Affairs subcommittee hearing on protecting whistleblowers at the v. A. We are going to take a look at a very busy week here in washington with our two guests. One of them is the White House Reporter for the l. A. Times. Morning. We also say good morning to Siobhan Hughes. Good morning to you. I want to start with the mueller hearings which happened on wednesday. They will be on cspan3. I wanted to hear from jerry nadler. He was asked why he is putting Robert Mueller through a congressional hearing. We want them to your directly from special counsel mueller what his investigation found. The president has spent the last few months systematically lying to the American People about what the investigation found. They said it found no collusion, no obstruction, that it exonerated the president. Statementsf those are absolute lies. It found a great deal of collusion, a great deal of obstruction of justice by the has pointedly it refused to exonerate the president. We think it is important for the American People to hear what the facts are because this is a president who has violated the law six ways from sunday. Elseyone out had been had been accused, they would have been indicted. It is important that we not have a lawless administration and a lawless president. It is important that people see where we are at and what we are dealing with. He violated the law six ways from sunday. You read the 440 page report. Do you believe the president is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, the marker for impeachment by the house . The reportthere presents very substantial evidence that the president is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and that we have to let present those we have to let mueller present those facts. No president can be above the law. Host beginning of Siobhan Hughes of the wall street journal. What do you suspect is the mood on the leading into the mueller hearings and what could you identify as being a win or something for the democrats to say this was all worth it in the end . Guest the mood is one of anticipation on the part of democrats, but also of anxiety. Are very high for democrats. Nancy pelosi said they will not proceed to impeachment proceedings unless they can bring the public along, and democrats are viewing bob mueller as their best shot at doing that. The currents posture of the white house leading into these hearings . What is there best their best and worst takeaways here what is their best and worst takeaways here . Guest the president has tried to undermine the credibility of the investigation itself. There are a lot of people on the lawmaking that case for him. One of the things his allies can do is just continue to ask out thereyou know, as much as are difficult things in the hisrt, there are things in favor, which are some of the ultimate questions of cooperation with russian efforts to become involved with the election, and the fact that there was not enough evidence there to form an indictment of the president , to recommend ment, is an important point for them to bring home. Can watch them at 8 30 in the morning and at cspan. Org. You will have replays in prime time at the cspan networks. We will put the phone numbers at the bottom of our screen for our guests. We have the White House Reporter for the l. A. Times and we are talking this morning with Siobhan Hughes. We have democrats, republicans, independents, three separate lines for you to phone and on. Staying with the mueller hearings, take us to the gop side of each of these two committees. What are they hoping to achieve with these hearings . It is an opportunity for them, right . Guest exactly. They have discredited the report. In particular, the origin. The gop is not convinced that russiane a interference grew out of anything legitimate. They feel it grew out of dossiers that were compiled at the behest of a republican and taken over by the clinton campaign. The origins have to do with a tip that the federal government government the government got some a diplomat. Canother things republicans do is fascinating because there are three hours for Robert Mueller to testify. However, there are 41 members who technically are entitled to five minutes each. If you do the math, you can see that they are going to be 25 minutes short and those technically come from the democrats time. It will be interesting to see if republicans each trying to use all their five minutes and really make the democrats anxious that some of them are not getting the time. Host what else will you be looking for . Guest that is always the question with these hearings. How much are we seeing individual members try to showcase their own talents as interrogators or defenders of the president . That is always huge. Another thing i am looking for is democratic leadership, which have obviously been anxious about all this energy towards impeachement. They want to keep the pressure on mueller. Keep the pressure through mueller on the president , but not so much so as to get a groundswell towards impeachment from their own members, because i think they are not sure politically if that is the best thing to do, so how do you put the throttle but not too hard pushed the throttle but not too hard . What does that mean . Host the general notion has been reported that Robert Mueller is a reluctant witness, had to be subpoenaed to come i n. They do not expect him to stray from the report he put out. Strategy or tactics might you be looking for members of congress to take to get him to go off that script a little . Guest the night that muellers letter came out that he was finished with the report, he was with his wife and another couple in a very quiet booth in a very quiet restaurant. He does not like this limelight at all. I think from democrats, they carrying inbhan was a book this sick with them Mueller Report thick with the Mueller Report this morning. There are lots of things the American Public is just not aware of. If they can get him to say those words out loud, to bring some of those stories to life in the voice of a credible person, then they are getting that information in front of the public in a way they might not otherwise consider. Guest americans did not read the book. Maybe they will see the movie. That is essentially how democrats are viewing this. They will focus primarily on five episodes. They are going to take you back to june of 2017, the Washington Post had just reported the special counsel was investigating mr. Trump for obstruction of justice, and that set off a very dramatic phone call from the president to don mcgahn. That is a big moment you will be taken back to. Host calls coming from new york city. Hi, robert. Caller thank you so much for taking my call. Two things about trump. First, i wanted to use this donald trump said in his tweets about the four congresswomen. Trump has criticized america more than them. The hypocrisy of this man. Trump has spent years criticizing our country, praising dictators and himself in the process. It is despicable and continues to show he is unfit to be president of our country. He once said if you do not clean of our country and garbage soon, were just going to do a death spiral. 17,weeted this on september 2013. He called this country a third world country. Washington post wrote that in his book, crippled america, trump wrote that the idea of american greatness in our country as the leader of the unfree world has vanished. Host with that commentary, do you have a question for our guests . Caller sure. I wanted to ask one thing. The go back slur is really an issue. Shouldbout time that we not hesitate to call him what he is, a racist to his bones. Trump has no respect for the presidency. We have had some pretty bad president s, but in contrast to trump, they had some respect for the office. Go back to the tweet that came about 24 hours ago thats what it started a new fresh round of back and forth about all of this. The president wrote, i dont believe the four congresswomen are capable of loving our country. They should apologize to america and israel for the people things they said. The Democratic Party and there we can insecure people who can never destroy our great nation. Can you give us insight into where that tweet came from . Guest i think it came directly from the president. We know these kind of tweets dont have a lot of consultation with others in the white house. There has been so much act and forth this week inside the white house about whether these kind of obligations are helpful or hurtful for the president politically. We are also discussing the merits. I think the president does not like to back down and we know that. As much as he may have been persuaded by members of congress to somewhat dissociate himself from the chants, he was quick to come back and say, which was predictable, to double down on this. Host Siobhan Hughes had this piece last night about rashida tlaib. The democrat from michigan. It says unapologetic to leave his fans in michigan. Take us to michigan. Guest i went to the district over the weekend and i discovered she has an equitably strong base of support. Her voters really like what she has done in times of trying to protect the environment but there is an asterisk next to that. What they dont like and what makes them uncomfortable is that rashida tlaib, the day of er swearing in, got up and said im going to go in there they think and language is inappropriate, and at least in some parts of the community, particularly in the africanamerican part, its a majority black district. People are wondering is she getting so much National Attention that she is not going to deliver for us back home . Frankly what we need his help. Go, kathleen, youre on. Caller good morning, how is everybody . I wanted to ask everybody on the panel all i hear from the talk shows to people like democrats, democrats are we a twoparty nation or one . Why is it everything has to be done is on the democrats . E elected a senate those a republican sitting over there. They are getting paid like the democrats. Why shouldnt they have a stake in whats going on . Trump is hurting both parties. Trump is hurting everybody, john not just the democrats. Everybody should have a problem with what trump is doing. When i hearnors people say trump won back down and trump is this and that. He is not a holy. I have seen several times on nationwide tv like the time trump was at the podium and i forget what state he was in campaigning. One man went to climb on the stage and he would tell people if somebody comes up in her, not them down and i will pay your way. When he turned around and saw that man coming up, just one man, oneonone, if it hadnt been for the podium, he would have fallen off. If you want to make trump to make out something hes night, you are feeding the monster. Back to my first statement, this is a twoparty system. If everything is on the democrats, why are we paying Mitch Mcconnell and all of those republicans thousands of dollars per year to do nothing to blame the democrats . This is everybodys fault. Trump doesnt hate immigrants. I say that because hes married because he married two of them. He just hates the dark ones. His kids are parasite immigrants so we need to get straight with trump. He is not what america has tried to make him. Hes a big nothing and hes not getting away, hes getting by. His day is coming so it wish people when the, these shows would say its everybodys problem, not just the democrats. Host thank you for calling, lets hear from our guests. There are concerns in the white house that this vitriol will completely stop progress on legislative issues . There are things they want to get done. Guest thats a good question. We dont know what will happen in the president s main legislation is the renegotiated nafta. Thats a legislation that has a chance. Toomore it becomes difficult for the parties to Work Together and the more it becomes too difficult for democrats to work with trump, thats a danger for him. To getek, he needs spending and debt ceiling issues resolved to avoid risk of default of the country. Track. Oks to be on things can always fall off track and we have seen that. I think there are issues and we need to make sure that as much as they are playing for 2020 right now that they dont completely make it to toxic for democrats to work with. Take us up to congress and the posture of the democratic leaders. How are they balancing with their hearing from the president and what some are saying back but also the need to move forward with legislation and balancing talk of impeachment . Take us through the mindset of the democrats . What a lot of people view as racist tweets from last week have been incredibly unifying for democrats. They are in a somewhat better spot than i have been. Underneath the surface is this tension between the group that wholeheartedly wants to impeach President Trump and the group led by nancy pelosi thinks this would be an absolute disaster for the Democratic Party. Offill take democrats ewyes the ball. They want to improve Peoples Health care, lower pharmaceutical prices, and the youership is terrified that risk undercutting yourself by losing the election. This headline in the Washington Times gives a preview of what that meeting might be like. Guest things have been fairly tense as im sure you and your viewers know between aoc and nancy pelosi. Pelosi has given an interview tomorrow in doubt where she says they have their public whatever and they are on twitter but so what . Backas furiously fired that the public whatever is called public sentiment and its how you affect things in congress. They will just have to have some kind of rapprochement between the two sides of democrats are going to be able to proceed forward and not get caught up in their internal politics. Host dave in rochester, michigan, democratic caller, good morning. Caller good morning of thank you. Im curious what church journalists or panel thanks im curious about what your journalists or panelists think about the upcoming hearing. Will they mention the people and trumps orbit that made contact with the russians . One thing that interest me and i asked my republican friends, when Paul Manafort gave the of then information battleground states with the russian agent, if that is not called collusion, what was that . Is that being neighborly . These kind of interactions between people and trumps orbit and i hope they focus on that. They lied about it whenever first question so to me its for interesting what was going on there. Do you think they will cover that . Guest i think you raise a very big point of what we can expect with this testimony. There is no impeachment recommendation that there were individual pieces that may be troubling to people and there were efforts by the Trump Campaign to capitalize on some of those things that russians were doing including some of them perhaps unknowing, retreating tweets. Some of the more specifically like trying to keep tabs on what was going on and roger stone becomes an important character in all of this. I think democrats will try to highlight that and the fact there actually were enticements that presuit of the report that were related to russia and members of the Trump Campaign being involved in activities that got them in trouble with the law. Guest the caller hit on something that a lot of democrats are really concerned about, the episode in which Paul Manafort shared polling data with the russians. A lot of democrats of privately said that if thats not collusion, what is . In the area of the House Intelligence Committee which is volumeo be focused on one of the report, the portion that deals with russian interference. The caller shall look for that question to come up there. Host thats the second of the two hearings . Guest yes and it begins roughly at noon. Host house judiciary begins at 8 30 a. M. And will go a few hours and take a short rack and it take a short break and come back with the House Intelligence Committee. Watch all here on the cspan networks. John from orlando, thank you for waiting, republican caller. Are you there . Caller yes. Host go ahead, sir. [indiscernible] you have palu see and schumer talk about you have pelosi and schumer talk about calling him a racist post up he has given more to the naacp and all this than any other person i have seen. Why is it always the media out malign trump about everything . Host why do you think that is . Caller they hate trump. Host the media hates trump. How do you keep objective in this reporting about everything going on . Trying to do just our job. I know that sounds like something we sail up but its true. There is a lot to cover. He gives us a lot to cover. We dont write the tweets and we we are reporting on how people respond to them and certainly many people responded to the tweets at the rally, believing they were either racist or inciting racism and whether or not the president , where he fits in that spectrum is another question. We certainly cover it and its newsworthy when the president says these kind of things. Hughes, lets talk about the emerging budget deals in recent days. We know the spending limits and the debt ceiling are two of the biggest issues that they want to hammer out soon. What is the latest on the negotiations. Post the washington came out with a report that we are close to a deal on budget caps and raising the debt ceiling. We have not been able to report that ourselves so i cannot give you details on that except to say that it looks from the tone that we are on track to have something by the end of the week. Were multiple calls between nancy pelosi and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin over the weekend and talking is always a good sign. Host what is the likely outcome . It may include few if any spending cuts. Guest thats a problem for republicans. There was a message appealing to donald trump saying that we have a problem with spending cuts in many to get the budget under control. Standing posture of that committee so there is an asterisk and am waiting to see how that plays out. Deal and then a pulled back and change his mind and i dont know how that sh