If its true what sparked the change . Mr. Engel what i did was put in a bill which mirrored to a word the exact bill passed by the United States senate, 982. Mitch mcconnell voted for it. The Republican Leadership in the senate voted for it and so even though there are certain things that perhaps i would have liked to have tweaked a little bit or changed, i thought the best way, the cleanest way was to take that bill that the senate passed, put it in as my bill, hope any pass it in the house, send it to the senate and get a bill which would have sanctions on russia, sanction on russia for interspearing interfering in our leches, sanctions on iran for terrorism and ballistic missiles. This is something everybody claims they want. So all of a sudden were hearing this bill isnt good enough. There has to be certain kinds of changes made. We dont want to play games. So i think what the leader was saying what nancy was say was that if the republicans were serious, and they said, well if you make this one change, we would support the bill, then we would probably go along with it. The problem is this it has to then go back and pass the senate. Right now, by taking the language, exact language of the senate bill it doesnt have to go back and pass the senate. So any change we make, no matter how minor, its got to pass the senate. Of course thats another level of bureaucracy, and who knows what can happen once its sent back. Thats my big fear. Bottom line for me is i want a sanctions bill on russia and a sanctions bill on iran. Foreign affair committees, we in a biron way said we want this. We ought to just do it. I think the cleanest way is to pass my bill which again mir throrse exact language of the bill that was passed in the senate. But if we could change one or two things and pass the bill, and knew in advance the senate had signed off, then i think we would not object. But its difficult talking about it in the abstract because a million things could happen. You change one little word and the whole thing can unravel as weve seen many, many times with both the house and senate. So thats my caution. If we could pass the bill with a minor change i would say do it. But we have to have assurances. Your explamation of leader pelosis comments is she was offering to give in on this House Democratic procedure related issue if she could get assurances that the senatepassed bill with very few changes could pass. But you dont believe thats the case. Well, yes. Nancy pelosi said to me many times and i agree with her that we want a bill. And we want a bill. So if theres a change that has to be done, were flexible. What were not flexible about is games that have played, where both houses get to pass different bills and theres never a meeting of the minds and everyone can go home and say they voted for tough sanctions when in reality it didnt happen. So the best way, again, i want to repeat it and those the leader believes as i did, the best thing to do would be for the house to pass my bill which by the way she and steny hoyer, our whip, are also cosponsors of my bill. Congressman, isnt there a time sensitivity issue here because of concerns that the Trump Administration could give back the seized two russian diplomatic compounds. If time really soft the elements, that there may be changes to the majinsky act rules or other sanctions, done you believe the current rules that would allow the senate to ring forth a motion of disapproval, that there are assurances that should the trump team want to lift sanctions there would be a move to disapprove . Why is it so important for House Democrats to be able to bring ares. Lougs of disapproval . Well, because we feel that something of this important is very important for everyone participate in it. There are lots of, you know, i dont want to start negotiating in the press but there are lots of corp. Mieses if were serious about it that can be had. If were not serious about it, then we could, you know, in it mick it to death and you know, impugn our motives and it keeps going on and on and on. I just recently heard that the republicans in the house want to add a north korea sanctions bill. On top of this bill. We have already passed the korean sanctions bill. We passed it in a bipartisan way. Out of the Foreign Affairs committee. Passed on the floor of the house overwhelmingly in a bipartisan way. The senate unfortunate has no passed it. I heard recently that they are about to mark it up, that they are seriously considering marking it up and if they pass our bill we have sanctions. Theres no need to add it on top of my bill. Its the same thing here. We can nitpick it to death. Bottom line is, do you want a bill that sanctions russia and iran or do you not . And i again think what nancy pelosi was trying to say if thats an impediment, well be flexible. But we have to know theyre serious about it. The worst thing in the world is to pass two different bills, everybody can go home and say, we tried to pass the bill but it was the other house that didnt do it. And everybody could play political games and the bottom line for me is, im not interested in political games. Im interested in sanctioning russia and sanctioning iran. And you have to wonder, with the administration ties with russia and all the things weve been hearing out of the white house and out of what happened to the Trump Campaign over the past several weeks and months, you have to wonder if theres any pressure from the administration on the republicans to not pass a sanctions bill on russia. I dont know that. I dont know it for a fact one way or another, but you have to wonder. Otherwise, why wouldnt we want to do this as quickly as possible to erase any shred of doubt that the house and senate are united as one and are passing a sanctions bill which targets russia and iran . The white house has acknowledged it wants House Republicans to make pretty significant changes to major parts of the bill. It hasnt outright said we oppose the bill but these changes are major and they are on the record saying so. Given that theyre putting that pressure on House Republicans, congressman, do you feel they can possibly negotiate in good faith with you . Mr. Engel in the Foreign Affairs committee, we pride ourselves, chairman ed royce and myself as Ranking Member, as being the most Bipartisan Committee in the congress. We have passed a lot of Bipartisan Legislation, sanctions legislation, other legislation. I think more so than almost any other committee. And i certainly believe that if this were between myself and chairman royce, we would put our Heads Together and wed find wed come up with a compromise and it would be there would be tough sanctions. But there are all kinds of pulls and tugs ancon straints and games and everything that happens. And i think its one of the reasons why the American People are sick and tired of what they see in congress. Were just talking and talking and blaming the other one and pointing fingers. The bottom line is that i think strongly there ought to be sanctions against russia and iran and i know that ed royce believes the same way. So i hope that we can move that along. The republicans control the house. You know. Its very hard for democrats to be able to maneuver unless we have republican support. In the house we dont have a lot of safeguards that the senate provides its minority party. So all we can do is push on this. This should not be a partisan issue. This should be an issue, an american issue. And its important to do it. Congressman, staying on the russia issue who is a minor, only inside the beltway tempest when it was revealed that the russian government governmentlinked attorney who met with donald trump jr. Was in the front row seat of a house foreign affair committees full Committee Hearing last summer. Given that that is usually ock that that row is usually occupied by Family Member and staff, do you have any idea how that might have happened and sit unusual . Mr. Engel it would be unusual, the front seats are generally marks with who can sit there. If someone comes in from outside, the hallway, and walks in and sitz in that seat, theres a chance that nobody would pick it up and it would just happen, particularly if there are other empty seats. So i could see an instance where someone could walk in and kind of aggressively walk to a seat and sit down. Its hard for me to know why that happened or, you know, who arranged for that to happen. It certainly wasnt me or the democrats. I dont want to say what happened, it could have just been someone walking in and sitting down. Are you interesting in finding out how that happened . Mr. Engel we are interested. The lawyer is now saying she has no ties to the kremlin which i find hard to believe. Whats troubling is that russia is now, unfortunately, an adversary of the United States. It didnt have to be that way after the soviet union fell and i was on the foreign acares Affairs Committee then, our chairman was tom lantos, he was the Ranking Member at the time and he said, and we talked about, the u. S. Russian relationship is a very important relationship. We had hoped that, you know, being a child of the kelled war as i was, and others were, it would be wonderful to have the United States and russia, former soviet union, working together. But mr. Putin came along and you know, with his old k. G. B. Tie, unfortunately we are adversaries again. I think thats too bad but it is what it is. So i think that if someone had come to me during the campaign that had russian connections or was part of russia, i would have alerted the american authorities and its im scratching my head as to why this wasnt clear and apparent to the Trump Campaign that when Something Like that happens you report it to the authorities. We made the political adversaries we may be political adversaries, republicans and democrats, in washington but we all care about this country, we want to see this country flourish and be protected from other countries or people that would do us harm. So its important to win a president ial election but not as important as allowing another country like russia to subvert our election process. Im as outraged as i would have been if they were trying to help Hillary Clinton rather than help donald trump. It doesnt matter to me. I dont want any country interfering with our election process. Its amazing to me that the Trump Campaign wouldnt have reported anything like this to the f. B. I. Or some other agency. Congressman, staying on last summers hearing, theres been speculation that perhaps congressman rohrabacher helped, or one of his staff, helped facilitate that front row seat given the congressmans position as kind of the only lone defender of vladimir putin. Do you give any credence to that speculation . Mr. Engel its speculation. I dont know. Dana rohrabacher has many times on the committee expressed sympathy for russia and for putin. His attitude is that the people of russia elected putin and therefore we have to work with the elected people. He doesnt like the any change in leadership in ukraine because he feels that people elected somebody else. I think the change in leadership in ukraine was a brave thing on the part of the ukrainian people and i think the United States has an obligation to stand with ukraine, i think it was a mistake that ukraine and georgia were not admitted to nato back at the conference in 2008. But thats been danas thinking. Its speculation. I wouldnt know if he had anything to do with it. If i wanted to get somebody into a seat i probably could. So i guess he probably could. But its just speculation. Maybe he didnt. With the icbm tests, there have been growing speculation that the time has come for direct fwokeses with north korea and the United States how old should prepare to accept the Nuclear Weapons program as a given and its not going away. Do you share that belief . That we should just negotiate, accept the Nuclear Weapons and negotiate a freeze . Mr. Engel i dont think we should ever accept Nuclear Weapons from a regime like north korea. Now, its easier said than done, there are no easy answers new york easy solutions. We let this get too far out of control. Im scratching my head for the same reason i scratch my head with iran when we had the jcpoa, the negotiations with iran. How did we allow, and when i say we, i mean our country and the west, how did we allow north korea to get to this point where theyre so, theres such how did apabilities, we allow iran to get to the point where theyre less than a year away from developing Nuclear Weapons. We should have responded a year ago when a mill responded years ago when a military option might not have been possible. If theres something youre going to use your military for, rogue regimes getting ahold of Nuclear Weapons is something that is a danger to the world. Thats the time you should act. We dncht do it, didnt do it under democrats or republicans, e just didnt do it. We have an ally in south korea, seoul is just a few miles from the border with north korea. We have a lot of military personnel as it is. Thats easier said than done. On the other hand there was some discussion over that the ea Bush Administration and north korea, where north korea pledged to stop the proliferation of weapons. In exchange for a lot of goodies we gave them. And they lied and snuck behind our backs. The question is how could you trust them not to do the same thing . That is where china comes in, because perhaps, but maybe not, the only country that can affect north koreas behavior is china because they need china, the order, and they need chinas help for a lot of things. It was disappointing that chinese leadership seemed like it was willing to talk to us about helping, but then it fell apart. I did not think the president dissing the chinese was not a smart thing to do either, because if your going to ask them for help, then what you dont do this kind of insult them. I dont like the chinese regime, i dont like what they stand for, but they are sane and unlike kim jongun of north korea, the chinese understand hat is at stake. To pivot back to north korea, there is the sanctions bill we discussed earlier in the program. Now you have the majority leader saying, i want to add it to the russia bill. But also the senate potentially preparing to market up. How do you want to see this result . Im sure you want to see this resolved . Im sure you want to see the senate work its will . Rep. Engel i see no reason to add north korea to the russianiran sanctions bill. We have party passed a north korea sanctions bill in the house. If the senate is going to go along, and we have indications they are, then all we can do is pass our bill, which passed overwhelmingly in the house. I dont know why we would want o complicate the russiairan bill, which is complicated enough, which is stalled enough to throw korea onto it and make it more complicated when we have this other vehicle of a korean ill passed by the house. To you think this gesture by congressman mccarthy is another effort to stall for time while the white house exchanges . Rep. Engel perhaps. I dont know. I have my suspicions, but i dont know. To me it is pretty simple. Do we want to sanction russia and iran or dont we . Pretty simple. We know what they have done and believe it deserves sanctions, and you can always hide behind procedure and all other kinds of nonsense. I would hope the Republican Leadership would do it. Paul ryan said hes hawkish on russia. That is a quote. Congressman mccarthy said he wants it passed. I take them at their word. I am willing to do it with them, in we as the democrats are willing to do it with our leadership. They have to be serious and not just have this thing be bounced back and forth like a pingpong ball. The cleanest thing would be to pass the north korean bill in the Foreign Affairs committee nd in the house, and to take the russianiran sanctions bill that i dropped in and pass that, and then we have a bill. Of course, of course. To pivot to talk about something unrelated, the budget. The trump folks have been eeking major cuts. Secretary tillerson has been instigating a multiyear reorganization that would involve cutting a lot of positions. What is your feeding on how much of this can actually fly . Its like a 14 cut, but the senate has yet to decide. Rep. Engel first of all, the trump budget where it is concerned with the state department is a disgrace. The cuts were 31 . They talked a good game about Hillary Clinton and benghazi, but in that bill is money cut for Embassy Security by 63 . Secretary tillerson in my opinion, his response has been disappointing. He should be fighting for every last dollar for the state department, and for diplomacy, and usaid, and the programs around the world and help america around the world and do the right thing for people who are starving or have other problems around the world. And yes the president is proposing to cut back on all of it. The house as the power of the purse, not the white house and hopefully the republican majority in the house will fight against all those cuts. I would fight against every one of them. Do you think republicans are doing enough to plus it up so far . Rep. Engel i dont think they are doing enough because the president seems hellbent on this, and i hope democrats and republicans will say, hell no. We had a hearing, a bipartisan hearings in the Foreign AffairsCommittee Earlier this year about the proposed cuts. Both democrats and republicans did not like it in both said it was terrible. We had expert witnesses that said every morale at the state department is at an alltime low. There are so many positions in the state department that have not been nominated, not been filled. They like to say the senate or whatever is installing it, no, that is not true. The president has not nominated highlevel people for diplomacy. It is now july, seven months into the administration. I just came back from a trip overseas and we have excellent people who are acting ambassadors or dcms and we dont have the ambassadors. And he wants to cut usaid, which is absolutely imperative for the world and the United States. The president has a disturbing pattern of nominating people to be secretaries who want to cut the department. Usually a secretary would protect the department and you would not want to see the cuts. But in the state department, Foreign Affairs, it is to an education, it is true in the other secretaries. T is ridiculous. This is the worst budget for Foreign Affairs and state department i have seen in my 10 years in congress. Greta time for one more question. Congressman, moving to the United Nations and how america funds it, the bill out of the house state foreign operations appropriations subcommittee yesterday includes cuts of over 18 of the United Nations and associated agencies, with new restrictions on the human rights council. Giving your longstanding support of israel and concern for the United Nations focus on israel, do you support the level of cuts to the United Nations that are being proposed . Rep. Engel my mother, may she rest in peace, she used to say dont cut off your nose to spite your face. And as angry as i am at United Nations and the socalled human rights commission, which is unfair to israel and singles israel out, the worst dictators, the worst regimes in the world. They have no right to point the finger at any country, let alone israel. The only democracy in the middle east. We have be very careful. If we pull away, it allows those people we dont like to have free reign. The United States is a very important moral force in trying to push the United Nations to doing the right thing, but i understand their frustration of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who say they do wrong things and they want more money and dont respect us and dont respect our friends like israel, and people are very frustrated. I asked nikki haley about this when she came before for our committee a couple of weeks ago. Israel is the only country on the human rights committee, item number seven just deals with israel. No other country has an item wholly for them. Israel could still be brought up on charges as any country could without having an item related to them, but it shows you the bias of the United Nations and i think it makes the United Nations ineffective and hypocritical. Hypocritical, but the u. S. Support for israel is strong and will remain strong as long as i continue to have something to do with it, and a lot of other people on both sides of the aisle feel strongly we need to stand with our ally israel and if the United Nations needs to be called out, they will be called out, but we dont need to cut off our nose to spite our faces. We need to shave that organization to help spread democracy around the world and does not help dictators who would take us backwards. Greta congressman eliot engel, the top democrat on the house Foreign Affairs committee and this weeks newsmaker, we thank you. Rep. Engel thank you. Greta let me turn to the two of you and talk about what is next on russia. This sanctions bill that we we talk about with mr. Engel at the top to pass the senate. What is the likelihood that they just take up the senate linkage . We heard from mr. Engel, and you have republican senators saying just pass it already. Elana it is increasingly close to zero likelihood that would happen here in i can understand why congressman engel would say what he did. Its a gamble by democrats. All they could do was introduce the bill saying we want it to pass, but the House Majority wants to change that procedural issue to take power away from House Democrats and potentially change other elements of the bill raising concern among the private sector dealing with energy, debt, and loan servicing. You have got some k street folks saying wait, we dont want our ability to deal with russiaconnected businesses unfairly infringed upon indirectly because of this bill. Rachel the problems are mounting and it is likely the house tries to make changes. Greta what is the political pressure for these folks as they delay and there is more of a drumbeat from democrats who say they dont want to punish russia for meddling . Rachel it is not a drumbeat just from democrats. You have highprofile republicans like john mccain going on about this amid more and more revelations about how deep the entanglements went between campaign folks in the white house and russianlinked folks. It makes it hard not to do something. What the final product will be, we dont know. There are concerns from private industry. Europe has raised concerns how this actions will affect their energy sector. My original understanding was house Foreign Affairs would do omething to change some of the sanctions. I never took it when an advanced out of the senate the house would just clear it because these were significant sanctions and they were arrived at so quickly that i was expecting there to be some examining of that and tweaking of it. It is normal for each chamber to do, but this is an abnormal situation. It is such an intense spotlight. We have worries about what trump can do at a moments notice. It is hard to predict what is going to happen. Elana and the senate was getting a lot of pushback from the left about health care. I dont know if rachel were members this, but there is a sense we cannot give up working on health care because he wanted his Bipartisan Senate deal to pass. Chuck schumer put a lot of Political Capital into this. It is really hurting senate democrats. Greta amid all the russia talk, you have north korea testing Nuclear Weapons. What did these lawmakers want to do . Theyre going to put on a travel ban to the measure in the senate. Theres been competing Bipartisan Legislation announced from the bavepking committee, i think were going to see some movement but ultimately, the broader strategy of north korea is in trumps hands. Theres only so much that sanction alone can do and so far sanctions havent been enough to do much. What is the president considering . We dont know. He has said he wants to maintain strategic ambiguity. He was hoping china would crack down now that china has shown theyre not going to crack down on north korea, i think they are trying to develop a plan b. Greta and state Department Budget is something you asked the congressman about. Whats the likelihood that they see more money . Elena more money is unlikely. Its true the proposal if the president is lowered, and i expect the senate to get it as much back to c. R. Style parity as possible. I think the senate is etch more bipartisan in its distaste for these cuts. More money might be too much. Greta elena shore with politico and rachel, thank you both for being part of news makes. Thank you. House gaveling back in late they are afternoon here on cspan for legislative work. 4 45 p. M. Eastern time. And there are three bills theyll be working on today. Two deals with the washington, d. C. Metro systemism in requested votes will take place at 6 30 eastern. Late they are week, several bills dealing with energy and environmental regulations. And at 5 00 p. M. Eastern, the Senate ForeignRelations Committee will take a look at the state departments proposed plans for reorganization. Well have that live on cspan3 and tomorrow a theerning nomination of Calista Gingrich to be the u. S. Ambassador to the vat call. Vatican. Wife of newt gingrich. The committee will also consider. E nomination of nashan sales both will testify live tomorrow on cspan3. Over in the senate, Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell postponed further work on the revised Health Care Replacement bill until after Arizona Republican john mccain recovers from eye surgery. The score of the bill is expected this week. Well bring you any updates on the cspan networks. Tonight, on the communicators. Private sector c. E. O. s recognize that your i. T. Group is not just a cost center, its an entity that can help drive innovation, its an entity that can help improve your bottom line. We need the federal government to start thinking that way. The chairman of the House Information Technology subcommittee, texas congressman will hurd, talks about his bill toup Grade Technology at federal agencies. His opinion of u. S. Cyberdefenses, and his proposal for a Cyber National guard. Representative hurd is interviewed by politicos cybersecurity reporter tim starks. The idea of the cybernational guard is, if youre in high school and want to go to college and study cybersecurity, were going to find you scholarships you graduate, you have to come work for the federal government. Not at d. O. D. , but at the Census Bureau or at social security. Youll do that for the same amount of time that you got the scholarship for. And then when you fin herb that time in federal service and you go to work in the private sector, the private sector is going to loan you back to the government for the proverbial one weekend a month or lets say 10 days a quarter where this is going to improve the cross