The military out to take down totally lawful protests and First Amendment activity by the absolutend that is an danger. It is also a moment of opportunity, because hundreds of thousands of mostly young people have taken to the streets to brutal killing of officerloyd by a police with others watching. Its galvanized the country, and we are in a very Serious National Conversation and dialogue right now about what needs to be done in order to ofp this continuing pattern racist assaults and murders on africanamericans in different parts of the country. It, is the positive part of that this could be a moment of Great National redemption for us. We have a president who of course has brought us to the brink of absolute catastrophe on different fronts. We nearly have 2 Million People who have been sickened in the covid19 pandemic, with more than 105,000 dead. We have 40 Million People who have been thrown out of work. I remember when republicans were calling for president obamas resignation during the ebola crisis when we lost two people. Now, we have lost more than 100,000 americans, and the president is doing everything in his power to distract and divert attention from that, and wants to recreate himself as a law and order president the same president who has been taking millions of dollars from the government, unconstitutionally, at is hotels and golf courses. The same president who has been taking millions of dollars from states. We need to establish real law and order, which means the constitution and the rights of the people, and we need to reform the criminal Justice System to get us out of this nightmare. Host our guest is a constitutional law professor as well. The covid19 subcommittee first, how do you see congress responding to the racial tensions in terms of any legislation that might be developed . Guest i think there is great momentum building in the house of representatives to pass a comprehensive package of criminal justice reforms to move the country forward, so that we never see a broad daylight murder of a citizen again by a Police Officer. And it doubled as a racial lynching. I think it brought back the most horrifying memories for tens of millions of americans. There in the process, in house Judiciary Committee, in the oversight committee, the congressional black caucus, everyone is galvanized to focus on what is the set of reforms that we need. We need strict rules against the force,lethal and violent so that violent force can only most extreme and life,ituations to protect to save someone else from a lethal attack. What we saw with the officer was rather a Police Officer which subdued a suspect, and for eight or nine minutes pressed lethally on his neck with his knee, and the whole world so that killing. That seconddegree murder, by the way, should not be charged as manslaughter. It was a deliberate killing in broad daylight, and everyone saw it. That should be charged as a seconddegree murder. We need a ban on choke holds and strangleholds. These are the kind of categorical, bright line rules we need to institute across the country, to prevent a recurrence of this. We need aggressive discipline and removal of cops who have a record of civilian complaints against the. Officer shaaban the officer had a bunch of complaints against him and had been implicated in the deaths of other civilians. There is no reason he should have been on the force, much again. Le to kill we need a nationwide list of cops who have been dismissed or disciplined, so an officer does not get removed in one jurisdiction and suddenly resurface as a Police Officer in another, only to continue that pattern of behavior. I was on a commission in maryland five years ago, after the killing of freddie gray, and the bad news is, there is not one single thing you can do to end this. The good news is that lots of things together work to change the culture of policing and to immediately isolate and expel bad cops whose conduct and behavior can become contagious. We saw the way officer chauvin was protected by three officers who just stood there, almost like gang members, watching another officer kill a man. We need to move very quickly again. But a lot of things can be done. In maryland, we abolished mandatory minimum drug sentences. We reformed the marijuana laws. Too often, marijuana arrests and prosecutions are a gateway to criminalizing the minority population. African it is not that africanamerican and hispanic youth use more than white youth, but enforcement is targeted at them. Host i want to quickly turn to the other topic we want to talk to you about. You sit on the select subcommittee on coronavirus. Briefly, what has that subcommittee been focusing on . Antiswampre the committee, you know . We have trillions of dollars going out the door. It stands to reason, based on past experience, that when the government is spending a lot of money, there are people who are going to want to use that for the purposes of selfdealing and sweetheart contracts, and waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars. Example, the Deputy White House chief of staff left his job in 11 days later resurfaced for the first time as a government contractor, and got a contract to 3 million to bring ppe navajo nations. What do you know . More than a quarter of the ppes were completely unusable and ppes were completely unusable and flawed, and yet he made off with millions of dollars. In a pandemic, to exploit the taxpayers we do not want the money going to the greediest people and corporations. We want it going to the neediest small businesses, and the unemployed, and the people who have need to get through this. At the same time, we are going to work hard to make sure the country actually comes up with a National Testing and Contact Tracing and quarantine strategy, which the executive branch of government has failed to come up with. At every point, we have seen a series of excuses. We have seen the president praising the Chinese Government in january, february, march. Basically, we dont have a strategy and we dont have a plan. We want to work on making sure the taxpayer dollars are zealously protected at the same time we bear down and make sure we get a real testing, Contact Tracing, Public Health strategy to get out of this nightmare. Host our phone lines for your comments and questions for representative raskin 202 7482001 four republicans. For democrats. Welcome on the republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning, representative. Longwinded. Be as far as spending for the covid virus, Everybody Knows that when the federal government starts spending money on that kind of stuff, 80 or 90 of it is totally wasted. I wish you guys would stop wasting money like that by just throwing money hand over fist to nobody. If i remember right, the sayingnt was prompt in that he called on the federal law people to investigate that stuff in minnesota, because he was sickened by it also. This is what i really called to say. Was listening to a radio show yesterday and a guy says when you are talking about all of these rioters they said only a small percentage of them were causing problems. Why are they all getting trouble . Go and letl let you congressman raskin respond. Guest thank you for all those interesting points. First of all, those were Public Health expenditures on disease, which are extremely effective and efficient. You only have to look as long ago as the ebola crisis. The dollar spent their allowed us to stop a pandemic from taking over our country. Toy two americans were lost that. I can see your point that the trumpet ministration has done a terribly inefficient job and has really demonstrated legal incompetence in administering it. I do not think that is inherent to a democratic government. You can look to other cases including the aids crisis, where federal public expenditures can end up being very effective in terms of stopping a disease. Secondly, we have under the First Amendment the right of speech, to peacefully assemble, to petition government. Nothing is more american than that. Yesterday, when the president of the United States ordered National Guardsmen to use teargas and physical force to clear the streets so he could cross the street to go to the st. Johns church and wave a bible, that was a brutal violation of the First Amendment. He violated the First Amendment to cross the street and violate the First Commandment by elevating his political agenda above the lord of the bible. There is violence taking place out there. Of course, the best majority of people are not involved in violence, just the way the majority of cops are not involved in Police Killings and brutality. We are talking about very small numbers of people who are engaged in violence out there. We know a lot of White Supremacists have been encouraging people to go undercover and try to act as provocateurs and break windows and so on. I saw footage yesterday of nonviolent protesters apprehending a masked, disguised person who was breaking up the sidewalk to try to create bricks to throw, and they turned that person over to police. It will probably be a long time for they figure out exactly where this violence is coming from. I know the great social movements of american history, like civil rights movements in the 1960s, the movements that transformed america, have been devoted to nonviolence. If this president , who is promoting violent imagery and talk, and seems to enjoy describing White Supremacists as very good people either way, he described as good people the armed militiamen who shut down andminnesota legislature urge the governor to make a deal with them. Obviously took a very different attitude toward those armed protesters who showed up to shutdown down the michigan legislature. Host we will go next to eric, in lakeland, minnesota. Good morning. Caller good morning, cspan. Good morning, america. A quick two questions for washington journal, which i have been a devoted observer of four 25 years. Called in 25 times. What is going on in the background . What is the threeyear construction project . Are funded by the Cable Television companies, but you are constantly quoting the Washington Post and the new york times. Investigativeand reporting, Anonymous Sources are things you have been repeating now for three and a half years. Maybe your producer should do the research before you pass that information on. Host Quick Response on the first question, the project behind us is the senate park and the reconstruction of the parking garage and the entire park at the senate. Variety ofuse a sources here on washington journal, but we appreciate and welcome your comments and criticism. You have a question for congressman raskin . Caller i have a comment. Swamp he is one of the biggest swamp monsters in the swamp. You were an impeachment manager. I would give one example just to prove my point today on something you just said that was inaccurate. Yourprojections, manipulation, and your propaganda is hurting our country. We were dividing us by what we do. But what you do. I hope your family is proud of you. I just saw the mayor of washington, d. C. On morning joe, and she said the National Guard was not used yesterday, and you just said they were. Thats called propaganda manipulation, and you are a very good one at that. But you should have been a hollywood actor and not a politician. Host we will let the congressman respond. There was video of troops, National Guard or otherwise, coming into the white house yesterday. Congressman raskin, go ahead. Guest it was reported, and i think the white house confirmed, it was National ParkService Police and National Guardsmen, because the District Of Columbia is not a state. It does not require the mayor to call them up. The first inaccuracy is when you said that i was an impeachment manager. I was not an impeachment manager. Im a member of the house Judiciary Committee. I brought the impeachment legislation, the resolution, to the rules committee. But i was not an impeachment manager. As for the rest of it, im afraid you and i are going to have to disagree. Thank you for suggesting that i be a hollywood actor. I think that is the first time i have heard that. Host President Trump tweeting and saying that d. C. Had no problems last night. Any arrests. Great job done by all. Overwhelming force, domination. Great. E, minneapolis was thank you, President Trump, he tweets. Is representative raskin surprised at the level of chaos that has engulfed so many cities . You talked about this a bit. Who are the instigators . Unfortunately, this has been a chaos president from the beginning, and this is a chaos presidency. I think that the response to the pandemic has been utterly chaotic. The president who is eager to activate a two century old insurrection act is reluctant to activate the defense logistics act so we can mobilize the Manufacturing Sector to produce the ppes and ventilators and testing kits that we need. With complete chaos on the publichealth front, the president lurches from crisis to crisis. It does not surprise me that he has brought us to this point where he is threatening to send the military into the states without the application of the legislature. As you know, article four, section four of the constitution , the republican guarantee clause, says that the United States must guarantee to the people of the states a republican form of government, and may send in force upon application of the legislatures or the executives if the legislatures cant meet. I dont know of any state legislatures that have met to as the president to send troops in. This president again is trying to distract everyone from the terrible failures of his administration to meet the publichealth needs and Economic Health needs of the people, as 3 do,ion unemployed americans are as we have 2,000,002nd americans , and families are mourning the death of more than 105,000 people in this crisis. Fromresident is lurching crisis to crisis. We will hear from janice on our democrats line. Caller in 1989, donald trump stated, an educated black in 1999, i used to work in westchester, and a coworker would drop me off at fdr. One date they dropped me off and lock ahead they were doing checking for drunk drivers. I got out of the car with two bags for macys. Stopped meofficer and he asked me where i was coming from and i said my friend got me off. He said can i see some id . I got a knot in my stomach. He said can you show me some id or you will be arrested. I was in the middle of the block and traffic was going by. It was the most embarrassing thing good i had to go in my bag and i had to show the officer id so i could continue to walk. Happened, we get nuts in our stomach. Say we hear Mitch Mcconnell that our first back president is term andg to do one wouldnt do anything to help. We didnt have and the structure for eight years. Say thenancy pelosi coronavirus pandemic is spreading into minority neighborhoods because there is no testing. It is spreading because we have no infrastructure and no transit system. Everybody is piled up on buses and trains because there are people in washington who wont past the bill. Host we will let you go there. Congressman raskin. Rep. Raskin thank you for the excellent point. The daily indignities experienced by africanamerican and other minorities is actually correct. You would not have hundreds of thousands or millions of people in the streets over this one was,ng, as gruesome as it if millions of people did not feel as if there is systemic institutionalized racism and a lot of police forces. Your point is also correct that u. S. Citizens have the right to walk really on the street. This is a point that i fought that President Trump was making just a few weeks ago when he was attacking Public Health orders. People have the right to walk freely on the street and to speak and peaceably assemble. Now because the president doesnt like what they are saying, he has decreed himself a law and order president , despite of the correction in his administration and the staph infection that pervades everybody in the white house. Ordernks he is a lot in president and thinks he can tear up the constitution and five point First Amendment rights. We need to put people back to work and we need an Infrastructure Health plan and roads and highways and transit systems. That is what we should be working on. We need a real strategy and a plan and we are not getting it out of this white house. Host we will have from lisa on the independent line from texas. Caller good morning. Host good morning. Caller i have numerous comments. There has been so much discussed. That if the v. A. Would have done their job and charged those men for helping kill that gentleman, this wouldnt have happened. Was just it is not if it was going to happen but when. With all due respect, mr. Trump wanted this and now hes got this. My burning comment was for the was,ous guest and that when it comes to mr. Trump, and theree thing hatesx things that god and that is sowing discord among his brother and. He has done that day one. He wanted this and know he has got this. We need to stop a sides and start praying. Host congressman, let me ask theabout the charging of Police Officers in the george floyd case in minneapolis. What was your reaction to how the local Law Enforcement handle that case and what do you think the federal response or Justice Department response should be . Guest the Prosecutors Office engaged in fatal dillydallying and hesitation and equivocation. We see it too often in cases like this where local and state authorities do not want to go after and investigate a case where Police Officers are implicated in the death of civilians. It was those several days of equivocation and hesitation are people were afraid a coverup was underway that galvanized public in people focused on it. The internet has also helped to ofng light to light some seen practices by bad cops and eight they have embarrassed good cops. I am encouraged by all of the Police Officers who are taking a need to demonstrate solidarity with protesters around the country and saying this is not what Law Enforcement is all about. , if youer is right dont have equal justice, that is a basic good that the people are guaranteed. You will get anger in outrage in the streets you will get mass protest. The government cannot deliver the most basic goods to the people, protection against disease, against random gun violence, and equal administration of the laws because of the constant massaging and stimulation of racist feeling in the public. Ever since charlottesville, he saw good people in the neonazis that assembled to march. Host a question from steve says how long should this be allowed to continue without government intervention, one year, two years . You said they were exercising their First Amendment rights but they are breaking curfew laws. You agree with that . Guest i am not talking about the rioters or the White Supremacists who have come out to provoke violence or anyone instigating violence. The vast majority of protesters are nonviolent. That is the spirit which they are acting and should be acting read anyone who shop lives should be picked up for shoplifting just like any Police Officers who kills a civilian should be charged with murder. Anybody who burns down a is isng, whether it anyone, should be brought up on charges of arson. Vast Georgia People are just protesting. That is what the First Amendment guarantees us, the right to peaceably assemble and petition your own government for grievances this is a democratic society. A lot of the Police Officers in minneapolis appear to be targeting reporters now, people who are exercising not the right to exercise in speech but the right to free pass press to report. How long should we allow protests . Forever. We should always have protests in america. That is what makes America Great. Dr. King said what makes America Great is the right to protest for what is right. The jamie raskin of cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and Public Policy events from the president ial primaries through the impeachment process and now, the federal response to the coronavirus. You can watch cspans Public Affairs programming on or listen onnline, our free radio app and the part of the National Conversation through cspans daily Washington Journal Program or through our social media feed. Cspan, created by americas cabletelevision companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Today, former Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein testifies before the Judiciary Committee on the fisa application process used during the fbi investigation into possible ties between the Trump Campaign and russian officials. The investigation was eventually taken over by special counsel robert mueller, for rosenstein appointed in 2017. Watch live coverage of the hearing beginning at 10 00 eastern on cspan, on demand at cspan. Org, or listen live wherever you are on the free cspan radio app. Now, a look at how states are responding to the coronavirus with the governors of colorado, michigan, and arkansas