david rivkin, what is your main takeaway from today, though?y main takeaway that it was a good day, i think, for all sides. i think -- >> woodruff: all sides? all sides. i think the special counsel did a good job, he stuck to the report. i happen to think that the main take wte were the same -- takeaways were the same as you can get from the report. i think the effort to suggest that he has indicated something that is damaging the president is part of the spin. i frankly don't think the republicans have done much damage to mr. mueller's credibility, and i have a lot of regard for him. i think it a nonevent. it was the intellectual equivalent of y2k. >> woodruff: a nonevent? substantively, a nonevent. >> woodruff: garrett graff, you have been following robert mueller. how did you read his performance or advance order changed understanding of what happened? >> i agree largely with david with the exception of that by sticking so closely to the report, mueller madclear that, actually, the report had incredibly damning information abouthe president'

host: david rivkin, constitutional lawyer and other law here in washington, d.c., a longtime person of washington as far as working in the administration, served as the deputy director of policy development from 1981 to 1989. in the census department. lee is from the democrats line. georgia. good morning. caller: be honest with the people. you know that man who put in that book was hired by the republicans [indiscernible] to do what he did, tried to get it onto the citizenship thing. for the republican advantage. it changes things. come on. be honest with the people. don't sit on tv in front of your family in the world and tell lies like l don't know what's going on. y'all know that that man was hired to do that. that question had not been on there. all these years. obama didn't take the question off of that thing, off the citizenship thing. the question had been out of there from 50 to 70 years. they stopped asking that question. host: let our guest respond. guest: i don't know when this question -- what was the policy of the obama administration, and i don't think it matters. there h

a wall street journal piece is called how to put citizenship question back into the senses and david rivkin is one of the co-authors of the piece. thank you for your time. announcer: washington journal bugs are available at the c-span store. go to c-span.org and check out all the c-span products. washington journal mugs. c-span's washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that affect you. coming up wednesday morning, board members of the one country project, including former north dakota democratic senator heidi heitkamp, talk about their groups campaign to reinvent a great -- reinvigorate the democratic party relationships of the world. and representative who serves on the budget committee will discuss spending and the effort to avoid a government shutdown. also represented from the women's law center will discuss efforts to close the gender pay gap. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal, live at 7:00 eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion. as the fifth circuit cortex of the constitutionality of the portal care act, nancy pelosi and chuck schumer held a b

david rivkin junior is in constitutional law in washington, d.c. and in the department of justice during the reagan and george w. bush administrations. he is also a frequent contributor to "the wall street journal." a litigation partner in the office of kirkland and ellis and public service includes white house counsel for president obama 2014 to 2017, associate counsel from 1993 to 1994, and deputy chief counsel from 1987 to 1988. the format is as follows. john will take about three minutes to introduce the topic and say what this is all about. then he first and then david and neil will make opening statements all from the podium, six minutes each. after the opening statements, i will ask questions of the panelists and they will exchange views with one another until about 130. one type of 30. i would then invite members to join in on the questioning. wheclustering. we .-full-stop 2 p.m. if not before. john, please proceed. >> thank you for joining us here today. my introduction is going to be geared to the home audience on c-span. that means as mu

host: david rivkin, constitutional lawyer and other law here in washington, d.c., a longtime person of washington as far as working in the administration, served as the deputy director of policy to 1989.nt from 1981 lee is from the democrats line. georgia. good morning. caller: be honest with the people. man who put in that book was hired by the republicans [indiscernible] that's what he did, tried to get it onto the citizenship thing. [indiscernible] be honest with the people. don't sit on tv in front of your family in the world and tell lies like l don't know what's going on. what'sl don't know going on. that man was hired to do that. that question had not been on there. obama didn't take the question off of that thing, off the citizenship thing. the question had been out of there from 50 to 70 years. host: let our guest respond. guest: i don't know when this question -- what was the policy of the obama administration, and i don't think it matters. there has been all sorts of speculation about nefarious purposes of putting down this question. happened and what what was in people's he

david rivkin will talk about the constitutionality of that. we will look about concerns of growing debt in the next hour, william hoagland joining us for the discussion. when it comes to the democratic field of candidates, one candidate dropping out as of yesterday, eric swalwell. he talked about why he has decided to get out. [video clip] >> we have momentum after the last midterms. i believed the best way to seize diverse caucusng for the democratic party, and 18 fewer nra members in congress. to have a leader in the white house who could seize that momentum, that is why i chose to run for president. i was excited about what i saw across the country over the last three months, building on the work we did. staff andwife and our my constituents and supporters, we are only running for one reason. to win and to make a difference. not a vanity project. not to write a book. not to make this about anything other than the people who really really needed that promise to be fulfilled to them. being honest with ourselves, we had to look at how much mon