I hope we get to that agreement soon where whoever it is on your side that is going to be the point person that is authorized to get a deal can sit down with the senate and stay until they get that deal. I know there are other things going on over here. The impeachment infatuation and what it has taken away from i hope it has not taken away from the ability to get this agreement. This week the house and senate have to pass a temporary spending bill that would fund the government through december 20. The measure would need to be approved by the house and senate , then be signed by the president to avoid a possible shutdown. Current funding expires at midnight on thursday. Congress is back in session monday. Watch the house live on cspan and the senate live on cspan2. House Intelligence Committee chairman adam schiff released procedures for the committees first public impeachment inquiry hearing. Chairmanship outlined threequel chairmanship outlined 3 hiff outlined three questions. Did President Trump seek to have the Ukrainian Government advance the president s political interests . Did President Trump or his Administration Try to withhold information from congress and the American People about his conduct . Full impeachment inquiry hearing procedures document, go to our website, cspan. Org impeachment. Joining us from louisville, kentucky on cspans Newsmakers Program is john yarmuth, chair of the house Budget Committee. Thank you for being with us. It is good to be with you. Joining us in the questioning is christina marcos, who covers capitol hill. Congressman, let me begin with the results yesterday in new orleans and louisiana in which john bel edwards, the democrat, winning with 51 of the vote. This is a state that donald trump won by 20 Percentage Points in 2016. He campaigned there in three separate occasions. This follows the in which andy beshear defeated the republican incumbent in kentucky. It tells me that President Trumps endorsement does not mean a holland. I think there were extraneous factors in both cases. I know in louisiana a lot of former convicts had their Voting Rights restored recently. That could have played a role. A very unpopular governor matt bevin, who tried to undermine the Affordable Care act here, which would have taken Health Insurance away from 95,000 people. He attacked teachers. He was a controversial figure. Basically, President Trump came before the day came the day before the election. To kentucky. It did not do any good for matt bevin and looks like the same for louisiana. It is a good sign for states like ours, in which demographics are beginning to play a different role. A poll taken over after the election had andy beshear winning 62 to 34 among voters under 40. With women, he had a substantial margin. We are seeing here and probably in louisiana as well the National Trend where women, people of color, and younger people are beginning to determine who wins or loses. Ofa quick followup in terms your home state. Senator Mitch Mcconnell seeking another term, being challenged by a democrat. Based on what you saw in the governors race, where does that put your party in challenging the Senate Republican leader . Unpopular. Also very one poll has him at 18 Approval Rating in my district. In my district, he is very unpopular. I was thinking that donald trump because trump won the state by about 30 points. The last public poll had him from disapproval, down 834 point their new Approval Rating. A 34point Approval Rating. Still, he will be on the ballot and i think that will work to mcconnells benefit. I think there is some chance he amyt be, but if he is mcgrath or whoever the nominee is we have a primary will be a very strong competitor to him 202 7488003 to him. Why would the president not be on the ballot . I think you might look at he might look at a humiliating defeat spring and say i want to go out on my terms. I made america as great as i can and go play golf. With him it is all about ego. If he is looking at a staggering defeat, which i think is possible, he may decide not to run. There are some people i will not name, but a pretty substantial political analysts who think there is a 50 50 chance he will be on the ballot. One of them is from louisiana. That is a good enough hint. Is still likely he will be on, but i think there is some chance he wont be. In any event, we are going to have a strong candidate. Whoever runs as our nominee will have all the money he or she needs to match mitchs money and i think that will be a critical factor. Thanks for being with us, congressman. I want to turn to impeachment. Democrats have a jampacked schedule of hearings this week with several witnesses. So far, polling has remained relatively stable in recent weeks. Do democrats need to convince more americans . Is there anyway way for democrats to do so . I think ambassador song blend ambassador song blend ambassador sondlands testimony might make a difference. Where we are really going to see the potential for change in Public Attitudes is when the Judiciary Committee actually debates the articles of impeachment. What you will see there is not just a phone call where there was what i call bribery or extortion against the president of ukraine. Cases ofsee obstruction of justice, cases of obstruction of congress. I think the American People will thea starker picture of enormous offenses against the constitution that this president has committed. This is andy with the wall street journal. On the point about the articles of impeachment one of the things that has been yesterday especially in the impeachment investigation, is this question of impoundment and whether the hold on the Security Assistance over the summer ukraine violated the impoundment control act. I know this is something that as the chairman of the Budget Committee you have looked at and requested information about. Do you think that impoundment or how the funds were handled and the legal liabilities should be part of the articles the house considers . Would be getting into the weeds a little bit too much to move public opinion. We are working on legislation to put greater restrictions on the ability of omb to withhold spending. We are concerned about that. The chairman of the senate Budget Committee is working on it as well. Congress is focused on that issue. This is the preeminent power of article one. To appropriate funds for the government. That is exclusively the power of the congress. We need to protect that prerogative. As an article of impeachment, that meet might be a tough sell for the American People. Not to say that it might not be worth considering, but one of the things our leadership has concluded is that we cannot have 15 articles of impeachment and hope to make a compelling case to the American People. Let me follow up on andys point. During july to september, did you know the 390 1 million in aid to ukraine was being held up . No. I had no idea. I think we did not i do not think anyone knew until the whistleblower letter came out. I certainly was not aware. We did request information from omb. We got some, but not all. The Intelligence Committee subpoenaed omb. They made a determination they could not comply with our request any further. E have information about that it is now Public Knowledge that the process was taken out of the hands of the Career Civil Service people in the omb and turned over to political appointees to take the funds away from withhold the funds from ukraine. We also know the pentagon had signed off and saying these funds should have been disbursed, that ukraine complied with the terms of they thought important. We had that information. Are far more serious defenses that our caucus would want to concentrate on. Jim jordan of ohio insists the whistleblower needs to testify. Senator Lindsey Graham says he would not agree to a trial until that person testifies. Whoever this person is has admitted it is secondhand information that he received regarding the phone call. This week, we will hear from people who will have firsthand information. Based on that, do you feel it is important to hear from the whistleblower . All they are trying to do is somehow impugn his information thereby in some way undermine the value of what he alerted the Inspector General to. Mentionedverything he in the initial nine page complaint was has been verified by the people who actually provided the information. I think they just want to come in and say you are a democrat or you are a never trumper. Distractingis just from the substance of what the information he provided, which is all been corroborated by witnesses who are closer to it than he was. There is no value to having him for the Congress Unless it is to let the republicans try to question his motivation and somehow distract people from the substance of the complaint. Let me turn to cristina marcos. This is a followup on other possible articles of impeachment. You have long been a supporter of impeaching this president. Do you think the potential obstruction of justice allegations laid out in special counsel miller macs muellers report should be part of that the house considers . I think we ought to look at some of those. There wereler report 10 cases of obstruction of justice mr. Mueller concluded they met all three conditions for a legitimate charge of obstruction of justice. According to because of justice a varmint policy, he could not bring criminal charges against the president Justice Department policy, he could not bring criminal charges against the president. He said clearly in the report the president obstructed justice on several occasions. I think several of them ought to be part of any articles of impeachment. I wanted to ask you about the continuing resolution the house is going to take up this week. It seems like that will last through december 20. Do you think that is a realistic timeline . Do you think negotiations are going well enoughs . Well enough . Negotiations are going well enough that we can fund the vast majority of the government through regular order. I think it will be tough for us to come to an agreement on the Homeland Security budget because of all funding boardwalk funding. Wall funding. That does not stop us from approving the other 11 Appropriations Bills. I can see a scenario in which we passed those 11 Appropriations Bills and do a continued resolution for Homeland Security alone. I think that would be great progress. It would be a nice Christmas Present to get that out of the way. Treasury secretary mnuchin has been emerging as a key player in these negotiations overspending. Is he essentially the only member of the administration that democrats can deal with on these budget issues . Ordinarily you would say Mick Mulvaney would be one as well but i think mick has other distractions. I think right now that is probably the case, that secretary mnuchin is the only one. I have not horror heard of any other Administration Officials who have been part of the negotiations. You mentioned Mick Mulvaney. Have you been in touch with him at all lately . I know he is someone youre close with and you have gone to campaign with him and other members of congress. Have you kept in touch with him lately . Now. No. I have not been in touch with him since shortly after the campaign visit in february or march. Let me go back to the budget issue. I would take his call if you wanted to talk to me. Why is it so hard for democrats and republicans to pass a budget on time . What is the likelihood that down the road we could see a two year budget blueprint . To your first question, we passed all of our Appropriations Bills except for Homeland Security and the administrative congressional in ministry to budget by the end of june. We did our work expeditiously. I cannot explain why the senate has not done its work. That seems to be typical under senator mcconnells leadership. There is no reason that we cannot do it, that the senate cant do it. They do not seem to be doing anything else except approving unqualified judges to the federal bench. We can do our job. As to the second point, i think there is a real possibility that we might do a two year budgeting cycle. Last year, we had a bipartisan committee, house and senate, to consider reforms of the budget appropriations process. That was one of the items that seems to have a significant amount of bipartisan and bicameral support. I think it makes sense. Even though it is only one more year, it does have the effect of forcing us to think a little bit longer term and that is always good. It would bring more certainty to the department so they can operate more efficiently and not have to worry about programs longerterm contracts being written and signed and Research Grants being cut off. I think it would be great for the agencies if we did that. Congress tous do more budgetary oversight, which we have not done nearly enough of. Followup on essential spending. You suggested there could be a temporary patch for the department of Homeland Security while the rest of the government is funded in another vehicle. I am wondering is there any chance that democrats would vote for a spending bill that does not limit trumps ability to transfer funds like he did earlier this year in military Construction Funds to the border wall . Is there any way democrats could vote for a spending deal that even allows a dollar for border wall funding . I am not going to negotiate for the entire democratic caucus. I think the last spending bill there was a billion dollars for maintenance. Definends on how you expenditures for a border wall. Question of spending five or 6 billion for a border wall is a nonstarter. That has no chance of passing the house. On the transfer authority something one thing republicans have been saying is that democratic efforts to restrict the president s transfer authority violate the agreement reached over the summer for no poison pills in the budget negotiations. Something is that a legitimate criticism that trying to limit the president s transfer authority violates that no poison pill agreement from over the summer . Think that that type of provision would violate the promise of no poison pills. Logical, sound provision is somebody elses poison pill. Republicans will claim it violates the agreement. It just depends on whether they would risk shutting down the government or dealing with crs all next years worth the price of holding to that. Principle. Ch holdings that principle holding to that principle. That is to decide what spending is done. There are processes for moving funding. If the administration were to follow them, probably everyone will be ok with it but that is not with this administration dots. The are assuming they have ultimate authority over where money is spent. The constitution says otherwise. Let me turn back to politics. Who do you want to see as the democratic nominee . I want to see whoever wins the primary. Wins thehoever democratic primary will have proven him or herself to be the superior campaigner and the candidate with the most appeal. A race ino win kentucky, we have to have every democratic vote that is possible. We cannot have any candidate who jeopardizes threatens the loss of democratic votes. There are not enough persuadable voters in the state. I do not think there is much opportunity to convert a lot of republicans. We have converted a lot of suburbanites in louisville and lexington. Election in won the louisville by 100,000 votes. That is unprecedented. Motivated ande we turned out every single democratic voter we can. I think in the democratic primary we have to have the the winner will be the one who proves himself to be best campaigner and best candidate for the democrats. That is priority number one. If the democrats nominate somebody like Elizabeth Warren or senator Bernie Sanders proposing medicare for all or for all who want it, can that candidate win in your state . , but is unlikely interestingly enough in 2016 Bernie Sanders did extremely well in kentucky in the democratic primary. He won he had almost 50 of the delegates. To 40 of the delegates. He did well here. I think in a general election in kentucky where voters have trended republican in National Elections that would be probably a difficult spot. This think he would will be Bernie Sanderss best estate. That would be the message of senator Mitch Mcconnell, that if there is a nominee or elected president he is the candidate who would stop a medicare for all proposal for moving in the senate. Interestingly, im not sure how medicare for all would play here. The Affordable Care act is a normal sleep popular now enormously popular now. Hundreds of