second, what is the current state of the debate during the trump administration? and third, what steps need to be taken to maintain a level of bipartisan consensus on arms control and strategic modernization that is sustainable over the long term. we have an excellent group of experts to help us answer these questions. first on my left, we have brian mckean who is currently a senior director at the pen biden center for diplomacy in engagement and secretary of defense for policy, executive secretary for the national security counsel, deputy national security advisor to vice president biden, and was also the long time chief democrat counsel on the senate foreign relations committee. next we have madeline kreden who currently serves as a nonresident fellow here at bookings. i think madeline has held just about every job in the nuclear security business, including principal deputy under secretary of energy for nuclear security, assistant secretary of defense for global strategic affairs, and was the long-time democrat professional staff lead on the senate strategic for

after the trump administration eased those sanctions last year. the senate failed to pass a similar measure yesterday. the house is done with work for the week but earlier today the chamber debated a bill that would have reopened all shuttered agencies through february 28 with no additional money for a border wall. there was a dispute as to the vote, so the house will revote on the measure next week. follow the house live on c-span when members return for legislative work on tuesday. griller today house speaker nancy pelosi held her weekly briefing with reporters at the capital. she spoke about the government shutdown and the impact it has on some of her constituents. she called on president trump to reopen the government. this is 20 minutes. speaker pelosi: the vote's on the floor. that's the tyranny of the bell, as i call it.

. >> president trump's pick to be the next administrator of the federal highway administration testified before the senate environment and public works committee earlier today at her confirmation hearing. this is about 90 minutes. >> good morning. i call this hearing to order. today we will consider the nomination of nicole to be the administrator of the federal highway administration at the united states department of transportation. she is well qualified for this mportant post. she bring important experience. i applaud president trump's nomination of such an accomplished and dedicated public servant. the federal highway administration plays a central role in american mobility. the administration is the lead federal partner to the state and local transportation programs that maintain and improve our nation's roads, highways and bridges. america's transportation infrastructure faces a lot of challenges. for far too long the federal highway administration has been without senate-confirmed leadership. moreover, the authorization of the federal highway programs will expire in september of n

that was a very robust debate, even within the obama administration. thehe end, came down on side of something new. obviously the trump administration, because it was so early in that program, could not make a determination. that debate i'm sure will continue on just a little bit. isertainly hope not, nafta not the model, and i will just leave it at that. it is a good treaty, everybody is in compliance and there is huge benefit from it. i don't know what a new treaty would look like. i don't know how you would make it better. >> i would say just modded -- modest adjustments and a new talk, i would take it. >> i would take it. but the beauty of new start extension is it doesn't have to go back to the senate, and there is a lot to be said for that. that if yould note reopen things, the russians are going to have their long list of issues that they would like included in any new treaty. >> this issue on extension is very important. created thisrs pressure valve in the form of an extension that can be taken with relative ease and without a revisit to either

today we will consider the nomination of nicole to be the administrator of the federal highway administration at the united states department of transportation. she is well qualified for this mportant post. she bring important experience. i applaud president trump's nomination of such an accomplished and dedicated public servant. the federal highway administration plays a central role in american mobility. the administration is the lead federal partner to the state and local transportation programs that maintain and improve our nation's roads, highways and bridges. america's transportation infrastructure faces a lot of challenges. for far too long the federal highway administration has been without senate-confirmed leadership. moreover, the authorization of the federal highway programs will expire in september of next year. mr. barrasso: that's why we must work together in this committee to write and pass a bipartisan highway bill that upgrades america's roads and bridges in a fiscally responsible manner and do it in this congress. we successfully worked together to pass comprehensive biparti

that is what the administration is trying to say. if they cannot get the democrats convinced it is a crisis, you may see the president declare a national emergency. the political risk for the president is that if he does believe this inherently and he declares a national emergency, there could be unforeseen political and policy consequences. what does it mean to have the military have a major presence? what happens in public reaction if the army corps of engineers starts to dig a wall at the u.s. border? no one has seen this happen before. host: there is a question off of twitter, a viewer asking if there is an architectural plan for the wall? >> the administration has had prototypes for the wall. what makes it complicated is there are wall-like structures on the border. the president has looked at concrete structures, there are now this idea of steel slats aboute keeps tweeting that have see-through areas. , part of the reason this steel conversation keeps coming up is the image of a concrete wall, the administration knows it reminds

one is the president has no way of controlling what the administration of agencies are doing. there were 3,000 regulations in a year and they come out of all the agencies of which the president has some kind of supervision. were not talking about the independent agencies with the commission that is running it but the treasury is one of the major issuers of regulations every year as hhs and the others. and they are directly controlled by the president. but still the president has very little authority directly over these things because the number is so great. and he doesn't have the staff in owen b doesn't have the staff to review the most important regulations. the whole gang continues to be played year after year with these regulations coming out in only a few of them actually reviewed by the president but in addition it's illegitimate for another reason and that is because the president has no role of significance in lawmaking except the approval of things of congress approves. it is just too legitimate that the president there because he is elected as to say nothing really.

of the federal highway administration. we are delighted to have you, and congratulations on your nomination. i want to remind you, that your full written testimony will be made part of the record. we look forward to hearing your testimony today. i know you have members of the family here. if you would like to introduce them to additional introductions , and then when you're finished, please proceed with your testimony. thank you. >> mr. chairman? ranking member carper members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today, to be considered for the position of administrator of the federal highway administration at the department of transportation. if confirmed, i look forward to working with you to enable and empower the strengthening of a world-class highway system. i would like to thank president donald trump and secretary chao, for the confidence in my ability to serve in this critical world. i would also like to express my gratitude to secretary norman minetta, not just for his appearance, and

and then in the budget request that the obama administration submitted for fiscal year 2011 for the national nuclear security administration, which was submitted in february of 2010, so before the start treaty is sent up, was a pretty substantial increase in the weapons activities at nsa. it was a 9.8% increase in weapons activity. that was the biggest increase that the weapons activities at nnsa had seen in a very long time. in many respects, obama embraced the idea that this was an enterprise that needed help and made a commitment to modernization. one of the big things we lose sight of is the commitment to modernization on the infrastructure was a large driver in the effort to downside -- downsize the total number of warheads and the stockpile, because part of the warheads in the stockpile were the heads weapons, and there was a pretty large hedge, so weapons not deployed. but there was a pretty large hedge because there was a lot of uncertainty about whether the nsa could maintain the warheads, and of course the delivery systems were getting old as well. so having a better infrastructure

it's the result of the trump administration again trying to make an end run around corning on an issue as important as russian sanctions. on december 19 of last year, the treasury department notified congress of its intention to relax sanctions against three paska,tions tied to oleg a sosesoshese of vladimir putin. the trump administration may have a perfectly legitimate reason for easing those sanctions but the reason we're on the floor today is that we don't know. under this elaw we have very little time left to get the answers we need. the sangs we're dealing with today were imposed under the counterering america's adversaries through sanctions act. the bill we passed a year and a half ago to, among other things, slap sanctions on vladimir putin's cronies. the law is written so congress would be able to step in if we thought any administration could be making a mistake in waiving or easing sangs. the republican majority at the time wrote strict and complex provisions for exercising that oversight. allowing only 30 days to pass a measure that could be -- that could reverse such a dec

what is the administration told you about the status of these talks? do you expect there to be any announcement soon and how will that impact the chamber? >> well, first of all, the administration on numerous occasions has said that when a successful agreement as been concluded, and you can interpret that a number of ways, that those tariffs would go away. and remember what i said, you know you can keep adding tariffs, but we keep paying for them. it would be great if when we added tariffs they paid for them and give us a lot more leverage. but i believe that when we get this thing further towards approval, that the administration are going to deal with -- not everywhere, but at least on the u.s. marine corps agreement, i think we'll -- and by the way we will bring the marines into help us do this. [laughter] >> ok right here. now you have to use the deal man. reporter: thank you, ted -- you said that the rumblings of a peer recession are wrong. yet yesterday a survey of top economists at the american bankers association reported that they expect the c

by and large, the obama administration programs to record the new administration followed this template. >> i definitely agree with ryan. at the time, the decision was to continue to look at what the options were for the ground raised strategic u-turn because at that point the requirement was to keep it alive at least until 2030. the timeframe hadn't quite gotten here were decision had to be made, but it was clear that with the commitment to the triad there is going to be a commitment to the icbm. what happened later on as this debate about is something new to replace them or should it be a life extension and now was a very robust debate even within the obama administration and in the end came down on the site is something new. obviously, the term administration because were so early in that program could make its own determination. but there is definitely going to be something because without something there is no triad. so that debate i'm sure will continue just a little bit. i certainly hope not. nafta is not the model and i believe it at that. it's a good treaty. everybody's in comp

some people say the administration plus handling of the border -- the administration's handling of the border is a crisis. some people say upcoming immigration is a crisis. as a reporter, there are totally different views about how they see the border. is most interesting to me not just how people see the border, but how this administration politically has handled all this. they said no in the past. host: houston, texas. republican line. caller: i wonder if you would has said anything negative about barack obama when he promised reforminggned on immigration in his first year in office. he said it over and over again. was oneering if there reporter curious enough to ask president obama if he was going to resolve the issue. he had a super majority and did nothing. don't we look back at history instead of crushing trump on every single paragraph? it drives me nuts. you are not objective. your job is to go after trump, go after trump. i wonder how many times you've been to the border? have you been on horseback? have you been in a helicopter? have you talked to border patrol? i wonder if t

the abe administration doesn't receive enough pressure for reformism. what abe has been doing as a result of the stable power basis for what has been achieved, he has mainly achieved the foreign policy idea. so one thing that the abe administration should do for the next few years until 2021, so especially in 2019 as jim always says, it will happen in 2019, so in 2019, the biggest path that the abe administration has to do is trying to elevate the reputation of the commitment to domestic reform. so if he has been doing a good job for the foreign policy side and the abe administration passed the security legislation as well as actually new defense guidelines in 2019. that has really made security relationship especially with the united states very stable and certainly, as you know, the abe administration participated in the tpp and then in the diet, and then after the u.s. withdrew from the tpp japan took the initiative of concluding what is now cbtpp and this is remarkable because this is probably the first international trade agreement that japan's init

the george h.w. bush administration and then to the clinton administration and earning three bronze medals for commendable service along the way. for those who do not know, the bronze medal is given -- and this is a quote -- "significant service or achievements in support of the agency's mission or demonstrations of outstanding accomplishments in supervision leftadership." when andrew the agency, he brought that sense of service and leadership to the united states senate or i had a front row seat to his character and witnessed the dedication he brings to every job. andrew started in my office as chief counsel, transition to -- transition to staff director and the committee on time at protection. i was chairman of that subcommittee at that time. when ithousand three, became chairman, andrew became the chief counsel. , we the next six years worked closely on highway bills, energy bills, diesel emissions reduction acts, many other pieces of legislation. since leaving the u.s. senate, and he has continued to build on his reputation as a leader in energy and environmental policies and has brought his vast weal

>> historically communities work well with the administration. it is always a balance between national security and economic growth and we have benefited from a process that has historically been a political. we have an effort at the chamber that is focused on continuing this is a political and the security environment is changing. i think that's why you see congress and the administration looking to change the export control regimes. we want to make sure it is done in such a way that gives security concerns to what tom has raised without going so far that you endanger some of the economic growth productivity and multinational engagement that american companies benefit from. >> chris roberti back there he runs all of our homeland security, all of our cyber security, all of our intelligence, all the protection of the global supply chain. call him up he will tell you what we are doing. okay we've got one over here. are you picking them? or am i picking them? >> reporter: alan rappaport from the new york times. on the administration's trade agenda i

and that is one of the reasons why the administration has been stable. at the first term he tried to push more of his own agenda, lord of the nationalist agenda and it didn't work and then it led to short-term. one reason he's been very stable is in the middle. he stated moderate. there are some arguments turning to right, a little bit but that isn't going to the nationalism side of the more of the left is still off the internationalism free-trade stuff, so that makes the administration stable. i would like to comment about the politics yes it is effective and strong for thin the strong s that are lacking. if you remember there was the attempt to organize the party to be the largest opposition party but they failed to do that and then i just the so-called constitutional democrats. and they are more or less, so as a result it is accountable of the right hand side and including the administration is for the positive outcome. this is actually true, but one thing that is regrettable i would say it's the moderate range of the political spectrum didn't work so

the very proud of democrats in the room who ask very specific question to the administration. you'll hear some of that debate. it's very, very important. a strong majority 57 to 42 to disagree and disapprove of the actions taken by the administration. next week as you are aware next week to stay here to work on legislation to open up government, to continue our ongoing bills to open up government starting with the bill the republicans themselves have in the senate that will go to the next step. at the same time we will be working on our agenda for health care costs to increase paychecks by building infrastructure of america in the very near future to bring dignity to government by a dark special interest money in politics. once again we call upon the president to open up to reopen government. this is directly related. we are not paying people to stop bombs from coming onto planes. the fbi agent, the dea agent who stopped the flow of drugs intercountry and immigration officials to control the border. this senseless shutdown isn't with them great pain in every part of our country

and when we have the trump administration itself finding that the obama administration's clean powerplant is a commonsense rule the single largest in the country had done to cut up power plants, that could actually prevent 4500 premature deaths a year by 2030. it also benefit the economy in terms of climate and public health benefits by $54 million. so, this is just astounding we are continuing to debate how much climate change is happeni happening. why would we be messing around with this when we have such an opportunity to go back on offense to be a world leader? at this point in time, we are eating our lunch when it comes to china believe they own 99% of the world's electric buses. they have high goals for getting to renewable energy. we are seeing an incredible opportunity to lead the world in the clean energy economy, and it simply doesn't make sense. >> host: if you are just joining the discussion, the league of conservation voters joining us also from the heartland institute james taylor. bruce in california, good morning. >> caller: hello. >> host: you are on. go ahead. >> caller:

the administration has acknowledged it's going to be late. i've heard rumors that it may be as much as five weeks late. if that's the indicate, then it starts to back up the whole process and continuing resolutions become more probable in the fall. second thing i'm looking for is the top line. many of you have been following the wide ride that dod has had so far and they haven't published a budget yet. originally they were aiming at $733 billion budget. that's 050. that's dod's base and that's the other piece mostly nuclear programs in doe. then the president was briefed ability the deficit and said, no, 700 billion. so dod built another budget at 70 billion. then mattis recomered and said 750 billion. it looks like like 750 billion is probably the number. but my understanding is that there's still a discussion going on about whether there will be money in there for a wall on the southern border and there's i think some discussion about whether that might be 5 billion or $10 billion. so the amount that dod has to work for could be a little les

the administration, unlike previous administrations has put a policy in place to keep parks open. because the parks are open, that is why the damage is being caused. what we are saying is that they are violating the law because they are creating a health and human damage by keeping the parks open. but if they had them closed, -- they are manufacturing a crisis here. and the national park service was established over a hundred years ago, it was established by a law that says parks are conserved unimpaired. everyre being impaired by standard. this administration is not taking a cautious approach, they and welating the law need to make sure that we learn from this mistake. that is why we are calling on the inspector general to investigate. bill,back to the phones, from palm springs, california. caller: good morning and god bless you. i can't imagine what is going through your head and what you are seeing. i'm up the street, 30 miles from joshua tree park. the plans are literally hundreds of years old, they don't look like much, but because of the lack of water and the topography and t

i look forward to how the administration views this just in case money at a time when the imf's quota is double what it was four years ago and when ford commitment capacity stands at a quarter of a trillion dollars. we also look toward exploring how the administration sees the imf and the other ifis operating in a changing landscape with new multilateral organizations including the stability method and theation investment bank and others. we need clear guidelines governing cooperation and that cooperation must not undermine the ifi's commitment to rigor and results. again, i thank the undersecretary for appearing before us today and i am confident he shares our belief that the accountability for result is a top priority. now the chair recognizes the ranking member of the subcommittee, the gentle lady from wisconsin, gwen moore for five minutes. >> thank you so much, mr. chairman, and i do welcome you this morning. i, really -- we're ending the 115th sort of the way we began here, really talking about the importance of the united states positioning itself in the world through these int

later today we'll hold a vote on the administration's determinations of sanctions of areas controlled by the oligarch ol olegdepraska and the democrats in the room asked very specific questions to the administration. you'll hear some of that debate on the floor. it is very, very important. i am proud that in the senate, the vote, while it did not achieve 60 was a strong majority, 67 to 42 to disagree to disapprove of the actions taken in the administration. i'm always at temple markers. next week, as you are aware, we have canceled our district work to continue our ongoing drumbeat on bills to open up government, starting with bills that the republicans themselves have in the senate will take up and we'll go to the next step next week on that. at the same time we'll be working on air agenda for the people to lower health care costs, to increase paychecks by building infrastructure of america and by passing ho1 in the very near future to bring dignity to government by lowering the role of big, dark, special interest money in politics and in government. once again, we call upon the pres

the trump's administration shift is not justified. the obama administration the department of defense studied this and there would be no harm to military readiness or co-he's a i'veness. there's been no problems because of that. for the administration to shift gears they need to have reasons. and that's where the focus of the challenge will be. what the lawyers for the troops won't be able to do is say the administration should be frozen. the arguments for the merits are wide open. >> given the supreme court's stance is it likely the policy will be upheld. >> the trump administration policy, or giving them permission. >> the fact that five were willing to stop this is suggestive at least five justices think that the administration is justified in making this change and four don't think so. maybe someone would be subject to persuasion. you want to bet with the trump administration, not against them. >>> teachers in los angeles are set to return to the classroom tomorrow after a tentative deal announced a 6% pay raise. a slight reduction

the pic for the epa administrator testified before . the senate environment andws public works committee and was e asked about his views on climata change, the clean power plant, various proposals and the impact of the shutdown. he served as the acting administrator since july of 2018. this is two hours and 45 minutes. heari. good morning and welcome this ae a formal senate hearing so in business i order to allow the committee too conduct its business, i'm going to maintain the koran.if that means if there's any ance disturbance by the audience, the person causing the disruption will be escorted from the roomin by the capitol police. the c with that said i called a hearing to order. today we are going toto considew the nomination of andrew wheeler to be the administrator of the environmental protection agency. welcom the f wathe acting administrator's nomination, iur wanted to get moment to welcome the new members of thewn and committee, senators cramer, welcome to the committee. e i knowxp that your experience ae expertise will strength

the administrative office of the u.s. courts now estimates that money will run out by the end of next week. judges would continue working with pay some employees who would be furloughed or told to work without pay. michael cohen, president trump's former lawyer and fixer, has received a subpoena to appear before the senate intelligence committee. that is according to his lawyer, lanny davis. the subpoena comes one day after cohen postponed his testimony to a separate house panel citing fears for his safety. the senate panel isn't -- is inspected gating -- is investigating russian meddling. the prominent trade union leader in the u.k. helped -- held talks today with theresa may, seeking a brexit withdrawal deal to protect workers rights. the tradesrady of union congress spoke to reporters afterwards saying she attended the meeting to come in her words, listen to the prime minister in good faith. the trades union have been looking for a deal that will protect people's jobs, that will protect workers rights now and into the

since june, the administration has already spent more than $144 million on the makeshift camp where food, water, and other basic items have to be trucked in regularly. i was disturbed to find that thousands of kids are being held in these soft sided tents in the middle of the desert, shut off from the outside world and the local community. in fact, when concerned members of the local community came by to drop off gifts and items to show these kids that there were people who cared, the detention camp turned the community people away because, as was explained to me, i said why would you do that, it was explained to me there were not enough items brought to give to every child. a pretty sad reason in my view. most troubling was that there was no good reason for the prolonged detention of children at this facility. we were told that between 800 and 1,300 kids at tornillo already have sponsors such as parents or relatives lined up to take them into homes. but the children continued to be detained because of the administration's policy of requiring all potential sponsors and all adults in the

, but very proud of democrats in the room who asked very specific questions to the administration. you will hear some of that debate on the floor. a strong majority, 57-42, to disagree, disapprove of actions taken by the administration. once again, that is today. next week, as you are aware, we have canceled our district period next week to work on legislation to open up government, to continue our ongoing drumbeat of bills to open up government, starting with bills the republicans themselves approved in the senate but will not take up. we will go to the next step. at the same time we will be working on our agenda for the people to lower healthcare costs, increase paychecks, building infrastructure of america and pacing hl one in the near future to bring dignity to government by lowering the role of big, dark, special interest money in politics and government. once again we call upon the president to open up government, to reopen government. as i said we canceled our district work period. this is related to our security. the trump agenda is undermining that. we are not paying people

and don't think the trump administration is raining hard on them. they are, too. in san francisco, we stand for something. in san francisco, people look to us. when we chip away at our sanctuary city law, the rest of the nation looks at us, too. they stand strong because we stand strong. we have a bigger responsibility bigger than our jurisdiction of san francisco. we have a responsibility to the united states, to the rest of the world. i think this moment was actually very telling for me. i think that it is a time when we really need to double down. the trump administration has hired the most -- i think they are very, very intelligent, these people who he has hires -- hired, and they're very intelligent on immigration law. we must also be kept abreast of what was going on, but also we need to be aware that we could be baited at any time. i also want to say that i am proud here in san francisco that we have not buckled down. i am proud that we have said with our undocumented community, we will stand strong, we will continue to stand strong. we will stand by you, we

the house. how will dynamics between administration and the congress changed? >> they're off to an auspicious start with the ongoing shutdown, and he knows how long that's going to last? but it will come if it keeps going it will dovetail into the budget plan at appropriations process for the nest after next fiscal year. things are not to a good start now. i expect on the democratic and a couple dynamics. one, you have never senators on the democratic side of the aisle who are either contemplating or actively making plans to run for president. they're going to be competing with each other for media attention to see you who can ge upper hand to ultimately win the democratic nomination. at the same time, so they will be using that stage but they'vey were also play off of the democratically controlled house, and looking to pick up support among members of the progressive wing of the party and so forth. this will be an interesting dynamic. what we're going to see would be a lot of investigations in the house because democrats will control the agenda where as in the

and there's a lot of criticism of the trump administration approach. another way of dealing with china would be to use multilateral systems and use a regional system like tpp and engage like-minded partners to have pressure, instead the us government has done the opposite. we walk away from tpp which established new rules, we have not been very interested in wto reform to address some of these challenges, and we have picked fights with most of the like- minded partners in the eu and japan and korea and others. so i think the debate is not over what is the status of china or how do we deal with it, i think there are some serious issues. >> i think again you have to try to about how this looks from beijing. and, i think china and the united states continue to share an interest in generally, stability in northeast asia, and stability on the korean peninsula. and shea an interest in pursuit of that stability as well as our shared nonproliferation goals to see denuclearization, there certainly progress in that direction not an arms buildup. but that somethin

the administration announced they would pay refund checks for the irs. things are always more art than they are science. and law. and so this is a good situation where maybe you bring this to the attention of the administration. they can do something about making sure these folks at the fda get back to work. >> by the way, i'm not sure she said that, but this clinical trial, because this disease is so rare, big pharmaceutical company -- >> yeah. >> -- there's no incentive for them -- >> i deal a lot -- >> they're fundi ining it themselves. >> i know all about this area. the fda has done a tremendous job under this administration. it's been a really bright spot in this administration. commissioner gottlieb has done an outstanding job really advancing, working with the rare disease community, really advancing a lot of these cures and i don't know the ing from w says. they're not working on it right now. if they're not, they need to look at it again and see if they can do something about it. >> ana, i want to play something the president said, it was on sun

what are we seeing as action from the administration or otherwise? >> that's the problem for a lot of these government workers, they rely on a paycheck, they still have obligations like mortgages, rent that they're used to paying on a monthly basis. one thing that the administration is trying to mitigate of the shutdown, people who live in affordable housing complexes. the administration has been trying to work with landlords to try to give the tenants a break at this point because they're not getting the payments that they need in order to pay the rents. that's one way they're trying to help these workers survive a lengthy shut down. >> the treasury department announcing that some irs workers coming back to do the business of returns. was that meant to circumvent legislation passing from the house democrats to keep that very thing going? >> exactly. one of the bills this week that democrats were planning to put on the floor is a bill to reopen the irs. until yesterday it had looked like the irs wouldn't be able to issue refunds, even if people were s

then peter navarro joined the trump administration on the very first day. his official title is assistant to the president, and he directs the newly created white house office for trade & manufacturing policy. now he is best-known as the strongest defender of president trump's escalating trade war with china and the u.s. tariffs that are changing relationships with both america's allies and adversaries around the world. peter navarro, welcome to "firing line." >> nice to see you. >> i'd like to begin by asking how you view china. and i'm not talking about the administration's broad industrial policy towards china. i mean, how does peter navarro view china? >> i see china as an economic threat to the welfare of working men and women in this country, particularly those who work with their hands in manufacturing. and, you know, back in the day, in 2006, when i wrote "the coming china wars," i was a voice in the wilderness, but it's conventional wisdom now. and what emerges is a picture of, essentially, an authoritarian state, first of all, not a democracy. mor

the processing unless the administration really gets serious and gets engaged. and the rock, i think the truth the troopq, i think issue is going to the toxic very fast and it will have reverberations back here and we could see a replay of 2011. on that note, i will turn it over to you. >> thank you. of going to complement a lot positive sense and then in terms of division of labor, i'm going to complement a lot of what barbara was describing. i made two trips to abu dhabi and dubai speak at conferences a little over six weeks ago. andthen i went to israel that i went to saudi arabia and that i came back to israel. and i want to talk about broader progressions that i had from those conversations. and i would be and dubai, i did see a number of saudi's both official and unofficial saudi's, and what i was in saudi arabia, i was there primarily see an official saudi's. i would start with one general observation. a point that barbara made about ,uestioning where the u.s. is it's something that comes through both in my trips to abu dhabi and dubai and saudi arabia and

as i have said on several occasions and as the administration has affirmed, any viable compromise will need to carry the endorsement of the president before it receives a vote in either house of congress. under these conditions, mr. president, the package presented by the house's new democratic leaders yesterday can only be seen as a time-wasting act of political posturing. it does not carry the support of the president. in fact, the administration indicated yesterday the president would actually veto it, and it cannot earn the support of 60 of my colleagues over here in the senate. my friends across the aisle understand the ground rules perfectly well. they know that a solution will need to be palatable to house democrats and senate republicans alike. they know that making laws takes a presidential signature.

why was he reaching out to members of the administration? and is it possible, for instance, that maybe he was seeking a pardon? the documents don't say that, but obviously that's been a question on the top of everyone's minds as they wonder what manafort could have talked to the administration about. >> let's talk about barr today. he was pretty plainspoken. did the guy we saw today match up with what he wrote in that controversial unsolicited memo to trump's lawyers? >> i think people were more surprised going into these hearings by the controversial memo. i think people who have worked with william barr in the past, people who have known him over the years expected him to be the kind of plainspoken family guy, sort of career guy that you saw in this hearing today. i don't think that they expected this would be a person who was going to be eviscerating the idea that mueller could bring obstruction of justice, an obstruction of justice investigation and then sharing that administration with the president's legal team. that memo really shocked

day 26, the administration forcing thousands of more federal employees to return to work without getting paid. this as ceos and the president's own advisers start raising the alarm on the long-term negative impact on the economy. jamie diamond of jpmorgan warning that the shutdown could wipe out first quarter economic growth entirely. >>> and in money power politics, new reporting that high level executives at t it mobile had reservations at trump's dc hotel one day after announcing a megamerger that would need the administration's approval. executives staying at least 38 times, including the company's ceo who previously mocked trump hotels in now deleted tweets. hmm. we're going to begin this morning with lawmakers looking for promises from attorney general nominee bill barr that heal not interfere where robert mueller's investigation. that might it be bad news force michael cohen, paul manafort and trump himself. but good news for everyone who just wants to get answers. i have a great team to break it down. first, i want to explain why all of this should matter to you and me. when will

serve as administrator of the agency. mr. wheeler has served as deputy administrator of the epa since april 2018 when the senate confirmed his nomination with bipartisan support. since july of last year, mr. wheeler has served as the acting administrator of epa. i believe acting administrator wheeler has done an outstanding job leading the epa these past six months. under his leadership, the agency has taken a number of significant actions to check the nation's environment by also supporting economic growth. acting administrator wheeler has led efforts to issue commonsense regulatory proposals like the affordable energy rule and the revised definition of waters of the united states. implementing the committee's 2016 bipartisan reform of the toxic substances control act in an effective and efficient matter. reduce lead exposure including to the federal lead action plan , providing greater regulatory certainty to states, tribes and localities in the regulated community and has improved enforcement and compliance assistance.