Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 12032019 20240713

And at 9 00 a. M. , dr. Steven on a new study of Life Expectancy in the u. S. The Supreme Court yesterday to go up its first one rights case in nearly a decade. How or even whether the court will decide that case is still to come. This morning, we would like to hear from you on the issue. Good morning, it is tuesday, december 3, 2019. We will start with your views on gun laws and how they should be changed or not changed. If you think gun laws should be more strict, the number to call is 2027488000. If you think gun laws should be less strict or loosened, 2027488001. If you think gun laws should be capped as they are, that line is 2027488002. You can send us a text. Make sure you tell us your name and where you are texting from. That line, 2027488003. On twitter, tweet us at cspanwj. You can post your thoughts at facebook. Com cspan. Top of also keep you on the latest in the impeachment coming with the report out today and President Trump at the nato meetings in london. We will have those for you during the program. Our first topic on gun laws and gun rights, the Second Amendment case and reporting from the New York Times, Second Amendment case may fizzle out. There Court Reporter writing the Court Reporter writing the case may not result in a ruling of any particular consequence judging from questioning on monday that focused largely on whether the repeal of a new york city law challenging it made it moot. The petitioners have gotten all the relief they other three bers made you are asking us to opine on a law that is not on the books anymore. More details on that case in a moment. Comments on facebook from our needrs with mark saying we federal concealed carry reciprocity laws and federal guidelines on what is required for concealed carry and open carry. Bill king says if after sandy hook nothing was done nothing is going to be done now. The gun lobby is too strong, it is a domestic terrorist organization. In a country where there are more guns in the hands of regular citizens than the entire population, yes, gun law changes are necessary. Look at murder statistics in the name of decency. The people need to retain their ability to defend themselves. Your thoughts on Gun Legislation. 2027488000 if you think gun laws should be more strict. 2027488001 if they should be less strict and about the same, that line is 2027488002. Is Supreme Court correspondent for usa today covering this case. Uses the term fizzle out. Tell us about the case and why the court took it out . Guest it is funny so many of us use the same term fizzle or fizzle out, the case comes from new york city. A rule, aity had Police Department city rule that said you can have a premises license for a handgun, but you cannot take it anywhere except to city firing ranges. The lawsuit, which was lost at lower court said we have to be able to take our guns gun homese the city to second and the like. When the Supreme Court accepted this case, Gun Control Groups got worried because they thought if the Supreme Court hears a guns case for the first time in almost a decade, or a major one, they had taken one on stun guns, groups were concerned they could roll beyond the con signs confines of this new york city law, they might say there is a broad right to carry handguns in public, which the heller and mcdonald decisions did not say. Those were decisions that you can have your gun at home for selfdefense. Gun control groups got together and repealed the law. New york state passed a law saying you can take your guns to the faces previously than banned. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg said what is left of this case . Hour that set the tone for the hour. Host if the city has rescinded the law, the state change the overall law, the court has taken it up, what options are there for the decision . Will they make a decision . Guest they will make a decision, but it could be on whether the case is moot or not and basically not advance Second Amendment rights whatsoever. Some kind of decision has to be made. Oted theld have mo case earlier. They decided not to do that. They made a formal order that said we will consider mootness at the oral argument in december. Yesterday, it was unclear what the debate would be like and what the decision will be. Technically, it is still unclear. The 4 liberal justices seemed intent on having the case declared moot. That would not solve the issues gun rights owners have with being able to carry in public in states that do not allow for open or concealed carry and with the standard the Supreme Court uses when judging Second Amendment crisis cases. The standard they use for restrictions at the state and local level is too loose. It was unclear what chief Justice John Roberts and associate Justice Brett kavanaugh would do. The other three conservatives seemed ready to decide the case on merit. If roberts and Kavanaugh Kavanaugh may go with those three. If roberts goes with those and they decide the case on merit, that would be a just right ash be a surprise that would be a surprise. It would be surprising to see the court, with a major Second Amendment ruling. We will see the court either declare the case moot or have a narrow ruling on the new york city raw that law that no law isexists saying that unconstitutional because they feel that we give gun over gun owners a little more protection than the state and city saying we will take it off the books. There is fear they could put it back on the books or penalize gun owners for past violations. There are reasons the plaintiffs want decisions. Will air the oral arguments friday at 8 00 eastern. In addition to claires comments, Brett Kavanaugh did , although heions has asked questions in many other cases during his term. Fits pretty much with the clear he has taken since coming on the court in such a controversial manner after his controversy pays hearing. He has a past record of support for gun rights. The nra and the like were supportive of his nomination. He ruled on the d. C. Circuit upheld court in dissent a ban on certain firearms in the District Of Columbia and he dissented in that case. That was encouraging to the nra side. May be an indication he thinking i am not here ruling on gun rights where i do have of you, i am trying to decide weather this case whether not ande exists or whether there is a rule to be overturned. Perhaps it wasnt that surprising to see him not joining with the silence clarence thomas, we know where he stands and neil gorsuch and samuel alito. Those are the ones who took up the mantle of this is not as good a protection, the withdrawal of this law as a decision of the court and we ought to march forward. Judge kavanaugh has often been with justice chief roberts. Host is the court taking up gun done cases this cases this session . Guest as of now, no. Case, and thatis is something they can do quickly, then they could take up another case. Then there is a case about public ayour gun in new jersey and other cases in the pipeline. Host richard wolf, follow him on twitter. We appreciate the update. Guest any time. Host following on to the case from the court yesterday, our question for you is about gun laws. Lessd they be more strict, strict, or the same. Joe in georgia. Caller love cspan. I am from a community that went for trump, so we are strong for Second Amendment rights. We support people like trump and david perdue. We worry about our gun control friends on the others. I dont believe on any negative attacks, they believe they are doing what is right, but we have a great fear of having our guns taken away and that is the first thing that happens with communism. Maybe our fears are exaggerated, but we are very strong Second Amendment people here. I would be very skeptical of having more gun control laws. Host wheel rancho, new mexico, john says keep laws about the same. Good morning. Caller good morning and thanks to brian lamb for bringing us cspan, deeply appreciated. I called on the line because at this point, i dont expect anything to change. It is largely because we are dealing with d. C. Having become i have not had a feeling of legitimacy since the Citizens United ruling. I dont anticipate anything, especially with the current majority on the court. This city is blundering so badly, this would be a great way to unify the country. We have the punch and judy show that takes delight in getting nothing done, we have a Senate Majority leader that brags about not letting any legislation get called for a vote and with a country in this much distress getting that little help from representatives government, people, it is time to make a big change. If you believe we need a constitutional amendment that gives free airtime to candidates, become a Commonsense Coalition member in your heart and your mind right now. I dont care if you are republican, democrat, or independent. If we declare that constitutional amendment, we can correct course in this country. Host gun laws, should they be more strict, less strict or about the same . Scott in san diego, what do you think . Caller i dont get to call harry often, but this is such a good topic, i could not resist. The last stat i read is there are 300 million guns in the hands of private citizens. Nobody is coming to take your guns away. Effort. Be a huge it would take 1000 years even at 100 a day and that assumes the people coming are not being fired upon. That is farfetched. Wanted to make is i really do think there ought to guns. Icter laws regarding not so much the ownership rate i believe in peoples right to firearms, it is part of our national heritage. The thing is rights like that are not absolute. We know through history city, states, even the federal government has laid down common sense laws to help protect the citizens because sometimes people will act out. I thinkng that there was a court case about this some years ago. Gun owners ought to have the same type of insurance car owners have. In other words, they need to be do go bade when they and i think the insurance model might the a step in the right direction. Have your guns and i know a lot of listeners, especially the less control people are responsible gun owners and i applaud them for that. I have relatives in that category. For those who dont, that is why there are laws on the book. Host scott in san diego writing about the broader issue of gun laws. Richard wolf, ahead of the court decision, the court case yesterday route since the 2010 ruling striking down gun restrictions in columbia and chicago, the court refused to hear dozens of cases challenging limits on who can own what types of guns, where they can be taken, what requirements must be met and more. Lower courts have resolved more than 1000 Second Amendment cases ruling more than 90 of the time in favor of gun control measures. Hook connecticut, Sandy Elementary School shooting in 2012 that killed 20 students and 6 staff members, more than 300 gun safety laws have been passed. The former solicitor general represented the plaintiffs in the case yesterday and spoke about it to reporters after the oral argument. [video clip] resistedty of new york their efforts to vindicate their rights at every turn and only when the Supreme Court granted the petition in this case did the city start to take efforts to recognize their rights. The court asked a lot of questions today about those continuing efforts by the city to make this case go away, but they also asked very important questions about the merits that made clear this is part and parcel of the kind of regulations that have no basis in text, history, or tradition and should not be upheld consistent with the Second Amendment, so we are hopeful the court will decide this case on the merits and in favor of the petitioners. We are gratified we had our day in court to vindicate these important Constitutional Rights. Host starting the program asking you about changes to gun laws. 2027488003 if you want to send a text. Carol says Second Amendment should be thrown out, written in a different era. Some use Second Amendment to exact revenge. It is no longer used to protect oneself and family. Time to change that outdated and stupid role. Leave the Second Amendment alone, more gun laws will not stop people. In michigan, rob, good morning. Go ahead. Caller thank you for taking my call. I support the Second Amendment because i support civil rights guaranteed by the constitution. When you look at proposed restrictions, if you try to apply the same restrictions, should we have a three day waiting period to check a book out of the library . The constraints that you would because you are teaching a religious tenet or find offensive down that slippery slope, we are not far from losing all of our Constitutional Rights and i guess when i look at some of the Democratic Candidates, they are proposing restrictions on conservative radio talk. Thee proposing loss presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Ironically, i did agree with al sharpton some time ago when he said we should not need to execute a to constitutional right speaking about voting. Why not apply that same thing to a firearm guaranteed under the constitution . Getting a book from a library or attending Worship Services as you choose. Caller darlene host darlene is up in las vegas, nevada. Caller i dont see the reason them to add more you can register all day and all legislate you cannot bad behavior. I have been a licensed gun owner for 30 years and i have never. Hot anyone do not cringe when i walk outside, open carry state that it is because there is a loaded 38 attached to my waistband. People do not have a meltdown. People go about their daily business like i am wearing a shirt and pants. It is nothing people shake and tremor over. I wish everybody would take a breath and use a Little Common sense. Host our lines are 2027488000 if you think there should be more strict gun laws. 2027488001, less strict and keep them about the same, 2027488002. Christopher in new jersey. Go ahead. As an growing up individual, one of the biggest fears i used to have was a pimple before prom. In the handsence of those who take weapons to take out young lives, it is important to be more strict with the laws because people suffering with mental instability cannot have a weapon to deal with their pain. I have been able to be very fortunate to get the help i need and being able to have people who support me is vitally important. The fact is we do need stricter laws because if people dont stand up now and make sure the weapons do not fall into the wrong hands, we may be able to save more lives. It is time for the bloodshed and violence to end and the weapon of mass destruction to be no longer in the hands of people who cannot be able to solve a problem this way. The only way we are going to win is to have the weapon of mass knowledge and information to tell them a weapon of this kind is a fatal mistake and more laws should be made to protect the people. The Second Amendment must be kept, but stronger laws must be done to protect the lives of innocent people, not have them lost by stagnation and stalemate. Host christopher in new jersey. In maryland is mark who feels gun laws should be less strict. Tell us why and what is the law situation in terms of firearms like in maryland . Caller thank you for taking my call. I think the law should be lessened. We have a human right to be able to defend ourselves. Law enforcement has no responsibility to protect individuals. That is incumbent on ourselves and i firmly believe allowing lawabiding citizens to carry sos helps protect them more. Han relying on police alone most of these Mass Shootings, ist happens is the murderer very much like a bully. He knows he is going into a situation where he is going to be the only one armed and they control the situation if you look at the tragic shooting that gazette in capital my city of annapolis. You had an individual known to Law Enforcement and police as having a sharp dispute with how the paper reported a case of his and to my knowledge, they chose not to try to pursue him and he ended up shooting and killing five and wounding another 5. Everyone in there was unarmed. The state of maryland basically only allows Law Enforcement to carry. Host there is reporting in the wall street journal. Gunars unlikely to expand rights and rights a major expansion appeared unlikely after arguments monday before the Supreme Court where justice is focused not on the Second Amendment, but whether the case appeared in the court at all. New York State Legislature passed a law illuminating local restrictions and the city repealed the challenge regulation. Eliminatingued rationale for the Supreme Courts review. Ae city has been blocked by state law, so what is left of this case . Lawyers for gun owners and the Trump Administration argued legal grounds remain for the Supreme Court to issue a wideranging ruling that could do many local weapons rules, but they did not agree on the rationale. We heard from the lawyers who shear that case and, after the oral argument. [video clip] we came from the oral argument. We hope and expect the court will dismiss this case because the plaintiffs have gotten all the relief they are seeking. It was very clear what is actually at stake in this case. A council for the state affiliate of the nra asked the court to declare the Second Amendment protects a right to to adopt arms and restrictive an extreme test for deciding Second Amendment cases that would look only to history and tradition and not Public Safety concerns. That is why we are here keeping a close eye on this case to make to the assert our rights states and show that the Second Amendment is perfectly laws. Tent with gun safety host the Supreme Court oral argument airs friday night on cspan 2 at 8 00 eastern. Getting your thoughts on gun laws, should they be more strict . 2027488000. Less stressed, 2027488001. Oil kept about the same, 2027488002. You can send us a text. Here is one that says we need less gun control. A gun permit in one state should be good in all states like a drivers license. Mark is from new jersey, andlong registered dem nongun owner. The Second Amendment is there for tyranny. Ar15s should evaluate we can adapt new laws from muskets to modern firearms. Joe is in new jersey. Good morning. Caller hi. I go by the laws for the guns, but the one thing the automatic gun, i am against. They should be lifelong shots. People,s these new york look who is running it. They have everything messed up in new york. They are talking about suing the gun companies. The gun company did not shoot the people. They will wind up suing General Motors for hit and run and stuff like that. What is the difference between this and that . They talk about they want to have gun control. Democrats, it was the opposite. We will hear from bert in georgia, feels that god laws should be less strict. Caller those laws in new york. Re to hinder people it takes practice to do anything and keep it safe. You can take a gun to a firing range, but you cannot stop. You cannot stop to visit the bathroom, visit your mother, get a cup of coffee. The Supreme Court sees that and i think they will rule against that. The only way you will stop someone from breaking into your house is to have a gun or weapon to defend yourself such as a knife or baseball bat or. Hatever you have to use have a nice day. Host news potential news about the senate pick to take over a retiring senator Johnny Isakson. Governor brian kemp is expected to tap Financial Executive Kelly Loeffler as Johnny Isaksons replacement. Doug collins was noncommittal about moving aside. Senator isaacson, senator Johnny Isakson will make his Farewell Speech this afternoon and you can follow our coverage on cspan 2. In michigan, this is eli. Welcome. Caller i have a couple points to make. Full disclosure, i am not a christian, but prior to the 19 60s and the secular humanist revolution, we did not have the Mass Shootings we have today. I think morality has declined under secular humanist and progressive governance, but we demean human life, abortion being one of the symptoms of that. I am from detroit and i have seen the democrat policies of gun control are sexist and racist. A lot of women use weapons for protection because they are not as strong as men. The vast majority of detroiters are lawabiding, patriotic, hard word of hardworking black americans, yet the democrats in gated communities do not trust bear arms. Cans to i find that despicable and racist. We have a moral national right to defend ourselves and democrats and progressives want to take that right away and that is not natural. O new jersey, darrell, good morning. Arguing for more strict Gun Legislation. Caller i think the Second Amendment should be abolished. I just came back from japan. They dont have guns over there. Being there and looking back at what is happening in this country, america appears to be a barbaric. Hello . Host you are on the air. Caller from japan, from where i was and the safety of that place around, it looks like a barbaric nation where they dont care about america looks like a barbaric nation. In far too many cases, the lawabiding gun owner is only lawabiding until he pulls the trigger for the first time and murders somebody or does a mask shooting. This lawabiding gun over gun owner business is nonsense. We allow people to go into these gun shows and buy whatever they want host let me ask you on that point, do you think most gun owners are not lawabiding . Is that what you are saying . Caller but i am saying is if the the person is a lawabiding citizen until they pull the trigger and murder somebody. This idea of lawabiding a personing guns is lawabiding until they pull the trigger or murder somebody or commit a mass shooting. Because we have no way of reading peoples mines and knowing what their intentions are, you cannot use the lawabiding citizen argument, it is ridiculous. Host maria in georgia would love to see tougher Gun Legislation as well. Caller good morning to all. I agree with the man he had every thought i could imagine. I think the Second Amendment and a lot of other amendments that your forefathers wrote need to be done over. We will continue to have this debate until there are no more guns and we will continue to have killers every two or three months until there are no more guns. Laws. A is built on there should be no guns. Until then, we will keep crying about the children and people getting killed until we dont have any guns. America will be all right without guns. Other countries are all right without guns. Host peer is the lead editorial from the wall street journal, guns, liberals, and the court. The color decision held the Second Amendment heller core purpose of selfdefense. Learning to handle and use arms hunting is presumably protects the transportation of a firearm for such purposes. The wall street journal editorial writes the second incuit echoed other courts which acting the standard for reviewing infringements. The judges weighed new yorks interest in protecting Public Safety without requiring the transport ban protected that interest. It is another example of lower courts downgrading the Second Amendment to secondclass status in the bill of rights and they conclude there editorial with this. Threatsmocratic underscore that core Constitutional Rights are in danger. The Supreme Court has an opportunity to reaffirm that the bill of rights isnt merely an advisory opinion. Michigan. What do you think about Gun Legislation . Caller good morning. I am an independent, but leading toward Progressive Democratic and i believe in keeping the gun laws as they are with a few changes. I suffer from a Mental Illness politiciansalked to in michigan where we have tough laws and i was told i could not buy a gun to have in my home to and since i have not had any problems since i heard i had a Home Invasion wase i was where i severely assaulted, i have not iny problems since then have been told i cannot own a gun. I think it should be run like an Insurance Company where you go 35 years and if you pass the test, fine. Greg craig calling for stricter Gun Legislation. To tell us why. Reason think the the situation is you are fighting the nras argument. You are arguing their platform because the constitution doesnt guarantee a person the right to carry a gun. The Second Amendment guarantees the states the right to have a militia. You have to put everything in context to 1776. The Second Amendment was signed after we had fought an 8 year war with england and they came out with the constitution, they ratified the constitution and 4 years later, they ratified the Second Amendment, which guaranteed the states the right to have a militia and that our federal government would not stand in the way of states having militias ilitias. Ulated ma all of these arguments is fighting the nras platform, the individual has the right to keep and carry a gun. C is one sentence, two, ommas and all it said was the federal government would not get in the way of virginia having a Standing Army because George Washington had fought an eightyear war. He had to ask congress three times for congress to appropriate money for a Standing Army because he understood it at the time. Where are we today . We are arguing whether i have the right to carry a gun. The way i read the constitution is i have the right to carry a approvesng as my state it and as long as i belong to a militia. The only argument you could make is legally, is i have the right to protect myself and i have the right to happen have my state have a militia. Ift wouldnt that make it you look at it the bill of rights that would be the only as part of the constitution, the only amendment that is specifically applied to states. None of the other amendments are focused solely on a state. Wouldnt that stick out like an anomaly in the constitution . Craig, are you still there . Fought in the civil war, so that is not true either. Slavery was fine until we decided it was not fine, it is immoral and having a gun is fine. I personally have had guns in the past. I was a member of the nra. I am not anymore. I think the nra is probably the number one terrorist organization in United States today. They pour money into protecting withbodys right to kill an ak47. The federal government already deems it is not legal for youtube to own a machine gun or any weapon of war. Lauderdale. In fort i understand you are a teacher at Stoneman Douglas high school. Caller i was, i was reassigned. I was there during the year of the shooting. Aroundup in new jersey firearms. I dont like calling them g uns. Weekly speaking, we have basically all the technically speaking, we basically have all the laws we need. They need to be stripped away, all the agree just ones that step on personal rights. The last caller need a couple of statements, i teach civics, the whole point of militia. I know everybody likes to focus on that. We have militias, we can justify it. If you strip it all away. I apologize because my thoughts are rambling since you brought up my school. Stop taking a look at the rights of the gun and look at the rights of the individual. I equate this i know a lot of people hate this because i used to be a member of the nra when i was younger. I believe they got too political. We used to have a sense sensibility about firearms. I like to equate it driving a car. Classificationnt of cars. I need a specialized license and specialized training. I dont see what the issue is if you want certain rights, you have to show certain responsibilities. I dont have a problem with oreone owning an ak47 ar15, as surprisingly as that sounds, and i buried two friends. If someone can show they are competent beyond a reasonable doubt, they should be allowed to have access to it and understand there are responsibilities. In times of war and times of crisis, you should be called upon and given the right to accept responsibilities or refuse them and i think people will be safer across the board if we get down to the basic federal responsibilities and they want decides how to designate certain things because in florida, we dont do a lot of hunting. Thedaho or wisconsin or dakotas, you might need it for survival. I think we need to stop looking at it in a blackandwhite aspect and look as a whole and break it down into individual states, regions, and necessity and i think it will work itself out. I think there is a big gray area we need to look at because i think everybody in the United States would feel safer if we did. We will have more of your comments momentarily. Other issues today, the House Intelligence Committee releasing their report. This is the headline. The Morning Report intel panel readies to hand off impeachment baton. Joining us is Senior Reporter for the hill, mike lillis. The report coming out this evening will be the majority report. I understand there is already a report from House Republicans. What does that report say . Guest the republican report leaked early. It says exactly what you would expect it to say. We have had enough depositions, had enough hearings to hear the arguments on both sides of the aisle and republicans have been very defensive of President Trump and said he did not do anything wrong in ukraine, that he was simply guarding hard earned u. S. Taxpayers from being wasted in a country known for corruption. His decision to withhold or delay the release of almost 400 million in military aid to kiev was a smart decision and guarding against general corruption and the bidens were caught up in it. That is what their report says. He was guarding against corruption and wanted to fight and did soin kiev by withholding military aid. Host the House Intelligence Committee report will come out. When and what happens when it does come out . Guest the Intel Committee will meet at 6 00 this evening and vote to adopt of the majority report. That will be a partyline vote, no republicans will vote for it and no democrats will vote against it. The will transfer to Judiciary Committee. We dont know if it will become public at that moment. Will we have to wait until the morning when the Judiciary Panel will have its morning its meeting . Will it leak before then . We dont know. We expect to learn more details tonight. Because we dont know what is in the report we can guess what the tone will be because we have heard democrats on the dais for weeks, but one of the Big Questions hanging out is is the Intelligence Committee going to recommend specific articles of impeachment that the Judiciary Committee could draft and vote and bring to the house floor or are they going to keep it more broad and general and say here is what we discovered in the course of our weeks long investigation . Jerry nadler wouldve come up with his own articles of impeachment and will it include anything beyond the ukraine episode . Will it get into the Robert Mueller report on russian interference in the 2016 election, which Jerrold Nadler and the Judiciary Committee for many weeks over the summer. We should know the answer in the next 24 hours. Host the Judiciary Committee set to hold their first public hearing, hearing from legal experts and constitutional scholars. Have they given any indication weather whether there will be additional hearings in the coming week . Guest they have not announced anything publicly. We have heard murmurings there would be at least one additional hearing and that would be with intelligent staff for adam schiff himself, who would present the findings of his report. O the judiciary that would be can star ken starresque. We could see something along those lines although that has not been finalized or announced. The only thing we know about his newesdays hearing and a set of witnesses. Legal scholars will talk more broadly about the intentions in writing the impeachment clause and these witnesses were not on. He ground host or any of these legal scholars republican witnesses . Andt there are 4 witnesses three democrats are going to be more liberal. The republican will be more conservative and they will come up with a friend interpretations of what is in the different interpretations of what is in the report. It is really just an interpretation game and there is not a lot of legal precedent. They will probably talk a little about watergate and the clinton impeachment in 1998. If impeachment goes through, trump is only the third president in history to be subject to it. Every impeachment inquiry is treading new legal ground and that is the point of the hearing. Host mike lillis with an update. Thank you for being with us. Guest thank you for having me. Host President Trump is overseas in london at the nato summit, the issue of impeachment following with questions from reporters. The president commenting on the impeachment process this morning in response to reporters. [video clip] i think it is very unpatriotic of democrats to put on a performance where they do that. Impeachment was not supposed to be used that way. All you have to do is read the transcript and you see there was nothing done wrong. They had legal scholars looking at the transcript and they said these are perfect. Them calls we made, two of think2027488000 if you the laws should be more strict. 2027488001 if they should be less strict and about the same, that line, 2027488002. In buffalo, this is nathaniel. Good morning. Buffalo, new york, you are on the air. Nathaniel, are you there . One more time. We will go to bonnie in new jersey, welcome. Caller thank you. Good and thanks for taking my call. I, personally, would like to see a reframing of this discussion or argument. I would like to relate to my 17yearold self many years ago. When i graduated high school and i had to get a fulltime job, i the only occupation i could do at that time. I wanted to support myself and go to college. I got a job in a law office in a typing pool and it was all women and they were all young my age or a little younger typing and we were 12 inches away from each other. All day long, i was typing, but i knew i was going to go to college. The young woman sitting next to me was a smoker and she started at 9 00 in the morning smoking and she smoked the entire day until 5 00 every single minute unless i had lunch, i was exposed to this smoke. Finally i said do you think you could smoke a little less . Andlooked at me glaringly said my right is to smoke. I will smoke as much as i like and she never stopped. I turned to her and said i have the right to breathe, dont i . She did not honor me in my rights. I learned that important lesson when i was 17. Smokingely, they banned in offices. It was a very personal, strong story, but i felt helpless. I was 17, i did not feel protected. Whatever we do, and i know it is difficult and i support Second Amendment rights and ownership of guns, i think it is important. I dont disregard it, but i really think we have to relook at this, especially with children. We have to protect children and help them not be fearful. For is my reason for not relaying the story. Smoking,e still believe me, but it is not in the office. Host story from the New York Times on campaign 2020, trump bars Bloomberg News from campaign events. Trump said it would bar Bloomberg News journalists from attending rallies and attempt to retaliate against their decision to cease investigating Democratic Candidates in the wake of its billionaire owners entry in the 2020 race. The president this morning ni Mike Bloomberg invest instructed his organization not to investigate any democrat. The failing New York Times thinks that is ok. Mike inun laws, this is virginia. Welcome. Caller yes, hi. Dont attack the gun laws, i attack the media for promoting the idea of killing people and if you turn on the tv for , you get anyable minute of the day you turn on and it is shooting and shooting and leaving bodies on the landscape. The moral lesson to the youth watching this, that is the way to get ahead. I worked with youth in shelters and home programs in trying to say,oubled youth, i should roommate 20s. Up through mid 20s. Tv and there was a shooting scene or criminal scene, they run to the tv, right up to the screen to watch. There is a love of killing we to the redirect and that there are more wholesome ways to make a living then to promote murder. Host tyler, texas, we say good morning to bob. Caller yes, good morning. Thank you. This is all real simple. The law we need is the law that we are ignoring. It is the first law in the new york in the u. S. Code, page 1, the second sentence. Any time our legislators or anybody interferes with that law , they are violating the intent and therefore the article 6 substance of protecting unalienable rights. I used to be consumed with the constitution, but we have to get back to our original law, the law that became the reason for why the constitution was written and that was to protect our unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Anything that infringesanythingn protecting life in any way i choose to protect my life, is unconstitutional according to article six. Bob host bob in texas. We showed you comments from President Trump, he is in the nato summit in london. We will hear from defenses ben friedman about the meeting and how press he has influence the organization. Recent hear from a report from Virginia Commonwealth University which is announced a dramatic increase in Life Expectancy. Ecus steven woelfel join us later to explain that. The house impeachment inquiry hearings continue this week on cspan. Tuesday, the House Intelligence Committee will vote in a closed door session to send their findings on President Trump to the house Judiciary Committee. Wednesday, live at 10 00 a. M. Eastern, the house Judiciary Committee led by Gerald Nadler will hold a Public Inquiry hearing on the constitutional grounds for president ial impeachment, and will hear testimony from lawmakers. Lawla s carlin of stanford school, Michael Gerhardt from the university of North Carolina school of law, and Jonathan Turley of the George Washington University Law school. Follow the impeachment inquiry. Watch live on cspan3, online at cspan. Org, or listen on the free cspan radio app. Announcer cspans Student Competition is in full swing. Across the country, middle and High School Students are hard at work creating short documentaries on issues they would most likely president ial candidates to address in their campaigns. Take us behind the scenes your photos. For a chance to win additional cash prizes. Still working on an idea . We have resources on our website to help. Our Getting Started page has information to guide you through the process of making a documentary. One hundredaward thousand dollars in total cash prizes including a 5,000 grand prize. All eligible entries must be uploaded and received by january 20, 2020. Toyou are never too young have an opinion, so let your voice be heard. Announcer for more information, go to our website. Announcer washington journal continues. Trump attendsdent the nato summit, we are joined by ben friedman. President trump arriving there early this morning. The nato summit ben friedman he has already had an influence on the organization reflected here in the washington examiner, nato announces a 30 million increase in spending defense spending in advance of the president s arrival. Guest nato leaders have learned to deal with trump better over the last few years. Announcing spending increases that might have been likely for other reasons, and attributing them to him so he can take credit for things. I think that helps them get along with him. Nato has increased spending substantially. U. S. Nato, since since 2016 has gone up billions, they say a lot of that is inflation in the response to what russia did in ukraine. I do not know how much of it is really due to trauma. It is nice to say it is due to trump. Host in addition to the spending, what do you think the administration, and President Trump explicitly specifically his goals are . What areas of policy do you think he guest i am not sure. It is always hard to predict this president s agenda. The allies to spend more is his main thing when it comes to nato. An United States is in which isere symbolically important to the Trump Administration. Other than that, i am not sure with the aim is. There is a lot talked about in terms of turkey and other problems that face nato, but it is unclear where President Trump is on those issues. Viewers, thend our nato with the administration calling for those countries to step up to 2 on spending for nato. Those meeting that so far, the u. S. , the u. K. , greece, estonia, romania, lithuania, poland and bulgaria. Ben friedman, youre with the defense priorities, the policy director. What is your organist tell us about your organization, your purpose, and your view of the u. S. Role in nato. Guest it is a relatively new think tank that is going. The focus is on promoting a more realist restrained u. S. Foreign policy. When that comes to nato, our general prescription has been that the United States ought to do less. Spend less, have fewer forces in europe to encourage the europeans to deal with the limited military threats that they face now. Thatnk what i would say is we test for a long time, even prior to trump have always yelled at the europeans to spend more. Should not be so rhetorical. We should say we want to do less, if you want to do more you can, but we will let you make your own choices by doing a bit less for you. Host ukraine has been the center of the impeachment inquiry with the aid allegedly held up. It was held up at some point for whatever reason. How important of an ally do you think ukraine is . Legally speaking, it is not an ally. It is a country that the United States supports with military and other aid. Ukraine is not in the Nato Alliance. This agreement going back to the end of the cold war, we said we will not violate their sovereignty but we do not pledge to do what we did through the nato treaty which is defended militarily in the event of an attack. A large country. It has a lot of Energy Resources and other things but i do not think it is vital to u. S. Security by any stretch. When it comes to impeachment, it is important to keep two things separate. One is that we can have a debate where reasonable people can disagree about what they write policy is, whether we should send military aid to ukraine. Notobama administration was for that right away. He ultimately authorized some of it. We can at the same time say, of course we should not trade aid for campaign help or an investigation on biden. I think we can talk about policy and talk about abusing it separately. Host how about russia . Are they more of a threat, or potentially more of a partner to the United States . Guest theyre not much of a partner, but reached keep their threat in perspective. Things,oes a lot of bad annoying things. Hacking, getting involved in our elections, they are terrible to their journalists and other people in russia who dissent from the putin line. But, they are not the soviet union. They have a gdp that is smaller than italys by a good deal. They have a military that is large, but they do not spend too much on it compared to germany. They have a smaller military budget than germany. Taking u. S. Out of nato, russias defense spending is about 1 5 of nonu. S. Nato. There are not coming for the rest of europe the way we feared the soviet union did in the 1950s. I believe the european powers have plenty of money and capability to meet that threat without a lot of alarm like we see in washington. Host we are talking about the nato meetings and the u. S. Role in nato. 202 7488000 for republicans. 202 7488001 four democrats. For all others, 202 7488002. We will get to your calls in just a minute. French president mccrone made news in speculating who were the ,nemies of nato, he said russia china, is that the goal of nato to designate them as enemies . I do not believe so. Our common enemy today is terrorism which has had which has hit each of our countries. He was mad about how President Trump dealt with turkey on the issue of syria. When he made the braindead comments that made got so much press. Nato has always been braindead in northern at it operates by consensus. Trying to operate by consensus with that many members is going to be inherently difficult. It is going to be especially difficult when you have i think its braindead messes largely in response to its success. I think we should celebrate the circumstances in europe. Terrorism is a problem, nationalism, oldfashioned nationalism is a problem, but for the most part europe is a pretty safe place. That is reflected in you could some of this used the term brain dead, but some of the squabbling within nato be due to the fact that all of these years the United States has taken a leadership role in nato and now President Trump asking for them to step up their defense spending, but in other areas they are asking for european nations to take early. Take the lead. Guest part of it could be that the United States more ambivalent position under trump. We have always asked for more money, he is just more obnoxious about it. Deeperblems in nato are than this president or even president erdogan in turkey, are some passing problem. Toblems are that they are met too many countries and it , frankly, to organize coherent military power. Not a giant threat that would shake people and make people and their complacency. I am not sure if you are belgium and you are far from the soviet union i am sorry coming from russia, you know, why should you spend more than 1 gdp on defense . Host do you think political upheaval hasitical also been a factor . Iest the political upheaval think in various i am not sure what countries you mean, but say hungry or a lot turkey where we had this rise of authoritarianism is problematic for the coherence of nato, certainly. Countriesas if those are demanding to leave nato. Turkey is doing a lot of problematic things. Turkey is buying weapons from the russians. Turkey is not listening to the nato allies, not listening to the United States. It is unclear on how to behave towards the kurds in syria. At the same time, they would like to stay in the alliance. It does not hurt them. There has always been they have always been a bad ally. Host the nato meeting is underway. 202 7488000 four republicans. Mcgrath, 202 7488001 democrats, 202 7488001. For others, 202 7488002. The president answered questions this morning, here is some of what he said. Pres. Trump the United States is paying 4 , some people would say 4. 3 percent of the largest gdp there is in the world by far. To a level that nobody thought was possible. We are paying 4 four. 3 when germany is playing paying 1. 2 of a much smaller gdp. That is not fair. It is not fair also when you have the European Union making. P things in the same countries the European Union treating the United States unfairly on trade. The deficit for many years for decades the deficit for many years has been astronomical with the United States and europe in their favor. I am changing that. I am changing it rapidly but it is not right to be taking advantage of nato paired also, than to be taking advantage of on trade. We cant let that happen. We are talking to the European Union and we are talking to various countries paired we are talking to the European Union about trade. They have to ship up. Otherwise, things are going to get tough. The president not only talking to the European Union, and announcing trade measures against the eu. Guest it is not surprising that he would complain about the terms of trade. That has been a staple of his rhetoric. Tohas said that he wants negotiate bilaterally with European Countries, the europeans say they cant do because the eu puts us into a block that prevents sp now we are negotiating with the u. K. As they brexit. It is all kind of par for the course for trump. He said in that clip that weve spend 4. 3 of our gdp on defense, that is not true. It is Something Like 3. 5 . We are getting richer. Saying what percent of your gdp you spend is your effort is misleading or confusing because every year there is not a recession my most years we have economic growth, we should be nding more on defense come we spend seven times as much on defense of than the 1950s. Germany, i am not sure we want germany to spend more on defense. Maybe a little more. Still not completely free about its concerns about germany. If they spend 20 of their gdp that would alarm people. Host there were reports ahead of the meeting that germany was going to increase spending, correct . Guest i think they talked about making a mild increase. German leadersnd have said fairly alarmist things. A year and a half ago, it was merkel who was making headlines for saying germany might have to do things on its own, or look to europe more rather than nato. That caused a bunch of concern in washington. I think we should welcome that. We should welcome europeans as europe. During doing more on its own. That was the goal at the beginning of the cold war, the United States was in favor of. We wanted a European Army at one point. I think we should be ok with europeans organizing themselves and spending a greater dear collectively a greater deal collectively if that is what they want to do to be a more coherent organization and set up blocking the mess we have done through nato. Host we have calls waiting period we will start with len from woodmere, new york. Caller good morning. To start with, we are talking with trumps narratives. We take baseless claims, distorted facts, and we try to explain how the right or wrong is significant paired beyond that i think we have to look at the reality he is talking talking points. We have to watch what the baseline intent here. When weurther say that had benghazi hearings, they were to weakenand intended Hillary Clinton. There is no reason to stop with the current ukraine story on impeachment which can go through until the election. There are so many issues to bring up to impeach this president upon. Helsinkintion the meeting where he talked about trusting Vladimir Putin instead of the intelligence sources. Guest i think on the putin talking points, trump is has obviouslyrump taken a warmer approach toward russia than most leaders. That has been a source of controversy, i dont need to get into all of that. What is interesting is it is macron saying nato is braindead and complaining about the lack of focus, and trump who is defending nato today saying those were nasty comments. It is a little bit of a role reversal. Nots macron saying russias the main nav of nato which doesnt make sense because nato is a military alliance and fighting terrorism in europe is not something you do with maybees or air forces, so nato has an intelligence function that might be useful. For the most part sure itcase, i am not is trump who is the prorussian. Host how large our nato forces . Guest it depends. Are we talking manpower . Host manpower. Guest nato forces combined have about several times as much manpower as the russians do in their active forces leaving out the United States for nato. If we put in the United States, it is double that. The United States itself has about one million active troops. Russia has about 900,000, and the rest of nato forces have less than the United States. Host we have a steady military presence in terms of staff and officials in nato at brussels, correct . Guest the United States delegation in brussels, we have 50,000 troops roughly stationed in europe. That worthy pointing out the Trump Administration, with all of the president s rhetorical ambivalence about nato has actually increased the number of troops in europe. We have kept all the ones we had , and we have added a few in poland and eastern europe. On the u. S. Ut back commitment. He has just kind of yelled at them. I think in some ways we can miss the actual actions because of the rhetoric. Host roger is next. Salina, kansas. Good morning. Caller good morning. I was going to mention i feel like trumps over there trying to represent United States. I dont feel like these impeachments things should go on during that time. When he is in a foreign country, we should try to focus on things that are positive in our country. It is not a big deal to wait two or three days and then bring up your impeachment if you have to keep going. That is all he wanted to say. I just feel like and he just brought up the point how we are over 50 of nato. I think we should have a big voice there. We are the big boy in the room. Trump needs to go in there and let everyone know that we are the big boy. Yeah. We have the biggest voice in nato. I do not think that is in much danger of changing. We ought to have a smaller one because of geography. The United States does not have to abandon nato, or something dramatic like that. We can say we have been reducing the number of forces we have in europe steadily, quietly since the end of the cold war. I think we should continue and say we do not need all of these Ground Forces there. You guys were rich at the beginning of the cold war, these are different circumstances. The soviet union had a massive advantage in raw military power. It was a big threat to germany. The european powers were broke and the United States came in to fill in the gap. Both militarily and economic aid. Now, it is a different situation where we agree to defend them and they agree to let us. I think we can set i think we can cut back substantially in europe would be just fine in terms of security because of the limits of the russian threat as an actual military. Host next from upper marlboro, maryland. Caller good morning guys. Trump attacking Angela Merkel attacking germany and our allies is an affront to commonsense peer nato was created before 1949. It is supposed to be a collective defense supporting allies against the russian threat. Playing to a domestic base peer at he wants people in the United States to look and say he is a tough guy, but a lot of it is longterm. The treaties have longterm the russia, although we dont call them the ussr, they have those tendencies to attack that enables us. President trump has to have a strong goal up there in nato and just attacking everybody. There is no problem about the 2 . I do not know what. It is more about having that defense because i do not see pruden going against belarus. I do not see putin attacking his own bat back. I think he needs to just pretty much just look at it like it is a treaty that has been there for a long time and it is going to be thereafter all of us. It needs to be refined a little bit, however we could just need to continue to maintain the pack. Guest i agree with the caller that nato will probably survive long survive a long time regardless of its problems. Since the cold war, we have over and over again people say nato has lost its purpose, nato is in crisis, nato is in perpetual crisis but it does not go away. It has continued, unwisely in my view, to expand. You could say it has become a zombie organization. I am not sure it ever wasnt, but i think it is going to last because the politics that make people support nato have not fundamentally changed. The politics that makes European Countries say they want to be part of it, the power the power that makes european nations say they want to contribute. The u. K. Had brexit, nobody talks about getting out of nato. It is still possible, even here. I think it is going to last even if it is dysfunctional. Host the headline in usa today, cracks in natos arbor begin to show. Nato has agreed to reduce the United States contribution. 16 216 from 22 . Likevers things headquarters in brussels and joint military exercises. President trump, as he has in the past, praising the secretarygeneral. Pres. Trump i think he is doing a fantastic job. I am a big fan. His contract was extended, i was happy about that. Hes doing a fast and that she is doing a fantastic job. He is doing a fantastic job. Through work and negotiation we have increased the budget of other than the usa because we are paying more than anybody else. Even as a percentage of gdp. We have increased the numbers that other have made by 130 billion. It was going down for close to 20 years. It was like a roller coaster down, not up. That went on for a long time. You would not have had a nato if you kept going that way. I believe he did that incredibly well and i am happy to have helped. Host how do you think you and has let the president earn his respect . Guest stoltenberg has views that overlap with trump. Stoltenberg is a hawkish guy and it is easy for him to say yes, it is terrible. We do not spend more, it is a disgrace and to say we are going to do more and to be in trumps corner on the issue of how much European Countries contribute. In that sense, i think it is easy for him to get along with trump. I guess he has handled the relationship fairly well. Just agreeif you with trump and say youre going to do what he says, you have a good chance of pleasing him even if you do not actually mean what you say and two years later you have not done anything. The additional 400 billion that the european nonus european powers say theyre going to spend on the fence by 2024, i would be surprised if they actually spent that much money in terms of where they are now. I am not sure that the pledges are going to be i am skeptical the pledges will be realized. Host silver spring, maryland. Alex on the republican line. Caller good morning. I have two questions. I think that there was a narrow window of opportunity in the 1990s and the early 2000s before putin became unpopular in which russia could have been invited to join nato. The first question is, why do you think russia was never invited if it was, why it never chose to join nato with the rest of the countries during the expansion . Question, which the answer to your first one will reflect, how much do you think russians russias Foreign Policy decisionmaking is influenced by the expansion of nato and natos activities in and around russias greater sphere of influence . Host i appreciate that. Guest it is true that prior to anden taking over in russia the relations between the u. S. And russia getting worse, which has happened in recent years, there was occasional talk about well maybe russia should join nato. I think that that was never likely, for reasons that exist on both sides. Russia as a with member would have no clear purpose. Would be say that that a way to sort of destroy it because if you expand to everyone including your enemies the new sort of destroyed the function of the organization. I am not sure there was real desire for that in the west. Think there was much enthusiasm for it in russia either, given the history of nato being allied against them and the soviet union. I think has hurt relations with russia a great deal. It is hard to say how much it matters and how much is just for show, but i do think that expansion to the baltics and to the prospect of nato and the eu expanding to ukraine, which is something that has been talked about for more than a decade. Thus prospect of expansion to georgia, which is the official position of nato that philip that it will expand. Those drive the russians up the wall. They feel that nato is encircling them and that they are expanding into their near broad and that it is a direct threat to russia. Even if you disagree, you have to take their concerns seriously if you want to get along with them. I think it was a mistake to expand nato to the doorstep of russia. Host the russians are selling weapons to a nato member, turkey, correct . Guest i think the russians sell air Defense Systems to a lot of people. Yeah, they are selling air Defense Systems to turkey. There is not an official rule that says you do not buy weapons from enemies of the alliance, but i am pretty sure there is an unofficial one. Turkey has been behaving as if they do not think they are nato anymore. They have been behaving that way thateir actions in syria offend the views of most leaders of nato countries. Going to act like they are not part of the Nato Alliance, then maybe the Nato Alliance should change its view of how we are going to deal with turkey. You cant throw them out, that is impossible. It would have to agree to be ejected, but you could say youre going to do things differently visavis turkey and maybe take weapons out and show them that we do not plan to defend them at least until they behave. Ast our guest, ben friedman graduate of Dartmouth College and a phd candidate in Political Science at m. I. T. Formerly with the cato institute, and now the policy director at defense priorities in washington. Autumnal, iowa next up. Kim on the independent line. Caller i have a question. Reagan gots when the wall torn down and gorbachev when putinsident, came in after gorbachev, that is the reason why he was pruden was kicked out of the alliance . Was kicked out of the alliance . Because it was a dictatorship in the president s of the United States did not want to deal with a dictator, they wanted to bring him along but he chose not to go along. I wanted to know that question. When did putin come into office gorbachev was partnered with reagan. I understand in the 2000 bush said he could see his soul. Force yelton was also in therebetween gorbachev and put gorbachev and putin pruden had a lot to do with putins rise had to deal with the way experience the postcold war. Postcold war period. Still technically a democracy despite the authoritarianism. Of a dictatorship, or at least distant from being a democracy during the cold war than it is today. The distancek between the United States and russia, compared to the cold war, has anything to do with dictatorship. It has to do with the way putin has governed the country, at least on some things that are perceived as threatening to that it states. I should say that his autocratic toe is clearly a problem most people in the west, but my point is that the soviet union itself was substantially more autocratic. We never had an alliance with russia and we do not now. It seems pretty distant. Of course, we did in world war ii, but today it is distant and does not seem like we will be back soon. To keepways interesting an eye on these nato meetings. Ben friedman with the defense priorities. Thank you for being with here to talk about it. The House Intelligence Committee releasing its report today on impeachment. That will be coming up this evening. They will vote on it this evening. There is already a republican response. We will talk about that momentarily. We would like to hear from you on the issue. Republicans, 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. , 202 dents and others 7488002. We will be right back. House impeachment inquiry hearings continue this week on cspan. Tuesday, the House Intelligence Committee will vote in a closed door session to present their findings on President Trump to the Judiciary Committee. Wednesday, live at 10 00 a. M. Eastern, the Judiciary Committee led by Jerrold Nadler will hold a Public Inquiry hearing on the constitutional grounds for president ial impeachment and will hear testimony from law professors. Nora feldman of harvard. Pamela carlin of stanford. Michael gerhardt from the university of North Carolina school of law. Jonathan turley of the George Washington University Law school. Follow the impeachment inquiry. Watch live on cspan3, online at cspan. Org, or listen on the free cspan radio app. Cspans Student Competition is in full swing. Across the country, middle and High School Students are hard at work creating short documentaries on the issues they would most likely most like the 2020 candidates to address. Share your photos. Still working on an idea . We have resources on our website. Started page has information to guide you through the process of making a documentary. Inpan will award 100,000 total cash prices prizes. All entries must be received by midnight on january 20, 2020. The best advice i could give young filmmakers is not to be afraid to take your issue seriously. Youre never too young to have an opinion. Announcer for more information, go to our website. Announcer washington journal continues. Host the Intelligence Committee in the house will meet this evening to hear their reports approve the report. The democratic report written by the majority in the Intelligence Committee or that will happen behind closed doors. That will be advanced to the Judiciary Committee which will hold its first public hearing tomorrow. Our live coverage of that will be on cspan3. Here is how you become part of the conversation, 202 7488001 four republicans. For democrats. Or others, 202 7488002 heres the headline in the washington times. Gop House Republicans rained on democrats impeachment parade by releasing information that acks apart the impeachment by that has a smear campaign. The president criticized democrats for not alfred is first up from california on the independent line. Caller good morning thank you for taking my call. I want to complement cspan because you guys are you are not biased. You let both ways and the people decide. One, the House Intelligence Committee with adam schiff, they had it all kangaroo court. It is obvious. Everything was underneath the bunker. The American People only got to hear what adam schiff wanted, and now it is jerry nadler. It looks like a cu. We are not stupid. Up. It looks like a co when the president is in nato it is not a coincidence. You can tell it is set up. Democrats with the and also republicans p but mostly democrats because i see what theyre doing. For two and a half years, they have not done nothing for us. Not one single thing. It is all about investigations my impeachment. Do you think that President Trump would actually release that transcript if he had something to hide . There is nothing to hide. It has all been a hoax. They wanted Hillary Clinton to win. Host yesterday after the president the president s attorney released a letter that they would not dissipate in the hearing. Nadler released a statement that read in part late last night the president and his counsel turned down our invitation to participate. His response is unfortunate because allowing the president to participate has been a priority for the house on the outset. That is by the house included the opportunity to present to participate in hr 660. If president thinks the call was perfect and there is nothing to hide, then he would turn over thousands of pages of documents requested by congress, allow witnesses to testify instead of blocking testimony with baseless privilege claims, and provide exculpatory information that refutes the overwhelming evidence of his abuse of power. In houston, texas, tony on the republican line. Caller good morning. Im calling in on the republican formercause i am a democratic voter. I am 63yearold. I am a black man. I voted for jimmy carter. I voted for president ial candidates on the democratic side since. I even voted third party, i voted ralph nader and Jesse Jackson when he ran in the 80s i will no longer vote for a exceeds me,rt vote for aing to democratic republican candidate, i am voting republican. Impeachment circus is what it is. Thatthe public finds out the American Public is now supporting financially citizens of the ukraine. I do not know whether they are supporting us because i have not gotten a check but it is nice to know that our tax money and politicians are being distracted to the ukraine now. Most people in america would not even know where to find it on a map, let alone what it is and who they are. Not vote for did donald trump but i will be voting for him and 2020 along with a large segment of conservatives, former democratic black voters. Even for us, this is absolutely ridiculous. He is meeting european nato members and telling them, look, you have to pay more or we are going to pay less. Host tony in texas. He mentioned that he had voted for jimmy carter. News today that the former president is back in the hospital. Hospitalized for a urinary tract infection, according to a headliner from politico. We go to dorothy in raleigh, North Carolina. Caller thank you. Give me just a minute. Arst of all, you have got couple of collars that are saying things that are not true. And then i want to talk about impeachment. First, democrats do not did not run congress for two and a half years. The republicans rented for six years, i believe, until january this past. Democrats were not stopping anything or even getting any investigations. It was the republicans investigating trump for two years. What the guy said about a kangaroo court, this is the thing, the money was appropriated by congress. They knew nothing about Trump Holding the money up for any reason. None of them. Republicans or democrats. They found out through a whistleblower he was holding it up. If you was holding it up for corruption, they should that that was he was doing. He never mentioned corruption. What solves the problem when he released it . What was the corruption they claim he was holding it for . What got resolved in ukraine . Nothing. He let it go once the whistleblower came and he got caught. Say let me do this and i will let the money go because nobody was holding the money for corruption in the first place. Congress should have known it only him and rudy knew what the plan was. That is the problem. If he was doing it in an honest way he would have told congress i am holding the money, nobody knew about it until he got caught. It is not a kangaroo court. Host dorothea North Carolina. Reporting from the Los Angeles Times with their headline, Duncan Hunter says he will plead guilty in Campaign Finance scandal and leave congress. After years of denials and claims that he was the target of a political witchhunt, Duncan Hunter is scheduled to appear in federal Court Tuesday morning, this morning, to plead guilty in a sweeping investigation. The announcement was posted on the u. S. District court docket this morning. Aired an interview in which he said he would plead guilty to one of the 60 criminal charges against him. Time likely he will spend in custody per the reversal comes six months after hunters wife and Campaign Manager admitted to her role in a where the scheme couple allegedly spent more than 200,000 in Campaign Donations on family expenses like vacations, gas, groceries, and oral surgeries. Such spending is prohibited to prevent undue influence by contributors. Richard in spartan, new jersey. Caller good morning. I would like to speak about how we got here. In the last 20 years, donald trump has been to russia at least six times, i am sure he has been there dozens of times talking to oligarchs for finance. In 2008, both of trumps sons saidmost of the finances most of the finances were coming from russia. Trump is a businessman who believes in quid pro quo. Many people are saying that putin asked for a favor. The favor is, you run for president , we help you win. That is what happened. Now we have got him and that is russia andt comes to any of our dealings, and syria and ukraine, dissing our intelligence agencies all in favor of russia. These are not hard. To connect. Hard dots tonot connect. He won using the fascist playbook. You can look it up. That is what we have right now. Certainly these are the said ok, eastern ukraine, that is what putin is saying. I think his supporters are going to be disappointed when they find out that this guys biggest fan is benedict arnold. Host brooklyn, new york. Your thoughts on the impeachment. Make sure you mute your television and go ahead. Otherwise, you will confuse everybody. Caller yes hello. Process int understand that the democrats stood they want to rush it through because they are unsatisfied with what they have so far. Theever happened to all of items in the Mueller Report . Congress has access to it. Would make ithat even more powerful. Host the Washington Post is reporting on that. Democrats debate widening articles of impeachment, some want include mueller findings. House democrats are debating whether to expand the impeachment hearings to include charges of abuse of power. As the party races to impeach President Trump by christmas. Read more at washingtonpost. Com. Monmouth, new jersey, hello there. Gary . Caller how are you doing . Host fine, go ahead. , iler my question is watched the nixon impeachment, the clinton impeachment, now we are at the trumpet now we are at the trump impeachment. Kavanaugh, george bush. Trump stands accused of withholding it. President obama in the middle of the night transferred 1. 5 million in cash to the arminians. To the iranians. That is a bribe. With no approval from the senate, the house. I want to know what is going on. Party do know can one what another party cant . Reportedly that 1. 5 million was iranian money in u. S. Banks. Guest yeah, yeah. No, the think of it was it was also withheld by congress. Had all of those weree held captive that awarded by the court money. Not one dime went to them. As far as i am concerned it was a bribe to get in the door for the Iranian Nuclear deal. Obama is the one who let russians into a ran commit into whoa obama is the one let russians into iran and syria. Sea, turning military bases. Host the story in iran is not about the nuclear deal. Streets. Ke to the this is a call for change, an iraqi woman protesting in to chooses efforts a new prime minister. The house Judiciary Committee meets wednesday to take up the impeachment report from the Intelligence Committee and also to consider the constitutional role and duties. Our live coverage tomorrow, cspan3, beginning at 10 00 a. M. Radio andso on cspan cspan. Org. They will hear from four legal scholars. Pamela carlin, stamford moscow. Michael gerhart, university of North Carolina. Jonathan turley who was on this program last week. He is a law professor at George Washington university. Talk about the constitutional standards for impeachment. I have written on impeachment as an academic. I did the last impeachment trial. Job, but iteat comes with a burden. You try to get it right. You try to tell people what the standard is. That means in many ways you are not going to Say Something that pleases either side. If your goal if you going to the blog i write for, you will find i am being criticized by both trump and antitrust people. That means i probably have it right. These are serious days. We cannot act on impulse. I am not defending trump. Trump can be impeached on abuse of power, but we have to think seriously about what standard will be left in the aftermath. You do not want a standard that is so low and illdefined that any president can be impeached by the will of congress to that is what people like medicine struggled to prevent. We are living in the age of rage. Whatever mistakes we have made in terms of the people that lead us, we need to leave the constitution out of it. Protect that document above all because that is the reason we are still here. Host you can see Jonathan Turley among the four professors to testify tomorrow. We go to kathy in englewood, florida. Caller hello. They have all of these attorneys that are going to be testifying. Host right . Caller i was wondering, they are handpicked so if i am hoping that one of them will come through and be honest and not be like a democrat hack. Understand that three of the attorneys were selected by the democrats, and one attorney by republicans. Get one pic . Thats good. Hopefully they are going to be a loud voice. A voter base so brainwashed that the candidates ,romised to take their taxes disarm them, leave the borders open, and they will still float for democrats. It does not make sense to me at all. I cant understand why anybody would be a democrat in todays society. Host we will go to a democrat in flint, michigan. Here is david. Caller good morning cspan. Just like the former lady said she cant understand why anybody would be a democrat, i cant understand how anybody in the United States can be a republican. Know that we have a president that has been led by putin from russia. Of like theall nancy pelosi says all roads lead to russia with this president. I think this will go down in history as the worst mistake United States ever made, electing summary calling themselves, saying he is supposed to be a businessman. He does not know the constitution, dont know none of the u. S. Rules. I support the democrats. Shift i think adam schiff had done a beautiful job with the impeachment. I think he is highly intelligent. I enjoyed it. I cant wait i want the democrats to be tougher. It seems like we are always cautious, and the republicans conniving, we are trying to be professional all the time but sometimes you have got to get dirty and fight back. Host we will go to our republican line. Bill in sherwood, oregon. Caller thank you for letting me speak. In my family, we have always voted republican. My father calls us up and says are you voting republican . We sure are. And the whole family votes whatever dad says. The republicans have always been a party of fiscal responsibility and doing the right thing. The moral act. Well, i thinkg, turkey is in trouble for doing things with letting the troops go south. Was thatnted to say the republicans have always been fiscal responsibility and doing the moral act. Trump,rite president , now doing what the soviets want . I think putin brainwashed our president. Putin has changed our country lies as the truth and the truth as lies. Europe tot he done in correct europe away from democracy. Host reporting from breitbart and other news organizations on another report that is set to barrout, a report ag disagrees on whether trump surveillance was justified. They write that the attorney general reportedly disagrees with the with the finding by the Inspector General report that the fbi had sufficient reason to monitor the Trump Campaign p the fbi conducted surveillance on Trump Campaign associates including Foreign Policy aide carter page on the basis of suspicions that the campaign may have been colluding with russians to interfere with the election. Silver spring, maryland, mark. Caller hi. Hows it going . I just wanted to respond to the argument about how we do not want impeachment used for political purposes. So, we dont like the guy. Wed disagree with his politics. I do not think that is what is going on. I am an independent. Politics thinga i would say vote him out next november, but the way that he is conducting himself in office is a violation of norms, undermining institutions, i think if he had his way he would censor the press entirely. These are not american values. Of thatrelations, all stuff, that is why we should impeach him not because we disagree with his politics. I just wanted to respond to that. Next tomorrow i guess theyre going to try to impeachment hearings. Host thanks mark. That will be tomorrow at 10 00 eastern. Woolley, also on the independent line in jacksonville, florida. Because aam calling lot of people have been missing the point with the russia thing. When you are dealing with somebody that is a dictator and he invades another country, he is not going to stop. We waited to get involved was back when germany was doing their thing. We almost lost that one. We are in a position to where, yes, sometimes it becomes a nuisance that we have to get involved around the world. But, that is the position we put ourselves in. When donald trump and the stuff he was doing, and trying to use the office for his own gain, that is not how it should be. I used to be a democrat my whole life, and i switched to independent for two reasons. Taxingt like this whole 75 , some of the stuff that is floating around, and i do not like the way they talk about removing guns. So i switched to an independent. So i disagree with a lot of things on both sides, but one thing we cannot disagree on, the president himself should be held to the highest standard on the board. Point blank. He has the most power on this planet. You cannot have somebody with questionable morals sitting in that seat. That is all i have to say. Host more ahead here on washington journal. Coming up next, we will be joined by dr. Steven wolf from Virginia Commonwealth University discussing their new study on Life Expectancy in the u. S. That is on the way. The house impeachment inquiry hearings continue this week on cspan. Tuesday, the House Intelligence Committee will vote in a closeddoor session to send their findings on President Trump to the house Judiciary Committee. Wednesday, live at 10 00 a. M. Eastern, the house Judiciary Committee will hold the Public Inquiry hearing on the constitutional grounds for president ial impeachment and will hear testimony from Law Enforcement professors. Michael gerhard from the university of North Carolina school of law, and Jonathan Turley of the George Washington University Law school. Inquiryhe impeachment live on cspan3, online at cspan. Org, or listen on the free cspan radio app. The house will be in order. Years, cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court, and Public Policy events from washington dc and around the country so you can make up your own mind. Cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Cspan studentcam 2020 competition in full swing. Middleton High School Students are hard at work creating their short documentaries on the would that they most like the 2020 Campaign Candidates to address. Share your photos using the the chance2020 for to win additional cash prizes. Still working on an idea . We have resources on studentcam. Org with information to guide you through the process of making a documentary. Cspan will award 100,000 dollars in total cash prizes including a 5,000 grand prize. All eligible entries must be uploaded and received on january 20, 2020. Give toest advice i can young filmmakers is not to be afraid to take your opinion seriously. For more information, go to our website, studentcam. Org. Washington journal continues. Is one ofsteven woolf the lead authors in a report on Life Expectancy in the u. S. The Virginia Commonwealth University, the chart says working age americans are dying at higher rates, especially in economically hardhit states. The new vcu study identifies distinctly american phenomenon as mortality increases and u. S. Life expectancy continues to fall. What is this phenomenon that you found . Guest mortality rates are not supposed to be going up. For the past century, most wealthy countries with the u. S. Included, we have seen our Life Expectancy improve and death rates are supposed to be going down. This is backwards. Rates in theeath working age population increasing. Reversing years of progress that we have made in improving health. Host what was behind the study, why did you do it . Andt our center on Society Health as vcu studies Population Health trends over the years, so we have been tracking this for some time. We have been aware that manyhing has been awry for years. Recently, there has been Media Coverage about a decline in the u. S. Life expectancy which happened for three years in a row, but our Analysis Shows this is 10 years in the making. U. S. Teva falling behind in the 1980s. Host how does this tack up against other similar countries economically to the u. S. . Guest that is exactly the concern. Other high Income Countries have seen their life expectancies climb while this decrease in the u. S. Back in time in the 1980s, the u. S. And other countries were seeing their Life Expectancy improve, but in the 1980s, we started to lose pace with other countries. Our rate of increase are to fall off. Elow the had fallen b average and by 2000 11, we had plateaued and now we are decreasing. Meanwhile, the other countries are continuing to see their Life Expectancy climb. Host from the journal of american medicine, they write a major contributor has been an increase of mortality from specific causes. Drug overdoses, suicides, organ deficiency diseases, and the onset as early as the 1990s with the largest relative increases occurring in the ohio valley in england. The implications of increasing midlife mortality are broad, affecting working age adults, the economy, health care, and national security. The trends also affect children whose parents are likely to die midlife and whose own health could be affected when they reach that age or sooner. Midlife mortality rates, new hampshire, 23 . Maine, 21 . West virginia, 23 . Ohio, 22 . Indiana, 15 . Guest these are increases just since 2010. 2010 and 2017, we have seen host seven years. Guest exactly. Host we listed off a number of things but if you had to take off the top 12 or three, what would they be . Guest clearly, drug over doses, fueled by the Opioid Epidemic which was set in motion in the 1990s when oxycontin was licensed and lighted to a cascade of problems with opioids and holistic opioids like heroin and fentanyl. That is a major contributor but hardly the only one. We have seen increased death rates from alcohol related diseases and suicides in that cluster of three conditions, drugs, alcohol, and suicide have been called deaths of despair. We also found increases of death rates from dozens of organ diseases. Obesity, 35 causes of death were mortality rates have increased. Host and those organ system diseases, that gets to our lifestyle . Guest to some extent. Problems like obesity are a major contributor to these problems, but the mechanisms for some of the other diseases, some are related to health behaviors, some may be related to the quality of health care that people are able to obtain, and some of them have a lot to do with Living Conditions including our social environment. With us. Steven woolf talking about the increased mortality rates. The Virginia Commonwealth University study, he is one of the lead authors of this report. If you are under the age of 25, are 202 7488000, if you between 25 and 64, 202 7488001, and for all others, 65 and over, 202 7488002. We will get to your calls momentarily. Being around the the death rates that are reported around all 50 states around the country. Comesfe expectancy data from the u. S. Mortality database at comes from the centers for Disease Control and prevention. Our analysis goes back to 1959, the year after i was born, and longterm the perspective to get a sense of when this started. The other unique thing we did is we looked at the data not only for the country, but for all nine census divisions in all 50 states. This was intentional to help us locate which part of the country was most deeply affected. We think about American Health and u. S. Health statistics, it is shaped by 50 states. We wanted to try to understand which dates were driving the trend. Host we are talking about this this morning, you can read the report, societyhealth. Vcu. Edu. Does your report suggest solutions . Guest it was hard enough to document the scope of the problem. Our research did not focus on improving what the causes are, but we walked through a number of possibilities. Do mored needs to research to prove in a definitive way what the causes are, but there are breadcrumbs in the data. One has to do with the geography and the geographical footprint of where this is happening. The ohio valley seems to be ground zero for where a lot of this happened. We calculated how Many Americans had died what we call access deaths, because of the increase in 2010. Ofr states accounted for 1 3 the access deaths. Ohio, pennsylvania, kentucky, and indiana. Many other areas of the rust belt and appalachia were also affected. That makes us ask the question, why there . What is it about that part of the country that has been so deeply affected. We talk about potential explanations. Is areas where opioids are quite pleasant. They are all potential factors. Whereses of death mortality rates have increased, it really makes us wonder about a systemic cause. Host the New York Times publishing and online interactive about the class of 2000 in ohio and the School Yearbook as a staple of teenage life, but for some, it reflects the devastating toll of opioid crisis. They take the photos in this yearbook and go through some of the people that have been affected first in their lead, oxycontin just started showing up. Theue pharma introduced opioid painkiller in 1996 when a class of 2000 entered high school. Some students began experimenting often combining opioids with prescriptions. Times on the new york website. Guest one of the more disturbing findings and our our study, aged 25 to 34 is where we have seen the largest relative increase in mortality rates. 29 since 2010. Some of our data is beginning to show in late teens and early 20s that some of these numbers are creeping up. It is quite concerning. Host those of you under 25, 202 7488000. We will go to stephen in milwaukee. Thank you for waiting. Caller i have a couple of things. Practice at general internal medicine and n in and the milwaukee, oxycontin was a government created disaster because we did not have people, anything like a narcotic problem until the government let that stuff out. It was absolutely criminal. There is no use for it. People who have pain can take tylenol or percocet. If they had to take more than ay, there was not anybody who took percocet who needed to take it more than three times a day, and most of the time, they took it once or twice a day. Plus oxycodone just created all kinds of addicts. The other thing in terms of deaths, and i think it is a much bigger thing in terms of death, which in the cardiovascular sphere was [indiscernible] syrup. Orn guest which is what they call corn syrup. High fructose corn syrup. This is a poison. Pediatricthere is a endocrinologist working out of. Alifornia showingetabolic studies just how bad fructose is for you. Even though it is a natural six carbon sugar like glucose, the body has no idea what to do with fructose. Host we will let you go. Guest i think steven make some very important points. There is a parallel between those two issues. What happened with the opioids and also with high fructose corn syrup. Oure cases, we see where policies, both in terms of the private sector and promoting products, and our Public Policy converge to create some of the root causes of these problems. In the case of the Opioid Epidemic, they have a situation where drug manufacturers were promoting a product, and that is currently an investigation as to how much knowledge they already had about the potential dangers of the drug. And questions about regulatory bodies of the government were careful enough in scrutinizing the way the products were promoted. In a very gullible medical i am a physician myself, who fell victim to the advertising and feeling like it was important to prescribe the drugs. There you have this convergence instead of lax governmental oversight. Wethe case of obesity, believe that we are all personally responsible for what we put in our mouth, but we live in an environment where we are heavily influenced by production of the actual foodchain. Back in the 1970s, it led to highromotion of fructose corn syrup which became the predominant sweetener used in our food and may have been a big factor in fueling the obesity epidemic. That is a big drive in the trends we are seeing in the mortality. Those of you 25 to 64, our guest nicholas from new jersey. Caller i have a question for dr. Woolf. See aondering do you correlation between the United States becoming officially the most overworked society as compared to japan . And also what is preferred to as the blue zones, do you see a difference and access to health care and Infectious Disease care and how that affects our longevity . Host explain to us what a blue zone is if you know. Guest the caller is referring to what is the high Life Expectancy an am i right, caller . Host i let him go. Guest i do not know if we can say for sure whether the trends we are seeing are specifically due to that. It is true that in other countries, there is less intensive work culture, more vacation time, more time for family, but it is hard to tease out town much of what we are seeing out how much of what we are seeing is due to that, and how much is dealing with other policies to buffer the conditionshose without hurting their health. There is poverty in every country. People lose their jobs in every country. But the support systems to fall back on may be stronger in other countries than they are in the u. S. Where the culture tends to expect people to fend for themselves when they run to these problems. U. S. , where people report more stress whether it is psychological, physical stress. Guest there is increasing concern that stress is a big factor here. When we think about the geography of where this has happened, rust belt, areas where people have been struggling in the middle class with hard, economic deprivation for many years, that creates chronic stress. We also live in a social environment that creates chronic stress. For ourstress is bad body, and damages organs. The stress itself could be harming our health, and unhealthy coping behaviors in dealing with stress could be harmful. For some people, that means turning to alcohol or drugs as a way of dealing with their physical pain or psychic. For others, it might be turning to smoking, it may be over eating, and in some people, it may be acting out. We have seen increased homicide rates in this age group. Stress may be a root cause for a lot of the Health Problems. Host from pennsylvania, john, good morning. Caller how about death by gun . These other countries that are doing better than us do not have an nra or a Second Amendment. The Second Amendment is not a commandment, but it is an amendment and can be amended. Just recently, and philadelphia a 16yearold girl stepped off the bus and was shot to death. Lets bring up the gun issue, too. Thank you. Guest without getting too much into the politics because i hear there are some Politics Around the gun issue, the data clearly shows that the increase we are seeing in suicide rates in this age group and as i said a moment ago, the homicide rates, most deaths involves firearms. When we did our analysis looking at the state level mortality trends, one of the more interesting patterns that we , there were four states where it decreased. Those were the outliers coincidentally, those were states that have gun control protections. Those states did see their firearm related suicides decreased. Host how surprised were you and your colleagues on this . Guest to some extent, we were not surprised because we have been studying this issue for a few years and we have it on our radar. We were surprised by the pervasiveness of this problem, how many different conditions were showing this increase in mortality rates. When we get to the state level analysis, we were quite struck by this concentrated impact in very specific regions of the country. Host yeah, you mentioned the ohio valley. Guest and on the flipside, Pacific States where there was relatively little impact where folks seem to be faring pretty well. Host here is a visual representation of that as dr. Woolf was talking about, the increases barely at 0. California, here. And lighter shades in the northwest and the Mountain West states. I want to move this up and show because we were number of people waiting on the 25 to 64 line. This is a look at the mortality rates for that age group, going back 20 years. Over 360 per 100,000, correct . It is taking back up and it had gone down for many years, but here is the rise that dr. Woolf and his colleagues are reporting on. We will go to sun city, florida. Jason, welcome. Caller thank you for taking my call. I have two questions. About how many human beings little babies are born each day in the United States . And how may people die each day in the United States many people die each day in the United States . Guest i dont know those numbers off the top of my head. Host jenna, alexandria, virginia. Caller hi, thank you for taking my call. I am calling in as the granddaughter of italian immigrants. Ohio, andin northeast i consider what is going on up there to be a spirituality loss. I have had to move across the country and it is the diaspora that continues from my grandparents who came here looking for a better way of life. I am no longer in ohio. I have had to move around the country to retain employment. There was a study in pennsylvania about the people who banded together as italian ofigrants, and the rate Heart Disease was like nonexistent. And studied that group, and the spirituality in the group that gathered together to make sure each other was taking care of, i think it is significant. Move across the country so much and the frombility for our group the rust belt in ohio, i think it plays a significant role. Mother teresa said, there are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread, but more are dying for a little love. Thank you for covering this topic. Host thank you. Guest i do want to draw attention to an important point the caller made which is the importance of our social environment and social fabric. We have increasing Research Showing that social connectedness isnt good for your health and social isolation is good for your health and social isolation, being cut off from the spiritual support, is also important to our health. One of the theories why in the u. S. We are seeing this decline in health might have something to do with the lack of social support systems that may exist in the other countries where there is a tighter community, where you have more of a sense of people having your back. Especially in rural parts in our country, there is a big problem of social isolation and loneliness, but it is not restricted to rural areas. We have people who feel disconnected in ways that they might not have a decade ago. Host where you just looking at the numbers . Guest in this study, we are just looking at the numbers. This study was specifically looking at our national statistics. Host when do you think will be a follow on to this reporting . Guest it goes off in many directions. One particular question has to do with why the state Health Trajectory started diverging the way it did. We found this fascinating pattern where for example, new york, which has the third highest Life Expectancy in the country, back in the 1990s had a lower Life Expectancy and oklahoma. But they diverged, and new yorks Life Expectancy declined. We found even in adjacent states like alabama and georgia, Life Expectancy started separating and we want to understand what that is about. Host we have a conversation on this program about the closure of rural hospitals across the country and access to health care in rural areas. Is that a factor . Guest the Health Care System could be a very important explanation for this trend, and why we are having it in the u. S. And not other countries. Obviously, one of the big distinctions in our country is the lack of universal health care. We are also seeing this trend and the working age population and not so much among older adults and children, and i mention that because both of those groups have Stronger Health insurance protection. Host lets go to florida. Linda is next on the 65 and over line. Enke for joining in. Thank you for joining in. Caller i turned 65 this year. Genetica lot of it is brain damage due to the car crashes, guns, war. And weliving longer, have such a lack of medical care in some states that leave you to fend for yourself. Everything has those sweeteners and we do not know what chemicals have been sprayed on our vegetables because hardly anything is grown in our country anymore. ] you hit that one on the head. I cannot work anymore because of a traumatic brain injury that i did not cause. It is hard to get by. Host ok, thank you. That. I am sympathetic to people with traumatic brain injuries are more vulnerable to fall through the cracks of our health system, especially in this age group. You have stronger protections if you are older and have medicare and so forth. But in this working age population, and these are people who depend on those productive skills to employ themselves, they are vulnerable to falling through the cracks, and that has this Ripple Effect through their health and the health of their family. Host your report says that the death rates among infants and among older people are improved. Guest they are heading in the direction that we want to see and frankly, they are heading in the direction that working age mortality used to be heading which is decreasing. We have made Good Progress of lowering mortality rates for children, and among older adults, our mortality rates are heading in the right direction. 25 to 64 range, it would affect Life Expectancy . Guest it is already affecting Life Expectancy and that is the motivation for our study. We knew about the decrease in life except ncm wanted to understand what was driving it. Host next up is michael, deerfield, deerfield beach, florida. Caller i think it is wonderful that you are touching on this subject. This is the most important thing to each of us literally. It is our lives. It is an epidemic of self that ist because exactly what these people are doing. I wonder, the question for you childhooddoes adverse experiences tie in with your dok, and the other thing, you have any ability to look at former smokers . I came across some data in your longevity data that showed if you are a former smoker, there show gene set activated to thatased longevity, and t 110,uld not live pas but you have to quit before you die of cancer, of course. Geographically, doesnt that indicate some kind of a social epidemic in the sense that it is behaviorally transmitted, psychological trauma that is being conveyed socially in a much larger sense where it is affecting things across the board . And in that same vein, i wonder if you would consider coming down and looking at briar county, florida where we had the msd shooting. We have a School District that covers the entire county and we are in the process of implementing best practices right now. Our kids are usually being traumatized every single day, every week the typical student goes through some fire drill or emergency drill are and we are trying to combat that. I wonder if you could speak to those things. Guest that covers a lot of interesting points and i do not think we will have time to get into all of them. The one i want to focus on is what you started with, adverse childhood experiences. This is a term that is used to refer to the traumatic experiences that children have early in life, often during the first 1000 days of life, that shape their Health Trajectory over time. We talk about the life course perspective because we know those early years of Early Childhood have such a huge impact on what happens later, both in terms of teenage Health Problems and struggles with school, but later on with your risk of chronic diseases all the way up into old age. That becomes interesting in this particular mystery because we do not know whether this increase we are seeing and working age adults has something to do with what happened to them when they were young. There is an area of research called cohort analysis, so look at when were these people boren and what happened to them that might have precipitated their vulnerability to these Health Problems. That Early Childhood crucible becomes really good. Stephanie, hear from long beach, california. Caller happy thanksgiving to you all. This intersection of many, many factors of our society and for one, the lack of job security of people of middleage, especially in the midwest. Said, the effects of stress on the body, they lower your immune system, and leaves you susceptible for other disease, but worry and stress, and interestingly enough, there is a sense of shame that is very deeply felt, because they do not have job security, they cannot provide for their families. When you think that most people in this country cannot afford an emergency bill of 400, you know those families have incredible anxiety. Anxiety, they the self medicate, so you end up with people taking opioids, and i have to say that our government has a part in the isoid epidemic because it the Drug Enforcement agency that proves how much oxycontin can be produced. Other comments that she made. Guest we talked a lot about stress and social factors and emotional reactions to this, but we also just talk in practical terms. The area of the country that is feeling this is an area that has been hit hard by the economy. If you are a family that is struggling to make ends meet, there is a very practical consequence that you are going to have to struggle with housing costs, and that may mean that you are going to go to the doctor less often, you are less likely to be able to afford copayments, deductibles, and prescription medicines, so you will not do a good job of taking care of your high Blood Pressure or your diabetes. The question we have to get at is what do we have to do to bring support and ease the stress on families so that they economichave greater mobility, but greater health. Talkedalifornia caller about job security and that it was worse among men. Did your study find a differences between men and women . Guest for generations, men have always had higher death rates than women. That is the norm. What is disturbing here is that for many of these causes of death, the relative increase in death rates was higher in women than in men. This speaks to a potential explanation because in this new economy, women are more vulnerable than men because there are less support systems in place to help. We saw larger increases in people with less education, say a lack of a high school diploma. This is a population that is more vulnerable. Host lets go to kentucky, irene. Caller good morning, thank you for taking my call. Isess is a big part of what going with Peoples Health as well as drugs and alcohol and all of that. Givesof times, what People Stress is like an area where i live, there is nothing but minimum paying jobs, and that is all i worked at. I became disabled and now, i and it is771 a month, hard to pick which one you are going to do and which bill you have to pay. You just cannot eat healthy like you should on that kind of money. Guest i agree. The caller is calling from kentucky and this was one of those were states that i mentioned. And what she is speaking to is part of what we need to struggle with our policy. The previous generation that did not have this increase in working age mortality that if they put in an honest days work with their employer, they could count on job security, the ability to get their kids through school and see a Brighter Future for their children. We now live in an economy were all of that rug has been pulled is from under them, so there that psychic stress that creates , but real financial concerns that that creates an terms of protecting your health and the homes of your children. It speaks to policy priorities about doing more to support the middle class and provide good jobs that provide a livable wage rather than the current economic stresses these families are facing. Host how do you think the results of your study aligned with the figures of Health Care Costs in the u. S. , how much we spend per capita versus other countries . The p Peterson Foundation with the u. S. The top of the charts andcapita, 10,586, switzerland closer, then germany, austria, and netherlands. Guest i am not sure which year that data is coming from . Host july 2019. Gray back before i had a hair, there were charts showing the same data. Spending moreears on health care, and it emphasizes that health care is not the answer here. We overspend on health care but our people are living shorter lives and are sicker than people in other countries who spend far less on health care. That is because it, and i am saying this as a physician, health care only accounts for about 10 to 20 of our health. Our health is shaped by our Living Conditions and our environment. We are missing the point when we try to solve the problem by lavishing more money on health care. Host bill in morganton, georgia. Caller question four dr. Woolf. I am struck by the very large size of your cohorts, a 40 year theup, and also it longevity of the time of this study. Could you tell me what the change was in the mean and median age of the cohort over time. I am wondering if we just got older and average. Thank you. Guest very good question. I am not sure how much your audience wants to get in the weeds, but the basic notion that the caller is asking about is how our age distribution has changed. If our average age is getting higher, and shifting to an older age host Older Society guest that could make us look less healthy because people get older look less healthy. We have whats called age adjustment. So the increase we are seeing is already accounting for that change and age distribution which is the concerning part of it. Even after the adjustment, we are seeing large increases. Host chris is next in vermont. Caller good morning. I think i am a perfect example of what you are talking about. Reallyg companies are responsible for this. I was on fentanyl patch for 13 years. Cancer just made for patients and post surgery. Being on that heavy drug for 13 years, the last five years, i had no quality of life. I did not see friends, family, nobody. Then, i was on oxycodone for 13 years and i am getting off it right now, and i have been more healthy now than i have been in the last 15 to 20 years. Dont get me wrong, it was a blessing at first to be on this drug because it did take away the pain. Host chris, tell us how old you are and you are talking about 15 years, old were you when the pay treatment pain treatment started . Caller 2002. That was 17 years ago, so i was 47. Stuff, i think at the and on the last five years on fentanyl, it was slowly killing me and that is the way i felt, and that is the reason i got off of this drug. Now i am getting off of the oxycodone, and i am more healthy now than i have been. Thank god for the health of marijuana, this is what is helping me get off of the oxycodone. Thatl so much better and is just what i wanted to say. Host ok. Guest i want to congratulate that the caller on getting off, because that is not an easy accomplishment, but it will be huge in terms of improving his health. This is so many heartbreaking stories like that that i have been hearing just since the release of our study, put a human face on the way this is affecting people. When i was a young physician and training, doctors my age were taught, you are not doing a good enough job of treating pain. And along came the pharmaceutical companies. It set in motion a tragedy. Host he was calling from vermont. On your study, vermont with the increase in mortality rates, 23 , maine, 21 , new hampshire, 23 . The ohio valley, the same sort of thing socially going on in the new inland area . Guest yes, upper new england, mainly. New hampshire, vermont, and maine. Probably not unrelated to the Opioid Epidemic. Excuse me,is next, jim beam, texas. Texas. John beam, go ahead. Caller ok. I just want to talk about something that seems to be mysths. My country moved me down here in 1974, and my kids were all toddlers. Now they are in their upper 40s, low 50s, but they are very healthy. Weiew back to the people used to know, and most of them are all dead. Some of my relatives that are still up in indiana, they have all passed away, and they were never really healthy that much when they were alive. All very healthy like i said, and their kids are very healthy. Weather hasher a lot to do with it. Thereve only been about two or three blizzards that come through texas in all that time. We have had some very hot times in the summer. But i do not think that has that much effect on the human being as cold does. Anyway, the point i am trying to a big, is weather contributor to this fact that the midwest is getting hit so hard with all of these deaths . I will listen to your answer. Guest i am not aware of any evidence that the cold weather itself is responsible. States like new york and new jersey are among those that have done relatively well. I would not dispute the possibility though, that something about the environment could be contributing to this. More research is needed, and we are much more concerned about Climate Change and how it will intersect with this, but i do not think that cold weather is responsible. Host dr. Steven woolf is with us until 10 00 eastern. He is one of the lead authors of the report at Virginia Commonwealth University, and you can read the report at societyhealth. Vcu. Edu. One notes on the increase of midlife mortality rates that rates have been decreasing despite spending on health care. Has aited states longstanding health disadvantage relative to other high Income Countries and include higher rates of disease, and cost specific mortality rates. Jim in florida. Go ahead. Caller good morning. We should put more emphasis on prevention and getting more access to healthy food. When you go in a grocery store, the products are loaded with sugar and sodium. Ae sodium has seemed to be factor in high Blood Pressure, Heart Disease, and giving more healthy access in restaurants. You go in a restaurant, it is loaded with sodium. Sodium is quite a culprit. For ill health. I would like to know we are is on that. Guest as a doctor, i could not agree with you more. Prevention is crucial and healthy diet is certainly important. Dataw the trends in our the big increase in hypertensive Heart Disease caused by high Blood Pressure. Sodium is a big culprit there. Promotee can traditional Public Health advice like that, but actually making a meaningful change in moving the needle on these Health Trends requires a combination of not only the traditional Health Advice like you would hear from a doctor like myself, but also changes in our social and economic policies to make it possible for people to be able to afford healthy foods, and not be tempted to go to fast food restaurants for their nutrition. And be able to afford to live in neighborhoods where there are parks and green spaces to exercise. The problem with our Health Advice is we know what to recommend to people and families, but they are living in conditions that are difficult to follow the recommendations. Host what did your report find in terms of the mortality rates among racial or ethnic lines . Guest i am glad you asked that question. There had been a misconception caused by some early Media Coverage of this trend to imply that it is a problem of white people, and it was not occurring among people of color. That is still the case in terms of the largest numbers of americans are not hispanic whites. Seeing the increase occur among africanamericans, hispanic americans basically all racial ethnic groups are feeling the effects of this. It is particularly tragic that it is happening among africanamericans because for have knownnow, we that africanamericans have higher mortality rates and there has been a black white mortality gap that Public Health people have been trying to battle. We made Good Progress. If you look at the charts in our study, you will see the black mortality rate was falling nicely for a number of years. But now, all of the sudden it has changed direction and that is climbing again. We are starting to see the gap widen and it is reversing years of progress and narrowing those disparities. Host in tacoma, washington, go ahead. Jim, you are on the air. Caller my name is jerry. I was born in the 1970s and raised in the 1980s and 1990s. I remember growing up as a child, i heard this narrative of no, self response ability,and then we have this Opioid Epidemic where i have noticed that people are saying that the doctors were forcing them to get medicine. Particularly remember people doctor shopping, going to florida, and buying tons of medicine where they had no medical problems. I heard him saying that there is a rise in the black community, but there is always been real problems in the black community. The problem is where we abolishing the Second Amendment, that is where our death rates come from. We gettion is, how do medicalhe discrimination . That is all i have to say, if you could address that. Host before you go, you said you are an msw, a social worker . Caller yes. Host appreciate your call. Guest the caller makes an important point. Our ability to change this health trend whether talking about low income whites or people of color is very much dependent on access to our health. We are talking about a good education, affordable housing, access to transportation, the ability to afford to live in a nice neighborhood. Raceve in a society where affects our ability to access resources. The exciting thing about this is that the a solution to the someh crisis is not obscure medical discovery that has to happen. It is basically investing in the middle class and bringing those types of opportunities for economic and social mobility that so many middleclass americans are clamoring for to those families in need, and neglected communities that have been economically marginalized. The cool thing is by making those investments, it will not only improve economic vitality, but it will improve health and Life Expectancy. Host you have used the term excess debts in this. I want to go to the chart in the study. Concentrationthe of the most of them in the ohio valley states that you mentioned you said about the west coast, defined for us what you meant about excess s. Excess deaths. Guest the mortality rate has increased since 2010. If you add up how many lives that has cost us host above and beyond what it should have been as a trend continues . Guest yes. That comes to Something Like 33,000 deaths, the equivalent of a boeing 737 crashing every 10 days for seven years. We are talking about people dying just because of the increase in mortality. Host dillon, south carolina. Good morning. Caller hello . Work am a physician and i in the er. 20 years ago, i think i read a similar study that dr. That saidhave written when you have more doctors, and more health care, you have higher mortality. I would agree with this. Patients i admit have multiple blood thinners that people are on, diuretics are a big one i would like dr. Woolf to address that. Host thank you. Guest the study she is referring to, i did not write, but there has been a lot of work done by the Dartmouth University researchers and others that talked about the relationship between health care and Adverse Health outcomes. Deaths caused by the Health Care System. There is definitely some of that. There are medical errors that are committed. Sometimes there is a chicken and egg problem when you see correlation between Health Problems and disease rates. But clearly, we need to do better in terms of improving the quality and safety of care that is provided to reduce the number of those causes of death. We did not see direct evidence in this study that the increase in mortality that we are seeing is the direct product of the Health Care System. It may instead be lack of access to health care. Other researchers are beginning to wonder whether the vast sums of money going into our Health Care Expenses are sucking resources out of education, out of social programs, and by having that indirect effects, it could be compromise in our health. Host a couple of comments on you on text. On Life Expectancy, what about the overprescribing of antianxiety and antidepressant being used by Nurse Practitioners whose side effect is suicide . This question for melissa said, Mental Illness has increased in this country. How does it affect these numbers . Guest we talk about the Opioid Epidemic but it is just the name of one class of drugs. There are many others, and even if we were to wave a magic wand and opioids went away, we would still have concerns about methamphetamines, other stimulants, cocaine the antianxiety drugs that she refers to. We can set up policies and solutions around each of those classes of drugs, but we are missing the point if we dont step back and ask ourselves, why are some people feeling the need to turn to them . That brings me back to the same mantra of needing to look at root causes. Host judy in florida. Caller good morning. I did not think i was going to get in. I just wanted to say, i think they should add to their study the lack of corporate oversight and responsibility. , iinning with the fructose knew it was causing problems, why didnt they take it off the market or ban it. And i have to mention my brother and his wife both died at 46 and 50 of cancer in a very pristine s dumpedause chemical into the lake that they lived on. They were fighting for it, but it did not help them. Security, i think that is due to the lack of union influence. The unions host we will let you go there. On cancer, there has been progress made on specific types of cancer, correct . Guest yes. I am glad you brought this up. The curve you showed earlier which showed mortality rates decreasing and then going back up in 2010, what is hidden there is during those years of the 1990s going forward, we were making great progress of lowering mortality rates from leading causes of death like Heart Disease, cancer, hiv aids, car accidents, and many other causes. What was happening was those health gains were fighting against increases of death rates from the causes we were talking about. For a a while, the health gains were offsetting that problem, but now we have reached the point where they have now eclipsed this increasing rate of death from dell overdoses drug overdoses were now the tide has turned in all cause mortality. Host we are hearing from florida. Caller thank you cspan, and , for your dr. Woolf informative and enlightening report. I just have one question real quick. The role, if any, does degradation in the environment and as Climate Change pollution and so forth, does that play a role in the mortality and the Health Issues . Host thanks, we touched on whether earlier. Atst i do not think we are a point where we have enough data where we can say it is the environment, but when i talked about the systemic cause, that is definitely on the list. In future years, they may look back on this program and realize that we did not understand how there were changes in the environment that may be contributing to this including the workplace environment. Is there something about the work Life Experience or exposures that occur occupationally that may be contributing to this. Host one more, michelle and michigan. You are on was dr. Steven woolf. Caller i have something important to say about fentanyl. I was taking sentinel for years fentanyl for years until after the news became so prevalent about how this drug was causing so many problems with the youth, i decided to stop taking it. What i did to stop taking it is i left the patch on for 10 days, and it eased me off the fentanyl. I had no reaction, no problem, it works perfectly. Anybody that is considering going off of it, that is the way you do it. Host michelle, tell us how old you are . Caller i am 72. On the previousouch color who brought up corporate oversight. This mystery of why this is cap in the United States and not another countries that are also capitalist countries, makes us wonder to some extent about whether the lack of government oversight and freedom the companies have in the u. S. To market products with less restraint. If you think about firearms, tobacco, high fructose corn syrup, opioids, and the other products we talked about that are contributed to this, to what extent can we do better in making sure we market products in a way that is more conscious of the health risks and avoid the need to retroactively discover needless deaths that have occurred because we jumped the gun in letting these products out too soon . Doctor, read his study online. Dr. Wolf, thank you so much for being with us this morning. Washington journal is back your as usual 7 00 a. M. Eastern with your comments and calls. Next up, we will take you live to capitol hill with the hearing underway before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing from undersecretary of state david hale, Political Affairs undersecretary testifying on u. S. Policy toward russia. His Opening Statement just underway. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] its obligations we are encouraged by the positive steps ukrainian president zelensky has taken to resolve the russians to get a eastern ukraine, thus far were disappointed by moscows response. The truck from russias