will hear from north carolina attorney general josh stein and new hampshire attorney general gordon macdonald. you are watching live coverage year on c-span -- here on c-span. >> a lot of coverage on c-span this afternoon. we're at the national press club in washington, d.c., waiting on fromews conference attorney general josh stein and new hampshire attorney general gordon macdonald. while we wait for this press briefing to begin, we will look at some of today's washington journal. we represent the little guy. small businesses, independent business owners. our average business is five to 10 employees. one of the key things about nfib is you have to be an independent business owner to join. we are unique in the fact that we are truly a member driven organization. theted 75 years ago under guide of one member, one vote. members every year about their ballot at the federal and state level, and they set policy. we don't sit in a room in d.c. -- i'm also pleased to be joined by patrick halley of u.s. telecom as well as representatives from a number of major telephone companies. om

i'm pleased to be here with my colleagues attorney general gordon macdonald and attorney general leslie, and patrick halley, of u.s. telecom and representatives a major telephone company spirit 12 companies have joined us today and they are at&t, bandwidth, comcast,nk, charter, consolidated, frontier, sprint, t-mobile, u.s. cellular, verizon, and windstream. today we are announcing major bipartisan public-private effort to stop robo calls. to first, i would like introduce my colleague and fellow cochair of this initiative, new hampshire attorney general gordon macdonald. stein forou general your leadership on this issue. the essence of our role as attorneys general is to protect the public. issue comes close to generating the volume of consumer complaints as robo calls. us, theually all of scam calls are ubiquitous and regular annoyance. a veryo calls are also effective device for illegal conduct conducted by financial scammers. who pray, particularly on the vulnerable, putting at risk their savings, their identity, their security. the memorandum of understanding we are announcing today

introduce my colleague and fellow cochair of this initiative, new hampshire attorney general gordon macdonald. gordon: thank you, general stein, and thank you for your leadership on this issue. the essence of our role as attorneys general is to protect the public. no single issue comes close to generating the volume of consumer complaints as robocalls. for virtually all of us, the spam calls are a ubiquitous and regular annoyance. but robocalls are also a very effective device for illegal conduct conducted by financial scammers who prey particularly on the vulnerable, putting at risk their savings, their identity, their security. the memorandum of understanding we are announcing today will significantly enhance our efforts as attorneys generals to protect the public we serve. it is a very important moment. the robocall industry is inundating this country with these calls. 47 billion by one estimate in 2018. robocalls are, as i said, a leading tool of financial scammers. by one estimate, over 40% of robo calls now have the neighbors spoof. which is not when you use the three digits of the loca