host: good morning it is friday, december 15 despite a last-minute sprint democrats

summer's publications were not able to agree on border policy changes this week. that also leaves ukraine without funding because those two items are linked. we are asking you what changes you think are needed on immigration and the border. for republicans (202) 748-8001, for democrats (202) 748-8000, for independents (202) 748-8002 we also have a special line for those living in border states (202) 748-8003. welcome to today's washington journal we are going to start with the reporter to give us the

latest on border investigations. let's start with what the actual concession and proposals are to immigration policy that are being considered now. guest: there are several, the most significant one, we are talking about a sweet of trump era policies being written into law. these are the ones that democrats are signaling to the republicans they are ok with in the top line one is a return of something that looks like the title 42 policy. this policy that let the u.s.

turn immigrants away at the border. host: the when under consideration including the right to turn people away, talk about the stringent asylum rules. how would that work? guest: the key republicans want to get out, they want to cut off this pathway where people feel like they can come to this country, asked for asylum. they are trying a few different things. the democrats have signed off on potentially including asylum-seekers get an initial interview with the order, a credible fear interview. that if you are sent home you will be persecuted. they want to raise the standard that people have to clear and if

they don't clear that they get deported. the other one that is more controversial is republicans would like to see all asylum-seekers detained in i detention for the duration of their court cases which could take a long time. democrats have been opposed to ice detention and it seems as they have made some concessions saying that we will sign on to mandatory detention but we don't know the exact parameters. host: i was going to ask you about that. the question is would it ilu children if it's a family coming in seeking asylum? guest: that's a really good question in these negotiations have been tightlipped so we can stave -- say for sure but detaining children has been a

hard line for democrats, they got a lot of flak because they ended title ii against children since day one. they closed family detention centers and refused to reopen the centers even though the numbers of the families have skyrocketed. host: there has been pushed back from within the democratic party as far as progressives, hispanics, what are they saying about what the white house is proposing? guest: there are a lot of people who have not done the shift to the right who are feeling lost, betrayed, they voted for biden because he campaigned that he would restore faith and fairness in the asylum process and they

feel he has done a complete 180 after agreeing with these changes which is backtracking on basic human rights. host: the senate has said they are going to be coming back in next week but the house will not be back until january. what is the timeline? guest: it's interesting on the senate side there is some belief among a narrow group of negotiators that they are close to a deal as soon as today or next week. the problem is that if you put out a compromise in immigration that's highly controversial. the republicans funding ukraine is highly controversial. and if you leave it out there for a month, that gives

opposition a lot of time to attack the bill and take it down. host: i want to ask you about another proposal which is being able to deport people already in the country. how does that work? who would they be that would be deported? guest: you are talking about expedited removal, the authority where the government can arrest and deport you without a trial. right now, it can only be applied to people crossing the border or have crossed it in the last two weeks. they want it expanded to anyone can be arrested through the last two years. the application of that authority is somewhat limited because most people who have crossed the border have claimed asylum and they are already in some kind of court proceeding.

in the judicial system you can't re-arrest and deport them. the utility of doing that is limited but the fear among democrats is that of a republican takes office in 2025 they could use it differently and and the current court proceedings and quickly deport them. guest: any discussion on the status of dreamers? guest: for years we have been talking about tightening the border in exchange for providing a path for citizenship for dreamers and that is off the table. the thing democrats are negotiating for is ukraine funding. there are things they tried to

introduce elements of helping out the dreamers and republicans say no, you have to pay the price to get the funding. you're not getting anything out of this deal. host: michelle hackman policy reporter for the wall street journal. thank you so much for joining us. guest: thank you. host: we are taking your calls on policy changes you would like to see take place on immigration. we have added calling from lawrenceville, georgia. caller: what i don't understand is why we paid for a that was never finished and president biden is leading this stuff so there without putting it up? if walls don't work why did they have one around the white house?

host: i believe they have announced the border wall is underway again. caller: hello? host: george is a new broad's exes. braunsfels, texas. caller: you are taxing goods coming from mexico into the u.s.. let the taxes pay for the wall and also bet people coming in from out of the country. a lot of people come in unvented and on the other hand, you have veterans have their dna turned over, it doesn't make sense. i am all for the wall and taxing

people coming in and out of the country. host: roy from north carolina, a democrat. caller: you folks do an amazing job on washington journal. thank you so much. this sounds counterintuitive but the border has never been more secure. the reason for the high number of border crossings is that we are accounting for every one of them like never before. the bided administration has instituted drone surveillance and electronic surveillance. there are so many countries in our hemisphere that have such big problems and my solution sounds counterintuitive for a liberal democrat, i think we should get the military on the

border. not as a combat force but as a protective force. maybe even mexico would let us set up military installations on their side of the border so they could process these people better. the bided administration won't tooth there own horn on this. toot their own horn. there is virtually no one coming over the border unaccounted for. thus the reason for the high numbers. host: was listen to james langford about the conditions at the border and the problem with the asylum seekers. [video clip] >> just to give you a

perspective, the last two months will be higher than any single year under the obama administration. we have more people coming in bed during the obama administration. this is not just republican saying this is the american people. we have people coming in to ask for a solemn that doesn't qualify for asylum. it's difficult to get. we have to change the way we do screenings. we have to clarify what it is and what it is not and we have to have some way that if were overrun by the cartels and they throw 11,000 people let us we have to have a way to say stop so we controlled the board not criminal organizations in mexico. host: that was senator langford. we are taking your calls until

8:00. robert from clearwater, florida. a republican. caller: i think they should all sign up at the border so we can figure out what kind of them if they are. they can sign up for the military. host: a previous caller talked about putting the military on the border and here's what i found on that. this is u.s. northern command that would be in charge of that. dod supports u.s. border security, the department of homeland security and

operational component providing mission enhancing capabilities near the border to stop the flow of human trafficking, drugs, contraband, illegal immigrants. they are using support and to conduct law enforcement missions and support dhs efforts to manage border security. you can find out more about what the u.s. military is doing at the border at northcom.mil. jeffrey in north palm beach florida. the morning. caller: it's great to hear a lot of people starting to realize the problem is with the asylum process and people abusing that process.

i think if there is a moratorium on asylum until the backlog is cleared out of the court system. host: the backlog is about four years at this point. would you support a moratorium for four years? caller: yes. until the backlog is cleared out and people can be processed in a more expedited way. host: less talk to lee in south carolina, a democrat. caller: good morning how are you today? host: good. caller: i listen to c-span and every four years we go through this thing about the border. i understand it may be a problem

but there is a solution and i hope that congress can get involved. we have a lot of contractors who built. d. what we have right now is not a wall it is offense. why can't they get a contractor and build a steel and concrete wall for 500 miles from texas to the west? that would eliminate a lot of traffic with people trying to cross the fence. they can take a bolt cutter and cut through the fence but if they built a concrete wall. let's build a wall and that will help the border part rope people and everything.

hopefully someone will listen to that and build a concrete wall, not offense. host: let's take a look at the congressional hispanic conference. they held a press conference on the negotiations earlier and nanette barragan dan boren that the concessions offered by the white house are going too far. [video clip] >> we are here to call on president biden and chuck schumer to reject order proposals at the hands of republicans and the ongoing negotiations on the aid package. republicans continue to hold aid hostage to pass a truck era border policies. they are pitting vulnerable groups against each other to strong arm policies that exacerbate chaos at the border.

we are urging the biden administration to say no. do not take the bait. we are calling our colleagues to hold the line. the white house should not have put border policy together with foreign aid. the two should be separated out. i think this will be a dangerous precedent which is why we are standing here today. this is exactly what republicans want. they want to be able to get us now because any time we vote on something else they will ask for more and more. the concerns about the most recent reports we are hearing

now of these trump era policies becoming permanent law and these negotiations are taking place without a single latino senator at the table. without a single chc member and not even consultation or engagement with our latino lawmakers and that is completely unacceptable. host: let's take a look at member posts on x starting with speaker mike johnson who posted this yesterday eveng since i became speaker i have clearly and consistently in total the white house -- ld the white house we need to secure our own border before securing another country. the bided administration only waited until this week to begin

this negotiation. chuck schumer saying action on the border is urgent, if they are so eager to get the work they should not be so eager to go home with all this work to do. this is not about the border is a cal stunt by republicans. i am proud to stand by my hispanic caucus colleagues because support for our allies should stand alone. here is senarkwayne mullin secretary sd grant crossings were across crisis. the white house refuses to wake up and take this seriously. back to your calls, roberta's in

san diego, california. republican. caller: if you ever watched fox news, they literally watch and show us the legal people coming into this country. we are seeing people getting on top of the train crossing mexico to come here and that is being shown on fox news. why don't you ever have anyone from fox news on the show. they are the only ones who go all over this world caring enough to cover these things? sand day? n diego is where crystal math started do you know that? host: tell us about that. caller: this is been going in in san diego before it got across

the nation and now we sit here with this poisonous product coming across the mexican border. the president of mexico she has we should hug each other even though it's being made in china and going into mexico and being put together in mexico and i want to say one last thing. first senator berrigan to say all brown people are anti-immigrant. my grandchildren are all brown and they don't want to see this horrible crab coming in this country. we should care about our people and they want to say that

republicans won a separate. i've heard about gay people, straight people the way i've never heard before. host: i heard you roberta. we have bronson in colorado. caller: good morning america. my name is bronson. i served during the vietnam war and graduated from san diego state university and i have been an activist since 1973. i want to remind the governor of florida that there are 25 million italians in the united states. they should stop reading over there in italy.

good morning america. host: what was your point about italians in the united states? caller: i want to remind the governor of florida because he is busing asylum-seekers to other states. i want to remind him. host: i am not really getting your point there. caller: hi, can you hear me my dear? host: yes i can. caller: this is the first time i've ever called on the radio staff and i saw your question and as an independent and previously supported democrats in the past. there is a reason i will never vote for another democrat again.

never before in political history have we seen such a radical change in the political platform in a short period of time. this is what they stand for, open borders, defund the police. the murder rate has doubled in just a year's time. host: what actual policy changes would you like to see? caller: wired the democrats doing this? leaving our borders open allowing millions of undocumented people come into this country. terrorists can come through our southern border and set up safehouses and pull another 9/11 job.

no one has asked why they are doing this? why have they allowed millions of people over the border. polls have shown that when given a chance to vote they vote for democrats. they are not for the two-party system system anymore there is a one-party rule. stay tuned for control of the nanny state. host: this is on cbs news the headline drastic order restrictions considered by biden reflects a political shift on immigration. less than two weeks after the halting of border construction announced applause, biden

announced that his administration in the february 2021 would reject trump's border policies that cause d this human suffering. three years into his tenure he finds himself entertaining permanent restrictions on asylum including an extraordinarily authority invoked by donald trump to expel migrants during spikes an illegal crossing to convince congressional republicans to support more aid to ukraine. we have victoria colling from florida. caller: my concern is about the children that have been lost in the number i am hearing is 85,000. i don't know where that number

came from but that what is what i hear in news reports. what is happening with the children crossing the border and disappearing? host: all right victoria. let's take a look at what the white house press secretary said about the state of border negotiations and responded to criticism that the president is facing from hispanic lawmakers. [video clip] >> those conversations continuous we talk about border security and moving forward and making sure we get a supplemental done. >> you will get it done when? >> we don't have a timeline we need to get it done by the end of this year. that is our timeline but i don't have specifics if it will happen tomorrow, the next day. we just know it's going in the right direction.

>> what is your message to those democratic lawmakers who are worried the white house is giving up too much in these negotiations? >> we have been in constant communication with the has been at conference we know they have concerns in a been clear about their thoughts. we don't have anything to read out on those conversations. here's what the president believes. people need to fix the broken immigration system. that needs to get done and he will find a bipartisan way to get that done. that is the path we are taking to try to figure out how to fix this broken immigration program. how do we find a bipartisan compromise to get this done? host: that was the white house

press secretary and she said both sides are calling it a broken system. we are asking you what is the solution and what policy changes would you like to see? i will show you on the screen some of the proposals that are out right now. the first is to raise the initial threshold asylum-seekers have to meet and screening interviews. new expulsion authorityo rn away my credits at the border similao pandemic era policies like title 42. to require more asylum-seekers to be held in immigration detention for the duration of thr case. it is not clear if that would include families with ilen or if it's just single adults. and finally, expand the ability to rapidly deport somee

without trial if they have been here for under two years. that comes from the wall street journal. steve in ohio, a democrat. good morning. caller: mimi, if you could look up the reason why we have this immigration problem is because trump spilled the milk when he terminated the usaid to the central american countries. why was that done? that is number one. look that up. his administration terminated aid to the central american countries and these folks are now up against a wall.

number two, trump needlessly caught 500,000 people to lose their lives according to the cdc , michigan university, john hopkins university in washington state university. they said that had he followed their direction we would've saved 500,000 lives. number three, the war in ukraine is because trump made a deal with putin and said to him, listen, -- host: i want to get back to the border because that's our topic. do you think the solution is to get foreign aid to central

american countries where my kids are coming from? caller: absolutely. restore age so people in central america can stay where they are at. the number to fix is democrat/republican, if you take all the men that are coming from social america and put them at the border as guards themselves. they are ordered to stay at the border and basically stop the folks from coming in and that will cut down on the big issues. those are the three main times where trump spilled the milk. host: earl, florida,

independent. caller: sometimes i think you are complicit in why these people make stupid decisions. i have been listening to c-span since 1982 and i have seen why the founding fathers had it set up that only certain individuals could vote. i see how politician play on ignorance and fear. they make decisions in the past and now complain about it. nixon invited us to china so we could sell more products to the chinese people. they neglected to do anything about the border when break and wanted to do something about it. i agree with the women who say

don't give into this argument. don't let them strong-arm you into this decision. the border issue should be dealt with in an intelligent manner. it takes intelligent people to solve problems and i listen to all of this ignorant people who don't know anything and they have comments about something that they don't know nothing about and they allow politicians and religious leaders to play on their ignorance. we used to talk about the fairness doctrine and the problems that would happen. why can't we do is show that have arise from these decisions. host: what do you think of a solution for the border, any ideas? caller: if you allowed cancer to

get so bad in the body there is nothing you can do. host: you are breaking up but i wanted to show this from the wall street journal and is headlined illegal immigration is a bigger problem than ever. these pie charts explain why. record numbers of migrants are coming with children and countries can't be deported back to. here is a fact from 1980 that will show the flow of illegal border encounters annually. this line here is two one million, here is the reagan amnesty, the mexican financial crisis. here is where we are today. you can also see here this is

the difference in single adults and families with children. the bottom here, the teal color is families with children as opposed to single adults. this is where they are coming in. this is illegal border encounters by regions. here is california, arizona and the big spike in texas and new mexico. finally here are the areas where illegal border encounters involving families and children since 2022 by border sector and you can see the big one here is in the rio grande valley. you can find that at the wall street journal if you'd like to take a look at that. let's go to cleveland, ohio, a republican, earl. host: what do you think earl? caller: i think we need to build

the wall. it worked for china. there are just too many people coming into this country and then we have to support them and the people who live here have a hard enough time. i was watching the news last night and they were talking about food giveaways downtown at the stadium and there was a line of cars that was probably a mile or two long of people going through to get groceries. it wasn't just poor people doing it. there were people in nice cars because it's hard to get by on what we have. the other thing i think this country is in big danger over.

as you can't buy anything not made in china when you go to the store. it is like we are giving our country and all of our money over to china and they don't like us. host: but that doesn't relate to the border. caller: it's not people coming in its products. anyway, close the border and have a policy where people can come in legally that deserve to be here but the crime rate and everything else has just come absolutely nuts and a big part of it is due to the influx of people coming across and they can't get a job. they don't have any skills to work here. they don't know the language. so they resort to crime.

it is an intolerable situation. host: let's take a look at a pole that just came out earlier this month by blueprd you go. this is about preserved approaches to border crossings, when it comes to the border crossings in the u.s. which approach comes closest to your preference. 20% said increased legal pathways to immigrate to the u.s.. 45% saide the border and limit ilga entry but increase legal phways and 36% said increased border enforcement and make asylum and refugee policy stricter. peter is next from trenton, new jersey, a democrat. caller: good morning. i would say three things. the first is about the border.

that is the toughest one that i see. we need to get soldiers in and train a new company to come in to protect the border. this is going to take 3-5 years before it will come to a solution. this is a very tough situation. second, the republicans always said now to everything that needs to be done. i don't know if trump has something to do with it but i believe he does. we have to come to a solution. i have not seen such disarray and the republican party. every time we go to vote for

something they say no. that's nothing to be proud of. that's what i wanted to say. also, we need to get that money to ukraine and israel. but we have to back off israel because they are not listing in their killing too many innocent people. it's a hard solution but we have to come up with a solution. host: here is the senate minority leader mitch mcconnell talking about why republicans are prioritizing order security over foreign aid. [video clip] >>'s and the republicans of the working in good faith to make sure supplemental legislation makes policy changes at the

border instead of throwing money at the problem. meanwhile, we have had to explain to a member of aydin's biden's own party that this is not extraneous to our country's national security. so here we are now with important conversations going on now and this is the bottom line. the cynic cannot claim to address national security challenges without a solution to the one we are facing at the border. we can't pretend to be serious about threats facing america without fixing the broken asylum system that lets 10,000 illegal aliens cross our border in a single day.

senate republicans are serious, and i hope our colleagues are as well. host: that was senator mcconnell and i wanted to show you what's on usa today today. a big headline that says uncounted loss. here's a picture on the front with the caption, new mexican investigators office closes a body bag after examining a migrant who died two miles from the border. limited staff has left the department struggling with unidentified bodies this year's. they are ill-equipped to respond to migrant deaths that search at the border. also, this picture here of a woman leaning on an ambulance and crying as her husband is

attended to by medics after a fire broke out at a detention center and juarez, mexico. 68 men were locked in a cell and only 28 survived. you can read that it usa today. sylvia in virginia, and independent. caller: yes, thank you. thank you for c-span. i worry about the children. a few years ago i saw someone dumping a child over the wall and i think we need to make adoption rules better with these children who don't have any homes or fathers, mothers, aunts and grandparents i wish it would be easier to adopt them out because i know several young men

and women that would love to have a child but the rules are so stringent it is hard to adopt a child. thank you so much. host: john in arlington, virginia. caller: reagan made a deal to normalize the situation with migrants in the country in exchange for a border policy. they normalize the situation for the 3 million people in the country and did nothing about the border. this is why republicans are so insistent that we solve the border problem first and that gives us the ability to deal with the rest of the situation. unless you solve the border problem when biden said just add

money to the immigration issue. they are only slowing down the problem they're not stopping it at the border where it needs to be stopped. host: how do you do that? what are your policy suggestions? caller: you just tell people coming across that you will not be able to come across unless you wait in line and put immigration requested to our embassies and come to the country legally. people come into this country are made to look like idiots because of other people who take advantage of the loose rules to cross at the border. host: i want to clarify one thing with you. when someone does the regular

immigration process that is not considered asylum. asylum is someone who claims they are fleeing violence, persecution and if they go back there going to be killed. that is so loud that most of these people are claiming. caller: i think there are a lot of people who believe that asylum claims are being taken advantage of. if i'm in a central african republic and there are a bunch of countries that don't have problems why would i want to come to the united states to receive asylum when i could step across the border into nigeria? a lot of people go through countries that have no civil rights problems or oppression

problems but their whole goal is to get to the united states. it is asylum but specific asylum. i want to seek asylum in a mansion instead of a regular city. host: we had a washington journal earlier, last week, a representative for the president of the lutheran immigration service as she talked about changes being debated in congress and how they would alter the asylum progress. caller: the debate around asylum is credible fear. >> this is been a discussion that started decades ago that congress essentially created the expedited removal process that would allow people to be

deported without a hearing before a judge. but to mitigate against the risk that people who have a legal right to come to the u.s. would be deported without the possibility to seek that legal right. they based on credible fear to help with adjudication. this is a screening for people before they would be placed in removal proceedings. during a credible fear interview and asylum officer interviews a person to determine if there is a significant possibility they could establish and asylum claim. they intended the standard to be lower than what is required for a final grant of asylum because the credible fear interview is just the preliminary stage. what is being debated now is to throw that system out the door

and what was behind congressional intent initially because it would raise the legal standard to a more likely than not standard. host: is there anything asylum-seekers would need to prove? do they need required documentation? do they have a lawyer with them? guest: essentially what they need to prove is that there is a credible fear that they have experienced persecution as a result of their connection to one of five different categories. it could be they were persecuted because of their religion. it could be they were persecuted

because of their social organizing. in that interview, they need to explain why it was they were specifically targeted as individuals and why they were returned they would face a serious threat. after they meet that threshold they do need specific paperwork. if they are allowed to move forward they will go before an immigration judge and they will have additional paperwork to validate those claims. host: back to your calls on policy changes on the border. what would you like to see? caller: good morning c-span. i would like to see at this point that they only let people in the country from the country that they are coming from.

i think a lot of those people are being taught to say that they are fleeing and being persecuted. i think they have been taught to say that. i would say 80% of them are saying that. i think biden is doing all he can but the democrats looked just like the country. we are hispanics, like me, descendants of slaves, we are white. we are all the cultures that make up america. we cannot let all of the south americans moved to the united states because it's a prosperous country. why do they skip all the countries they are passing through? i think the hispanic counsel in our priority should not be pressuring biden to let the

borders be open. i would love to see more black people come into the country and i'm sure europeans would like to see more europeans come in but we can't let everybody in. he has to make concessions. i have another thought. i sometimes think the republican party is behind the surge of people coming. somehow connected to the people shipped up here to help them in the election. i have a sneaky suspicion that the republican party is behind this big surge of those people's packing all of a sudden. host: ricky in philadelphia, and independent. caller: good morning and happy holidays.

i believe the porter policy should be the same as it is in canada because canada has a strict border policy and we can take that same policy down to mexico and all the other border crossings. we should build a wall technically, like the border officers working on the borderline because the more they come across, the more benefit they get and you have homeless veterans laying on the street ain't getting no benefit from the governments.

and you have all the migrants getting all the benefits. crossing here illegally and of my opinion, it's not fair. it is not fair for the people in america. it is not fair for people who did obtain citizenship the right way and is not fair for them. thank you very much and have a good day. host: beverly in west virginia, donald. caller: what they need to do is keep building the wall like the previous administration was building the wall and any of these people coming over our border illegally from all of these different countries, the

biden administration should be held accountable for and be prosecuted for dereliction of duty. all of the innocent people that will get harmed, it is blood on the biden administration's hands. these people that are coming over, they need to do illegally. it is a slap in the face of the people who did it legally and it is just a shame. the biden administration is doing it for votes and it is very disturbing and it needs to stop. host: here is what they posted on x. we have record employment

levels, and an agingulation. we need legal immigration. wages are up, inflation is going down, legalorker should be easy to get. biden is willing to throw immigrants under the bus to fight a war. and wayne says this, and duane says this, enforceheaws on the book and that will solve this. anyone illegally entering simply arrest, charge and port. arrest and prosecute anyone aiding and abetting or hiring illegal aliens. next we have matt, a democrat. caller: i think the big problem, it's like an onion. americans keep hiring these people.

they come here because there are jobs up here because america loves cheap labor. that is why we send our things over to china to be built and tolerate illegals coming into the country and we love cheap labor. we will close the wall down and then we will get bobby to pick tomatoes for $20 an hour. then everybody will be happy. republicans will be happy because the border is closed and we can all absorb the cost of what's gonna happen. host: from eggs encourage family members to come to work for the low-paying jobs. next on, south carolina.

caller: the reason why hispanic politicians are for open borders is because that is how they will be elected to the higher offices. most of them, their parents crossed the border illegally. what's the purpose of the u.s. military if they cannot secure the border? why are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars on the u.s. military? also, deport everyone to mexico. if they came from mexico, they need to go back to mexico. have you seen any other country's immigration policy just like u.s.? end those people who are illegal, their children are born in the u.s., end that automatic citizenship. this is a big problem. don't grant automatic citizenship to anyone born in the u.s. let's blame trump for everything. i've got a headache, i'm going

to blame trump. thank you. host: that call is going to be the last one for this segment but there's a lot more to come. we will review the very busy week in politics with an nbc news senior congressional reporter and reuters reporter. later on this bill of rights day 2023 a conversation with the bill of rights institute president about the history of this day and why the rights in those first 10 amendments are more important than ever. we will be right back. ♪ >> american history tv saturdays on c-span2 exploring the people's people and events that tell the american story. a discussion on the united states constitution and how it has evolved over more than two

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we are joined by a senior congressional reporter for nbc news and a white house correspondent for reuters. welcome to both of you. >> good morning. host: i will start with you, scott, about border negotiations and that supplemental for ukraine. not going to happen this year? >> likely not going to happen but the negotiators still have hope. what's happened in the last 24 hours, we saw the house go home for the holiday recess, we saw senator schumer, the majority leader, say that he has seen enough progress that he is going to send his senators home for the weekend, but he wants them to come back on monday. he feels like the negotiators, kyrsten sinema, independent from arizona, chris murphy, democrat from connecticut, james lankford, republican from oklahoma, are close enough that they are nearing a potential deal on border issues, which has

been holding up all of this aid to both ukraine and israel. and so, it is still an open question whether they can get there or not this year. obviously, the holidays are pulling senators closer to their families. they want to get home and be with their families. host: even if the senate did come to some sort of an agreement, the house, speaker johnson has said they are not coming back. > he has indicated or suggested that they would not come back so it's very hard to see this getting done by the end of the. but the senate -- the end of the year. but the senate feels like they do have some momentum. they don't want to go home without sending 82 ukraine, especially when we saw president zelenskyy here -- aid to ukraine, especially when we saw president zelenskyy here begging senators, house members to send additional aid, saying there was a serious risk that they could

lose the war against russia if he does not get that aid immediately. host: i want to ask you about the white house reaction to that. and how involved have they been in these negotiations? and whether too little too late? >> not sure if it was too little, too late. i think they have just come up against what they would consider , republican caucus and the house which is holding, from the white house's perspective, the ukraine aid hostage for, again, what the white house sees as far right, very conservative positions on immigration. there is some compromise it looks like on the senate side. what i heard from a source familiar in the house actually is some emphasis on president zelenskyy's comments in a fox news interview which she said whether this aid comes in december or whether it comes in january or february doesn't really matter. host: that's different. >> that is not the white house

message but it was interesting to hear that from somebody in the house suggesting i think we are still going to maybe get this done. i don't know that they are going to really get it done. but they will certainly keep working on and if it doesn't happen before the end of december. two your initial question to me, the white house has been super involved. they've also been using the bully pulpit, as it work, or the podium in the white house press room, to raise the alarm about what happens if that aid does not get addressed and bringing in zelenskyy, as we were just discussing, was sort of a hail mary, as it were, to try to get it done. host: a lot of other things happened this week in congress. there was an impeachment inquiry vote. talk about that. scott: it was a purely partisan vote. republicans all supported it, democrats all opposed it. the republican from colorado was heading into the chamber telling reporters i am going to vote

against it. he was going to be the loan republican. he essentially flipped on the floor to a yes. host: do you know why? scott: i have not heard a great reason why but i assume that there were some conversations on the floor that happened. it's a win for speaker mike johnson that he was able to unify his conference around this issue, given that they had been so divided over impeachment just a few months earlier. however, we still, now, all this does is launch an investigation formally further republicans. it was already underway, declared by kevin mccarthy three months earlier. . the republicans said they needed to take this step because the white house, they believe, was not cooperating with their investigation. that was something that we heard from the white house counsel, that this is an illegitimate investigation because the house

has not formally taken the step. now, republicans have formally taken that step and they are hoping to get additional information. they are hoping that when this is show up and testify in their investigation -- witnesses show up and testify in that investigation. you have some folks like dave joyce of ohio who have a very public he stated, even though he supported this investigation, he has not seen the evidence yet to impeach the president. he has not seen evidence of wrongdoing. and that is something that democrats and the white house have been saying all along. host: we will take your calls if you've got a question for our guests. you can call by party affiliation. they will be with us until 9:00 a.m. eastern. i don't need to ask you, jeff, that the white house is not

happy with the impeachment inquiry. but what have they been saying about kind of president biden had initially said i had nothing to do with my son's businesses, i had never met anybody and then some evidence coming out to the contrary? >> they have not really been saying much at all but it's the right question to ask and it is when we will continue to ask. there is obviously a little change in nuance there and the fact that hunter biden came out in his remarks this week when he decided not to take part in the closed door hearings and said my father was not financially involved in my businesses. a lot of people zeroed in on that use of the adjective financially. that is something people are going to watch but i would go back to scott's comment. the white house has absolutely zeroed in, along with congressional democrats, on the fact that there is no evidence. they see this as a distraction.

politically, we are going into the election year. we saw with former president trump that impeachment actually kind of helped him gin up supporters. we will see if that happens with biden as well. either way, the white house sees this as a major distraction and something that is unfounded. host: some other work got done, the defense authorization act. what does -- is the white house saying about their priorities being in that? >> they got some priorities through, including additional ukraine funding, although not the big package that they were looking for before but some pieces and that is good from the white house's perspective but they want more. host: scott, on the defense authorization act, what was left out of that? and also if you can talk about senator tupper bill -- tell bruno -- senator tuberville's

lack of holes on the military operation. > on the defense authorization act, it is purely defense policy bill. the most significant thing about that was a section 702 of the fisa act which gives u.s. law enforcement the ability to do surveillance, collect made a data -- meta data on foreigners in order to protect us here at home. republicans were at loggerheads over how to extend that surveillance power. jim jordan, the judiciary chairman, the intelligence chairman, mike turner wanting to maintain it, to broaden those powers. jim jordan, the conservative, trying to restrict or those powers. what they did was punt it down the road. they did not come to a decision. they basically allowed an

extension of the 702 powers to be included in the ndaa. they were able to pass that so it gets extended for four months. they will have a little bit of breathing room to try to come together and come to some sort of agreement on these powers. host: what is the point of contention between the two sides on that extension? scott: well, a little bit of what i was saying from jim jordan, the judiciary chairman, wanting to restrict those powers to ensure that americans are not swept up in some of those surveillance. host: americans that are communicating with foreigners? scott: yes. jordan does not want it to be intrusive, jordan wants privacy protections and that seems to be the main point of disagreement. host: the faa, has that been reauthorized? scott: i am not positive. i think it has but i am not positive on that point. host: ok.

because i was going to ask about air traffic controllers, which would be a big problem given the holiday travel season. we've got callers waiting to talk to you guys. victor is out first, massachusetts democrat. >> good morning. host: go right ahead. caller: i am calling on immigration. it's a huge problem, a lot of people calling. they forget that they are not simply american, there are many people from around the world and maybe one of the ways to help it is help those countries in south america, without which those countries in europe, the middle east, and we don't help them. at the same time, we call them names. i mean, don't forget that this country was committed the biggest genocide in the world, 90 million american natives were killed. the other half was taken -- the

other half of the land was taken from the mexicans. and 600,000 died in the caribbean, which is a genocide, too. who are we to judge these people like we do, man? we are supposed to agree to disagree in politics, not take sides and be against each other. host: all right, victor. what do you think of that as far as any talk of foreign aid going to help the root causes of this immigration crisis? jeff: it has certainly been part of the biden administration's policies and it kicked off with vice president harris taking responsibility for some of the central american countries where immigrants are passing through or coming through up through mexico and over the u.s. border. that's been not seen, at least by critics, as a particularly big success. but it is connected to aid and it is connected to root causes and it is something that the

biden administration says it is taking seriously. it is turning into and has a big political issue going into 20 24 and something former president trump no doubt will make a big part of his campaign platform, as he did as a candidate in 2016 and 2020, and it's probably a weakness for this white house and for president biden going into that campaign. but i believe one of their answers will be, to your question, we need to get at the root causes and that is something they will keep talking about. host: let's go to erie, pennsylvania next, independent. good morning. >> good morning. thanks for taking michael. listen -- taking my call. listen, i am independent. i am not going to vote for biden, i am not going to vote for trump. if i don't have another choice, i am going to stay home, that i want to tell you right now. but here's the thing, all right. what bothers me the most about

this whole deal is how these, what i call legacy media, ok, which these two gentlemen here i don't know if they are part of that were not, but how they just accepted a double standard. you look at all the investigations for 3, 4, 5 years of donald trump and then you look at what's going on now . as soon hunter came before the microphones, refused to obey the subpoena and go in and talk. i remember the whole trump family was drug in there and put it behind closed doors to be deposed. i think donald junior was deposed 40 something hours over five different times. but look at the double standard. as soon hunter came to the microphone and left without going in there,cnn, nbc, cbs,

all of them jump on the side of hunter biden. do you think they would have done that if it was anybody in the trump family? hell no. i am tired of these people telling us democracy is on the line. democracy is on the line when our journalists don't do their job and dig into this. i sit here and watched on cnn a few months ago two highly accredited irs agents testify under oath, one of them was a lifelong democrat and annie was, i watched -- anyways, i watched that and i said holy cow, i cannot believe that they uncovered all this stuff and nobody is interested in it. like these two guys you have sitting there today. host: let's have them respond. scott: we did see hunter biden make a surprise appearance on capitol hill. it was the morning of the vote for the impeachment inquiry. he was supposed to come in and testify before the house in a

closed-door setting in this investigation. what he did instead was appear outside the capitol and say, look, i am here, i am at the capitol, but i want to testify in a public setting where everyone can see what my answers are. it was a little bit of political theater, democrats and the bidens, believe the impeachment inquiry is political theater. hunter biden said two can play that game as well. jeff made an interesting point. the republicans have sort of glob onto that one phrase that hunter said in front of the capital, which is my father was never financially involved in my business dealings. i think he had to say that because what the investigations have shown is that the president did at times speak to his son and was put on speakerphone where some of hunter's business

associates were present. the president did swing by some dinners where hunter was having dinner with some business associate. the republicans have established some facts in this investigation. it still doesn't suggest that the president financially benefited personally from some of hunter biden's business dealings. host: he was subpoenaed, he defied that subpoena for a closed-door deposition. it looks like republicans are going to start the process for holding him in contempt of congress. how common is that? and what does that mean? scott: it's not common at all. what the republicans and jordan, james comer, have argued is that by taking this step to go down formally, voting for the impeachment investigation, it gives them a little bit more, better legal standing to challenge when hunter biden, other witnesses defy subpoenas, to challenge them in court and

really enforce those subpoenas and get them to testify. eventually, i do think we will see hunter biden testify in these investigations. it is hard to see him just completely egg nor that. it's going to be litigated in the courts and most likely -- ignore that. it's going to be litigated in the courts and he will most likely have to come in for some kind of testimony. host: new york, republican. >> that guy from pennsylvania was right on the money and shows you how deceptive these guys are. the law does not require joe biden to personally benefit from these activities. the law says anybody in his family, close associates who benefit from his activities is enough proof of nefarious activity. but that's not why i called. i called about the border. joe biden, when he was running in the democratic primary, he told immigrants to surge the

border, ok. he told them that. the first thing he did when he came into office was to eliminate the stay in mexico policy that president trump had negotiated with south american countries and mexico. and the fact of the matter is also that there are enough laws on the books right now to solve this problem. president trump solved the problem and joe biden instituted the problem again. and that's the fact of the matter. and also, the republican party, there's a lot of phonies in the republican party who want all this illegal immigration because the big donors want cheap labor. and the democratic party wants poor people coming into the country, people who will be dependent on the government, and that's the fact of the matter. the republicans in the senate have a tremendous amount of

power. it is 49-51 the numbers. the republicans could hold up any legislation that they want to force the president to uphold the law. and they haven't done it. that's why the republicans did very poorly in the last election because they do a lot of talking but they don't stand up and do anything about it and that's all i've got to say. thank you. >> i have a quibble with a few of his facts, the color. i don't recall president biden ever encouraging people to surge the board. in fact, i do recall certainly during his administration that they have been high-level officials, no doubt including himself, although i am trying to remember if there is a quote from him, encouraging people not to cross the border and making clear that the border is not, that this should not be a free

for all, because the u.s. is just not ready for it. we just don't have the infrastructure at the border to deal with the influx of immigrants that this country has seen. that said, what i wouldn't dispute in terms of the facts and the concerns that the caller is raising is that this is a political problem for joe biden. whether the words that he used to describe what biden has said or not are accurate, the overall message is, or there is at least a sense among voters that republicans are stronger on immigration and democrats are weaker. it's an important issue in the electorate, it's an important issue in some important states, swing states like arizona. and it is going to be something that will dog him going into the next year. >> i think it is also why we have seen in these investigations, i am sorry, in these talks on the border on capitol hill where the white house has been involved an openness, a willingness to

consider expulsions, greater expulsions similar to the title 42 program, that covid era program we saw under the trump administration. you know, they are also considering greater restrictions on asylum laws. that is certainly on the table and has been part of these talks. and that is why you are also seeing immigration, pro-immigration activists as well as the hispanic caucus on capitol hill just entirely fired up over this issue, extremely upset and angry with the biden administration, with the white house for even entertaining some of these things and putting them on the table. as jeff said, a very tricky issue for joe biden as he heads into this critical election year. host: robert, tuscaloosa, alabama, democrat. >> good morning to you, madame. listen. i have been watching c-span since brian lamb, it's been a

long time. when did it get so that you will talk 121 two the person who is calling and? it's distracting when the person calls in and other people are talking. i want to ask the question to the gentleman, particularly the one on my right. he's from the ones i call white. don't we have the same thing with the borders that we had in the 17th, 18th century when europeans were coming here? didn't they come and genocide the people found here? europeans won, they did not know anything about this part of the world. columbus came here. why is it that the europeans, they came here with many ethnicities and called themselves white. to the gentleman on the right, do you put that category called white? there are no white people. host: all right, robert. let's get a response. anything there?

>> i can only speak about my reporting. wouldn't be getting into ethnicities, but i would certainly say that what the caller is raising and what others have raised about the concerns of immigration and the way this country has dealt with immigration for years has continued to be a political problem and a political issue for a lot of people. i would say as well that president biden, if you are sitting here and somebody from the white house, if they were sitting here, would say that on his first day in office, he put out legislation, proposed legislation to address immigration with immigration reform, with the dreamers act, and have not found partners on the republican side in congress to make that happen. that's a reflection of the fact that there is just such a big divide on how to address the issue. the one thing the callers have been saying that i think i would just underscore is it's a hot button issue and it's going to

be a driving one in the next campaign. host: scott, there is an article from the huffington post with this headline, "the least productive congress since the great depression." it says congress has only written 21 laws this year, on pace to be the least productive gathering of lawmakers since the great depression as members draw more headlines for confrontations than for public policymaking. congress has low approval ratings. >> some of the lowest we have seen. this year, in its totality, it has been a crazy year, also very unprecedented on many fronts. we started the 118th congress with a 15 round floor fight over who was going to be the speaker of the house, it froze the house of representatives. kevin mccarthy prevailed but not before nearly lawmakers came to blows on the house floor. there's those images that are imprinted on her mind about the

physical confrontation that happened. 2 days later69 -- 269 days later, kevin mccarthy was ousted by some of those same conservative opponents he faced in that floor fight. in between that, of course, there was a showdown between kevin mccarthy and joe biden over the debt ceiling. there was nearly a government shutdown at the end of september that precipitated to mccarthy -- kim mccarthy -- kevin mccarthy being ousted. when mccarthy was ousted, we saw a three week sort of free for all over who was going to be his successor as speaker of the house. we ended up after several different people rose and fell, we ended up with mike johnson, a very little-known lawmaker from louisiana who is now the speaker of the house. and then, finally, we cannot forget george santos and the expulsion, the first expulsion

from congress that i have ever seen in my 14 years on capitol hill. and we ended this week with an impeachment investigation. so -- host: a lot of stuff. >> never a dull moment on capitol hill. kevin mccarthy has announced he is leaving his post. he gave a farewell speech on the house floor. we will play just a portion of it. >> if there's advice i can give, do not be fearful if you believe your philosophy brings people more freedom. do not be fearful that you could lose your job over it. i knew the day we decided to make sure to choose to pay our troops, a war was breaking out, instead of shutting down, was the right decision.

i also knew a few would make a motion, somehow they disagreed with that decision. do it anyways. i would do it all again. but there is so much we have been able to accomplish in a short amount of time. and i watched on a clip the other day, they took a short clip of a quote of mine, and i had the privilege of being leader for five years. and i think about, did i leave this place better than i received it? i remember coming, sitting there, it was the state of the union, democrats had won the majority, i have got elected minority leader while another colleague from my state, nancy pelosi, got elected speaker. i watched the democrats stand up and they were very diverse, they looked like america, we had lost

the majority. i quote, we look like one of the most restrictive country clubs in america. i thought at that moment i could be the leader of a declining party or i could focus on what i know brought me to this party. conceived in liberty, and dedicated proposition that we are all equal. and i would take that message to places people didn't think they would vote for a republican. and that california delegation that time was pretty small. and yes, it was competitive having the speaker from california. she would put out that she's going to win a lot more seats in california. but i'm proud to say in those election cycles, we picked up five more seats in california. that's larger than our overall majority. host: and that was former speaker of the house kevin mccarthy on his last day as a member of congress.

scott, i will ask both of you, would do you think his legacy is? scott: well, i think certainly he will be remembered as the first speaker of the house in american history to be ousted from office in the middle of a term through a motion to vacate. . we cannot ignore that. putting that aside, i think he was obviously a very good political strategist. as you heard him. he was a tremendous fundraiser, one of his party's best fundraisers. he did, as you heard, expand the diversity in the republican party with women, with hispanics, with blacks, with asians. and then, finally, i think we have to say that in the course of those 269 days where he was speaker of the house, he was underestimated. i think a lot of people were doubtful that he was going to get a deal with president biden on the debt ceiling.

i think a lot of people thought we were heading towards default. he was able to strike a deal with the president. and then, a lot of folks on capitol hill thought that he would save his career rather than pass a government funding bill, a cr, or a temporary bill, and they thought that he would shut down the government and save his political career. instead, he did keep the government open, it cost him his job, he fell on the sword. . at the end of the day, he reached the heights of, the pinnacle of american politics. very few people ever get to serve as a speaker of the house and his portrait will go up in the speaker's lobby, along with nancy pelosi and the rest of them. host: what do you think? jeff: it won't stay there for very long. no doubt what scott said is true. i think it's hard when you are thinking about a legacy of someone not to look at how he went out. the way he went out is a big part of his legacy, it's

certainly big part of history of that chamber. he went out, in large part, because he wanted to do the right thing at the end and not let the government shutdown, which was bad for him politically, but probably very good for his party politically. if that government shutdown had happened, historically, when we look at previous shutdowns, and a lot of the blame has been put on the republican party when they were the ones that were the stewards of that. no doubt he would still like to be holding onto that gavel and not believing this way, but that will be part of his legacy as well. host: back to the calls, jerome, arroyo grande, california, independent. good morning. caller: thank you this privilege. i would like to make a suggestion to both republican and democratic call line supporters that in this upcoming election they do not vote for the candidate of the

specific party. and hope for the intentional indication, not indication, intentional result that neither of the candidates get the needed amount of electoral college folks, and delete -- college votes, and we throw the election into the electoral college to determine who will be the president for the first time. the founding fathers of this country did not want political parties. and all you hear from every other station and everyone talking is the republican and the democrat and they are polarizing the country. i hope people are listening to what i am saying and thinking about it. host: do you think that if that happens, jerome, that people will be less polarized? caller: yes, because then hopefully the independents will gain more power and the independent group will become the major party in this country. and then, let the fringe

democrat and the fringe republican party try to position themselves more reasonably. if you want to talk about specific subjects like immigration or you want to talk about subjects like the amount of money we spent for arms, i would discuss any of thos projectse with you but they are all basically supported by the political. and the political arena sets it up, sets that those that are candidates, not candidates, those who are members of the party are fearful of opening their mouth because then they lose support. a prime example is that lady, i forgot her last name. host: liz cheney, is that who you are talking about? caller: she appeared to be exceptionally, what's the word? not humble but, well, the way she spoke up against donald trump. it basically ruin her career. she is talking about running as

an independent, that would be wonderful. host: let's get a response. >> well, i think there is a big concern on the part of democrats. the caller talked about voting independent. there are a number of folks that are considering running, liz cheney among them, joe manchin is another name that has been floated, the senator from west virginia. the concern from democrats is that democratic voters, you know, those types of candidates, if they do run, will siphon off voters from joe biden and essentially hand the election to donald trump, the current gop front-runner. while the caller is a saying people should vote third-party, there is a real consequence of doing that, elect orally, to the two main parties.

host: texas republican, good morning. >> listen, america. sent everybody a christmas card and show them how you feel. big problem is the border and immigration, it is our trade policies. when we were doing trade with cuba, it opened up cuba. most people stayed at home because money was coming in. if you look at south america during the 70's compared to the 80's, it's a whole different outlook. our trade policies, if we can reestablish trade with venezuela and all the rest of them. when the money comes into, especially big money, comes into poor states or whatever, they become americans. believe me, if we open up our trade policies with them, it will be a better day. . and merry christmas to everybody and don't forget to -- your congressman, they are on vacation. >> i did not hear a question.

i think his overall point that there's is a soft power aspect to trade, there is a soft power sort of arsenal that the united states has in terms of influence and that includes having exchange students, that includes diplomacy, it includes trading with countries and that is certainly something that administrations past and present and future will no doubt try to harness. host: want to ask you about a piece you wrote for nbc called "mentors, senate rebels, and trump officials, meet speaker mike johnson's staff." who does he look to for advice? >> two of his biggest mentors are jim jordan, the judiciary chairman, whose committee johnson served on.

the other would have to be steve scalise, the majority leader, has top lieutenant, and a fellow louisianan. the two have known each other for decades and skill ease has guided him. johnson has sort of followed scalise's path all the way from lsu to the state legislature in baton rouge up to capitol hill and through the leadership ranks. those are some of the names. he has also, the new speaker has also forged close relationships with some of the senate rebels, folks like ron johnson, mike lee, rick scott, the folks that are not really in mitch mcconnell's inner circle but who are of the conservative wing and mike johnson has been in close contact with those conservative senators, and you know, in terms

of big issues like ukraine funding and the border. and so, it's been interesting to see who he has surrounded himself with, who has the new speaker's ear, and he certainly is adding staff, new aids, not only some former trump white house officials, but some leadership staffers from kevin mccarthy's office, from scully's's office -- steve scalise's office. interesting to see who he's surrounded himself with. great point. host: john is next in pennsylvania, democrat. hi, john. caller: hi. i got three things to say. before president biden was president, him and hunter i think were in europe doing some kind of, it was hunter doing the

stuff, i think they were negotiating a oil machinery purchase. i think it was germany or yugoslavia or something, could have even been ukraine. but in the background, hunter, i mean, i saw joe biden say to hunter, are you sure you want to do this? because i read lips. i have a hearing problem since i was born. if you find that news clip, you will see that he did say that. you didn't hear it, i read his lips. he did say, are you sure you want to do this? number one. number two, immigration, ok, it has been a problem since before the declaration of independence because the people that came over here were white anglo-saxon people. there were white supremacists. they were all, they are the ones

that drafted the declaration of independence, which means freedom. but when slavery came up, they blew it off like it was third class french, and that is immigration. slavery was the first immigration problem we have had and it's been a problem since. host: what's your third point, john? caller: what? host: your third point? you said you had three points? caller: my third one is biden is innocent because i read his lips talking to hunter, are you sure you want to do this? hunter was the one doing the wheeling and dealing, not joe biden. host: we got that. robert in coral springs, florida, independent. caller: good morning. i wanted to ask both guests two basic questions and i am paraphrasing. somewhere in the emails with biden or his family members stated we need to give 10% to the big guy, could both of your guests opine on who the big guy is?

and two, is there any curiosity as to why the national archives has now reluctantly turned over hundreds of emails where the president has used a pseudonym? what's the motivation for that? if they don't know, isn't there any intellectual curiosity to know why? thank you. >> i will start by saying it's not my job as a reporter to opine on anything. i will not opine. i think investigators' jobs will be and is to find the evidence. that is what the democrats have been focusing on. i think that's what the republicans in the end of wanting to focus on as well. if they produce evidence that money floated to president biden -- flowed to president biden before he was in office or whatever the timeframe is, then that is something they are going to want to highlight. if they don't produce that

evidence, that's something the democrats are going to highlight when they say that this probe is illegitimate. host: how does it work when it's a question of not just him personally benefiting financially but his family members? >> i think that's part of the perception problem that the republican investigators are highlighting. i mean, i think they are saying it is more than just a perception but from the democratic side and from the campaign side and from the white house side, i think that perception is something that president biden and his team will probably have to confront more and more in the coming months. host: we have a comment here fromonnie in colorado who says americans would like all hearings to be public. don't you think that if they want transparency and have nothing to hide, it should be in public always, no matter who is the subject? what do you think? scott: i think the women writing in is talking about the hunter biden deposition. and so, what jim jordan and

james comer, the chief investigators, have said is that, look, we want to do a closed-door hearing, we want to gather more information, we are happy to do a public hearing at the tail end of that, but we first want to be able to collect our evidence, ask questions, not in any sort of rushed format. they have also made the point that the deposition would be made public, the transcript of that deposition would be made public for everyone to read. and so, it has been done that way in the past, but this is obviously a very unusual situation involving the president's son. host: nancy, a republican in rotunda, west florida. good morning. caller: good morning. how is everybody doing today? >> great. caller: i did have a comment to suggest that you could go to

c-span.org and see during the primaries with president biden that he did say over and over again "surge the border," so i saw that and you can see that also. a comment to the nbc with the debates between trump and biden where biden did say that nobody in his family had received any money from china, so the word "financial" with hunter is, as far as i'm concerned, irrelevant, because biden himself did say on the nbc's debate that nobody in his family received money from china. and obviously, that is not true.

and another comment that i don't appreciate is with the horrible incident in virginia, the both sides had to do with the statues, not with the people marching. that's it. thank you. host: the situation in virginia, are you talking about the unite the right rally? the charlottesville? caller: yes, i am. host: you are saying that just had to do with statues? caller: when he said there was good people on both sides, he was referring to good people on both sides of the statue argument and not what you pushed last week with the, those

horrible people would replace the jews, that's not what he was talking about. the full clip is right there on your own c-span.org. host: all right. scott, any response to that? scott: i would just say that the house investigators have uncovered some new details about, certainly about hunter biden, about, you know, who he was doing business with, certain payments. but i would also make the point that hunter biden is facing numerous federal charges from the justice department. nine i think tax related charges that were just recently filed by the special prosecutor, as well as some gun charges. hunter, you know, this has been the argument from democrats, is that republicans are zeroing in on hunter biden but that hunter biden is not the president of the united states. madeleine dean, democrat from

pennsylvania, yesterday told me the president should not be held accountable for the sins of the son. and so, republicans are trying to draw this connection between the president and hunter biden financially. so far, there is just not the concrete evidence that's their. host: catherine in cleveland, ohio, democrat. >> that's the thing -- host: catherine? caller: hello? host: hi, kathryn. caller: excuse me. hi. that me take it off speaker, i apologize -- let me take it off speaker, i apologize. one moment. i am here. thank you so much for taking my call. appreciate being able to speak to you today. so, the discussion about immigration, i have heard a lot

of nonsense from various callers about their feelings, which is here and there, we can understand that. but it's also not understandable that they don't really appreciate that the purpose of america is to always and has always, you can bring up the founding fathers and thump, thump, thump, but you can also understand the point that this land was made for the purpose which was to let people live here. and i am sure you're both sides, your little parties, your nationalism here and there, back and forth will confuse you and you will become, you know, upset about various things, the, you know, two parties will do based

on that. and that understand that it is always and ever has been available for all people to be free here. and the point is that your founding fathers, your great nationalistic pride was founded on them subjugating the people who already lived here. i love you all. please stop it, america. have a good day. host: any comments on that? >> i did not hear a question other than she's making a point that others have made as well, which is there are principles that the united states was founded on, and there is original sin that the united states dealt with at the very beginning of its history and is still dealing with. host: this idea of asylum, that

could come to an end, the idea of just turning everybody away without the right to claim asylum would be a pretty historic shift. >> it absolutely would be. to scott's point earlier, if president biden ends up compromising to some extent, who knows if you will or how far he would agree on that, that may placate some people on the right but it will absolutely upset some of his base on the left. host: conrad in pennsylvania, republican line. hi, conrad. caller: good morning. i would like to ask two gentlemen on tv, you hear all the colors saying about biden, about trump. the bottom line, i would like them to be honest. if you don't cut no checks in washington, you don't get anything. if immigrants had somebody cutting checks and had lobbyists, we wouldn't have that problem at the border. poor people don't have

lobbyists, only the rich people do. both parties are the same. you can't get nothing done unless you cut a check. you can heehaw, squabble all you want. you are not getting nothing done unless you cut a check. they probably didn't get their jobs unless they law firm or the news station cut checks. you don't get nothing free in washington, d.c. be honest and tell the people that. host: comments? >> i am not sure i have a response to that. host: rry in albany, georgia, democrat. caller: this is larry from albany, georgia. i want to make a statement about kevin mccarthy and i am a democrat. kevin mccarthy is a republican and the republicans was calling in the whole year they want republicans to work with democrats. when it was time for the debt ceiling, mccarthy worked with

the president and the democrats to save millions of millions of jobs all over the united states. he made the right decision. now, i have a question for mr. jeff. and then, i am going to have a question for the other gentlemen. the question for mr. jeff is, explained to the people hel -- how hunter biden, a citizen of the united states, never held office in the white house, never was in government, never was a senator, just an ordinary citizen, i want you to tell the people the difference between president trump's children and why they were subpoenaed because there was part of the system in the white house, i want you to explain that. for the other gentlemen, i would like for you to explain what congress' job is for the border.

the congress is supposed to make decisions to change the border but the congressmen are not doing anything. explain that to the american people. host: all right, larry. >> i think what larry the color is raising in terms of -- the caller in terms of raising former president trump's children and president biden's children is accurate insofar as hunter biden does not work in the white house. president trump did bring in his daughter and son-in-law, jared kushner, both of which were very influential advisors in his white house. that is absolutely different. more broadly, it is still the responsibility of law enforcement look into wrongdoing -- enforcement to look into wrongdoing and that's what the department of justice would argue they are doing with regards to hunter and with regards to interviewing the former president's children.

as far as whether congress would be focusing on the deeds or misdeeds of hunter biden if he weren't a biden, i think larry's point is well taken. host: scott, i just, you know, i wanted to ask you about president biden's relationship with senior leaders in congress. how is that looking now that we've got mike johnson in place as a speaker? how does that look? scott: president biden did not have much of a relationship with kevin mccarthy. obviously, kevin mccarthy's closeness to president trump had something to do with it. how make amends with president trump had something to do with that. similarly, the president doesn't have much of a relationship with

the new speaker mike johnson. mike johnson was a very low level of leadership, vice chairman of the g.o.p. conference like the sixth or seventh leader, had virtually no interaction with the president so this is a new relationship. it will be tested. when we are dealing once again with new government shutdown deadlines in mid january and early february. and mike johnson also is somebody that did support the overturning of the election. one of the leaders in that effort to overturn the 2020 election. so we have to consider that relationship against that backdrop. host: that is scott wong and white house correspondentor reuters jeff mason.

coming up at the bottom of the hour we will celebrate bill of rights day. 232 years ago today when the first 10 amendments to the constitution were ratified. the president of the bill of rights institute will join us to talk about that. first more phone calls in open forum. your chance to weigh in on any public policy or political issue. you can start calling in now. the numbers are on your screen. in this year's george washington symposium a discussion on the united states constitution and how it has evolved over more than two centuries.

at 8:00 p.m. university of kentucky i think hrrb professor talks about how cold war politics shaped listen from africa, asia and caribbean. then a conversation on the presidency and press hosted by the john f. kennedy presidential library. >> c-span documentary competition is back celebrating 20 years with this year's theme looking forward while considering the past. we are asking middle and high school students to create a five to six minute video addressing

one of these questions. what is the most important change you would like in the 20 years or in the past 20 years what is the most important change. we are giving away $100,000 with a grand prize of $5,000 and every teacher who has students participate has the opportunity to share a portion of an additional $50,000 the deadline is friday january 20, be up to date with book tv's podcast about books with current nonfiction book releases, best seller lists, industry news and trends. you can find about books on c-span now our fly ball app or -- our free mobile app or

wherever you get your podcast. healthy democracy doesn't just look like this. it looks like this where americans can see democracy at work. where our republic thrives, get informed straight from the sources on c-span, unfirst of alled, unbiased word for word from the nation's capital to wherever you are. because the opinion that matters the most is your own. this is what democracy looks like. c-span, powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: it is open forum so we will take your calls. public policy or politics-wise. here is an update on programming. this will be a live event from brookings right after this program at 10:00 u.s. ambassador to clean discusses u.s.-china

relations following the meeting between president biden and the president of china. that is fromrookings here on c-span at 10:00 a.m. eastern and on the free c-span now video app or online at c-span.org. we will update you on the war in gaza. this is high intensity phase needs to end within weeks. he said the israel in gaza needs to transition to the next lower intensity in weeks, not months that is jake sullivan telling that to prime minister netanyahu in a meeting yesterday. we will go to your calls. debra in maryland, democrat.

caller: i had hoped to talk to the journalists but calling about why hunter biden needs to testify in public. yesterday after hunter biden gave his press conference or whatever jim jordan immediately said we know from devin arch er that joe biden was involved in hunter's business. we don't know any of the kind and none of the journalists questioned him but i have devin archer's testimony did you ever witness hunter or business associate discussing the substance of hunter biden's business. this is why you need somebody to testify in public because if you don't they will twist in around and journalists like the two you had will not challenge them on it. that becomes part of some

narrative that the trumpists can propagate to justify the impeachment. the other thing is c-span programming note. people keep calling and saying i don't understand why joe biden got $2 million to buy a beach house. all of joe biden's income returns including for the years he was not in office between 2007 and 2020 are on line. easily google it. and c-span never looks at them or -- when people are so interested in where did he get his money why don't you get somebody like david k. johnston or tax expert on to explain. i got them online in 2012 he made over $11 million manly from back sales and spooking fees with pensions, salaries from the university of pennsylvania.

social security. those were minor but the man things are book sales in speaking fees. in 2018 he made $4.5 million from the same sources. so right there after he got out of office like everybody including bill and hillary clinton went on a speaking sector and wrote books and paid millions of dollars, at least $15 million in two years alone. i'm a retired tax lawyer but you can find any competent accountant to come on this look at the income tax returns on line and have them explain where he got his money. they call where did joe biden get that money. host: i appreciate that, debra. for the input. there is also if you don't want to read tax returns there's a couple of articles. here is forbes with this here is how much joe biden is worth and as you said that information is

public. it really comes -- it really breaks it down in this article and you can look at for'scom. after cashing in during the trump era he is taking government paychecks that's not stopping him from adding millions to his fortunate. he is worth an estimated $10 million up from eight million it has nothing to do with family business deals but doing what a lot of 80-year-old americans are doing sitting object real estate. he owns two homes in delaware worth appear estimated $7 million. it does break down where his income came from, the book deals, speaking engagements, as you said, debra. caller: he reported it all and paid taxes. i want to emphasize that. i'm a tax lawyer and i can read

returns but it is not hard to read tease. there are no shell companies other than two s corporations that his wife set up to handle spooking fees and they are not unusual. host: john in missouri, republic. caller: i'm calling because i'm a little upset with what is going on in ukraine and israel. we have two wars. one is being accepted letting russia go in and to annihilate ukrainians. israel is defending itself. in 1948 israel was given a stamp saying two state solution. history is there. no one wants to read the history. it was the palestinians that turned down the two state solution.

it was egypt, it feels all the other arab nations that turned it down. in 1972 during the peace agreement israel took over. as a former military personnel we look after each other and protect each other. i wish my nation would go back to doing this. we worry about ourselves. we worry about not where we came from but who we are today. we need to grow up and realize that we are americans. we are not latinos, africans or asians, we are americans. that is where we feed to go back to. thank you and y'all have a happy christmas and hanukkah. host: you, too, john. this is the front page of the

"washington post" this morning that says wide use of dumb bombs in gaza u.s. analysis may explain high toll almost half of munitions by israel are unguided. since the war began about half of the munitions have been unguided bombs. a u.s. intelligence assessment found that helps explain the conflict's enormous civilian death toll as u.s. and israeli engage in conversations about the sequencing of military operations in the two-month conflict. charlie is in roslyn heights, new york, independent. caller: hi. the lies about the israeli situation are mind boggling. i think people need to look it is the palestinians that have been the heroes throughout.

there's a holocaust going on right now in gaza that would make hitler blush. what gets me so much i'm living in the land of the free, home of the brave and it is a great country and american people are good people. why are we supporting this? why is our foreign policy off the retails. israel is a fascist country, ok? i don't know what to say right now. host: tell me why you call it a fascist country. caller: if you look at its behavior the last 50 years, 75 years. host: give me specifics. caller: it is an apartheid citizen. air -- arabs are second class citizens. the fact there's lies going on about israel.

it is amazing, they are shameless when it comes to lies. i have to salute those palestinian people they are bloodied but i salute them. host: tony in cleveland, ohio, democrat. caller: good morning. i had on my mind about aid for ukraine and migrants at the border problems with sending the people money over to help them get by while the people in the u.s. are honoring the best day of the year of christmas. so i was saying that i think aid for ukraine should be either hiring more agents.

i think that is what at the need to go on instead of aid for ukraine and against the migrants at the border. the problem at the border has been there for 25 years. so, let's get on the i.r.s. agents hiring, we could spend more money on hiring more i. r.i.r.s. agents or sending that money for aid to ukraine. thank you very much and have a great day. host: jude, akron, ohio, republican. caller: i was calling about the immigration. my grandparents came here knew czechoslovakia through ellis island. that was my father's side. my mother is part indian. if anybody should have a say about immigration and people coming here should be the american indians. this was their land.

we took their land from them and i think they should be able to weigh in and up to them to decide whether at the want more people in the country because in all reality this is their country, not ours. host: do you have something else to say, judy? caller: i was going to say i feel like we committed genocide against the indians and killed a lot of tribes that to longer exist because of us coming into their country. host: the numbers are on your screen. republicans are republic republic. democrats are 202-748-8000, and independents are 202-748-8002. we have another 10 to 15 machines in open forum. we go to rowland in detroit, independent. caller: i'm concerned that the

discussion about reparations for descendants for those who labored and enslaved has gone silent. biden and the rest of them, they are losing a lot of black support because they just brush the over this subject like oh, just deal with it. but unpaid labor today has consequences. en paid labor back then, including torture and murder, has to be dealt with or this country on some level will be suffering spiritually and other ways forever. reparations must be dealt with

and must be dealt with now. host: diane is in barberton, ohio, democrat. caller: good morning. i talked for about this but i'm getting more and more worriedment in ohio we have a lot of white supremist groups. there's a school in upper sandusky teaching our children naziism. host: tell me more about that. caller: it was reported in our local news that that was going on and they were being taught neo-naziism in that particular school. how much more i can't go into because i'm not quite sure, but

it was on our local news. another thing about the white supremacist groups i wanted to say is the cato group from -- i don't know where terror from but i know they have been on "washington journal" the people bringing invent -- fentanyl in are there was a gentleman that came from millers town killed people he was in the cartel. he's one in prison before and had killed that people and wounded a third person and dumped them in akron. so, we are getting all of this people that are working

together. the white supremists with the cartel. i know that to be a fact because my son used to be in -- my mind went blank. host: border patrol? caller: no, not border patrol. he was a c.o. for a jail and they would talk about it in the jail, these white supremacist groups. i don't know why ohio isn't doing anything but it is scaring me and it is scaring me literally. thank you, mimi. have a good day. host: you too. marion in belair beach florida. republican. caller: good morning. i'm calling to speak about the evidence for the massive

influence peddling scheme that is the biden administration. it basically is willful evidence of the mountain of evidence that the house investigators have already accumulated just to go through some of it there were 22 shell companies there's no legitimate purpose for funneling this money through the shell companies. the biden family got well over $20 million from kazakhstan, russia, ukraine and chinese communist party. what were they selling? what feels the business? -- what was the business? what were these oligarchs getting in exchange for millions of dollars? we know from bank records the millions were distributed to at

least nine biden family members. as far as the evidence there are 170 suspicious activity reports which is when banks flag what could be money laundering activity. we have e-mails, first person testimony, bank records. the bank records don't lie. we know there were in person meetings and phone calls involving joe biden with his hunter's business associates. there is a whatsapp much with a chinese communist energy company where hunter said i'm sitting right next to my father. if you don't fulfill your commitment there's going to be hell to pay and within about a week 500-0000 was wired to the bidens. there is a 10-23f.b.i. form where a very reliable f.b.i. act spoke with the head of barisma

and the person told him directly that he had been not forced -- i'm trying to think of the word -- host: it is ok, i got your point. chris is in vavalencia, california, independent. caller: first off, bravo to the young lady that just called. i would like to hear the response to that. it is strange to watch these media guys just like the young woman said before me remain ignorantly. i'm probably a little younger than most of your callers, i'm 31. how do you feel about the fact that my generation and younger people see through the legacy media? i don't watch any mainstream media. are you guys -- i mean, how do you feel about that changing

news media landscape, the fact that the legacy media is dying. people are getting information on online and youtube is starting to crack down on censorship. host: how do you feel about that, chris? caller: i think it is good that people that are younger and some older people americans across the country are starting to realize the media is -- i mean, it is basically controlled by the government to some extent. they tell things they want to spin. this current administration has put the clamp down on the media and used to their advantage. we saw the hunter biden hrrptop but it has gone on with both. i like that the legacy media is dying out and hopefully we see

more countries go under. cnn plus, that didn't last long. that was good to see. the influence of the legacy media is dying. and one gentleman said that president biden -- i have the quote if you want to give me the time to read it or i don't know if you want to get to another caller. host: i want to get to another caller but can you send it to us on social media at c cspanwj or journal @c-span.org. i definitely want to see that. george in texas, republican line. caller: yes, ma'am, good morning to you. i hope people have been watching or listening can certainly see the tone and seriousness and sob errens of the republicans versus

the democratic line. my only comment is to the accountant some time back on joe biden's taxes and you can google it, i'm not sure of that. i bet you can. but i do know one thing. that when he did get the $11 million on the book deal he and jill formed a shell company, it was a test corporation, i believe. and an s corporation you had the choice to pay yourself a dividend, which is tax free, no withholding, no federal withholding, no medicare, no social security. then you pay yourself a way which is subject to withholding. i don't know if it is in there and you can look at that s corporation he and little jill paid themselves all in dividend draw and didn't pay within dime

of federal withholding, medicare or social security. federal withholding would have been around 7.8% easily and obviously everybody knows what medicare and social security is on your paycheck. joe didn't pay any of that but he had the nerve to stand up there on the national stage and ridicule trump for not paying enough tax and trump i believe his words were you would be a fool to pay a dime more than you owed. joe didn't even pay a dime. i will just remind people on this sovereign nation of ours, we would all be japanese or german if not for our grandfathers. have a good day. host: anthony is a democratic -- democrat in south river, new jersey. caller: good morning, mimi.

i have a comment on the immigration we were talking about and i also have a suggestion. my first thing that i would like to say is we have an open border policy and i have a issue with the secretary. he never has the information that the congressmen and american people want to get from him when he goes before these meetings. i watch on c-span. as an example, how many on the terror watch list have away let go or how many are incarcerated. he doesn't have that number. he's constant laughing at people and snickering and thinks it is a unique and i think he is a disgrace. -- a joke and i think he is a disgrace. his comment is always we have a

broken immigration system a long time and it is not his fault. no one is above the law, not even the president of the united states. here is my suggestion. first of all, we are seeing two things. i think the congress passed legislation. we should not have a broad immigration, just little pieces to improve. of course we need a wall but people coming over they discard their passports and i.d.'s before they come so i would suggest legislation let's have them -- grandma would have to present seven points of i.d. to get a drivers license at d.m.v. have tell have one paste. they should make a law about that. second law is they should say that anyone who is going to be secretary for the department of homeland security should be born

in the united states. mr. mayor cast is not born in the united states. i think they should make it retroactive so we can remove him who is constantly laughing at us and we can -- it will be retroactive and we can get somebody in there who won't be laughing at us. thanks for your help. i wish you a happy holiday. host: anthony will be the last within for open forum for this segment but we've more coming up on this day. it is a conversation about the history of the day and why the rights in the first 10 amendments are more important than ever. we will be right back.

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>> washington journal continues. host: welcome back it "washington journal." we are joined by the president of the bill of right institute david bobb. it is the 232nd anniversary of the ratification of the bill of rights. take us through a little history of that process and why weren't they included initially in the constitution. guest: the constitution feels hammered out over three months in philadelphia in the summer of 1787 in philadelphia. there were people who at the time of that debate, it was a long hard conversation, very contentious, could have broken down many points but there were many delegates to that constitutional convention that were worried that what had been set up was too strong a central government. these people came to be none as antifederalists. they thought we needed elements

to have some bulwark for freedom and we would write them down and state them in a way that was clear for everybody. so there people that opposed the ratification of the constitution. those in favor, federalists, said it is good as it is. there was a big challenge. so as the constitution was sent out to the states many people weighed in and they said look, here is the protection that i want. we should add this, that. and the total of more than 200 came about. by the time it came into adoption, what happened in 1789 they sent 12 amendments out to the state, 10 came bhakta were ratified and on december 15, 1791 the bill of rights the first 10 amendments were added

to the constitution. host: did one person write the bill of rights or was it more group effort? guest: it was definitely a group effort. it was a big kerfuffle. democracy is messy and we had lots of disagreements but one thing the parties agreed on it should be set up to ensure freedom for the people and mitigate against tyranny. so, what happened is i give credit to madison, he was involved in that first congress, a great editor. he had been the father of the constitution. he relied on some of the work george mason did with the virginia declares of rights. he took that list of 200 plus and brought it down to 17 and then came down to 12 and then there was debate if it should be at the end or the beginning. he did the back room deals appear negotiations that

ultimately allowed for it to pass. he was against the bill of rights before was for it. hamilton the same way. they were lake what if we write it down but don't computer all of them. does that convey that they have to be written down. the amazing thing and why we make it a celebration today, bill of rights day, we have rights because we are human beings. as the tkhraeurbgs of independence said we are endowed by our creator with certain inalien believe rights and the bill of rights codifies them and says there are certain things so precious to you that no majority should be able to strip you of those rights. host: when did we start celebrating a bill of rights day? guest: it hasn't been around that long. i don't know that the first official date is but the funny thing about it when it was first ratified it is not like they said we have the bill of rights. it was usually referred to as a

bill of right. it was about the time of f.d.r. we referred to them as the bill of rights. host: you have an opinion piece in stars and stripes magazine and you talk about the knowledge of young people of what rights we have and what is in the bill of rights. i want to show a survey ne this was you aed participants to name the rights guaranteed by the first amendment. 77% could name freedom of speech. this is when it drops off. 40% freedom of religion and 33% right to assembly and 8 said freedom of press is in the first amendment. guest: sometimes our tendency is to say of teenagers why are at the so ignorant. we have two give tell a reason to want to know these.

we have to model the debate and engagement that the bill of rights institute we teach civics and that is giving young people the reason to ask why. when we get better at these why would freedom of press matter for a person using one of the social media platforms. we see a problem not just with young people but americans of all ages in their knowledge and engagement. i think what we are trying to do with the bill of rights and particularly on bill of rights day is to say of the whole of the american people let's come together, examine our history and think about the skills of citizenship that we need to manage this agreement. the bill of rights is about managing this disagreement, not eliminating it. >> if you have a question for our guest you can call by the lines. republicans 202-748-8001. democrats are 202-748-8000 and

independents are 202-748-8002. tell us more about the organization and how it does the things you are talking about. guest: it teaches civics. it is right now very difficult thing in america to be a teach anderson we support about 75,000 teachers. think of it you are asked as an educator say of high school and middle school to take up these contentious topics in a way that gets them interested in the core principles. we point young people back to primary source documents by giving teachers the tools by which they can engage students. so if you think of a curriculum and you can go to it and download any instructional materials. they are free of charge. there's a labor of 4,000 materials including on the bill

of rights, constitution, declaration of independence and what we are trying to do is equip students with the knowledge, skills and disposition so they can live and promote a free and just america. host: as you know, school curricula has become polar iced. how does civics education bridge that if possible? guest: it is possible. we are polarized. 56% of high school students according to one survey reported that they feel comfortable disagreeing with one another in the classroom. that means that 44% are uncomfortable. we as americans not just in the classrooms are walking on egg shells. we don't want to talk about tough things because we are worried about donor. for a high school or middle school this means can i have a debate on friends that is something that is contentious and remain the friendship and we

are helping people say yes we can talk about questions that are difficult, questions that divide us. we don't have to be polarized. think of what the founding principles can do. i believe they can act as a unifying thing. we believed what frederick douglass made freedom, equality that human beings have rights that the purpose of government is to protect rights. if we go back to some of those core continuation i think there's a possibility of not a kind of kumbaya, we are too big and won't agree on a lot of policy things but we have to find a way to manage dose agreement. that is what the constitution allows us to do. host: ready to talk to callers? guest: love to. host: sy is first independent line houston, texas. caller: thank you so much for having shows like this,phobe else will do it about special days that we don't even -- i

wouldn't have realized it was today. i want to pick up where you left off. originally there were 12 amendments to the bill of rights. our first amendment was originally the third amendment and the first, first amendment was to be called article the first and that's way want to get to. but the second one is the latest amendment to be added or 27th about increasing pay for congress. the original article, the first was appropriation of congressmen and i wish you could pull up the text so i don't have to read it in old original english but i think it is interesting and we need to think why do we have 435 members of congress. the answer is actually because that is how many chairs you can fit on the floor. i think we need to look into

that. we have electronic devices and microphones and cameras. we have all kinds of technology. we need to remove the visitor gallery and make room for more. originally there was one for every 10,000, then 20,000 and then 50,000 but imagine one congressman nor every 50,000 people and that is -- if you only had to get 25,000 people to vote to be a congressman instead of half of 650,000 which is what it is today that would change everything. we were only one state short of passing that. in our constitution there are two different ways to pass them. we can go through the states if congress do not want to amend the constitution and we should tack on maybe an age limitment

we have minimum age for house and senate and president. i think we need to think about an upper end. guest: you are right that the first two amendments, those 12, were not immediately ratified. the second one took a long time until the 1990's but it was adopted as the 27th amendment. that provides for a period of time for the members of congress cannot vote themselves a pay raise and attack it until an intervening election. your point about apportionment is interesting, but consider if we went back to some original ratios like one member of the u.s. house for every 40,000 americans i think the figure would be about 10,000 members of the u.s. house of reference. that would be a lot. but the questions about apportionment continue. we at the bill of rights institute love talking about the second one and i will give a

quick story. a student in college was doing a report and said what were the original two and why didn't they pass. he said that is a good idea to have that intervening time period and pulled it together and started an effort to revive it knowing it was not far from ratification and it was able throwing. the original report he wrote earned something like a c. once he did the process the teacher said it is probably worth an a. host: gina in kentucky, a democrat, good morning. caller: yes. you think there was making about the 10 commandments when they talked about the bill of rights if they don't it you shall not lie but let me tell you something. educational tv has pushed to talk to kids about the bill of rights in a cartoon like skit.

but maybe the bill of rights people should get on the internet and have a program or maybe design a game where kids can interact. nab is the way we could get to it. guest: thank you for that. the bill of rights institute has a great web site. it is my brid org. but there are things people of all ages can read. it doesn't take about a half hour to read the constitution. i encourage you to read the declaration of independence. we have a number of videos and we engage in conversation. you get out of the bubble and say maybe i ought to reach out to that neighbor with home i disagree. the way it depolarize is not continue to live in our silos.

that is what the bill of rights is giving us the right to free speech and petition to grievances appear pieceably protest. democracy is a means to an end and that end is liberty and avoiding tyranny. think of what a remarkably unique thing that is. a lot of nations have bills of rights but ours mean something, it has teeth. it is upheld but we have to bring young people into believing it like the caller says. the only way it has sustaining power is we believe it and uphold it. host: greg in kansas, republican. caller: thank you for taking my call. i have a question. it wasn't george mason against the bill of rights -- wasn't george mason against the bill of rights and if they were going to have it in he was not going to

be in favor of the constitution. years ago i was a law clerk to the late justice blackman and he lamented that in high school nobody wanted to take government and nobody wanted to teach it either. good day. guest: thankfully, with all due respect to the late justice there are a lot of people who do a great job teaching government. i will agree there's a lot of students that don't see it because that is we teach it sometimes in a way that do not give tell reason. we have 75,000 educators and every day they get up and do an amazing job coming into the classroom and giving students a reason to be engaged. we have to ask their opinion and take their opinion seriously and have a back and forth. your question about george mason is interesting. george mason feels the leading

advocate for not aproving the constitution without a bill of rights. so what he had done in virginia early on feels write into their constitution a declaration of rights. it is from that document that madison, taking a page from mason, said we probably should include that in the constitution to gain the support of fellow citizens including people like mason. so mason insisted the bill of rights be part of the constitution so we owe him a lot for the existence of the bill of rights. host: you have carlos in delaware can you explain the enumeration of the rights and how and why they are prioritized. guest: to have an enumeration of rights is just to state them and make them very clear. we talked a little how the first amendment wasn't originally the first so i wouldn't put much

that within through 10 is not a ranked order of performance. what you have in the constitution is a very clear statement in article one, section 8, stating that there are certain rights -- sorry -- certain duties for the federal government. and the bill of rights you might think of as a limitation. congress shall make no law. it says there are certain things we don't want the political process to change but you don't want to put to a vote of your neighbors should you or should you not have the right to keep your house. some vindication are so inviolable. the list goes on throughout the bill of rights that nobody can take that away from you. so, that is why we write them down. not every country has a written constitution. the united kingdom, great britain, does not.

we have a written constitution and bill of rights to show the american people these rights are to be cherished and protected. host: monty is next independent in phoenix, arizona. caller: good morning. first of all, i used to be a republican but now i'm an independent. i just have a comment on the constitution. i believe it feels a god expired document. a lot of people talk about having a constitutional convention but the framers in their wisdom showed us the path of how we can make it effective for all of us going forward. that was with the bill of rights or first 10 amendments that were put in there. they did that up front and said there's a pattern of how you can make this document work going forward in the future. that is the only comment that i had to make about that. host: what do you think, david? guest: i think you are right. there was a strong measure of wisdom in saying from the get go

we have written something down. the constitution is the product of a couple score people sitting around in the long hot summer of philadelphia in 1787. but we are not going to impose this on the country. we will put it out to the people that we the people can decide whether it should be ratified or not. and we are going to build into the constitution a means by which it can be amended. it is really hard to amend. more than 10,000 proposals have been made to amend the constitution and we only have 27 so a very high bar but i think that was a a wise decision and something we can celebrate today. host: new jersey, democrat, john, good morning. caller: good morning. when i was in school i was in special ed. and we really never got history but i got that from

the boy scouts. one thing that is very interesting about the bill of rights, you have two amendments that are confusing to most people like the second amendment or third amendment. and i think the cause that it still hard to understand is militia and we have issues with it with a lot of issues today. but one of the great things about the constitution feels that when alexander hamilton and john jay and james madison created it, it was created to be a living document to change things based on the times. that is one of the things i learned about it despite not

learning it in special ed. but one thing we need to do is understand different parts of an amendment. host: sorry, go ahead. caller: we talked about the fourth amendment. the fourth amendment came when i took a criminal justice class you have decisions like map versus ohio in 1961 that talked about the reason for going into a house with a warrant. when you get into those stories they are very interesting. host: let's get a response. guest: i agree, john, that these stories are vital. today marks 232 years, that is a long time. the constitution agencies principles are enduring. it can be amended. the amendment process is the only way that the constitution is living. think of those principles as enduring from age to age. people don't change.

that was the central insight of the founders. we have the bill of the constitution that provides a hedge that people often treat each other poorly and we have to ensure the government cannot be tyrannical. second is bear arrangements, fourth is each is a ball washing against overleaning government. we had moved from a monarchy that had become tyrannical. so the founders wanted to put in place a government and constitution that would for all times protect people and not just change from generation to generation. host: let's go to gene in syracuse, new york, republican, good morning. caller: good morning. what a great subject to talk about. i have a question. are you familiar at all with what seems to me to be a recent phenomena on youtube and other platforms but manly youtube, of

people who are kind of nerdy about the bill of rights and they go to publish spaces and they basically stand or videotape and stand somewhere and might ask for public papers forensic from your town hall, they do things that demonstrate the actual right. then they pay attention to what the responses from the official, for instance, if you go into the mayor's office do they allow you to actually walk in and they videotape it and it is quite amazing that, number one, many people are not aware of their own rights. so, just typical citizens that happen to witness show up on videos and they get explained to, this is your right. this isn't just me. i have this right but you also

have this right. when i stick up for your right, you benefit even if you are not hear watching it. so i'm curious if you have seen this phenomenon? guest: i'm not familiar with that particular youtube phenomenon. but i think your broader point is really important and that is the rights have to be universal. you can't pick and choose and say these are accorded to these people and not these americans. that is what we were escaping. that kind of life, that experience is what so many people across the world special privileges for some, limited rights for others. the bill of rights, the constitution, our form of government says you have rights and those should be protected by the government. that is a fundamental foundational thing. at the bill of rights institute we believe young people can learn by doing. so for example we have a program my impact challenge they choose

a problem in the local community and try to solve it using the principles and civic virtues that made the country what it is. in that at the learn about the rights and responsibilities and come to a deeper appreciation wanting to share it and not just say i'm going to claim these rights for myself and myself alone but recognizing everybody deserves the same protections. host: happy of bill of rights day as president of the bill of rights institution. thank you for coming in. guest: thank you. host:has it for "washington journal." we have our live event on brookings very soon but the house is about to gavel in for a quick pro forma session. thanks to everybody who watched and have a great day. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023]