discusses the michael flynn investigation and president trump's reelection strategy and at 9:20 a.m., a former republican strategist rick wilson from the lincoln project of why his group opposes president trump's reelection. ♪ host: this is the washington journal for may 14. an event on washington, a sad event. economic chair jay powell warned of an economic downturn because of the coronavirus pandemic. at that same event the chair says continued federal spending would be "costly but worth it" to avoid long-term damage and result in a stronger economy. this as the house picks up a bill on friday for an additional stimulus package to help the economy. we want to get your thoughts on the chair's statements on continued spending in light of the coronavirus pandemic and see

if you agree or disagree. let us know. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. if you want to talk about this idea of spending to help the economy and text us, it is (202) 748-8003. .ur twitter feed, @cspanwj you can post on our facebook page at facebook.com/c-span. the financial times picked up the story in which chair powell talked about in washington. additional fiscal stimulus may u.s.orth it" to shield the economy from long-term damage left by the pandemic. the oce secretary-general warned the rising debt level would "come back to haunt us." powell told the peterson institute in washington

yesterday that although the economic response is timely and appropriate at large, it may not be a final chapter. that event is available on c-span.org. here is a bit of that event featuring jay powell. [video clip] >> we will continue to use our tools to their fullest until the crisis has passed and the economic recovery is well underway. recall that the fed has lending powers, not spending powers. a loan from a fed facility can provide a bridge across temporary interruptions to liquidity. those will help many borrowers get through the current crisis. the recovery may take some time to gather momentum. the passage of time can turn liquidity problems into solvency problems. additional fiscal support could be costly, but worth it if it avoids long-term damage and leaves us with a stronger recovery. this trade-off is one for our elected representatives who yield powers of taxation. host: the committee for a

responsible federal budget in charge of coronavirus spending has on their website the federal reserve has authorized $5 trillion in economic support and dispersed roughly $2 trillion. two .6 trillion dollars has been authorized of legislation of which 1.4 trillion dollars has been disbursed or committed. 2.4impact will be roughly trillion dollars. the administration has authorized nearly $400 trillion of support for executive action and dispersed roughly $300 billion. a net deficit impact will be less than $100 billion. bou can find that at the crs website if you want to check it out. those are mr. powell statements concerning federal spending to help the economy during this time. we want to get your thoughts. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. .ndependents, (202) 748-8002

in baltimore, maryland, democrats line. eddie, hello. caller: how are you doing this morning? host: fine, thank you. what do you think about the statements? caller: we do need another stimulus package to the people, hospitals, and state. i believe worrying about american debt is we spent trillions and trillions of dollars trying to boost the stock market debts. china pulled in -- i believe it is the people who needs to help our economy. host: some republicans are saying take a wait and see approach about the spending already authorized to see if that makes an impact. what do you think about that argument? caller: i don't go with that argument. isngs are as they are, it what it is. there is no need for guesstimate ion. helping the people needs to be the focus, and trying to put

things in order for the cdc to save lives. that is what page i'm on. host: our independent line, zachary, hello. enough of, i think this spending. let people work. there's all this talk about a new -- i forgot what it was -- some bill. there are people who haven't even gotten there first stimulus check. they need to sort that out before this. statesou think even if revise their economy, that would work in time to help the current state of the economy? caller: i don't know. victor in silver spring, maryland, republican line. caller: good morning. if there is going to be spending, some conditions have been met. such as if you've got money,

you've got to, for example, stop this sanctuary cities, and sanctuary states. i would like an idea that rush limbaugh talked about over the years when it came to foreign aid. you have to be nice to this country if you want to get foreign aid. host: wide tithe that to the current situation -- why tie that to the current situation? caller: you go to the blue states, you have to be nice to trump or you aren't going to get any money. conditionsie that to to a healthy economy? caller: i'm tired of blue states spending to kingdom come and expecting the rest of the country to bail them out. host: don't states across the board, red and blue, need help during this time? caller: the red states are in pretty good shape because they didn't tax their citizens to

death like they do in the blue states. host: silver spring, maryland. andrew cuomo, the governor of new york state, has an op-ed in "the washington post" about what washington should do in considering spending. this is the headline of what washington must do to protect workers. the federal assistance package in march included hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up large corporations without questioning their commitment to workers or business practices. i understand the desire to keep businesses from failing, but doing so only makes sense of government funds are being used to support workers, not in rich executives and shareholders, but that's what's happening. they are jointly launching a bond buying program without any requirement that companies receiving aid retain workers or limit distributions to executives or shareholders. this is more shocking given the federal reserve's principal mandate is to promote maximum employment. governor cuomo adding washington

must put in place stronger requirements for corporations that take federal bailout money. corporations must hire at the same level they employed before the onset of the public health crisis and subsequent economic fallout. assistance that refinances corporate balance sheets should not be at the expense of workers. you can find that on the pages of "the washington post." democrats line, john, hello. -- i have aink brief comment about the former phone call. we have to spend on the bottom up, because we can't be trickling down and giving to cronies in washington preferential treatment for this stimulus money. i haven't gotten my stimulus

money. i'm a vietnam vet. i am well over 70. ting moneye people get from the government unless they need it. not somebody who is on wall street. donald trump and his friends have benefited more from this pandemic that they got going on. the senator in washington dc just got his cell phone because they think he was -- i will use the word racketeering. host: how does that apply to the idea of spending in washington, particularly during the pandemic? caller: we have to watch where we are spending ou money -- our money. tryingre people who are

to get the money from the small -- in the streets instead of it was going to go to the small guy in the streets instead of the guys up in wall street. in trenton, new jersey referred to the center story. cell phone the pages of "the los angeles times" saying federal agents retrieved a cell phone belonging to a prominent senator in two investigations into stock trade made when the coronavirus in the u.s.. turned over his cell phone. the seizure represents a significant escalation in the investigation. whether burr violated the law preventing members of congress from trading on insider information they have gleamed from their official work.

sebastian, florida, independent line. caller: good morning, pedro. some of this money that states are receiving, like cuomo in new york, i see cuomo has schmidthimself with mr. and is taking the federal money and is undermining education, and therefore undermining socialization of our young children. he wants to take this money from trump or congress and undermine systemon, an educational that has been there for hundreds of years. public education in new york city. my aunt taught for 35 years, my brother-in-law for 35 years. host: but the larger issue of spending at this time? what do you think of the chairman's statements about

additional spending needed to help all states? not just new york? caller: the red states have not been paying their fair share. states like new york have been footing the bill for the red states. states like california have been footing the bill for these red states. i don't see why you can't take know, shorend, you up pension plans, you know, in the states. security.le need that is why things are so out of hand. people don't have security, they don't have uniqueness -- they don't have unionization. he sawhe picture that the current u.s. economy, you can see the full presentation on c-span. here is a bit from yesterday. [video clip]

>> the scope and speed of this downturn are without modern president, significantly worse than any recession since world war ii. we are seeing a severe decline in economic activity and employment, and the job gains of the last decade have been erased. since the pandemic arrived in forest two months ago, more than 20 million people have lost jobs. the fed survey released tomorrow reflects finding similar to many others. among people working in february, almost 40% of those and households making less than $40,000 per year have lost a job in march. this reversal and economic fortune has caused a level of pain hard to capture in words as lives are appended and grieve uncertainty about the future. host: that full presentation at c-span. clay is in metairie, louisiana, republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. a few quick comments. in the 1930's the government did not have the money to fund a lot

of these programs we are funding today. today the government fortunately does have the money. i am diametrically opposed to the gentleman who just spoke about funding pension plans. that is exactly the $3 trillion gogram -- no money should towards funding pension plans. a lot of these states are funding their pension plans 10% return on 9%, the stock market. that isn't going to happen, period. but if the money is used to pay emergency personnel, fine. but the primary trust of this money should be to help the small businessman who creates jobs. thank you very much. host: david in clearwater, florida. democrats line. caller: good morning. my comment on the fed chairman's

discussion is we are going to have to spend more money. overlooking the judges haven't said anything about a part of the original depression in the 1930's of the last century had to do with getting people back to work. now everyone is presuming jobs are going to be there. if we have social distancing we aren't going to have as many people needed in those jobs. whether we are going to have world trade quickly or not, i don't know. we do know we need testing. we need a lot of people to oversee the testing, and after the testing to follow-up. that is a brand-new job. no one has ever done that. of this moneyrt should go to training people so that when these tests are done and we are following up so we

don't have a big surge, there will be people available to take care of rounding whoever needs to go where to prevent that. host: that is from florida. jerome carrabelle on the usa today website, a social knology professor at the university of california, rights of peace -- a sociology professor at the university of california, writes a piece, what would fdr do? a works progress administration. no two economic crises are identical. there are important lessons to be drawn from roosevelt's audacious experiment as the nation confronts the highest level of unemployment since the great depression. roosevelt was careful to align

the program with values of independence and self-reliance, drawing a sharp contrast from relief which he deemed fundamentally destructive to the national fiber. the proposed plan was consistent with the values of america. that work needed to be found for able-bodied but destitute workers. if you go to the market watch website looking at the current jobs picture, this is what they report as new numbers are supposed to come out on weekly unemployment saying new jobless claims expected to increase to 2.7 million from may 3 to may 9. the number of applications for unemployment compensation peaked at 6.9 million in late march and has fallen steadily over the last month. chris in california, republican line. chris ini, this is santa clarita, california. i just got my stimulus check on friday and stuck it in the bank

on saturday. checkterday the entire was gone on my auto insurance for the year, my car registration, which is in california $200 for a 26-year-old chevrolet. i paid off my credit card bill, which i do every month. that check is gone. i understand there is another check in the works. we sure could use it. i am almost 74 years old. people have forgotten in the last two years of the obama administration we did not get a cost-of-living increase. everything i touched went up, from fast food to prescription. host: it sounds like from your experience you are ok with the extra spending? caller: yes. i need it. my rent was just raised $110 a

month. i'm trying to get out of california, but you can't get a mover to give you an estimate. they don't want to come inside your house. i don't want them inside my house, because who knows what they are carrying. host: gotcha. randy in michigan. democrats line. caller: i would like to start by thanking you and the men and women it takes to bring us this program, and i hope you are all safe. host: thank you. sir.r: you're welcome, spending, we are listening to the experts on the health side, we have to listen to the experts on the financial side. if the fed chair says more spending is needed, we need to do it. it's worth it. there is a lot of stuff in this country we spend money on and i'm sure a lot of us can pick out that we don't like. i don't like the fact that states are going to get this money that have never paid --

have always gotten more money from the federal government than they paid in. mine isn't one of them. i pay the high federal. we have to keep the country going. i don't agree with a lot of the stuff that is red, blue -- i am not loyal to any human being, no matter what letter they put behind their name. host: what about the idea of the deficit concerns some have expressed about the spending going on these days? caller: pedro, i honestly believe after the last three years there is no one who even knows what debt and deficit means until now. now all of a sudden it means something when people's lives are at stake? you have been blowing money out the door to tax breaks -- i apologize. that's not the way to put it. government, then putting money out the door for the last three years like we had a waterspout. now we can't all of a sudden when it is people's lives say we

have to worry about the deficit? host: you probably have seen this clock several times on this program. this is the u.s. national debt. 25 plus trillion. debt per citizen, $76,000. it goes on from there. it shows you the federal spending clock, too. we show you that on a regular basis and talk about the issues. the editors out of the kenoshan talk about wisconsin issues concerning them saying before further stimulus packages are signed by the president, those leaders should whittle down the $24 trillion total debt starting with the next federal budget which begins october 1, focusing on the u.s. debt when millions of americans are dying or lost their jobs from covid-19 may seem irrelevant, but the unchecked spending for the last

two months is alarming. the two point $9 trillion in coronavirus stimulus eight passed and more being discussed tol push the federal deficit 3.9 trillion. that exceeds the amount of revenue collected from u.s. taxes. you can read that there. david next in georgia. independent line. caller: good morning, pedro. good morning to all the c-spaners out there. i will hit you with a few facts and try to be brief. our country is backed by gold. we have $45 trillion worth of gold because gold values went up ounce.0 per unless they are raising the gold value, we are headed to bankruptcy. the first go round of stimulus, $700 billion, as reported by cnbc news, if that wasn't in the

first spending package the rich could not make a profit. it was pretty clear who got the biggest chunk of the money and the fastest i some of them having to get it back. people,comes to the mitch mcconnell does not care. state pensionis fund for the teachers. they rated i -- raided it. he is allowing the same thing to happen to the federal government. i will give you the perfect example just in the news.the fed chair wants to finance electronic traded funds on the stock market. they want to buy it up.sounds like freddie mac and fannie mae. our people paying attention? the president has taken and destroyed everything to do with

security, which is our inspector general's, security offices, our science laboratories. host: we got it. jeremy, cleveland, north carolina. hi. caller: i have been trying to get a stimulus check for a few months. they won't accept me. i have been emailing. i pass all of the guidelines. -- host: let's go to ralph. caller: is this ralph? host: this is ralph, if that's you. caller: avakov look things to say quick -- i have a couple of things to say quick. hello? host: go ahead. caller: this is just another bailout for the rich. corporations would pay

livable wages to all americans, then we would be in better shape. what we are doing is taking their money and bailing out the rich, because they will not give us a livable wage. this beingieve in fair. don't treat me fair. i want you to treat me right, and that will be fair. host: are you against all spending at this time, or the direction the spending is going? where is your thought on that? caller: i don't know. with the spending need to be need-- with the spending to be done? if it wasn't trying to bailout the corporations all the time, we wouldn't be in this situation. even though i'm a democrat, when gas prices went down not too long ago, i heard nancy pelosi

raise the gas price 18%. that does nothing but hurt the poor. do the right thing. govern, and stop bailing out these corporations. host: ralph and augustine, georgia. one of the people making the case for spending on the senate side was the senate minority whip dick durbin. he argued that congress needs to continue emergency spending. [video clip] >> we need to stick with the program of helping americans get back on their feet. we need to stand by individual struggling to feed their families and going to food banks to get by. we need to stand by those drawing unemployment today with additional federal help trying to keep their families together while they are looking for a job waiting for the economy to rebound. we need to stand by the small businesses who can't survive if we don't continue our assistance. this notion that because it was

speaker pelosi suggested it it has to be a wrong idea is wrong and selfish. look at her proposals on their merit. they mirror what we started to do with the cares act and need to continue to do. you don't build a bridge halfway across a river. you build it all the way. let's go to the point to where our economy can rebound with strength and people can go back to work. let's support the heroes act introduced in the house of representatives. host: from ohio, republican line, ryan, good morning. caller: thank you for having this program. opportunity.ful i have concerns about the way the speaker presented this proposal. her proposal said she was going to continue to favor people irrespective if they have a social security number or not.

to me that means paying illegals. who gets paid and who doesn't get paid? the other thing she said, which is mind-boggling to me, is this payment should continue until such time as this coronavirus is over. that could be five years. they have no idea if this vaccine they are proposing is going to work, will it work, when will it in, and what does it -- when will it end, and what does it mean to say the payments should continue to these people who are not working, not performing any performance on the job site? what does it mean when it goes to the end of the coronavirus? the other thing she is concerned about is voting by mail. all you have to do is look at several states in the last presidential election to see they had more votes than people registered to vote. if this continues, you might as well just let them decide who

they think should be president in the next election. host: the election security piece, cbs has a breakdown of the heroes act. when it comes to election security, bill allocating $3.6 planningo states for for elections and bolstering election security. to show you some of the others, assistance to the post office, $25 billion. another direct payment to americans, saying the bill would have a second round of $1200 for each family member, up to $6,000 per household. the bill features aspects renters and homeowners from evictions and foreclosures. that is the one from cbs news. john goon was on the senate floor side yesterday talking

about the intervention done by the federal government at this time. [video clip] >> my friends across the aisle are pushing for more money, more money, more money. yesterday the house of representatives unveiled a $3 trillion coronavirus relief bill. that's right. $3 trillion. madam president, we haven't seen the effects of the money we have provided already. it is difficult to understand how democrats can call for an additional $3 trillion, all money borrowed on the backs of younger workers and our children and grandchildren when they haven't seen what existing funds have been used for or if they have been used at all. nobody is questioning, nobody is questioning that we may need additional money to address this crisis. republicans have appropriated $2.4 trillion, roughly 50% of

the entire federal budget for 2020. that is an extraordinary amount of money, but these are extraordinary circumstances and call for an extraordinary response. it is important to remember that every dollar of what we have appropriated for coronavirus is borrowed money. and ouryoung workers children and grandchildren will be paying for this borrowing. we are putting an incredible burden on younger generations. host: st. louis, missouri. caller: good morning. i would like to say i think some of the spending should be tied to public works-type projects to clean up some of our inner cities, as well as whatever issues the rural areas have. another comment is suddenly everyone has become an expert on red and blue states as far as

their budgeting.people are repeating with the president says without really understanding what is going on. i think that is so unfortunate. also the fact that we need to reduce partisan politics. we aren't going to get out of this with constant bickering. it is unfortunate that our leadership is not up to par. everyday people have to work through this. individually and community-wise we have to work to improve ourselves regardless of our leadership. host: charlotte, florida. hi. caller: this is anthony. what i would like to say is i'm a fantastically good trump supporter. i don't like the spending that has been happening.

to thebeen wasted, given politicians, big businesses, and thrown away on everything we don't need. also, i think it is time for president trump to get rid of dr. fauci. he has been giving us a bad information since he started and is nothing more than a high-priced democrat. host: when it comes to the wasting part of the spending would you put that to the $1200 to families going to individually? would you call that wasted money? caller: yes. if they would open up the economy right now, these people who really need the money could get their jobs back and go back to work, including the teachers and restaurant people. also most of them, like a lot of people in florida, are doing great. the retired people are doing

great. the people who really need the jobs don't have any jobs to go to unless you want to work for walmart. they are putting out more coronavirus or whatever than anybody else. host: you remember it was dr. fauci appearing on capitol hill to talk about issues with states reopening and the concerns he expressed about that happening. here's a portion of the testimony. [video clip] >> the concern is that states, cities, or regions, their attempt, understandable, to get back to some form of normality disregards to a greater sense of degree the checkpoints we put on our guidelines about when it is safe to pull back on medication. i feel if -- on mitigation. i feel if that occurs there a real risk you will trigger an outbreak you won't be able to control. which, paradoxically, will set you back, not only leading to

suffering and death that could be avoided, but even set you back on the road to trying to get economic recovery. it would almost turn the clock back rather than going forward. that is my major concern, senator. host: dr. fauci spoke on a lot of different topics. if you want to see everything he said regarding the reopening of states go to c-span.org. that is where you can find the president talking with reporters yesterday about dr. fauci's comments on reopening the economy. [video clip] >> he wants to play all sides of the equation. i think we are going to have a tremendous fourth-quarter, a transitional third-quarter, and year.omenal next i feel we are going to have a country that is absolutely going to have one of its best years. next year with all of the stimulus and the pent up demand like i haven't seen. you see it right now. these two really professional,

good governors that work so hard, i know both of them very well. one of them happens to be a different credit -- happens to be a democrat, ok, but we work together very well. you wouldn't expect me to say that, but it's true. really good job, too. we work well together. they want to get the states open. some governors, and perhaps some partisans for election reasons, don't want to have their states open. and some shouldn't open yet. they went through a lot and they are not quite ready. we are opening our country, people want it open. schools are going to be open. i was seeing purdue, great school, great college, university, purdue is opening, others are opening, they are all announcing it. these are students, young students, they are in great shape.

incident, onean out of a million, one out of 500, something will happen perhaps, but you can be driving to school and bad things can happen, too. no, we are going to open our country. host: those are available at c-span.org. the milwaukee journal sentinel reporting the supreme court shot down the governors order to lengthen stay-at-home it has the first time been knocked out. -- the decision was written by 'sur of the court conservatives. the rule immediately lifts restrictions on businesses and gatherings imposed by the administrations order, but keeps in place the closure of schools

until the fall. good morning. i think the additional spending is worth it. the american people, american society are worth the investment. these investments should be stimulating to the economy because they're going to people who really need the money to pay their rent and other things that will circulate through the economy. that in itself will be a multiplier, have a multiplier effect. people spending will continue to economy.d our i think everyone wants to manage money prudently, but we are in an emergency like we have never been in our country's history. that is not an absolute, but this is a very significant time in our history. this virus requires us to take extreme action, which means we have to exercise social distancing. we have to do what we can to

stay safe as we open. on thes position spending is it enables us to open, because it will provide the testing, it will provide the infrastructure for tracing as we need it. all of those things will be required to open. we can open the economy, but people aren't going to shop, they aren't going to spend as normal. all of the polling i have seen says the majority of people believe taking a safe and prudent approach as our public health officials have put forward is what we should be following, not listening to politicians, and definitely not listening to donald trump. host: tampa, florida. caller: the only thing i have to say is it's time to open the economy. we're going to use this money for coronavirus issues, that's great. states wholement

have mismanaged their money, i don't agree with, or giv giving money to illegal aliens. i think we are in enough of a hole and we need to open our states back up and get back to work. host: democrats line. go ahead. caller: i agree with the additional spending. however, i think it should be focused on those making less than $75,000 a year. everyone who makes over is working from home. we need essential workers to be rewarded. we need hazard pay for grocery workers and people cleaning floors and hospitals. we need to take care of those. i agree completely. we need to give the money to the spend itat are able to

and stimulate the economy. without that, there's nothing. thank you. host: the new york times this morning has a story about the people who went out over the past weekend and did normal speak.ies, so to this story says as more states began to relax restrictions, 25 million more people ventured out of their homes on an average day last week. in the preceding six weeks according to analysis of cell phone data, the share people staying home dropped in some places by nearly 11 percentage points. the estimates of the number of people moving were made using data provided by cubic, a location and analysis company. it comes from a sample of 15 million smartphone users worldwide who agreed to share their location data with certain apps.

because the sample is only a portion of the population and because not everyone owns a smartphone or carries it with them, it is an estimate. in the new york times, the idea of privacy at this time, the commissioner of the federal trade commission, christine wilson, an op-ed piece saying congress needs to pass a coronavirus piracy law. saying reopening the economy and returning to normal life in the absence of covid-19 may be possible, but the combination of widespread testing and contact tracing, these solutions will depend on technology, and silicon valley doesn't have the best record when it comes to protecting consumer privacy. congress must step into the breach establishing guardrails to protect handling of our most personal information. the fourth amendment protects americans from government overreach, but the reasonable expectation of privacy complicates the relation between

government action and commercial collection. ime beach, florida. caller: good morning -- miami beach, florida. caller: good morning. i want to give a real-world accounting of how this money has been spent. my family is in north carolina. we have a young couple in their mid-20's. one is an outback employee and one is a golden corral employee. of course they got laid off. they are bringing in together, and they have a two-year-old child, they are bringing in $200 weekly unemployed benefits each. act each. adding that together, $6,400, plus the government is giving them $500 a month for snap benefits to feed the child. the point i'm making is this is a couple who used to make it on less than $3000 a month, and

they are bringing in roughly $6,900 a month. they feel like they have won the lottery. it is crazy how we are going through pandemic -- and they are not the only example out there. everyone they know is in that situation. there are people making more money than ever to stay home and play playstation and go fishing. i don't know how we are going to get these people back to work. host: washington, d.c. me, i think, i -- the money is worth it because people are paying their bills. republicans use their codewords, these claims that they don't want to see people get anything. i guarantee none of them saying that gave their money back. this guy saying they should fire fauci, he-- fire dr. is not a political hack.

he is saying what his opinions are and what the studies say. host: randall's town, maryland. caller: i agree with the gentleman from washington just on. the real reason why republicans don't want to see fiscal spending money is because they have run up the highest national debt in one term than any president in the united states. host: republicans went along with the last couple of packages proposed by democrats. caller: they don't want to go along with this one though. the senate is thinking about knocking this one down. they never care about national debt. whereis there a point spending should stop or be slowed down? caller: i think what should happen is these people who work hard every day should be able to get this money. i mean, they just ran up the

national debt like it's nothing and no one ever talks about that. for barack obama pay down on the debt. bill clinton balanced the budget. they don't care about that. almost $4 trillion. they don't want to explain that, but they want to tell you they can't spend it. i think that is so unfair. host: the next 15 minutes or so on with the fed chair said about spending being worth it to stabilize the economy. you can give us a call on (202) 748-8000 free democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. for independents it is (202) 748-8002. in other news, the name paul manafort you probably recognize from this program and the news, in prison since june 2018 for fraud, now reported this morning that he will be sentenced to home confinement for his term

saying his attorneys argued in april paul manafort should be released to serve at hist a portion of sentence in virginia. is 71 yearsafort old and suffers from several ailments. the justice department official said though manafort had not served enough time to be granted priority relief, the bureau of prisons thought it was necessary because of his age, venerability, underlying health issues, and the person spoke on anonymity. this story adds up to the u.s. bureau of prisons reported as of tuesday the 2818 inmates and the 40,000 system has tested positive. there have been no confirmed infections at the live read complex or mr. manafort was being held. go ahead.

i think they should put another stimulus check out to help people. host: why is that? that is marilyn in pennsylvania. dennis in indiana. no, i: for one thing, don't agree with the spending. it's ridiculous. if pelosi wants to spend this kind of money we need to spend it -- host: dennis, go ahead. caller: i don't agree with the spending. if pelosi wants to spend this kind of money she needs to spend it wisely. which means deporting 30 million

illegals out of the country so we have jobs for americans when we reopen our economy. host: how does that help people in the short term? caller: people are being helped. they have unemployment. they have government payouts. we need to reopen the economy. let derek from maryland lie when he said obama paid down the debt. obama doubled the debt in eight years. host: montana, independent line. caller: hello, my name is kenny. but i didn'tiner, make any money last year so i don't get an unemployment check. i have worked all my life. i live out here in montana. in and i take care of myself. i pay all of my bills a year

ahead of time. and i don'tn here, get an unemployment check because i don't make enough money. am with contracted businesses who paid less than $10,000 trying to make money for the u.s. economy. gold goes into our economy. now i am here because i didn't make money, didn't have enough money to file taxes on it, i lost money. i don't get an unemployment check and i haven't gotten a stimulus check because i didn't file for the last couple of years. host: that is kenny in montana. one thing to watch out for on the network is a hearing that will feature the head of a

formal federal agency overseeing coronavirusfor the will warn of the darkest winter in history for the united states if the united states doesn't develop their approach based on science to combat the virus. thee fail to develop response based in science that pandemic will be worse and prolonged causing unprecedented illness and fatalities. while it is terrifying to acknowledge the challenge we confront, the undeniable facts are there will be a resurgence of covid-19 this fall compounding the challenges of seasonal influenza and putting an unprecedented strain on our health care system. that hearing is at 10:00 today. we will talk about issues not only of the coronavirus, but why he was removed from office. bright being featured at 10:00 on c-span. monitor it on c-span.org and

c-span radio. sarah and alabama, republican line. caller: am i on tv now? host: you are on, go ahead. caller: i will turn my tv down. host: i appreciate it. caller: i went to work when i was 17. my husband, we worked until we were 62. i'm 77. you need to get these people back to work, right? i'm tired of democrats. the democrats, nancy pelosi and her web of people, the deep turn thee trying to country into -- that was a great place at one time. do we want that? host: greg, go ahead. believe we i don't should be spending more money.

to bailout these states who failed. all the states need to do is throw out all of the illegals and they would have the money to fund their little states. as far as pelosi goes, she is too senile. she needs to step down. host: there are two stories looking at the november elections in the papers. one will concern the nominating convention for the democrats. unanimouslyommittee -- authority to change the format size and shape of the event. delegates will be able to participate in the convention in person or by means that provide for appropriate social distancing. they will try to approve the measure as the party comes to grips amid the coronavirus pandemic. the outbreak has forced organizers to move the milwaukee convention to august 17. when it comes to joe biden and

who he might pick for a potential running mate, two of the names being discussed are, harris and amy klobuchar. this is by sean sullivan and others. no strong, there is internal front-runner according to a person familiar with the campaign's progress. many associates have privately or publicly expressed a preference for the two senators and that much of the talk around the campaign focuses on them. it to be harris or klobuchar. that is in the washington post. columbia, maryland. you are next up. good morning. i consider myself a fiscal conservative, and i do see where this is an unprecedented situation. wasspending initially

warranted to a certain extent. areall of these politicians like pigs feeding at the federal trough. it is really scary when you look at the numbers. trillions and billions are incomprehensible for the average person. up until this point we have been borrowing $1 trillion a year. that would be as if i am making $30,000 a year, and i am borrowing $10,000 to meet my basic expenses. we have been doing this year after year. with this crisis, it is like no holds barred. we will open up the spending and pass all of this debt onto future generations. this is nothing more than intergenerational theft. i have kids and grandkids. it is so selfish and

self-centered on our part to spend this kind of money. host: next from robert in st. louis, missouri. caller: i think it is legit. i really think we should be giving the stimulus checks, because the republicans didn't trump gaveblem when incentives to the richest people of america tax breaks. they weren't crying about that. now that they are trying to help the economy to give people things they really need, he shouldn't be done. i think they should be getting the stimulus checks, and the government will be here long after all of us are gone. thank you, very much. host: the washington times had a talk featuring jeff about the latest in the story of michael flynn saying presumptive democrat nominee del biden and other high-ranking members of the obama administration were among 40 officials who sought to

-- unmask the identity of esther flynn during the presidential transition time. that was released by the director of national intelligence. saying that the armor vice president, jim call me, john brennan, john klapper, and dennis forget were also listed. the process of unmasking was asked of the president during the press conference of what you saw it earlier. here's what he had to say. [video clip] >> on the release of those names -- >> the unmasking is a massive thing. i just got a list. who can believe a thing like this? who can watch biden on good morning america being interviewed by george stephanopoulos. he said he knew nothing about anything. he has no idea. he knows nothing about anything.

nothing at all. it gets released today that he was a big unmasker. i don't know if any of you are big unmaskers. it is one of the very big stories, and i suspect you will have even bigger stories coming out. host: he said that yesterday. we will pick up that topic at 8:40 eastern standard time with 2 segments with perspectives on the case involving michael flynn. michelle in illinois. go ahead. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. program.y your i like to see how people all over the country, what they are feeling and thinking. the spending, my biggest problem is i don't think we have had a plan from the get go for any of this starting at the top. lots of chickens running around with their heads cut off. it is disheartening to see our country not be prepared and not

have a plan. host: one more call from bill in chicago. yes, i see many people calling and complaining about immigrants. emigrants are absolutely necessary. everybody should be aware of that by now. immigrants are really the ones taking care of whatever food production we got. this topic.all for you are probably familiar with the daytime program washington journal. we have a nighttime program as well, wj primetime. we will talk about the response to the coronavirus pandemic. our guests include asa hutchinson.

we will talk about the role of state and local government. amidlso china's next step the ongoing pandemic. that conversation you can see that live tonight. coming up, we will be joined by stephen elledge. sciencetalk about the and research being done and how to make sense of the models of how the pandemic is playing out. be joined bywill strategic communications director mark waters to talk about the michael flynn investigation. strategy ofelection president trump. first, the congress committee is where a hearing was held wednesday. the topic of that was broadband access. here's a portion. i want to start with --

[indiscernible] all over the country, kids are being asked to learn from home. when they don't have access to internet, we have this story out of minnesota where one of our tribal where without internet, one -- is paying for it. we can't have that continue into the summer and into the rest of the year. my first question is, you mentioned they were going to have senator cramer, 28 cosponsors including eight members of the committee, democrats and republicans, which allows providers to keep providing service. the last thing we want to do in

rural areas is to cut off -- can you describe i that is important? >> thanks for your leadership. tom practice say we are up 30 members of the senate and and 99 on the committee. the it does is it allows pledge to continue. people will not be cut off to critical service because of economic hardship. students will be connected. what the bill does is it allows companies to make the -- between what customers cannot afford and continue to keep service up at that level or even a higher level. i think about the analogies of the grocery store or newspapers. they are essential. of can't expect the doors the stores to be open 24/7 and expect them to operate. continue to to support the support network.

the ability for technicians to connect to schoolchildren, upgrade the abilities of those working from home. -- build helps the that, in conjunction with a lifeline program can be powerful. that support is essential. if we are going to say that broadband connectivity is what we need, support through legislation is going to be necessary. thank you very much. announcer: washington journal continues. host: joining us is stephen elledge with the harvard medical school. he is professor of genetics. about science and research. you hear stories daily

about covid-19 research, models and the like. what is the sense, best way to approach what people digest? guest: this is a huge question. created totalhas information overload. it is a tsunami of information we have never seen. -- are coming online every day. it is important that people work quickly. it is essential, but it comes with risks. much of the information cropping up is not pure -- not peer-reviewed. eager to report this news but it is important for people to oh distinguish between types of information they get. there are three things to consider. one is the source of the information. , howecond is the messenger

the information is transmitted. the third is the type of evidence. is it published peer-reviewed research, or is it a preliminary unverified? onis an anecdote or based observations from different labs over time using lots of experiments? it? kind of information is is it research done in laboratories? mice, humans? all of these are important but they have different degrees of applicability to humans. question is, what sources do you trust? if you want to get your information and feel comfortable about it, who do you go to? --entific authorities and ,dc, who, state governments

academic medical centers, universities, these are trusted sources. scientistsicians, and the biomedical field. these people have deep expertise and knowledge about health and disease. it is important to the scientific process. havesource -- you information coming from everywhere, which once you want to trust? ones?ch ? do you want to trust guest: as opposed to social media. in an op-edcently took two to cases and used it as an example. these out of california, saying studies looking for immune markers of covid-19 projections

suggest the virus is less deadly. these findings have not been vetted, can you paint in a broadbrush how these studies apply to what to watch out for? excellentt is an question. studies in question -- we are trying to ask the question of -- we know how many people who are going to the hospital and we know how many die, we do not know how many are infected overall. to understand that, you have to know how many people in the overall community have been infected. hospital ando the you are sick, they give you a test to see if you have the virus right then and there. they can detect the virus with rna. that tests for the virus in your body. but, people may have had the

virus, survived with few symptoms, may have been a symptomatically -- they have a fingerprint. the immune response has an antibody. to go into the population to test people foromly -- semi-randomly one of the antibodies. they were going to draw conclusions about how many people had antibodies and how many on average in california were infected previously. can calculate which fraction are dying. then they get a traumatology rate. , allly one in 10,000 die of the two the hospital, but if it is low -- but if it is very high like 1% or 2%, that is difficult.

sick of people get very and a significant number going to die. used a blood test that takes blood out of your finger and has a device that allows you to determine whether or not to have antibodies. is, how well that test works. -- falsehe background positive frequency that the test gives you? that is an important question the reason the tests came under scrutiny is because it was published online. no one could see the real data yet. went to the next day. -- ithould went to the

went to the media the next day. --?they accurate or not. the key point was the false positives. certainimed it was a number but it was not rigorously looked at. other people used the same test and said it had a 3% false positive rate. makes a bigve rate difference if there is a low number who have been infected. if the number of people affected is -- [indiscernible] is 3%, all ofate those people could be false positives. they used the error rate of 0.5%. claimingwhat they were , because there are so few 1%ths in california, but

infected is a low rate. relatively speaking. but, they were probably overestimating how many people had been infected. are important when you consider whether or not to reopen society. that study was flawed for those reasons. this is the kind of thing that would be caught in a normal peer review situation. wrote that we article. people coming to the conclusion that this virus is leslie for landis. ust: our guest will be with to analyze. stephen elledge, the professor. questions, it ask is (202) 748-8000 four eastern

and central. (202) 748-8001 mountain and pacific. medical professionals, (202) 748-8002. theguest is a professor at harvard medical school and brigham and women's hospital. austin, texas you are on. caller: thank you for taking my call. elledge. mr. i want to say to everybody and get y'all's comments about -- we have done this before. we did this with tuberculosis. old, iwas six years stuck out my arm, nobody had a choice, you got a tb skin test. latented for tuberculosis, people who were carrying tuberculosis had the

bacteria, but did not show symptoms. but, everybody did it. it was a good test. it was easy to administer. everybody took it. there wasn't everything about -- there wasn't anything about privacy. had tuberculosis, they had serious quarantine procedures. they would lock you up in a state hospital. after the 1940's, they had drugs to give you treatment instead of it just being a tb sanitarium. is, we need good accurate testing done with a good strategy to go at this as a disease. host: we will leave it there. guest: those are great points. i completely agree.

knowing if you have the virus is one thing. issue -- you may be immune or you may not. that is good. is who hasd to know the virus right now? they need to be quarantined. stop it outant to or minimize it, we get a vaccine that can protect our population. we need to know who has it right now. if you have it right now, you need to be quarantined. everyone you come in contact with needs to be tested. in order for that to happen, we need to have a lot of tests. we cannot wait a week. i think the gentleman is right, we need to have a lot of testing.

sendwise, you can't someone back into a crowded environment if they have the virus, or else you're going to infect everyone. host: chicago, illinois. joshua, you are up. c-span.thank you [indiscernible] when the trump administration said the trade wherewith china falling behind china, they [indiscernible] it would have to come from wuhan. as the creator of coronavirus -- their

expectations, everything turned in favor of china and against america. this is america suffering from coronavirus, shortage of ppe more than any other country. what goes around comes around. policy shows we have -- host: anything to that? sure: i am not exactly where to go with that. trade war was going on before and during the outbreak. i do not see there being a direct link except for the fact that we live in an interconnected world. if anything shows us that, it is a pandemic. all over the from world to function as a society. it is important to have relationships with other

countries. in this environment, we depend on each other even more. i try not to think too much about interactions with any particular country, but the one with china is important, as a trading partner. opposeding that now, as to breaking it further, i think is really an important aspect of moving for -- moving forward. betweenthe connection trade and the pandemic. i have nothing left to say about that. host: we will go to new jersey. susan in monroe township. ask -- i would like to january, ie virus in

do not know if it was covid but i was sick enough to go to the doctor because i had an asthma episode. i went to the doctor, he gave me a -- i had a flu vaccine in september and the pneumonia vaccine. taking amoxicillin for diverticulitis. i could have had it because i notsymptoms, coughing, wheezing -- and i had a fever. host: where are you from? caller: new jersey. monroe township, new jersey. it or notow if i had but i have a feeling i did. it.aughter had we are both caretakers. so far, so good. host: -- time, itthink at that

in january -- i think the first cases were her just after that. but highlympossible, improbable. there are lots of other viruses that give you similar symptoms. if you did have it, you got over it. congratulations. i think it is unlikely you did have it come up what i am not a medical doctor. i only give -- in this case, i think given what is known about the virus, it is unlikely. host: let's talk about another side of science. modeling. there is an op-ed today by jodie heist in usa today.

the headline this "experts can be wrong. we can safely reopen." "many of the models used to justify this seem to be flat out wrong. experts put out the worst doomsday predictions. the british epidemiologist ferguson claimed 2.2 americans -- 2.2 million americans would die. ferguson has since downplayed it. objective has the been accomplished, health care systems are no longer in danger by being flooded by coronavirus." how would you respond to that? ofst: there are a lot different models. some of them will be wrong. not all. it might be worthwhile to look at what the average modelers. aw many models are predicting particular outcome. over time, the models get

better. as we get more data -- in the beginning, there were wild estimates. , ande have pulled back done social distancing. that slow down the virus a lot. the projected death rates are based on that. -- if oney you can person did something wrong -- hey, we are going to open up the country. [no audio] guest: i think a lot of the models -- if you predict 2 million people are going to die, right now we have thousands dying every day. the estimates are only going up. right now i think it is around 2000 today. getoesn't take too long to

to one million people at 2000 today. you can rest assured if you open -- if you will get open up society, you will get more infections. that is not a doubt. you have to look at everything. if you don't open up the country, are people going to starve? are they going to get enough money to buy food? they going to get medical health? these are things that also can lead to death and suffering. the citizens who open up the country are -- which is a better idea. certain locations have much less virus and could probably function. others, it is a mistake. these sorts of decisions have to be weighed. factors have to be put together

to decide. the fact that someone had predicted something that did not happen -- one person -- i don't think that is reason to base anything off of. host: pennsylvania, hello. caller: thank you c-span. my concern is finding -- i am different information on how to prevent being contaminated. i am retired. ont is the life of the virus mail?nces such as how do we present ourselves from getting it while being at home? home -- theeople at biggest event that causes them to get sick is interacting with

other people for not staying home. the risk of getting it off of something in your house like mail is low. i often leave our mail alone for a day or two before we open it. things like that. things in your house or a big problem. somebody using the door from the outside -- you can clean that ethanol,soap or whatever you have. if you're are concerned about that. to -- peopleeople who -- going to the store is low risk. not zero, but low. you are in and out, you don't stick around.

you don't go to restaurants. in as where you are confined environment, the virus could hang out. where you arees more likely to confected. i think at home, you are relatively safe. you limit your interactions outside, you can go for walks, .ear a mask, avoid people having -- think getting groceries and things like that are a lower risk. your mail is a low risk. -- plastic and paper on the order of less than a day most of the time. think, use common sense, wash your hands and wear a mask. host: in tennessee, rosemary

hello. caller: i am calling because i have a question about some of the research going on related to covid-19. that i hadt certain it. february and lasted for longer than i cared to have it. thinking about the symptoms, the respiratory part was not as bad as i had thought it might be from news reports. when i heard about hospitalizations and people going into pneumonia, it occurred to me that there might be a relationship between people

who have had long-lasting as opposed toines those who did not. i am one who had it two years ago. i wonder if there is any research going into that kind of relationship to covid-19 and symptoms. caller: that is an excellent point. it is possible that you had one of the pneumonia vaccines it could be protective and lesson n your chances of going into severe pneumonia from the virus. those of the sorts of things that people will be looking at. epidemiologists are interested. whether other vaccines interact with previous infections may

impact how you respond to the virus. things like that. lungsng that impacts your -- one of the biggest problems decreasesis that it your ability to utilize oxygen. you have low o2 levels. lungsng that impairs your -- that could factor into having a poor outcome. of questions are going to be looked at. it is a good thing you brought it up. todaythere is a story about a study taking look at how long droplets can last. it is from the national institute of diabetes and kidney diseases at the university of pennsylvania. it was published at the national

academy of science, a peer-reviewed journal. they on the experiments, the laserlike studies -- study was not involved in coronavirus. you may not know about details, but if it has classifications going in, is that a study that could be considered credible? thet: it has gone through peer review process. let me explain the peer review process. it is a rigorous vetting process by an independent panel of that puts studies like this paper under a microscope and make sure -- and makes sure thiscience is done -- safeguards the integrity of science. is a critical look at the

methods researchers used to determine what exactly they determined. basically, when i submit a paper, that paper is given to -- without my knowledge who these people are -- different experts. they go through it very therelly and make sure if are any problems with the interpretation, they send it back and say we are not going to publish this. that is peer-reviewed. that is vetting. i assume that this study went through that process and is something you can give weight to. every scientific paper that gets through peer-reviewed is not perfect, but are more likely to be believable. is here to talk

about science and research behind covid-19. donna from knoxville, tennessee. caller: thank you for taking my call. i'm confused about testing. if i have a test and i test negative and go back to my normal activity, how do i know i am not coming into contact with somebody who is an asymptomatic carrier? understand how the test is supposed to be reassuring. guest: great question. it is reassuring from the sense that you know you do not have it in that moment. that, you may have just been infected. if you are not tested over time, you can never be absolutely certain. you can assume that at the moment you are not infectious if

the test is validated, but that says nothing about the people you are interacting with. that is why we need more testing. if everyone in the environment is tested and everyone is negative, you can fear more comfortable. that does not mean you should not wear masks. you do not know when somebody could get infected. the hope -- unfortunately, the government has not gotten their act together to get testing going. this is like the manhattan they make -- or whatever they do -- popsicle sticks. they focus on getting some of the so everyone can do this. testing, the few people that were positive, you could do tracing on them and

follow them over time to make sure they are not infected by this individual. was infected,ual they are quarantined until it was finished. that is how you stamp out infection. that works only if you have gotten the level to a low level. if you have a high level circulating, you cannot trace it. you cannot keep up with it. that is what south korea did. they had some knee tests -- way more than we did. they basically stopped the virus. they tested everybody. we don't have enough tests. you have to be tested more than once. you can be negative, and then all of a sudden new can be positive. it is one of these things where we need a lot of testing. people are going to have to be tested more than once. viewer one is a

twitter who asked about peer-reviewed, how can you tell if a study has been peer-reviewed? tell by thean journal that has published it. journalse scientific publish them. there are preprint servers where purple -- where people can put their papers before they are peer-reviewed. there was a study out of california looking at the frequency of people who had been infected with an antibody test -- that information was put on a preprint server. that is how the media found out. but, it was not published. it was not published in a journal of science. the journal of the american medical association, these are scientific journals. they go through the vetting of peer review, that is how you can

trust it. host: we hear next from minnesota. caller: good morning. thanks a lot for taking my question. you toquick big thank you mr. elledge and all of your -- were fighting the fight here. all of us appreciate it. week, i readst research on masks. i thought it was from harvard, but they studied 1600 masks in one day. some paper, some fabric. theye end of the study, found 97% of the fabric masks had covid on them. only 44% of disposable masks had covid. masks,ashing the fabric 45% of the fabric masks were

still showing covid on the masks. article, toilets. that before you flush your toilet, you should shut the lid because of the spray and the fact that we are finding covid in fecal matter. i do not know if these were harvard -- i thought that they were. again, thank you to you. guest: thank you. i have not read that study. parts of it. the masks may have been from people in hospitals. medical people. about the toilets.

fecal matter. right now, they know they can detect viral rna in fecal matter. showed yet that it is still an active virus. it could be a dead virus. that needs to be figured out. issue -- toilets should, if they can, have the lid closed. if you are in a public place, that is not usually an option. i think you have to be careful about that. key --s of masks, the the key is live viruses. itself, this circular spherical pod. it has a fatty part on the outside that keeps water out and

protects it. fatty material, that breaks -- way and it activates a virus but it does not remove necessarily the rna. the test is looking to -- you do not know that that is still infected or not. they did the how -- and that study. in order for me to comment on it, i would have to look at it. question quick breaking this morning, a rapid coronavirus diagnostic test may have missed nearly half of all positives. the system which has not been peer-reviewed found the test to be unacceptable in a clinical setting. on its face, how much caution should you express before making

a conclusion? i think there are a lot of false positives. especially if they are trying to attain the virus in nasal swabs. maybe the viruses in your epithelium, that is one issue. study, i heardhe the news. was a reallying it large discrepancy, 40% or something, that is unacceptable. if that is true. you have to have other people do the analysis and see what the paper looks like, let's see what other people's analyses look like. it probably differs significantly.

an issue. it needs to be followed up on. you have tests that are erroneous sometimes. there is the matter of sensitivity. i am sure this is all going to be feared quickly -- i am sure this is all going to be figured out quickly because everything is verified by other scientists. stephen elledge at the harvard medical school. professor of genetics and medicine. we thank you for your time. guest: thank you very much. host: coming up, we are going to hear from president trump's strategic, occasions director. strategic communications director. letter on, we will hear from rick wilson.

talk about why he opposes the president's reelection. the vote tomorrow supposed to take place in the house, the tag of $3 trillion. here to talk is congressman mark walker. by chairman of the republican congress -- conference. guest: glad to be with you. . host: talk about -- what issues might you have with the legislation? i think it is a huge wish list with many things not connected to covid-19. theyusly there are things can draw a line too, but this is not the time or the moment to largestin the legislation to work on things partcannabis, salt tax

this is a very serious time. a couple of republicans, i do not see this getting traction. host: if you took away those ,ssues you have concern about and only stepped two dollar figures, you could support? guest: it is a problem. the other three phases of the legislation we passed for unemployment and small businesses has been bipartisan. committees have met, we have worked together. all of the legislation has passed. -- somem 96% congressman had issues with unemployment rules. when you are talking about something of this mandate to, that -- this magnitude, that the speaker would craft this with her team only and not think

about bipartisan support at all, i think most american people -- even independently thinking people that are not politically affiliated would say that is not the right way to handle congress. host: you talk about the house coming back to vote. what is your concern about the safety? to allowan effort proxy voting, is that something you can sign onto? guest: no. there are ways to do that. there may be committee things you can do, one of the six or seven things. as -- your vote -- in such situations, there have been times when there is such a vote that is so important that you are literally back and forth as you walk from your house through the tunnel into the capital, still processing the

information. to turn that vote to somebody cheapens the it process. through famine, flood in wartime, members of congress hall, iwn up in the tonk we owe our forefathers plow through this especially when my wife shows up at work every day to do their job. host: if you're coming back, what safety precautions will be taking place with you and other members of the house? is common sense to make sure you are doing everything to protect each other. both my mom and dad have tested positive for coronavirus. they are doing better. you need to do everything you can with the mindset that we

need to reopen the economy. host: mark walker, vice chair of the republican conference to talk about federal spending. mr. walker, we appreciate your time. guest: always a privilege. host: joining us now is mark water, strategic communications director of the president's 2020 campaign. guest: good morning. host: why is the story of michael flynn of interest amongst the trump administration? guest: it is remarkable you had thatormer administration was not only unmasking the identity of an american citizen in the process of helping the new administration transition into office, but to go so far as to leak the contents to the media to create this false narrative of russian collusion which has obviously been exposed

as a hoax. officialsof those themselves say under oath they have no evidence of collusion while publicly saying something else. host: there was that list of names revealed yesterday, data points and some stories saying the process of unmasking is regular. case, what was interesting about the names released yesterday? is it just because they were close to obama? upst: this goes all the way to the previous ministration with the president being involved with meetings about michael flynn, vice president pence -- vice president biting guest: i have seen some reporting through intelligence agencies that officials arsenic many of the names on the list of

people who unmasked general flynn had no business unmasking the name. italy wouldsador of have to know anything about the conversations involving general flynn. it is clear this unmasking was done among many in the previous administration, whether they had need or not. the leaking of that to undermine this incoming administration has to be looked into. host: is it your contention that president obama the source? contending that president obama was the source. it is clear he was involved. the email from sally yates who talked about an oval office meeting with the president and joe biden, they knew about the unmasking of general flynn. thatusly it is something was done directly at the level of the overall office.

the chief of staff was also listed along with joe biden as people who unmasked general flynn. that is something we have to get to the bottom of. we have never had the use of the intelligence powers that our government turned on a political thenization to undermine peaceful successful transfer of power in our country. things thef the president has used is #obamagate. guest: i think we need to know what obama knew, what -- when he knew it and what was the purpose. the same holds true for joe biden. he was involved in this even though he first tried to hide the fact he was involved, and then he dismissed the fact he was involved in the meetings in the oval office. now it comes out that his name

was being used to unmask the identity of general flynn. that happened on the same day as the intelligence -- the contents of general flynn's call were released to the washington post. host: mark water our guest. if you want to ask questions concerning michael flynn, it is (202) 748-8000 free democrats. (202) 748-8001 for republicans. for independence, (202) 748-8002 . what ultimately would you like to see done by the administration? see laws being used appropriately. if the law was violated then the people who did it should be held into account. the reason this unmasking thing is even an issue is to protect

the several rights and civil liberties of american citizens. guest: if they are inadvertently, if their conversations are inadvertently discovered through intelligence agencies, there is a reason why their identities are unmasked. we do not have a court order allowing the governments of the united states to tap or surveilled your calls. unmasking those is an extraordinary step done by the intelligence committee when they are trying to get more information. to allies in the mainstream media to try to create a narrative that we now know is false and we have said was false from day one, that is something different. it is an abuse of civil rights of general flynn and anyone else

and i think it should be investigated. host: earlier this morning, the former dni was on cnn. he was asked about michael flynn. i want to play his response and get your response. [video clip] haveat concerns did you about general michael flynn in this period from the day after the election to the inauguration? >> there was general concern engagementsmber of with russians that we were there weren -- byerous engagements representatives of the trump camp with russians. that was of general concern. is what was the attraction of me and other national security officials. oathu have said this under

, when you were director of national intelligence, did you see direct evidence of collusion between general flynn or any trump campaign official with the russians? >> i did not. collusion is not a formally defined term in a legal sense, but if you read the intelligence community assessment -- particularly the classified version -- you will not find the c word anywhere there. >> did the absence of collusion indicate to you that no requests for unmasking should happen? why ask for names like this? been -- otherve reasons why you would unmask -- it mayu read the report,

not tell you what exactly is going on. what,was collusion or what you are trying to determine -- does this pose a threat to national security? host: that was a link the clip. remember that to general michael flynn with the incoming national security advisor of the president-elect. it is absolutely appropriate -- i would say required for the national security advisor to friends, those's who might be considered foes or adversaries to get a sense of what is going on in the world. otherwise to question -- remember, when the president stands up on the steps of the on january 2000

and takes the oath of office, they should not turn around and say what is happening? we expect our presidents to be fully informed and ready. that is what that transition periods for. obama administration to question why the incoming administration was talking to world leaders is just them trying to spy on what did president trump -- president-elect trump planned to do with foreign policy? what could they do to undermine that? it is a responsible. -- it is irresponsible. we had a president who was able to take the reins of power and be fully briefed not only amongst america's friends and also our foes. this strategic communications director of the

president's 2020 campaign. malika and arlington, texas. first, michael flynn pled guilty. never in the history of any criminal proceeding would you plead guilty and have any type of appeal. this ability for him to have his andges dropped is wrong false, covering up crimes per donald trump. he is going to go through this backdoor effort. two, michael flynn was on recording with turkey trying to kidnap a turkish -- in the united states because they won't extradite him. michael flynn and his son were conspiring to kidnap this man and sent him back to turkey because the u.s. would not extradite. turkey wants him back in because he claims there was a coup in turkey -- when that

didn't occur, he went to lobby for turkey. he is not innocent. he to lobby for turkey to try to get u.s. policy when turkey changed to extradite this --. host: -- guest: i am not going to get into general flynn's private dealings. isa relates to his plea, it appropriate. it is not unprecedented that people can withdraw their plate. it has happened in that courtroom in front of the judge. what i would also say is that it is the government's responsibility to prosecute crimes. they represent the government. when the government fails or chooses not to prosecute, that is the decision of the government. it is not the decision of the judiciary or any judge to say you should prosecute. role.s not a judge's the fact that this judge believes they can be prosecutor

and judge should show you exactly what this judge's motives are and should be something this judge should recuse themselves from her -- from. caller: i think we have all failed to get, once we gather this globalism and moving people going, legally, you are to be talking to people. certainly there is no problem talking with turkey, there is no problem talking with russians. i would be in jail if that is the standard. americans can talk to anyone they want at any time. it matters what you do. the former caller -- there were no charges on turkey. as far as what our government did, mike flynn and others using pressure, going after his son and threatening him over turkey, this is a bunch of crop from the start.

crap from the start. guest: there are many points there that are true. let's not forget, this is not the first time we have seen these kinds of abuses of police power of the government for political purposes. we saw this in the 60's when the fbi was keeping lists and monitoring people they considered to be un-american, surveilling folks like martin luther king. when that was exposed, congress came together as republicans and democrats to protect american civil rights. i think what we're seeing here again under the obama administration is rivaling that you saw under j edgar hoover. it is sent for congress to come together again to say the police

powers of the federal government are not going to be used for political purposes, we are going to protect the civil liberties of america. host: this is rocky from california, why did the president fire michael flynn? guest: the president fired michael flynn because of statements he had made to the vice president. as it related to internal communications. not necessarily involve the dealings we are seeing under the court proceedings and the abuse of power by the previous administration. those are separate issues. but those issues ultimately meant a loss in confidence by the president in michael flynn? guest: the president took the

action he thought was necessary at the time but i don't think because one thing happened to be true that the entire process about information of michael flynn was exposed, leaked to the media to create this false narrative which was used to create a three year witchhunt against this president alleging russian collusion, all of these kinds of things, and as we see the classified documents coming out, the folks who would go on many of the mainstream media networks and say, i have seen the evidence of collusion, there is collusion, over and over again, when they were put under oath under the threat of perjury said something completely else. keith,rom michigan, democrats line. caller: i have a couple of questions. the obamann fired by

administration prior to mr. trump being elected? in that case, one that result in the fact that maybe they were keeping an eye on him or observing him because of his past history? presidentsituation is obama was president up until mr. trump took his oath of office. they still have the responsibility of enforcing and protecting our country from many -- from any breach of intelligence or harm that may come to our country. host: thank you. guest: as it relates to the former president and general flynn, it is my understanding he was dismissed from his position and as i would say, the president has the right to surround himself with people he

believes represent his interest or his beliefs, so that was president obama's decision to make on his own, but that does not give any president or the government the right to survey a an american citizen without due process, and the real -- reason why the unmasking process exists is because if americans are inadvertently included in surveillance of foreign governments, foreign individuals, then their identities are masked to birds and -- attacked their civil rights. to unmask it and leak it to the media, which would have been classified, is something that needs to be looked at as it relates to the content general flynn was talking about, it is the important duty of an incoming administration to be

prepared to lead the moment you take the oath of office. that includes finding out information about the current thoughts on world events by our allies, by those that would be our adversaries, and nobody was stopping the obama administration from taking action. they were legally required and but it to take action, is entirely appropriate for the incoming administration to say, what are your thoughts on this, to any other country in the world, what do you think we should be doing? building your foreign policy background so the oath of office and the responsibility becomes yours, you are able to act accordingly and responsible. host: james in collins, mississippi, independent line. caller: i wanted to ask you a question, and a statement after this.

, why are you on the president of the united states of america using this man man to beng this reelected? you also did with giuliani, with biden. you went down -- went back to ukraine, sneaking around trying to find evidence because the president already was going behind his campaign and you didn't feel like biden was going to win. now you have biden on the ticket , saying something biden had something to do with it. you say his son was corrupt. now when we ask you for those 10 chargers that miller has against thatresident -- 10 charges miller has against the president, miller followed the law and said, i cannot go past

the doj on those charges, but gave it to the house to go into it. complainedned and for three years talking about, we have got an election coming, why are you doing this? guest: the former special counsel did not ring charges against the president of the united states. in fact, he found no collusion with russia which is what we have been saying the entire time, and it is not me that brought up joe biden being involved in the unmasking of general flynn and the targeting of general flynn. it is the information that joe biden actually did. his name is connected to the unmasking of general flynn and those are facts that cannot be disputed at this point. host: another fact is that the general pleaded guilty.

how do you square that with everything you have said? guest: there are many reasons why a suspect would consider pleading guilty. have we have known through public reporting, i do not toresent, i am not a lawyer general flynn or his defense team, but what we have seen is the prosecutor's were targeting his family and other things so he thought that was his best course of action. that has since been retracted as more information has become available, and that is his right. i will leave that to general flynn, his legal team, and the justice system to fair that out. that is not my role with the campaign, to be highlighting or analyzing his legal strategy. host: we have a viewer who asks directly if you believe general flynn committed a crime. guest: that is not my call to

make. that is where his legal team has made their case and our justice system, every american is considered innocent until proven guilty. if the government is choosing not to pursue the case, his rights to be considered innocent until proven guilty stand. bob: iowa, republican line, is next. caller: good show. ifc, i would like to ask you biden will still be connected at the hip and some of his commercials for president up until a week or two. there is a big connection between biden and obama and i cannot imagine this country going through three years, if president, ifed the impeachments would hearing because of this flynn thing --

impeachment hearing because of this flynn thing and he is connected to biden, and all the other phony things. this country deserves a break from all of this. i think if you republicans have dough guts -- and i hope you and i think you will see -- that this needs to be brought to the oflest, most extent investigation we have ever had. obama is looking like he belongs trumpnt trashmore and should end up on mount rushmore. guest: i have strong feelings about and support for our president, and strong areas of disagreement with the former administration and joe biden. we are talking about the coronavirus pandemic, we have a has aate in joe biden who history of being weak on china,

encourages a rising china on being good for america, and even as president trump was stopping travel from china as it was infected with the virus, you had joe biden calling it racist and xenophobic. now we understand that is the right answer, and while we are talking about bringing our manufacturing back to america, being able to produce the permanent -- personal protective gear, the vaccine that we need to produce in our country, you have a candidate in joe biden that believes a rising china does not pose a threat to american jobs and they should be funding -- we should be funding the world health organization which conspired with china to hide the virus. these are things that should be brought up. ,ost: from new york, brooklyn janice on the democrats line. caller: what israel -- and you

-- and keep is real contradicting yourself. administrationmp was doing the transition. there is no two governments working at the same time so if he wanted background, the current administration gives you background on the different countries. you don't go out on your your own. -- go out on your own. you just said flynn was fired because of trump -- by trump for lying and pence just had he was hiring him back to keep -- hiring him back. you keep contradicting yourself. guest: i am not contradicting myself. we did work with the obama administration to transition in but also worked with outside folks in building and administration, foreign policy,

and domestic policy talking with economic and corporate leaders, and other world leaders. to the point you are trying to make, in that january 5 oval office meeting with obama in the oval office, joe biden and others, you actually had, according to the email, the former president asking and questioning whether they should be sharing information about russia with the incoming administration. it just shows you they were not dealing with the transition and the incoming administration in a fair and direct way. while i did say the president fired general flynn for lying almost three years ago, it is also true that the vice president said this week that given the information that we know, given the time that has transpired, if the president made the decision to bring him back that is something he supported, and i do something for the vice president to be able to decide.

it is good that he was able to share that information, his current thinking on it. it is not changing his thinking. it is just saying, knowing what we know from those current players. host: mike from missouri. caller: we all know that mike flynn is guilty. judge asked him if he was being persuaded or forced into making his plea as all judges do , and he said no, he wasn't. the judge asked him that twice in two different hearings and he said no, he was guilty, and now the man wants to say he is not guilty. he is at least guilty of perjury then because he lied in court and said that he definitely was guilty. he is guilty of perjury at

least. we obviously have a big liar here going on. flynn did a lot of good things for this country, but he gave up ty whenesty and his real he became trump's person like they all do. ,he thing on the russian deal the mueller report cited 150 unexplained russian contacts that have been whitewashed over, and flynn is guilty. host: mr. lotter? guest: that is that person's opinion and you have your right to have your opinion, and i have my right to disagree. i will leave it with that and leave it with the fact that the mueller report said no collusion , and so do all of the declassified obama era officials

who were testified to call -- testified -- called to testify on the issue. besides the fact that they would blatantly lie to american people on mainstream media networks, privately they said they had no information about collusion or evidence thereof. host: this is the statement from the justice department -- the government has determined based on an extensive and careful consideration of the circumstances, continued prosecution would not serve the interest of justice. do you think the justice department was right in this matter? guest: absolutely. what we see in the justice department is that we are getting the politics out of it. we will no longer be prosecuting people based on the fact that they support or oppose any political candidate. we saw a political vendetta exercised against general flynn.

we saw the highest levels of the justice department conspiring to entrap him. they admitted they were looking to get him to lie or looking to get him fired. the fact that you had career officials saying they should not pursue this case any further, and peter strzok and others trying to keep the investigation going, this just reeks of politics by the former administration. i give a lot of credit to the attorney general and the department of justice to say, we need to restore the doj, the fbi's integrity and impartiality, regardless of politics. host: even to the extent that the attorney general said these lies were immaterial, in their opinion? guest: i will leave that for the

lawyers and doj to determine what their legal rationale for doing this was, and i will let them take care of it. host: you don't think that goes too far with the justice department to make those claims? takes thehink it totality of the information that we know at this time where you put together the fact of the unmasking, put together all of these various accounts together and not just take a single piece of information out of context shows that the justice department is looking at all of this in totality and making their determination. host: james in new york, republican line. caller: good morning, gentlemen. the whole obama administration was a mistake, seeing as how barack osama bin laden was coming in this country -- host: excuse me, caller, you cannot refer to him that way. caller: i want to know why the

democrats have been involved in this whole russian collusion mess, lies, deceit, made up jail.ce, going to if it was me or any joe in the public doing this kind of thing they would be convicted of treason and sent to prison or executed for it. why are these republicans like pelosi and nadler and schumer and schiff and waters and the squaw -- host: is a jail sentence or some kind of conviction a necessary matter? guest: i will tell you, i think it was wrong for the previous administration to politicize the police powers of the state and to seek criminality of political difference. that same standard holds here. i will leave it to the attorney

general who is investigating this to see if laws were broken in the beginning of the russia obama-gate investigation, and i will leave it to the people who know the law, who know what is going on and have access to all the facts, let them make that determination. confident that they will put politics aside, and let's see where the law and facts take us and not just try to seek political retribution because of what the obama-biden administration did to the trump administration. host: from reno nevada -- reno, nevada, j, democrats line. caller: i would like to ask you a question specifically -- yes or no, does trump, your present feedyou support, lie or

the american people false and misleading information, does he ever do that, yes or no? guest: the president of the united states shares information with the people through a variety of channels. he has got and in norma's ability to communicate. -- an enormous ability to communicate. wass the first president such a media presence on the social media that he can communicate directly with the american people. he talks about the great things happening to our country, rebuilding the economy from this temporary pause from the coronavirus, and i think one of the main reasons he was elected in 2016 -- and i worked on the campaign -- was because he had the ability to connect with people who had been overlooked too long by the washington, d.c. , new york political elite, and withn communicate directly

hard-working americans in the industrial midwest and all across our country, and it is an honor to serve him. host: this story just appearing rejected aeme court the constitution known as the emoluments clause, coming out of richmond. what concerns should the president have? guest: absolutely none. as this works through the court system, we elected a businessman , a successful businessman with a long history of is a success. -- business success. it concerns me that we live in a world in an international and global economy, if we say any person who has local business iserest or global interests guilty as -- of emoluments, we

will never have another businessman or woman elected as president. all we are get is politicians and no one with experience in the real world. i am confident as we go forward, this will be dealt with so we can have people from all walks of life aspire and hopefully one theserve as president of united states, not just a political hack and people who has not done anything in the world. lotter,rc communications director of the president's 2020 campaign. fromll get perspective rick wilson of the lincoln project why his group opposes president trump's reelection. i will show you what happened on capitol hill, during the floor debate at the senate on wednesday blocked a bipartisan -- on warrantless

surveillance. warren -- senator >> after the shameful excuses of the fisa process that marred the 2016 campaign, there were clear reforms necessary to bring more accountability and daylight into the process. we were intent on preserving national security tools that have helped keep america safe. while discussions were underway on how to stripe -- strike the right balance, congress passed a short-term extension so these tools could remain in our national security professional'' hands while congress got our act together. speaker pelosi has let that sit on her desk and gather dust, so for more than eight weeks these important tools have gone dark.

fortunately, the attorney general and members of congress have worked together to compromise a solution that will implement needed reforms while preserving the core tools. balances the that need for accountability with the sovereign need to protect our citizens and homeland. some of our colleagues believe this bill is not perfect. a fact oferfection is life when it comes to compromise. i would urge senators to vote against them. the current bill in its current form strikes the correct and delicate balance, and there is no guarantee that a new version of legislation passed the house or earn the president's support. this version has already done both. we cannot let the perfect become sitting --e they are

when they are sitting expired and unusable. >> typical americans may think to themselves, i have got nothing to worry about, i have done nothing wrong. the government has no reason to suspect me of anything. why do i need to worry? unfortunately, the question is not whether you did anything wrong. the question is whether a government agent leaves they -- believes they have the right to look at your web searches. in other words, without this bipartisan amendment, it is open season on anybody's personal information. solution, simple require a warrant. with this amendment, the

government can go to court and with a warrant, collect whatever it needs from those who actually threaten the safety of our emergency, in an something i feel very strongly about and work for as a member of the intelligence community, the government can use emergency provisions, collect the information immediately, and settle up with the court later, proving once again, mr. president, that liberty and security are not mutually exclusive. the smart policies like this type of amendment help to get to both. journal"ngton continues. wilson,ining us is rick cofounder of the lincoln project and author of book -- author of the book "running against the devil." thank you for joining us.

a bit about the lincoln project. guest: the lincoln project is a group of former republican consultant us, campaign strategists and media advisors who have got a tremendous amount of experience in this field, and all of us have rejected trump and trumpism. we formed this group to defeat donald trump in the 2020 election because we feel he is a threat to our republic, his leadership has been demonstrably dangerous to this country, and even though we may not ideologically agree with joe biden, it is our job to remove joe -- donald trump and use the skills we have built up over time. enough disaffected voters to swing back the people who voted from -- for obama to trump, swing those folks back, and eliminate a guy we believe is a

true danger to the future of this nation. host: the books that he wrote devil,"ning against the and "everything trump touches dies." the claims about the previous administration's actions up to the president and michael flynn, what do you make of those? guest: this is a slogan in search of a scandal. this is another example of the trump box ecosystem trying to rev up his base with a set of accusations of this deep state conspiracy which they are incredibly fond of, because it helps their credulous conspiracy adult. the base is in the whole conspiracy world, believes there is a nefarious plot against donald trump, and

not michael flynn was talking to the russians and doing things that were flagging the national security system. these alerts about flynn did not arise from barack obama secretly putting his finger on the scale. they arose from below, from intelligence bubbling up into the system, not some imaginary conspiracy developed in the oval office. i think you will see a lot more of this, and there is a reason for this happening. donald trump's numbers are terrible and he is slipping in a lot of swing states. slipping. cohort is the most significant crisis of our time, the covid crisis, they don't think he is doing a good job at and edging it. -- managing it. 3 million more unemployment cases today. host: michael flynn's story is not a new phenomenon. andt: he lied to the fbi

the real question here is did he or did he not lie to the fbi? he admitted to lying and it is demonstrable he lied and the white house has no former no expo nation for their former statements that he was fired -- explanation for their former statements that he was fired for lying to the vice president. this is a slogan in search of a scandal, bill barr weaponizing the justice department on trump's behalf, and a moment that should be seen from a 30,000 foot view of trump trying his massive failure on the coronavirus crisis. host: how do you view the unmasking story and joe biden being associated with that? guest: it is a giant nothing burger.

these are pro forma things. not doneasking's were for some nefarious purpose. there are hundreds of thousands done at all times for national security. they did not say "michael flynn" on them. they did not know they would get michael flynn when they opened the box. one thing that truly dispels all the unmasking theories, obama went to trump directly and said michael flynn is a loose cannon, michael flynn is a danger, michael flynn is a problem for you. he did not go to the public, he went to trump directly. trump told barack obama, i am going to do what i want, and there we have where flynn ended up. anyone who has observed the national security system for a long time, conspiracies are

hard. big global conspiracies involving dozens and dozens of people are impossible. this is pro forma, mechanical, theory. conspiracy this is a simple mechanical thing where the national security system was flagging behavior by someone. turns out it was mike flynn and then he chose to lie about it, cover his tracks, deceive people, and admitted to his guilt. the only thing that should be a story is bill barr is trying to subvert the process of justice by stepping in and trying to rewrite the history of flynn on donald trump's behalf. (202) 748-8000 democrats. (202) 748-8001 republicans. (202) 748-8002 independents. apublican senator josh hawley

member of the senate judiciary committee talking about this topic, we will show you what he had to say. see theore we learn, we obama administration took unprecedented action to spy on the trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election, to mislead the fisa court, a secret court where if you are targeted you do not get to appear, and the obama fbi deliberately misled the pfizer court. now we -- fisa court. now we hear about how they unmasked general flynn, perhaps breaking protocols and sharing intelligence that was not supposed to be shared. the more we learn, the worse it looks which is why we need a full investigation into what went on. host: how do you respond? guest: that is josh hawley's opening gambit for a 2024 presidential campaign.

he is trying to seize control of the trump voter and narrative for the future, and understands that almost everything he said was a wild exaggeration or outright lie. this whole idea that there was a conspiracy to deceive the fisa court is not present in the evidence. there were deficits in the warrants but they were not material to the pursuit of the fact that the russians were doing everything they could to get involved to the trump campaign and the trump campaign listened. they put themselves as a target. this was not a conspiracy against donald trump because if it was, it would have worked. the evidence that josh presents is very thin and flimsy, but that is all that it needs in this trump environment. the trump media circus only requires you say the most outrageous things you can, get the attention and clicks, and

move forward. i pretty much dismiss what josh has said, and this is a very ambitious man. he sees himself as the future of trumpism and he is trying to adapt this baroque theory of obama-gate. host: if not conspiracy, a viewer asked -- you believe the obama administration did not ever overstep their authority? guest: i do not have access to all of the classified information, but if you have a flag that a senior person who will become the national security advisor is engaging in off books conversations with foreign nationals known to be involved in foreign intelligence, that should raise a red flag. that is their responsibility and due diligence. they need to pursue that. i don't have access to all the information, but the trump

administration, you have got until bart engaging in an -- bill barr engaging in an extra judiciary process to write the narrative for donald trump and michael flynn, who has confessed his guilt. he confessed his guilt because he knew they had him dead to rights. host: sean in lockport, new york, republican line. caller: good morning, gentlemen. i hope both of you are staying healthy and safe. i just wanted to make a comment. you said everything trump touches is bad. look at our economy. former vice president biden said when president trump did the china because of the virus, he called trump racist but our medical experts did say

that saved thousands of lives in the u.s. why don't you just call yourself a democrat now because that is obviously what you are. guest: you are mistaken in your last point. the first point, everything that trump touches dies. when i wrote that book, a "new york times" bestseller which will never get old, donald trump was a profoundly disruptive force in this country and you can hold onto the fantasy that he did something magical to the economy but he didn't. he inherited the economy that the federal reserve and barack obama had overseen, and the federal reserve cap doing its lending,sy money, giant tranches of payments into the economy that kept wall street bubbling. that was not some magical moment that donald trump transformed this economy. secondly, you see the fragility of this because donald trump

spent two months deceiving and was on when the covid not protectnd did this country from an economic calamity that would make the great depression look like a late credit card bill. a leader who was only interested in himself, the economic downfall is because we could have been working to prepare ourselves for almost two months when he was saying, it is under control, it is minimal, it will go away in april, all those things that lead people to a false sense of security led to a moment where when the rubber hit fast.ad, things got bad host: from sun city, arizona, democrat. caller: mr. wilson, thank you so much for what you do. i love listening to steve theidt and how he turns

english language into a work of art when he describes this president. one thing that terrifies me is our intelligence people have all touted -- towed. they have been fired and are reticent to come forward, and i am afraid our next election will be the result of russian manipulation, and i hope maybe you can direct your messaging on your next ads and some of your ads, to address that and get people fired up about that. thank you very much for your time. guest: thank you very much for your kind words. we are in a position now where our justice department is run by a political operative in bill barr. he is not concerned with the law or justice. with protecting

donald trump, serving as trump's personal attorney and operative of the white house. on the judicial side, law-enforcement side, we have bill barr corrupting our system. on the intelligence side, we do not have a whole time dni. we have a very smart and canny person who is not there to expand or tower america's intelligence or give them the tools to pursue their mission. he is therefore a single purpose, to release documents they believe will exonerate donald trump or help donald trump wage a political battle against his enemies. we have very dangerous leaders in charge of two of the major areas that ensure our national security, and i think it is enormously risky because i guarantee you, some mid tier analyst who pops up and says, the russians are spending this

much a year on facebook ads for trump, they will be reluctant to put their head up because they will be fired. trump has fired every inspector general who has had any challenge to the administration's policies or that they are going to run the government the way they want, not how the law prescribes. it will be incumbent on whistleblowers to come forward during the course of selection when they are being suppressed by leaders like bill by and rich cornell -- bill barr and rich cornell. host: did this expose problems with the fisa process? guest: no process in government is perfect. the fisa process has a lot of safeguards and the national security administration, counterintelligence folks and elsewhere have identified things they did not feel were optimally

operated during the process and have addressed them. , however ais perfect process that requires individuals to be read into the most delicate and secret elements of our national security apparatus, intelligence gathering apparatus, always requires a certain degree of judicious application of those powers and also requires that we understand there are people even in our own government, on our own side, that do things that get the attention of the national security system for a reason. guys like carter page and papadopoulos are incidental. mike flynn was going to have meals with vladimir putin, visiting the gr you, and working the the american public -- to us to -- it is up

bring that to the attention of the fisa court. caller: i understand that several people that worked on trump's campaign has been charged for child poor and -- porn and sex trafficking. i am wondering why hasn't that been out? now they are saying the labor department gave the obama administration credit for jobs -- 800,000 more jobs than trump has. host: thanks, caller. mr. wilson, if you wanted to address those. guest: i don't have any knowledge of the child porn charges. in terms of trump, i am not clear on that and if that is out there i will look into it. host: michigan, from fenton,

george, republican line. caller: who are the largest financiers of your project? 95%t: our project is about individual small donors. we are starting to raise some significant capital out there, but most every dollar that has come in the door has been from individual donors. 28.9 percent of individual donors are republicans. we have captured a moment in the american political culture and it has certainly been something we are very grateful for. we are putting that money to work for quickly, putting the ads on the air in places like ohio, michigan, and wisconsin. host: mike in deerfield, mike in deerfield beach, florida, go ahead. rick on the lincoln

project, that is amazing. my call is to get your opinion on trump's defense against accusations of incompetence against his reactions to the was always tosue, bring up the left accusing him of racism to prove that he was proactive, but the reason he downplays, and i was guilty as was the press, he downplayed covid so much and suddenly he closes flight, so he was the reason we all thought, he is a proven xenophobia, he is being racist. that forces us to look into it on our own almost as a societal response to a failed central authority, and come to find out the truth, the truth being that he had not spoken accurately for reasons one can only postulate.

host: we will leave it there. guest: i am happy to postulate on those reasons. he looked at the covid crisis, was being briefed on it. our government started to put up red flags and those red flags in his mind were a danger to his reelection. he was worried about the future and his campaign, whether or not the stock market would crash, so he was trying to downplay it deliberately. i think the travel ban, their whole contention that anyone who opposed the travel ban was trying to call them racist or xenophobic, trump is racist and xenophobic. that is baked in the cake, but it was downplayed and left a giant hole in it which allowed 24th -- what he 5000 people to fly back -- 45,000 people to fly back from mainland china. the way he will account for the

covid crisis is the front end, he denied this would be a problem, downplayed it, delayed taking action, and there is an enormous cost we are playing -- taking. not every death could have been prevented that we would have been much better prepared from a medical and economic and legal perspective if donald trump had just told the truth. host: since i have got you here, when it comes to the vice president, the former vice president joe biden, how much do you make of the terra read -- tara reade accusations? ,uest: it is interesting to me the accusations like the hunter biden story had a shelf life and they seem to be fading away in public attention. we track a lot of searches to see what people are looking for, and the tara reade searches have

dropped off to basically zero. the administration put people in charge of her pr which diminished some of the viability of her argument, and her argument has a lot of inconsistencies. i think it fell apart. he addressed it as directly as he could. he was willing to open up the senate records where those files and records would have been tara, and the pr push for reade from the right seems to have been abandoned for the new shiny object, the obama-gate conspiracy. host: when it comes to the vice president's campaign, i will show you the recent headline -- joe biden campaign worries democrats. what about you? guest: i am not a democrat, but

i will say this. everyone is stuck in this new world. we are doing things like this via zoom and everything else. the biden campaign is having to retool quickly and reoriented itself on a digital campaign almost entirely, and that will take a lot of adjustment for folks who are not digital natives. the real 30,000 foot view of this is very simple. crisis, aovernment in nation in crisis now, and because every reelection campaign in history as a referendum on the incumbent, it will be a judgment based on donald trump in the fall on how he handled the crisis that destroyed our economy and killed by that point god knows how many americans? it could be 200,000 by some statistics. by that referendum, joe biden just has to continue to affirm his general character that americans tend to believe.

they don't think he is perfect but they do not think he is cruel. they think he has empathy and compassion for things they are suffering through, which donald displayes not convey -- , and they think he is a competent person. donald trump does not display competence. one day it is hypo chloroquine, one day it is does hydrochloric when, one day it is lysol. do not give americans confidence they are hearing the truth. the polls bear that out. biden needs to stay the course, orient toward digital, generate media when he can, and run the campaign as a referendum on donald trump. host: maryland, chris, independent line. caller: good morning. i saw the ads this week and you

guys are doing a great job. my question is about the republican, i noticed the republicans said they were not areg to investigate but they following donald trump on this route? i know it is a distraction piece for the trump campaign, but are the republicans taking on some great care going along and playing into this obama-gate thing? guest: as i said earlier, obama-gate is a slogan searching for a scandal and what we will ci suspect is this will be another -- what we will see, i suspect, is this will be another nothing burger. they will fire up the conspiracy base that trump loves so much. we will have a week or two of chaos. they will write reckless headlines and it will not move the electoral numbers, and we will be back to another chaos

theory operation by the trump team and it will go on like this until the election. host: new jersey, rich is on our line for republicans, on with rick wilson of the lincoln project. caller: it is amazing how you come on this show and go ahead and trash fox and trash the president. it shows how much hatred you have for this president. trash msnbcu never or cnn for three and a half years with their conspiracy about the president. this is no longer a conspiracy. there is documents. you should read the documents coming out with the fbi, cia. it is not a conspiracy no more. i know you don't like them fax because of your hate -- facts

because of your hatred of the president but they are there. guest: you are mistaken. you are looking at leaked documents that were done selectively. bill barr putting out a selective set of documents and stories to save donald trump from the embarrassment of having to pardon mike flynn. do not think you have accessed some sliver of the truth. you are looking at a campaign propaganda operation pushed out to people like you who will love donald trump no matter what he says or does, who cannot imagine there is any malfeasance in mike flynn even though he confessed do it. host: what do you base that on? guest: we have seen that the leaked wereat were traded in the most lurid fashion, but when national therity officials looked at

documents they said, this is pro forma, how it works, not some giant conspiracy. they are trying to take documents that normal people in the classified world have never -- thed turn it into talking points going out to the surrogates are all about the obama-gate story. they have a highly integrated government and political operation here where the campaign and trump media outlets are all carrying the same message as bill barr and richard grenell are pushing out. i feel very comfortable calling it a propaganda operation. host: this is from new york, republican line, denise. caller: good morning. thank you for having me. in the interest of fairness, i don't understand why you would not want an investigation to

find out at the very minimal, to, iaked flynn's name think it was "the new york times" back in 2017. it was an unmasked name that was leaked and that would be a felony. wouldn't you want that information to come forward? guest: you want that information? people think that came from someone in the white house. caller: don't you want an investigation to figure out where it came from? guest: the investigation in your head is going to drag all these deep state conspirators before the dock of justice and there is no there there. mike flynn was engaged in back channel communications with the russians. no one wants to have mike flynn on the stand answering the exact question of, who told you to

talk to kislyak, who spoke to kislyak? that is why they are playing this entire game. toy do not want mike flynn play that game because the answer is probably donald trump and jared kushner. this investigation you think will happen will not happen. none of these massive conspirators well be arrested -- will be erected. maryland, silver spring, lynn, go ahead. caller: thank you very much. i am looking forward to reading your books. i am a democrat but i voted mostly republican my life until donald trump. on the computer with the lincoln project. donald trump has supported these

evangelical groups, especially the 2017 national strategic prayer call and it is total propaganda, utter propaganda. when it comes to flynn, he admitted he was guilty. that was a done deal. it was at his sentencing that barr told this. barr is crooked. they are so big on mail fraud and voting by mail. donald trump voted by mail in florida and the post article said he is not a resident of florida. host: caller, thank you. guest: there is a lot to unpack. let me say this. the branding for evangelicals and trump, it is a strange marriage and one where the intensity of support does not seem to be wavering, but flies

in the face of his behaviors. vote by mail has been executed very well in colorado and washington and it is a matter of doing something slightly differently. i like going to vote in the voting booth myself and i prefer to do it that way, but i can't. we are in a different environment and i think vote by mail is something states should pursue, democratic and republican. us fromancis joining delaware, independent line. caller: i would like to donate to the lincoln project but i have been on every kind of website i can find and i can never find a mailing address. i don't want to donate by phone and i don't want to use my credit card. guest: i will speak to them and make sure we have a physical mailing address placed on the website. host: if this goes forward and

continues to be an issue, what is your opinion if this continues to be investigated likewise? guest: here is the thing, it won't be. it will fall apart of its own weight. there will not be enough there there to pursue it, and while the fox media side of this equation will continue to make can, it isdi as they already starting to fall apart. it already begs several questions. if it was such a deep state conspiracy, why did obama warn trump about flynn? why was it when they were doing routine unmasking, they did not find michael flynn in 40 of the cases of unmasking but in the one where he was engaged in the behavior he was engaged in that he later lied about? i don't think there is enough weight there for it to carry forward.

there is a comfortable outrage machinery going where they find a scandal, turned it into the apocalypse, run with it until it dies, and abandon it for the next one. they are already out of breath. host: rick wilson, cofounder of the lincoln project, lincoln project. u.s. is the website. thank you for joining us. guest: thank you very much. host: we will send you to a -- who says heng was removed from his job and will testify before the house energy subcommittee. you can see that in a few minutes on c-span. follow live on c-span.org or listen on the c-span radio app.

subcommittee on health will now come to order. good morning, colleagues. chair now recognizes herself for five minutes for an openin