That the fbi, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the russian governments efforts to interfere in the 2016 president ial election. And that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and the russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russias efforts. As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed. Because it is an open, Ongoing Investigation and is classified, i cannot say more about what we are doing and whose conduct we are examining. At the request of congressional leaders, we have taken the extraordinary step in coordination with the department of justice of briefing this congress leaders, including the leaders of this committee, in a classified setting in detail about the investigation. But i cant go into those details here. I know that is extremely frustrating to some folks, but it is the way it has to be. For reasons that i hope you and the American People can understand. The fbi is very careful in how we handle information about our cases and about the people we are investigating. We are also very careful about the way we handle information that may be of interest to our foreign adversaries. Both of those interests are at issue in a counterintelligence investigation. Please, dont draw any conclusions from the fact that i may not be able to comment on certain topics. I know speculating is part of human nature, but it really isnt fair to draw conclusions simply because i say that i cant comment. President trump fired mr. Comey last month. The former fbi director will testify thursday before the Senate IntelligenceCommittee Investigating russian activities during last years election. We will have live coverage here on cspan3 of the open hearing beginning at 10 00 a. M. Eastern. You can also watch live online at cspan. Org or listen live using the free cspan radio app for apple and android devices. This sunday, q a is in hyde park, new york, at the franklin d. Roosevelt president ial library and museum where we go inside for a rare look at fdrs personal office and collection of artifacts with paul spare rorow, the museum director. When this museum opened, he was still president of the united states, so this became the northern oval office. Fdr had an incredibly inquiztive mind. Every book in here was selected by fdr to be in this room. This room is almost identical to the way it was on the day that fdr died. You know, nothing has changed. Watch q a sunday night at 8 00 eastern on cspan. President trump is headed to cincinnati today to talk about his infrastructure plan. This morning washington journal talked with a member of the House Infrastructure Committee about the president s plan. Our first guest of the morning, representative john faso, republican of new york and a member of the budget and transportation and infrastructure committees. Good morning to you. Good morning. Nice to be with you. Mr. Faso, with issues of the budget being considered currently, how is that going, or how do you think thats going to play out . Particularly with the issues that are taking place not only at the white house level, but also other issues that are pending congress, as well. Well, we just received the president s budget about two weeks ago, and the Budget Committee is responsible for coming up with a budget resolution, which sets the targets for spending for the different committees, and i think what were trying to do, were trying to come up with a number that we can pass in the house. The key here is to get 218 votes in the house, and im certainly working with my colleagues and chairman black to try to make sure we can fashion something that will win broad support. What are the main hurdles as you see it . Well, the biggest hurdle is the president s number on the nondefense discretionary portion of the budget. Hes come in with a number of 462 billion of current caps are about 516 billion. And basically what hes doing is taking those savings and applying them to defense. Now, most of us on the republican side believe that we need to rebuild defense, especially in readiness and the force capacity. If we have a situation in one part of the world, we have to make sure that the u. S. Can respond in another part of the world so that potential adversaries dont seek to take advantage. So thats important. We have to rebuild the navy and our military strength generally, but many of us also want to make sure that were getting the buck, were spending the dollar wisely in defense, and i think there have been a number of defense procurements that are excessively expensive, and we need to try to streamline that process, so i think this is all a balance. Its like any other household budget. You try to figure out how much you need for your car payment and your mortgage or your rent and how much you need to set aside for the family vacation. Thats what were doing. Were trying to assess things, many of the proposals on environment, on science are things that i personally dont support, and i think would not get support in the house. So what weve got to do is, again, come up with a number that we can get to on. On the flip side when it comes to discretionary or other spending matters, what about safety net programs as they are . Whats the most concern as youre looking at the president s budget as it is . The president basically mirrors what the house did in the American Health care act on medicaid, but in terms of other mandatory spending, other entitlement spending, he didnt touch them. So i think there are other mandatory spending items that we could also be looking at besides medicare and Social Security. So the president didnt touch those, and i dont think theres a great certainly through the budget resolution process were not going to touch Social Security in any event because of the way the senate rules work, but i think there are mandatory spending items besides medicare and Social Security which we can be looking at. So, those are things that were going to try to find. Look, the country right now, and cbo, i know that, you know, cbo scores get bandied about, but one thing cbo is good at, they are good at telling us what is our projected deficit and what is our projected National Debt. And they told us early this year that our National Debt is currently 19 trillion and counting, and within ten short years, it is going to be at 29 trillion. And so this is really we have got to more Economic Growth in the country. But we also need to make sure were spending tax dollars wisely because were going to bankrupt the next generations if we dont. Representative john faso, our guest, a member of finance committee and other committees, as well. If you want to ask him questions, 2027482000. And 2027482022. Other programs that you could look the or at least that could be looked at, what are they . Well, for instance, one thing we hear about the food stamp or the s. N. A. P. Program. One of the things in mika pastie on the Agriculture Committee we are looking at a Program Spending between 66 and 70 billion a year. And there are certain aspects of food stamp spending that are unwise. For instance, this is called the supplement Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and we spend over 3 billion for soda which we had experts before us earlier this year in the nutrition subcommittee and i asked them, can you tell me if theres any nutritional value to soda and obviously all of them said there wasnt. So, the fact is, should we be spending 3 billion . We should try to make sure that a Nutrition Program is focused on nutrition. So i had my staff actually we did a comparable. I have a big darely district in upstate new york. Milk costs about 60 of what soda costs. Think about it. And so theres no reason why in my mind we couldnt reduce the expenditure on food stamps and over a tenyear period sbet 15 billion of 20 billion of savings and say mill Senior Citizen a better alternative for you. Those are the kind of things that were not trying to be punitive but lets be smart and sensible about this. When we were kids growing up, we had five kids in our family and soda was a rare commodity. Only appeared my mother would buy it when its someones Birthday Party and the notion we are spending over 3 billion a year for food stamp purchases for soda is ridiculous in my view. Couldnt you just change the rules or make it a little more stringent to use word . We should. We should restrict food stamp purchases to things that are nutritious. Now, you can get into all things. Cant buy a cake or whatever . I dont really i dont want to be the food police here. On the other hand, its so obvious that soda is not a nutritional benefit. We should get rid of it in food stamps and we could save taxpayers money and allow recipients to buy something thats more nutritionally beneficial, namely milk. First call for you comes from tennessee, republican line. This is pat or representative faso. Go ahead, pat. Reporter good morning. I just want to say that i am a supporter of our President Trump from when he was campaigning. I figured he would be our president because of the facts he was laying out about our country and the world. You are talking about food. I dont think, you know, the government should tell me what i need to put in my mouth. I have a 72yearold woman and sense enough to know if i dont have, i dont have anything, im not on any medications and should i have diabetes or Something Like that, i wouldnt do it. I have common sense and it makes common sense that a mother would know what to feed her children. I grew up when my mother put gravy, not grilled chicken but fried chicken. The pastor comes over every sunday. Sit around and things like that that we put in our mouth and wasnt bad foods but today people are on all the diet and diet drinks and causing a lot of our problems and, you know, medicine, i applaud this president for what hes doing with the va. My husband has a doctor he lost my husbands records in about 2009. If he put them on microfish the way he should have since the 1980s he wouldnt have lost my husbands records and my husband pat, we have to leave it. Thanks. Pat, no one is saying we should tell you how to spend your money how to buy food. This is the governments this is the taxpayer money that were spending. You make a very good point on the va. What the va announced the other day was a really important thing. Theyre going to expedite the procurement of medical records for the veterans served by the Veterans Administration simply using the same vendor that the department of defense is using for the very same purpose and doesnt make sense to go out and go through a whole new expensive procurement to acquire the same capacity in the va that were getting now in the department of defense. So that was an example where the Trump Administration i think is really done a good thing for taxpayers and most importantly for veterans. From democrats line, from arkansas, robert go ahead. Caller yes. Thank you. I appreciate this time. My problem is i have on the Postal Regulatory Commission careers web page and not picking on them but its where its listed. They list the compensation and its a full their compensation and then immediately goes into their benefits. They get Health Insurance paid by the federal government. They get a federal Retirement Program which is defined benefit. They get a thrift savings plan. The new ones get Social Security, medicare. They get a Life Insurance policy. They get flexible spending accounts. They get longterm care insurance, they get supplemental vision and dental. Sick leaves. I wont i mean, that lays out. Annual leave carryover, exchange. They get sick leave for dependent care. Got it. Thats a long list. What would you like our guest to address then . Caller okay. The question i have, when you talk about entitlement primogra, theres a limit. Arkansas changed the limit of 130 over poverty. Caller to 100 . You yourself get compensation and then go right into benefits. Should the discussion not be about how much money can you make a year and get no subsidies . Okay. Caller no subsidies. Lets leave it there. The caller asks a broad question, but i think that this is the crux of what were going to do in terms of how do we fix our financial situation as a country. We are demographically all living longer and getting older and thats the good news and also means with the mandatory spending or entitlement programs as the gentleman referred to them, are going to be financially stressed. In fact, if you look at your Social Security statement, youll see that on the statement that they send to people that are within five years of retirement or if you want to get it online, you can do that, as well. If youre not within five years of retirement but on the statement Social Security administration trustees advise that in 2034 just 17 years from now the system can only pay 79 of the promised benefits. And thats only 17 years from now. What we need to do is what tip oneill and Ronald Reagan with senator moynihan of new york did back in the early 80s which is to come together, create a bipartisan, nonpolitical panel to give the congress and the country an analysis of how do we fix this problem, what to do going forward. This program is too important, too many people depend on it for it to become a political football. The longer we wait, pedro, the longer it will be before we fix this problem. The folks over 55 or 50 dont have much to worry about. Its the folks under 50 who really have a lot to worry about in terms of the future financing of Social Security. So, you raise a good point. There are a lot of issues. Were going to be confronting this dealing with tax reform and budget issues later this year. This is a perennial issue. How should government spend . How should we tax and who gets the benefit . Catherine in st. Joseph, michigan, republican line. Caller yes, thank you for taking my call this morning. Going back to the food program, i think youre on to something when you say that we need to look at it, you know, what the people are buying. We even had something here in michigan where they found out that the bridge cards, which used to be the food stamp program, am i correct . Well caller we call them bridge cards now. May be in michigan. Im not familiar with that term but yes. Caller they have a card and swipe it. Like a credit card. Oh yeah. Thats the s. N. A. P. Benefits, food stamp benefits are given in an electronic benefit card now. Caller right. Well, they were using it to go to the casino. So they werent even using it for the food. And i dont know how long this happened. And until they discovered that these people that were getting this benefit were using it at the casino. So i really think we really need to take a closer look and monitor the people and once they do Something Like that, i dont think they should ever be able to get any benefits after that. Thanks for the call. I mean, the caller raises a point i hear often from constituents, and ill tell you what i heard recently from a sheriff in my 11county district in upstate new york. He told me that in every instance where were being plagued, overrun by opioid and heroin problems in upstate new york, as many other parts of the country are, but he told me in every single instance where they arrest people for dealing drugs, dealing heroin, dealing prescription painkillers illegally, in every instance they find that these folks have benefit cards on them and that they are receiving government benefits so one of the things many of us would like to see, for ablebodied people who are receiving benefits like s. N. A. P. Food stamps, ablebodied people should have some kind of mandatory work requirement. Ablebodied people. Not disabled, not elderly, not children certainly, not pregnant women but people ablebodied and we should expect a responsibility of people who are using public benefits. Not in a punitive way but to help them get the Work Experience they need to get off the programs and to get into the workforce. This is a big problem in our country today, pedro. Only about 62 of the prime working age people who are in the workforce today. Were talking about people between 18 and 64, people who should be working who are not only 62 are. This is one of the lowest numbers in our nations history and it is very alarming and because in many parts of the country youre having workforce participation rates lower than 62 so something to address and many of us feel that the ease that benefits are provided and the lack of requirements for work are one of the reasons why many people are not actually in the workforce or seeking employment. Our guest, representative john faso of new york and he serves on the budget and transportation and infrastructure committees and here to talk to you about a variety of topics. Director, former fbi director, jim comey testifies on thursday. A lot of questions going on as far as investigations into russia. What does all that mean for Republican House members and getting an agenda done . Directly, it doesnt mean a lot because much of this now that we have Robert Mueller as the special counsel in charge of this investigation and i applaud that selection, i think that was a terrific selection, former director mueller, hes a very skilled person, experienced. Has great integrity, a great reputation for probity and for character so i think that let director mueller do this investigation, leading the fbi and the Justice Department investigation. Let the chips fall where they