k. street in washington d.c. k. street is the center of lobbying for the washington area half of the street is unregistered half of k. street is working for foreign countries without registering with the justice department so why you target maria wouldn't because she's russian and they might be able to get some political leverage out of her the only reason this is not about justice not at all but another high profile case is now starting to unravel the chief financial officer of wow a technologies the world's leading telecommunications manufacturer has been grabbed in canada over charges related to sanctions against iran trump openly admits that u.s. interests and negotiations are a factor if i think it's good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal of a maid i would certainly intervene if i thought it was necessary it is going to be dangerous to see as whether we have a federal investigatory body and a justice department that is launching investigations or asking things under the guise of being we asked wh

writing legislation behind closed doors, giant omnibus bills that most don't know what's in them, k street lobbyists knowing about the tax bill managers' package before even senators, that's today's senate and no amendments. solving the toughest problems will not happen without making the tough votes. we can argue -- argue about them and campaign on them, but we're not going to solve them without tough votes. it will not happen. my first year in the senate was 2007. we voted on 306 amendments in 2007. this year, as of yesterday, we voted on 36. that's a remarkable difference. something is broken and if we don't have the strength to look in the mirror and fix it, the american people are going to grow more and more cynical and they might do something crazy like elect a reality tv star president. i'm not kidding. that's one of the reasons this has happened. power has been dangerously centralized in the senate. we like to say, oh, we can't change the rules, just like the house. we're kind of are just like the house. a few people are writing legislation, a few people are making decision. we hav

i am using k street for that term. en leave, they should be required to stay away eriod ofgress for a p time so they cannot come back and lobby. it is with the lobbying that people are unhappy about because -- handlers in both parties the democrats are actually worse than the republicans about this. both parties take money from k street. there is a back-and-forth between the staff and the k street folks. somebody outside of congress is actually writing the legislation. host: it becomes a revolving door. caller: absolutely. the reason i am saying to you, you live up there. i used to work for a political appointee. i saw this process. i was also the chief operating officer of the firm in washington in that area. to come andsk me give money in the evenings. i would not do it. abhorrent, if you want the truth. we had people who came out of the government at that time i was there coming out of the clinton administration, you would get people, rhodes scholars who would come to work for a while and then go to work for one of

k. street where they can make more money. >> let's talk about that because that affects staffers as wells growing trend, congressional staffers are, you know, bailing for more lucrative private sector jobs. that's always been a thing. staffers reach a certain age and say i really like to start making money now but what's the advantage? because i know you covered this. you know a lot of staffers. what's the advantage of having staffers on the hill who know how the system works and have been there for a long time instead of a revolving door of 20 somethings coming in and out? >> it empowers all of us, it empowers the taxpayers, the constituents for that member. that member of congress has somebody who's worked on the hill for ten or 15 years as opposed to somebody who's only there two or three years, then they can talk to the lobbyists who comes in and have a real back and forth on the issues of policy and where and how their members should vote on specific issues but if you don't pay them enough to keep around the 35-year-old who just got engaged and is looking to have a family, if he has

i'm not going to be chasing k street. that was the main ad against me, i am d.c. dave. i sold out. i am not accessible. all 10to every county, counties every month for the first two years and the press knew it and they would not correct the record. is very disheartening to read my local paper, the political reporter, he knows full well all these facts. but the paper leaned left. side is a little more fair, but the news reporting is fraudulent. lastwould bring up in the month, right before the election, ethics charges. plagiarism charges. i had to go to the head of harvard economics and he shot the washington post a memo corrector, cut the garbage out. there is nothing in here that is wrong. that never makes the next news story. questions of republicans. never questions of democrats. it is hugely frustrating. we have to get to work on fixing that. >> are you bitter or disappointed, or just chalk it up to politics? more just sad for the state of the country and the kids going forward. if these major institutions do not work, you do have a fundamental problem. freedom and have fair pr

k. street is the center of lobbying for the washington area half of the street is unregistered half of a street is working for foreign countries without registering with the justice department so why i target maria because she's russian and they might be able to get some political leverage out of her the only reason this is not about justice not at all what do you think is going to happen to that that she's entered a guilty plea. i can't imagine that she actually faces prison time because the sentencing guidelines for a first time offender for this so-called crime call for a prison sentence of zero to six months so i mean they they could make an example of her by sending her to prison i think that's a mistake it would be a further miscarriage of justice but the likelihood is that they will question her as much as they can after the mother investigation and then they'll expel her from the u.s. if we look at what she's been experiencing stolen tray confinement how acceptable do you think it is to have kept her in such a confinement. oh utterly completely unacceptable not only has the unite

they are too busy gorging themselves on lobbyist money and being bought wholesale by k street and wall republicans have got to get the president the wall money. >> lou: 5 billion or 25 billion? >> at least give him the 5 billion. we will spend $4 trillion in the next 12 months. you can't find 5 billion? it's there. >> lou: and no doubt it will be there going to another enterprise more favored by the koch brothers than that wall. don't you think it's amusing part of the condition to get into a discussion about the trade deal is that the chinese would have to define fentanyl, the most deadly opioid in the world being shipped to us from china, defined it as a controlled stop i substance. not stop it or put in those who produce it but just define it as a controlled substance. >> that's why they have to make sure anything common in the united states is inspected. >> lou: what a novel idea. border security, port security. >> it's already the law. >> lou: it's not even about the laws. we have all sorts of laws. we only have one man who wants to enforce them. and he's getting killed by the est

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would be supporting this president and acting in the national interests, not in the interests of k streetwall street, the whole bunch. koch brothers business roundtable. it is disgusting. are you guys going to be able to get $25 billion in the president's hands without any strings. i love the idea of congress with its strings? paul ryan and these fools he serves, the american people should, i mean it is just disgusting. are you going to get it done? >> you want my -- lou: i will shut up if you can give us the answer? >> moon honest opinion? my monnest opinion? we'll not get it done. we'll not get the 25 billion. not get my bill through. you could use kevin mccarthy's bill. so many ways to get it done. can do it through reconciliation. lou: why five billion. why not 25 billion? >> it should be 25 billion. lou: five billion means it is a 10-year project. idiots could figure it out. you have so many on both parties in capitol hill it is astonishing. >> we should be doing $25 billion. we should have done it six months ago, a year ago, 18 months ago. we have five weeks left. lou: why don't you

there's a power shift in congress, washington goes through its own version of the nba draft with k street kind of competing to get the most powerful competing members and staff. we have about a hundred members departing congress, the lobbying industry is growing again and there's going to be fierce competition to get some of the most powerful former chairs and ranking member of congress two and what are the rules that are supposed to get in the way of any corruption here. >> there is a cooling off period. members of congress have to honor it. it's a one-year ban on lobbying their former colleague after they leave congress and in the senate is a two-year ban. that's meaningful because the longer you have to wait before you can lobby your former colleagues, the more stale your contacts, your expertise growth so it is a meaningful sacrifice from our perspective and an important time. for them to not be trading on those contacts and expertise. >> but they find ways around that, don't they. >> they do, and principally they asked not as registered active lobbyists, but as senior advisors, strat

representatives is in the pockets of so many and i have to believe they have at least offices near k street. this speaker of yours has been a total joke. and you guys put up with him and even let him resign and keep his job for eight months. i don't know what to say. >> i fear sometimes that, you know, we did not have the support we really needed to execute on our oversight over the fbi and department of justice. so now what's going to happen, lou, is that the democrats are going to get control and they're going to show us what real robust oversight looks like. they are going to use every tool in the toolbox to try to disrupt this president from executing on border security or spending cuts or any of the reforms that we need in this government. it's so hard to kind of tolerate this environment in which we like were fed jim comey bite bite bite and loretta lynch when devin nunes gave us a list of 42 names months ago and we never took it seriously. i think in the new congress we're going to have to use different tools in the minority to make sure that we give this president the defense that h

about these issues, and one of the surprising things was the fact that your sources and folks out in k street were telling you that it may not be such a bad thing to not get much done, that there is a reason for having all this political noise and it may actually serve a purpose. but what about what the business community is looking for and how it sets itself up? >> yeah, i mean, i think that the business community is not expecting this to be a particularly productive legislative period as others have said. but i think there are a couple of things that have the business community particularly concerned 67 6789. one of those is the whole business community a concern. there is concern among even house democrats about how to pursue that, how big do they go on that? where there isn't a lot of division is, you know, sort of taking on big corporations to illustrate problems that they might see being in the trump administration. the tax overhaul, looking at tax breaks for big companies. there are a lot of areas where i think the business community sees itself potentially being exposed and at risk in

republicans in congress and on k-street hate that idea.bottom line is important to them, and it's not an unimportant factor. on the other hand, americans are dying from easily treated illnesses. that's a factor, too. on the left, well, they don't care at all.l. at least not right now. their top priority is impeaching trump, not collaborating with trump on healthcare. just like on tech and other issues, they are easilyes distracted by superficialdi political signaling. santa foye is one of the companies now driving up insulin prices, but that company won some degree of credibility from the left last summer, and is now insulated from criticism. why? well, because, when barr blamed ambien for the ill-advised tweets that got her show cancelled, that company tweeted that racism is not a side effect of its medication. and the left roared with laughter. go big pharma! if only they would roar about that company extorting poor americans with life saving drugs. like on automation or trade or global warming it doesn't matter when america's most vulne

closed doors istead of in committies.an ombuses are being plopped on our desks and the lotsbby on "k" street know more about what's in them than we do. and there has really been a disintegration of this notion that this is a deliberative body. we've got to gt back to th notion that if you're strong enough to be a united states y senato gotta stand up and take some tough votes because we aren't gointo solve tough problems unless we take tough votes. >> i ink that from the time that i got here, what i really felt is that we're in a culture of failure. and to add to what claire just said, we're afraid to do really big things. because we're afraid of failure. and part of that is an bility of people to see a goal or a result as the purpose as opposed to winning for your party or i sticking someo the eye on any particular issue. u> woodruff: so how do y change that? or can you change that? >> well, i don't think it's going to change much as long as mitch mcconnell is the leader. you know, and i'm not saying our side's been perfect. we contributed to this kind of degradation of the notthioat we cou

again, s. 2896, the justice act corruption of k street of 2018. i reserve my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady reserves the balance of her time. the gentleman from georgia. mr. collins: i urge adoption of s. 2896 and yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentlelady from texas. ms. jackson lee: i urge adoption of this slayings. i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlelady yields back her time. the question is will the house suspend the rules and pass senate bill 2896. so many as are in favor say aye. those opposed, no. opinion -- the gentleman from contract c mr. massie: i request the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman requests the yabes. -- yeas and nays. all those in favor of taking this vote by the yeas and nays will rise and remain staining until counted. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20 , further proceedings on this uestion will be postponed. for what purpose does the gentleman from georgia seek recognition? mr. collins:

writing legislation behind closed doors, giant omnibus bills that most don't know what's in them, k street lobbyists knowing about the tax bill managers' package before even senators, that's today's senate and no amendments. solving the toughest problems will not happen without making the tough votes. we can argue -- argue about them and campaign on them, but we're not going to solve them without tough votes. it will not happen. my first year in the senate was 2007. we voted on 306 amendments in 2007. this year, as of yesterday, we voted on 36. that's a remarkable difference. something is broken and if we don't have the strength to look in the mirror and fix it, the american people are going to grow more and more cynical and they might do something crazy like elect a reality tv star president. i'm not kidding. that's one of the reasons this has happened. power has been dangerously centralized in the senate. we like to say, oh, we can't change the rules, just like the house. we're kind of are just like the house. a few people are writing legislation, a few people are making decision. we hav

k. wall street recover after suffering the worst week of declines ever?using signals about markets and the economy. the u.s. futures are higher now. in asia the nikkei closed up nearly 1% after a 5% route on christmas day. the shanghai closed down slightly. the hong kong stock market was closed for a public holiday. european markets are closed this morning, as well. as stocks fell christmas eve, the president renewed attacks on the federal reserve tweeting this, "the only problem our economy has is the fed." president trump is growing more frustrated with his treasury secretary, steven mnuchin, despite mnuchin's attempt to calm wall street. a source told cnn secretary mnuchin could be in serious jeopardy with the president. however, the president vouched for him publicly, shifting blame for market volatility to the federal reserve instead. >> do you have confidence in secretary mnuchin? >> yes, i do. very talented, very smart person. >> what about the fed chairman? >> we'll see. they're raising interest rates too fast. that's my opinion. but i certainly h

she was walking her dog tuesday morning near the intersection of ol and maple streets when a k-9icer latched on to her legs. the dog has been taken out of active service as aprecaution while they investigate. >> virginia won't pick another governor until02 but already a candidate has thrown his hat into the ring.at demo and virginia attorney eeneral mark herring told the washington post plans to run. the skins fell to the giants. he left the gamenecause of injury. >> still ahead, a major shake up of president trump's cabinet. john kelly is leaving. >> how the announcement is being received and who might replace thim. thim. plus caun i had life-treatening bleeding in my brain. but thanks to thel reality technology at gw hospital, my surgeons were able to look inside my brain and plan for a successful surgery. it's remarkable that i woke up and ran five miles this morning. i would tell gw hospital thank you for giving me new life. for life's defining moments the george washington univeristy hospital defining medicine. >> somebody found a baby in the crater. >> they often burn up and va

semi semiautomatic pistols and the latest gun buybook for the department and the playas to k make the streets safety. >> homicides have gone down, and the chief says that he believes that it has to do with the gun buybacks that are happening. >> those who brought in weapos s are received $100 for a handgun and $200 for an assault weapon. all right. lee is a is here with a little bit about the weather with si quite wet this afternoon, and for most everyone in the bay area, right? >> yes, exactly. we have a good storm moving in, and it has generated high surf, and we are looking at the winds picking up. 60 degrees on the coast right now, and half moon bay, and you are looking at the east bay camera where it is cooler in concord, and mount diablo is gusting at 40er miles per hour. so we have it coming together with the wind and the rain and the heavy surf that is all going to bring a soggy end to your weekend and i will have the details straight ahead. >> all right. thanks, lisa, and all right. starting those who serve us, and those making a merry christmasfh curry jokes that the moon landing ma

k street lobbyists known about the tax bill manager's package before even senators.hat is today's senate. and no amendments. solving the toughest problems will not happen without tough votes. we can talk about the toughest problems. we can visit about them. we can argue about them. we can campaign on them. but we are not going to solve it without tough votes. it will not happen. my first year in the senate was 2007. we voted on 306 amendments in 2007. yesterday, weof voted on 36. that is a remarkable difference. something is broken. if we don't have the strength to look in the mirror and fix it, the american people are going to grow more and more cynical, and they might do something crazy like elect a reality tv star president. i'm not getting. that's 1 -- i'm not kidding. that's one of the reasons this happened. power has been dangerously centralized in the senate. we like to say we can't change the rules. we're just like the house. we kind of are like the house. a few people are writing legislation. a few people are making the decisions. we have to throw off the sh

can you write up story of -- called, who asked you, and the reason i say that is like all of the k streetand the think tanks come on sometimes with good stuff but who asked them to come on? and the good thing about c-span is that it's right next to fox and so they can keep them covered. when i say -- the studio, evidently, is right there -- >> host: you want me to find out who benefits, fright that's the whole thing. listen. the great thing but c-span -- let me tell you the other great thing. no out it next to fox or cnn but the fact if you -- it lets you have access to information and there's nothing more powerful than that. you're asking the right question. you want to know who benefit us. want to know the why. you answer that question and you'll find more interest interesting. >> host: this an e-mail from a viewer saying would you consider a i am book, the first soldiers in what became the war on terror, the hero passengers and the crew of flight 93. >> guest: i love of course i would. and i love them so much if outcome loot a heroes from the daughter there is an entire page, one of of

. >>> a market meltdown, another major plunge on wall street hitting your 401(k). >>> is he a war hero or war criminal? a decorated u.s. green beret charged with murder in the death of a suspected taliban bombmaker. >>> the big, gathering storm that could wreak havoc with your holiday travel plans. you'll want to double-check those plans. al roker is here. >>> a new alert about the massive boom in vaping among teens, how much it's exploded in just a year. >>> and controversy at the super bowl. why some big acts are reportedly saying no, thanks, to the halftime show. >> announcer: this is "nbc nightly news" with lester holt. >>> good evening. there is late word that a former titan of network television, cbs boss les moonves, has been fired for cause amid sexual misconducttis, meaning he will be denied $120 million in severance money. moonves was forced out asatio firssurfaced, but tonight the network releasing results of a broad investigation, finding moonves misled investigators. our kristen dahlgren has details. >> reporter: tonight, the investigation is complete. cbs confirming forme