Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20150527

That yesterday. In burlington yesterday, independent senator Bernie Sanders officially launched his 2016 president ial bid. Promising a revolution. We will begin there with your thoughts on the center for the campaign. Democrats, 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. And independents, 202 7488002. Send us a tweet cspanwj, facebook. Com cspan, or send us an email, journal cspan. Org. The Burlington Free press this morning, courtesy of the museum, has this on their front page. Bernie sanders launches his quest for the presidency quoting him, we began a Political Revolution turko cspan covered we begin a Political Revolution. Cspan covered that yesterday. Here is a little of what he had to say. Senator sanders host we will get to that in a second. We apologize for that. As we said, cspan cover the campaign the official launch of this event where the senator was in the hometown of burma. Here is a little bit of that speech. Senator sanders this Campaign Starting today, is going to send a message to the billionaire class, and that is you cannot have it all. You cannot get tax breaks while children in this country go hungry. You cannot continue sending our jobs abroad while millions are looking for work. You cannot hide your profits in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens while there are massive unmet deeds on every corner of this nation. To the billionaire class, i say that your greed has got to end. You cannot take advantage of all of the benefits of america if you refuse to accept your responsibility. Host senator Bernie Sanders in vermont yesterday talking about the billionaires and what kind of campaign he will run. A Political Revolution is what he called it, and that is what the times argus of vermont puts on their front page this morning. Let michelle show you other front pages on the announcement by the let me show you other front pages on the announcement by the senator. It is official vermont senator launches Political Revolution. Sanders promises to be the champion of liberal causes. We want to get your take on that. What do you think of senator sanders running as a democrat, the independent from vermont, challenging Hillary Clinton so far in a primary contest. Tim in gainesville, florida, democrat. Good morning to you. What do you think . Caller good morning, greta. How are you . Host doing well, sir. Caller i am a doozy this man is in the tradition of the kennedys, the roosevelts, and i will be voting for him. Host tell me the issues, tim. You told me the person that he analyzes to you he symbolizes to you. Caller race relations, Social Security, the environment, getting us out of these wars, the Martin Luther king agenda. That is what i am for. Host ok, another democrat, what are your thoughts on senator sanders . Caller good morning, maam. Im fully in support of mr. Sanders campaign. I would like to see Elizabeth Warren because she is a fighter for what she believes in. But since she is not running, i will support senator sanders. The reason i will do that is this country is totally rigged in favor of the very wealthy. There is nothing wrong with being wealthy but for the last 20, 30 years, the middle class cannot get their head above water and the rich 1 is getting richer and richer and having a much bigger slice of the pie while everyone else is struggling. It is complicated. In europe, there was a time of plenty before i finished, i want to tell you one more thing, maam. The republicans, all of their billionaire supporters say sanders is a socialist. It is not socialism it is just being fair and dismantling the rigged system. Thank you very much for taking my call. Host before you go, you said you wanted Elizabeth Warren because you thought she could really fight for what she believes in. Caller yes. Host hold on, do you doubt the fight in Bernie Sanders . Do you think he could win the nomination . Caller here is the thing a politician needs to have a good way to talk in order to win votes. That is one of the great advantages president obama had. Elizabeth warren can get people fired up very easily the way she talks, the way she gives her energy into the speech, but since she is not running, i am supporting bernie. I am impressed with his speech yesterday appeared i thought he had a lot of fire in his speech. He picked the right words. I think you need to work with Elizabeth Warren and some of the speechwriters of obama because speeches mean everything. It can win or lose elections. No matter how good ideas are, if people do not get excited bernie was very good yesterday to be honest with you. Host all right, we will show more of him. Bernard, an independent. Caller good morning, greta. What an enthusiastic speech from bernie yesterday. Between him and Elizabeth Warren, everything that they say, the two of them say the American People they need to wake up. He is giving us a message, and i do not care i used to be a democrat but this is something some of the things that he said, i mean if hillary needs to carry that message as well she needs to do that, but right now, he is saying everything that the American People need to Pay Attention to. Host ok, so about what he was saying politicos piece this morning, it is not your Everyday Americans at Bernie Sanders kickoff rally. He personally wrote the speech and spoke for half an hour and seemed overwhelmed when he came out with his wife, jane, after being introduced as vermonts adopted son. Host here is a little bit more from the senator yesterday. Him talking about these Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court. Senator sanders let me be as blunt as i can and tell you what you already know. As a result of the Disastrous Supreme Court decision on Citizens United, the american political system has been totally corrupted and the foundations of american democracy are now being undermined. What the Supreme Court said, essentially, was that it was not good enough for the billionaires to own much of the economy they can now own the United States government as well, and that is precisely what they are trying to do. [crowd boos] now, what i learned in school, and i think many men and women have put their lives on the line to defend our country have long known that american democracy is not about billionaires being able to buy candidates and buy elections. It is not about the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson another incredibly wealthy individuals spending billions of dollars to elect candidates who will make the rich richer and everyone else poorer. According to media reports, if you can believe it, the Koch Brothers in this election cycle are prepared to spend more money than either the democratic or Republican Party. That is not democracy that is all about the that is oligarchy. [cheers and applause] in vermont at our town meetings, we know what democracy is about, and that is one person, one vote. And that is the kind of political system we are going to fight for and are going to achieve. Host senator Bernie Sanders officially jumping into the 2016 president ial campaign in burlington, vermont yesterday. By the way several president ai ial candidates are announcing coming up, senator Rick Santorum will announce today. Go to cspan. Org for more details. Martin omalley, the former governor of maryland and Baltimore Mayor will be announcing over the weekend. Lindsey graham will be in South Carolina june 1 for his agreement, and then we will hear from Texas Governor rick perry announcing a bid for the presidency a Second Time Around. We will go to john next in ohio, a democrat, john, your thoughts on senator sanders and his bid for the presidency. Caller i really like mr. Sanders speech yesterday. I am a little confused as why he rand paul on nsa data collection. I think there is a real big problem in the United States. We have Police Departments using stingray technology, spying on its citizens. We have this information being sent off to the dea to do their own investigations. I think mr. Sanders would get a lot more credit if he was stand up for the Fourth Amendment and stand up for the people of this United States. Host you are a democrat, john, would you consider voting for senator rand paul . Caller i would vote for either one, i mean, there is a bigger problem in this country when it comes to the nsas writing on it citizens the nsa spying on its citizens. This goes farther than the government, this goes to local government, this goes to the dea, this goes to the Treasury Department and this goes on and on and on. I just understand what he does not stand up with senator rand paul in the senate and block the nsa. Block it, block it. Lets do away with it. Host all right, john, you might be interested in Dana Milbanks column in the Washington Post today. That, dana milbank says, is part of the problem. Host but that is the problem paul is not running for the nomination. The primary voters do not necessarily show his views that the party is too old and too white. His candidacy has so far failed to ignite. The most recent National Poll by fox news has paul in sixth place with 7 , trailing jeb bush the Washington Post, by dana milbank goes on to say and caught fire on social media it and forced Party Leaders and take notice, but this time, paul found in difference as he fought to limit government surveillance. As the posts philip bump reported, it only got about 1 10 of the twitter attention that his first ever did. Caroline and andin illinois, what do you think . Caller i very much support senator sanders. I have been watching for years. Senator sanders takes questions from the general public every friday on the tom harkin are on the tom hartmans show. I incurred your viewers to watch bernie. I think they would see that he is the real thing. Host senator sanders has appeared on this program, talked to all of you as well, several times throughout his tenure in the senate. Bill in pennsylvania republican. Bill good morning. Caller jefferson township, actually. If i ever heard a demagogue this guy is one. I mean he is for Big Government. He is suckering all these people. They want the government to do everything for them. Put the lollipop in their mouth get them addicted. That is what he wants them to do. Host bill, who do you like on the republican side so far . Caller i like a lot of them. I am reading Mike Huckabees book and he is saying a lot of things that makes sense. Host like what . Caller like we have too much government. Like the federal government was created by the states it is not the other way around. The powers that the federal government has was given to them by the states. This is in the constitution. This is the way the country was run. Now the federal government wants to take care of your babies they want to take care of everything. They have disintegrated the family in this country our federal government has. It gets in between parents and their children. Host all right, that is bill. Debbie and Bloomberg Debbie in bloomsburg, pennsylvania, democrat. You are on the air. Caller thank you for taking my call. I am for Bernie Sanders because he is for the poor people. There are just too many poor people in this country, and i think if he makes president , he is going to do something about it. Not only that, what about people who have worked all their lives and have retired and get a nice pension, and they are still taxed after paying taxes for 50 years . I hope mr. Sanders does something about that, too. Host all right, paul springfield, ohio. An independent. Go ahead. Caller yes, i served my country over 30 years as a commission warned officer. Our government has gotten away from taking care of the people by not looking at the advantages. We spend billions of dollars. We could turn around the catastrophes that are going on in texas and oklahoma with water. If we set up the proper scenarios, we could pull that water, use that water to truck it to areas who are depleted of no water put people to work, but veterans to work and others who are sitting out there, wanting a job. Pay them a decent wage. Get the government to the point where it realizes that you cannot just tax everything, and we hear this infrastructure infrastructure, infrastructure, but i do not see any of it happening. Mother nature is giving us all the rain. Host which candidate best represents what you are saying here . Caller well, at this point there are multiple. There are some that have not even jumped into the race yet. We need someone who has leadership, which i have done my whole career as a Business Owner and a military officer. If i had to pick one right now with the best business plan, it would probably be donald trump. He has not joined in yet. Or Mike Huckabee because there are moral and ethical issues that tie to infrastructure economy, and this country so the long for the longest time this country stood alone for the longest time being the best. Now we have sold out. We do not do anything anymore. It is easier for big countries to invest in Foreign Countries and pay minimum wages to people somewhere else to produce for us. Host all right, paul. Here is what the 2016 field, those that have jumped and so far, are saying on twitter. Ernie sanders tweeting this out that the Burlington Police estimate more than 5000 showed up for his big lunch yesterday in burlington, vermont. Hillary was in South Carolina, or she will be in South Carolina today, will be tweeting from her visits around the state. One of the early primary states, South Carolina. Carly fiorina in New Hampshire thanking the folks there for hosting a house party in bedford, new fancher in bedford, New Hampshire. Marco rubio do you agree echo let me know. Marco rubio tweeting about policy issues. We will also show you what the other candidates are saying on twitter as well. As we said, Rick Santorum officially launching his second bid for the white house today. Go to cspan. Org for more details about that. Emmanuelle and durham, north carolina, democrat. Good morning to you. Caller good morning. I firmly support senator sanders for his president ial bid, and i believe that he cares about americans, he believes in the american way, and he has apple pie, baseball, and he loves mom. I think he can do it. Host all right, charles, an independent. Good morning, charles. Caller good morning, greta. I hear republicans say we to get rid of Big Government, but what do you really want to get rid of . Do you want to get rid of the cdc, the fbi, the fda, the fcc . What do you want to get rid of . I never hear that. They are always yelling, oh the Big Government is taking over. I do not see that. What i like about sanders is instead of sitting out there and giving the usual spin, this guy is saying, i want to do this, i want to break up the big banks these are things i want to get done. Unfortunately, the American Public will not go for it, even though a lot of things he is saying agrees with the right. If i talk with my rightwing friends, he is the biggest liberal sense forever. Although he makes sense. Host charles, what do you think about him challenging Hillary Clinton . Caller there is no way. I mean, hillary have got the machine. She can debate. Really, people do not want change. People do not want the system to change. They want to vote for their values how shall i say this . We just want the same old, same old. It really kills me when i hear people say, the system is broken, and these people are corrupt, and they keep voting the same people in they keep voting the same democrats and the same republicans in that have corrupted the system because their ideologies they will not even listen to anything. Sorry, it is just how i feel about our system. Americans are really strange when it comes to voting. Host all right, charles. Here is slate. Com Hillary Clinton may be the front runner, but the tandem of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders is offering liberals a powerful voice. We will hear thoughts from senator sanders officially jumping into the 2016 president ial contest. We covered the whole thing in burlington, vermont. The half an hour speech was written by the sender himself, so if you missed it, you can go to our website, cspan. Org, to watch it all there. We want to share some other news with you this morning, some other headlines. Front page of the wall street journal this morning, u. S. Alleges broad corruption at Global Software organization. U. S. Authorities are preparing to unveil criminal indictments against the global Soccer International body. The indictment against officials at the International Federation of the association of football known as fifa, was excited to be unveiled in Brooklyn Federal court as early as wednesday morning. Authorities are expected to make a series of earlymorning arrests. Host so that happening today in new york as the case against this global soccer organization. Also, the front page of New York Times, police in cleveland except test standards on forced u. S. Requiring oversight to show rules are followed after years of abuse in that city. We will be talking more about these types of investigations that are done by the Justice Department looking into Police Relations and how they are conducting themselves. Part of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. We will talk about that more coming up on the washington journal in our last hour. Usa today front page this morning this is not over. About the flooding in texas. Two dead, 13 missing, that is in one area. The total death toll about 17 according to other papers. It over month neighborhoods in mere minutes. That is some of the imagery we are seeing about this situation in texas. Back to your thoughts this morning on senator sanders officially launching his 2016 president ial bid. We are getting your thoughts on that for about 20 more minutes. Democrats, 202 7488000. Republicans, 202 7488001. Independents, 202 7488002. Gene in georgia, democrat, good morning to you. Go ahead. Caller good morning. I like Bernie Sanders. I listened to his speech today. I do not know that much about him. I like the message. I am a regular working person making under 40,000 a year. I pay more taxes than most millionaires percentagewise. They have got all their money hidden overseas. That is part of his message. You have got bailouts for the big banks and whatever you need to break them up. They have got to much control, just like bernie said. They are too big. Host west virginia, brian, a democrat. What do you think . Caller well, i have to agree with that guy from georgia i plus, and yes, i totally support Bernie Sanders. He speaks for the little person. Well, he is just the whole true deal there. Host danny and charlotte, north carolina, democrat. Good morning. Caller good morning. Bernie to me is still just another politician. Basically not really saying that much that is different. Some things may be quoted differently, but it is essentially the same situation. I am still going to vote for hillary. I think she is the best choice overall. Republicans keep putting up the same people, basically the same message. They are the ones who basically put us in this mess going back to george w. Bush, so im going to stay with hillary. Host what is it about hillary, danny, that you like . Caller she understands what is really going on. Being a male, i think a female can kind of see things differently than men do because we do not really the attention. I think she is paying attention a little bit more than most men will. She kind of listens a little bit more. That is just me personally. I am going to stick with her. Host ok, listen to a Bernie Sanders had to say on poverty and Social Security. Here is a little more from his announcement yesterday in burlington. Senator sanders if you can believe it, and this is the truth, the republican budget rose 27 million americans off of health insurance, made drastic cuts to medicare, took millions americans, including pregnant women, off of nutrition programs, and makes it harder for workingclass families to afford college or put their kids in the head start program. And then to add insult to injury, the republican budget provides new tax breaks for the very richest people in this country while they raise taxes on working families. [crowd boos] well, let me tell my republican colleagues that i respectfully disagree with their approach. [cheers and applause] instead of cutting Social Security we are going to expand Social Security benefits. Host there is the senator from vermont officially launching his campaign for the white house saying that he, if he is elected, would expand Social Security. We are getting your thoughts on the senator from vermont what do you make of him, his policy ideas, and his bid for the presidency . A little bit about him from the Washington Times this morning, political experience, u. S. Senator from 2007to present. He was the mayor of burlington vermont from 1981 until 1980 and on until 1989. A professor at hamilton college, harvard, writer, director, American People historical society. He has four children. Here is a quote, a job should lift workers out of poverty, not keep them in it. Senator sanders officially launching his bid. We have got about 15 minutes left. We will keep going. Phone lines on your screen, so keep dialing and. While we wait for your calls, we are joined on the phone by tim arango, Baghdad Bureau chief from the New York Times to talked to us about the iraqi decision to retake the Anbar Province. Tim, lets begin with when will the offensive began, has already begun, who is fighting it, and why . Guest well, it has begun in a fall way in a small way and that they are trying to retake the city of ramadi, the capital of the Anbar Province, the forces out there are mainly shiite militias and militia shiite groups that are not part of the iraqi army. There are also iraq he army units out there, and of course the americanled air campaign is ongoing as they prepare for an assault on ramadi, which is the capital of anbar, and which fell more than a week ago to the Islamic State. Host who requested the shialed militia to come into Anbar Province and to are the sunni people and the sunni fighters fighting alongside . Are they ok with this . Guest well, they were not at first it while ago. Tikrit in the north of baghdad was taken in april, and then the americans push the iraqi Prime Minister to hold back the shia militias from anbar because they were worried that their involvement in anbar would make the sick terrier make the sectarian problems worse. Then things got so much worse that the leaders of anbar and of voting to ask the Prime Minister to send the troops in, so it is a very delicate situation. I met with a group in anbar the other day, and they are clearly fighting for their religion. They were organized partly by shiite clerics last year when they put out a call to arms. But theyre trying to ease sectarian tensions by not flying religious banners and trying to flag iraqi flag and so on. It is a delicate situation, and we will see how it unfolds in the coming days and weeks. Host who is leading the effort to retake the Anbar Province . Guest that is a good question. The Prime Minister is supposed to be in the lead on paper however, he controls the iraq he army. That is under his command. The militia in his case is supposed to be under the command of the prime and us are, and some of them are, but the militias include many different groups, and among them are three very longstanding and powerful militias that are basically supported and directed by iran, so that is one of the worries that the americans have, that not only does it empower iran but the involvement of these groups make the sectarian problems between the shiite and sunnis in iraq worse. Host what is the overall strategy . Guest the overall strategy that is a good question, but the overall strategy right now is to choke off Access Points to ramadi so they can assault the city. But i was talking to a military official the other day, and this person was saying that the goal the realistic goal here is not to completely cleanse anbar of the Islamic State and a limited the group and embarq before they move on to the rest of the and eliminate the group in anbar before they move on to the rest of the state. That seems to be to go for now. Defeating them in anbar, which the americans had difficulty doing more than 10 years ago. Host what are the chances that they hold ramadi and that they continue on this march . Is it possible, and are they trying to march all the way to baghdad . Guest i know people voice those fears, but i honestly never thought that was possible. I think the Islamic State realizes that it cannot take baghdad. Baghdad is a shiitedominated city. It is incredibly fortified by iran and the militias and baghdad, and i do not think the intent to march on the capital. Host what was the response from the baghdad government to the defense secretary Ashton Carter saying that the iraqis not have the will to fight . Guest they were very angry, as you might expect. From the top on down, the Prime Minister rejected those comments and i was talking to some officers on the ground, and clearly they say was a tactical decision it is a huge onslaught of suicide trucks and bonds and they escaped to regroup and then retake the city. However, it is important to note that ramadi was the place for almost a year and a half where it was contested by the Islamic State and sunni tribal fighters in ramadi who are fighting back. They held out for long, long time in areas of ramadi until you know, the city finally fell. It was not a mosul situation where they took off their uniforms and affected. They left. The unit stayed largely intact and now they have gathered at a base outside ramadi. Host what did the iraqi soldiers in general want from the u. S. Strategy . How would they like to see a change . Guest the iraqi soldiers. And we had an article the other day, they have a lot of complains about the air campaign. They say it is too restrictive and it is not target enough targets. They send up recommendations for targets to hit and coordinates and the americans do not take their word at face value. They have to verify because theyre such strict rules and engagements to avoid. Million casualties i think the to avoid civilian casualties. It is too easy for American Forces to inadvertently kill iraqi civilians, so they are super careful, and i think that comes from a good place, but the iraqis are frustrated that it is not effective enough because it is too restrictive. Host all right, tim arango Baghdad Bureau chief at the New York Times, you can follow his reporting on their website nytimes. Ccomom. I appreciate your time this morning, sir. Guest thank you very much. Host back to our calls with all of you, what are your thoughts on senator Bernie Sanders officially launching his bid for the white house. Tim in vermont, a republican turned what do you make of your senator . Caller hi. I have a question for Bernie Sanders. I saw the parade yesterday. All the other people who support him how does making me poorer make somebody else richer . He is using the standard, old line of they have got your money, and i will get it back. That is a simple message but it is not true. Host ok, why not . Caller anyway, thanks for taking my call. Host that was tim in vermont a republican. Next in texas, go ahead. Caller good morning. I totally disagree with the previous caller. Those people are really good at just trying to paint everyone looking to still from the rich and give to the poor, but it would be a serious indictment against the democrats and independents if they do not vote and stand behind senator sanders because he is a straight shooter, and hillary is just a corporate darling, and we are going to get the same thing that we have always gotten from her type. Host ok. About senator sanders, what he will do next after launching his campaign the Washington Times says he will embark on a whirlwind tour. He was scheduled to meet in his answer, at concord, portsmouth and abington, before he arrives in iowa on thursday. Host so a little bit about senator sanders schedule as he makes his way around the country into those early primary and caucus states, kicking off his president ial bid in vermont yesterday. Here is what if some other residential candidates are saying on twitter. Dr. Ben carson was at a country club entrustment, South Carolina thanking the folks that hosted him there. And then dr. Rand paul saying, i believe in genuine change, not the Campaign Button friday. Join me and kelley, referring to fox news megan kelley in new york. Ted cruz probably why should not pass laws to find out what is in the. We need a full repeal. Talking about health care on twitter. Also governor Mike Huckabee learn more about my thoughts on judges. I will support the elevation of none but faithful constitutionalists as judge or justice is. And Rick Santorum watch my special announcement in pennsylvania at 5 00 p. M. Eastern time. Go to cspan. Org for more on that. George, a republican in texas. Good morning to you. What do you make of senator sanders getting in the race . Caller i just think it shows the future of this country and how fall we have fallen. When an open socialist gets on tv to announce he is running for president , used to they would hide it, and communists and socialists were some and you heard about, but to be on national tv and people calling in and praising him it just read this country is headed and where we are at. Host what you mean george . Do you think this country is becoming more liberal . Caller no, i think we have become more of an elite society, but just like the two calls before said how he is taking my country will make this how he is taking my money will make this country better. Taxes will be out of sight with Bernie Sanders. Host all right. Here is the New York Times, president obama warned senators on the laps of the Surveillance Program that was launched with the patriot act. That another programs under the patriot act set to expire june 1. The senate tried to pass a bipartisan bill that made its way to the house before leaving for the memorial day recess over the weekend. However, it came three votes shy. The leader of the Republican Party in the senate, Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell said the senate will deal with it on sunday before the provisions expire june 1. Listen to what the president had to say on this. President obama i said over a year ago that it was important for us to properly balance our needs for security with civil liberties. And this administration engaged on a bipartisan, bicameral basis talking to republicans and democrats about how we could preserve necessary authorities but provide the republic assurance that those authorities were not being abused. The house of representatives did its work and came up with what they called the usa freedom act, which strikes an appropriate balance. Our intelligence communities are confident that they can work with the authorities that are provided in that act. It passed on a bipartisan basis and overwhelmingly. It was then sent to the senate. The senate did not act and the problem we have now is that those authorities run out at midnight on sunday. So i strongly urge the senate to work through this recess, make sure that they identify a way to get this done. Keep in mind that the most controversial provision of that, which had to do with the gathering of telephone exchanges in a single government database, that has been reformed in the usa freedom act, but you have a whole range of authorities that are also embodied in the patriot act that are not controversial that everybody agrees are necessary to keep us safe and secure. Those also are at risk of lapsing. Host president obama at the white house yesterday talking about this nsa program and the provisions that are expiring under the patriot act. Again, the senate likely to come in this weekend to try to deal with this before they expire june 1. Also, just real quickly from the state, wrote plans stalled road plans stalled for this year the Senate Stalls a highway plan. The other thing is in any to deal with, a twomonth extension of a highway deal. That too passed by the house. When the Senate Returns from the weekend, that is something they will be voting on as well. Real quickly, the spring court will be dealing with one person, one vote. The Supreme Court agreed tuesday to define what it means by one person, one vote a halfcentury ago. The justice will consider their state senate ballotse ballots carry less weight than those cast an urban district, where large numbers of noncitizens are ineligible to vote. And cameras on trains. Turning them in word, hoping that that will improve safety after that crash in philadelphia. That is the headline in usa today. Also this headline is money from miami herald, struggles with samesex marriage marco rubio says samesex marriage marco rubio says christianity faces real and present danger from rhetoric. Senator rubio today we have reached a point in our society where if you do not support samesex marriage, you are labeled a homophobe and a hater. So what is the next step after that . After theyre done going after individuals, the next up is to argue that the teachings of mainstream christianity is hate speech. That is a real and present danger. Host senator marco rubio in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network talking about samesex marriage. Saying it presents a danger to christiana both to christianity. Marco rubio a 2016 contender and as we said, there are others who are jumping into the race. Former senator from pennsylvania, Rick Santorum, will be launching his bed today from his home state of pennsylvania. Go to cspan. Org for those details. Youve got the former governor of new york, George Pataki announcing tomorrow in New Hampshire, and over the weekend, the former governor of maryland, Martin Omalley he will also beginning into the race announcing from maryland. Go to cspan. Org for our coverage of the road to the white house. We will take a short break. When we come back, dennis kelleher, president and ceo of better markets inc. Will be here to talk about wall street, and later, former republican senator and dig luger dick lugar will be here. We will get his take on some of the foreignpolicy challenges in the news. We will be right back. This summer, booktv will cover book festivals around the country this week and we are live at book expo america in new york city for the showcasing of upcoming books. In the beginning of june, we are live with our threehour live in Depth Program with prizewinning authors and your phone calls. Near the ending of june, watch for the franklin d. Roosevelt president ial library, the roseville reading festival. In the middle of july, we are live at the harlem book fair. Author interviews and and all discussions, and at the beginning of september, we are live from the Nations Capital for the National Book festival, salivating its 16th year. David mccullough on the right brothers. David it was the mystery of who it was that hit wilbur in the teeth with the hockey stick, knocked out all of his upper teeth when he was 18, and sent him into a spell of depression, his selfimposed seclusion in his house, for three years. He was not able to go to college, which he had planned to do. He wanted to go to yell. Twoo yale. Instead committee that home, reading, instead, he stayed at home, reading, provided as of a liberal Arts Education all on his own with the help of his father in the local public library. But it swerved the path of his life in a way that nobody had any way of anticipating. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. Washington journal continues. Host and we are back. Dennis kelleher joining us now, president and ceo of better markets inc. , talking about wall street seven years after the financial crisis. Tell us what is better markets . Guest it is an independent, Nonprofit Organization where we have 12 south, two in brussels one in london. Basically, we are a wall street watchdog and a government watchdog, promoting and pushing the Public Interest against primarily the lobby power of wall street and washington. Host so why did you get started, and when . Guest the financial cross, as you mentioned, happened about seven years ago in 2008. In 2010, the president and congress signed historic legislation, known as the dodd frank financial reform lawful stop i was a senior staffer for about six years or seven years at that time, decided to leave. Two of the biggest towns is facing this country is both income inequality and unrestrained recklessness on wall street. Theres not a Single Organization and wall street the seed that promoted the in washington, d. C. That promoted the Public Interest. Something your viewers know all too well, i hear pushing their agenda, usually in Narrow Economic agenda, that enriches them often ethicsat the expense of everyone else. We thought there should be a professional organization that is nothing but try to promote the Public Interest in the Financial Markets and push back against the deregulation agenda of wall street and others in the Financial Sector. It is perfectly fine for them to promote their economic interest, but there are two sides to every story, and too often the Public Interest gets left out of the entire discussion, so better markets was created to solely promote the Public Interest in the Financial Markets, whether to securities, derivatives international markets. So the public voice and the Public Interest gets to be heard in all of washington, d. C. Host seven years after the financial crisis, here is near neil erwins headline in the New York Times, wall street is back on us as big as ever the jobs are there, and he salaries are increasing. Guest neil is great. Im not even on his payroll, but i think he is a brilliant writer. He put his finger on what is happening anyway that is very troubling, which is after the Great Depression and the great crash of 1929 and 1930, the United States and acted all sorts of laws and rules of different types to create layers of protection between the Financial Sector on wall street and the people who are working every day on main street. Those protections for put in place and lasted about 70 years, they were what effective, so before the great crash of 1929 about every 10 years or so there was what they used to call financial panics, which were real crashes. They were really bad because unemployment was all over the place, largely due to speculation and recklessness on wall street. The great crash of 1929 was so bad, the government can together under the leadership of Franklin Delano roosevelt, and said enough is enough. We have got to stop this 10year period every 10year crash. They put in place massive regulation for the financial industry, the most regulation in the history of the world in the financial industry. Why did i get the United States . Not only did i get about 70 years of no financial crash, but also the United States created the largest middle class in the history of the world. It created broadbased prosperity. It reduced income and wealth inequality in unprecedented ways and the most remarkable thing of all is under the heaviest regulation of the Financial Sector, the Financial Sector thrived along with the country and along with the creation of a massive middleclass. What happens . That stays in place for about 70 years. It does not mean there were not ups and downs there are always ups and downs but that is different from a crash. In 2008, we have the worst financial crisis since 1929, and he delivered us the worst economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s. And the government put this law into place called the dodd frank, and wall street allies have fought tooth and nail, day after day, spending hundreds of millions of dollars to prevent that law from being enacted. Better markets is on the other side of wall street across this town from congress, the executive branch the sec pushing back against wall street to try to get the rules in place to protect main street from recklessness on wall street. What neils Story Highlights is notwithstanding those efforts wall street, not only employment, but it really interestingly their profits are at an alltime high yet again and that means that finance is once again sucking too much from the real economy. What finance is supposed to do is support of the real economy by providing financing to create jobs and growth, and unfortunately what it has become is a parasite on the real economy, and that is really the story that underlines neils analysis. Host take a look at the opinion page of usa today. The opposing view is written by the associate director at cato. Thaya knight. She writes at its core, this is what wall street does guest that is an interesting story, it is in part true, but it is in part not true. Most of what one the biggest banks do, the ones that crash the Financial System in 2008 the ones that almost caused the second Great Depression, with a largely due is trading in speculation and what is called ficc, which is fixed income, currency and commodities full stop that is gambling on wall street. It is true that banks are supposed to pool money from savers and put them to their best use by lending to good companies, creating good companies, and that is what i mean by finance as opposed to serve the real economy. If you think about this, there are only seven days in this country that are larger than 500 billion. The only banks or institution not only this country, but in this world, that actually threaten the Financial System and the economy of the country. Take anything else. If airlines failed, that would be bad, but it would not actually take down the country and cause the second Great Depression. They got any number of things. They would not crash the global economy. Only this handful of too big to fail banks about 6500 banks in the United States, and we have got seven bigger than 500 billion. If you think about it, we have got 30 larger in asset size than 50 billion. We are talking about a very small percentage of our overall banking and finance community. And it is true a large part of that actually does provide funding and finance for the real economy, but too much of what the too big to fail banks do on wall street and what the financial reform law is targeted to regulating and reining in is speculation, gambling, and recklessness, and that is what caused the 2008 crisis, the too big to fail banks. What enabled them to do that was deregulation right . Wall street and its allies covered of the laws, the rules and even the cops on the wall street eat. That all reached a crescendo in about 2000. It took them 70 years think about it, this country knows how to control the finance sector and grow the real economy and grow the middle class or we did it for 70 years. About seven years later, we had the largest crash in almost 80 years. Host on the banks paying . Youve seen the headlines over the years, they have accepted guilt and some circumstances just last week, you had five banks admitting guilty to manipulating currency exchanges, and together were find 2. 5 billion. Here is what the attorney general had to say, Loretta Lynch the penalty these banks will now pays fitting considering the long running an egregious nature of their anticompetitive conduct. It is commensurate with the pervasive harm done, and it should deter competitors in the future from chasing profits without regard to fairness, to the law or the public welfare. Guest Loretta Lynch is the new attorney general, and we hope she will not continue the distributable distributable this was all done before she got there. She did the press conference. Lets talk about what happened. You have citigroup, which was fined last week 925 million by the department of justice. And every one of your viewers and you and i think that is a lot of money. The first three months of this quarter, they made 17 billion. They are going to make over 60 billion this year. They just got find not hundred 20 59 925 million. That is not going to get their attention. They got find for massive global criminal conspiracy, and yet they they structured the deal such that the criminal please had no consequences. When everyone of your viewers or uri, if we pled guilty to a crime or you or i, if we played guilty to a crime, we would go to jail in handcuffs. There would be also to consequences. Did any of that happened to these banks . None of that happened to these banks. There is actually more important point. People like to talk about since the financial crisis happened, the banks paid a lot of money. Oh, my gosh. Lets shed a lot of tears for these banks. Because regulation is costing them a lot of money. Yes, those regulations cost money. But what is so remarkable to me is that no one ever talks about the cost of the crisis to the American People. Better markets did a study and it is on our website. This that he is we did this actually several years ago. We looked at what lost gdp was. And it showed that the crisis cost this country at least 12. 8 trillion. The dallas fed did a study of the crisis. Their estimate is somewhere between numeral eight and 14 trillion. Another study updated it to show about 20 trillion. So lets talk about the cost to the country of that crisis and not shed a lot of tears worrying about the too big to fail banks and what penalties they are paying for their crimes. Nobody sits here today and worries about how bad it is our people in prison who mugged people and robbed banks because they get a punishment for what they did to but banks on wall street0 what they did. What today did. But banks on wall street got a slap on the wrist. There is Something Else that is interesting, touches on the cost of the crisis. In january 2010, the Unemployment Rate i did talk about the numbers here all the time. Think about this. And generate 2010 the unemployed and underemployed the rate was almost 18 . That was 23 million americans were out of work about a year after the financial crash. That is the cost of the crisis and that is what we should be worrying about. Host lets get our viewers involved in this conversation. We are talking to dennis kelleher. Maria in new jersey, and independent. Caller good morning, greta. And i think it is time to give them the law. I would like him to comment on the fact that the federal reserve, [indiscernible] is, in essence, a National Group of avid banks. Host lets take that up, maria. Guest you know, the fed is a lightning rod for many Different Things and i believe they deserve a fair amount of criticism. I dont think they are being controlled by international interests. They their large interests coincide with the financial industry and wall street. However, you have to give credit where credit is due. The fed, precrisis, was an enabler and failed miserably as a regulator. When the crisis happened, they led in a way that was quite remarkable and, in many ways, helped prevent a second Great Depression. We have been very critical of the terms and conditions under which they did that. But the fact that they did that was incredibly helpful to the country. Since then, you kind of get phase three of this, where you have qe and zero interest rates. They have tried to provide some support to can prepare the damage done. Our view is they havent done their job well on the regulatory side. They need to be much tougher with the too big to fail banks. Host how so . Guest for example, one of the key parts of the financial reform law that is assigned to the fed is for them to put in place what are called capital liquidity Counterparty Exposure rules. All of which are designed to make the too big to fail banks actually safer, so they have more capital so they have to assume their own losses and they cant ship their losses to the American People. And most importantly, one of the most important powers given to the fed unprecedented power was that they are supposed to makes it that every too big to fail banks on wall street structures itself in a way that if it fails, like every other person and coming in this country, they would go into bankruptcy. The remarkable thing that doesnt get talked about much there is only one industry in the entire country that violates the most basic principle of capitalism, and that his failure. God bless you. Get an idea, get a company, work your tail off, make your fortune, that is america and we want you to do that. But on wall street, if you are a too big to fail bank and you do that and you get reckless with other peoples money and you fail, you dont go to bankruptcy. You fall into the comforting arms of the american taxpayer. And that is wrong. It is the feds job to make sure that they can do that and they go into bankruptcy. Host virginia, tom, a republican. Caller hello. I agree with a number of your your points, but i have i have issues with the. Frank with the dodd frank bill. I live on main street, i am a real estate appraiser. During the collapse, i saw many of the regulations having various elements of the Real Estate Industry making decisions , or making decisions that were profitable for themselves, but not necessarily good for the economy. You have and many of the the institutions that were making these decisions were, quote, following the law. Yet you can see it was a huge train wreck. I see many of these regulations right now in dodd frank. My industry, you would figure after the collapse that at least people on main street the ability to evaluate the properties for individuals to become important. However, my industry got so overregulated that close to 30 of the people left the industry and they were all the young people. The median age in my industry is currently 59. And we were supposed to have been paid a better fee, yet quite honestly, the very first elements of dodd frank, when they were implemented, placed a great deal of complicated overhead for us. And now, quite honestly, real estate when i got into appraising, there was that saying, you know, everyone knew what the value of the property was. Now, no one knows what the value of the property because there is such a widespread of value in neighborhoods and there is literally i mean, it has gotten better, but there was literally chaos. Host ok tom, have to leave it there. Guest tom, you make a lot of great point. And you know that when the subprime bubble was being inflated before 2008, appraisals were at the epicenter of many of the wrongdoings. As were real estate agents, as were these mortgage mills, the socalled originate to distribute mortgages. Those massive fraud there was massive fraud and criminality in those activities where people who would never be able to pay back a loan were given in the praise given an appraisal. It is true that the relay goossens that the regulations are in place to curb some of those excesses and abuses and outright illegal conduct. It is remarkable that we have to put into a law a provision that says banks should not lend money to people who cant pay them back. I mean, think about that. We needed a law for that. But that is because the incentive structure became upside down at giving loans and mortgages to people who couldnt pay it back and actually paid these mortgage bills and wall street a lot of money when they securitized them. It is important to remember that the law try to target these different areas. I am not saying that these laws are perfect. And it is not being implemented perfectly. But it is trying to get at these high risk behaviors and reduce the risk across the board. Sometimes it works better than a dozen other places, and you are seeing that. Host we will go to new york next. Joseph, in independent. Caller yes hi. I did fall into that category. I wasnt able to pay back the loan that the banks gave me. At that point, i stopped making my mortgage payments because they wouldnt give me Home Improvement loans. They just, you know, it is probably because i couldnt afford to pay the loan back because i wasnt making enough. I didnt have enough finances in my regular income. It wasnt enough to get a loan, so now they foreclosed on it and i am living in my moms house. This house is about to get foreclosed on, so i dont know what to do. Host all right. Guest joseph, unfortunately your experience is all too common. The problem is that people were getting low to probably shouldnt have in the first place. But Many Americans who could afford alone did, yet they were hit by the senomyx of unemployment. The wave of unemployment caused by the wall street cash crash. Caused by regulation and speculation by these two big to fail banks that got bailed out by the american taxpayer and the government. Unfortunately, the American People want build out like the banks were bailed out. And that is the result. We have historically high unemployment and underemployment. When that happens, people can afford to pay their mortgages send their kids to college retire. All of those things happen and that is whether cause of the crisis is in the trillions of dollars. That is why it is really so important for people like you, joseph, and tens of millions of other people just like you, that is why we need financial reform in place. That is why we need to make sure that these two big to fail banks can never do again to this country what they did in 2008. And that means aggressively implementing financial reform. Host waco, texas. Democrat. Go ahead. Are you with a stucco are you with us . All right, lets move on. Darlene in michigan. Darlene. Caller hello. I was wondering, what are your thoughts about the Transpacific Partnership affecting the u. S. Financial system . And do you agree with senator elizabeth worn in regards Elizabeth Warren in regards to the tpp . Guest that is a good question. Trade is always a hot button issue for a lot of important reasons. That is who really benefits from these trade agreements. Yes, the increase capital flows and the banks are often the big beneficiaries. There is massive questions about whether or not the American Workers are beneficiaries. And those questions have been along around for a long time. And trade just like nafta and others cause serious questions. Recently, what do we have . This is the new thing and what senator warren is talking about. All of a sudden, one of the things the big banks on wall street and around the world are trying to use trade deals to essentially smuggle in deregulation provisions. It is bad enough that they are in washington beating the doors of people in congress and the regulators day in and day out to bend the rules towards wall streets way to get their wish list. They also do it in the foreign capitals, and now they are trying to do is do it in our trade agreements. So the trade agreement have the historic problems of who really benefits and who really is harmed. We have this added couple of provisions that allow Financial Regulation or deregulation or financial laws to be challenged through trade agreements. Senator warren, representative sander levin, and others in congress are fighting against to make sure that these trade agreements cannot be a church in horse to basically attack financial cannot be a trojan horse to basically attacked financial reform. We cant let that happen. Host we just heard from senator sanders announcing his bid for the presidency yesterday. He talked a lot about billionaires in this country. How big of a role does wall street play in the 2016 campaign . Is a Elizabeth Warren the poster child for that effort . Guest well, i think if you look at the polls, they also that the American People still correctly perceive wall streets too big to fail banks as a threat. And they also correctly understand that they have not been adequately regulated, which to that means they are not protected. Remember, the American People suffered bad unemployment. Those 23 million individuals in january 2010 who are underemployed or unemployed keep in mind, many heads of households, tens of millions of americans impacted they know what happened when wall street gets out of hand and isnt regulated properly. The American People, the polls show, a lot about these issues. Interestingly, even the republican candidates have talked about the crony capitalism on wall street and the need to rein in capitalism on wall street. Governor omalley has spoken eloquently about these issues and very strongly with some clear ideas on how to deal with wall street. To her credit, Hillary Clinton has been addressing these issues too. We believe it will be an acid test for secretary clinton which actually spells out her policies with detailed information on whose side she is on. As you know, covering the news, it has been all over the news. Natalie has secretary clinton, but her former president clinton and her foundation have received what appears to be incredibly significant amount from the financial industry. I think it will be very important for secretary clinton to demonstrate early clearly and in detail how none of that will influence how she is going to do the job as president , if she is elected. And how she will really protect main street from wall street. Host to texas, cindy is watching us there. Good morning, cindy. Caller hello. Years ago, in the 1970s, you have to fill out an application and then they would ask you what your husband makes or what you make. And you are not approve for this credit card or this credit. Then in the early 1980s, everyone was getting credit cards. And they were mailing them to you preapproved. Then people could make the payment and then they fall bankrupt. And that they would turnaround and get credit cards again and file bankruptcy. Im sorry. Im having problems talking today. Then when the fallout happened, why did it take two years for bush to say he was the one who bailed out the banks and then blames obama for two years . And none of them did their job and corrected that. Host are you talking about tarp . Caller yes, maam. Guest first to the bankruptcy issue, it is to that there is abuse of credit cards. You are absolutely right. The standards of the banks, where they do a credit check to see if you have enough money to come in to service or debt load underwriting standards in this country have gotten poor. 6500 banks in this country. Only 38 of them are about 38 billion. Most of the banks in this country are serving their local communities. They have good underwriting standards and good policies and procedures. But there is this kind of credit mail that creates mill that creates these massive mailings. Another point of bankruptcy, it is very important to show what the data on bankruptcy is. About one third of individual bankruptcies arise because people cant pay medical bills. About one third arises because of unemployment. And unemployment increased dramatically because of the financial crash. In terms of tarp, the 700 billion bailout of the big banks, the terms and conditions under which that was employed were really questionable and i think have been questionable. The intent to prevent the collapse of the Financial System i do not think is questionable. I come in the past, have been on the show defending the Obama Administration for what they did. Although, not necessarily for how they did it. But the benefits of the bailout were very highly concentrated on wall street. And it goes to a very interesting issue, cindy. And that is too many people think in the policy circles of washington what is good for wall street is good for america. We know that can be true. For example, between the Great Depression and about 70 years afterwards, what is good for america was also good for wall street. But we saw in 2008 and the bubble that what is good for wall street may be a disaster for america. And once a disaster america, and continues to do today, the ongoing massive impact of the wreckage caused. More attention has to be paid of those suffering the consequences. Host we will go to shreveport, louisiana. Jay, a republican. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Mr. Kelleher, a question. First, excuse me, how much of the collapse do you attribute to the appraised value of real properties, specifically Residential Housing collapsing . Host we will take that question. Guest well, i am not sure what you mean by a praised value. We do know that there was a massive fraudulently fueled subprime bubble in this country. And if it was just mortgages that would be bad. But what we had was essentially this Conveyor Belt, this financial Conveyor Belt in the country where you had mortgages throughout this country that were often given to people who either couldnt pay them back for with tricks and traps in them that were not disclosed the people so they would have rates that would explode to where people couldnt afford them in the short term. We also had a massive amount of fraud where many of the applications, the information on it, was changed after the fact. That is bad enough, but what happened is once those products go to wall street, they did what is called securitization. Which is the package those individual mortgages into big bundles and then they slice up the big bundles and sell them off to investors throughout the world. Some of which, they keep themselves. Those are incredibly high risk securities, which, unfortunately, were given aaa ratings often. Not only do we have underwriting standards drop, appraisal standards drop, we had rating agencies standards drop. These Financial Products essentially timebombs designed to blow up because the economic reality underpinning them just didnt exist. Much of it was real estate that was inflated, overvalued, and oversold. When you look at the financial crisis, how the bubble got invited by all these wrongful, reckless, up to illegal conduct while appraised real estate underpinned it all, it ultimately gets into the wall street Financial Engineering machine, which acted as a Conveyor Belt to spread that risk throughout the entire Financial System. That is why when the bubble burst, the Financial System itself was threatened with collapse because the too big to fail banks were going to bring it all down. Host we have about a little over five minutes will hear from tommy next in augustine georgia. A democrat. Caller how are you all doing . Thank you for taking my call. Host you back. Go ahead. Caller my question is, what party do most of the regulation and what party do the deregulation . That is all. Host ok, tommy. Guest that is a very good question, tommy. Financial regulation should not even be a partisan issue. Protecting the American People from a disastrous calamity, like the economic wreckage caused by 2008, should not be partisans. The 23 million americans who are unemployed and generate of 2010, there were republicans democrats, independents, eight years, catholics, it didnt matter. Protecting this country from that shouldnt have anything to do with partisan politics. Unfortunately, the way the system in washington works is partisan politics. And unfortunately, the way partisan politics works is in campaign finance. So you have a massive amount of money coming from wall street flooding into washington dc on the Campaign Lobby Side Campaign side and the lobby side. Right now, it breaks down to where really, there are very, very few republicans who generally care about financial reform. There is plenty that Pay Lip Service to it, but not many that are very serious about making it work. There are more democrats, i think, then republicans. And the Obama Administration gets a lot of credit. Host the l. A. Times had this story recently. The Republicancontrolled Senate took its first up towards for filling a gop promised to roll back key parts of this weeping 2010 dodd frank law. What did they want to change . Guest it was voted on a straight partyline vote. 12 republicans ordered for this deregulation bill. 10 democrats voted against that. It is unfortunate, as almost every democrat says and a good example that there are some provisions in the bill that would get 80 or 90 votes in the United States senate, passed overwhelmingly, and the president would support. And yet what happens is wall streets lobbyists get their special provisions stuck in these bills and they literally try to guam on. Glom on. That is what should happen in the senate, but you have wall streets special interests greased by highly paid lobbyists , and you have dysfunction. You and up with a 1210 vote, which means it is likely to go to the senate. And it means the good provisions want bad. What is good is that the really bad provisions want passed. Until people start acting in a nonpartisan way, rather than worry about party favor or delivering for wall streets lobbyists, unfortunately we will see gridlock. Host doug in florida, a republican. Caller hey, how are you doing . Host morning. Caller i am a small Business Owner. I called my bank [indiscernible] two kind of helped me through it maybe lower my payments or something. Their response was until i am three or four payment behind, they wont help me in any way. By that time, your credit is shot and everything else. My question is, wouldnt it make more sense instead of bailing out the banks, maybe helping mortgage owners who want to keep the house, helping them out . Host sorry to cut you off a little bit but the administration did have a couple mortgage programs. Guest doug, you are exactly right. It was required by a Democratic Congress that give money to wall street it required a massive mortgage Mitigation Program to help people exactly like you. If you lowered your payments by a little bit, you could have kept your home. So tens of millions of americans like you. One of the biggest failures of this administration they had many successes, but one of the failures is they feel totally on these mortgage programs that should have been in place should have been up and running and they should have been worrying about people paying their mortgages on wall street. Host can in lancaster, ken, in lancaster, South Carolina. Caller good morning. Im going to ask the gentleman in 1987 with the New York Stock Exchange dropped 508 points on a single day, and another thing i want to ask him is he familiar with the [indiscernible] when the government printed trillions of dollars and give it to wall street. They gave it to them at 1 , but they loaned it out to everybody else at 6 . Like if the Company Invests in a lot of money and another thing about the new banks. I heard china, russia, india and some other african countries created a new world bank. Thank you. Guest greta will have me here for another 48 hours, i will get to all of that. I heard about that. The oneday crash in 1987. It is very controversial as to who benefited. The banks get much lower interest rates. There is this thing called the put. If the United States government indicates that they are going to bailout banks, then they can ask recklessly so that if they get into trouble, they can get bailed out. That is called a put. All of those things are bad. And all of those things are attempted to be addressed in the dodd frank law. As you indicated greta prevented from being rolled back, the good provisions. Host this legislation, as it makes its way through congress, you will be watching it for our viewers. You can go to their website bettermarkets. Com. Dennis kelleher, thank you very much. Guest thank you, greta. Nice to be with you. Host coming up next, we will talk to former senator, richard lugar, of indiana. We will talk about foreign taligent policy challenges in the u. S. We will take a short break and continue here on the washington journal. This summer booktv will cover book festivals from around the country. This weekend, we are live at book expo america in new york city with the Publishing Industry showcases their upcoming books. In the beginning of june, we are live for the Chicago Tribune lit fest. And your phone calls. New the end of june, watch for the annual roosevelt reading festival from the president ial library. In the middle of july, we are live at the harlem book fair, the nations flagship africanamerican book fair. And at the beginning of september, we are live from the Nations Capital for the annual book fast. A few of the events this summer on cspan2s booktv. David mccullough on the right brothers, the quest for flight, and the accident that changed the course in history. It was the mystery of who it was that hit wilbur in the teeth with a hockey stick knockout all his upper teeth when he was 18. And sent him into a spell of depression, a selfimposed seclusion in his house. For three years. He was not able to go to college, which he plan to do. He wanted to go to yale. Instead, he stayed at home, seldom went out at all. Reading. And providing himself with a liberal Arts Education of a kind most people would dream of having, all on his own. It was with the help of his father and the local public library, but it spurred his the path of his life in a way that no one had ever had any way of anticipating. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific on q a. Washington journal host continues. Host and we are joined washington journal continues. Host and we are joined by former senator richard lugar. What is the lugar center . Guest it is a think tank. We have the agriculture committee, and others, working with Food Security, arms control, bipartisan politics, various other things. Host all those issues you worked on when you served in the senate. Guest that is right. I am affiliated with indiana university. And it had serves as the headquarters drama activities. Host lets talk about reviving bipartisanship. You call it a lost art. At the lugar center, you have come up with an index to track and chart how lawmakers are doing on bipartisanship. How are you going to go about scoring, if you will, their bipartisanship and bipartisan efforts . Guest well, the basic factors are how many bills a member presents. And get bipartisan support. The opposition will, as well as their own party. Or if you are looking at a piece of legislation across the aisle how many things you cosponsored that were started by a member of the opposition. In essence, this is a way of scoring precisely people who take time to legislate. They really want to do something to move things ahead as a result and as a result, we have taken a look at 10 years of congress, which gives a super good background. We found that the last two preceding this one, were by far the most partisan. Sharply so. This one remains to be seen. We are sort of in the middle of the stream, but nonetheless, we have been able to chart at least what in the last Congress Members did, every one of them, with the exception of the two leaders in each house who have other tactical situations. We dont count those that are purely ceremonial or naming of buildings and that type of thing. And you dont get counted if you have not introduced at least three bills on your own. Aside from that, by everyone who is listed from one to 435 or so in the house and one to 100 and the senate, i think people have taken notice of this. Host why do you think it is important to do this and what impact do you think you can have by putting the scorecard out . Guest already, we have had questions from members of the senate and house, how can i improve the house situation . The current answer is, introduce bills that attract bipartisan support, somebody from the other part of the senate to come across and help, or take a look in other words, get more active. As opposed to simply offering bills that are statements or a particular doctrinal feeling that you have, but has no chance of passage. But meant to illustrate your own political constituents how you feel. Host there are political groups out there on the left and the right, environmental groups that score, lawmakers that score lawmakers, and there is money attached to this course. There is Political Support attached to that score for them being partisan. How do you expect a breakthrough that and what do members get in return for the lugar center saying, you have been bipartisaned . Guest we believe most polls indicate a lack of support, a lack of confidence in the ability of the congress to work. That is disturbing, in terms of our general democracy. Members feel that from time to time, although they also feel the heat that you just mentioned. A scorecard with specific interests. The point here is really that members do have an opportunity to say that i am a constructive legislator, i can get things done, i have good ideas for the country and i know how to put them across. And this is the scorecard that shows really that an objective way, i get the job done. Host i know you are knocking to score the leaders, but Mitch Mcconnell taking over in the 114th congress, he has put those on the floor and has more hours of debate for this congress. What do you make so far of his leadership and will that lend itself to more bills getting past bipartisan votes . Guest already, i believe that his leadership has led to more activity and more progress. And i salute him for this. It is not an easy time, and we have witnessed recently with the pacific trade bill for the problems of security that are in the patriot act. But at the same time, he has recognized people are willing to offer amendments, they like to have debates, but it is tough. Because, in essence, many parliamentary procedure situations now require 60 votes. He has just 53. This means on the face of it, he has to reach across the aisle. He has to find folks on the Democratic Party who make the 60, which he has had to do several times already. In a very partisan congress, this is especially tough to do. So i salute him. Host lets turn to our viewers. The phone lines are lighting up for you, sir. Tim and pennsylvania, a democrat. You are on the air with senator lugar. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Hi, senator lugar. I wanted you to hear from a democrat who respects you a great deal. I really admire your work internationally on arms control and i dont know of anybody is doing that now in the senate maybe you could speak to that. And i wanted to tell you one other thing because i vote democrat almost completely. But if i lived in indiana and i had to make a choice between you and the democrats, it would have been very difficult. Thank you, sir. Guest thank you for your question. Unfortunately right now, things are box down with regards to arms control bogged down with regards to arms control, mostly due to russia. They were prepared to keep the lugar legislation going, which had been the basic way for 20 years, that arms had been taken down and destroyed in russia. Over at the War Department however, the russians had, no, we want you out of here. And june 2013 was the end of the trail. Most of the folks in congress now have not been concentrating on arms control, but really on beefing up our nuclear security. Huge sums of money are being appropriated for the future for that purpose. And there clearly is no work on the part of the russians at this stage. That is potentially difficult for the world. I dont criticize anybody involved in i understand the National Prospects in both countries. But at the same time, it is important that we continue to work at the margins, and im attempting to do this with my former partners at the Nuclear Threat initiative, to try and find whatever materials wherever materials are located 25 countries, from the nuclear age. We may get some cooperation from the russians in doing that. It is in their interest, as well as ours. But it is very important that we not be surprised from terrorists who sweep in and find materials that are not fully developed. But nevertheless can create havoc. Host senator lugar, what is your thoughts on these negotiations of trying to stop iran from getting to that point . Guest well, that is the best prospect we have of slowing the iranian prospect down. I dont claim it is the end of the trail because even under the best of circumstances, iran will have the ability, i met admit within a year of time to gear up again and really get into the weapons grade situation. But at the same time, it is diplomacy at work that i hope will be successful because it does ring really a different relationship between the United States and iran. We are finally talking to people there. People in iran who may have at least something to go on temper really. But it is a dicey business. Not really clear at this point whether by june 30, the parties will reach an agreement, but i hope that they will. Host do you trust iran . Guest no, i dont have their trust when it comes to nuclear relations with anybody. As a matter of fact, i think there has to be a verification procedure. Host the Supreme Leader said just recently, there wont be that his country will not allow inspectors to come to his country. Guest there are parts of iran that will be inspected, as i understand, by the International Atomic energy association. And maybe by others, depending on how the negotiations go. But i appreciate what you have said it and others are drawing lines. Which is unfortunate, in terms of the negotiation procedure. Host in warsaw, indiana. An independent. You are on your former senator. Go ahead. Tricia, are you there . Caller hello . Host you are on the air. Caller ok, thank you. Mr. Lugar, it is really great to see you. And i just want you to know i appreciated everything you have done in representing our state over the years and i totally agree with you. I am glad you are making, you know, ringing this to the forefront at we need more cooperation in the congress and in the senate to lead the country in the right direction. I have always felt that, you know, there is good things on both sides of the aisle and there are bad things on both sides of the aisle. And the animosity that has been going on over the last two sessions, like you said, is just you know i dont understand. And i dont think it is a good thing. And very harmful to the country. Our enemies in other countries are sitting and watching this and rubbing their hands with glee because they see how divided and how much animosity is in our country. And it makes us look weak to other countries. Guest tricia, i really appreciate some good hoosier common sense this morning. With regards to the way the rest of the world looks at us, i remember opportunities i had to serve as the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or as Ranking Member with the joe biden, who was chairman at one point. We finally came to take a look at how the rest of the world looked at what we were doing. And we found that when we were dealing with Foreign Policy and questions of national security, was not very reassuring. We needed to really strive for not a unanimous vote, but something pretty close to that. So when we had something to say and are legislation passed, the rest of the world would take notice and have confident. I think that is true not only in Foreign Policy, but the method policy also. And this is why we have fashioned, along with the school at Georgetown University, and i want to Picture Butte to and of our staff, pay tribute to dan of our staff, we really want to have a constructive situation. We still have our partisan feelings and strong views, but we do listen to somebody else as well as the rest of the world. Host st. Paul, minnesota. Mark, a republican. Caller high, greta. Senator lugar, it is nice to hear that the democrats love you so. I have three quick questions. I notice that it says that you are with something called the lugar center. I am wondering number one, what is the source of funding for the lugar center . Number two, what is the budget and donations for the lugar center . And number three, how much do you pay yourselves to be president of your center . Thank you. Guest well, the first question i will answer is that i pay myself nothing. I have no salary from the lugar center. Essentially, the moneys we have received has been from foundations. Specifically the Gates Foundation as being a major factor in the Food Security work we are doing. Under our other arms control groups, we have they have been helpful in supporting our work in that area. And i have mention the sponsorships with Georgetown University on the bipartisan index. That was very important support. It wasnt financial, but they came from very gifted people. We have asked gets from friends of the lugar center, and they would be people who formerly made contributions to my campaigns or at least believe in the things we are doing. These are very modest gifts. We have a very modest budget. We really dont need very much money. As we work along the way, we Seek Foundation report support. Host do you receive money from Foreign Countries . Guest no. No money from Foreign Countries. Host ohio, mike. An independent. Caller high, good morning. Host morning. Caller exactly how many of the representatives and senators have never introduced a bill at all while they have been serving the American People supposedly . I will take my answer offline. Guest well, i cannot really cite the exact number. I know that a few did not introduce at least three bills. That was the requirement for being in the list this time. But most have gotten at least three bills. The point is that even if the introduced three bills if it were merely statements of the senator or member of the house and strong passions, then this was not really a constructive legislative situation. It indicated whether member stood, but did not advance the cause. So we are trying to offer an incentive by publishing the activities of members. So it is very clear how much they are doing. And this is as compared with the baseline, as i mentioned earlier, of the past 20 years. Even if this is a very partisan congress, we have some basis on which to take a look and give ratings. Host we will go next to david in texas. An independent. Hi, david. Caller hello. [indiscernible] host david, you are on the air. Caller ok, yes. What i am calling about his [indiscernible] they dont have much of a chance, but some of them have ideas that help everybody in the United States almost. And one thing is, my car could be Mike Huckabee. He is a good human being. He is an honest person. [indiscernible] the problem with the fair tax is nobody knows about it. I talked to some people, and not one of them knows what the fair taxes. The fair tax eliminates the irs. [indiscernible] im sure that senator lugar knows what it is. Everybody would love that because everybody would benefit from it. It is a National Sales tax with [indiscernible] things that are necessary to life, there is no tax on it. Everything else would have a tax on it. There is no income tax. In other words, everybody would have to pay sales tax, including people that are here illegally and people that dont like the government. Everybody benefits from it. Host ok, david. Guest david, i appreciate your question and let me admit my bias in your direction. When i was a candidate for the republican nomination for president back in 1995 1996, i advocated the fair tax. Or as you say, the National Sales tax. I felt for some of the reasons you just dated that it would be much more easy to administer. It will not require all the problems of the irs and thousands of pages of tax law. And, as a matter of fact, you could make an exemption for people are very, very low income. But at the same time, it does touch all transactions of a family. Unfortunately, my campaign, as well as the idea of the fair tax, do not progress. But i am pleased that at least it is having another hearing with my cut copy , and i think you with with Mike Huckabee, and i thank you for raising the issue. Host we are talking with former senator lugar. There bipartisan index, you can take a look at their website if you want to see who scored the highest, who scored the lowest in the 113th congress. They also went back into previous congresses as well. You get to the top five lawmakers listed. Also talking about other issues with the former senator. The former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We will go to a man in a in oregon we will go to amanda next in oregon. Caller hi. I actually grew up in michigan and i was a republican. But i felt living there in oregon, getting out things getting things done that i wanted to happen, was not going to happen if i were a republican. So i basically pick people that i believe in. And i had to kind of throughout the will idea of of kind of sticking with parties, which i kind of grew up with. The thing that i have really been struggling with, and this is my main question is, i think that the the people nowadays really feel like congress, the house, and the senate are totally and completely out of touch with what people go through in real life. Like, the things that they deal with, the bills they pay, the things that matter on a daily basis. Host amanda, we will take your point for the former senator. Senator lugar, go ahead. Guest let me say that i believe she is right on track. Essentially, the problem is that many people dont have a great deal of confidence in the congress presently and their ability to reach decisions that are critical for the progress of our country. So, we are offering an incentive for members really to offer more constructive legislation that would gain support. They will have to get a lot of support on many occasions. 60 votes, as opposed to 51, as a matter of fact. That requires cosponsorship from somebody of the opposite side. So it will attract that support. I believe that is a confidence builder, and we believe our index offers incentives for members really to do a much better job. Host a look at the score for the 113th congress and the senate, the top five Susan Collins of maine, joe of west virginia, Lisa Murkowski of alaska, and mark pryor of arkansas. Can bipartisanship the a detriment to reelection . Guest there is a possibility, unfortunately, that bipartisanship could be difficult, in terms of the election. That constituents in the primary election may vote with more extreme elementse democratic or the republican side. So, i i dont suggest as a political strategy of survival necessarily, but at the same time in the same in terms of doing your duty for the country it seems to me that there is likely to be a growing group of people who are going to support people who are constructive trade constructive. And i believe Susan Collins and maine, i note that she sent out immediately press releases indicating her standing in the bipartisan prole poll. They felt that their constituents would appreciate that rating. And this would be a plus factor for them. Host we will go next to john. South carolina. A democrat. Caller good morning. Host morning. Caller senator, host john, please go ahead with your question or comment. Caller mr. Lugar, i wanted to bring your attention [indiscernible] the situation of your former chief of staff. He has gotten into a situation. He is in a nursing home in maryland. His wife died a year ago and she has had a Memorial Service organized by his son. Back in october of last year. And he is has been so supportive of you and said such great things about you always. And i wanted to bring that to your attention. You may know it already. So i pass that along to you. [indiscernible] back in the 1960s and early 1970s. And where he is writing his book on nonproliferation issues, and his work on the treaty host i am going to jump in at that point. That is john in South Carolina talking about your former chief of staff, is that right . Guest right. I do remember the gentleman. I appreciate his comments. I was not really aware of all the circumstances that he mentioned, so i am grateful that he took time today to collis and be a part of this conference to call us to call us and be a part of this conversation. Host some of those years as the chairman of the Foreign Relations committee. Sir, i want to get your thoughts on iraq and his fight against isis. First, i want to show you what the defense secretary had to [video clip] iraqi forces showed no will to fight. They were not outnumbered. A vastly outnumbered the opposing force. Yet they failed to fight. They withdrew from the fight. That says to me, and i think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the iraqiss to fight isil and defend themselves. We can give them training, equipment, we obviously cannot give them the will to fight. If we give them training and Equipment Support and time, i hope they will develop the will to fight. Only if they fight can isil remain defeated. A lot of people in washington that you deal with on the other side of the aisle are saying putting ground truth put in ground troops. What do you foresee . What is your view on this . Airstrikes are effective but neither they or anything we do can substitute for the iraqi forces will to fight. They are the one to have to beat isil and keep them beaten. Host what do you make of the strategy against isis . You just heard about the iraqi soldiers and the baghdad government. Guest i agree with the comments ash carter made on the sunday show. It is unfortunate that there is not a government in iraq that has been able to unify the shiites and the sunnis sufficiently. They are not currently fighting together. Despite training efforts or the occasional airstrike on our part, this is no substitute for a government that has a coordinated armed force is able to absorb the training and the unified in defense of whatever they are up to come quite a part of retaking territory from isis. This is a question of how that unity is to occur. How the iraq government can be strengthened. That is going to require diplomacy and counsel on our part. Host are you seeing it . Guest not yet. There is not an overall strategy of how to do with isis in iraq in syria likewise, quite apart from the assigned government that is still in syria. All of the other elements, feelings of the iranians, saudis or other elements animations in that area. Elements and nations in that area. Host does the u. S. Need to make or of a presence in iraq . Guest probably. I tend to agree with those who feel we may need to have more intelligence people that are out front that can help our aircraft hit the targets. Airstrikes have come and gone without dropping anything because the intelligence factor was not there. Host we will move on to lisa in kansas city, a republican. Caller i have a comment and a question. The republicans seem to be becoming democrats and the democrats are moving very far to the left. I used to be a democrat. I changed to republican when he started moving far to the left. The republicans seem like they do not have any back to. They do not have any will to become strong in their ideas and policies to move forward. I seem to be becoming more like democrats, doing nothing. Guest i do not agree with that generalization. I believe that republicans still have very good ideas. As a matter fact, ive mentioned Mitch Mcconnell for extraordinary leadership under difficult circumstances. More legislation is passed. There is Greater Movement to get members on the floor involved in debate. This is a tough business. The degree of partisanship is still very intense. As a result, it is not so much a republican failure of the fact that members at this point still are prepared to fight the president or fight each other as opposed to establishing new laws and contracted procedures. That is one reason why our bipartisan index has been founded, to give incentive for people to reach out and make decisions that are like to be more constructive for our country. Host robert from jenkins kentucky. A democrat. Good morning. You are on the air. Caller i remember you were the mayor. I did not agree with your policies because i think you turned you are a fine senator. Thank you. Guest i appreciate that. Host keith in michigan. Independent. Caller hello there. A privileged to speak to you senator lugar. I would like your how you feel about the influence of money in gerrymandered districts and its influence on congress. Guest gerrymandered districts are not a good idea. Hopefully legislatures will straighten that out. Some have, but to the extent that gerrymandering is too intense, the primary election often settles the issue. The general election is beside the point. It would be a better situation if we had districts who were brought up the shore drawn up more fairly. Who were drawn up more fairly. That requires a lot of work and will not occur from the federal standpoint but at the state level. Host ishmael, a democrat in indianapolis. Caller good morning senator. Many thanks to your services. As a democrat, i always appreciate your services. All the oil that isil is selling for the supporting themselves. As everybody knows, the rumor says some of this oil goes to turkey. Why our ministers and will not put pressure on other countries not to buy the oil . Thank you very much. Good luck to you. Guest a very good point. Pressure should be applied so that it is a sanction of sorts against isil. Theyve taken over large portions of iraq in particular in syria. Theyve come onto these oil situations and this is a major part of their revenue. If we are serious, and i believe the turks are, we need to take that into consideration and not feed the money bag. Host charlotte, north carolina. Jerry is watching us, a republican. You are on the air. Caller i am calling in regards i want to thank you for your service in the senate. I also want to point out what secretary carter said. They did not have the will to fight. How true is it that they are saying the soldiers that were fighting were yelling out they had no ammunition and the leaders in iraq them withdraw . It is my understanding from what ive been seeing on cspan that a lot of the munitions and armaments that have been sent have gone to baghdad and somehow it had not been dispersed to the soldiers that are fighting. If this is true, at the juncture there, how can the fight without proper equipment and ammunition . The soldiers say it is not true they have the will to fight they just do not have the means. I would like your comment. Host there has been some criticism that the baghdad government has done a halfhearted effort in giving the iraqi soldiers that they need, especially when it comes to assume the area like ramadi. Guest the points you make are well taken. There is a problem with the Iraqi Government divided with shiites and sunnis. There may be some in that government that are fearful putting too many arms in the hands of sunnis if youre looking at it from the shiite standpoint. Shiite militias have been employed by the government outside their normal armed forces. The munitions problem is very real. The morale problem is real too. If you were a soldier on the frontline, fighting for iraq and you have a feeling that there is not the support that you anticipated from your government, either in terms of training or a munitions, as well as the unifying factor, this is very debilitating. The temptation to flee is perhaps overwhelming. This is why i made the point earlier in the show, we really have to give strong encouragement to the Iraqi Government and to unify its forces to bring these elements together, otherwise we will end up with proposals for three states in iraq, one for the kurds, one for the sunnis in one for the shiites. Iraq tries to regain its territory and fight isil. Host there is no new authorization for military force coming out of this congress for the president to fight this crisis Group Operating under the this crisis Group Operating under the 20012002 authorization to fight al qaeda. What impact is that having on the situation in iraq . Guest each of these situations in congress, countries interpret what the United States is doing are not very helpful. We have to come together as a country, the president and congress. It is not a question of trying to upstage each other. It is a question of understanding, we have a predicament and it is going to require money, arms, coordination through the administration and congress. Host madeleine is next. Manassas virginia. Caller i want to say i am angry at our congress and senate because they are not representing the people. My medicare has been raised. My supplemental is raised because they allowed obamacare to go through. My grandson was one of the first 200 taken out of the military pay him 400 a month. A 4000 deductible for obamacare. My son was one of the 200 taken 200,000 taken of the military. It took him four years to find a fulltime job. He cannot afford any insurance. My problem is that i am angry because you do not represent us and we are mad at you. You need to start representing us instead of this administration. Close this border. Stop this obamacare and give people some jobs. Host senator . Guest as a member of the senate, i voted against obamacare steadily because i believe there were better ways of Offering Health care to more americans. I still believe there are. It is going to require initiative on the Republican Partys side to come up with the alternatives. Those have not been forthcoming thus far. I would encourage my colleagues on the republican side, some have already bought a great deal about this problem. We dont know how the Supreme Court is going to rule on obamacare. I dont think there could be changes that are significant. It is going to require congress to act swiftly. Host but youre from jim lets hear from jim, oxford maine. Caller i watched politics all my life and im convinced the Supreme Court this country does not stand a chance in hell. They are all paid for by big money. They do nothing for local people and it is not going to change. I feel sorry for my grandkids. Guest i agree with you that Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court was unfortunate. I will not argue the constitutional law but the effects are as you have stated. That is really to help put a huge amount of money into politics. An overwhelming amount of money. Much of it is not contributed to anybody so there is not accountability for all of this. I am hopeful that either through a change in Supreme Court ruling or work in the congress or some constructive means that control of the situation might be reestablished. For the moment, this is a torrent of money which i believe has a negative in whats on public confidence. Host i want to get your thoughts on codeels. Attend members of Congress Took trips secretly funded by members of other government of foreign governments. You spoke at this conference. Why did you decide to go and what do you think about this investigation into these 10 members taking this trip . Do you think it was a good idea . Guest i think the trip was an excellent idea. It was an opportunity to discover what is occurring. It would not be available to members through normal debates over here. I was not aware until i read the story a few weeks ago there was any dispute over the trip. There were members of congress, a good number of state legislatures. It was quite a group of americans. I was honored to speak at the conference and visit with the leadership of the country. This was after i left the senate. At the same time, to visit with the members of congress and state legislatures as we all discovered what was occurring in a country. It is important because it has a great deal of oil. There is the situation which we started the socalled baku pipeline. As a result, this made an independent source of fuel coming out of the middle east that cannot be stopped by the russians. This is been an important point strategic lead in terms of our european allies. I applaud the work that is being done there. The building up of the beautiful city. A wonderful place in the middle east that tourists can enjoy from america or all countries. There are issues with the government there. I discussed that with the leadership because there are charges in which citizens civil rights are imposed upon. We had an opportunity to argue that case of civil liberties. Host you were invited to give a speech on the results of former officials of the Obama Administration. You are paid to give that speech . Guest i was. After i left the senate, accepted an honorary him. Host can you share with us how much that is . 20 think that is appropriate . Why do you think that is appropriate . Guest it was a substantial figure. I cannot remember the exact amount. I think it is appropriate because my speech was valued, as our speeches of other people who were asked to give speeches at colleges or specific institutions. Ive been doing a lot of that in the last two or three years. That was prohibited when i was a member of congress, understandably. Host senator richard lugar. You can go to the lugar center. Org. We appreciate your time this morning. Coming up next, we will turn our attention to Police Reforms in this country. We will talk with simone weisel baum. We will return after this break. The new congressional directory is a handy guide with color photos of every senate and house member. Plus Contact Information and twitter handles. Also, a foldout map of capitol hill and a look at congressional committees, the president must cabinet, federal agencies and state governors. Order your copy today, it is 1395 13. 95 plus shipping and handling at cspan. Org. Booktv will cover festivals from around the country. This weekend, we are live at book expo america in new york city for the Publishing Industry showcasing upcoming books. Our threehour live in Depth Program with Lawrence Wright and your phone calls. Youre the end of june, watch for the roosevelt reading festival from the Franklin D Roosevelt president ial library. In the middle of july, were live at the harlem book fair. With author interviews and panel discussions. At the beginning of september we are live from the Nations Capital for the National Book festival celebrating its 15th year. A few of the events this summer on cspan 2s booktv. Washington journal continues. Host joining us from new york this morning is Simone Weichselbaum. Here to talk about efforts to reform Police Departments across the country. We will put phone numbers on the screen. You can start dialing in. For Law Enforcement 202 7488003. What is the marshall project, if you can explain that for our viewers . Guest we are a new nonprofit focused on criminal justice investigative news. What were trying to do a shed light in areas of criminal justice, policing, prisons parole probation, stories you will not read in mainstream media. We send monthtomonth we spend monthtomonth working on projects and copublished them in major outlets. We have been working with the weather channel. Host this is the most recent one that you did, policing the police, in partnership with time magazine. As the Justice Department pushes reforms, some changes do not last. You are looking at what the Justice Department has done over the years to curb bad policing methods. What did you find out . Guest it was interesting. We began looking at the story after i did a story looking at the natty, which is to the south looking at cincinnati, which is to the south of cleveland. They are something called the memorandum of agreement, a type of reform. Once we look at that city, we begin learning there have been so many of these agreements also the late 1990s under clinton. We found the department of justice was in cleveland. They were in new orleans, which is currently under a new Consent Decree. They were in miami. Fair in negotiation with the Miami Police Department today. There are these repeat cases going on. We started delving into more and to figure out why. Host what did you find out . Guest we found out in the early iterations, some call it the 1. 0 of these methods. Some of these reforms were not lasting. It was hard to pressure cities to continue looking at methods to sustain these efforts. For example, what we found in cleveland the first time around, the Justice Department issued recommendations in the form of a Technical Assistance letter, calling for things like do not fire upon moving vehicles, change use of force policies. The Police Department agreed to reedit the Justice Department pulled out a year later. Unfortunately we saw another investigation unveiled host . Host the headline in usa today cleveland to be monitored as it implements changes. Are you saying this the Second Time Around for cleveland . Guest it is complicated. The second time in a sense of the department of justice investigation area did the first resulted in a Technical Assistance letter. The second one we see resulted in a Consent Decree. I would say there are two separate investigations but they had different outcomes. Host let me read from usa today what this means for the city of cleveland. A centerpiece of the federally monitored program is the creation of a Community Police commission composed of civil rights advocates, business leaders, Police Union Representatives and others to address concerns such as racial bias and whether officers are held accountable for their actions. Has this been done before in other cities after these Justice Department investigations . Do the sort of commissions work . Guest weve seen similar commissions in cincinnati. When we looked into cincinnati we saw that while you put in place the Justice Department prescribed set of standards, the problem is when you have a new mayor or leadership come in or new federal leadership coming in, the question is, will the new folks Pay Attention . New orleans has oversight in place now. It is too early to tell. We have to see as years go by. Are these people into Police Reform like we are seeing under the Obama Administration or local leadership in various cities . Host what are these commissions supposed to be doing . Guest theyre supposed to be looking at the Police Department and reporting findings to the public. What we found in cincinnati, there is a similar commission, they put out reports but their data, the only held onto data for five years. We wanted to look at the history of the Police Involved shootings and the history of the use of force, under the department of justice intervention and years after, it was hard to paint that picture as they did not hold on to the data. It turns into the details not only implement and correct details but making sure those details are being followed once the department of justice intervention is over. Host why arent they being followed . Guest it all comes to oversight. When you have a monitor come in, cleveland, new orleans cincinnati, you have a monitor. The monitor comes in, maybe twice a year, they put out a series of reports which are usually made public, looking at whether the Police Department is following what the Justice Department has ordered the Police Department to follow. Once a monitor in federal court judge decide the Police Department is following the reform plan, the Court Ordered mandates are usually over. Detroit is in the process of ending their longterm Consent Decree. Once the department of justice pulls out, is a the city to monitor the Police Department. In cincinnati, while they were active, they were not so aggressive once the department of justice pulled out. Host once the Justice Department does this type of investigation, you saw the most recent one in ferguson missouri after the teenager Michael Brown was fatally shot, now you have baltimore launching the Justice Department investigating baltimore. After these are done, the Justice Department does their investigation and say there are bad methods, the city takes over , the city higher an outside observer to look after what the police are doing . Guest usually the city does. An independent monitor. It costs the city sometimes millions of dollars a year. They are very expensive. New orleans, the mayor filed an appeal, trying to block the Consent Decree arguing he could not the city could not afford to keep the monitor going. Another issue yes, the cities are mandated by the Justice Department to implement these changes. Who picks up the cost . Taxpayers at the local level. It is expensive not only to pay the monitor but also to implement reforms. Body cameras hiring, training. These things cost millions of dollars. Host why does it cost so much money . Guest some monitors charge of the 500 per hour. They have teams of lawyers paralegals working with cities making sure the Police Department is following methods. These monitors are supposed to be putting out reports sometimes twice a year. Theyre doing a lot of data collecting on one end. The second and his training. If the cops are ordered to have body cameras, hiring new officers, training new officers, bias training. These things are not free. Host in the end, do they work . Guest it is hard to tell. Experts like to say the lapd is the best model. They had their Consent Decree for a little over a decade and people there feel you see lasting change. Cincinnati, some feel you have lasting change, some feel you do not, especially the talk to those in the black community. Pittsburgh the first city to go under a Consent Decree in the late 1990s, there were reports that the department of justice is looking into that city again. There police chief was arrested on corruption charges of years ago. There was quibbling going on whether the department of justice would launch another investigation. It is hard to tell. A casebycase basis. Host efforts to reform the Police Department by the Justice Department in washington. We will get your thoughts on that. Hes in chicago, a democrat. Keith in chicago, a democrat. Caller the number one thing i think we need, i do not understand what did not have this at this stage. How come we dont have National Data and it is all voluntary . Municipalities and local authorities are not reporting. It has to be voluntary yet the police for terminal order does keep data police fraternal order does keep data but no one keeps National Data on Excessive Force things. I have not heard any media talk about john burns of chicago who was imprisoned for decades of torturing, specifically black people. He was released early from florida. No media scrutiny. If we keep only talking about baltimore in ferguson, we are doing an injustice from a media standpoint because this is a national trend. I was beat up by the cops two years ago. Im a professional male, black living in a high End Community in chicago on the north side not in a gang neighborhood. I interact with the police. They see a potential threat. Host how come there is no data . How come it is voluntary . Guest what is interesting about our local Law Enforcement agencies, there is no standard set of rules. Its almost gets into the notion we were founded on, states rights. Different departments have different requirements. It is hard to say we need you to report when different departments collect from things based on different standards. Host tommy, from tennessee. An independent. Caller good morning. I believe we need to go to the root cause of this problem and that is lack of moral counseling. I think we need to instruct officers to not have a depraved heart. To show mercy on these people who are doing these crimes. I think we need to teach these officers that you need to disable the weapon out of the accuseds hand first before you head to kill the person. If we do these things, i truly believe violence will go down as country. If it only goes down by 1 , that is a start in the right direction. Thank you. Guest he makes a very good point. We saw in the cleveland Consent Decree a push towards deescalation, teaching officers, you do not have to the ploy your taser every time you feel threatened. Have the suspect move further away from you. Perhaps you stronger verbal commands. There is a push in the white house policing the port policing report, toward the guardian mentality. Police officers, there is this push of being warriors, they come in almost like the military. It says, lets take a deep rest, d learn to deescalate. Your job is to talk to residents in this community. You are a friendly member of this community. There is this push out of the department of justice we are seeing to switch the way convince officers to think differently than they are currently thinking. Host the president recently announced a ban on some of the military style weaponry and equipment that goes to Police Departments. Would this help change that mentality if they are dressed differently and have different weapons in their hands . Guest i think a little bit. We have seen instances of Police Officers dressed in camo, officers riding around in tanks. That is a tip of the iceberg. The issue is more daytoday Police Interaction in urban america, suburban america where you are seeing a lot of racial strife going on between white officers and minorities. Ive do not think it is the way they are dressed, appearances always help. It is also learning how to talk to people differently. Host don, Law Enforcement from houston texas. Caller the hiring process of Law Enforcement should include a racial litmus test to see if the applicant is actually fit for the position of Law Enforcement. Perhaps, be able to police within a 15 mile radius of your own home. Youre more responsible for the community. It feels they feel superiority about themselves and obviously inferiority about those their policing. If we look at the relationship between minorities and Police Officers, it has never been good in this country. Their job was to uphold the law and from the first cone habitants of europeans with the black man, he was oh is the subject he was always the subject under the laws. He was subject to be stop, searched and done whatever with. Host what do you think of his idea of some sort of litmus test for Police Officers . Guest Police Officers at this point are tested on psychological capabilities, physical capabilities. He made a good point. When i was researching the cincinnati story and looking into when the federal government started policing local Police Departments, it goes back to the reconstruction era when africanamericans who were freed had a problem of local Law Enforcement trying to push jim crow the beginnings of jim crow era lifestyle. You had to have the federal government come in and police these local sheriffs and departments. It is an ongoing issue in this country which unfortunately roots back to reconstruction and slavery. Host what laws allow or encourage the Justice Department to do these types of investigations of Police Departments across the country . Guest before we had leased department investigations, the Justice Department was allowed first in the late 19th century and it was retooled in the 20th century after the civil rights era, investigating individual officers who are abusing someones civil rights. That is what officer Darren Wilson was cleared of in ferguson. A great example of these parallel investigations. The Justice Department cant prosecute or fails to find enough evidence, it can come in under 14141, a statute enacted in 1994 to investigate an entire Police Department for a widespread pattern of constitutional violations. We saw that pick up steam in the clinton era. In the bush administration, while they were doing investigations they were not issuing so many Consent Decrees of these Court Ordered reforms what we saw at a cleveland. Under the Obama Administration theyve picked up that effort and are mainly issuing Court Ordered reforms. Host the headline in the Washington Post out of cleveland. Highlights of this agreement that has been reached between the Justice Department and local officials. The city will document officers use of force. A Community Police commission will be formed. The investigative process for misconduct will be overhauled. Officers will be trained in how to deal with Mental Illness and respond to crisis situations. Carol in north carolina. A democrat. Caller i think you need to look at this at a different angle. Maybe the situation is one thing in one city. All cities are not the same. For instance in our city, in the fall and winter, we had a large group of young black boys that were going out in the daytime while people were at work in breaking in their houses and stealing whatever. At nighttime they would break into the businesses. If this was white people, it would not make one bit of difference whether they are black or white so it is not the media seems to make it this. It is crime. If people would start looking at this as crime instead of a black and white thing, maybe you can get something done on it. We formed a Neighborhood Watch where we go on our phones and computers and we all talk to each other and we ask questions like, do you know why this large section of gang boys are at the corner of soandso. One of the officers we work with is a black woman and she understands and it is not just white homes, it is black homes. One day youre going to wake up and were going to lose the law in this country and then you are going to have a country that is going to be like the people we see over there in iran. The men are all out in the streets hollering and screaming and acting like idiots and doing crime and stuff. Host we will take your point carol. Guest how can i best address this . Unfortunately, race is an issue. While crime does plague certain communities, i worked in new york philadelphia unfortunately the black on black homicide rate and homicide rate in general is usually a majority affecting the black and latino communities. What we found when we looked at the citizen that he when we looked into cincinnati, a push for Community Involvement and policing. When we went out there, what we found was interesting. Out of all the police meetings, most were attended by white homeowners. Most of the complaints filed where i saw were pushed by white homeowners. There was a strong absence of black residences participating in these dialogues which was shocking because the city had pushed for such a Strong Police community collaboration. Host we will hear from todd in robinson illinois. Caller good morning. I hope you are well. I have two points. I am a member of a trade union. Whenever there is a job, our Union Contractors will make a bid on the job. The thing about it is, there is always a nonunion contractor to make an opposing bid. There is competition. The police, for that matter, a lot of Government Employee unions, there is no competition. Cops are pretty secure. It is too easy to become a Police Officer and then it is very hard to fire a Police Officer because of these unions. My second point is, in europe Police Officers have to have a college degree. Four years before they ever get to put on the badge. Before the everyday to carry a weapon. Their degree is in psychology, as i understand it. I think these things go together. If these things could be addressed, i think we would have a lot better relationship as far as community and Police Officers. Guest that is a very good point. The white house report that was released a few weeks ago point out the requirements that local Police Departments asked officers. I believe it was less than 10 of the local Law Enforcement agencies that are actually not on college campuses. College campus Police Departments, i believe it was a third of those that require a fouryear degree. Most municipalities require an Associates Degree or high school diploma. Because there are so many Police Departments and no National Oversight or set of standards you find different rules in different regions. It is hard to monitor that. Host shirley in richmond virginia. Youre part of Law Enforcement . Caller no i am not. I was an elected official. Host go ahead then. Caller i see the greatest problem in most of these areas dealing with Law Enforcement and here in richmond as well, is that the people who are the police do not live in the communities that they police. You find there are many people who are against the police. The Police Coming into our neighborhoods are not feeling us. They are not a part of us. They do not know the people in the neighborhoods. They just know that these people are not me. Theyre not of my community. They go most 90 of the policeman do not live in richmond area they live in surrounding counties. I have offered oftentimes, a solution. Train our people in our own neighborhoods to police our neighborhoods. That would get rid of a number of things. It would get rid of all of the joblessness in black neighborhoods. In richmond right now there is 51. 9 of the people who are black. The could get rid of that by giving these people, training them from the time theyre in school, to take the positions of policeman, it administrators in the city. We had a police chief in the city of richmond who talk about going to germany to get policeman to come and police our neighborhoods. Host that was surely in richmond, virginia. Simone weichselbaum. A couple callers have brought up Police Living in the communities they police. Guest that is a very good point. The issue is, certain Police Departments, their salaries are not all that great. If you work for the nypd starting salary i believe is 50,000 range. Even with overtime, youre making maybe 70,000. If you live in new york city it is pretty tough to do especially with the family. People gravitate toward suburban Police Departments if they want to work and live in a community. If you want to work an urban environment you say, im going to be single or have a small family and make less money. It has to start with paying cops more money at local level. That could be instituted. Host garland, independent caller. Caller good morning. The Sheriffs Department around here, if you are not friends with them, you will not get on anyway. Most of them i know, ive been your for the last 40 years, they could not get a job working for ups, Federal Express or the post office. That is why there with the Sheriffs Department. Basically, most of them i know it is a career once they get in. They never leave. They stay until eternity. If you are not in the clique, you will not get on anyway. Host were talking with Simone Weichselbaum, staff writer at the marshall project, looking at reform of Police Departments across the country and collaboration with time magazine. She wrote this piece policing the police, taking a look at what the at what the Justice Department does to try to remedy that policing methods conducting these investigations like you saw in argus and. Like you saw in ferguson. How expensive are these investigations . Generally how long do they take . Guest to begin an investigation , you have something called a preliminary investigation which is when you have something occur and it is usually in the media. Justice department investigators, attorneys, start reading news clips. Once it is determined there is a pattern of misconduct, whether a series of reports, different people suing the Police Department for brutality as we saw in baltimore, that will start in on record investigation, a formal investigation that is announced through a press conference. The Justice Department asks. The do not have subpoena power to pull records from the Police Department. They tried to work in compliance with the Police Department in pulling data to look at stops stop and frisk, traffic surges. Traffic surges. How often use of force is being used. That can take months. As we saw with the ferguson report, i believe they spent thousands of hours looking at a Police Department had about 54 officers. Once that is issued, the issue something called the findings report, which we saw issued in ferguson not too long ago. That details the problems the investigators have found. Once that occurs, the negotiation process begins. Miami has been working years in the second round of their Justice Department intervention, still negotiating their process for their upcoming Consent Decree. The problem is costs. The city says, we cannot afford to have a monitor for so many years. We cannot afford to implement these reforms you want us to have. There negotiation is pretty much stalled. Once that document is signed, whether a Consent Decree or in the or a memorandum of agreement, the next step could take 10 to 12 years. Detroit is all most wrapping it up. It is a long process. Host what unit of the Justice Department is doing these investigations . Guest it is the Civil Rights Division. Out of that, it is something called a special litigations section. Team of attorneys that look for patterns in Sheriffs Departments, juvenile justice agencies, issues with jails. We reported about a week ago that the Justice Department is looking at attica. We had an investigation in new york looking at the abuse in attica, a prison there. Justice department is looking into those reports as well. It is not just Police Departments. Host atlanta, georgia. Hollis is a democrat. Caller my comment is, there is a culture. When you pull most of your Law Enforcement from a military background, i can tell you that at parris island, the number one thing they drilled into every young marine coming in, when you were a civilian, you were garbage. They drill that into your head. Not only do they demonize foreigners, they tell you that when you were an american civilian, you were garbage. Once you put on this uniform you become somebody special. It is my comment. Host what do you think about the background of these Police Officers . The military background specifically . Guest i think we cannot generalize and make up like a statement saying all Police Officers come especially those who served in the military, have a bias towards civilians. Ive worked with officers in various cities for over 10 years and you have bad apples and you actually have officers want to make change. Even those what served in the u. S. Military, it does not mean that they come back and serve on a Police Department and has inherent hatred toward residents. It is casebycase, i would feel. Host bill on our line for Law Enforcement. Caller i have a serious question. Apparently she is in the know. Who is going to reform the Justice Department and the Obama Administration . Who is going to reform those guys . Host in what way . Caller look at the racial diversity that is occurring under mr. Obama. Who is going to reform the Justice Department . How about fast and furious . What went on in texas . Law enforcement tried to tell the Justice Department, what are you doing . Was going to reform the Justice Department and mr. Obama . Host we will move on to mike in pittsburgh on our line for Law Enforcement. Caller i wanted to refute the statement made by the gentleman a few calls back that said it was easy to become a Police Officer and difficult to get fired. I dont know about everywhere, but i can tell you in pennsylvania, it is the exact opposite. My agency, it took well over a year to be hired and well over a year of training before we were allowed out on the street. We were held to a High Standard of accountability. I cannot comment for everywhere in the nation i can comment in pennsylvania. We were held to rigid standards. Host youre a Police Officer . How long have you been on the force . Caller yes maam. Five years. Host what do you make of these investigations the Justice Department does into Police Methods . This headlined out of cleveland what theyre going to agree to do because the investigation. These commissions that oversee them. Training with Police Officers to help them deal with the mentally ill in crisis situations. You agree with those outcomes . Caller i cannot comment on the report and the Consent Decree as a whole. I will say, training is a valuable tool in dealing with any part of society, especially the mentally ill. I have a bachelors degree in political science. Ive had a few psychology courses and even our Police Academy training, we had courses in how to deal with mentally ill. That training has proved invaluable in my experiences. Host should it continue as you continue your career in the police force . Caller sure. I take courses as they are offered. I cant comment on every state but pennsylvania has a commission that offers free training to Police Officers. I take it as often as i can for anything from search and seizure to dealing with mentally ill and such. The training is available. Host do you have any thoughts, simone . Caller i know the nypd guest i know the nypd encourages officers to get higher education. Philadelphia Police Department public you have a lawenforcement agencies to encourage officers in the major cities ive seen to continue with their education and training. Host paul, an independent. Caller nobody is getting to the root cause of all of this garbage. Behavior. Reform needs to start in the education system. You have schools come elementary schools, middle schools and colleges teaching the students that what they do is not the responsibility and not their fault. It is society. As long as you keep brainwashing these young people, i dont care fewer black, white red green as long as you keep in these young people this garbage and young kids are not doing what the police say, resisting them, you will continue to have all of this unrest and everything else. Host lets take that point. Guest were talking about Police Reform. He is bringing up society reform. Police officers i have talked to use to tell me it all starts at home. It is not so much reforms that you can force any Police Department to undertake, a lot of cops feeling we are not social workers, we cannot force homes to change. We cannot stop child abuse or force parents to make sure their kids are going to school and excelling. The Society Needs fixing sure. Society is always needed fixing. We are here to talk about Police Reform. Host betty in new mexico, a republican. Caller thank you for talking to me. I am a grandmother. Im 86. I have 14 great grandchildren. In our home, we have always taught children to obey the law. We have never had a problem with any of them. I just think the responsibility lays with the parents. They need to use some common sense and bring these children up right and quit telling them all their problems are somebody elses caused. Host rick in massachusetts independent caller. Caller it seems to me the emphasis is on Police Misconduct against blacks in particular. I notice there is very little being said about when the police abuse a white individual such as in albuquerque, new mexico where 10 officers eat the man that tried beat the man that tried to run away on horseback. It got so little press. The other thing ive noticed with Police Officers, a large majority of them are either military rejects or one of these. Or one of these. Host i dont know sorry that i cut you off. Making a generalization about the criteria to become a Police Officer. Does it vary across state and local musicalitys of how you can become a police and local municipalities of how you can become a Police Officer . Guest some would want you to have an Associates Degree. Some do Different Levels of background checking. It varies agency by agency. Host what are you watching next on this front when it comes to policing the police . This headline out of cleveland today. What is coming next . Guest we are delving deeper into this process at the marshall project. I do not like to give things away as we work on them. It is an ongoing issue with many details that are not getting investigated from a journalists point of view so we are digging. Host tell us more about what details you dont think the Mainstream Press is covering when it comes to this issue of Police Reform and methods across the country. Guest i think we should look at, especially the local media sustainability. A lot of National Attention when the Justice Department announces an investigation into a city as we saw in baltimore. A lot of can a lot of attention when the Consent Decree is ordered. How are we as a nation going to keep looking at cleveland to make sure they are following the prescribed reform plan . Once the Justice Department moves out, how are we going to mature 15 years from cleveland, however going to make sure cleveland is following the prescribed reform plan . Pittsburgh did, a prescribed reform plan, and we were investigating are stored. I learned that the pittsburgh Police Department was pretty close to having another investigation. Their chief was arrested on corruption charges. That was really shocking to me. Pittsburgh was the first city. Host Simone Weichselbaum i am going to try and get in one less call here. Hi, willy. If you could make your question or comment quick. Caller what i dont understand we never have been