general election 2015 to use it as an issue to excite african american voters and liberal voters? guest: what we can do is what we did this past week. imagine almost as they are lowering the confederate flag in south carolina, house republicans decide late at night to make a backdoor attempt to raise the confederate flag over our national parks. why did they do that? not only because it is their ideology, but because it was the only way they could attract enough tea party votes to pass the appropriations bill. they did not have enough votes to fund the parks and department of interior. the only way they could do that is to buy the votes of tea party republicans by trying to insert at the last minute amendment that would allow for the raising of the confederate flags in national parks and cemeteries. we stopped it. we went to the floor. we fought them on it. at the end of the day, we forced them not just to withdraw the amendment, they had to withdraw the entire bill. this is another example of the fact these house republicans cannot govern and manage. ideology gets in the way of everything they do. as a result, we don't have a highway appropriations bill. we don't have a bank extension and are headed toward another shutdown and fiscal cliff. we are going to keep doing what democrats do. we will fight them in their ideology becomes excessive and fight them until they learn to govern efficiently and properly. >> can you imagine the confederate flag issue will play aston kratz have a lofty goal of trying to win back -- try to get back the 10 seats in the house? this is going to be an issue democrats can run ads on? how big of an issue will this be? host: i don't think we should -- guest: i don't think we should fund raise off this issue. it is too important. this issue reflects basic principles and values. republicans in the house are going to insist on raising the confederate flag wherever they can, whenever they can. we are going to continue to insist on raising objections to that with all the tools we have. >> piggybacking off of that, i remember the government shutdown in october. democrats were excited and thought this was their silver bullet. how do you make sure -- only one person ended up losing their seat over the government shutdown? how do you keep this in the hearts and minds of your voters? guest: we have to continue to remind base voters and independent voters they have something in common. that is, do you want a congress that will fight to increase your paychecks and reduce college debt, that will fight for you every day for your security and stability in an economy changing? or do you want a republican congress devoting all the time and effort to putting confederate flags of the national parks devoting all the time and effort to more showdowns, that cannot pass a basic infrastructure built? what is a better deal for the american people. democrats will fight every day for the middle class and working families. republicans will continue to fight ideological battles on every piece of legislation we are considering. >> that was a message you tried to use in 2014. and still, you must 13 seats -- lost 13 seats. what did you learn and how do you make that not happen this time? host: -- guest: thank you for reminding me about the 13-seat loss, as if i needed a reminder. it was an anomaly. it was one of the most brutal turnout years we have faced in a midterm election. the wind was at -- in our face from the get-go because it was a midterm election, very low turnout. 2016, the wind is at our backs. it will be hard for us to take the majority, but we will pick up seats. we are going to pick up seats for several reasons. number one because we do have the electoral wind at our back. number two because republicans are being defined by house republicans trying to raise the confederate flag. donald trump is the base of the republican party. number three because we will have a presidential candidate that fights everyday for middle-class families. number four because in presidential elections, turnout benefits democrats. you put those things together you were looking at all the ingredients you need to pick up seats. and we will. >> a big part of the criticism after 2014 was house democrats after the election said there was too much focus on minimum wage, pay equity. all things that are important to democratic voters but not important to suburban males. the voters that democrats need to pull in democrats favor if they are going to take back the senate or house. you are in charge of the messaging for the house. what concrete steps have you taken with that task force, that committee, to change how democrats' message to independent voters, swing voters, suburban voters versus the voters that will always be a democratic base? guest: that is a wonderful question. on the day of the election in november of 2014, i woke up to two sets of data. one told me on every single major economic minority, whether minimum wage, reducing college debt overtime, democrats were winning considerably over republicans. but the second piece of data told me on the general question of who to you trust to manage the economy, we were down by nine points. that is a message problem. when people agree with you on substance but you lose on the question, that is a message problem. the problem is not that democrats don't have a message. the problems is democrats have too many messages. republicans have created an art form of lathering up two things taxes and spending. democrats often leather down to our 92-point plan on everything. we've got to be more disciplined and focused to address that, leader pelosi asked me to create the policy committee. our job is to make sure we are messaging to the broad electorate, to voters we need, and to reflect values and priorities of house democrats. in the past midterm election, 1/3 of eligible voters supported a democrat or republican. 2/3 stayed home because they did not believe either party understood what they were going through. we have conducted extensive research into why 2/3 of voters stayed home. we have learned there is intense anxiety many voters have about the changing economy. the economy is changing quickly. many feel they are running in place. they want a political party that will give them the tools to stay ahead, that has pragmatic solutions to reduce college debt, to build infrastructure, to secure retirement. that is what we will be focusing on over the next several months and years. we will let republicans continue to fight their ideological battles over confederate flags vilification, and rewarding special interests. host: how will you explain or come to grips with the interparty disagreements over trade policy? guest: we are democrats. we are diverse by our nature. you look at us on c-span, and we look different because of our diversity. republicans all look the same way and think the same way except that their civil war makes our occasional disagreement look like nothing. speaker boehner wakes up every morning to the threat of another coup. many of the headlines over the past week were about new ruptures and new civil war, this constant fighting and infighting of the republican party. they are in a daily war over who they are, what they are about. we have differences on the trade bill because democrats represent different districts. we have different ideologies. at the end of the day on the issue of who has got your back, who is fighting for bigger paychecks and secure retirement, who is fighting to reduce college debt, that is what democrats are about. on the issue of who is fighting amongst themselves on every issue including the confederate flag, that defines republicans. >> for the presidential candidate at the top of your ticket. i know you are a supporter of hillary clinton and talk about how great she will be for your party. we have seen bernie sanders draw big crowds. there has been debate about how she should handle his candidacy. how would you tell her to deal with bernie sanders? guest: if i were presumptuous enough to give her advice it would be not to take anything for granted, to do what she is doing. this is a stiff competition. no question about it. she has said from the get-go in conversations with house democrats and folks we know, she has said she is not going to take a single vote, a single precinct for granted. i would do exactly what she is doing. bernie sanders makes an invaluable contribution to our debate and discourse as democrats. we ought to embrace the values he represents. i will continue to support hillary clinton. she was my center in new york. because she has the facts of middle-class families more than anybody i know. and because i believe she is on the path to become the next president. i think she will be a phenomenal president. guest: you are not dccc chairman anymore but i am sure you are integrally involved in the committee. i wondered how recruitment is going and if there is a place we should be looking for top recruits on your side of the aisle. guest: the new chairman is congressman lujan from new mexico. i worked closely with him when i was chair. this guy is one of the most operational people i know, but also has such good relationships with the caucus, with our stakeholders, with our supporters. he is the real deal and more dedicated than anybody i have seen. he is also methodical. the first thing we did after the election, on election night i picked up the phone and started recruiting for the next cycle. ben ray became the chair. he picked up. we have a very good, strong map of recruits. we have had recent developments. there was a court case in florida that just broke last week. under the supreme court ruling, districts in florida will have to be redrawn. i think any objective analysis suggests we pick up a net of several seats in florida. recruiting has been going strongly in other areas of the country. we have brad schneider, former member, running against bob dole. we have emily cain in maine who lost in an anomalous situation. we did not have to recruit her. she stepped up to the plate. she is running. when you look at the recruits and presidential performance i believe not only will a pickup seats but i think the dccc can expect to pick up at least eight to 10 seats, maybe more with a strong wind behind us. >> bringing it back to washington, you mentioned republicans are the party of the shutdown. senate republicans are blocking almost all bills on sequestration. in the house, they have done a handful of appropriations bills. they are in no way on track to get through with that before the august recess. if you had to put a guess on it now, how likely is it the government does shut down at the end of september? are you expecting a shutdown will occur? guest: i'm hoping, praying doing everything i can to responsibly avoid the kind of shut down the republicans have given us consistently and repeatedly. this is not that hard. everybody knows. when i talked to my republican colleagues they know what i know, what every american knows. when you have debt, you have to do several things. you've got to reform spending. i am for it and i have done it. you've got to reduce spending. i am for. i've done it. i'm going to do more. you also need revenues. the problem with the republican mindset is they are perfectly willing in the guise of entitlement reform, which sounds nice got social security and medicare. there perfectly willing to continue to dismantle some of the most important protections for the middle class, for college students, for others. but when you say to them, is it fair for an american corporation to be able to park assets overseas and not pay taxes on them? maybe we should ask them to pay their fair share on a? is it fair for an american company to declare themselves canadian were offshore to avoid paying their fair share of taxes? is it fair to deny the american people revenues from corporations creating massive tax loopholes? maybe we ought to close those loopholes. when you talk about revenues, in order to balance the budget and avoid shutdown, republicans run away from that. that is irresponsible. we need a big, bold settlement. we need republicans and democrats to come together on three things. we need to look at our so-called entitlement programs, which are really social insurance programs people pay into. we have to make sure you do not pay into it and get ripped off. we got to continue to reduce spending. but we need those revenues. you give us those three things on the table, we won't have a shutdown. republicans need to be willing to discuss revenues. >> raising taxes is something republicans will not be willing to do. you are saying democrats need those things. if congress needs those things to avoid shutdown, is it fair to say we should be expecting a shutdown? republicans are not willing to move -- raise taxes whatsoever. guest: it is not about raising taxes. it is about raising taxes on the right people. under their budgets, they raise taxes on the middle class, on working families. under their budgets, they let the wealthiest, the biggest corporations, go scot-free. they let them leave the country and invert their identities so they can avoid paying taxes at home. that is fundamentally wrong. if republicans continue to insist on protecting big corporations at the expense of the middle class, you can expect there to be a shutdown. we hope there will be some compromise and common sense that gets us to those three things. fair revenues. continued reform of entitlement programs. and continued reductions in spending where we are not cutting into the bone of the middle class. host: six minutes left. guest: we were talking about how democrats will likely pick up seats. i know you have two numbers representing seats republicans win in the presidential year. you have brad ashford in nebraska and the district that make it redrawn -- may get redrawn to make it problematic for her to keep that seat. how do they run their reelections? how do you advise them to hold onto their seats? guest: brad ashford and when graham perfectly represent the values of their district. they are doing everything right. they are able to go home and people say you are doing what i voted for you to do. their politics are exactly aligned to their districts. secondly, when you look at democratic districts that may be tough to defend, there are far more republican districts going through this cycle that are much harder to defend. that is the inverse of 2014 where we had many more tough to defend seats than republicans. that has flipped. republicans will have to defend dozens of presidential seats. we will have some tough seats. we will see what happens with florida. brad's seat will be tough. there will be others. on balance i believe the map favors democrats in 2016, particularly in a presidential cycle. host: lauren, you had questions on iran. guest: iran negotiations are ongoing -- the iran negotiations are ongoing. secretary kerry said the deadline would not be met. that pushes it to a 60-day approval for congress after the august recess. what do you predict will happen with how congress approaches them? are you seeing a situation where republicans will be talking the president and democrats will have to provide the majority? guest: anybody who tells you what will happen on this deal is the last person you should be listening to. nobody knows because we don't have a deal. i am deeply skeptical. i will not vote as a democrat for a deal unless it satisfies me on several basic precepts. number one, anywhere and every --anytime verification. number two, sanctions relief that can be snapped back where there are violations. and number three i want to know exactly what the iranians have been doing on their nuclear program because we cannot figure out where they're going unless we know what they have been doing. if the president and secretary kerry can satisfy those issues i would consider voting for the deal. so far, i see no indication those three concerns will be satisfied. but we will see. >> you see iranian officials very active getting their message out to western countries. they are saying there is no agreement on verification. that they would not agree to that. does it concern you that you have the iranian officials targeting western members of congress who will be voting for this but also the western media saying this deal is nowhere near done and the concerns you presented are likely not going to happen? guest: what concerns me is every time we believe we have agreement, the ayatollah goes to his media markets the next day and says we don't. that is what concerns me. i understand a lot of this is for domestic consumption. i am going to make my decisions based on the terms of the agreement when it is submitted to congress and not the theater going into the agreement beforehand. host: that is it for our time. thank you for joining us this week. we appreciate your time. we covered a lot of different questions. it was interesting to have him critique the g.o.p. for being unable to manage, describing chaos in the house and getting their agenda done. at the same time, he said they managed to roll up all of their themes into two messages. taxes and the economy and spending. are they organized with their messaging, not organized in running the house? can those things live together equally? >> i think that is what house republicans are facing. they have issues like the confederate flag. the fact they are unable to pass appropriations bills, but they are still winning elections. that is a messaging issue. he is right. republicans are able to say i want to lower taxes and cut spending and reduce the deficit. very easy, tangible thing for voters to understand. democrats go out and talk about college affordability. that is easy and understandable. most people can get behind it. but they dilute that message into minimum wage. independent and swing voters are not enthused by the talk of minimum wage, mostly because they are not earning minimum wage. they are not enthused by gender equality. they are not enthused by paycheck equality because that is not an issue that will thrust them to the polls. they want to talk about middle-class economics in a tangible way. but saying i'm going to cut taxes is better than saying i'm going to get three minimum wage increase. that is what democrats saw after the 2014 election. they might have policies voters back on issues, but they are not selling it in a way that excites the suburban male voters which will be a linchpin for winning back the house and senate. host: representative israel said he was writing in every direction there would not be a government shutdown after september 30. would that not be beneficial to the democrats? it did not play well with the public. >> it did play well in october of 2013. then ebola happened, isis happened, and it fell to the back of people's minds. from the polling we saw, the government shutdown blame fell on republicans. if you asked republicans in october of 2013, they would have said they were nervous about their electoral chances. democrats have to be better at staying on message and staying the course if it does shutdown. they have to make sure that is still in voters minds. they have to find a way to sell that come november 2016. host: what is the speaker's view of government shutdowns? >> john boehner is doing everything he can to avoid it. john boehner has an interesting situation where he has a conservative caucus that will hold the line on a lot of issues. you saw it on trade. they brought down a rule, almost an unheard of tactic on the house floor which was a rebuff of his leadership. he's going to have to contend with this fraction of the republican caucus that wants to see spending cut. they want to see sequestration cap's in place. they want to see steps to reduce the deficit. you cannot make a deal with democrats on a lot of those issues. right now, senate democrats are holding up a lot of appropriations bills. he has to not only contend with republicans in his caucus but republicans in the senate who have a senate democrat problem. it is hard to see how we -- a shutdown does not happen. host: the congressman said the democrats have the wind at their back going into 2016. is it not true that until the candidates sort themselves out it is hard to know who has the advantage? >> that is very true. usually after two terms of a president, [indiscernible] we saw that in 2008, in 2000 with clinton to bush. it is something that remains to be seen. i think there are all sorts of issues that could crop up to change that. there are questions among democrats whether obama turnout is a democratic thing or specific to president obama and the kind of minority voter that comes out is something only obama could encourage. it remains to be seen. we also have a field of 16 republican candidates. whichever one appears at the top of the ticket will have an impact on what turnout will look like. there are a lot of variables. it is too early to predict. host: the congressman declared donald trump the face of the republican party. do the voters see it that way? >> it seems that way now in the polls. the novel is something people get excited about and then it fades into the background. donald trump is something republicans are worried about. you have the r.n.c. charity -- chairman call him and tell him to tone down his rhetoric. they've tried to appeal to latino voters, who are crucial to winning elections. if donald trump continues to be in the media and continues to offend that base, that could be a problem for them. host: 30 seconds on the politics of the iran discussion. >> i think he put it perfectly. anyone who says what will happen does not know what they are talking about. it is so contentious. with senator kerry -- secretary kerry saying the deadline will not be met the administration asserting themselves with congress. it will be tough to get a deal approved by congress until they know what is in it. but a lot of people have serious concerns and questions when you are talking to members. host: that is it for "newsmakers" this week. thank you both for questions. >> the author on trends in technology, the millennial generation, and how political parties are vying for this crucial voting bloc. >> when you look at where eyeballs are going, it used to be folks were focused on television. so political advertising became heavily focused on ads. technology has changed. now if you walk into a room of 60-year-olds they are looking at their phones. for folks in the political world who want to reach the next generation or understand what the future of political advertising is going to look like, whatever the latest game is candy crush may be fading in popularity. but there is always something new popping up. finding ways to get your message in front of people where they are paying attention is really important. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's "q&a." >> next weekend two major political events from iowa. we are the only place you can watch or listen to these events in their entirety. friday night at 8:00 eastern, we will be live in cedar rapids for the hall of fame dinner. it will mark the first time all five democratic rest of the candidates share the same stage. all day saturday, we will be live for the family leadership summit where nine leading republican presidential candidates are scheduled to speak. on c-span, c-span radio, and www.c-span.org. c-span's "road to the white house" 2016, we take you there. >> at a hearing last week, the f.b.i. director warned lawmakers encryption technology was making it harder to track terror suspects and criminals. he talked more about the threat and other challenges in the fight against isis. this was held by the senate intelligence committee. it is just under two hours. chairman: i would like to welcome director comey. i know the vice chair has had the opportunity to have a bite at you. she wanted one more. we often conduct hearings enclosed session. i would like to take this opportunity to publicly commend the director and men and women of the f.b.i. for their