Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20141004 : c

in ancient times, we would've called it beast, the mountain lion. it is really a garden -- boulder, colorado. it is a beautiful place but in many ways, it has been altered by humankind. when you get this wild animal coming into this artificial landscape, you can cause changes in the behavior of that animal. a mountain lion's favorite food is venison. living on the outskirts of this beautiful city where we have irrigated gardens and lawns -- the city attracted the deer so we have a deer herd living in downtown boulder. the lions moved back into the area. they discovered there were deer in town so the deer were the lions -- lured the lions. they discovered they can eat dogs and cats. that is food for them so the lions were learning and they have learned that this is where they will find food. there is food up there too but lots to eat in town. in a is a retreat beautiful place for enrichment and enlightenment, entertainment and coming together. the people who were intended to be the audience were really what we call the middle class. the programs at most were very similar. a combination of speakers of the day. what might bey of considered highbrow and lowbrow entertainment. opera, classical music, and probably what we would consider the bonneville of that day. >> watch all of the events from boulder saturday at noon eastern on c-span 2 and sunday afternoon on c-span 3. white house briefing on the administration's response to the bowl epidemic, officials say the u.s. has a health infrastructure to deal with it at home and africa. those taking part, health and human services secretary sylvia burwell and anthony fauci. this is 45 minutes. >> thank you, lisa. since the outbreak began the united states government has been engaged in preparation both at home and abroad to protect our homeland and stop the epidemic at its source. we've been working for many months to ensure that the united states is protected. cdc sent out our first guidance to state and local officials on july 28 and has been followed with six additional sets of guidance and the latest was just issued yesterday. in addition, we have enhanced our surveillance and laboratory testing capacity in states to make sure that they're able to detect cases. been in regular and repeated contacts with state officials and health departments including developing guidance and tools for departments to conduct public health investigations. we're continuing to provide guidance for flight crews, emergency medical service units at airports, and customs and border patrol officers about reporting ill travelers to the cdc. we're continuing to work with hospitals and health care workers around the country to prepare most effectively both in detecting symptoms and then responding appropriately. as we saw just a few months ago, almost two months ago in carolina's medical center in charlotte, north carolina, and at mount sinai in new york, hospitals and health care systems reacted and took appropriate steps. fortunately, in those cases the cases were not positive. we saw emory's ability to handle the first cases that returned from west africa followed by the nebraska medical center's ability to do the same. in dallas, the public health system is now handling the case with the protocol that we know controlled this disease. we recognize the concern that even a single case of ebola creates on our shores. but we have the public health system and the public health providers in place to contain the spread of this disease. we have taken a number of precautions to prevent the spread. we've instituted exit screening procedures in west africa to prevent those who have been exposed to ebola or sick with ebola from traveling. the department of homeland security is in the process of advising all travelers returning to the u.s. from country with ebola outbreaks in west africa to monitor their health for 21 days and immediately seek medical help if any symptoms do develop. the centers for disease control stands ready as it has in dallas to deploy expert teams when needed. finally, our scientists at the food and drug administration and the national institutes of health are working tirelessly to develop new vaccines and treatments for ebola. we remain focused on working with our partners on the ground to stop the epidemic at its source and we're continuing to take the necessary precautions across the united states government to prevent the epidemic from spreading further. and i'd like to now turn to dr. tony fauci, the director of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases at the nih to talk a little bit about epidemiology. >> thank you very much, secretary burwell. i'd like to provide some basic but important facts about ebola and its transmission. although ebola is an extremely serious viral disease with a high fatality rate, it is not easily transmitted. specifically, the ebola virus is not easily spread like a cold or influenza. you must come into direct contact with the bodily fluids of a sick person or through exposure to objects that have been contaminated with infected bodily fluids. ebola is not a respiratory disease like the flu and so it is not transmitted through the air. this is important. individuals who are not symptomatic are not contagious. in order for the virus to be transmitted, an individual would have to have direct contact with an individual who is experiencing symptoms or who has died of the disease. we have considerable experience in dealing with ebola both in controlling and in preventing outbreaks. this is based on experience with almost two dozen outbreaks in central africa since the virus was first isolated in 1976. the key elements to that control and the prevention of outbreaks when ebola rises in a community is to first identify cases, isolate them, care for them under conditions that protect the health care workers, and, importantly, perform contact tracing. people in direct contact with a sick ebola patient should be monitored for symptoms for at least 21 days. if no symptoms arise, the individual is cleared. if symptoms arise, the person is appropriately isolated and cared for. this formula has worked very well over many years. the situation in west africa has been very difficult, largely due to the lack of an adequate -- of an adequate health care infrastructure to deal with the outbreak. i want to reiterate what the secretary said. our health care infrastructure in the united states is well equipped to stop ebola in its tracks. as the secretary said, in addition to managing the issues associated with containing the situation in dallas as it exists today and addressing the very dire situation as it exists in africa today, we are working very aggressively and energy etically to test a vaccine, to prevent ebola and therapy to treat it. now i'd like to introduce the administrator of usaid, dr. shah. >> thank you. i'd like to take a moment to describe the effort in west africa which has been noted includes a major effort to control the disease, includes specific actions to deal with the secondary impacts of the crisis in several west african countries including making food, water, and government support more available, and the effort to build out an international coalition as lisa previously discussed. our response in west africa started in the spring and accelerated dramatically over the summer. this coordinated civilian response included the largest ever disaster assistance response team from usaid, the large eliot -- largest ever more than a hundred persons centers for disease control capability deployed to liberia, sierra leone, guinea, and countries throughout the region, and efforts partnering with our department of defense colleagues to more than double the laboratory and diagnostic capacity in west africa to ensure that cases could be identified and positively confirmed. since that time, we've helped deliver more than 120,000 sets of personal protective equipment, build out ebola treatment units, provide technical assistance for airport screenings throughout the region, and increase the basic capacity of what has been a weak existing health care infrastructure to deal with this disease. as the president noted in his comments at the centers for disease control a few weeks ago, our strategy now is clear. first, we are investing in a strong, incident command system at the national and local level throughout the region to identify cases and trace contacts. second, we are building out ebola treatment units so that enough bed capacity exists for as many positively identified patients as possible to receive isolation and treatment. we are on path to put in place the w.h.o. plan of more than 2800 beds in liberia according to their thrines and in the past several days have seen significant new ebola capability come online including the largest treatment unit in liberia the new island clinic which we helped build and staff. third, we're engaging in an extensive community care strategy that includes a ten to 20 bed community care units that are placed throughout rural communities and help isolate patients in those communities and support the distribution of hygiene and protective equipment kits so families can protect their patients and their families. we've distributed more than 9,000 of those kits together with unicef and the world health organization and are on path to have about 10,000 arriving country -- arrive in country and be distributed through liberia on a weekly basis. in recent days we've been successful in scaling up the effort to identify, reach, and in a safe and dignified manner deal with bodies of patients who are deceased from ebola. we now have more than 50 safe burial teams with full protective equipment and careful protocols in place. we're noting that more than 3/4 of all bodies this liberia of positively identified patients are now being cleared safely within the 24-hour period. this is critically important because that is an important existing mode of transmission. i further note that the scale up of centers for disease control and u.s. aid efforts through june and august was quite significant but the complexity of building out ebola treatment units and providing the logistics support in terms of protective equipment and medicines required the significant additional resources brought by the department of defense and announced by president obama. so i'm pleased to introduce general david rodriguez, the commander of africa command to describe those specific efforts. thank you. >> thank you, administrator. as we deploy america's sons and daughters to support the comprehensive united states government effort led by the united states agency for international development, we'll do everything in our power to address and mitigate any potential risk to our service members, civilian employees, and their families. as director shah or administrator shah mentioned, the areas that we're focusing on are command and control and that is to help support and coordinate the efforts of both usaid and the international community. we are also working on training the people who man and manage the ebola treatment units. we're supporting the engineering efforts to build out the ebola treatment units and we're also doing an effort in the area of logistics, which this is a tremendous logistics effort as the administrator pointed out. for our soldiers prior to deployment, we'll provide them the best equipment and training that we can. we are assessing risk based on the service members' mission, their location, and their activities in execution of their operations. we're implementing procedures to reduce or eliminate the risk of transmission, as service members go about their daily missions, including the use of personal protective equipment, hygiene protocols, and monitoring. prior to redeploying service members back home, we will screen and identify anyone who faced an elevated risk of exposure and take all necessary steps to minimize any potential transmission in accordance with the international standards that our medical professionals have given us. in the end our equipment, training, procedures, and most of all the discipline of our leaders and our force will help us to ensure that our team accomplishes its mission without posing a risk to our nation and our fellow citizens. thank you. >> thanks very much, general rodriguez. first i want to thank our -- the folks who are with me at the podium. but most importantly, the dedicated military medical and development professionals that they represent and who are working so hard on this problem. i think with that we're happy to take your questions. >> ms. monaco? >> yes. >> you talked about these ebola country. why not do more active screening, like ask people have you had a fever, have you been in contact with people? that's been done at least in some countries and other circumstances. on the face of it, it would seem a reasonable thing to do. >> i think this goes directly to what dr. fauci talked about and secretary burwell. we are taking steps to address the source, the people coming from the source countries and we think those are the most effective steps we can take. the temperature testing, the questionnaires, testing for fever, and making sure that people who are symptomatic and as dr. fauci said and dr. tom friedman has talked about this repeatedly, you cannot get ebola other than from direct contact with bodily fluids of somebody who is at that time symptomatic. so the most effective way to go about controlling this is to prevent those individuals from getting on a plane in the first place. i think it is important to remember that since these measures have been in place, dozens and dozens of people have been stopped from getting on flights in the region. >> but we now know people have gotten on planes anyway, so why not have the u.s. customs and immigration people ask them, clearly, it's not effective to do it merely on the african side. >> i think what we've seen is we've had an individual in texas who did come to this country and later became symptomatic. that person is now being isolated and dealt with and significant contact tracing is being done. your question about passive versus more active screening is i think understandable. but as secretary burwell indicated, we've taken a number of steps to ensure customs and border patrol individuals are, teams are trained to identify a symptomatic individual and where they do present people who may be symptomatic, they have instructions about what to do and how to handle that. that is all of which is to say that we are constantly going to evaluate what may be the most effective measures we can take. secretary johnson is constantly evaluating that with his team and in consultation with the medical professionals. right now the most effective measures we think are focusing at the source countries and taking the steps, the very concerted training and precautionary measures and notification measures that we've taken with the cdc folks here on the receiving end. >> talk kind of in broad terms about hospital procedures here and obviously in dallas and break down a couple points. i'm wondering specifically lessons from the dallas situation. and while we have you here, maybe you can tell us what the u.s. knows about the latest state video we've seen with the hostage and another american as well. >> on the latter issue, julie, let me just address that and then ask secretary burwell and dr. fauci to address the medical measures in texas within the constraints that i'm sure you understand safely operating. if it in fact proves to be authentic it is a demonstration of the brutality of isil and our hearts go out to the british aide worker who we believe is in that video and the remaining hostages and their families. this is again yet another just very clear example of the brutality of this group and why the president has articulated and is moving out in a comprehensive way to degrade and destroy isil. let me now turn to my colleagues on the latter part of your question. >> with regard to the efforts that the cdc is pursuing and we've been pursuing, as i mentioned, we've had the efforts in charlotte we saw and we saw it work in mount sinai. we have a case here actually i think everyone knows howard and the question there. and so the systems are in place. we continue to communicate. we continue to give good instruction. i think it is important to reflect on whatever lessons we learn, we build and incorporate. as i said, we've issued the seventh of these health alert network notices to make sure if there are any lessons learned as we go forward we will continue to incorporate those. >> can you repeat what the lessons learned from some of these failures in dallas were and how you may be changing or modifying -- >> what we know are the critical steps that we have said throughout the process. and that is about identification. identification at the point at which there is actually a temperature and as dr. fauci said, when something can be done. what we are doing is making sure that hospitals, health workers across the country know that when they see that, what steps to take, how to isolate, and what to do immediately when they see those steps. and we'll continue to do that and make sure we are responding to the questions that we're getting from the community. >> what about the potential case at howard university? is there any new information about that? and to dr. fauci, if it doesn't spread like the flu or cold, why is it spreading so quickly? are you confident we won't see an outbreak in the u.s.? >> with regard to the nigeria case haven't seen the results of the test yet. i think that is the most definitive and important thing. what you see is people taking precautions because the symptoms are malarial but it could be this. i think everyone is taking the appropriate steps. we believe that is the right thing to do. cdc gets contacted. we make a determination and work with the community and the health center. in this case to do the test. when we get that definitive as you know in each of the cases we make public as quickly as possible what we know about that. >> are you being informed of all of these suspected cases? >> let me answer the question here first. you were saying if it is only transmitted a certain way -- right, but why is there such an outbreak? if one goes to liberia or sierra leone or guinea, you will see the conditions that make it very, very clear that coming into contact with bodily fluids, the most efficient way of transmission is unfortunately the very thing that holds families together. someone gets sick, they take care of them, they touch them. if they are not aware of the fact that you cannot come into personal contact without having the proper protective equipment. funerals are another way as well as preparing the bodies and customs, the long-range traditions that have gone with the funeral. the mechanism of transmission, which we've all said, direct contact with bodily fluid, amply explains what is going on right now in the west african countries. >> you're convinced it's not a significant outbreak in the u.s.? >> the reason there is an outbreak now is because the health care infrastructure and system in those countries is inadequate and incapable of actually handing the kind of identification, isolation, rapid treatment, protection of the people who come into contact and contact tracing, and that's something we have very well established here. we have a case now, and it's entirely conceivable there may be another case, but the reason we feel confident is that our structure, our ability to do those things would preclude an out right. >> are we being notified of cases? this goes directly to what the doctor just said -- we have an infrastructure that is in place. we have a public health alert system through which cdc has distributed information from and established a laboratory network for testing. when there are potential symptomatic individuals who present themselves a medical facilities, those precautions are immediately taken, this test are undertaken through a network of laboratories that cdc has validated and provided a clear guidance to, so we have the structure in place when we identify potential cases to resolve those, and if there are actually confirmed ebola cases, as we have seen one of in texas, we take the immediate steps to isolate them, provide treatment, undertake the contact tracing, and our infrastructure works to make sure we are aware of those cases and take the steps. >> we had a case at howard, but it was not said -- a potential case, i'm sorry -- but did not say there was another potential case at shady grove, and the hospital has already put out a warning. >> you have indicated and talked about the potential case at howard. we will see the resolution of that as secretary burwell discussed. those reports as they come in will be addressed. those tests will be undertaken. the public health infrastructure is reacting and is taking the steps necessary to isolate that individual. every hospital in this country has the capability to isolate a patient, take the measures, put them in place to ensure that any suspected cases immediately isolated, and the follow-ups that have been mentioned -- the follow-up steps that have been mentioned are immediately taken. >> to what degree have you debated internally, and are you ever going to be prepared to recommend to the president what some have suggested today, a travel ban for these countries? general, how do you think you're deployed assets are as far as catching up with what you intend to do, and do you think it is time at some point to have military medical people actually involved in the direct care as opposed to setting up the infrastructure? >> i will take the travel ban question first. i know that has been an issue that has been raised. i take note of dr. frieden's comments in this remark, just to say that right now, we believe those types of steps actually impede the response. they impede and slowdown the ability of the united states and other international partners to actually get expertise and capabilities and equipment into the affected areas, and as we've said and stressed from this podium and others, the most important and effective thing we can do is to control the epidemic at its source. what we want to be able to do is make sure we are getting the assistance, getting the expertise, and getting providers into the affected region and not impeding that. >> before you go, many americans might say half a ban, not getting there but exiting? are you considering that? >> as the measures are being taken to screen individuals who are departing from the affected countries, and we have spoken to that, cdc professionals have provided the assistance and the training and advice to airport officials in liberia, guinea, and sierra leone, and as a result of those measures and those screenings, of steps that have been undertaken, many, many people -- dozens of people have been stopped from traveling, so we see those issues -- those steps actually being effective. general. >> for us, the speed with we are moving out is really focused on the ebola treatment units. that will take us several weeks. we are working with the armed forces of liberia, working with contractors, and we are working with a logistics chain of events to get the materials there as fast as we can we are also doing some of the ones in some fairly isolated areas, and those will take us the longest. we are not certain military personnel will be treating people. that will be a decision made in the future. >> you do have folks capable of doing that, don't you? >> yes, we do. there are three labs operating out there done by military medical professionals right now, and that's doing a great job identifying who has the disease and who does not. >> have you considered a waiting period between issuing a visa and travel? >> i think we're going to move around a little bit. >> help me understand -- something you talked about in terms of preparedness here in this country, the conversations with hospitals, coordination with local authorities and all seems very dissident, i think, two people in the country who look at basically the first case or one of the first cases and see that the whole thing broke down. every step of the way, there were breakdowns. it broke down, as the person back there was saying, when he lied on the form. it broke down when the hospital turned him away. it broke down when the materials that were in his apartment have not been thrown away. it broke down -- i mean, it feels like -- two americans, like you guys are up here talking about "we have this great imperfect system that's going to be able to contain this virus because we done all this preparation," and yet, it does not look like it's working. how should the regular or average person have confidence that whether it is the case and howard or some case somewhere else in the country at the moment that somebody is not being turned away there, that somebody did not get -- or their temperature got taken in africa but did not get caught, so they are on a plane as we speak? where's the distance between your confidence and the fact that things do not seem to be working. >> i think the american people should be confident for all the reasons that we stated in the president has spoken to, and that's because the public health infrastructure we have here is so expert, so extensive, and is considerable. the situation in liberia, sierra leone, and any could not be more opposite in terms of the public health infrastructure and the ability of officials to immediately isolate an individual case. what you are seeing in texas is the isolation of that patient, the contact tracing being done meticulously by cdc and local health professionals. the other thing i would say to your question is -- it is true, we had a case in texas, the howard case that has been mentioned. it is a potential case, and i would defer to the medical professionals at howard to give the definitive view on that, but i think it is very important to remember this outbreak again in march -- began in march of this year. since that time and since the screening measures we discussed from this podium began over the summer, there have been tens of thousands of individuals who have come to this country from the affected regions, and we've now seen one case, and it is entirely possible we will see another case. however, i would point you and others to the fact that we have now seen tens of thousands of people in the time since march to the current day, and we now have this isolated case in texas, but we have a public health infrastructure and medical professionals throughout this country who are capable of dealing with cases if they present themselves and as dr. frieden has said, we are confident that we can stop this and other cases in its tracks. >> can you explain within that public health infrastructure what the lines of authority are? once you have a confirmed case, for example, in dallas, does the cdc -- is there a federal authority? is it up to the local health department -- who is in charge at that point? >> when any test is done, it is reported to cdc, so we have a network, and we want the tests to be able to go quickly. part of the preparedness we did was we created capability all around the country for the test to occur so that they could occur quickly. however, when that test occurs, cdc is alerted to the test occurring, and the results of the test. with regard to who controls the patient, i think, is the question, that is done at the local level, and we supported matt. 10 people would on the ground from cdc immediately -- i think you all know -- in terms of supporting the local health departments in doing contact tracing and any other issues they have, whether they are issues of the testing, whether they are issues of the contact tracing. we stand ready to do that. while the local health officials -- because this is a local issue, and that is really a big part of how you are going to do the contact tracing, and they make the decisions on the ground -- we are there hand-in-hand in support, had 10 people on the ground and work hand in glove with them. >> are people in dallas concerned about being isolated in a highly congested apartment area? >> protocol that could be repeated in other communities, but the contract tracing is that they are isolated, that's the best place to keep them in an environment where it may be a high-density apartment? >> that gets to the earlier question with regard to how local officials are handling their case specifically. when you have not had a high risk exposure, what needs to happen is basic temperature taking two times a day on a regular basis. high risk exposure creates different needs. how a local official -- how local officials choose to implement that -- we work in conjunction, and we have given the guidance out in terms of what we do, but those are decisions made at the local level. i have to move around, i think is the rule. >> a very quick follow up -- is no one concerned that there were these breakdowns in dallas? are you confident there will not be a breakdown elsewhere? >> when i spoke to the fact that we continued to work on our education and continue to work with locals and put out more and more information, we put out more information and updated information. whenever there's anything we see we can do a better job of communicating, we will do that. as i think the general mentioned, too, we are going to learn every time and every step, but i think what we are confident about his these processes work. if you look at what happened in nigeria in terms of the cases in nigeria, what happened is we quickly activated -- and cdc was a part of supporting the country of nigeria, both at the state and federal level to put in place the things that it needed to put in place. it is about detect, isolation, treat the patient due to contact tracing. those are the steps, and now we see where we are in nigeria in terms of the cases and them having moved through, so we believe that as we take these steps, these core fundamental steps, and we are in the middle of that in dallas in terms of the contact tracing and making sure that the people that should be taking the temperatures are doing that, so that is how and why we believe that this is going to work. >> islands of the vaccine question in a second, but i just wanted to make the point that you were making. there were things that did not go the way they should have in dallas, but there were a lot of things that went right and are going right. if you look at them, the person is in isolation being properly taken care of, and the fundamental core basis of preventing an outbreak, contact tracing, is now going on, and that is the important thing, and that's going on very efficiently. the cdc sets down very clear guideline and protocols on how to do that, and that is being done. although certainly it was rocky to the perception of people in reality, but the fact is the reason i said there would not be an outbreak is because of what's going on right now. even though there were missteps, there were good is that happened also. with regard to the vaccine, i don't know who asked the question about the vaccine -- obviously, we would hope that vaccine could be a part of the response, even the public health infection control is still the core of getting this under control. we have a vaccine, a couple of candidates -- the one that's most advanced is the one we announced just a while ago, the first person in a phase one trial received a vaccine on september 2 at the nih in bethesda. that's the first of a multiphase trial to develop a vaccine. it's called phase one because its primary endpoint is safety. if we determine it safe and looks good so far and also that it reduces a response that you would predict would be protective, which we will know probably by the end of november or the beginning of december -- when you get through that phase, then the next phase is a phase two, which is many, many more people conducted in the environment where you could prove its efficacy, and that would be west africa. the next phase, sometime likely in the first quarter of 2015, we will begin a trial to determine overall long-range safety and importantly, whether it works or not. >> i understand the -- as a medical professional and dr., what concerns you most about this outbreak and this particular disease now that it's in the united's rates? >> now that it's in the united states, the concern is that i do not ever like to see people get sick and people suffer and die, but as a medical professional who has witnessed and experienced a whole 38 years since 1976, i never say i'm not concerned because that is interpreted as taking something lightly. i take nothing lightly, but i'm convinced by what we have all said today that the system that is in place with our health care infrastructure would make it extraordinarily unlikely that we would have an outbreak, and the reason we know that is if we look at the situation and nigeria, as the secretary mentioned, is a classic example of that -- the reason we're having this devastating, painful, very difficult situation in the west african countries is because they don't have the system to be able to contain it. if they had the system, we would not be seeing all the suffering and dying in west africa. >> if that's case, if it's one case in the united states now, as we know it is, why are we having news conferences like this, and why are we also afraid? if there's no chance of an outbreak, what is it about this disease that frightens you and us? >> ok, so we are having the press conference because we need to get information out because there's a lot of fear, and the reason there's a lot of fear is that there are many things when you have outbreaks -- it's the unknown, the cataclysmic nature of it, mainly, it is acute. it kills in a high percentage, and it kills quickly. that in and of itself almost intuitively makes people frightened. the other thing that makes people frightened -- can this happen to me without my even knowing it, without my having any behavioral change at all? that's the kind of thing that we have to keep over and over again emphasizing. we respect your concern. we understand your concern, but the evidence base tells us that that is not going to happen, and we have to say that a lot. we have to say it today, and i'll have to say it tonight on tv, and we will try as best as we can to continue to get the message out. >> one follow-up -- who bears ultimate responsibility for what did happen, the breakdown that happened in texas? is it the hospital that did not send a clear enough guidelines in the beginning? and you are taking steps to make sure this does not happen again, sending clear guidelines, being more communicative? what specifically is being done? >> i think, as with most things, it is about making sure -- i think in the response the question he just said, we cannot over communicate about this issue, and we cannot over communicate in two ways. one, because of the question that was posed with regard to how people feel, and the second is this is an execution game. in terms of both what is happening on the ground, and that is why it is so important to have the united states military because there is no one that can help with execution -- it is the same in the united states, so the steps that we have to take our about making sure execution, execution, execution, and that gets to your question, which is that's why we need to communicate and communicate again and communicate with clarity. that's why there are 100 different documents that have been put up on the cdc website. we put up the document, we get the call. if there is a question and for some reason people do not feel it is clear or have an additional question, we headed up. we answer their question, but we are trying to disseminate that information more broadly. because this is about communication and execution, we want to continue to do that and do it is much and as quickly as we can. -- do it as much and as quickly as we can. thank you. >> c-span's campaign 2014 coverage continues as kentucky senator rand paul campaigns for a couple of republican candidates in north carolina. after that, a conversation with john paul stevens on his career and life on the nation's highest court. the d.c. district court of appeals hears oral arguments challenging the law that bans federal contractors from contributing to political campaigns. on the next washington journal, infectious disease expert dr. gavin mcgregor skinner discusses the u.s. response to we bowl of. ebola. 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competition is underway. nationwide competition for middle and high school students will award 150 prizes totaling $100,000. grade a five minute documentary on the topic -- the three branches and you. videos need to include c-span programming, show varying points of views and be submitted by january 20, 2015. grab a camera and get started today. >> kentucky senator rand paul was in north carolina earlier this week campaigning for senate candidate tom tillis who was running against kay hagan and walter jones. our c-span cameras follow the senator paul to the stops. this is one hour. >> good morning. how are you? >> good morning. >> i like your shirt. thank you for coming out. you live in raleigh? >> yes. thank you. >> thank you for coming out. >> oh, yeah. >> keep it up. you live here? >> yes, i do. >> were you in the navy? >> yes. nephew who is in the navy. >> he has been california for the past few years. hawaii.tually going to >> i have been there a number of times. >> he has done of act -- he has done his active duty flying. he is been there for about 13 years. >> keep up the good work. >> thank you for your support. >> and nice to meet you. you are my favorite u.s. senator. i am thrilled. >> thank you. >> perfect. thank you for all you do. i am from apex. >> i spent seven years in durham. >> no way. i didn't know that. >> i was there for four years in the 1980's. >> i never knew that. you were like right down the street. >> we used to be near apex to swim. >> really? >> i have never been there. >> it was always a blast. we used to ride bikes. cliff we would dive off into the water. >> i cannot believe he used to live here. thank you so much for coming to north carolina. >> i hope thom pulled it out. if he wins north carolina, we can get the senate back. >> we have to otherwise it is the end of our country. thank you for standing brave. >> thank you. >> thank you for coming out. speaker tillis has been a strong proponent -- the first toll road. questions, do you support public-private partnerships? >> i don't think we have had a specific opinion on tollways. to do something about infrastructure. one idea that i have now is lowering the tax on american overseas. andng that tax money putting it into a fund. i think we can come between $50 billion of tax revenues, lowering the tax entity more revenues. >> thank you so much for being here. >> do you all live here? >> yes, sir. thank you so much. thank you so much for coming. >> what you do -- do you do? >> [indiscernible] >> i have been here for seven years in durham. we used to give out awards. .e used to do press conferences i was here when the republicans for the first time. >> great time to be in raleigh. thank you so much. >> do you mind if i get a picture with you? >> i'm running for north carolina senate. right here. can i get one with a handshake? awesome. >> you got it? awesome. >> got bless you. -- god bless you. >> thank you for coming out. we appreciate it. thank you. i live in raleigh. my husband was born and raised here. >> great. >> what do you do here? >> state government for 29 years. >> we need people with a variety of backgrounds. we have enough lawyers. >> exactly. it makes sense. you don't spend more than your check. bringing in about three -- an the enormous amount. >> that is plenty of money. >> the problem is we spend -- >> it is. >> direct the conversations and be where you are. >> thanks. excuse me? >> ever been to l.a.? >> yes. >> that is tom tillis right here. [indiscernible] >> can we bring you guys up? [whistle] hey, everybody. good morning. i am tom tillis. i'm running for the u.s. senate. [applause] want to make sure everybody knows my wife susan is here. years in aife for 27 great asset to this campaign. i appreciate all the patients she has. it is great to have a loving wife by your side. i want to thank all of the volunteers that are here working hard, knocking on doors, making phone calls. you are the difference maker of this campaign and you are why we are here today. thank you all very much. i will be brief and turn it over to senator paul. the reason i am running for the senate is because kay hagan says she will get something done. she said anybody that votes for the president 92% of the time doesn't live in carolina. she said that about president bush. 96% of the time she voted for president obama. she said if we liked our health care we could keep it, we cannot. 54,000 retirees are receiving letters letting them know that the federal government decided their health care is not good enough. they will get a premium notice a month from now. increase premiums and decreased coverage. these are continuing string of broken promises. kay hagan says the debt back in 2008 was a disgrace. now the debt is $17 trillion approaching $18 trillion. the middle east situation is unacceptable. we have to destroy isis and figure out how to do it. we need to have a president that has a plan. who sits onnator committees that should be about the strategies and she has no plan. kay hagan is failed the people of north carolina and that is why we need to send her home and fire harry reid as the majority leader. [applause] i want to turn it over. i am thrilled to have senator paul in town. it is an honor to get the support i have had from the broad spectrum of the republican caucus. senator paul is fighting tirelessly for our freedom. thinker. independent i love independent thinkers. people that go to washington and expect nothing more than accountability and the freedom that we need to give back to the american people. i am proud to have them here in north carolina. i am proud to have his support. let's welcome senator rand paul. [applause] >> thank everybody for coming out. i'm happy to be in north carolina today. as some of you know, i spent seven years here. i did my medical training in durham at duke university. bothers hysician, it me that we have senators like kay hagan who think that you're not smart enough to choose your own doctor. the arrogance of passing legislation that says she knows better who you can choose. i have probably close to a dozen friends in my small town in bowling green, kentucky, that have cancer. they got to go to m.d. anderson, the best cancer treatment center in america. with obama care, you don't get to choose your doctor. this goes against the fabric of the country to have legislation that prevents you from having the choice of your own doctor. i have a 22-year-old son. he has biths control, pregnancy coverage, pediatric conch. it's a crime that the country's giving him in vitro fertilizeation. he does not need it. he needs a bare bones catastrophic insurance plan. he needs to be able to choose something that's cheap, that would cover him in the time of an accident. this debate over health care is not a want-to debate. it's about freedom versus coercion. three months after obama care was passed kay hagan had another chance to try to make it less bad. hehood a specific vote on whether or not to grandfather in people who had their insurance already, people who had chosen their doctors. kay hagan looked the other way and voted twice, first for obama care and again against allowing people the choice to choose their own doctor. i think that nothing good will happen in this country until she's gone. people say is there a difference between republicans and democrats? yeah. republicans believe in balancing the budget. we had a vote on a balanced budget. where was kay hagan? voting against it. none of this thezz will ever get a vote as long as she's in charge. the ground zero for taking the u.s. senate back is north carolina. you've got republican governs, republican house and senate. you need a republican u.s. senator i'm happy to be here today to have cocktails are you guys. [applause] >> shawn -- is your appearance here that an indication that anybody who might be leaning towards >> i'll say a little bit but ideas. e lib tear lower taxes, balanced budgets. personal liberties. i think tom represents those ideas and i'd like to let him respond. >> the reason we want any senator member of -- senate member of caucus here and the belief that kay hagan has failed the people of north carolina. they all share that belief. they're inconsistent with where the nation wants to go and where the state wants to go. i welcome any member of the senate caucus to come here. i'm thrilled to have the support that i do. that's the way we got things done in raleigh in the last three years. vetod a broad base, we had overrides against the governor. i like what hear read does, take 350 bills out of the house and do nothing about it. harry reid and kay hagan have shut down the congress. there are other things we should be able to do. -- ahas rubber stamped harry >> you've put senator haggan for the way she ran against senator dole and her voting record. if you priorityize across the aisle, could you give us an example of things you could work with president obama on? >> there are a variety of policies that have been passed out of the house that i know even democrats or the senate would vote for if they could come to a vote. there are things about clawing back regulations, slowing down the health policy of obama care. there are things that would get the job and the economy back on track. >> what about those w4506 come from the white house? >> i think what you have to do is find a congress with economic policy, regulatory policies, things that the majority of the senate is prepared to vote on but barack obama has told harry reid not to take it up. they're delaying a lot of the policy votes until after the election. there's 473 cancellation letters that went out last year. ow they decided to delay it. so what we need to give the congress something that they can vote on on economic recovery and hopefully he'll care enough about the nation to sign it into law. thank you all. > thank you. . i appreciate all y'all are doing. >> we got to go, sorry. >> said it's not going to get repealed. >> we're right here. > get a quick picture. > senator. [indistinguishable conversations] >> i'm from dare county, the outer banks. .> i've been to the outer banks >> i volunteered indistinguish dd inguish >> they just moved it. > thank you. >> nice to meet you, sir. >> nice to meet you. >> can i get your autograph? >> sure. ok. thank you, sir. >> thank you. >> you want to mingle? >> he said he would be willing to take a few questions. the man that can be the only individual that can save america from self-destruction. this country is 17.7 trillion dollars in debt. 5.6 year 2000, it was trillion. today it's 17.7 trillion. neither bush or obama have followed the institution. the man this i'm going to introduce right now believes that the constitution -- believes in the institution and when he raises his right-hand to accept the presidency of the united states -- [applause] >> -- he will follow the substitution. i give you rand furcal the great state of kentucky. [applause] >> i'm happy to be here today. it's a privilege to be here to endorse my friend walter jones for re-election. thank you for coming. walter has been a good friend of our family for a long time, and i think one thing you should know in north carolina in his district is that he is well respected. he is well respected as an independent voice in washington and a voice of someone who truly has a conscious. someone who truly thinks about the soldiers who live here in north carolina and the soldiers who fight for us, the young men and women who volunteer to fight for our country. and so walter and to myself, neither one of us see this as a chess game. this isn't checkers, chess. commoditiesnanimate you move around on a board. you'll find no greater supporter than walter jones. [applause] >> you may have heard about a little girl. she was -- she thought shead do something good. she wrote a letter to god. she said, dear god, if you send me $100 i'll do something good with it. the post master didn't know what to do with it so he sent it to the president. the president got it and said to his secretary, send her $5. she'll think that's a lot of money. she gets the $5 and she's a little underwhelmed. her parents said send a thank you. she said "thanks for sending the money. the next time, don't send it to washington. they stole it." [applause] >> we can probably just stop there. that moral is fairly universal. you think, well, why can't government do anything right, is government inherently stupid? it's a debateble question. here's the thing. there are a couple of arguments for why we should keep government to a minimum, why government should do little things. one, because they don't do much of anything very well. in fact, you might say they have trouble even protecting the white house. all right? you think that would be pretty simple. but the thing is, government doesn't do many things well. so i tell people there are two arguments for keeping government small, for minimizing your government. i call them the liberty argument and the sort of efficiency argument. the liberty argument is what thomas paine said. he said that government's a necessary evil and you think, oh, that's a terrible thing to say about government. i think it is because the -- i'm a part of it. why is it a necessary sneevel you have to give up part of your freedom to have freedom. you have to give up to form a government. this isn't an argument for having no government. it's just an argument for minute migse how much freedom you have to give up to have a government. one simple true statement someone said nobody spends someone else's money as wisely as they spend their own. think about it. do you think people in government care whether it's 10 bucks or 10,000 or 10 million or 10 billion. now we're talking about trillions. do you think any of them lay awake at night thinking about, hmm, wonder if i made a mistake with that trillion dollars today. if i ask you to give a thousand dollars for an investment, due think you'd think about it before you gave it to me? you think you'd worry if you're getting the money back. if you bor row money for your house or car, do you worry about the money? yeah. you have to meet payroll, a profit. all those signal -- every tchay there's a signal back to you, government gets none of those signals. government's wildly inefficient, so we should let them do very little. when we look at how we're going to get to prosperity in this country again, how we're going to get jobs again, it's a real simple message. keep more money in your community. keep more money in north carolina. keep more money in greenville and less money to washington. you say, aren't all republicans for that? sad -- the sad truth -- the sad struth no. >> amen. >> what passes for bold in washington is, hey, guys, i'm for revenue-neutral taxes. i say if that's what we're for, i'll just go home. i'll go at home and still yell at my tv when i'm angry. i'm not participating. i'm not giving up a lot of things i can do with my family to go to washington. >> amen. >> do you remember ronald reagan getting up and saying good morning, america. i'm for revenue -- neutral revenue tax reform. we had 20 million jobs created because we were boldly for what we are for. we have a big debate going on. how's the party going to get big enough to win again? i've been fairly hard and i've said we need to adapt or die. we have to become a bigger party. if we don't become a bigger party by diluting our message. what we are for, we should be ho for. we are the party of the constitution. we are the party of the bill of rights. we're the party that will protect your rights if you're a minority. you can be a minority because of the color of your skin or the sthade of your ideology. you can be a minority because you're a fundamentalist christian or you like to teach your kids at home. or your jewish or black or asian american. there's a lot of reasons why you're a minority. we need to stand up for every minority. the bill of rights isn't for the prom queen. the bill of rights isn't for the high school quarterback. they're going to be treated fairly. they always are. the bill of rights is truly for those who might be unorthodox, who might have an unusual idea, who might not look like everybody else. so we have big debates in washington. i think one of the biggest deebts we have in the last four or five years is whether or not we can detain an american citizen without a trial. i can't imagine anyone who could be for that, but many members of our party were. one senator on the floor said -- i said to him, you can take an american citizen and send them to guantanamo bay without a trial? >> he said, yeah, he's dangerous. i -- anybody meb remember richard jewel everybody thought he was guilty. he was convicted on tv. within hours, it turned out it wasn't him. he wasn't guilty. but can you imagine if he'd been a black man in the south in 1920? what would have happened to him? the bill of rights is to protect minorities, whether it's the color of your skin for shade of your ideology. we need to be the party who stands up for the rights of everyone. we need to proclaim our message with the passion of patrick henry but also proclaim our message with optimism. paint like a man coming over the hill singing, one painter said. i think if we paint our message like a man come over the hill singing, when we proclaim our message with the passion of patrick henry, we'll be the dominant party again. i thank you for helping my friend. [applause] >> i'd rather be out in the crowd shake hands. you can ask him questions then. thank you. [applause] >> you're from kentucky, right? >> right. >> 245es where i'm originally from. >> i don't know what senator rand paul's going to do in the future, but i know that politics as usual is not going to fix america's problems. electing a president that is picked by their party bosses is not going to fix america's problems. [applause] i want to read just one sentence from the presidential oath "and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the united states of america." mr. bush bush did not keep his words when he swore to the american people. mr. obama has not kept his word when he swore to the american people, but the man i'm going to introduce now, if given that chance, will keep his toward the american people, and that is the senator from kentucky, rand paul. let's give him a warm welcome. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. i'm glad to be in north carolina to endorse my friend walter jones for re-election. you guys going to get him back? he'll win again? [cheers and applause] . >> good. now, i think i'll come back to north carolina. i almost moved closer to your district. i was going to -- we interviewed in wilson, almost a little bit outside the district and i tell people that's my favorite trivia question. you know how you say wilson if you're from north carolina? you add a n there. wiltson, i'm from wiltson. or if you're from way out in eastern north carolina or -- how do you say when you want to have mebody come over to your h-o-u-se? have you been to my ome before? what happened to the h? i spent seven years at duke and i got to kentucky and i was like, you know, i'm going to put my doip on the wall. i went to the duke medical school. they'll think that was a good school and that will help me get patients. i got there in 19939 right after lighter in made the shot against against the university of kentucky. the hotshot that's probably been replayed than any other shot in history. 1.4 seconds to go, if you really know your basketball, he gets the pass and dribbles once. who has the where with all to dribble once when you have 1.4ing seconds to go. do you know he had a perfect game? 10-10 from the field. 109-10 from the line. about the time kentucky goes he'd, makes the shot, lucky shot actually off the glass, and goes in -- kentucky's ahead by one and our phone starts ringing. in durham we had a bunch of kids-h folks over from medical school. this is a day when you had a phone that had a -- like a -- it's a cord. i don't know if you've ever seen these. it's attached to a cord. people actually answered their phone. you didn't screen, you didn't know who was calling. you just answered it. nobody answers the phone anymore. my wife hopped up to answer the phone, kentucky had made the shot. she gets there and about that time, he made the shot and whoever was on the other end hangs up. and her brothers are big u.k. afternoons, so we suspected this. t took about 10 years to admit that they were calling to give us a hard time about duke losing. then duke was winning. i was in a barbecue line and there was a guy in front of me who's here tonight. we won't say who he is. he had two big plates. i said you're note going to live very well eating like that. to id, my grand dad lived be 105. i said he didn't live to 1035 by eating like thaft. he said no, my grand dad lived to 105 by minding his own business. i think there's a moral there. maybe we could use that as a public cry for government, minding your own business. [applause] >> i think a corollary to that might be leave me the heck alone. if you want to be a part of the leave me alone coalition, if we want our party to be bigger, maybe if we ask people to join the leave me the heck alone peart, we'd have a bigger coalition. i've been going to college campuses. conservative college campuses, even berkeley. i've been to liberty university, i've been to berkeley. there's a big difference there. but i gave them the same meageed it's received in both places well. the message is, what you do or say on your cell phone is none of the government's business. [applause] people say, you don't want to get terrorists? no. i do want to get terrorists. but i don't want to get 300 million americans to find terrorists, right? i think sometimes we make the haystack so big we can't find the needle. for example, the two boys in boston, we were warned by the russians that one of them was potentially a terrorist. he traveled back to chechnya and nobody even knew he traveled. you know why? the computer program couldn't figure out alternative spellings for his name. we've been 10 years after 9/11 and we haven't figured that out? that's happened multiple times. one of these kids could probably write the codes in 10 minutes to figure out multiple spellings for a name and yet we did nothing. the t.s.a. looks at everyone. we've got to strip from head to tow toe and be patted down. why don't we try to have a way where people travel frequently in our country can do it in a respectable manner where we don't have to be harrah'sed at every moment. there was a professor add harvard who said, the next time you go to the airport, you have to hold your hands up for seven vulnerable moments. is this the position of a free man? we have to be careful that we don't givep what we're defending against in the process of capturing terrorists. [applause] jai know a lot of you are worried that your government might shut down. i have good news for you. your government's open. ok? the bad news is, your government's open, ok? your government's open and borrowing a million dollars a minute. so in the next 13 hours of my speech we're going to borrow -- no. can you imagine in the next 20 minutes we'll borrow $20 million. it's completely crazy. we had this big battle about a year ago. you remember when the government shut down? well, sort of. the president was afraid you might not notice. why? because 2/3 of your government's on autopilot. 2/3 is medicare, medicaid and social security. it never closes down. it is immortal. it is in perpetuity and not paid for twu but 2/3 of your government never shut down. so really we were talking about a third of your government. why were we talking about that? because congress doesn't do their job? storically we would pass appropriations billings. we don't do that anymore. the deadline looms and we look like a bunch of chickens with our heads cut off. it's 2,000 pages, nobody reads it. nobody can physically read it. we often get it at 8:00 in the morning. we pass it at noon. nobody reads it. to make matters worse, when we kept government open two weeks ago, they stuck a little war in the spending bill. we didn't even have a debate. i told them inconvenient time to talk about it. we shouldn't willie nily send our courageous men and women to war without having a debate over it. it's a crime we didn't. when government shut down a year ago, we had a third of your government is split. half of it's defense and half of it's sort of the other stuff. welfare, other things. we said we should pay our military, we did. we opened up the military. when the president was squawking about how evil and awful republicans were, a sixth of the government was closed. so what did he do? he was afraid you might not notice. you remember what he did. he wrapped the world war ii monument to make sure you knew -- were punished for being a i would have volunteered to mow the grass. i like doing that. they wrapped it with barricades. but if you want to remember one image of the shutdown, you remember this. you remember the image of world war ii veterans cutting the barricade and throwing them on the lawn at the white house. [applause] we did learn some things, and congressman jones will confirm this. during the shutdown they sent us a request. they said list your essential and your unessential employees. and i'm like, wow, we're going to learn a lesson here. we're going to learn what part of government we have to have and what we don't. i got to fill out a list for my employees. i said, well, let's find out what the i.r.s.'s list look like. i asked my staff to call the i.r.s. 90% unessential. i said we're going to learn something here. 90% of the i.r.s. is unessential. i said call the e.p.a. they called the e.p.a. 95% unessential. i tharbgts we're on to something here. we're going to discover that most of government is unessential. and i was so naive. because the more i dug into this, i discovered something. guess what? if you're unessential, you don't have to come to work but you do get paid. so there's an incentive to be essential has nothing to do with essential. has something to do with still getting pafmente every employee was still getting paid. you thought, we got rid of some bad ones. you can't -- are you crazy? you can't fire a federal employee. that's insane. they were looking at the e.p.a. and they actually did something for the first time. they actually started looking at some individual employees. they found one employee had not been to work in 20 years. now, she had a disability but she had not communicated with anyone in the office for five years. you think they fired her? you can't fire a federal employee. you're crazy. they found another woman with who was selling vitamins and cosmetics and all sort of stuff on her work computer. did you fire her? are you crazy? e can't fire a federal -- we had a guy who was downloading porn eight hours a day. you can't fire a federal employee. my favorite a guy name jonathan beal. jonathan beal had worked for the c.i.a. for 11 years and was said to have been gina mcarthur's right-hand man. his expertise was global warming. he's a big deal up there. they found out and looked. he was gone most of the time. he kept getting glowing performance reviews. he kept getting raise after raise. he's great. they actually asked, why doesn't he come to work and his boss said, well, he works also for the c.i.a.. they're like sfleefl the c.i.a. and the e.p.a. both? what a combination. then they did something really extraordinary. they call the c.i.a. and asked about jonathan beal. they said jonathan who? they'd never heard him. he probably makes $150,000 a year. 100,000 federal workers make over $100,000 a year. and they were all nonessential. just imagine him by the pool. he's got to have a pool. he's by the pool, his boss calls. they're like, jonathan with you -- are you coming in today? no. i'm in istanbul on secret assignment. you remember the v.a. scandal? what was the biggest part of the v.a. scandal? even when we caught them making up waiting lists, no one was fired. anybody remember 9/11? anybody remember anybody being fired over 9/11? we have spent trillions upon trillions of dollars trying to be safe every. i am for being safer. i am for spending money to try to make the nation safer, but we have done ridiculous things. we spent $8 million in fargo last year. i tell people, if terrorists gets to fargo, we might as well surrender. we give equipment to our local police forces, mine resistant ambush protection volcanoes that weigh 20 tons. we had an example of this because of the force used in ferguson. we asked where is the equipment coming from? well, it's coming from the military. it wasurns out a loft -- new. dunnedy, michigan, has a mine resistant ambush protection vehicle. in a town of 3,000. it encourages probably the wrong response to someone out there yelling and screaming in pro -- and protesting or whatever. this is america, for heavens headaches you're supposed to be able to employee test. when we started the homeland security they gave a wish list to every state. the mule day festival, the pop quorn factory, you know, all those high-risk terrorist targets. it's like everything else that's good in america, protect our country, they take the money and use it for something frive louse. i had this debate with the president. i said why don't we cut some spending? he said we really couldn't -- where would we cut? we've cut to the bone. i gave him a list of a few things. i said why don't we just not rehire anybody when they retire. you'd save $6 trillion a year by not rehiring people. if you simply freeze federal spending, the budget balances within 10 years. if you were to cut 1 cent out of every dollar, the budget actually balances within five years. he says how could we do that. has anybody ever had to deal 1% less in income? people do it all the time. government does the opposite. when you siffer, they say government should spend more. maybe we should balance our budget to call it less suffering. maybe we'd have more jobs. [applause] this will administration has been ridled with scandals. i think of old mcdonald's farm, here a scandal, there a scandal, everywhere a scandal. we got a brand new one. they can't even keep intruders out of the white house but for the first time they actually let somebody go. watch closely. that person will probably turn up in another federal job somewhere. but of all the scandals, from the i.r.s., which does bother me to think you lose an election, you'll be audited because you're in the losing party? but of all the scandals that bothers me the most is benghazi. because the thing is -- [applause] the thing is, it is the job of the federal government to defend our country, to defend our embassy and defend our troops wherever they are. so in 2 six months leading up to ben gassy, there was -- benghazi, there was request after request after request for more security. they said weed like -- we'd like a plane to move about the country. state department denied. three days later, hillary clinton's state department approved an electrical charging station for the embassy in vienna because it seems we were trying to green it up a bit. you know. one of the pry mayor fungs of the state department is not diplomacy but it's greening up of the planlts. so we ordered a $100,000 charging station for the chevy volt so we can show how green we are in veriena -- vienna. in the meantime we didn't have a plane for our personnel in libya. in september preceding the attack in benghazi -- hillary clinton's state department spent money for the state department. $650,000. they spent $700,000 for landscaping for the embassy in brussels. they spent $5 million for glass ware for the embassy. the list goes on and on. in august, though, colonel wood, member of the 16-person security team sends cables, urgent cables saying, we need remain in country. the british were already leaving at that point. there had been an explosion at the british beamings. there were rumors daily of designation and attack, and they were refused permission to stay in country. in the middle of august, two or three weeks before the attack, there's a cable specifically sent from ambassador stephens to hillary clinton. when she came before my commeerkts that's the question i asked her. i said, secretary clinton, when you were asked directly, when you were sent cables directly from the war zone, from a nation just emerging from civil war, from a designation in the throws of danger, from an -- throes of danger, did you read his cables? and she acted as if it was sort of beneath her, she wasn't expected to read the cables. i said, frankly, you're not providing the security of benghazi should prescrewed you from ever being considered for commander -- preclude you from ever being considered for commander in chief. [applause] one of the things walter has talked about and i've talked about about the middle east, is it's not only the defense of benghazi that was bad, the whole bar was illinois conceived. they were -- ill received. we were never asked permission. our founding fathers were specific about this. madison wrote in the federalist papers that history commons-p demonstrates that the executive is the branch most prone to war. therefore we took that power and vested it in congress. congress was supposed to vote. it was intentional. it was to have a real debate before we went to war. but we went to bar in libya without authorization. you know what's going on there now? chaos. it's a jihadist wonderland. they're everywhere. they literally stpwhim our embassy pool in tripoli. the bar just left about a month ago. they couldn't leave by plane. it was too dangerous to leave by plane. they barely got out of the country. radical jihad, people who hate america and people who would attack us roam the country side in libya. why? because if there's one universal truth to the middle east, it's that the secular dictators hate radical islam and they did create stability. and every time that a secular dictator has been topled chaos ensues, radical slamism rises to the fore front. it's not just libya. sadam was a secular dick tator. iraq's full of people who would come to america to attack us. isis wasn't a threat two years ago. why? because they probably would have been wiped out by assad. but we put 600 tons of weapons into the southeastern war. what happened? we created a haven. not just us, saudi arabia, qatar, united arab emirates. they poured equipment in there. some have ended up in the hands of isis. they were given to moderate reblings. i said this on the floor the other day. how many of these moderate islamic rebels would recognize israel as a nation. zero. many of them have already announced that they will attack israel when they're done with assad. they've said we don't care about isis because they ahead assad also. when we're done with assad, we might deal with are israel. we come before a committee last week and secretary kerry says, we asked him where do you get the authority. he says from the 2001 resolution. i said, well, didn't that allow us to go into fean? what does -- afghanistan? what does that have to do with now? he said we can provide defense against forces such as al qaeda. i said it doesn't really say that but if that's the way you interpret it, maybe since the moderate rebels are fighting along side al qaeda, you could attack them. it makes no sense. but he's going on with this charade that he can do whatever he wants. he finally said, well, even if the resolution in 2001 to go to afghanistan has nothing to do with syria, well, the president has article ii authority. that's where the executive branch gets their power from the constitution. so really, he doesn't care. none of them care. we didn't have any vote. they just went on willy-nilly to do it. there can be honest debate over whether we should. and frankly, i think we should do something about isis now. there should be no debate about the fact it should be done in a constitution way. we should have debate in congress and it should never be done unilaterally. [applause] i've been pretty harsh about the republican party winning the presidency again and winning national elections. we're doing great in certain congressional districts. in certain red states we're doing fine. i've said we must either adapt, evolve, or die as a party. we need to be a more diverse party. we've got to have more people in our party, glack, white, brown, with tattoos, without tattoos, with earrings, without earrings. we need to look like the rest of america. i've been trying to go places where we haven't gone. i'm the first elected republican to go in years. i bring a message that says you know what? we care about people who live in poverty and we care about people who are unemployed. how would we fix it? we have a plan. so i took a plan to detroit and i said we will help detroit by leaving $1.3 billion in detroit. i'm not going to get it from north carolina. i would just let them keep it. money that they would have normally cents to washington over a 10-year period, it would be a billion dollar bailout but a bailout with their own money. democrats have nothing to offer detroit. we got the vote in detroit. i think we show up, have a plan, we tell people with difficult circumstances that we want to help them and you know what? then all of a sudden we transform a whole electorate that hasn't been considering republicans and then we become the dominant party again. how do we do this across america? we got to show up. i think as we do it, we have to do it with an optimism. we have to do it with a smile. we have to do it by showing that we truly do care about people, where they are and where they live. i'm reminded of the both -- or he ainter robert henrime, advised young painters to paint like a man coming over the hill singing. i love that image. i think when we proclaim our message like a man coming over the hill singing. when we proclaim our message with the passion of patrick henry, with enthusiasm and wament for growing the economy and getting a job for everyone, then i think we'll be the dominant party again. thank you very much. [applause] >> and we recently talked with a kansas city reporter about the senate race in that state. the list of the 10e most vulnerable senators in this election and number four on the list is kansas senator pat roberts. joining us is dave helling, political report we are the kansas city star. thanks for being with us. >> good afternoon, steve. great to be with you. >> a lot of developments in the race, including that yesterday of a new poll showing the race is very close. senator roberts is behind. tell us what's happening. >> he's been behind consistently in polls throughout the year. he ran, as you may know, your audience may know, he was involved in a very, very aggressive primary in the state of kansas in august against a tea party candidate named milton wolf. in that race pat roberts, who by the way, has been a fixture of kansas politics since 1980 received 48% of the vote in his own party. at that point i think a lot of people began to say look, this guy may face some serious concerns from the people of kansas if he can't do better than that within his own party. that's sort of the picture on the ground on his side. then he's opposing a guy now named greg orman, an independent running a campaign that says, i'm not a republican or a democrat. i can vote for the best idea. i'm a problem solver. and that does have some resonance in kansas. partially because like a lot of other voters, there is some disappointment and at times disgust with the stalemate in washington. that. an is playing into >> senator moran, we had a conversation with. he is painting this narrative that greg orman is a democrat, that he supported barack obama in the past and that he's voted as a democrat. are you going to hear a lot more of that in the next 30 days? >> no doubt. there is a lot of intent to paint greg orman as a democrat and to nationalize the election, to make greg orman an ally of president obama who is very unpopular in the state of kansas, as he is in other places. they want to make orman and obama the issue. his position has been that that's part to have old politics, that's the way things used to be done and that i am a problem solver, he says, that can go to washington and break the gridlock. some people in kansas actually like that approach, because, a, they're concerned about stame mate in washington. the other problem for pat roberts out here is pat's been a part of government for many, many years. he's 78 years old. he's been in elected office in washington since 1980, and people -- a lot of kansans, not all, but some kansans think that he's gone native, that he's become more about washington than about kansas. his residency, as you know, is an issue. those are playing into the idea of this is a fresh start and an independent voice. kansas is a very republican state and has not sent a democratic senator to washington since the depression, only republicans. we'll see in a month or so how it turns outs. >> let me ask you about this poll from sufficient ock universities showing that orman at 46%, roberts at 41%. he has been in the senate since 1996. he replaced bob dole. undecided.vey, 11% >> a lot of people don't know orman. he's never held elected office. he ran for the senate in 2008 for a couple of months and then backed out even before the primary. he ran, by the way, as a democrat in that race in 2008. so a lot of voters probably don't know who greg ore serviceman and they're waiting to get a clearer picture of, you know, what his issue positions are and how he might vote. one of the important things you'll hear, steve, is that greg orman has refused so far to say whether he would caucus with senate republicans or senate democrats if he's elected. as you know, that decision could have an enormous impact on how the senate is run after the elections in november, and so i do think there is some pressure from some undecided it is voters out here to get a clearer picture of who greg orman is, and pat roberts is going to exploit that. he'll say, i'm the republican, i'll vote for the republican leader if it comes to that and my opponent is not doing that. that is one of the important issues in this race out here. >> let me ask you about the governor's race. paul davis is slightly ahead against senator, now govern governor sam brownback. why is this so close? >> well, a different dynamic than the senate race, which is being argued largely on national issues, democrats versus republicans. the governor's race was built around a competencey and execution, if you will. governor brownback pursued a aggressive program of cutting taxes in the state. and at least today, the effect of that has been to blow a rather sizeable hole in the budget without having the kind of economic boost he suggested would happen. for that reason and because people are worried about cuts to transportation, paul davis, the state representative has goten a lot of traction out here. whether that stays through election day, we'll have to see. the governor is also a fixture of kansas politics just like pat roberts. they've known each other for 25 years. kansas remains a very republican state. both men have a build-in advantage. there is certainly unrest among voters in kansas that you see in the poll numbers you cited, that you see in the kind of campaign we're looking at. that could have a dramatic effect on governor brownback. >> dave helling joining us from the kansas city star, thanks for being with us. >> great to be here, steve. >> tomorrow, debate between mont house candidates. their only televised debate before the election. here's a look at some of the campaign ads. >> i can tell you all about my montana roots, but i think it's more important to tell you where i stand. in congress, i work to balance the budget the right way, cut congress' pay and perks and keep our promises to our veterans and our seniors. my opponent wants to cut education and medicare, to get more tax breaks to corporations and billionaires. i'm john lewis. i approve this meng to make congress work for mont. > 1988, ryan zinke resigned as platoon commander. john lewis enters elementary school. in 1996 lewis graduates high chool. ready to lead in congress. zinke. >> i'm ryan zinke and i'm ready to lead. >> that's more like it. with us, what you see is what you get. unlike my opponent i don't have my own super p.a.c. trying to buy a seat in congress. i do have a plan to cut wasteful spending and get rid of congress' gold pension, so we can keep our promises to our veterans and our seniors. i'm john lewis. i approve this message to make congress work for montana. >> 2004, brine zinke awarded two stars for combat. 2005, ryan zinke assigned as dean of warfare. 2010, john lewis begins work helping write disastrous obama care legislation. two montians, two lives. one ready to lead in congress. >> i'm ryan zinke and i approve this message. >> tomorrow a live debate for the candidates running for mont's u.s. house at large seat. >> the c-span cities tour takes book tv and american history tv on the road, traveling to u.s. cities. this weekend we partnered with comcast for viferts to boulder, colorado. >> my book is called "the beast in the garden." because it's a book about a large animal that in ancient times or in american history we would have called the beast, the mountain loinl, in what is really a garden. and that is boulder, colorado. boulder is a beautiful, seemingly natural place, but in many wayings, it has been altered by human kind. when you get this wild animal coming into this artificial landscape, you actually can cause changes in the behavior of that animal. a mountain lion's favorite food is ven sin. they eat about one year a -- deer a week. the deer out here where we have irrigated lawns, the city attracted the deer. so we have a deer herd living in downtown boulder. the lions move back into the area, then they discovered there were deere in town, so the deere lured the lions into town. then the lions discovered they could eat dogs and cats. that's food for them, and so the lions were learning and they have learned that this is where they will find food. there's certainly food up there, too, but there's lots to eat in town. >> it's a retreated zpwhreanl a beautiful place for enrichment, enlightenment, entertainment and coming together. the people who were intended to be the audience of the chateaugay was what we would call the middle class. the program there was a combination of speakers of the day, also a variety of both what we might consider high brow and low brow entertainment. music and ek cal probably what would be considered the vaudeville of that day. >> watch our events from boulder saturday at noon eastern on c-span's book tv and on american history tv on c-span 3. >> next, a conversation with rer tired supreme court justice john paul stevens. then the d.c. district court of appeals hears oral argument challenges a law. after that, white house officials hold a briefing to discuss the u.s. response to ebola. >> retired supreme court justice john paul stevens talked to georgetown university students about his life. has a new book "six amendments: how and why we should change the constitution." he's the longest serving justice. he retired in 2010. his remarks are about an hour.

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