could mitt romney run again? we want your calls and comments on whether or not you think he should or will run again. and for the first 45 minutes we want to hear from republicans only. we're dividing the phone lines among the eastern half of the country. you can join us on facebook at facebook.com/cspan or send us a tweet. we're taking your e-mails, [email protected]. good thursday morning to you. we'll get to your calls and comments in just a moment and let you hear what governor romney said. but a look at some of the other headlines. the richmond times dispatch following the story of the former governor of virginia, as the defense wrapped up its testimony the daughter testifying on the relationship between his mother and father, and the jury could get the case as early as friday. and this from the miami hair ailed, governor scott winning his republican nomination. he will be challenged by the new democrat, governor christ, former governor. records on governor scott's plans kept secret with regard to the governor's plans. this from the arizona republic as the arizona republican selecting dou g ducy. you can check out the schedule on line at c-span.org with regard to debates coming up. following this story, he is a professor of a princeton university, a contributor to cnn.com on the issue of mitt romney. he's joining us live on the phone. thanks very much for being are us. >> thanks for having me. host: a lot of speculation. we'll hear from him in just a moment. you say that it is not out of question that mitt romney could run and could potentially get to '16 nomination for the gop. why? >> part of it is about him and part about the republican party. there are moments in history where candidates have remade themselves, like richard nixon, who was able to come back after losing the presidential race in 1960 in the race in 1962. so romney could follow that model. part of it is about some of the fridge ility of the republican party. many of their major candidates are extremely vulnerable and untested, and so it opens room for someone who is more familiar and someone who has been out there since running last time, and continuing to make a name for himself. host: let me go back to your piece which is available on line, republicans would naturally be gitey about selecting a candidate who could make it through the primaries in 2008 and crashed and burned against the president in 2012. you asked this question. how could someone recover from this kind of loss, how could romney end up as the next republican nominee? your piece available at wnn.com. will mitt romney run for president in 2016. how do you answer that question? >> well, he's done in some ways what richard nixon did in the 1960s. he made himself a key factor in fundraising, endorsements, and throughout the campaign trail during these mid term campaigns, and that's been very important in terms of rebuilding himself. and so he has kept himself alive as a political player, and showing that he can solidly draw the kind of money that some other candidates have not been able to do. and with the various problems, and other candidates, still having big questions, it keeps alive speculation that perhaps he would be the one that the republicans go to again. host: is there a nixon analogy to all of this? >> there is. and he's following some of the steps of what nixon has done. of course, there's great interest and the context is very different. but he has followed the path of candidates who have taken a loss, and rather than vanishing from the public stage, made themselves integral players to the party. so the possibility if the party needs them, they are still people who can prove how effective they can be. host: we're talking with julianne zelizer. he is also a contributor to cnn and cnn.com. i want to share with you a pole that came out from iowa, available on line. >> released yesterday, 35% of likely gop voters would vote for mitt romney in 2016, and down the list is chris christie and rand paul, many of those in the single digits. your response to that? >> well, i mean, i would take that with a grain of salt only in that he is the most familiar republican still, and so i do think a poll like that is registering just what people remember from the last election. that said, it does reflect this idea that if he decided, because he is a name brand in the gop, and he provides primary voters and non-primary voters with some comfort level, in terms of understanding what kind of campaign he would run, and that means a lot to republicans who are very determined to win the white house in 2016. >> you followed this closely. what's your gut instincts? do you think he's going to go for it? >> i don't know. i'm not sure if he and his family wants to get into it again. i think the speculation would be attractive. he's a person committed to public service, and my gut is that it will depend on the other candidates rather than him. if there is a chance there is no strong candidate, he would be the kind of person interested in dealing with his party and getting into the campaign race. but if one of these other candidates proves to be stronger, if someone else emerges, i think he would step aside. host: your latest book, when is it coming out? >> coming out in january. host: thanks very much. and we'll follow that on book tv. his piece on whether or not mitt romney will run again in 2016. thanks very much for adding your voice this morning to the program. >> thank you. host: our phone lines are open. we want to hear from republicans only because we thought it would be interesting to hear from the gop whether or not you would be ready to accept mitt romney as a third time presidential candidate. nick is joining us from tennessee. should mitt romney run in '16? caller: well, if he's really changed, i come from the tea party wing of the republican party. can you hear me? host: i sure can. caller: okay. and so i look at it this way. democratic party is a party of slime, and establishment party, the republican party is the party of stupid, and i knew romney wasn't going to win because he's too nice. we -- we need guys in there that can be ruthless. he said i'm going to find something on him. and there's nothing on the guy. but then the person threw up that his -- watch me. and they did. and this goes all the way back to lyndon johnson when he betrayed barry goldwater as a war monger. we need the republicans that have got guts and not stupid. they fall in line like lamar alexander. he is -- he gets spanked by harry reid at every turn. that's the problem. if romney runs, i'll do what i do with most presidential elections, i'll hold my nose and vote republican or just stay at home. okay, thank you. host: thanks for the call. again (202)585-3880 for republicans in the eastern or central time zone, and (202)585-3881 for republicans in the mountain and pacific time zones. the question this morning, should mitt romney run for president in 2016? he made his comments on the hue hewitt program, leaving the door open for the possibility. and we under score just the possibility, that he might run in 2016. there's this tweet from one of our viewers, saying right now mitt romney looks like the best the gop has to offer. good morning, where you calling from? caller: clinton, maryland. host: you're on the air. go ahead, please. caller: i just wanted to say the poll shows the republicans are still stuck in the past, and this is indicative of the poll. i think mitt romney is a good man. he's consistent with the times. i think that republicans are going to have to change their focus and come up with some new ideas, and some new plans for america. host: things for the call. let's go to jay in pennsylvania, also a republican. what do you think on this question? should mitt romney run? caller: it's possibility. i would rather see somebody else. i think the first caller was correct, nice guys finish last. and we got to get people that are -- can act like the democrats who are really basically street fighters, and that's what you have to be. we got to get down and dirty and not worry about being nice. and one of the things i would like to have a republican leader do is to try to have a history lesson for the american people to talk about what they stand for, which is individual liberty. and individuals, not groups, and to try to teach people that republicans we don't believe in ethnic voting blocks, not because we're mean, but we believe in individuals first. and when you have people talking about a hispanic vote, we have a lot of republicans who bow to that idea, which is racial extortion, basically holding a gun to our head and saying, you know, you will vote for our group or else. that's -- we don't believe in that. we believe in -- we believe in the melting pot, and that is not -- we don't have anybody with the guts to express that, to give a good teaching of what america -- how america became what it is now, and that was the abolition of group identity and diversity and making us all similar and one nighted people. host: based on all of that one name in the republican party that best represents your point of view. caller: i don't know anybody. and i don't know anybody. and i don't think we're going to have any kind of leader that's going to do that. and i would like to see possibly some kind of alternative third party someday, i guess, i don't know what it's going to be, but i don't think romney is going to run, but as pat buchanan said for many, many, years, democracy is destiny. and demographics are shifting and republicans are finished if we don't try to explain to the american people how we're going to remain united and not -- that is the only way to do that, secure the borders, assimilate the people that are here, have the slow down on migration, and maybe we can save ourselves. host: jay, thanks very much for the call. ed has this point, a romney run in 2016 is a guaranteed win for the other party. he needs to rethink this. and from the hill newspaper, could romney really run? that's the question. and stu stephens, did not reject out of hand the possibility of a run when asked in an e-mail for his thoughts. he said, thanks for reaching out but i pretty much stay out of the 2016 speculation. another senior adviser, kevin madden, said romney has been clear he is not going to run. his favorability has not improved since 2012, staying fairly steady at about 47% favorable, 43% unfavorable. that from a february gallup poll. caller: i would vote for mitt romney. i believe he is the most presidential of the people out there. i think he was right on just about every issue, even though he was chastised for his opinion he turned out to be right. and i think by now we know that this country, in my opinion, would have been a lot better off had mitt romney won the presidency. host: mary has this point. mary says mitt's campaign needs more vigor and tech savey, i would vote for him. caller: hello. host: yes, good morning. caller: i think it's very complicated. yes, i think mitt romney would have been an excellent president, but we need someone in there who can outsmart the local press, and that is going to be the whole ballgame. and i don't know if we even have a chance, because -- because of the local press and the bias media. but mitt romney would have been a great president. he's so presidential compared to who we have now that it's sad, makes you want to cry. host: thank you. this is the headline from cbs news. mitt romney on 2016 saying circumstances can change. jean has this tweet. the gop cannot come up with anyone else so they want to replay the also ran. that is the problem. our question, should mitt romney run for president? we're asking it because he was on the hugh hewitt program on tuesday. here is part of that exchange from earlier this week. >> if you personally believe, genuinely believe you were the only candidate who could bit hillary and that belief was confirmed by your family and your friends and respected political advisors, would you not then fill obliged to run? >> well, hugh, the reason i came to the conclusion i did, which is this is not the right time for me to run, is because of my belief that someone else stands a better chance of winning than i do. had that not been the case, and i believed i would actually be best positioned to beat hillary clinton i would be running. i believe someone new that is not defined yet, perhaps someone from the next generation, will be able to catch fire potentially build a movement and be able to built hillary clinton. if i thought that weren't the case i would have been running, but i think we got a number of very good people looking at this race. i'm expecting someone to be able to catch fire and get the job done. >> i'm pressing and i'm pressing an advantage of one acquaintance, and so forgive me for this, but that subject to change, people's candidacies implode, circumstances change, people who organize campaigns approach you, so i'm not asking you, i wouldn't presume to ask you to say yeah, i'm in the race, but circumstances change. if you thought that, in fact, it were not that way, that you thought you were the only one who could do this, you would change your mind, wouldn't you? >> i'm not going there, hugh. you know, this is something we gave a lot of thought to early on, i thought we're not going to be running this time. and again, we said look, i had the chance of running. i didn't win. someone else has a better chance than i do. and that's what we believe and that's why i'm not running. and you know, circumstances can change, but i'm just not going to let my head go there. i remember the great line from dumb and dumber, where the -- >> you're telling me i have a chance. >> there you go. you remember. you're telling me i have a chance. it's one in a million. host: and that is from earlier this week, the hugh program. give us a call, tell us what you think about whether or not you think mitt romney should run for president in 2016. we're dividing our lines regionally for republicans only. the republicans in eastern half of the country (202)585-3880, and republicans in the mountain and pacific time zones (202)585-3881. also send us a tweet at c-span wj or an e-mail, [email protected]. if you're interested in hearing the full interview, it's posted on line at real clear politics.com, and hugh hewitt interviewing romney. also another story we're keeping an eye on this morning from inside "the new york times," an audio released from a conversation that took place this past june with the coke brothers event, is mitch mcconnell envisioning undoing obama's initiatives? at a private conclave with the billionaire coke brother's political apparatus this year, mcconnell laid out a confrontational agenda for a republican-controlled senate aimed as dismantling the president's legislative success in the budget. initially reported by "the new york times" and the nation magazine, senator mcconnell telling a mid june gathering that if the republicans gain control of the senate and retain control of the house in november, congress could use the budget process to force the president to roll back his priorities. and there's another headline this morning on another initiative that's going to get a lot of attention in the weeks ahead. this is from the "washington times." the president eyes a global climate deal without congress. republicans slamming the move as another power grab by the president. next is john, joining us from brooklyn, new york, on the mitt romney question. good morning, john. caller: hello. host: yes, go ahead, please. caller: i saw -- i'm not democrat, i'm not republican, i'm undecided now. mitt romney if he's going to run, they going to pick him apart. but i'm leaning towards the president. i don't think people analyze what he did, and i think with all the changes he made with the banks, and with -- i just heard on the news that health care this issue would save $100 million. have you heard that yet? you will hear that. these ideas are going to be put against each other. everything will be analyzed, so i don't know. i don't know. i like a lot of the things that obama did. i like some things he didn't do. but if you look where things was when he first started, with the banks, with the economy, with education, because my son just finished university, and he had to get loans. when he was getting those loans he had to go through the bank and pay the bank fees to get a loan for education. obama stopped that. there's a lot of good things he did that mitt romney better get ready. host: bill says this. mitt can run. the key is to do what americans want. their top priorities to finally be addressed, jobs the economy and debt. we mentioned at the much toft hour, front page story this morning on "the washington post" on the issue of immigration, the headline, the border stands weighs on the midterm. here is part of what "the washington post" is reporting this morning. let's go back to your calls on the question of mitt roomfully mike is joining us, we these -- maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a love hate relationship with mitt romney. i hated him in 2012, but i would love him in 2016. host: why is that? caller: because he's probably going to be up against hillary clinton, who must be stopped. and he is i think the only republican who has the substance and the ability to raise the resources to run against the clinton jugger nut. host: in the republican primary in 2012 who did you vote for? caller: in the republican primary i was hoping polenti would pull it out. host: this is the headline from business insider again, taking the one quote from the hugh hewitt circumstances. circumstances can change, which is leading to the speculation on the possibility of another bid by mitt romney. we're asking republican callers on their thoughts on this. caller: good morning. actually, i'm from sweet water, tennessee, but my comment is the only reason that mitt romney didn't win the election was because the republican establishment didn't back romney. you see, mitt romney was vetted, he was vetted by the republicans and the democrats. i mean, the republicans fought tooth and nail against mitt romney instead of backing him. and i mean i don't understand it. you know, they couldn't find anything on this man, nothing could they find on this man. they couldn't dig up any dirt, and so then you know, by the time the democrats got to him, he had already been vetted. everything the man said just about has come true. you know, i mean he is a governor and we all know that if you want a really good president, you pick a governor, you don't pick a senator. senators make sucky presidents. host: if mitt romney ran in 2016 would you vote for him in the primary? caller: oh, for sure. look, as far as hillary goes, hillary has been running for president ever since bill clinton went in the office, talking about, you know, if you talking about an also ran. she has been running for president for 20 years. host: okay. thanks for the call from sweet water, tennessee. this is another headline which might get to another part of the problem or dilemma for the republicans. a summer of gop flip-flops is the story this morning. die and is joining us from new york. good morning. caller: hello, steve. i'm a long time viewer, really enjoyed. although i believe c-span has morphed a little to the left. host: we had a caller the other day say we're a little too far. caller: yes, we are wherever see see it. i can see mitt romney running again. but if there are other runners, like rand paul, i think the people should decide. i would vote for anyone, any one of those. i think mitt romney lost the last time because the press was so for mr. obama. anyone would be better than hillary. romney is a decent man i believe anyway, and steve c-span i just want to make a little aside, c-span took it to chris christie, his whoas in new jersey. i just heard this morning that in my state, andrew cuomo failed to receive "the new york times" endorsement due to corruption. i would love to see a report on c-span about this. thank you. host: thanks for the call. and clearly, this program reflects what people are talking about, what's being written about from day one of the "washington journal." our goal is to share with you what editorials are out there from all perspectives. we talked about governor christie in large part because he has been talked about a potential 2016 presidential bid. this is from politico this morning, mitt romney circumstances can change. again that quote from the hugh hewitt program. an interview with former running made paul ryan who said, i sure wish mitt would run, saying that on face the nation. saying i think he would make a phenomenal president. the quote from congressman paul ryan, out with a book by the way, as he appears on cbs's face the nation. caller: good morning, c-span. i believe mitt romney would fail at his attempts because the evan gal i keels would not turn out for him. and the establishment loved him, and that's the kind of thing the republicans would like to see run again. host: who do you like? caller: i voted for rand paul. i'm clearly grassroots oriented. i think we need to have passionate people to articulate the message of america back to the people who have forgotten it. we're not going to get that from moderates or establishment folks on either the right or the left. with regards to mr. romney, seems to be a decent fellow. i certainly voted for him, rather than the president, but i don't believe they would turn out for -- i think we would have the same result. host: thanks for the call, from new york, pennsylvania. another race we're keeping an eye on, in iowa, in usa dakota the latest poll showing it is deadlocked. a dead even race. one of those key races that will determine the make up of the senate in the 114th congress. the story is available on line at usa disat.com. mid romney in 2016, what do you think? caller: i would say yes, i would vote for mitt romney. i voted for him before. i would vote for him again. i believe he is a good, decent man, and he has the experience to pull this economy up. i think he has the gunption to go after the enemies. there is one great thing about him. we want have to pay for his vacations the way we had to pay for obama. has the money to pay for his own vacations so the taxpayer won't have to fund that. thank you. host: theresa, you still with us? theresa? going to ask her who she voted in 2012. let's go to marie, next, from pennsylvania. good morning. go ahead, please. caller: yes. i voted for mitt romney in the primary and i voted for him as president. i think the united states does not deserve a person as decent as mitt romney. the man i believe is very honest, and the lady from tennessee is correct, we do not have to pay large amounts of money for his vacations. and i think it's too much to ask this man to run again. politics is too dirty for this man, like mitt romney. i supported him all the way. host: anal you would vote for him again if he did run? caller: yes, but you know what, i think politics is very difficult, and i think it takes a toll on his family. and himself. i think there will be other people who will be more ruthless in politics, so let him be. he's a millionaire and he's happy. leave him alone. host: hang thanks very much fore call. the nine ways mitt romney told us he won't run for president, translated into three word mitt peoples. the washington says after the 2012 election it didn't see likely the republicans would be clamoring for romney to run for president again. we want to get to your calls and comments on whether you think mitt romney should run. (202)585-3880. republicans only for the first 45 minutes. in the eastern half of the country and for those of you out west republicans (202)585-3881. harry is next from sarasota, florida. how do you answer the question? host caller: i think romney should run for president again. i don't think america needs another democrat in the white house. because what the democrats are doing in the white house is frankly terrible. and i think mitt romney will do a better job than what most democrats would be doing. host: do you think the republican party would embrace him again? caller: yes, i think they would. host: okay. thanks for the call from florida. fromississippi, good morning. caller: i think mitt romney should run for florida, in 20012 you see he -- mitt romney understands how to create jobs. host: let's go to dave in cartez, colorado. good morning. caller: i would love to see mitt romney run for president. i think -- i like seeing him lose and i would think he would lose again, and i also like to see if he had a son that would -- i know one of his sons is getting into politics, because then he could lose, too. host: we'll go next to ron in -- outside of philadelphia. good morning. caller: hello. host: good morning. caller: good morning. i don't know who i would want to vote for. i voted for the first time in my life, i'm 60-years-old, and this is when obama was running, i voted for romney. and i'm sorry he didn't win. but the way i've been watching this stuff why don't they get somebody educated that's not a billionaire or millionaire that knows how to save money and spend money and do business, it it rather than the people that are in there, in their country club setting? or one doesn't want to take off the other one, you know, and they got the thing that i keep hearing that i'm sick of, is democrat, republican, democrat, republican. it sounds like a football game or something. you know. it's all to do about money. host: thanks for the call from pennsylvania. headline this morning from usa dakota, homecoming for one. a look at peter curtis who met briefly yesterday. an emotional appeal, pleading for her son steven's release. and front page of the boston globe is a look at the freelance journalists. the headline reporting abroad and alone. latoya is next. good morning. should mitt romney run in 2016? caller: i think he should. i'm one of the few black republicans that i know, and i voted for him in 2012, and i just -- i didn't think he was going to win, but i was hoping that he would, but i think he should. i think it would be a fresh air for the united states if he one. host: was do you like about him and what's your sense about the republican party, including the more conservative base of the party? would they embrace him and support him in a crowded gop primary? caller: i think right now the republican party needs someone like mitt romney. if they want to win over like in a previous show you were talking about, you know, how they can draw more african-americans to vote republican, the only way they're going to do that is with someone like mitt romney, because he is -- he's honest, straightforward. he has values, you know. i just don't see anyone out there right now that can draw the african-american vote. host: thank you. and another lister in on c-span radio, so we appreciate that while you're driving to work this morning. next flicks came out, after six years of access, running in 2012, it's now available on net netflix, and here is a preview, courtesy of the trailer from that program. >> i just can't believe you're going to lose. ] video ] >> okay. >> if you don't win, we'll still love you. the country may think of you as the laughingstock and we'll know the truth, and that's okay. >> any of the debates -- these are people competing for the same job. >> how do we do these things day to day? >> the recent poll said 43% of americans don't even know who you are. barack obama has changed our race. mitt romney, the flip-flopper, this, and that, i'm going man, is it worth it? like trying to convince people that dan quail is smart. we're not going to convince them of that. >> please welcome the next president and first lady. host: from netflix, the mitt romney documentary released last year, and part of that fueling speculation on a potential bid in 2016. a poll showing he breaks away in iowa, 35% of likely gop caucus voters would vote for romney again in 2016. the door was opened when mitt romney telling hewitt circumstances can change, but i'm not going to let my head go there. susan is joining us from kingston, illinois. should mitt romney run in 2016? caller: i think it would separate people if he ran even more than they're separating america now. you know, in an honest way, he said that rich people mean more than the 47%, and he can't take that back, it's just a reality, and he thinks corporate -- corporations are people. to say that latinos should self deport themselves wrecked his chances, i think. i think he'll get the votes of rich people and no minorities, and that's about it. but -- host: who is your preferred candidate? caller: i'm not sure. i don't have one. but yeah, i think he'll draw the rich, but i think that will separate people even more. it will divide us even more. i think we need somebody that will bring people together more. host: thanks for the today. you're looking at mitt romney from the 2016 republican convention. our question this morning if you're just tuning in or listening on c-span radio, renewed speculation on whether he'll run in 2016. michael is joining us in virginia. good morning. caller: good morning. i wouldn't say i did vote for mitt romney in 2012 as an alternative to our current president. the netflix video just then about how he thought he was a flawed candidate, i think america needs a flawed candidate because we elected a perfect candidate two elections in a row and he's turned out to be an absolute disaster. a disaster on the home front, a disaster in foreign affairs, a disaster for our military. i just think that we need to find somebody who has true real world experience, which barack obama had zero real world experience when he took the oval office and he has proven he doesn't have the capability and he can't surround himself with people who can get the capability to truly run the country and be the global super power the united states has become and always will be or should be. i think mitt romney is that guy. and i think the american people it was a very close race in 2012, i think we made a big mistake by not electing him. host: if romney does not run who is your candidate? caller: i would probably vote for rand paul in a primary, but i would vote -- i would have to vote establishment, even though in some bad day there's not a dime's worth of difference between the establishment republican and establishment democrat. i would like to see somebody who could lean more, even more conservative than maybe mitt romney and really bring the tea party movement into the republican big tent, truly for the first time. host: thanks very much for the call. the headline from the la times, a story has been getting a lot of attention. keith from walk a shaw, wisconsin, good morning. caller: good morning to c-span. i could not agree with mike from virginia anymore. it's mitt romney has a history of fixing things, and unfortunately the people didn't see it in the last election. the media propped up president obama not once, but twice. the media made the mistake of listening to a great teleprompter reader but the guy who had no history of running anything, he put the wrong people in positions in his cabinet and government positions and now the country is paying for it. finally the media is waking up, that we have a president who does nothing. mitt romney should run again. it took ronald reagan a couple times before he became a great president and he turned the attitude of the country around. i think mitt romney could do it against. host: where would you put yourself in the gop? caller: i'm a definite conservative republican. i think we need somebody who has executive person who ran things before, who can turn around this country, and i think he could do that. if mitt romney would not do that my second choice would be scott walker. he took $3.6 billion deficit and we have a surplus without raising taxes. i would hate to lose him as governor but i think he would make a great second choice. host: one poll had that race dead eve convenient. caller: scott walker will win the governor's race in november. host: bottom line if mitt romney ran in 2016 you would support him in a primary and the general election? caller: absolutely. he's a man who has a history of fixing things. i think he could turn this country around. host: thanks very much for the call. from the "new york post," page six, the story that's been getting some buzz over the last 24 hours. tom brokaw, executives at nbc news fuming over the comments of debra tunnis. our next call on this is elizabeth from anderson, south carolina. mitt room any in 2016, what's your take on this? caller: i think that romney is too honest to win an election. i think his principles are honorables. i love the way he goes about business, and the last few callers have really hit the nail on the head. but in a competition with someone who operates under a no holds barred, you know, he's an honest man. but honesty is what we need. host: who did you support in 2012? caller: i voted for romney. host: do you think the party would support him in a contested primary? caller: i believe they would. i think we seen a lot, and i think that our experience has shown us that we really -- we need an honest man, but it is difficult to win an election being honest. host: okay. elizabeth, thanks very much for the call from anderson, south carolina. you can continue the conversation jorgenson line. one other headline we want to share with you, the director of the budget office, from the "washington times" oops. >> more pain ahead. >> 77% of the gdp, by 2024. coming up in just a moment we're going to turn our attention to isis and the plea by one mother for freedom for her son, on why americans are fighting alongside isis jihaddist and the threat isis poses at home. later we continue our series on campaigning 101. if you have a crisis within a campaign or candidate is in trouble, how do you respond? rob jesmer will be joining us. you're watching for this thursday morning, august 28th. we are back in a moment. this weekend on the c-span networks. >> friday night on c-span, native-american history. then on saturday, live all day coverage from the national book festival science pavilion. saturday evening, from bbc scotland, a debate on scotland's upcoming decision on whether to end its political union the england. sunday, q&a. he shares his approach to interpreting laws passed by congress. on c-span two, friday at 8:00 p.m., in-depth with former congressman ron paul. on saturday, all day live coverage of the national book festival. speakers, interviews and viewer call ins with authors. and sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern, afterwards, with william bureaus, talking about his book the as stroyed threat. a nasa documentary about the 1969 appolo 11 moon landing. saturday on the civil war, general william shermans atlanta campaign. sunday night, a look at election laws and supreme court case of bush versus gore. find our television schedule at c-span.org and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us at (202)626-3400. on twitter, use the hash tag c 123 or e-mail us at comments at c-span.org. join the c-span conversation. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us from nocialg is clinton watts, currently with george washington homeland policy institute. s previously with the fbi special agent. from 2002 to 2003. thanks for being with us. we want to talk about isis. a couple headlines, from "the new york times," trained in the army the isis leaders using their expertise on the ground in iraq and syria. and also we're getting more and more reports about americans joining isis. by your estimation, how many americans do you think have linked up with this terrorist organization? >> it's hard to say how many exactly are with isis. i saw a report this morning that there was a confirmation i think from mpr there had been 140 americans that had joined up in the fight in syria. those tend to be spread based on what time they joined. so there have been americans joining up in syria over the past two to three years. a year ago i think the numbers were around 70, and you might see an even split between al-qaeda's main arm, and the islamic state of iraq. today, most of the fighters going in are joining up with isis. they're very motivated about what's going on in iraq. they see isis as the leader of global jihad and want to join that movement. and the other part of it is the social media function has attracted most of the foreign fighters into syria. i would say out of the 140 or so you probably are seeing 90% or more actually in isis camp now. the remaining 10% might be spread throughout a variety of different units inside syria. host: you served in the army, worked at the fbi, what motivates these americans to turn on their country? >> i think what you see is a mix of dynamics. there is no one solution or one sort of understanding of what creates these foreign fighters and why they want to join up. it's a mix or compings. what was thought during the post 9/11 era that it was about ideology, so i think that was true to a certain extent. you have some of these individuals, americans that join that are doing it for very ideological reasons. when you look back in their history, i think you also see a lot of social dynamics and a lot of psychological dynamics going on. if you look at the group from minnesota in 2007 there was a lot of foreign fighters that went to fight in somalia. we see there is about 15 more from that same community in minneapolis that are going to syria, you see it's a real social and ethnic sort of dynamic that goes on there, where groups of guys go together. the other element to it is the one offs, or really the sort of odd americans that join up. they largely come into contact with this militant form of islam through the internet and through social media they essentially paved their way to get to these conflicts. a lot of that is ideological but a lot of it is psychological. when you look back at the history of the individuals there tends to be very strange psychological patterns going on, and this oftentimes goes completely undetected by family and friends that are in that network, suggesting that they're extremely isolated and they're only really way of mobile lighting is through the internet. so it's a unique dynamic that has come on in the past few years. host: i would like to take that one step further. there is a break down, i want to share with you four of the elements. the main sources of funding for the islamic state extortion in crime networks, hostages collecting ransoms in exchange for releasing the hostages, selling oil from fields under its control, and then finally donations receiving funds from private citizens, and islamic charities, in the mideast or europe. can you break that down a little further? >> yeah. i think it's really important for people to understand the al-qaeda model we've been talking about and the new isis model. when you have donations, you can sort of plot and plan and you don't have to be confined to a geographic area, which was one of the strengths and later one of the weaknesses of al-qaeda. al-qaeda had the sort of distributed network where they could pull in resources they could fund and recruitment one of them being to build an islamic state. they couldn't follow through on that. if you look at isis one of the main things motivating people to join is that they have pursued deliberately a plan to create an islamic state and changed their name to islamic state, essentially i. circumstances. they started off more building their own networks, building their own criminal opera puts and building illegitimate networks or black markets for all sorts of enterprises which they could use to fund themselves. by doing that they actually created success, by creating a state in syria and iraq, and with that now are receiving a lot of the donations and international support. they've been able to pull that support away from al-qaeda. so it's an interesting dynamic. isis is sort of pursued the reverse because they actually occupy a territory. and they're also using members that they have physical relationships with, that core sort of next discuss which brings isis together is those foreign fighters. continuing on into 2007 and eight, those members of al-qaeda and iraq at the time they fought together, they built their own networks, they integrated in the sunni areas, and they built out their illegitimate systems to fund themselves. that is what is propelling them today. they know how to work the criminal networks and are very experienced at it. host: we welcome your questions and comments. our phone lines are open. you can send us an e-mail, [email protected]. clinton watts is joining us from new york. he's formerly with the fbi, the joint terrorism task force. a name we're using more of is the isis leader. what can you tell us about him? >> it goes to speak to all of the experience that's been gained in iraq over the past ten years, what propels isis are these leaders that survived. the leader of isis, he was captured and imprisoned at one time and released. he fought against the united states. he's been operating in those areas for quite some time. i think you probably saw one of the articles this morning talking about how many of saddam's former military officers are being used and sort of integrated into the ranks of isis. you see a lot of military experience. they know how to command units. they are well resourced and well equipped. these leaders have created what is a deliberate plan that is separate, very much separate from what al-qaeda was wanting or trying to drive towards. and with baghdad when you see how he created this islamic state, the deliberate steps he has taken, he's following what is, you know, very similar or sort of laid out in a book called the management of savagey, translated by william mccanz, written by a guy named nabi, a name to probably cover the real identity. it lays out in very specific detail how to build an islamic state. what you see the leaders doing is following that blueprint in iraq. what is interesting about him, he comes from the legions. they are much more men of action. what you see with the old al-qaeda leadersers they are more tv leaders. they are eye deej logical, but not the ones fighting on the front lines. these guys with isis are inspiring, because they're out there on the front lines. when you watch social media, you'll see reports from actual foreign fighters in isis saying i saw baghdad today, you know, he's out here in iraq or syria, or in western iraq and that's very inspirational and motivating. and it's set them apart in terms of their leadership. host: there is this question from monte. is a war against isis winnable? >> i would say this. i don't -- i just wrote an article yesterday called, you know, why does the u.s. want to be isis for our enemy? there is some sort of belief here in the united taits that isis is really about taking on the united states. and i think this is very different from al-qaeda. al-qaeda specifically said that in order to topple an enemy, you know, corrupt dictators throughout the middle east and north africa you have to go after the united states. isis model is very different. they're going after very different objectives. they want to build an islamic state. that is their number one goal. they are also attacking the shite and bringing in the next generation of conflict. there is very different dynamics there. what's been interesting in the past two weeks is this push especially what i've seen in the news, that the u.s. needs to step in and deal with isis. and to that i would say we need to very clearly define what our interests are there. in a certain sense isis has been attacking the assad regime. we are empowering as sad, who is a corrupt dictator, has been oppressing his people. .. all the question. the question is, what do we seek to gain by going in through half of the region and eliminating the isis threat? threat to as much a the stability of the iraqi government to iran in terms of just being a real pain on their border. and in saudi arabia, a lot of these countries, saudi arabia being the largest, should feel very nervous about the risk of foreign fighters. host: clinton wants, let me ask you. a 26-year-old, now the third american known to be kidnapped by the american group. who iss this video pleading for her son's release, the story is inside the new york times. he vanished ince syria, he asked news organizations to abide by a complete blackout. that changed with the beheading of james foley. i want to share a portion of this mother's plea for her son's freedom. >> my son is in your hands. to the middle east to cover the suffering at the hand of tyrants. -- a loyalal touch and generous son and grandson. we have not seen stephen for over a year and we miss him very much. we want to see him safe and sound and hug him. since his capture, i learned a lot about islam. islam teaches no individual should be held responsible for the sins of others. stephen has no control over the actions of the u.s. government. he is an innocent journalist. i also learned you can grant amnesty. please release my child. , yourclinton watts reaction and comments. >> it is extremely sad, the situation there. to u.s. policy will continue be to not negotiate with terrorist groups for the release of hostages. while i feel for the mother and i do understand that it is a terrible situation, it has been demonstrated time and time again, most recently by an article that described how these groups essentially look to extort by capturing hostages from western countries in order to finance themselves. in this case, i'm not sure what the situation turn out to be. i imagine isis and baghdad is trying to evaluate the reaction that came from the beheading of james foley last week, and what tools or levels -- levers they can use in terms of propaganda with the united states. i am sure they know, any sort of mores likely to bring pressure on them. we have seen that in the last two weeks by our media. in terms of negotiation, the u.s. government is in a tough spot. they have tried to go on the rescue mission, it sounds like last year at some point. there were reports of how they deployed special forces in what must've been one of the most complex and dangerous missions the u.s. military has ever conducted to try to rescue those hostages. sad situation but also admirable that the negotiating come against their very own policy, it seemed to take great efforts during the release of these passages. i hope that continues in the future. >> homecoming for one and plea for another. globe reporting abroad all alone, the perils abound for freelancers and global hotspots. let's get to your phone calls. david from manassas, virginia, caroline for democrats. good morning, david. caller: i would like to bring up a point i noticed. we all know that young, black -- theyve an inordinate end up with an inordinate number of children grow into adults, system,into the police and a majority of them, or some of them, many of them, and up in prison. prison has always been a fertile islam,for the spread of all the way back to malcolm x. the young man that was killed in syria had been in prison nine times. this andou think about the effects of this red of islam through the prison system? >> thank you. we will get a response. >> i think prison radicalization, especially in the context of serious and foreign fighter mobilization is a very small influence on the situation. the number one influence right now is social media. facebook, twitter, a lot of the social media, what is introducing the concept to them. in terms of prison radicalization, it has been investigated steadily. homeland security policy institute of george washington has done a lot of research. there is some concern about that, but most of it pales in comparison to what we have seen today. out of the 140 that have gone to syria, 100-110 of those are mostly recruited to social media with some six -- some facilitation. syria, i do not think that is coming through prison radicalization. prison radicalization is more an issue for domestic extremists and, even in the case of al qaeda, it is staying in the united states to conduct an attack. i do not see foreign fighters in the area. >> the second american killed in the fight that broke out, as a member of isis. he joins douglas macarthur mccain, also killed. two americans. what can you tell us, from your perspective, what happened? >> as long as the conflict goes on in syria, as long as there isis is the success achieving, they will attract more recruits. it is a basic numbers game. as isis continues to have success, you will have exponential growth. that is globally. in this case of -- in the case of the united states, let's say the number is 140, that is probably double what it was a year ago. it will continue to increase. the greater the growth. these foreign fighters, especially in the case of mont., in syria frommber florida, these fighters transit back and forth. there seems to be a believe that once they go over to syria, maybe they stay there. we have seen several instances where foreign fighters travel from the united states to syria. they have actually come back and may be returned to the middle east. that is a great concern. many of the plots we see in the united states are by people of low capacity of our -- or low ability. they're on their own. so their ability to actually pull the attack off is very limited. what i am more concerned about is these foreign fighters, what if 10 of them come back to the united states? they are now trained and capable and could be directed by al qaeda. greatest fear because they have a capacity to pull off an attack in the united states. klesko and it is joining us from new york, a senior fellow from the policy institute. he served as the executive officer at west point. the desk always marked joining us from open gardens, new york. good morning. caller: good morning. i am a veteran. i happen to be of the jewishness faith. i am glad the united states woke up to see israel does not behead people. to switchbly going .arties because i liked romney i am not a wealthy man but i hope he stands for something. i would like to have him as leader of the country. >> let me ask you about the president's response about this. how has he handled it? >> i like what he has done, which is to not go all in. there are several advantages i hope the american people understand. isis, we haveling two competing interests also going on. one is we would then be helping in assad regime in syria two-year civil war. by clamping down on isis too hard, we could actually be an assad or helping out his regime. side, the maliki government in iraq, which is really turned to iran for support as isis has grown. ofhelping out in terms pushing down on isis, we are empowering iran, which is one of our known adversaries we have in terms ofg with nuclear negotiations. iran by all measures was really hurting us inside iraq over the past decade. protect the people. they stood by the united states multiple times here it they have been one of the bright spots in the transition time. the other one is going back -- going after the dam and trying to secure that from isis. the ability to unleash a huge disaster on all folks that are self on the river. terms of ourin measure so far have been very limited and very smart in terms of protecting our interests. the question is, where do we go from here? to a certaind isis extent. we saw the jason foley beheading video. this is a response to u.s. airstrikes. how limited can we be to aregonize isis where they doing retaliatory attacks against the u.s. homeland, and at the same point, not empower other -- that we have in the region. , fromator rand paul kentucky, has a lengthy piece from the middle east. to seafood to act against next with little regard to and consequences. next, south carolina, with clinton watts. caller: originally, the iraq war, to overtake saddam hussein? , did younton watts want to respond? guest: i believe 2003, most of what was told to me and thought the war was just -- i am disappointed with the realities that have come out. yes in the beginning. i am disappointed in the scenario that turned out now. sure the president has kept troops in iraq? no, i do not think the president should have for a extended. -- extended period. host: sorry for keeping you waiting. caller: good morning. [indiscernible] has cost the iraq whole world. this is the beginning of the whole trouble of going to every now the every citizen, whole war fighting each other. going to iraq to fight the war. thank you. guest: if i understood the question correctly, what should the u.s. response be after being in iraq. the situation we are seeing is the u.s. needs to realize it is not the center of the universe. much of what is going on in the middle east has very little to do with the united states. triggering point was the 2000 invasion of iraq but since the u.s. left, all the stakeholders in the region are now trying to seek out their own interest. actors.them are state a lot of them are nonstate actors. the u.s. needs to very narrowly decide what -- the region. it has been almost 11 years now since the initial invasion of iraq. i am not entirely sure, as probably most american people are, what we want to achieve moving forward. i do not think there is real consensus on that in washington. our policy will continue to drift to whatever the near-term crisis is or trying to contain whatever the problem is and externalities, rather than pursuing our objectives. i do not think there is consensus around what those are. joseph is next from orlando, florida. good morning. i would just like to state i think it is a given that we should not get too involved in the sunni shia religious war. we should have learned our lesson not getting involved. a family feud that goes back more than 500,000 years. where do we go from here? to three weeks ago, i saw him interviewed and he stated his objectives for visiting the united states was to try to get for the support aspirations of the kurdish people for independence. i do not think there is too much coverage. it is an interesting concept. we would then have a very ,eliable ally in the area rational people not involved in the sunni shia conflict. in return, we could possibly fromor the situation curtis dein and be able to react quickly in the event american interest are in danger. >> thank you for the call. what about that scenario? guest: i am actually very supportive of that scenario. functioning. been it works in terms of its own governance. they are prepared militarily to defend themselves and they can maintain their own security. businessvery strong interests are there. they can really be that democratic state we have always sought in the middle east from the u.s. perspective. one of the frustrating things, i think in the past decade, and what really has been revealing to me, is the notion of to bring is a way these things together is a broad philosophy. see another version due to rival services that have been there for centuries. i am for looking at breaking up these countries or allowing them to cook autonomous. somalia is an example where we have seen a country that functions as three nationstates for quite some time. that could actually give us allies, it could give us some sort of strength in the region. rather than trying to compete with other adversaries like iran to push our influence in a country like iraq. i am open to it. in terms of the international system, there is a lot of resistance to creating autonomous regions. the one precedent might be south sudan, which recently became its own nationstate. agree i do not believe in forcing the stations together as an amalgamation of different ethnic groups waste on borders painted long ago is the best solution moving forward. depending on what our interests are. one of the u.s. interests in the middle east is backing and supporting a strong kurdistan. sot: another 10 minutes or left with our guests. .linton watts this is a headline yesterday in the washington times. in douglas mccain, killed in a syrian forces. a member of isis, an american. two americans were reportedly killed in that fight. u.s. citizen joining the islamic state, a major threat for homeland. he has a tweet saying, do you think isis is inside the u.s. already? i am not sure entirely what is meant by is isis inside. there are no card-carrying members of isis. they do not necessarily get issued an id card. different couple elements of what is going on. you have members of isis in iraq in syria right now. some of those fighters are in the united states and they will likely try to return home should they survive the battlefield. they are a great concern when they migrate back. i think the u.s. counterterrorism market -- architecture, they have done a lawt job, local enforcement, fbi, tracking that down. most important is the unknown, the randomizes supporter who does not actually travel to the but conducts violence on their own. this is the violent extremist just created inside the united states somewhere. i would not say that is under isis control. it is concerning, it is very amilar to allocate scenario few weeks back, inspiring folks to conduct attacks on u.s. homeland. it is a significant concern, when we need to watch out for. dynamic play out and it will continue for the next 1-2 decades, where you have people supporting a conflict overseas, a nonstate actor. they will rise up and go out based on the nature of those conflicts. al qaeda and the arabian peninsula, back in 2010, a significant concern. you do not see much of it now. now you see a lot of isis. in another time, you saw a lot of foreign fighters in somalia recruiting. we will see an up-and-down dynamic, pretty routinely over the next 10-20 years, based on what jihadist conference are going on around the world. the president traveled on tuesday and he talked about his u.s. is and how the dealing with ongoing terrorism threats. here is the president. >> the answer is not to send in large-scale military deployments that overstretch our military and leave for us occupying countries for a long time and end up feeding extremism. rather, our military action in iraq has to be broader strategy to protect our people and support our partners to take the fight to isis. we are strengthening our partners. more military assistance to forces in and kurdish iraq and syria. we are urging iraqis to force the kind of inclusive government that can deliver on national unity and strong, security forces and good governance that will ultimately be the hand against terrorists. we're building an international coalition, including our closest allies, to support iraq as they take the fight to these barbaric terrorists. host: questions on airstrikes in syria is the editorial. we will go to sean next joining us from key west, florida. good morning. welcome to the conversation. unquestionable we relied on this war in iraq. we have made mistake after mistake after mistake. we are involved in making yet another mistake would look -- which will lead into other mistakes. we are told isis is worse than al qaeda ever was and that we need to go back in and retrain these people after we have trained the iraqi army for 11 years. we need to make the intelligent decision, which is to get out of there immediately, let those people handle that problem in whatever fashion they decide is necessary. we're only going to be creating future mistakes by the actions we're taking. thank you and have a pleasant good day. host: thank you. do you want to respond to that? >> i thought the president's message was a more formal version of how we want to engage moving toward. have my skepticism about some things the president said, but in general, i think he is right in terms of our approach, that we need to protect american interests and help our partners in the region. we need to not go all in. what is fascinating and some of the claims we need to deploy, one was 10-15,000 troops in syria. our history in the past decade tells us that is not a solution. what is also not a solution is believing we can build strong enough government in the region and in the country that do not have the economic basis to support themselves and do not have diversified economies, that do not have the capital necessary to support an economy to build institutions. i do not believe that. i do not think that was stop terrorism anyway. there were always be an element in these countries that is dissatisfied and the way they will try to change the status quo is violence. i do not think it is necessary to go the government throughout. -- route. we cannot force a good government system on these countries and regions. we can be supportive, but we cannot force it. we talk about good governance in , but we arab spring have not really done a whole lot in support of good governance in these countries. even if we did, i do not think that would stop the foreign fighter migration we have seen from the middle east to south asia. next caller, from virginia. rich, good morning. thank you for taking my call. the idea these folks are here is false. i was telling the call screener they will get breaking one morning or one afternoon that some of these guys have taken over the school and they will kill a couple hundred kids in the united states. a previous caller who said we need to get out of there, it is too late. children.le crucified what they did to mr. foley was horrible. iey are not going to go away must we remove them from the planet. the only way to do that is to go in there and get it done. host: you mentioned children. there is a story this morning, the headline focusing on how beheadings are common track this in syria, but also pointing out isis is bringing in children, mostly boys, many around the age of 14, some as young as 10 years old, for training. i understand that. my point to that is, you have got to worry about the united states security or interest overseas. interest overseas, corporations that operate over there, are there problem. the people we need to worry about our kids, women, men, the people who make the country work. the interestsing of corporations to the detriment of our own population. enough is enough there it if this were a cancer, you would isolate the cancer and get in the body. one other point before i go. 1986, i was a captain and i ran a reserve center. a guy walked in on's the street -- in off the street talking about weapons. we got most of your points. we will get a response. thank you for listening to us. guest: i do not think a policy of trying to isolate isis will be productive. we went throughout the entire planet eliminating every al qaeda linked affiliate, battling them down. many of our actions only accelerated the recruitment to the nonstate actors. , while not feasible and probably not political acceptable desperately example to the public, would also generate more fighters to the ranks of isis. the best way to destroy isis is to let it destroy itself. practices.iolent the lack of popular support amongst the population will ultimately lead to their demise. there are strategies. -- isolateelp ice isis so their demise comes from their own doing. defeat ahe best way to movement like isis. from our last call is massachusetts, our line for republicans. good morning. caller: i never hear anybody talk about saudi arabia and kuwait, divided in their weapons, their money, the fight against syria. you never hear that. the biggest problem the country has is the media. term,eorge bush ran first dan rather's reported he did not for the national guard. immediately, they fired him. the media is corrupt. host: ok. his first point was really the genesis of isis. isis: the genesis of really comes from the legions of iraq, those that fought together around 2003, 2 thousand 4, 2 thousand 5, 2006, up to his death. those foreign fighters that came from the second foreign fighter migration, the first one being from afghanistan, the second one being from iraq post-9/11. now we are seeing the third large migration to syria today, syria and iraq today. become,s has really from the failures of al qaeda to achieve its objective. al qaeda, while they had a devastating attack against the united states and a few more against the west, they jettisoned to two prolonged conflicts in afghanistan and iraq, they really failed to deliver on objectives. most of the foreign fighters you see today are 18-24 years old. 9/11 was coming up on 13 years ago. they were young children at that time. what they grew up knowing in terms of being rallied to the cause and in terms of being inspired, was the conflict in iraq. what inspired them was the notion of actually building an islamic state, and the violence media, the social social dynamic to be part of a cause bigger than them. while the four founders of the islamic state of iraq are not equal to, and isis has a very different trajectory and focus, and the way they fight conventionally on the ground is wildly different than what we saw in al qaeda. click final question, what worries you the most? what is your biggest concern? ? fighters returning back to the united states, working under the direction of isis or independently on their own. attackshe success of like the westgate mall, what happened in boston, and trying to replicate low resource attacks on the united states. , adding hisn watts expertise to u.s. efforts to fight isis. he joins us from new york. thank you for being with us. guest: thank you for having me. on a you are working campaign, and the campaign or your candidate has one of those hoops moments. how do you deal with the crisis? we are focusing on i -- on campaigning 101. .ob jesmer and celinda lake but first, c-span radio, nancy is keeping track of the other stories making news. she joins us live from the studios. good morning. >> good morning. more international news, an update on the ebola outbreak. the outbreak in west africa eventually could exceed 20,000 cases, more than six times as many as now. that inudy also assumes many hard-hit areas, the actual number of cases maybe 2-4 times higher than is currently reported. the agency published new figures today saying 1552 people have now died from the ebola virus, from 3000 69 cases reported so far. israel's prime minister is declaring victory in the gaza war against hamas, saying a cease-fire deal gave nothing to the militant group here in more than 2000 palestinians were killed in the fighting. netanyahu's address appeared to be aimed at countering critics who complained the cease-fire it -- failed to oust hamas or stop its rocket attacks out of gaza. meanwhile, hamas is also declaring victory. nato says more than 1000 russian soldiers operating in ukraine, the u.s. ambassador to the ukraine speaking earlier says russians are directly involved in the fighting taking place southeast along the nation's southern coast, and that they are fighting alongside the pro-russia rebels. in a cabinet meeting today, ukraine's prime minister called for an immediate and united nations council meeting, which is just now been scheduled for 10:00 a.m. this morning. c-span is covering that event. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. weekend, friday night, native american history. on saturday, live, all day coverage from the national book the billion.s saturday evening from bbc scotland, a debate on scotland's's upcoming decision on whether to end its political union with england. sunday, q&a with the chief justice of the second court of appeals. toshared his approach passing laws in congress. 8:00 p.m., in-depth with ron paul. then on saturday, all-day live coverage of the national book festival from the history and biography pavilions. offers -- once with authors. 9:00 p.m. eastern, afterwards. on c-span three, friday, a nasa documentary about the 1969 apollo landing. saturday, atlanta campaign. sunday night, a look at elections lost and the supreme court case of which versus gore. scheduletelevision online. join the c-span conversation, like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] if you are counting 68 days to election day and all this week on c-span, we are calling it campaigning 101, getting beyond the poles and the horse race and looking at how campaigns are run. we want to focus today on the issue of crisis managing, when your campaign has moments that could derail candidacy. to both of you, thank you for being here. bob with fbi strategies -- fb one strategies, let me begin with reputation and what the reputation manager does for a candidate. >> it is good to be here. you normally happens is have a general consultant, a media consultant, and a pollster. in that, you have people who come up with a narrative for the campaign and the narrative, you as to hold and protect that well as you can and your opponent is trying to pull you off and you are trying to stick to it. within that comes a reputation of a candidate or a sleigh. it is usually a director, all these people working on it there it i do not think it comes down to one person. it comes down to a collection of people trying to implement a strategy. >> no campaign is perfect. one example is what happened to senator john walsh, charged with wager is him, explained the mistakes -- explain the crisis is one where i'm coming from montana, and i is john walshr obviously made a huge mistake, the plagiarism. other politicians have plagiarized. was theyhat happened did not answer within the brand. they do not answer within the personality. first, they said they did not do it, they did not know about it, and i think really the brand was the value for the soldiers, straightforward. i would have liked to have seen, born and raised in that state, i think of john walsh -- john apologize, id, i left my service down and i let montana down. i apologize and want to work even harder for my state. straightforwardness, the values, the apology, the taking responsibility. actions of crisis management is keep it short and have one response. not a bunch of responses where you are digging deeper and deeper into a hole. if your opponent digs into a hole, stay out of the way. >> both campaigns and both parties have dealt with this. in this case, i would say generally speaking, you have one shot to get your story right. if you do not get it right, you're in real trouble. whether it was senator walsh or others, they have not gotten their story right. you only have one chance. if you screw it up, you are in real trouble. part of it is also timing. you need time to recover and senator walsh, there were 90 days left in the election and it was getting tough or him anyway. timesory changed several and that is not helpful. assessment.get your you can begin dialing. or send us a tweet or e-mail. akin,2, congressman todd viewed as a favorite to win a senate bid, losing in large part because of this moment. >> if an abortion could be sitting -- could be considered in pregnancy, what about in a case of rape? should it be legal or not? >> people always try to make that is one of those things, how do you slice this particularly tough ethical question it seems to me first of all, from what i understand from doctors, that is really rare. if it is a legitimate rate, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. let's assume maybe that did not work. i think there should be some punishment. the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child. you heard that, your reaction? >> i remember exactly where i was when i heard that. i was at home on sunday in the senate committee. i was pretty floored. this was someone we were going to have and had a very hard time relating to over half of the electorate. not only just women but a lot of men had a hard time understanding their it the mistake, there were several just released his book. the problem we had here was he did not believe he said anything wrong. is hard to clean up a crisis when you do not believe you made a mistake, whether it is plagiarizing or saying a comment that was inappropriate. he did not believe that at the end of the day. not consequence, he did handle it well in the next several days and he lost support of a great many republicans, independents and democrats as well. >> as head of the senate campaign committee, you pulled money in that campaign. >> we did. , it just was not going to work. everyone from the presidential nominee on down asked him to get out of the race, and he chose not to. the other thing i would say about the congressman, he holed up in his media consultant's office for several days, which, also, at times, people go too quickly. you have to get your story right. you have one chance. 24 hours, 34ke hours, and governor perry handled this very well recently. hours and did six a great job. commerce in a can, hold up in a campaign office, from another state, he didn't come out. when he did come out, he did not seem very sincere about his apology. think rob said something very important. this is a bipartisan trait area -- trait. it is so much harder to handle when they do not think they did anything wrong. this is a different kind of error. you just cannot violate cultural norms. this is a bipartisan trait, a generational trait. for representative akin, one of the problems was, as he said, i have been saying this for years. i hate to disappoint you, but you're an obscure congressman and no one knew you were saying this stuff. it reinforces what he was talking about. no one knew you always have that position. i think one huge category of crises, and some of the hardest ones to handle, our when your candidate violates a cultural norm. it does not mean they did anything wrong. it is their value. that is really hard to handle. to 1988, wherek the bush campaign tried to paint a picture of michael as weak area this is a picture, worth 1000 words. as we look at this moment, you can see is wearing the helmet, riding this tank. what happened? why was is a seminal moment in his 1988 campaign? >> first of all, i think we have this all of the time. candidates should be candidates and officeholders. every once in a while, you have candidates who will do work days. even there, they really are a collector. needs to stay in their role. i think that often allows you to character but -- caricature. i think people were already having trouble relating to the caucus. he was always off. i admire and love the man. ,ut the blueberries in iowa people do not want to raise blueberries. there was always something a little off with him and that crystallized him. you should keep the candidates in their role. guest: i agree you have to have a narrative. trying to win on defense vote. that was their path to victory. that to me signifies the campaign was already in the field. they were trying to over correct -- they were trying to correct it and over correcting it. adjusted not work. a chance to give a bio. rob jesmer, what is your background? iest: i am from the sun and started out 20 years go on campaigns in minnesota. there was not a great deal of jobs in the south -- in minnesota. kinds of campaigns in suburban chicago and tennessee and 1989, rick for the rational committee and the republican national committee. it was at the senate committee the last couple cycles, and that i joined a media firm and a celindaffairs firm. >> lake, your own background? i started out a republican in montana and then became a democrat because of the women's movement and the vietnam war. i moved to washington and that was my first campaign. politics and work in a polling firm and then went on to start my own firm. i can tell you he is good, very good. from california, democrats line, good morning. >> good morning. is allwould like to see incumbents out of office. keep doing it every year until we get a responsible government. we need term limits. we need to take all of the money out of politics. state,es for federal, and county incumbents, everybody. with the such a mess people in the government running -- country, which is guest: i think that sentiment is scared the -- shared these days. somewhathe jury is still out on whether or not they are benefiting state or local. but people have term limits and they can go vote every two years work watch her ears six years if you're running for senate area not enough people participate in the process. people are not happy. host: our phone lines are open. we are defining our lines between democrats and republicans. guest: one thing about the caller's his comments come i like the second point she made and i agree with rob. .ut we cannot do finance reform that is a sentiment also often coupled. i think bipartisan, we're spending too much money and in the wrong kinds of ways. it is contributing to negative advertising. i agree with her, we need campaign finance reform desperately to get our system back in control. because of the waste campaigns are financed. >> who can forget 2004. >> you have already got the picture here. i'm sure there are disappointed people here. you know something, you know something, if you had told us one year ago that we were going to come in third in iowa, we would have given anything for that. you know something? not only are we going to new are going to south carolina, and oklahoma, and arizona, and north dakota, and new mexico. california, text is, new york. south dakota, oregon, and washington, and michigan. and then we're going to washington dc today back the white house. host: it sounded very different on television. those in the room said they did not hear that moment. >> this is a classic error. it happens a lot. it happens bipartisan way, where people think the audience is in the room, rather than in the tv. television is such a hot medium. in a room like that or everyone is yelling at you, that was nothing. people were yelling over him. in television, when you're looking at your new president and he is yelling at you like a madman, it is a hot medium. people forget in the crowds, when they're trying to rally after a disappointing performance, and young people, they forget, your audience is television cameras. your audience is sitting there alone, not in a rally, in a very intimate relationship with you in a hot medium. >> i agree. what happened here was governor dean did not meet expectations. basically came unglued on television. he did not look presidential and he really had a hard time managing the moment. as i said earlier, some of it is just timing. the governor now is very well and hasd in politics been able to overcome the moment and it takes time. in the campaign contest, yet another election and there was not enough time for him to get the wheels on the track. >> it is interesting because you have intimate moments where the campaigns show emotion. sometimes it works for them, like hillary clinton in new hampshire. most people thought, that is really honest. frankly, you cannot always be dictated. often, the public reacts stronger than you expect. , the a world in which internet, and everyone has access to that, it is hard. the genie gets out of the bottle and it is hard to put it back in. we will go onto another story. this is a university poll. bridge gate continues to be a drag for governor chris christie not only in his home state. mistakes made in how he has handled this? >> a lot of mistakes in how he has handled it. it has dragged on and on is i think there is a sense of inappropriate use of office and corruption. that does drag on and on. this is a little bit different. rather than the act getting magnified out of proportion, if you know him, and i adore him, he's a very cool actor, normally. he gives rousing speeches. this is a case where i think people think the government did something really inappropriate. voters find it on the -- you made me that sit in traffic day after day for a political agenda. this is different. it probably could have been handled better but i think they're covering corruption and that is what the public thinks as well. >> the press conference -- coverage you had went well. he took as many questions he could possibly take in trying to answer the questions the press had as opposed to just ducking and hiding. agree generally, but i will say one issue is the investigation is still continuing. it is not like it is a one-time moment and then it is behind you. until this is formally closed, it will be a challenging environment for him. >> joining us from new york, good morning. caller: i have a question. i heard last night that the campaign director for mitch mcconnell, had worked for the iran -- the pulling campaign and there was someone who they guyntially bribed and this seems like he will be in jail for 5-20 years. that is one side of the equation. the other side is, who did the bribing? he seems to be the person. i wonder what you think the effect will be on mcconnell's campaign. the campaign. with: i am not familiar what the caller -- i think he is a great republican. i had not realized either. thank you for letting us -- i will say this. i think, i am sure the mcconnell team will handle it rapidly. they are a polished team. it could be a case of reinforcing the narrative. handle it rapidly. >> this is a headline from aaron blake, the remarkable implosion of ed fitzgerald, running for governor in ohio. it is a metaphor, a building in new york city, using this as a problem he is facing in ohio. a driverso not have license, and you're also in a car and pulled over by police with a female friend or staffer who is not your wife, is not good for a candidate. guest: super not good for any candidate, and super not good if you are a fbi agent. you have a narrative, you have a brand. when you violate the narrative, then you get into real trouble. you are setting this up as who you are. it, itu act outside of is really violating the voters. becausedouble the price of what the narrative was. >> now the democratic party is saying, we will make an investment trying to help the down ballot candidates in that state area -- state. guest: it is a little bit different where the rest of the democratic establishment is trying to cut the guy loose to save themselves. is there wasroblem more of a -- this is just bad information that started to come out on a daily basis. things, it is whether or not they are related to the voter. can i understand how this happened? mr. fitzgerald, people have a hard time understanding how a person, an authority and leadership, does not have a drivers license for 10 years. that is not relatable to everyday people. issues withto his the woman in the car, which obviously were not helpful as well. years ago, george allen running for election. he lost. we are going to run this campaign on constructive ideas. we are going to inspire people for something. iss man in the yellow shirt following us around everywhere. we are going to places all over virginia. he is having it on film. him heret to have because you can show it to her opponent. he will probably never come. -- you can show it to my opponent. the opponent is with a bunch of hollywood movie moguls. welcome to america. war onin the midst of a terror. host: george allen losing. why was that so damaging to him? guest: damaging for several reasons. i think you step back, this is one of those deals where he loosed -- used that term repeatedly over the years and nobody has ever called him on it. it was habitual for him. as a result of not really realizing the impact of it, i don't think it took him a long ship on thee this campaign and apologize. he got into it with the washington post, which is never helpful. sorry time he said, "i'm ," northern virginia is a diverse community so a lot of people have a hard time relating to what he is saying. to how theyreign live their lives and he didn't seem very sincere. host: celinda? norms.one, it violates when you culturally violate norms, it's hard to get back from it. not only had he said it room didn'tut that see anything wrong. he says they are clapping for him. rules i say to candidates. it don't use cultural norms and don't characterize people. those are two good rules. host: high point, north carolina. we talked about how campaigns deal with internal crisis. go ahead, brenda. caller: a previous caller was talking about they think there should be term limits. you said they don't need term limits. that is not necessarily true because a voter votes for his state senator or his congressman because they do well for their state. -- note not similar necessarily going to vote out the person they want in their state. that doesn't mean the congressman or senator are going to do well for the country as a whole. guest: i think you raise a really good point. as rob said, you raise the sentiment a lot people have. i'm strongly against term limits. rule't think we should someone out who is doing a good job for the country maybe. observation -- i don't do governing -- the shifting power to staffers and lobbyists. sentimentpressing a strongly held by a lot of people and you raise a very thoughtful point. host: steve is next from california. caller: good morning. consistent with what the last caller said, people are entitled to vote for who they want. i am not big on the tea party or pelosi, but they represent their part of the country. i don't have a problem with that or term limits. what i do have a problem with is, once they get into the congress, what happens is, they are expected to toe the party line and not to do what's best for their state. they are subjected to internal discipline from the with and the party leader. that is where i have the problem, not term limits. , i feel like the opposite problem. leadership is not nearly as harmful as it used to be -- nearly as powerful as it used to be. there used to be a lot more deference to leadership. president obama is in office and that makes it easier for the republicans. going back in general to this issue of term limits, one of the issues paper -- people are speaking to his election reform in general. primaries and how we nominate people and how we do redistricting. districtsongressional with roughly 900,000 people. are overwhelmingly partisan in one way or another. you have low turnout in primaries. you have a representative for 900,000 people, but only worrying about 50,000 of them because that is who shows up in the primary and reelects the congressman. leaves something that ample room to change the way the congressional districts and elections are reviewed -- how we deal with them. host: we are calling it campaigning 101. today, the issue of crisis management. andtwo guests, rob jesmer celinda lake. david from harpers ferry, west virginia is next. caller: i was wondering if o -- i'mf you tw disturbed by the manipulation of images and campaign. i wondered if you had seen specific narratives use it to your selves, hey, that is not that candidate. that is creation. have you ever asked -- you ever been asked to create a narrative? your colors are so thoughtful today. yes, i have. i think the voters smell it a mile away. that is why i love being a pollster. there is a common sense to the voter. they often smell when something is phony. age, you have the internet and unbelievable opposition research, frankly, and constant exposure to the new cycle, it can't hold up over time. you can't package it in a way that was once possible. i have been asked to package candidates i did not feel comfortable with. -- our firm around is a progressive firm. usually, the candidates come to -- i like candidates who know who they are and know what they stand for and want to talk to me about how to communicate it to him and not what to believe. we begin the morning by talking about mitt romney. this is from roger green. how can mitt romney's 47%, and -- be a factor if it runs 47% comment not be a factor if he runs? guest: actions speak l louder than words. in a presidential context, it is pretty hard when you have over $1 billion spent the finding your opposition. -- heart of the problem with that comment was it fed into the narrative. i talk about how the campaigns have their own narratives. , too.position does we want to paint the sky or guyn in this light -- this or woman in this light. that played into the narrative the obama campaign was trying to project about mitt romney. is a big problem. i don't think he is going to run again. he is a great man who served our party well, but i would be stunned if you decided to run for president again. host: douglas from new hampshire. good morning. you're an independent? caller: yes. the best liarsnk get elected and become leaders in this country? doesn't that lead to sociopaths getting into washington? host: is that what you think, doug? caller: yes. if you look at the facts, you see all the laws we have -- all, as ast of pollster, you sound like an independent man in new hampshire. unfortunately, a lot of voters believe what you believe. , havingo bad because worked for 30 years for these elected officials, they are not all great, but anyone of them could make more money or have a better life if they were not in public service. with whomrepublicans i could not disagree more, many on both sides of the aisle firmly believe in what they're doing. public servants really care. it is unfortunate because there are a lot of independent voters that speak for them. they hate them all by the time they get to the end and say i'm voting for the lesser of two evils. it's one of the reasons why i want campaign finance reform because we have to get these campaigns under control. given what they are like now, --erstand why voters like the number of candidates i follow, maybe one in my entire career that i thought that was true of. i can understand why you conclude that. host: we began this week by focusing on money and politics heard all of these programs available on our video library. sue from naples, new york. democrats line. caller: good morning. i served on two campaigns in general. most people about the majority voters votehe emotionally. when they do get elected to an office, they have to serve two masters. one is the next campaign and the other is the job they were hired to do. those two things are very problematic. people i workold can dothe best thing you to get your self reelected is to avoid the job you're elected to do. if you do a good job, that should mean less campaigning. those things go hand-in-hand. voters sometimes respectfully want it both ways. the reason why people package these things up is because the research and the things we understand, that's how voters want their information. they want a long answer, nobody would get elected. understand that they have their fathers and mothers working and trying to get through college or whatever it may be. they may want to get into the nitty-gritty of these policy things. i have had some success in this business because we have a good appreciation for how voters are going to receive information. they don't want dissertations. they want short bytes of information and that is what we give them. host: anna from greensboro, north carolina. good morning. caller: i would just like for the republican strategist to name at least one thing that the republican party has done in the past six years to help the middle and lower income people of the country. notice that it seems like they will do the equal pay for women, they won't increase the minimum wage. there are so many things that the democrats are proposing to help the middle and lower income people of the country. i have not seen anything republicans have done. i know they say they have done 30 jobs deals. they have not been passed by the senate, but they deal with benefits and tax breaks. like for the republican strategist to name one thing the republican party has done in the past six years to help the middle and lower income people of the country. country think that the -- one of the thing that binds us together is government spending is out of control. we are on an unsustainable pace. all of us will have to pay that bill. we are trying to slow the growth thatate of government so this woman calling and others billnot going to pay the that is coming. thingsly speaking, those are things that republicans have tried to do. i do think the caller speaks to the problem the republican party has. we have to a better job speaking to this woman and other people and explaining why our policies are helpful to them. you need look no further than the last presidential election, which is one we should have won, that demonstrates the issue we are having. host: let me put two candidates on the table. you are advising anthony weiner for a comeback bid based on all we know with his twitter account. what would you recommend someone like him do? don't. [laughter] guest: thank you very he has already had a comeback -- thank you. he has already had a comeback. i would say, one, his wife plays an important role here. -- if sheomen voters is ok, i'm not going to get involved in this. he needs help. most women concluded he needs help. i would get it. america does believe in redemption. america even rewards redemption. , i really admire what he did with his breaking. i admire his honesty. -- his drinking. he handled it and came back and people really admired him for it. host: i know you have advised governor perry. he is indicted. that famous mug shot of him. what was the strategy behind that? thinksgovernor perry he has done nothing wrong. he went in there for trying strength and leadership. portraying strength and leadership. there has been a bipartisan rejection of what the prosecutor did. there have been several democrats coming out and saying this is ridiculous. governor perry has done a good job of handling this. host: robin california. good morning. -- rob in california. caller: my question to both guests is, what are your positions on citizens united? host: we talked about this earlier and on monday. guest: i am completely opposed to it. i am in favor of campaign finance reform. we are working with a number of groups, including public campaign, you will voices -- equal voices to get citizens united overturned. legally, it is very competent it. -- very complicated. this is not free speech. this is bought speech. legally, every time you make progress, even bipartisan progress, we get turned back. this is a tough issue i'm completely opposed to. guest: this is where you want i part ways. court,t turned back by a which has ruled over and over again that this is speech. you look back at what happened in 2002. things are worse today than they were 10 years ago or 12 years ago. back then, said it would make the parties livestrong. that is what has happened right now. strong.es less there is less accountability in the system. limitstion is to have no to donations to the actual parties or state parties. into aey would go back centralized location and people would be accountable and held accountable. host: andy from massachusetts. republican line. caller: good morning. in response to the lady who said the republicans have not done , doesn't she realize in the news that burger king is leaving the country? all three of our major beer to already -- left the country already. corporations are people. people who make things. people who make cars and loans. give the corporations a break. lake?celinda guest: i come from the state of montana third corporations are not people. thatom the state of mind corporations are not people. we don't have the highest corporate tax rate. there is a huge loophole that allows these benedict arnold companies to take their profits abroad. we should be closing that loophole and using that money to invest in our country. inis really disappointing the global economy now, you used to have companies that were invested in their communities and their workers in this country. now, you have companies that are not. investment in what? a business that makes money and employs people. i think celinda is right. we live in a global economy . businesses in virginia not just -- are not just competing against maryland and west virginia. they are competing all over the world. the internet has allowed goods moreervices to move much quickly and easily corrupt world. businesses are trying to make a profit. companies, many of them, their shareholders are teachers unions and state employees unions. i have never understood that the democrats position on this where they want to make business is harder -- make it harder to do business than in canada or ireland. they will pick up and leave. that is unfortunate. way to stop that. change the regulatory structure. get ahead of the stereotype of one republican candidate running in delaware, here is how the christy o'donnell campaign responded. >> i'm not a which. -- i'm not a witch. i'm you. none of us are perfect but none of us can be happy with what we've seen all around us. politicians who think spending and trading favors are the ways to stay in office. i will go to washington and do what you do. i'm christine o'donnell and i approved this message. i'm you. the very beginning, leveling the charge against her. i'm not a witch. guest: it was bizarre. it clearly didn't work. these things are voters have to relate to the candidate on it have been calledr before.ch it reinforced the narrative that she is flaky. guest: that's right. like --e ad it seemed if you are being called a witch and you go and say i my mom -- i , listen, my opponents are engaging in ridiculous name-calling and i don't want to engage in that, i want to talk about the issues that affect you. this mode that voters hate where they think -- inll about me versus the candidate can get the .essage to you host: next is lewis on the democrats line. caller: good morning. i have a question for you. voted years old and i've republican and democrat and independent. republicans that are backing away from seniors, period. if you notice come in the last few years, how the republicans -- nameed in congress one good thing they've done for the seniors of america. lewis, i'm glad to answer this question. the best thing they've done is try to fight against obamacare, which is going to make your health care worse. the second thing they've done is boost programs i'm sure you like. this is one thing the democratic good job ofne a demonizing the republicans with. they are try to solve a problem. these programs are running bankrupt. they say, we are going to take away lewis's social security and medicare. this is a marketing point of view. the democrats have done a good job on this. we hope you join the republican party sent. -- republican party soon. also joining us from florida. outside of orlando appeared in public aligned. also joining us from florida. outside of orlando. republican line. haver: the democrats kidnapped the black american vote. i think it's absolutely awful. there is such a great divide between the races as it is. the democrats further that divide with their narrative, the republicans are racist. we will take care of you. a lot of people need to know that it was a republican that signed the emancipation proclamation. who don'tung kids know what that means, the abolishment of slavery. in the 1850's, it was the republican party that actually formed to stop slavery. the democrats, their narrative is getting old and it has divided our nation. i would like to see the republicans stand up and take back this voting block. we are all brothers and sisters, regardless of race, creed or color. barack obama has divided this nation by race and class more than he will ever know. thank you for your comment. your comment is the kind of comment that makes it harder for republicans. they are not kidnapped by anybody. that boating community makes ther decisions -- republican party has come a long way from its roots in 1850. a lot of voters think the is stuck inarty 1950. whether it's average american voters or women voters or latino voters, there is one way to go, to speak to their issues. voters or-american women voters or latino voters. i'm deeply offended by your comment of obama being divisive. this a great moment when country has an african-american president. he has worked very hard to unite this country. strategym a tactical point of view, i want to show and add from elizabeth warren. here is how the campaign responded. i never asked my mom for documentation when she talked about her native american heritage. what kid would? i knew my father's family didn't like that she was part cherokee and part delaware, so my parents had to elope. becausegot any benefits of my heritage. the people who hired me have said that they did not even know about it. host: was that effective? guest: what she said was not true. she did -- it was an effective ad. had there things she was this came out in the spring of that year, so she had a lot of time to right the ship. several documents she could have released that would have verified her story and she chose not to do it. -- she was seen as convincing in her approach. she was able to right the ship. guest: the other thing about her that was effective -- she answered straightforward. not political or apologizing. she answered and she put us in a situation that voters can understand. i have a family. i have to go back and check my history. then, she turned it to the voters. ,he pattern she followed here answering in a way that voters could relate to. they could imagine themselves hearing these stories from their parents. then taking it to the voters, i will fight for you. a classic and a wonderful way to handle this. host: jim has the last word on campaigning 11. -- campaigning 101. caller: i have nothing against citizens united except for one thing. businesses should be able to contribute all they want to candidates. i don't like the idea of people coming in here and spending twice as much money as the businesses here can afford to offset our legislature or whatever. guest: i disagree. i think it is a constitutionally protected right. people should be able to participate in the process, whether they want to knock on doors or give $100. people have a right to do that. host: when you have a crisis, what is your advice? guest: think about it, respond once and quickly and stay within your brand. right you have to get it the first time. take a deep breath and get all the facts and get them out and do it once and tell the truth. host: same strategy from two different party experts. and celinda lake. to both of you, thank you very much for a fascinating debate. guest: thank you. host: thank you for phoning in. now, a chance for you to tell us what's on your mind. open phones for the next 25 minutes or so. republicans.1 for (202) 585-3880 four democrats. this is your chance. tell us what's on your mind. we talked politics and policy. talk politics and policy. jobless numbers are in this our initial the number of americans seeking unemployment benefits dropped by 1000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 298,000. applications data is the latest sign that the job market is steadily healing. average job gains since february have been the best in eight years. after a slow start to the or, the was economy rebounded vigorously in the april-june quarter. growing at an annual rate of 4.2%. slightly faster than first estimated. the upward revision supports expectations that the second half of 2014 will prove far stronger than the first half. federal researchers next week will start testing humans with experiment to vaccine to prevent the ebola virus. the national institutes of health announced today is launching a trial on a vaccine ofeloped by the institute allergy and infectious diseases and glaxosmithkline. adultill twist -- test 20 volunteers. so far, ebola has killed over 1500 people in west africa. those are the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> this month, c-span presents debates on what makes america great. evolution and genetically modified foods. issues spotlight with in-depth looks at veterans health care, iris oversight, student loan debt and campus sexual assault. rightswarming, voting him a fighting infectious disease and food safety. and our history tour showing sights and sounds from america's historic places. find our tv schedule one week in advance and let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. call us or e-mail us. join the conversation. like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. "washington journal" continues. phones on any topic, whether you want to talk about the issues discussed this morning, including the possibility of another mitt romney campaign. or this headline from the washington times. that from the cbo director. he is going to be our guest on c-span's news anchors program this sunday. first, david joining us from michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to hear the republican commentators view on what their alternative plan is to the aca. systemsingle-payer tax -- there was so much -- i worked in health care and i went to the hospital and i was charged .8,000 pe insurance said they would cover $1500. i would like to know how they representation is not good for our health care system. the taxpayers are paying the bill anyways. we are paying too much for duplication of services. in manydon't research countries. you go to the atm and you charge it and it goes right to the government and there is less corruption and fraud. host: this headline from the arizona republic. jeff miller from florida think there are individuals who broke federal law and they should be held to account. the president spoke to the american legion and talked about this issue on tuesday. his speech is available on our website. george on the democrats democrats line. -- george on the democrats line. -- georgia on the democrats line. caller: all of those who say president obama has done has ately nothing -- he website that speaks to all of the things he has done. he has been fighting very hard to help the american people. he has no help him congress. -- from congress. it's outrageous that people don't even listen to your daily report. the budget deficit has decreased, jobs are being created every month. where do they get the idea? are they just tone deaf or hate the man so much that they refuse to acknowledge things he has done? he is not a warmonger. he tries to help people. i don't get it. i don't know what people are listening to or what's in their mindset. thank you for taking my call. i love your program. host: we are glad to hear from you. --s is a story you mentioned you mentioned emigration -- immigration. from the washington post. john from clarksburg, maryland. good morning. independent line. i just get frustrated when the republican party right -- make antly saying statement and not be ashamed to say the one big accomplishment they have done is try to defeat obamacare. they have done nothing. all they have done is being obstructionist. it is pathetic. attacking obamacare and have nothing of value to offer in response. both parties are guilty of this. gumptionarty has the ntion thence met insurance industry. all they bring up is the doctors getting paid too much. the biggest industry is the e right ourw checks to every month. they have never once been agency.by an outside they claim they make a 1% a year profit. they are paying this ridiculous salary. no one will say, let's audit this. we do it for auto insurance. republicans so cowardly won't even bring up the insurance industry. host: immigration clash could lead to shut down. another take on the washington post story. from charleston west virginia -- charleston, with regina. robert. -- charleston, west virginia. caller: i was a candidate this year for congress. it was a crowded ticket. of the candidates who ran, i was last. i was good with that because i only invested about $5,000 of my own money. i was hoping voters would educate themselves on the candidates. i was nine dollars per vote. the candidate who once spent almost $90 per vote. spent almost $90 per vote. what i'm finding is, he is running on an ultraconservative ticket. he came over from maryland just one year prior. he hasn't even lived in west virginia that he rents a house there. republicanlf as a tour and between voting for a democrat -- torn between voting for a democrat who has lived his life in west virginia or voting for a republican candidate was running in name only for the state. selectionssup in the for me, personally. i have to vote for the state before the national level. host: the front page of the new york times looking at the economy in parts of west virginia and the job prospects for miners losing jobs. greg from springfield, virginia. democrats line. .ood morning caller: i know everyone hates to look back, but i want to look back at the beginning of the iraq war and tie it to the situation we have in the mideast now. by getting rid of saddam hussein, everybody who looks at it objectively realizes that that's the first thing that took the stabilization out of that area. now, we have this stuff with isis and all these groups going on, trying to take over territory and causing a lot of problems over there be or do i heard david -- problems over there. stating that k there are no wmds in iraq. the fact is, with what the bush administration did with our foreign policy and domestic -- is is take money years going to take 20 years to fix. nowa bin laden, who is dead , thank god, he stated his goal was to get the united states involved in the middle east and bankrupt us financially. president bush and his administration played right into his hand. they kept him around all that time to use him to motivate people to vote for more war for the republicans. look at what happened when obama got in. they got him. don't forget about your history. host: front page of the elected journal-constitution. front page of the atlanta journal-constitution. this morning, we spent the first 45 minutes based on an interview that the former republican presidential candidate did, leaving the door open slightly for a potential 2016 bid. could romney run in 2016? another advisor saying that he is clear that mitt romney is not going to run. you can read the story online. louisa from chicago. -- independent line. caller: i live downtown in a real nice area. i am a retired senior. i was here -- i'm 73 now. i want to bring up racial mocking. we need to pass a law to prevent people from walking down the street and being harassed by people who do not know them, mocking them racially, facially and insinuating they are thieves. people need to get along. racial mocking does not help. it is a negative and it is very ugly. our viewersf the saying in action against isis will result in an attack on the american homeland. is, i sit question here and i watch both the democrats and the republicans in congress. why theyike to know are suing him for his overreach and executive powers. i am an older woman. i'm 72. i want the congress to either call back in before any action is taken. they need to be on record. i want to know where they all stand recording this -- regarding this. i don't care that it's an election year. they represent us, the people. i want them to do their job. it's almost so onocritical to be suing him one respect, but when it's something so important as bombing in syria or going after -- i want the congress to do it. it should not be left to the president. he has those abilities, but i -- i voted for you. now, i want you to make the congress do their job. things for the call. ronald at this point -- ronald has this point. let's go to albert in florida or good morning. -- let's go to albert in florida. good morning. caller: when president obama became president of the united states, mitch mcconnell said that they were going to work hard to make sure you don't have anything that he did for the american people on record. economy is the wait is now is because the republican party has been working against him from day one. i don't understand that. we are supposed to be american citizens. we should respect the president. host: gladys from san antonio. democrats line. caller: good morning. i'm responding to the lady who said that the democrat african-americans have been kidnapped. that is not true. african-americans are intelligent people. they are capable of making decisions. i'm an african-american and i am aware of the issues. -- whathe legislature they are against and for. that is why i vote for democrats. we are not as ignorant as she has indicated. timeepublican party at one may have been for african-americans, but they deserted us. they arelike all concerned about is taking care of the wealthy. look at what they've done in congress. not working with the president and not caring about america. you care about america, you ought to support issues that will take around nation. host: another caller from texas on the republican line. caller: thank you. the reason i'm under the ticket is because i'm libertarian. as far as democrats i feel that -- they are not the party of the working man anymore. why? they have been industrializing the nation. wars, who ishese really doing it? they exploit our patriotism and keep us running and screaming about terrorism. show,he banks running the folks. you all need to wake up. this is about freedom versus tyranny, man. host: julia from bassett, virginia. independent line. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. thatr: i would like to say if it weren't for president obama -- when he first came into office, everything was in a total chaos. , therewere on the street was so much homelessness. , but i musta while say that he worked hard at trying to help us. had so many people working against them, even when he was trying to do something good. but it's say this, almost like they are trying to make him look bad -- i've never seen so much prejudice. host: do you think everything will be different after the midterm elections? do you think it will be different for the president? trying to get things done through congress. i really hope so. i'm neither republican or democrat. i am for what is right. host: from the wall street journal, karl rove writing about the midterm elections. countdown to kicking out harry reid. next caller is jeff from north carolina on the republican line. i have some things to comment on. thanks for this television show. the first thing i want to say is , when- back in 2008 barack obama -- when it was made public that he attended a church that celebrated 9/11. there is no way a white man in a church celebrating 9/11 would have been elected. he got elected regardless of that. his racist views on trayvon martin and this michael brown thing and his installing eric holder who was completely a racist person -- for president obama to be so racist publicly should not be a surprise to the rest of america. when it comes to the muslim issue, he has sided with muslims on every instance. i'm talking radical muslims. peaceful,an say he's but cut off the heads of americans. int: we go next to gwen birmingham, alabama. caller: good morning. toetimes, it is so hard follow things people say. this is america. we are all in this together. the terrorists don't care who they kill. when they came over here on 9/11, it was not figured out that you are black and you are caucasian, you are asian. we all got killed. i am going to get away from that. as far as mitt romney running for president again, i don't think so. you know what will be in people's heads. the 47% statement he made. that will always stick with people. i really don't think he can even be president. -- yous something about just know this person. he don't seem the type. host: a poll from iowa. a deadlock. braley challenging tony ernst. the race is dead even. next is brett. independent line. here in washington, d.c. you have been doing a great job with the aftermath of ferguson. a lot of the people would be doing it they thought of themselves -- if you were representing america in africa, person in the world, maybe we could get along better here. some parts of her recordings of people calling c-span -- i never an african-american being recorded on the rush limbaugh show. , he scaresitt romney me. abouting you mentioned closing the government because of president obama's immigration immigration problem. isl quick, my only comment all the people, liberals and ,onservatives in the media, 20% you have to secure the border first. there is aeat, but list why. a reporter who had his head -- murdered overseas. the greatest we thought about that is as secure border. if you have a passport, the same as having a visa. you can be oa