In maryland. Good morning, you are on. Caller thank you for taking my call. I would say im in support most definitely because we have to look at what is happening here. , animalance agricultural the pleading the ozone layer and the rapid deforestation of the different types of rain forests. Global emissions. The most important thing i guess is why will not we spend our time and resources here developing electric and solar and wind energy when we are worrying about having potential planets . To become and interplanetary species but first we have to establish space law, who owns what and then we can go from there. What about the turmoil taking place here . Host billy and maryland making the comment on Space Exploration. Aside from the topic today, also looking at Democratic National committee, it is in the process of selecting a new chair for the committee with elections to take place today. David weigel from the washington post, the National Political reporter joining us on the phone. Tell us what is in store for today and what do you expect to happen . Guest later this morning, the members of the Democratic National committee will meet and vote on their entire leadership, first on one of seven candidates becoming chairman of the party. Fromense coming out of it as recently as a few hours ago, tom perez, the secretary of labor has a clear advantage. While Keith Ellison, the congressman from minnesota, he started this race early as, is in the hunt but he needs people to change their minds and some of the supporters of the remaining candidates to come over. Host if it is, rest, what tom perez, what will he do with the decision . Guest what irony is that it is heated this fight a lack of disagreements between the candidate. Like ellison has said the party was out of touch over the last eight years and critical of the way it was under barack obama. And Debbie Wasserman schultz who ran the party for five years. It did not do house calls, oneonone campaigning locally. They did not invest in all 50 states and territories. A more localized party. A lot of talk about technology. More about investing locally and early to organize all the time. Something the Democratic CongressionalCampaign Committee has started to do. The lesson taken from the 2016 election, his not his ideas not much different than the one allison has come other disagreements are host that is coming from the result of the 2016 president ial election and a new role for the dnc, at least a new effort or a vision or direction perhaps would you say . Dnc under Debbie Wasserman schultz was seen as becoming kind of disconnected to listless and not helpful parties and states not loaded with money already. Also an open criticism from people like perez who work for president obama for eight years. Criticism of how the obama Political Network invested in organizing for america and how other thirdparty groups took the resources that the dnc could use. Part of it is a fundraising will and press perez people by not running higher desk for hire anything dan the attorney general and he will cap backing go back into the issue of donors. There is a worry that Keith Ellison is one of the best fundraisers in the house, better at raising money to a mass audience and also that Keith Ellison will come with the support of Bernie Sanders who supported him early and hinted that he would help with the list he built during his president ial campaign. Wouldree, Keith Ellison lower the amount of money that the party could take from banks and corporate donors. Which is loosely defined a big problem for progressive activists. Perez has made similar promises but less evidence he could attract a large fundraising base. The idea of him becoming a donald trump or barack obama or Bernie Sanders style mass fundraising figure, that is unproven based on so far. Host walk us through the mechanics of the vote today. You talk about the numbers but how does it work, how many votes does someone need to win . , there arend 10 00 447 members of the dnc, 224 to ballot. N the first seven candidates remaining, the two ive been talking about, the mayor of south bend has around 30 votes. Perez and ellions are close to ison are close to winning and the rest are scattered with not much support. Not a secret ballot. They will roll call this vote. If someone has the majority on the first ballot, they are done. If not, people drop off. Below is number of votes drops off. With each round. The four that, they are given 10 minutes before that, they are given 10 minutes for one final pitch. Not many people i talk to will change their minds based on that. Justeople undecided are avoiding public pressure more than they are it is possible they could move a couple of votes. It is fairly decided in peoples heads. They went through this laborious process of voting. Walking us weigel through the dnc as it selects a new chair. Thank you. Guest thank you very much. Host you can see the process play out on cspan, cspan. Org, and cspan radio app. As part of the dnc winter meeting in atlanta, see that live at 10 00 today. Lets go to rick and west virginia. Good morning and thank you for waiting. Go ahead. Hello . Lets go to greg in alabama. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am not against us doing work we need to do in space but i am against like sending spaceships to mars. And unnecessary stuff like that when the country is in debt. I live in alabama and we are broke. I am for the sunlight. Sunlight but we need come commonsense we need , some of the things we need to be doing i am for that but if we get the country finances in good shape again, then we may look at doing something exploratory. That is my opinion. Thank you, good morning. Host atlantic city, new jersey, larry, hello, good morning. Caller good morning. We need a whole new civilization in space. The reason is that on earth we just keep having wars and if we have a nuclear war, we will need a civilization in space. Host brian from flagstaff, arizona. He says he is not sure about spacex oration, especially spacex oration, especially Space Exploration, especially the cost. Caller i think the Space Program has been well worth the effort, especially being an arm of the middle militaryindustrial complex, having witnessed the growth of the Space Program throughout my honored told be most cite the good work of jim hansen , neil the grass, carl sagan, they have provided me and my Community Healthy role models. What we are doing today with space, it has been a great the changesidering of climate we are experiencing. Nasa has a post of sunlight currently orbiting and onntaining a constant vigil the record of whether change. Weather change. This will be critically important to us in the future and present. Unfortunately, politically, it is not happening, we have not collected people with the help necessary to lead us into our future. Supportneed that nasa in an effort to change our industrial base. We have to go to a nonfossil fuel Energy System which will require information from space sunlight satellites. Next, in new york, says he is not sure. Caller good morning, pedro and good morning to your viewers. I send my love to all of use yous. How will they pay, i know they will cut medicare, social security, medicare. When i was young Space Exploration, but you know, now, you know, i realize we have so many problems on the earth and we are destroying one another. Thate military complex arms dealers and what, what aliens aliens, what would accept us . We are a virus to one another and they would not want to catch that. I always say, you know, sorry about that. Host it is ok. Peter, tennessee, the last call on the topic, support line. Caller i would say that the value of Space Exploration is so vast, you cannot quantify it or calculate it because people do not realize the extent of the knowledge you can gain. In history sadly going back to the 1960s when i was growing up and all the money put into the Great Society programs by Lyndon Johnson and the vietnam war because of that, the dollar cost of those unfortunate things, then put into something productive to help the entire country and indirectly the rest of the world. Years ahead in spacex version we would be over today Space Exploration over today, only a positive over learning new information and learning new discoveries, you do not know the true value until you answer the unknown questions. That is why the value if i was advising donald trump, i would say double the budget for nasa because the value is so enormous. Host that was peter, the last call on this topic. Coming up, among the reported cuts in the budget, the first budget from the Trump Administration, cuts could be towards funds that support art and cultural programs in the u. S. , we will hear from robert lynch with americans for the arts on these programs, potential cuts. We will hear from secretary of state Rex Tillerson who met with the mexico leadership this week and molly otoole will discuss the meaning of what it could mean for longterm relations with mexico. Cpac coverage on cspan continues today with a large amount of speakers, many from the Trump Administration itself. You can see all the presentation on our website at cspan. Org, the group yesterday heard from the president. Gop will be, from now on, the party also of the american worker. [applause] we have not been given credit for this, but if you look at how much bigger our party has gotten during this cycle. The early days, when we had 17 people running, in the primaries, millions of people were joining. I wont say it was because of me, but it was. [