not an assault on individuals, it is an assault on the democracy. no one wanted in our -- a war in iran or kids in cages. country does not want roe v. wade overturned. when he subverts the will of the people and leads us down this path that no one wants to go down, it is an assault on all of us, and our democracy. we need to take it seriously. host: are there feminists in both parties? guest: i think so. i cannot speak to people's personal leanings. i know that people think they are fighting for women's rights and we are inviting people to come to our marches in line with our unity principles and care about the things we care about. host: how many are you expecting? guest: it is always a little

hard to tell. facebook changed the situation vping to a protest. we have 25,000. a lot of people rsvped on her facebook website. host: what is different from past years. guest: we think it is the political moment. this is a moment when people are rising up not only across -- in our country, across the road. -- world. we have that in our march. we do not have a rally, what that means is not we will -- we will not be speaking to folks speak, we will be marching shoulder to shoulder with the people. is a collective that performed a global feminist anthem. it is about really standing with the people and channeling the

power of the people. we will tech -- check that message right around the white house. plus we will have a -- we will have a performance of that song. she is guest and chief operating officer of the women's march. phone lines as usual. democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independence -- independent, 202-748-8002. if you've attended a woman's march and are attending today, we would like to hear from you. 202-748-8003 is that number. you can go ahead and start coming -- calling in. you said you are expecting 25,000 people today, down from last year of 100,000 people in that first march 4 years ago. it had somewhere between half a million to a million people depending on what count.

why is it down? call forvements different tactics and times. the first march was historic, and the largest single day protest. the second march would have been the largest single day protest had the first march had not been so big. we set high bars for ourselves, and as time has gone on, women have said ok, we will march but also run for office, lobby, get involved in our communities, so the idea that the march would say -- stay the same size or grow is not how movements mature, and become more attack -- effective over time. host: is the women's march getting involved in different ways? do you endorse candidates? guest: last year we did a lot of efforts. we had a campaign across states. we do ongoing work in different

areas on different campaigns. we do work around online campaigning and civil discourse and civic engagement. there are a lot of different ways about how folks get involved across the spectrum. so, we marched, and we lobby, and we support local grassroots work. so, there is a lot of ways that folks get involved. host: two headlines leading up to today's march. "after controversial leader step down, the women's march tries again in 2020." them the "washington post," " replaces three leaders after anti-semitic accusations." we are -- can you explain what happened? guest: we are an organization that takes strong stances. board limits and terms, so we

have a new group focused on the marchers, and really having 2020 goals crystal clear in terms of what we are focusing on. and so, we know that is part of the strategy around how we are engaging with this march, being shoulder to shoulder and focusing on the people, and making sure that that is where the power lies. host: wasn't less focused on the marchers in the last years? or was the goal less clear? guest: the goal was clear, but i think there is a different political moment for a different time. there are some times where there are equilibrium in the movement and people are looking for people to tell us what the answer is. right now we think that the people have the answer, and the answer of the people is we are not going to take it, and we will take action to tell things that do not -- until the things that do not represent us to stop. it just calls for more unity and

a more collective approach. host: i will let you chat with some of the people. this is kathy, out of arkansas. an independent. carmona is that your name? i am not trying to be disrespect will -- disrespectful, but if you think killing babies is ok, you need to get into the bible because the bible tells you it is murder. abortion is murder, and there is no way around it. thank you for taking my call. host: your response. guest: my response is that there freedom in lot of the country for people to exercise their personal religious beliefs, but in terms of the legality and the decisions from the supreme court, abortion is legal.

and, should be safe and legal for all women. host: is there a place in the women's march for women opposed to expanding abortion rights? are they in bashar they invited to join us? guest: they are guided by our unity principles, which is our first philosophies that the originallymen that organized the march put together, and they are clear that we are pro-choice, and we will remain that way. thomas has attended a women's march. good morning. caller: good morning. i was just wondering if they will have policies with this one, if they will push for policies on sanctuary cities. i do not know if you are familiar. a 90-year-old woman was rudely raped and murdered -- brutally

raped and murdered by an illegal arrested by i.c.e. and released. fore marches, are they are policies against sanctuary cities are you during -- harboring illegal -- illegal rapists? rachel enter.let which march did you attend? guest: i have not attended any -- caller: i have not attended any. host: you were calling in on the line that attended women's marches in the past. we want to hear about their experiences, but go ahead with this question. guest: we believe that no human being is illegal, so we will start there. the second thing is that we have a policy agenda that you can

find on our website, and that clearly outlines the policies we support for 2020 and moving forward. host: atlanta, georgia. you are next. caller: what motivates you to march so much? guest: i think what motivates us is the call of the people. of women in this moment cannot be understated. women will help choose the next president, and i think that across the country we had folks interested in really exercising their voice and getting involved in civic engagement in ways that they never have before. i think that what has been going on in this country is deeply unacceptable. ,or many women who are mothers sisters, who have family members who have had to make tough medical decisions. and you are thinking about where

we are in the country, when people think of care and comfort, are met with a cage. when other countries around the world are literally on fire from climate change, and when a deeply divisive abortion bans have come forward in multiple states, i think people will continue to march and run for office, and continue to win until it is a country that works for women and all people. host: gender politics was a big story this week in the dispute between elizabeth warren and bernie sanders over whether senator sanders said a woman could become president. what was your reaction? guest: women will choose the next president, and i think we need to keep that in mind, and i think we cannot ignore the dynamics that women face when in leadership roles in any

leadership role, running for the president or managing a store or organization. as long as there is a disparity, pay equity, and all those types of things, there is no way you can ignore that issue. host: are you going to get involved in any specific race? guest: we are not planning to endorse. host: this is out of tennessee. in morning. caller: i am actually an anarchist, because i believe government is fraudulent and the whole system is based economically on the exploitation, suffering of others, women included. been experiencing this beennally, and this has going on for a long time, not just of this administration, but previous administrations on the

left and right sides of the same bird. i wonder if you guys have any insight into any of this? guest: i missed some of the question. host: she talked about her story, and your reaction to her feelings about the government and the exploitation that she sees. guest: got it, i missed a few of the words. i think that is a common story, i think that many women feel exploited it and many feel overlooked, and i think that that is why we are working for a future and a country that does not leave anybody behind. that leaves no exceptions, whether you are a person who has a disability or is experiencing homelessness, or somebody who is a person of color, indigenous woman, a queer person, trans person, we want to make sure

that all people have the same arrivingnd access to that everyone -- thriving that everyone has. host: brazil, indiana, attended a women's march. which one? caller: the original one in 2017. can you hear me all right? host: it is a little loud in the background, but go ahead or tell us about the original one? caller: when i first heard of it i was outraged over the election, and when i first heard of the mauer -- the march, i started -- host: you still with us? one more time? we lost her, but we will go to margie in delaware, a democrat. did morning. noter: good morning, i do

even know. think that to without women's helping, we would never have gotten the vote. march for a just cause, because our constitution says everyone is equal, not in america. this is a patriarchal society, the men rule, and at one time men controlled women's money and everything. so, we had to fight for what is rightfully ours because the men do not want to give up their power. why can we not share on an equal basis? i do not power over men, but i want equality. thank you so much. guest: i could not agree more.

i think we are really looking forward to delivering that message when we march and surround the white house, and bring that message right to trump's front door. i think you will be sitting there on the eve of his impeachment, looking out of the window of tens of thousands of women who think like you do. host: this is out of sterling, virginia. a democrat. good morning. caller: i did attend the first women's march, and my biggest concern is why they keep talking about abortion. it is one of those things that we have a president who is guilty of sexual assault, who has bragged about being guilty. they need to -- leave this be. thank you. guest: i agree. i think there was a really important moment in the kavanaugh hearings, and i

believe it was senator harris to name any laws that regulated men's bodies. and no one could. i agree with that sentiment, and i think that most of the american public does too. the support for the overturn of roe v. wade is low, and the fact that trump and his cronies are using this as a political moment to subvert the will of the people when they have compromised elements of the judiciary is an insult to our democracy. i really agree with that statement. host: saint augustine, florida. scott. good morning. caller: i find it amusing how she is talking about the pictures of the file footage of children in cages when that was from the obama administration, and she talks about the diminishing of the rally numbers is due to other circumstances other than what the people

really realized that it it is just angry women who are reporting this anger, and people are walking away, which is why at the same time this is going on, the march for life is going on. 400, twors grow from 600,000, and the ex-president of planned parenthood said that when she watched one of these march for life rallies, she could not believe how the number of young people were taking over and the number of older people and planned parenthood organizations were all older people. future ofuth is the the women's movement, and that is what scares the planned parenthood people. thank you. host: the march for life is week, january 24.

that there, i think idea that it is just angry women is the kind of devaluing that has gotten people out in the streets in the first place. ran and won aen historic amount of seats in the 2018 midterms. we saw the same thing in 2020. i think that anyone described as employeened parenthood does not speak for the movement. host: robert and north caret -- in north carolina, republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. i find it interesting that you say you talk for the people, when you know at least half of this country if not more do not believe in the far left policies that you are pushing. i am sure that the media,

leftist media, will trumpet what a great success your marches. but when they do the march for life, you will not hear a people out of it from anybody from the media. and mays donald trump he keep america great. are thecies like yours reasons why americans and minorities are turning away from the democratic party because they are waking up, and hopefully they will lose the house. thank you for listening. do not think that any organization or movement speaks for the people, i think the people speak for themselves, and they spoke clearly in 2018 and we will see a repeat of that conversation. in certaint only circles would anyone consider asking for health care for women where, autonomy when, and how to have children, for

children not to be put in cages, and for our country not to be on fire is considered a far left agenda. we are looking for an agenda that helps all people, including this people -- people like this color. but i think we want the same things for our kids, a future better than the one we have today. is rick, out of california. caller: how are you doing. i was going to say the march going on, a man must be stupid, -- are if women are so getting paid less, i do not know why they are not hiring more women. i do not know if women are so smart, or men are so dumb. or maybe you get angry or run on the streets crying. , if peoplehing is

come into a country illegally, you have to keep hold of them. them,ve to quarantine just like anybody. apparently, they are not doing that, and american start getting these diseases. host: we have gotten your point. we will give you a chance to respond and the final minute or so. caller: i think i caught most of that. i will not speak to the intelligence of men, but what i will say is that inequality in this country hurts us all. --mp and his cronies are not they did not invent sexism. they did not invent racism or xenophobia, islamophobia, or anti-semitism. they are just profiting off of it. and we are talking about seven or eight people holding 1% of the wealth and the rest of the people struggling under student,

medical, or house debt, i do not think that is an economy or future who works for americans, particularly when the 1% are enriching themselves from our taxpayer dollars. i think that the thing about women's march that is so great is that we are a big tent. whether your concern is that you do not know how you will pay your student loans, you are sick and you need health care and you do not know how you will pay for that, whether is -- it is that you do not have the summary -- same career opportunities either you are a woman, or a survivor and concerned that there are a number of men accused of sexual assault holding some of the highest positions in the land, some for life. whatever your issue is or concern, you can bring that to the women's march where we are talking about making sure that our climate -- issues around

immigration, reproductive rates and justice, those are cap center stage. things that we are not going to compromise on. this is an opportunity to come to this march on saturday and a couple of mark -- of hours or any of the two hundred 50 marches. if you cannot do that 02 women'smarch.com. women'smarch.com. --t: she will be watching marching in washington, d.c.. stay warm. next we will be joined by of the straka, founder walkaway campaign, and later, more of your phone calls. stick around. ♪ ♪

>> are live coverage of the presidential candidates in iowa continues today. in des moines with amy klobuchar and elizabeth warren, joe biden, and pete buttigieg sunday at 4:00, amy klobuchar, elizabeth warman -- warren, pete buttigieg, and deval patrick. on monday, senator elizabeth warren from iowa followed by bernie sanders at 5:30 p.m. in des moines. watch our unfiltered coverage of the presidential candidates this weekend on c-span, online at c-span.org or listen wherever

you are at the free c-span radio app. ♪ >> the house will be in order. c-span has been providing america unfiltered coverage of the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events from around the country so you can make up your own mind. created in 1979, c-span is brought to you by your local state -- cable or satellite provider. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. "washington journal" continues. host: a conversation about party and political identity with brandon straka, founder of the walkaway campaign. what is it? caller: i -- democratam a former

who walked away from the party shortly after the election of donald trump. 2018, id a movement in put out a video that went viral. basically detailing all of the reasons why i was walking away from the democrat party and the liberal media. and, it went viral and encouraged other people to tell their own stories and make their own videos. campaigne #walkaway that had hundreds of thousands of stories about people leaving the left. host: hears about one minute of that six minute video. [video clip] >> once upon a time, i was a liberal. honest, less than a year ago i was still a liberal. i became a liberal because i felt i found a tribe whose values aligned with my own. kind,ct racism of any marginalization of any human being based on gender or sexual orientation.

a systemgroupthink and that allows misinformed and dogmatic mobs to suppress free speech, create false narratives, and i reject acceptance of superstition to advance ideological agendas. i reject eight. these are the reasons why i became a liberal. and these are the reasons why i am now walking away. for years, i have watched as the left evolved into intolerance, illogical, misguided, un-american, hypocritical, callous, ignorant, and at times, blatantly fastest stick -- fascistic behavior. for years, i asked watched as ties --ecame nest the

became used to their own bigotry. [end video clip] your how do you describe politics today? caller: -- guest: i am now a republican and trump supported. i went from crying when he was elected to crying tears of joy when he gets reelected. host: you have met president trump. what has he said to you about the campaign? andt: i met him last month, he had some incredibly kind and generous things to say to me about the movement itself, i think the most special part is that we were at the dining area and he was going around to tables nearby and telling people, do you know what he is doing, he is getting people to leave the democratic party. it was cool. he seemed pretty stoked about what we are doing. host: the viewers can see some

of that video that you took meeting the president. do you keep tabs -- stats on how many democrats have left the democratic party because of the walkaway campaign? guest: it is hard to gauge that metric, but what i can say is that the facebook group has 225,000 people. like i said, i encourage people to make testimonials. we have tens of thousands of written and video testimonials of people telling our stories. people have their performed -- preferred social media platforms, and a lot of people are feeling suppressed by social media. you have to look at the metrics on twitter, instagram, and all of the different platforms, and we have half a million unique accounts following us on social media. in terms of my original video, the numbers that you are saying, it has millions of views because it was launched on facebook. the youtubers and -- version has

-- does not have the most impressive statistics. host: as a political action committee and foundation, what does it do? guest: it is our educational nonprofit, and we are talking to minority communities across the country. was watching your segment and i loved the gentleman who called in and said this is why minorities are waking up and leaving the left. it is true. i am a gay man who is away from the left, so with the walkaway foundation, we are talking to lgbt, and hispanic, jewish communities and various minority groups and doing town halls letting people know that you have a choice. you do not have to be a democrat based on your race, gender, or sexual orientation. we have created educational videos with the foundation, and we have a number of different speaking engagements. veryour super pac, it is

newly formed, we launched at this week. with that we are able to be more overtly political. our goal is not to endorse specific candidates or get into that. what we want to do is to have targeted and specific political discussions and we will be doing our own march, the un-silent majority march on october 3 in washington, d.c. it is a nice alternative to the women's march. host: is this your full-time job, do you take a salary? guest: i do not, but this is beyond a full-time job. i am able to support myself by doing speaking engagements around the country. i goal is to build my organization, so -- my goal is to build my organization. the f5 people doing the job of 20 people each. when we get the point where our be,ing is where we need to

i am forgoing a salary. host: one of the headlines that i wanted to ask you about from cnn before the mid-time 11 -- election. "russian bots trying to wound democrats in the midterms." big itwhen it became so was no longer able to be ignored by the leftist media they started covering it. what they did rather than reach out for me for an interview or comment they started running story saying this is a russian propaganda campaign and these were not real people, russian bots or paid actors. they erased the existence, much as i did the 2016 election -- they did in the 2016 election, they erased the existence of the people leaving the left. unfortunateling and is the fact that i, as a gay man , has created this movement from

nothing at all, and it has been able to exist and thrive through the support of conservatives, and that is me as a story. do you think that they want gay people to know that they do not have to be democrats or that they can be successful in the conservative movement. that is a completely devastating story. rather than tell the truth about what i have done or what my organization is, they have done everything in their power to erase the legitimacy of the campaign, and it not -- and nothing can be further from the truth. guest for the next 15 to 20 minutes. the phone lines as usual, democrats, 202-748-8000. republicans, 202-748-8001. independents, 202-748-8002. . this is a scott -- this is scott from georgia. yourr: i want to applaud

guest for his bravery and intellectual honesty. to walk away from the republican party because i felt like it was that the democrats were more for public the and more honest, and republicans were greedy and all of that. i found that a lot of the same things he was saying. it was analogous to the book by george orwell, "animal farm." values,und that my true being from the south, i tried to get away from them, but i could not. i found out that my mother and father were right all along and sometimes you try to run from things like that, so anyway i want to thank him for having the courage to do that. it is not a tough thing in this day and age. guest: thank you very much.

is it not devastating the day you find out that your parents were right about everything? identify a lot with what he is saying. the liberal media has done an effective job at demonizing and creating a caricature of conservatives in this country, of trump supporters in particular. ofought into the narrative the greedy, self-interested, straight white male republican who does not care about anyone else except for himself, who is out to oppress and holds down any minority classes or people in this country. what i have discovered through a long journey of research is that conservatism is very kind and compassionate, and that conservative principles will work for anybody if people get behind them. straight,wn, lgbt, whatever. i think republicans need to do a

better job in communicating with minority classes and letting them know that they have a seat at the table. host: what should they do? guest: start talking to them. we do these minority focused town halls. in november, we did a hispanic town hall in district 14. i went in there with the walkaway campaign and held this town hall. we had hundreds of people show up. we had 15 hispanic americans registered democrats change their voter registration. we do voter registration at every event. 15 changed their voter registration at their events because we went in there and had a conversation. it was compelling, honest, and truthful. i was one of a very few people who had gone in and had a conversation with these people. they know something is wrong on the left, they need to be talked to. host: sacramento, california.

good morning. trump is really doing a big job on you people, even you gay people, he is doing a job on. you know the republicans ain't got nothing to do with no gay people. were -- youof you white folks and turned you away from the democratic party because you found out that all the black board democrats so now you do not want to have anything to do with niggers no more. do -- where dowe black americans come off in my movement? it has been a big focus. i am sorry to hear that that is his mindset. the truth is that we want all people regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation to

realize that you can step into personal empowerment and your individual identity, you do not have to think it as a monolith based on your race. in terms of trump doing a number on me, i do not know what a number is, but if we look at the numbers we can see that america is thriving in the economy is doing great. all demographics are seeing all-time low unemployment and higher wages including the black community, women, and the lgbtq people. very recently, of course you will not hear anything about this in the media, it was republicans who proposed addingture to advance lgbt people to the nondiscrimination act, and it was voted down by all democrats because democrats do not want it known that republicans want to see equality for lgbt people. unfortunately, you are not

getting enough good information. we want you over on the republican side, so walk away. host: out of new york, an independent. this is william. guest: you are a young man and have not been around a lot of years, but i am 70 years old, and i lost my faith in the democratic party when president bush was in office. he pushed to get the free trade agreements in, and then president clinton got elected and went along with it and voted in the free-trade agreement, and i knew then that neither party cared about the working. that was going to kill the workingman, the companies are going to move on and the rich will get richer. that was the biggest thing that hurt us. in, and i loved

him because he wanted to do away with the free-trade agreement. people have got to understand that if they bring that back, does not go along with putting tariffs. paying $.60 a day for mexicans to work. host: what you think about the usmca agreement that was passed by the senate this week. president trump is expected to sign it sometime next week. caller: i do not know a whole lot about that. all i know is what i have seen in the past. and, it just made me sick when they did that. host: thank you. guest: i think he makes a good point, and i have heard this several times from various people across the spectrum, which is that you walked away from the democrats, we can see why, but why the republicans any better. both parties are toxic or do not care about people. i am not going to sit here and

argue for the history of the republican party going back decades and generations. what i want to talk about is the party today, and that is donald trump's republican party. this is what i am excited about, because to me i think that donald trump shattered the system and through a glitch in the matrix on both sides. he came in on the platform of wanting to drain the swamp. i believe he is the future of republicanism. this is the republican of the working class, this is a wealthy man who has better things to do with his time and money than be running for office and getting degraded and berated every single day. he is doing this because he cares about the american people because he cares about the working class. i think that this movement and president our representative of a new type of republican party

that cares about americans. host: what do you think happens about the republican party when president trump leaves office? leaveswhen donald trump office in 2024, i think the republican party is changed forever, and a very good way and positive way. over the next four years, we will see an increasing number of minorities leaving the democrats and coming over to the right. i think that by the time 2024 rolls around, we see a reformed republican party, and i do not think donald trump will exist as this type that ran for office. i think we will find people who succeed him who carry the torch of what he has begun. host: who specifically? is a good son candidate. we will see what happens in the next four years. there are a lot of people that we do not know about. as of right now, we see people

jr., andi haley or don that is excited -- that is exciting that people can look at that down the road. host: from pennsylvania. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i like c-span because i get to make my own decisions, i do not like liberal or conservative media, or corporate owned media. i have to say i am skeptical of the gentleman on their right now, and his praise of the tspublican party that accep gaze, lesbians, -- gays, lesbians, and trans. they do not. that trump has written goes against workers rights. he has not drained the swamp, he put people in charge of the agencies that used to run the

corporations, and be against labor rights or people. the republican party -- if the republican party becomes the party of trump, they are done. i do not see him winning the nottion of 2020, but i do see him winning the election of 2016. i do not listen to liberal media, they only tell you what they want. guest: can i ask you a question. caller: yes. guest: you said you do not see trump winning in 2020. who do you see winning? caller: i do not know yet. i think the democratic party will support whoever becomes the nomination. guest: who would you like to see when or be willing to vote -- win or be willing to vote for? caller: my choice would be elizabeth warren. guest: why? caller: she has an educated person and knows about the system, and the structures that

need to be changed. we need corporations to change the corporate law to support workers, providing pensions, the ceosre instead of under contract to maximize profits for shareholders. that is a corporate law, they cannot get out of it. their job is no longer to support the workers or grow the company, or encourage investment. their job is to get the maximum profit for the shareholders. host: thank you. finish your comment quickly. whyer: i would like to know he changed his mind, what made him go walk away and how did you end up going down to see trump? guest: good question. i will try to make this as brief as possible. in a nutshell it was the revelation that the media that i

had trusted had been so dishonest about the representation of donald trump, and his supporters, and about the narrative of what happens in the world. stories about hate crimes, racism, and homophobia, there is a huge manipulation of minority classes of people. i am a gay man, and believe it or not i do not live every day of my life in fear or every day of my life dealing like i am a target or in danger. if you listen to the liberal media, this is a story that they are putting out. you are in danger. once i did research and try to understand what was happening was that i saw that there is a demonization of president trump and his supporters. we can leave that aside. forget how you feel about trump, but talk about the fact that we are being lied to and manipulated by the liberal media. when i discovered what they are doing to minority classes i was outraged and decided i wanted to

do something about it, because i think the worst message you can tell anybody is that you live in a system of oppression and that it is rigged and designed against you so you cannot succeed and you live in a state of constant danger from straight white republicans or people know right. i walked away from the democratic party and liberal media. it was not a walk out of the door into the republican party. it was a whole year later before i decided that i was going to become a trump supporter and a republican through doing a lot of research about what the truth. host: you are concerned about manipulation. does it happening conservative media as well? guest: i think that there is always a bias. what i do not see happening from the conservative side is a manipulation of minorities. as i said earlier, i think there is a lack of communication with minorities that takes place on the conservative side which is a problem.

preferable toy endless and countless stories talking about fake hake -- hate crimes and all of these things designed to think -- to control our thinking and the way that we vote. host: and the other question was how did you get the chance to meet president trump? there at mar-a-lago i was at a dinner and president trump was at the dinner. when the dinner ended there was an opportunity to meet him. host: how does one get an invite to mar-a-lago? guest: it was a member dinner and i was the invited guest of a member. it was basically a private member dinner that i was invited to by one of the members, and he president was there, and tweeted me several times and communicated with me through twitter, so he knew who i was and knew what walk away was. we had the opportunity to meet at the dinner. host: cornelius out of

alexandria, louisiana, republican. good morning. huckleberryw you on and stuff, so i have seen you and heard you speak. i was a democrat also, i decided to join the republican party because of what the democrats have done to us as african-americans, and i have to tell you something. when martin luther king marched, and his holiday is this monday, they were all republicans, his father, and the son were republicans. the democrats were the one who ran us down ended all of that stuff. i do not know what happened in the 50 or 60 years. that you will come to alexandria, louisiana. we need somebody like you to speak about trump, and trump helped out ben carson when ted cruz's campaign tried to destroy him. trump is not a racist, he loves

everyone. but the democrats, i have gotten debt threats because -- death threats because i have change. nobody is helping me. the democrats do not care anything about me. i call the fbi and laugh in my face because of i -- i am a trump supporter and happen to be african-american. thank you so much. guest: thank you, and happy birthday, and congratulations on getting out of the cold, as i did -- cult as i did. if you are a minority who has left the left and embraced republican party, you can expect a great deal of maligning and abuse, and name-calling, and i think, basically people you as stupid or self-loathing. you must be a self-loathing lack

man, i am a self-loathing plate -- gay man. that is not -- that is the furthest from the truth. i think a lot of minorities are starting to think of themselves and realize that their race, gender, or sexual orientation does not need to dictate the politics. host: martin luther king jr. day coming up on monday, this from political facts. martin luther king was not a republican. checking in with david, one of martin luther king's biographers saying that he avoided partisan identification. guest: i will weigh in on it to say that i do not know. i have heard people vehemently argue both sides. i have heard a lot a people say he was absolutely republican, some people say he was absolutely a liberal. i am actually friends with his desk with family members who say that he was a republican. that being said, the man is no

longer alive, i do not know for sure. it is a bit of a mystery. embraced conservative values of self empowerment. host: this is pam out of north carolina, a democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a couple of questions for you. the do you think about trump administration ending transgender in the military and protections for the lgbtq youth in the schools? about mr.o you feel with surrounding himself so many people that have either been indicted and gone to basically been in

trouble with the law? the last gentleman that we saw on tv, lev parnas was quite close to rudy giuliani, who is quite close to the president. -- i am note putting down the republican party, but i do not see it being the republican party of my grandparents anymore, and that scares me. guest: thank goodness. there is a lot to unpack. in terms of the first question about the trends military -- trans military issue and lgbtq protections, i have yet to see what the protections are that are taking -- that are being taken away from me. the trump administration has set out on a quest to decriminalize homosexuality across the globe. he has made it a goal to eradicate hiv in the united states, which anyone should know

that it is my community that is disproportionately spreading the in terms of the trans band, president obama signed an executive order saying the military was forced to take anybody in, whatever state of transition they were in. president trump put a stay on the executive order. let's do some research and let's find out how effective this is. any good american, their priorities should not be the feelings of any individual, any group. their priorities should be the effectiveness of our military. we have people coming in there that require ongoing hormone therapy. we do not take people into the military that have diabetes or any number of medical conditions.

i'm a big advocate of the transgender community. if a person requires ongoing hormone therapy as a part of their ongoing existence, i do not think they are a good candidate for the united states military. that is not transfer but in terms of the -- trans phobic. as far as the indictment, anybody can be indictment that indicted. there are a number of people in his circle who have been indicted because trump is the most which hunted president that has ever existed. in terms of people who have been theicted of any crimes, convictions have been for processing crimes. they are being investigated and they discovered, this person did not pay their taxes. nothing to do with any kind of scandal or wrongdoing within the administration. don't be fooled by the fact that people are being hunted and indicted.

it means absolutely nothing. host: one last call. calvin has been waiting about 20 minutes for you. caller: good morning. is intellectually dishonest. given everything that trump has done and said, everything he has said about the republican party. this guy,is promoting that is your answer right there. he is intellectually dishonest. i would like you for you to define liberalism. foolishness.ing go with will go that -- that because we have a minute left. guest: i have no connection with russia whatsoever. that is a story that was put out

by cnn and the washington post and a few other organizations. how do i define liberalism and conservatism? the reason why i consider myself a conservative is because i think our founding fathers did an astounding job of creating a document called the constitution which is the document that defines what the united states is and where we are headed and what governs our nation and makes our sovereign nation. i am a constitutionalist. liberalism today is a political ideology which basically revolves around the notion that america in its current state is wrong and problematic. culturein an oppressive for people of color and lgbt people. this is the narrative that takes place on the left. we need to do away with various constitutional principles like the first amendment, like the second amendment. i could go on and on liberals

are trying to tear down free speech and the second amendment and various aspects of our sovereignty. -- might not be the greatest definition of what a liberal is but that is why i am walking away from the liberal left and why i think other people should. out out more we are -- find about who we are and what we do. walk away campaign.com. host: if you want to follow .randon on twitter he is the founder of the walk away campaign. thank you for your time this morning. next, more of your calls. we will be talking about president trump finalizing his senate impeachment trial defense team. among the names on his team, alan dershowitz and ken starr. you can start calling in and

giving us your reaction. we will get to those calls in just a minute. ♪ >> for the third time in history, a president is on trial in the u.s. senate. watch live tuesday at 1:00 p.m. on c-span 2 at this and it begins the trial. the senate impeachment trial of president trump, live unfiltered coverage on c-span2, on at c-span.org/impeachment, and listen with the free c-span radio app. >> here are some featured programs this weekend on book tv. ,unday night at 9:00 eastern financial times columnist and cnn analyst talks about her book. on monday, martin luther king eastern, the0:00

book, broken america. at 9:55 p.m., cornell west on his book the radical king. watch book tv this weekend and every weekend on c-span2. journal continues. host: time for more of your phone calls on washington journal. we will be focusing on the lead story in most of today's major papers. the president finalizing his defense team for the senate impeachment trial. here is the headline from the new york times. president giving his defense team a celebrity cast. alan dershowitz, the harvard law professor. ken starr, former independent counsel during the clinton impeachment investigation and trial.

team, president defense former florida attorney general pam bondi. robert ray on that team. he succeeded ken starr. jane raskin also on the defense team, served as trump's robert mueller defense team lane. just getting your reaction from that list in this 25 minutes or so. democrats can call in. republicans. independents. those are our phone lines. you can start calling and now -- calling in now. a democrat from eastern maryland, good morning.

call to make a comment on the last guest --ndon, remarks on the lgbtq host: brandon left and we are trying to focus on the news that came out on the impeachment trial. do you have a comment on that? caller: i guess this comment goes to both point. people need to do independent research themselves. when you have a guest make an untrue statement, and he got it backwards. people to believe a terrible misimpression that it is reverse. whether you are discussing that or the impeachment, people need to do independent research themselves. somebodynfirm whether

somebody who said something on a radio show is accurate or not. host: this is mary out of columbus, georgia. caller: the way i feel about the impeachment is that it is a fair process and the attorney that president trump has solicited for his defense, they have to tell the truth or they will be telling lies. i think we have to look at what we are facing as a nation. people cannot see out of their own eyes that he is not truthful about anything and he really does not care about the people, it is all about trump. host: mary in georgia this morning. we are focusing on president trump's defense team. here is from -- here's the story from wall street journal. the picture of alan dershowitz. the wall street journal noting

some of his past work. in the mid-1990's, he worked on o.j. simpson's murder defense. 2017rked on the representing jeffrey epstein. alan dershowitz also on this program last month. he was asked at the time about reports that he may be joining the president's defense team. here is alan dershowitz. oni cannot really comment any possible conversations i have had with the white house. i am strongly opposed to impeaching the president on the two grounds proposed by the judiciary committee. broadre the kinds of general, vague, open-ended criteria that can be weaponized against virtually any president when the opposing party has the majority in the house of representatives. it is hamilton's nightmare. hamilton said the one thing he

feared most was impeachment would turn on the number of votes each party had rather than the guilt or innocence of the person being impeached. making a president served at the will of congress and turning us into a parliamentary democracy that we fought against in the revolution. we did not want a parliamentary democracy in which a president can be thrown out of office by a vote of nonconfidence. i cannot comment on any possible conversations i have had about playing a formal role in the senate trout. host: -- in the senate trial. host: alan dershowitz on this program. we are getting your thoughts on those being named to the presidents impeachment defense team. they will be going up against the house impeachment managers, which begins in earnest next week.

among the house impeachment managers, congressman adam schiff, intelligence committee chairman, he will be the lead manager of the house prosecution of the case. nadler him at the table, and five other members of the house democratic members of the house, including the chair of the house committee on -- the committee of house administration, the chairman of the house democratic caucus, a member of both the intelligence and judiciary committees. then there is the freshman congressman member of the house of armed services committee, getting a reaction at the presidents impeach -- presidents to fees -- defense team. this is dave out of north carolina, your thoughts. are you with us? rodney in jackson,

mississippi, and independent. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. i would like to say that i think this president did an excellent job of choosing his team. not only does he have litigators but he has two individuals who are legal scholars and legal historians and the persons of ken starr and alan dershowitz. managershe democratic are highly partisan, even though some of them have a legal background. that ourortunate country has gotten to the point that there is so much bitterness. i think the history is going to show that this president has been unfairly characterized. some of the things that callers are saying are true -- he does have a habit of exaggerating the

truth, but that is not impeachable. you cannot impeach someone for being a jerk. he can be uncouth sometimes and he says some things that are inappropriate. the way you handle that is at the ballot box. i do not see these managers, who everyone knows are partisan, being able to convince anywhere from -- they need probably a senators,4 republican if not more, to switch over to their point of view. the facts are not on their side. we would all be better off to hit a reset button, see what happens in november, and regardless, if the president loses, we follow the direction of the new president. if the president wins, we figure out how to work on infrastructure, immigration, and other issues we disagree on. host: ronnie saying the

president -- rodney saying the president did a good job of choosing his team. here is ken starr on fox news earlier this week asking about nancy pelosi's choice for herself -- for her house managers. >> the speaker chose well and wisely. i have some reservations about jerry nadler in terms of his corporate abilities. he tends to be over the top. he also said everything has already been proven. there is an incoherence to jerry nadler's approach to things. we now have the field marshals and the speaker is going to continue to be guarding this process, which is all about witnesses on the senate side. i think she has chosen well and wisely. news, an starr on fox longtime contributor to fox news. he is being named to the presidents impeachment team.

sandra, saint augustine, florida, a democrat. caller: i believe the team has been selected to represent a reality show for donald trump's impeachment. i think what the american people need to look at is the fact that in defense of the u.s. constitution and i do believe when you start off with mr. dershowitz given the opportunity of an opening speech as opposed to addressing what the constitution says regarding the articles of impeachment, we need to remind both sides of the house and the senate what the constitution represents to this country. unfortunately, our president has not done so. aspects, when the people watch or don't watch ken

starr and alan dershowitz, they will find that this team is just another reality show. thank you for your time. host: this is albert in chicago, independent. your thoughts? caller: good morning. i have two point two make and i hope you make me -- let me make them. trump did aident good job of picking his team because pam bondi, donald trump contributed $25,000 to her campaign for florida attorney general. when she was elected, she dropped the investigation into his trump university scam. he defrauded elderly people and veterans out of their life savings and was forced to pay $250 million in fines for he was sworn in.

there are pictures of pam bondi with lev parnas as well. donald trump is not being impeachment -- it being impeached because he is a jerk. he is being impeached before -- because he abused his office and distorted -- and extorted ukraine. impeached. host: the headline out of the miami herald today. the announcement of the defense team, trump assembles a made-for-tv impeachment defense team. this is mike out of cleveland, a democrat. caller: thank you for taking my call. i watched alan dershowitz last night on cnn and it was a great interview. stance as ated his

constitutionalist and the interesting point is that these are not impeachable crimes. he also mentioned that he would not have impeached nixon or clinton, which is very interesting. the basis for, it does not rise to the levels of treason, bribery, or what he considers high crimes and misdemeanors. from a layman's perspective, since i have nowhere near the knowledge of the constitution that mr. dershowitz does have, no criminal would be stupid enough to commit treason or bribery. the high crimes and misdemeanors must be played out in the senate. the closest that anyone has came since nixon is trump. lawrenceville, georgia, republican. good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me?

not even charges. obstruction of congress, you are supposed to go to court and settle between the 2 -- the executive and the legislature. nixon said he did not want to go to court. the charges are all fake anyway. adam schiff, he lied about the telephone call. it is one piece of baloney after another. it has been going on since before trump got elected. they are all involved with ukraine. pelosi, her and her son.

name willncy pelosi's replace benedict arnold as america's most infamous trade itor. int: about 10 minutes left the segment of washington journal. getting a reaction now that we have the president's full defense team named. some high profile names on that list. we recorded our newsmakers program. it airs on sunday but our guest is senator ben cardin. we asked him about the addition to the presidents team. >> we got a look into the outside counsel the president is bringing in. names familiar from the 1998-1999 impeachment. ken starr led the investigation. alan dershowitz, who is all over cable news and is an ardent presidential defender.

is it already starting to nip into that area of theater? ken starr, who prosecuted the last president, is going to be part of this -- is there a little bit of chatter among your fellow senators? >> the president has the right to choose his lawyers and i am certain that some of the issues you are talking about were in his thought pattern when he selected his team. whatber, it is not so much the presidents lawyers want to do or what the managers want to do. this is up to the united states senate. we have sole jurisdiction of the trial. i hope you will stay focused on trying to get the evidence to support the facts and the legal conclusions as to whether this is an impeachable defense.

i hope the president's lawyers will recognize that. ken starr was very much in favor of having a broad number of witnesses in the investigation he pursued. those who have direct knowledge of the factual allegations. it will be interesting when that issue comes up, whether he will be at the trial table because the -- we know his prior positions. host: you can watch the full interview with ben cardin on sunday at 10:00 a.m.. it rears at 6:00 p.m. eastern -- it re-airs at 6:00 p.m. eastern. you can also watch it at c-span.org. russell out of las vegas, independent. caller: morning. -- good morning. i love your show. dershowitznd alan

are made-for-tv lawyers. when was the last time either of courtroomlly was in a to argue a case? i think the democrats have an outstanding set of lawyers. several former prosecutors. i hope the senate allows witnesses. we need a fair trial. we have all of the evidence to let the chips fall where they may. i hope they have a real trial. the country needs a real trial. , fort worth, texas, democrat. caller: thank you for taking my call. i pretty much agree with the last caller. i do believe these are just show lawyers. casesr one have tried recently. i am not a big fan of alan

dershowitz. there will be witnesses involved in this trial. clear that made mitch mcconnell and the rest of the republicans are not going to kick mr. trump out of office. it is not going to happen. the only way to get him out of the office is to get some witnesses and i don't know if that would work. people have their own opinions and they will not change godless. -- they will not change regardless. texas.arion in couple of social media and text message messages from our viewers. massachusetts, kind of funny that dershowitz does not want america to know that he is part of legal -- art of trump's legal team. please explain to republican that trump has been impeached

and is impeached for life. this from davey, saying, somebody needs to tell these people that the investigation into joe biden began before he announced his candidacy for president. that was a couple of the text messages and tweets we got. referring to that first text message about alan dershowitz. alan dershowitz tweeting out his statement yesterday regarding his role in the trial, saying he will present an oral argument at the senate trial to address the constitutional arguments against impeachment and removal. that is how he described his role. vicki is next at of tennessee, a republican. caller: how are you? host: doing well. caller: i am appalled at the democrats. i cannot believe they are trying to pull off such a serrated --

such a charade. i watched all of those trials, all the shows they showed on tv on c-span and on cnn. the man has not done anything wrong. one, he said us as far as the ukraine money goes. that means the u.s., every american in this country, he is money tog -- ill-gotten fame. ukraine or whatever. somebodyreally needed to defend him, he better get trey gowdy in here. he will not let anybody pull the wool over his eyes.

and he means business. host: what do you think about the president not including any of those members, the republican members of the house, who were making the president's case throughout all of those impeachment hearings. people like jim jordan. caller: i think he was saving them for today. host: what do you mean? caller: for the senate trial. it has been saved this in a trial in the democrats will be sadly mistaken when these people do get up there, and if they do get up there, it is up to them. they have the right to decide whether they don't want to be there or not. if they get up there, i have a feeling they will find out that it is not going to play exactly how the democrats wanted to. host: vicki in tennessee. our last caller in the segment of washington journal.

we have about 30 minutes left this morning and we will take a look at recent developments in russia and ukraine. we will be joined by matthew rojansky of the wilson center. we will be right back. ♪ >> over the next two weeks, on q&a, we are focusing on the new hampshire presidential primary in the iowa caucuses. longtime new hampshire union leader publisher and now editor at large talks about his states presidential primary history and the current

state of politics in new hampshire. >> new hampshire is always different. being first.s it is one of the highest turnout states in the country. was not representative of the country, with the exception of bloomberg who has not cited that as a reason, why are all of these other candidates coming to new hampshire? >> watch sunday night at 8:00 eastern on q&a. >> we are asking students to tell us the issues they want the president of candidates to address. with the january -- january 20 deadline of the studentcam contest, students are putting our final touches on their

injuries. we are awarding $100,000 in total cash prizes. for more information, go to studentcam.org. continues.on journal host: if you have a burning question about russia, ukraine, that region of the world, now would be a great time to call in because our guest is matthew rojansky, director of the canon institute at the wilson center. 's entire cabinet resigned. why? guest: this is a pretty significant development. we have expected for a long time that medvedev -- he served for four years and this castling is drawn in.bama in reality, putin is calling the

shots from behind the scenes. he makes that clear in 2012. medvedev had been prime ministers since then, almost eight years as prime minister. the question lingering, if this guy is just a suit, how long can he stay in the role of prime minister? the russian economy. thanks to sanctions and energy ,rices that tanked for a while and stagnation in russian real income. this is what affects real people. someone has to be to blame and that is the government. the government is responsible for managing the economy. and also in terms of perception. a lot of people look at medvedev and they say, this guy does not know how to do anything. he does not know how to manage anything. they compare him to putin, who

was always in command and on the world stage. putin can blame bad economic news on medvedev. putin has to have a plan. the man is approaching 70. in 2024, his current term ends. where does he go after this? host: is medvedev ok with taking the blame? guest: he does not have a whole lot of choice. there have been a few instances where he has attempted to push back. 2011, he stood aside and let nato operate in libya. putin kreth -- chastised him and said it was a huge mistake. medvedev does not have a lot of options. he is still very much in the inner circle. he has been proposed for a new role, which is a sort of vice presidency.

it is not a heartbeat away from the presidency and the russian system. that is the prime ministers job. 's right-handutin man. it could be the robin to his batman. he is giving a chance to new figures. speakings is medvedev after putin's state of the nation address. has outlined the political priorities for our and he has outlined fundamental changes in the constitution. come they most likely will happen after the discussion. significantly alter a

number of articles of the constitution and rebalance the powers in the country and -- the the balance branches of power. as the government of the russian theration, we need to give the country an opportunity to make the necessary decisions and this is why i believe it would be reasonable for us, in accordance with the constitution, to collectively resign. host: medvedev earlier this week. how often does the russian constitution get changed? why change it? how many times is that happened? guest: not often.

russia is still operating under its constitution of 1993. hisimir putin, because of succession issue, he has been asked many times, do you intend to change the constitution? and he has always said no. we don't want to do a convention.al and yet, this is really big. i want the legislature to have more power. i want something called the state council, which is an institution that's been around since soviet times. no one really knows what they do. i want them to have a constitutional role. by the way, he is the chair of it. i will put medvedev on the security council. this sets the table for a couple of putin power preservation

moves. he is a way of checking anyone who puts in the presidency going forward. medvedev is mostly loyal but sometimes goes his own way. now going forward, you can put someone in the presidency and he has ways of constraining them. host: does vladimir putin really care about the constitution? explain the role of the duma and all of this. guest: it is anyone he's -- it is anybody's guess what putin thinks. he is a lawyer by training. his image has always been a man of law and order. as a secret policeman and the builder of the power vertical in russia. we think about his role internationally. with ordinary russians, he ended the chaos and lawlessness of the

1990's. for someone in that role to superficially say, law does not matter. the fundamental law does not matter. it would be a contradiction he would have a lot of trouble with. this -- as far as the duma, this is an elected body. on the other hand, it is clearly a farm team for the kremlin. this is a place they put people where they are rotating in and out a physician's of real power -- in and out of positions of real power. it is a kind of a check on the executive, which he himself might lead. is he going to enter the legislature directly? you can imagine him as a speaker. it is a powerful system. you can imagine him as a senior leader of the party. everybody knows that is his role and it is through the party

apparatus within the duma within the federation council that he exerts his power. his party, the united russia party, is hated. russians love putin but hate his party. host: everything changes, everything stays the same. would you agree? guest: that sounds about right. what will not stay the same is biology. vladimir putin is getting older. at some point, we could have an unexpected event and we will need to know what sort of order is presupposed by these changes he is putting into place. the other thing that changes is the world around russia. russia is subject to what happens in the global economy. will have to react to those things. if he has removed himself from the former as formal commander-in-chief position of the russian military or the

economy, he is putting a lot of trust in other people. who are these people and what do they stand for? host: if you have questions about russia or the world around russia, this is a great 20 minutes for you. phone lines put up by region. oakdale, tennessee, good morning. caller: good morning. -- to me, trump has done good things in the news -- i think it is time they bickering --is host: any questions about russia?

ukrainethe russia and when they inaugurated trump, that is the day they started to impeach him. myself and others here in even marsha blackburn, she is our state representative. it goes on and on and on. u.s.-russia-ukrainian relations, how has the impeachment investigation and the senate trail, how has it impacted our relationships? guest: this is in a's problem for the trump administration. donald trump has campaigned on the idea that he wants to flip what had been the pattern of u.s.-russian relations before.

since the late obama administration, u.s. and russia were drifting toward conflict. engaged in ahe is trade war with china but says he wants to improve the relationship with russia. strategically, this is pretty rational. trump has been unable to succeed on the russia agenda. his own administration will signal, we disagree with the president on his approach to putin. we will be supportive of sanctions when trump is not. the ukraine scandal has made that difficult for him in terms of continuing to support ukraine, which is a russian adversary. where trump finds himself is fighting on two fronts. you have this conflict going on with russia. and he has a conflict with china, which is the one he actually wants. host: what is the status of the

shooting more in eastern ukraine? guest: the shooting part has gone down. since the election of zelenskiy almost a year ago, historic election where ukrainians east and west, a famously divided country, really came together and supported this guy. he is the first really post-soviet leader ukraine has had. he is the ukrainian jon stewart. he is a sophisticated political satirist. peace was his number one campaign priority. when he talks about peace, he is talking to the people in a way they understand. as opposed to previous leaders who have said, everyone over

there is a terrorist. if you are an ordinary ukrainian and your grandmother lives in the rebellion areas, what are you talking about? he has a lot of credibility and has been willing to talk to putin directly. they have managed to achieve some real cease-fires on the ground and exchanges of prisoners. relatively speaking, those are major steps. the ukrainian naval vessels that were captured a couple of years ago were actually returned a couple of months ago. no guarantees we will have a peace settlement in eastern ukraine but these massive casualties and the constant cease-fire violations are on the downswing. host: has that conflict pushed ukraine any closer to joining nato? guest: what everybody who deals with nato is saying, it is good that ukraine says it wants to be

in nato because it signals that it wants to reform its military. it wants to ensure clear civilian control and wants to eradicate corruption and wants to make sure you don't have folks like a radical nationalist in the ranks of the military. realistically, ukraine joining nato anytime soon is not on the table and it was on the table irrespective of russia's view of that issue. it is not out of deference to russia but it is something that would be very far from now. host: because of more pushback on the nato side? guest: nato is not what it was 20 years ago. it is a much bigger organization. it has more countries in it that have more complicated interests and a lot of countries don't want to see ukraine joint. just as there are countries that would love to see ukraine joint.

the statistic has been bandied about that from about 10 years ago when 45% of ukrainians supported joining nato, now it is flipped and it is 55 or 60%. that is still not an overwhelming majority of the country. when you are zelenskiy, you have appealed to russian speakers and ukrainian speakers, you may want to talk a big game about turning the west but you don't want to necessarily promote hard deadlines or tests of that theory. those could be breaking points in ukrainian society. plenty of calls for you. this is kimberly out of cornell, new york. caller: with the elections coming up, if you could explain to us how russian elections take place. interventions they

put down -- i know there was a problem with the last election and the person was not even allowed to be on the ticket. can you go over what russian elections are like? i feel like we are going to be seeing them more and more. some of our elected officials are more and more affected by what happens in russia. host: thank you for the call. guest: that is an important question. in a certain sense, we see less and less russian elections because as of the constitutional change that happened in 2010 when medvedev was president, the presidential term was extended to six years. it was four years. twon has now served six-year terms in a row.

people question of why cannot get on the ballot. putin does not want them on the ballot. there is this anticorruption campaigner, he is a nationalist figure, but he is the closest that russia has two liberal opposition. he has made youtube videos about corruption in the russian government that gets tens of millions of views. putin has not let him on the ballot. one of the constitutional changes he is proposing would be to ban anyone from serving in the top offices who has not lived in russia for the past 25 years consecutively. ironically, that was a rule that would have applied to putin himself. he had been a spy living in east germany. there are plenty of other

potential russian leaders, especially the children of elite who take a residency in london or spain. these people, under this numeral, -- what it really suggest is that putin wants to consolidate and nationalize the elite of the country. oligarchs?re the how many are there? guest: this term oligarch emerged in the 1990's and the meaning of it has transformed. in the 1990's, these are people who came up in the soviet system. they were kgb or maybe they managed a factory on behalf of the people and they capitalized on that and took over assets. or they were black market folks. they were the only ones who really knew how to successfully operate in the free market.

overnight, russia becomes a free market. origins are all kinds of different stories like that but these are the 1990's oligarchs. this is that chaotic time. along with law and order, what he has brought is a whole new circle of oligarchs. these are the people who are either personal friends of putin , close retainers from the security services, or others who manage assets on behalf of putin and the state. these people have become mega billionaires. it is widely understood that their fortunes, while they get the use of them, in essence, belong only to the state and because the state belongs to putin, they belong to putin. we should stop chasing after putin's pot of gold.

as long as he is the czar of russia, high-definition, he is the richest man on the planet. thatr: it is interesting you are giving us three cap and historical law -- this recap and historical outline of putin. some would say that 45's and data to russia and is trying -- that 45 is indebted to russia. he wants to be in power like putin. now we get into ukraine, which leads to the impeachment. i'm a patriot and i served in the military and 45 did not. the constitution has always been my basis for why i served and why i am an american. to apatriot, i was held high standard. as the commander-in-chief, 45 is held to that standard as well. has he violated any uniform code

of military justice? you on there military code? guest: pretty rusty. host: russian armed forces compared to u.s. armed forces? ways, russia, in a lot of is not the has been military power that i think americans adjusted to thinking of russia as for 20 or 25 years. it is this hollowed out shell of the red army and all they have left our nuclear weapons. in fact, the russians punch above their weight. what they can buy. you think about the relative weakness of the russian ruble, and that has been driven by international sanctions, what that means in basic economic

terms, if they are producing stuff at home, russia is one of the few countries that can produce all of its defense means at home. they can buy an awful lot for relatively little in dollar terms. billion dollar u.s. suggestsudget -- it the russians are spending quite a bit more. number two is technology. the russians have invested and frontloaded future technologies. hypersonic missile systems. this is because the united states is this vaunted juggernaut. we can build missile defenses. they want to have a way of beating not. for 20 years, they have been building these missiles that go faster than the speed of sound but are maneuverable. they have begun to deploy them. americans are in a tizzy.

my god, what happened? we were so dominant 20 years ago, that rational adversary said, we need some asymmetric way of responding. host: claremont, california, good morning. it right on the point, talking about the 1990's and oligarchs. medvedev, there's a video of him -- they watched the aliens. discoveredandfather aluminum. i find it very strange they are building an aluminum factory. kentucky.build a new

obama was making a deal with medvedev. there is video of him saying, wait until i get reelected. if you go back before that, ronald reagan, whose vice president was george bush, who russia.ssador to host: we will take it there. -- it isis problem of a tug-of-war between nationalization of russian connected to being the global economy. if you are completely isolated from the global economy, you will be poor. by the same token, russia is really big and has tremendous natural resources. putin can concentrate these things and make sure these not sending it

abroad. if he can rein that back in, this gives him and norma's control. -- enormous control. this is what putin wants in moscow. the problem has been that his oligarchs enjoy like -- life in the west. they want to live in london. they want to live in new york or miami. this potentially makes them vulnerable to western sanctions pressure. i do not think we can control what the oligarchs do at the end of the day because they will be forced to make a zero-sum choice. you are worth $10 billion. the americans want to impound your mansion in miami. you can keep your mansion and i will take the remaining 10 billion or you can get rid of the mansion and i will -- and keep your $10 billion. kennan?o is george

guest: most famous american demo that -- diplomat of the 20 century. much more famous for a long telegram back in the days of telegram that he sent from moscow when he was the deputy ambassador at the very end of world war ii where he described what was going to happen in the cold war. he essentially said, look, the soviets are not nazi germany. they are not bent on world domination at all costs. they are not wild eyed ideologues. these are people that you can deter if you act with firmness and clarity. if you know what you yourself stand for and you are consistent. if you live your values. the lesson today, almost 80 years later, is that americans have become confused.

we are internally divided about what we seek to stand for in the world. what he would say to us, you will never have a successful if you don't know yourself and live your own values. and if the rest of the world does not see that and believe it is credible. that is the bigger challenge that we face today. host: who could be a george kennan for our times? guest: we put together some of the smartest foreign policy thinkers of the last 20 years, different presidential administrations, democrats and republicans, people who lead the core and ask them idea of how you contain an adversary is relevant today. not just vis-a-vis russia.

vis-a-vis iran, china. the answers were mixed. what we did understand is that you need to have a strategic thinking capacity within government. another thing for which he is famous is the marshall plan. he was the director of policy planning at the state department under george -- under george marshall who wrote the plan of going to europe after world war ii. bringing billions of dollars, partnering with europeans, lending the money, if they would sign on to free-market capitalism in order to rebuild their economy. this was a brilliant strategic move because it rebuilt our principal trading partners and it kept communism from creeping into these destroyed miserable communities where it might have been very appealing. we need a strategic thinking

capacity in the government to plan our foreign policy with that kind of long-term view to mobilize resources. the foundation is still the same. if we don't live our own values, we will not be able to persuade or lead anyone. host: great place to learn more about george kennan is the wilson center. matthew rojansky is the director of that institute. appreciate your institute. we appreciate your time as always. that will do it for our program today. we will back here tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern. until then, have a great saturday. candidateresidential

joe biden, pete buttigieg, senators elizabeth warren and amy klobuchar deliver remarks at the conference of the iowa state education association union. air, or listen live with the freeseas been radio app. c-span radio app. conformity -- i am now prepared to take the oath. >> will you place your left hand on the bible and raise your right hand? do you solemnly swear that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of donald john trump president of the united states now pending you will do impartial justice according to the constitution and the laws, so help you god? >> i will.

>> god bless you. time i will administer the oath to all senators in the chamber in conformance with article one section three of the constitution. and the senate impeachment rules. will all senators now stand and remain standing and raise your right hands? that inolemnly swear all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of donald john trump president of the united states now pending you will do impartial justice according to the constitution and laws so help you god? >> we deal. >> for the third time in history a president is on trial in the u.s. senate. watch live tuesday when they trial resumes at 1:00 eastern on c-span two. >> up next c-span's cameras followed