johnson was not a heroic moment. david stewart sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span q&a -- c-span's q&a. your primary source for campaigns 2018, we will show you to recent congressional debates from illinois and virginia. then the new chair and president of the miss america organization discusses changes to this year's miss america competition. the midterm elections, republican representative is term -- seeking a seventh in illinois six congressional district. he faces democratic challenger onn in a debate that focuses the economy, abortion, gun rights on the russia investigation among other topics. this is just under one hour.

>> one of the most watched congressional contest in america. >> i am campaigning aggressively. starving governmental resources. >> the battle for illinois 6th district. an outcome that could determine who controls the house. >> the democrats will plan to put your picture on the side of the screen and president trumps on that side. that work? >> idol think so. >> tonight, for the first time, the two face-off. district forumh starts now. >> good evening from the historic union elite club in downtown chicago. the lincoln forum and fox 32 hresents the illinois 6t

congressional for him. welcome to a very special evening. we have more than 200 guests joining us here in the audience in the historic abraham lincoln ballroom at the union elite club. club.on league here of those candidates. the republican incumbent roskam and hister challenger, democrat sean caste n. joining me in scott. the course of the next hour we will be inviting some of our guests other to the stage where they can face the candidates and asked them questions directly. been asking our viewers to submit their questions via facebook and we will cure from them as well. -- let's's explain

explain where it is. around 75th street is where it starts and it runs north from there into parts of cain, mchenry lake and northwest crook. this is not a forum. the candidates will not be on the clock, but i will be moderating to make sure each side is treated fairly. totlemen, as they prepared vote, republicans and democrats, tell pollsters that president trump is top of mind even though he will not be on the ballot. is that what voters should be thinking about? >> voters have to think about a lot of things in the six district. to responsibilities is reflect this district into a coequal branch of congress. when it comes time to working with the administration on tax regulatory reductions and those types of things, i have advocated for those things.

good on the economy, jumbling on other issues. when it comes time of standing up against the administration on things, i have been consistent of doing that reflecting the interest of our constituency. at that 94% ofk the time with obama, the role calls are opioids, puerto rico reliefs, faa authorizations. i think, many times we are seeing a mischaracterization and a misrepresentation about what the responsibility is of a member of congress. talk to the voters, the last thing they want to talk about is trump. they are so frustrated by this feeling we have what we watch the news. ,ith all respect to your job they would like to not have to do that. my whole career as a scientist building businesses, dealing with that and trying to

reduce greenhouse gases. >> how is president trump doing? >> i think he is the worst president of our generation. every day he is in the office it is a risk to our global effort. the problem is not trump, the problem is a congress that is not fulfilling its obligation to act as a check and balance on the president. ask you, yesterday, the president met with a leader of the european commission. he seemed to call a truce in the trade war with europe. we are still on with other parts of the world. is he winning? he said trade war is easy to win. >> trade wars are not easy to win. i have been very vocal of my concerns about the trump administration. dayerday seem like a good if the europeans are trying to come to the table. sean said something interesting. he said this is about facts and character, yet, last month he

misrepresented my position, not once, not twice, but three times as a relates to children's health insurance. you falsely accused me of cutting the program. i did not do it. rather than owning up to that, all he did was delete it. and character matter, but it is very important that we get the facts right and follow through. >> we will have a segment on health care but let me have your response. did you misrepresent what the congressman did? >> i made a mistake and delete it between her tweets do not matter on the grand scheme of things. about chip.ng on trade, bob corker said it best. he said we created terrorist that put farmers on welfare and now we need to borrow money from china to take them off welfare. foreigna horrible policy that i thought we outgrew in the 1920's. >> there is widespread agreement

around the world that the chinese are cheating on trade rules. they are offering subsidies -- operating subsidies. they are stealing our intellectual properties. our trade policy ideally does two things. number one, to make sure that our businesses and workers compete on a level playing field for the rest of the world. if we are going to allow other countries to have labor and environmental policies we have to go overseas. an element of is our 4 -- of our foreign policies. is fact that the president destabilizing the entire post-world war ii order from wto to nato to pulling out of the paris climate accord, this is how you break the thing that so many good people from eisenhower forward built. >> what about manufacturers? rep. roskam: $4 billion for farmers is a mistake or it

farmers want markets, they don't want subsidies. i predict we don't end up going that direction. if the president opposes it, i will oppose it. sean said, tweets don't matter in the grand scheme of things. i think what we see matters, the language matters, our press releases matter, our twitter matters, our facebook matters, how we present ourselves in public matters. this notion that we are dismissive about a misrepresentation, not once, not twice but three times, just delete it and go away, that would fundamentally mischaracterized the history of having representatives who are well-regarded that reflect this constituency. if we want toen: talk about misrepresentation, you voted against violence of women act and you kept the video on your site for three saying you supported it. that is absolutely true. why you voted against that, i do

not know. rep. roskam: i voted in favor, there are two different versions, one had no restraint for conscious objection. this is a misrepresentation. how about this. mr. casten: you have interrupted me. you voted against the violence against women act. you voted for the authorization that stripped the funding by 30% for a whole host of issues. why you did that is between two and your conscience. rep. roskam: it is between me, my conscience and the conscience of a lot of other people were troubled where you have folks that will be excluded dazed on the right to life issue. of course i will stand up for that. >> let me ask about the proposal that has been offered by some of your colleagues in the house. rosenstein, the deputy attorney general overseeing bob mueller's investigation. yes or no?

rep. roskam: you have to have the articles of impeachment introduced. you have to have a discussion. responsibility as a member of congress, i would review that. sean has made up his mind about donald trump. the democratic organization, donald crypt -- donald trump has committed crimes and is worthy of impeachment. he has made up his mind. .ere is your quote on any objective measure, donald trump should be impeached. those are your words. >> kelly get to that in a minute. like --man, it sounds can we get to that in a minute? >> you have to let him testify. impeachen: i would not rosenstein. only part ofe government acting as a check. >> should the rule be changed?

rep. roskam: i strongly support investigation. there's no indication that anybody needs to step in. the investigation should be prompt, clear and dispose of these issues. mr. casten: you failed to sponsor the bill for that. other than making sure we have check and balances. >> we are going to go to my colleague scott schneider has an audience question. scott: introduce yourself to the candidates and share with us your question. my name is jordan, i am a my name is jordan, i am a resident and here is my question. i am an undergraduate student headed to law school. but a time i graduate i will have more than $100,000 in student debt. how would you help me tackle this financial burden? three things we should do, we should absolutely modify the 2005 bankruptcy act

so that if you go bankrupt for any reason you're not trapped into your loan debt. we should allow people to refinance their loans at current rates like you do for your mortgage. number three, we need to recognize that the pell grant growsm, make sure that with the rate of college inflation. they have inflated faster than a economy. a hard issue to grapple is, at the undergrad level, payments for state colleges have fallen from 50% tuition to less than 25%. that is a burden that has been put on the states that needs to be addressed. if you do not fix that we are not dealing with the root cause. rep. roskam: jordan, thank you for your question. i introduced the truth and true mission -- and tuition bill. people enter into college many times, they find themselves

becoming compounded after one year and it becomes more expensive. i have been active on the ways and means committee looking at endowment. inquire college endowments to stay, how is it that you are benefiting under the tax code, yet, these schools that you are now flushed with cash, there has not been that approach to make that money available? we are actively working with the every student succeeds act. this is an initiative that needs fine-tuning. it broadens out the scope to create more support. >> should there be more federal assistance for students? rep. roskam: there has been per did we have to recognize the higher education bubble we are in will burst. it is not rational to spend $50,000 a year for a degree coming out of some of the liberal arts colleges. mike: the congressman a very

proud of his role in passing the tax cuts that took effect. you say he should not. why? if you are going to run a business successfully you need to make sure your revenues cover your expenses. donald trump runs businesses into the ground. give us tax cut did was $2 trillion of deficits that we do not have the ability to pay for. 83% of tax cuts go to corporations and a top 1%. a third of all u.s. equities are owned by foreigners. there are more men -- there is more money from this tax cut flowing out to foreigners than there is to middle-class. to a comp wish what? -- to accomplish what? down 1.8 percent. businesses are not investing. donors. a gift to rep. roskam: in sean's

introductory podcast, within three minutes he told us he is a multimillionaire, sold the company, then had the luxury to have the free time to figure out what to do next. was to come up with up with a tax plan that is a massive tax increase on this -- on the 6th congressional district. he would propose to raise all of the tax cuts that we lowered. he would reimpose the alternative minimum tax on 30,000 people. he has stood with mike against the property tax. he has said we need more money at a state income tax level. he said he is in favor of a gas tax. he is favorably in favor of a carbon tax and said he was in favor of lifting the cap on social security. that is devastating. here is what we've got. mike: i have to have him

respond. rep. roskam: here is what we've got. 18 your unemployment low. we have twenty-year manufacturing high. i was out in the place by portillo's off butterfield road. it is a company where the owner of the company, and his uncle walked me through, this was within the past few weeks, they pointed to a 4 million-dollar piece of equipment that they said they bought specifically because of a tax cut. but it is helping them meet their environmental standard. this is a bill. that you takete money on to buy something that is increasing in value. here is the point. i would just going to have trillion dollar deficits forever. get roskam: no, we will into that. the odds are that it is a hundred billion and that has a lot of money. the last two american presidents, barack obama and

donald trump told the american public that medicare is fine. it is not fine. we have 10,000 people stepping into medicare are baby boomers every 24 hours. mike: i have to let him get a word in. mr. casten: you are right that unemployment is at an all-time low. i hope you are thankful to president obama as i am. let us recall that he basically saved us from a massive recession that was created by your tax bill light. this was a massive increase. we have an economy on steroids right now as a result of that. is he right that you would raise every tax rate that he cut? mr. casten: what i would say accurately. your tax bill is devastating to the economy. let me tell you the way that business owners think about things. you make investments not taste on let me throw money out of the system, i agree with you, let's

invest. when you are giving money in dividends. cash andtting on suddenly i have more cash, my investors say i need to make a distribution. will lead toxaco corporate dividends. we are sitting on cash reserves. mike: why should voters vote for you to raise taxes? mr. casten: what we need is a growing economy. wages are falling, when companies are not investing, when money flows out of the economy as a result of the tax bill, that puts less money in people's pocket. one of the numbers that peter uses in the tax foundation he likes to quote, assume that the tax bill would cause people's incomes to go up because they would pass the tax. you like to quote 135,000 medium income. is 90 $700,000. people are not getting tax

relief from this bill in reality. they are getting it in assumption. mike: did you know -- rep. roskam: did you notice something. i listed the litany of tax ice -- tax hikes. you followed up and he did not deny it. that means he is raising these taxes. it would be a disaster. bloomberg did report that income purchasing power has dropped by 1.4% for american workers. rep. roskam: there are two issues. one is the actual tax decrease. that is tax rates coming down and that number for the six district's $4600 per family. you can dispute it, god bless you but that is the number. he is conflating this. he is talking about another number, that is trying to create the other growth as it relates to the economy. in addition, what we are talking about is actual tax cuts.

quickly, the 83% figure that sean talks about, according to k, a misleadingc impression. mike: i will give you 15 seconds and then we go to an audience question. 46 hundred the dollars is based on entirely made up numbers. the average family in this district, you get the number by taking the average voter and added an incentive to itemize last year and it takes advantage of the standard deduction. -- thishis generous question comes from facebook. i have a significant medical condition and my medication cost $4700 per month. thankfully, my insurance is paying for the medication. please tell me what you will do to ensure i will always be able to get my medication should i lose my insurance for some reason? have got to get

to universal health care. we pay more than every country in the world for health care and we have lower quality outcomes than industrialized countries. the best ones have models that are essentially look like daca with a public option. mike: you have talked about -- that looks like the aca with a public option. i'm talking about consumers choosing between public and private options. mike: for anybody who wants it? withasten: along commercial providers for anybody who wants it. you have to get drug prices as well. there is a whole separate series on drug prices. to the question that was posed, -- he has voted to repeal the aca that would eliminate people with pre-existing conditions. you would like to say he is an advocate for people with pre-existing conditions but you cannot have access without affordability. he is allowing insurance companies to choose what to

charge those people and that will put them in a difficult situation if he achieves what he is trying to accomplish. let's go to her situation. on sean's website he says he is an advocate to provide a pathway for medicare for all. mr. casten: you're taking it out of context. everybodyd is that if wants medicare, you get medicare for all. i believe in consumer choice. rep. roskam: part of the reason that anita is feeling this pressure is because of high did that double and high co-pays -- uctible's and high co-pays. president obama came here and said if you like your coverage you can keep it. he said every family would save $2500. none of that turned out to be true. that is why there is so much pressure. mike: but what would you do? rep. roskam: you have to

increase competition. you have to do trade deals that enhance intellectual properties here in the united states. i have worked to expand and help saving accounts to allow anita to save tax-free. bucks -- they make 56 $56,000 a year. doesn't sound like she is making that much. healthten: we provide care for all of our employees and our office. we saw the benefits bring down a collect of cost of those participating. hfa's are wonderful if you have the disposable income. rep. roskam: the overwhelming majority of those users are under $200,000. mr. casten: look at the report. the cbo says that when you voted , 30,000 peopleca in your district would have lost their health care coverage. if you do not have health care coverage, the fact that you is like let'shfa

give everybody welfare to solve poverty. pre-existing conditions. the plain language of the bill i voted for, and you know this, said nothing should be construed as permitting insurance to limit access for health coverage. here is where we are now. hang on. if you are in the 6th congressional district today, and you are in mchenry but county,ounty -- king there is one insurance company you can choose. that is not an option, that is not an invitation for greatness. that is a manipulation for people. why is it that after the passage of the aca we are so reckless? i will tell you why. they overpromise and the under deliver. mike: i have heard you talk about republican sabotage.

-- don't you respond to what we have -- the congressman .oints out the one insurer my brother-in-law is getting clobbered with skyhigh premiums ended up doubles. mr. casten: let's look at the facts of what he is here. is the aca perfect? as there ever been a bill that is perfect? probably not. for 16 years i was running companies. every year we saw health-insurance insurance premiums go up by 7% a year. aca was passed, our premium increases went up like 4% a year. still a point where i had to make hard choices between how much coverage i was going to provide and how much we could have for raises this year. as you get more participants in the system and more healthy people, the rates go down and they did. do we have limitations and choices?

absolutely. we need to take something that was a great step forward and fix the patches. trump has been openly sabotaging this since he came in. mike: address that issue. sean has used it a couple of times. i think you are parroting today from what the democrats were saying on the house floor. aca. part of the that is a catastrophic coverage. this was a bill on the house for yesterday. they took the catastrophic coverage from the affordable care act and said -- off the top of my had a think it was $6,000. they said let's attach a health savings account. all the time we have been hearing across the nation, and hey, let's fix the affordable care act. we offered it. we said let's take the ace -- fa on it.ut a this is a great idea.

mr. casten: i go back to my experience as an employer. hsa was not in need of their personal problems. if she has bills that day, i will assume she does not have the disposable income to say let me put money aside. insuranceatastrophic covers is that we have to recognize as human beings that everyone of us in this room could have something surprising and unfortunate happen to us tomorrow that we cannot afford today. scoop -- let me switch gears. rep. roskam: cruel attaching it to something that currently exists? mike: some of the demonstrators were outside this building have been organized by the national abortion rights action league, by planned parenthood and others. obviously, some of them are very

concerned about abortion and they are posed to you congressman because you are pro-life. kavanaug that if brett is on the supreme court, abortion could cease being an american right. how do you respond? rep. roskam: i am pro-life. millions of americans are pro-life. many people in my constituency is pro-life. i will not be defensive about being pro-life. the question for sean is, why is it that he moves to compel taxpayers to pay for abortions even if they object? he celebrates a he will repeal the height of amendment if ye is allowed in the congress. he also said he is opposed to the pain capable bill. in other words, when a child is in the womb at 20 weeks, there is no dispute in terms of the science as to whether a child is capable of experiencing pain. we have a bill that would propose to protect that child. sean is objecting. mr. casten: people can have very

different moral views and i tremendously respect peter's moral view being different than mine. that is fine. my fundamental issue is this. rep. roskam: do favor any limits at all on when or how? mr. casten: this is entirely a matter of choice. the choice about what is the right decision for a woman is for a woman and her doctor. it is not up to peter or anybody in washington or myself. peter is opposed to abortion even in cases of rape and insist. mike: so what moves liability further back? mr. casten: this is where the numbers don't lie. one in four women in this country will have an abortion before she turns 45. true for republicans, democrats, catholics, jews, red states, blue states, regardless of access to clinics. the only thing that differs is how safe that procedure is. the only thing that's been

proven to reduce the incidence of abortion for people whose opinions i respect like peter is making sure you have access to contraception and full maternal health services. from the harmless point of view, it doesn't eliminate it and we have women who try to get an illegal abortion who are harmed or who die. rep. roskam: i'm pro life. i believe that life in the womb is worthy of protection. i find it shocking that sean will impose no limitation whatsoever. he likes to talk about western european health systems. western european health systems do not allow late term abortions , so there's no limitations whatsoever and under sean's world view, taxpayers are compelled to pay for it. i find it very troubling. mr. casten: here's the distinction. i view abortion like a medical procedure like gallbladder surgery.

i don't want anybody to have to have one. i cannot imagine the pain someone would go through to do that. 90% of abortions are way early. the conditions that would cause a woman to decide to have an extremely invasive procedure that she's going to grapple with the rest of her life, that's a hard decision. i don't think anybody takes those decisions lightly. when we legislate what the right thing is for specific individuals, i'm almost surprised to hear a republican take this position. this is an individual rights issue. this is a do you trust people to make the right decision for themselves. rep. roskam: and taxpayers pay for them all, that's sean's view. mr. casten: all of the evidence is that we do not reduce incidents of abortion. rep. roskam: you're going to compel people, american taxpayers, if the hite amendment is repealed and you said you

look forward to the day to repeal the hite amendment. why would you compel someone to do that if they find it morally offensive. mr. casten: it's a false choice. before roe v. wade was passed, rush hospital had an entire room dedicated to sepsis. we did not stop abortions. we put women's lives at risk. go over to my colleague scott schneider. fort: thank you participating. please introduce yourself and ask your question. >> my name is jerry freda, i live in inverness. according to sources, homes in the 6th district are going to lose value and it will be more expensive to run local governments as a result of the 2016 tax law. what do you plan to do about this?

that is not what is happening. we are seeing robust economic activity. state of illinois has more money that's come in as a result of this. the types of businesses that we're talking about are now expanding. i was up not far from you, jerry, in mchenry county, visiting with a mother and daughter who own a childcare business and they said, look, i asked them, how is business and jerry, in mchenry county, they said business is booming. i said why? and they said because of the tax bill. so what we're seeing is economic activity. we're seeing taxes go down. we're seeing the type of investment this i mentioned a couple of minutes ago, a manufacturing company in elgin, all over the place throughout the 6th congressional district, people are expanding business. mr. casten: the question was about property values. i think it is probably one way for the data to come in. the national association of

realtors was pretty clear when this came in. they said the combination reducing from one million to 750,000 and billing the standard deduction. that means the hiring and lowering of the tax regime, you've essentially eliminated the incentive to own versus buy. i'm saying the national association of realtors who knows the most about this says the net effect of the bill will be to lower property values. a gentleman i met in downers grove who has a business that buys and rehabs apartments has retuned his business to say this is a great time to be renting, buying properties and renting them because it's supply-demand. if you reduce the incentive for ownership, you increase the pressure -- mike: let me switch gears. mr. casten, you propose to ban assault weapons and large magazines attached to them but millions of americans have those weapons and enjoy them. why would you ban them? mr. casten: for a real simple reason, unless your job requires you to kill large numbers of people quickly, i don't know why you should own a weapon that's

designed to kill large numbers of people quickly. i like eating meat. i don't particularly want a piece of venison that's been strafed. this isn't interfering with people's rights to be sportsmen or people's rights of self defense. this is putting guns in the hands of people that have an intent that is only designed for military uses and when we now have people coming into schools and communities, how do you defend against that? this should not be a hard choice. moderator: mr. roskam, you got zero in the last election cycle from the jim and sarah brady campaign to control firearms and 93% rating from the n.r.a. many argue that banning assault weapons is common sense. rep. roskam: i had a real interesting meeting with a group of glenbard north high school students after one of the recent shootings and we're at a very

challenging time as it relates to this issue right now, that is, violence. i'm in favor of the universal background check. i voted against the national rifle association when they proposed a reciprocity bill for concealed carry that would not have honored illinois standards. i stood up to them and voted against it. i actively advocated to get rid of bump stocks, which was the big problem in the vegas shooting and the treasury department, based on urging from members of congress like me, abolished it. we also moved forward to the stop school violence act which gives schools the tools that they need. it's an issue that's -- mike: why would anybody need an assault weapon? rep. roskam: first of all, assault weapon is a loaded pejorative term. mike: it's hard to define. rep. roskam: good luck defining it but beyond that there is a right to bear arms in this country. we have a constitutional right

to bear arms. this is something we ought not to be dismissive about and if we want to amend the constitution, so be it. but what i've tried to do to reflect this constituency is to find a sense of balance, to have common-sense things that make sense and at the same time recognizing, look, part of the other problem is this is a mental health issue so i've advocated a red-flag law. we've seen time and again where family members or law enforcement locally have gotten the word that somebody is not stable, not well. let them go in and get those guns. mr. casten: let me tell you one of the most heartbreaking things i have heard on the trail. you did meet with six of the glenbard students. i met with 600 of them. i'm sorry you didn't show up for that. it was moving. the parklands students came to the district a couple of months ago. they are an inspiration and it is a tragedy what they went through. i was chatting with one of the

kids outside and he said i hope you win and i said thank you and he said when you get elected, do something. mike: all right, my colleague scott schneider has an audience question. scott: this comes to us courtesy of facebook from kimberly jansen. here is what she wants to know. campaigns typically focus on candidates' achievements. i think you learn more about a person through their failures. tell us about a significant failure in your life and how it shaped you. mike: mr. casten? mr. casten: how much time have we got? i became real concerned about climate change when i was 29, working as a consultant and decided this wasn't a technology problem but a business problem and because i was filled with the hubris of youth i thought the world needs more of my brain

. so i took over a small and struggling manufacturing company and i took it from a $3 million business to $9 million but along the way we went through $1 million but i had to struggle making payroll and making hard choices. coming to appreciate that however great your ideas may be in the long term, if you haven't thought through all the steps to get there, you need to be careful and i hope i learned that lesson since then. rep. roskam: april 13, 1992, was a hard day for my wife elizabeth and me. we were in the midst of campaign for state representative and were very cavalier. elizabeth was expecting our second son and we thought, oh, we were so cavalier about the ease with which young couples go through child bearing and we went to elmhurst hospital and were in an emotional freefall

when we learned our son, jack, had died, and he was born still. that has shaped me. that has formed me and that has really influenced how i view the world. mike: let's switch to immigration. mr. casten, many of your fellow democrats, some in congress, are demanding to abolish i.c.e., the immigration customs enforcement agency. mr. casten: i don't support that. i think it's the wrong question to be asking. what we need to deal with is that we've lost our way as a country. our history is based on being the country that attracted the best and brightest to our shores, that created homes for people, that recognized that some of these people are refugees and asylum seekers. we've done a lot as a family to help some of those folks come

over and that we're now sitting at a place that is not only reducing our visa programs but we're actually kidnapping babies. this is not a conversation -- no, we should not abolish i.c.e. of course we need to make sure we have a screening process to bring people into the country. mike: what should there be on immigration? mr. casten: the piece to grapple with and this is a difficult civil liberties issue. the overwhelming majority of undocumented immigrants in this country are visa over-stays. if people were sneaking across the border and that was the preponderance, trump's conversation about laws would maybe make sense. what we have in this country from a control perspective is we screen people, they pass our screens and they stay longer. that's a tricky issue on a civil liberties front but we have a lot of people who have come here through various channels and in 2006, peter voted against a bill

that would have provided amnesty for people who had come here legally. in 2009, you sponsored a bill that would remove birth right citizenship, people who were born here. in 2015, you voted to report -- deport people who self identified under daca. the situation we have now with what trump is doing at the border, the reason you're not standing up to it is trump is carrying out the policies you've been long advocating. rep. roskam: when sean's party was totally in charge, when nancy pelosi was speaker, when harry reid was majority leader and barack obama is president, dated everything they wanted. obamacare, cap and trade, the stimulus and dodd frank. they did nothing as a relates to immigration. when the young man the other day, sean, tells you to do something on gun violence, how about being a party that's true to do something on immigration. here's the bill -- let me make this point. i voted in favor of a bill -- this within the past couple of weeks, that not a single democrat came on board.

would have brought border security. would have fixed it for the dreamers and would have ended the family separation policy once and for all. what shawn has advocated for , which he didn't mention is he's in favor of sanctuary cities and sanctuary states, having law enforcement locally and at a state level put a stiff arm with federal enforcement. mike: so, build a wall at the border? rep. roskam: i get it. walls work in urban areas. they're not particularly successful all across so you need different technologies in different areas. walls work in urban areas. mike: mr. casten, is there something you didn't tell us about your proposals? mr. casten: again, this is -- i used to think this is a center-right proposition. i wasn't in congress before. i can't make decisions about how they prioritize things. but this is a local control issue. overwhelming majorities of police are saying it's hard to do effective community policing

if people who know crimes are being committed to not come up and talk to you. you talk to first responders who are saying if someone in your town has a rare virus, we'd like to know that, we want you to come forward. it's hard to do that when you don't trust the government. there was a tragic statistic when houston invited i.c.e. to come in and essentially went against what you're advocating, there was an immediate decline in domestic violence incidents exclusively among hispanic women. it was not a reduction in domestic violence. it was a reduction in reported. so one can have a sound, robust immigration policy while still respecting the agency and authority of local communities to make decisions about those issues that matter. rep. roskam: when you have local law enforcement and state law enforcement that is banned from cooperating with federal law enforcement, how does that make any sense? we've got thousands of pounds of

heroin that are coming in that i.c.e. is catching. we've got thousands of pounds of fentanyl that is coming in that i.c.e. is stopping so the notion of putting an artificial barrier on this issue and this issue alone makes no sense to me. i'm against the sanctuary city and i'm surprised sean advocates for it. moderator: we have a question. scott schneider, take it away. scott: please introduce yourself and pose your question. >> paul farber from willowbrook, illinois. my question is, how would you work with the other party to pass bipartisan legislation? scott: thank you. moderator: congressman? rep. roskam: i've done it. i worked with barack obama when he was president of the united states and we worked closely on passing the anti-boycott language to protect the economic interests of israel, our close ally. i worked with the obama administration on making sure that the trade adjustment assistance was in place,

according to the georgetown university's lugar center, i am the most bipartisan member of the illinois congressional delegation. i got every member of the house of representatives, both republicans and democrats, to join with me to take authority away from the internal revenue service in abusive cases where the i.r.s. wasn't doing the job. i've done it. that's my history. and i will continue to work that way. moderator: mr. casten? mr. casten: when your signature achievement is passing a $2 trillion deficit that got nary a single democratic vote, it's amusing to say you work on a bipartisan basis. i put the comment, we should hold our members of congress to the same standards we hold non-politicians to and my c.f.o. and i, we raised a decent amount of money. i never asked him where his politics were because it doesn't matter.

we raised the money taken. i'm sure we disagreed on issues. my chief of engineering, we built a lot of projects together. i don't know what his politics were. we shouldn't lose that because we're members of congress. i would thinking that if i win and perhaps randy holtglen next door wins, perhaps that is the way it works out i would imagine , we have a lot of things to cooperate on that have nothing to do with party affiliation. moderator: are there grounds for you to cooperate with president trump? mr. casten: if there are issues we see eye-to-eye on. of course. this isn't about the person -- moderator: give me an example. mr. casten: one of the few things he's done that i do agree with is that i think his increase in arming some of the eastern european countries. moderator: ukraine? lethal weapons to ukraine? mr. casten: i'm glad he did that and if had been in congress, i would have supported that. rep. roskam: sean has said that his words don't matter in these

different formats, but here's the thing. he called the republican party in december of 2017, the pedophile party. he called the work that i've done on a bipartisan basis on opioids, which, frankly, all across the congress, this has been a very good thing. sean described that as b.s. so, i mean, this is one presentation today but the sharp elbowed edginess is in stark contrast to that. that sort of aggression where you basically put down and the politics of ridicule and i think that members on the other side of the aisle are going to come running over. that's not the way it is. that is breaking down relationships. that's not what you described, sean. that is very much in contrast. mr. casten: what makes me tremendously said. look at my background. why is there nothing in the republican party that i can find attractive right now? i have really good friends of high morals. i have tremendous respect for

john mccain and the generation that's unfortunately passing out of the party. i have been endorsed by bill riley, head of the e.p.a. under george h.w. bush. i have a lot of history. one of my very good friends is a republican state senator in arizona and he told me he's retiring, not because he doesn't have character and values, but because he can't figure out a way to campaign on his morals and win his primaries because of the toxicity that's come into the party. rep. roskam: toxicity into the party? toxicity sean has introduced into public life by calling an entire political party a party of pedophiles and taking a body of work and dismissing it as b.s.? moderator: let's switch to foreign policy for a moment. is it time for a better relationship with russia, mr. casten? mr. casten: no, no. look, i think -- i think one of the things that i think almost every president of the last five has made a mistake on is

understating the fact that we still only have one existential global threat, that is russia. george w. bush said we won the cold war, let's pivot. bill clinton didn't focus on it. barack obama famously said to mitt romney the 1980's called , me, they want their foreign policy back. now donald trump has a bromance with vladimir putin. moderator: your party's president says it's time to have a better relationship with russia and drop sanctions. rep. roskam: i was on a meeting on tax reform in the white house earlier, after the helsinki presentation and i was troubled by that. i went up to the president afterwards and asked him if i could talk to him about russia. he wasn't particularly interested in what i had to say, but i persisted. i told him the story of three years before when i led a delegation with the jewish federation of chicago and we went to jerusalem and i had a chance to meet cheranski and he

said when ronald reagan spoke with clarity and gave his famous speech, calling it an evil empire, he said he knew it was the beginning of the end for the record soviet union and the guards knew it, too. i communicated that to donald trump. he was very defensive. as you can imagine. i chair the house democracy partnership, a bipartisan group that works with emerging democracies. i have been to ukraine three times. moderator: why do you think he's not responsive when you talk like that? do you think the russians have something on the president? rep. roskam: i don't know. it would be irresponsible to speculate on that. but here's what i do know. we need to be clear on this and malevolent nature of the russian regime. they are aggressive. we have to recognize the malevolent nature of the iranian regime. sean -- mr. casten: here's what's usually troubling.

i think the idea that donald trump understands that story is troubling in itself. you could have voted to compel the president to release his tax returns, you didn't. we would then know the answer to the question of whether or not there are conflicts there. >> so i'm -- casten: please allow me. at a macro level, we live in a peaceful world, post world war ii, because of the amazing effort put forth by multiple presidents from truman to eisenhower forward to create the stability of this empire. we have a vested interest -- moderator: do you favor changes in treaties, nato? n: let me explain this. russia has a life expectancy of less than 50. they have an economy almost completely dependent on oil and the only card they have to play is a huge nuclear arsenal. they have a vested interest in destabilizing that world order.

we are effectively today carrying out russia's foreign policy. why we are doing that is secondary to the fact that we are and we need to fix that yesterday. moderator: congressman? rep. roskam: sean makes the representation about trump's tax returns. here's the thing. tax return policy is section 6103 of the internal revenue code. it is limited. the limitation says it can only be used for the purposes of determining whether the internal revenue service has violated the law. you start shopping around -- moderator: the proposal in springfield, you can't be on the illinois ballot unless you release your tax return. rep. roskam: how about running for governor? will pritzker release his? moderator: i'd do it for governors, too. rep. roskam: should j.b. pritzker? mr. casten: i'm not sure. i want to stay on the topic we're at. whether or not every politician releases tax returns is an academic question. whether or not our current president whose own son has said a lot of our money comes from

russia, whether our own president, who for the first time in recent history has not released his tax returns and has not divested his businesses, it's in the national interest for us to know whether he has entanglements. >> and robert mueller has full discussion on that -- moderator: we've got another question. scott: our final social media question from greg orieser. what steps have you teen listen -- as more men and women are engaged in this district election what steps have you , teen listen to women and their concerns and represent their interests? mr. casten: i think you said young women? was that the question ?scott: scott: what steps have you taken to listen to their concerns and represent their interests. mr. casten: i've had a lot of fun going to a lot of high schools. i'm trying to get to the government classes because they're smart kids and i think they know a lot more than us adults do sometimes.

as i mentioned the students , organized the gun violence debate. we had 600 people show up. peter and i were both invited. i think you had a conflict. we had a host of interns and lastly after the kavanaugh , ruling, we brought in some really, really impressive, i will admit, somewhat older women, to chat about what's going on and what's at stake for women's health and women's lives right now. and if there are people who feel i'm not listening to them, please swing by my office or give me a call. rep. roskam: in this congress, i've had over 475 meetings in this constituency in the 6th district, in the office, in meetings, in schools, in companies and visits and roundtables and so forth. moderator: criticism you don't hold town meetings. rep. roskam: fair enough. sean could have interestingly admonished senator durbin when he was at a press event last week for doing the exact same thing during the obamacare debate when senator durbin in august of 2009 recognized that

the town halls were stunts and manipulations and wisely said that's not bringing civil discourse. the way i've conducted it, it has. i've met with over 20,000 individuals, groups of people. moderator: we're running out of time. we want time for closing statements. mr. casten? mr. casten: thank you, mike, thank you to all the folks who came out here today and thank you to the lincoln forum and foxbury for putting this on. i'm a businessman, not a career politician, but i do know this. the constitution says that congress has an obligation to act as a check and balance on the executives and congress is not obligated to be a rubber stamp. that's probably the biggest place where peter and i differ. he supports the trump administration lock, stock and barrel, even at the expense of his district. i think the overwhelming majority of people in this district think healthcare should

be affordable and effective. peter voted with the president to take it away from 30,000 of his constituents. my children go to school where they have lockdown drills and are nervous about safety. peter said in 2015 there was a sporting interest in armor piercing bullets and rather than voting to protect our students, he's voting to protect the rights of the nra to shield their donors from public disclosure. moderator: 10 seconds. mr. kasten: women have a right to choose. peter thinks he has a right to choose. lastly, human caused climate change is real and we need to elect people who will fix it, not call it junk science. come november, after i win this election, we'll start fixing this in washington. rep. roskam: we're at a n incredibly tumultuous season in public life and our challenge we have is to enter into relationships with one another where we talk to one another, not past one another. what you've heard in a litany of descriptions of what i've brought out about my opponent and how he characterizes people, how he ridicules people, demeans

people, is really troubling. what i've demonstrated is a capacity to bring people together in washington, d.c. i've done that on the ways and means committee. i've done that taking on the internal revenue service. i've done that as it relates to opioid relief. i've done that with obama administration. i've stood up to my party when that's appropriate and i've worked with my party when it's appropriate,but what we need are people of goodwill to be active in this process because when it all comes down to it, our country is the envy of the world and i'm asking for your vote this november. [applause] moderator: ladies and gentlemen, that's our forum, the illinois 6th congressional district forum. i want to thank democrat sean casten and republican congressman peter roskam of peterson. i learned some things. that was a substantive

exchange. congratulations. thank you for watching. [applause] announcer: c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable public television companies. and today we continue to bring unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington dc and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. >> lastly, the house began its summary district work period that will last through labor day, while the senate is expected to remain in session for much of