Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20150508 : comparem

202-748-8001 for republicans. you can send an e-mail to [email protected]. all front pages have essentially the same lead story. court calls nsa data sweep illegal. there is "the l.a. times," "the new york times." nsa collection of bulk call data is ruled illegal. in "the washington times" lead editorial -- "big brother takes a hit." senator mitch mcconnell has made it clear to his colleagues that he wants the usa patriot act including the parts of the legislation scheduled to expire at the end of june, fully extended. he seems ready to do whatever he can to get his way. the usa patriot act was enacted in the days following 9/11 when the nation trembled on the verge of panic, with little debate and little opposition in congress -- the usa freedom act would modify the patriot act. the freedom act is expected to pass in the house the attorney general loretta lynch was asked about it in testimony yesterday. lynch: section 215 has been a vital tool in our national security arsenal, but the department has been operating under the new directive by the president with a view towards modifying the program to keep its efficacy but preserve privacy interests. i am not aware at this time of any violations that have come to light. i will certainly seek a briefing on that. and should i learn of any, i would advise the committee of that. if my knowledge changes on that, but as of now, i have not been informed of any violation under the new policy. with respect to the decision from the second circuit, my own circuit, this morning we are reviewing that decision. but given the time issues involving the expiration of it we are also and have been working with this body and others to look for ways to reauthorize section 215 in a way that does preservice efficacy and protect privacy. host: attorney general lynch also talked about this issue. here is "the washington post." "u.s. to open probe of baltimore police. attorney general loretta lynch has decided to launch a federal investigation as to whether a police department has engaged in a pattern of excessive force -- " 202 is the area code if you want to dial in and talk about a public policy issue. 748-8002 for independents. from "washington times,," u.s. training syrians for islamic state ground five. ashton carter announced thursday that the u.s. is beginning to train a group of moderate rebels to fight the islamic state in syria and acknowledged u.s. assets would support this troops in battle against the terrorist group. well he also talks about the issue of federal troops in texas. here's the defense secretary. secretary carter -- >> the united states military could -- the civil liberties of the people of texas. secretary carter: why don't i just take that on your second question, we have given information to authorities in texas. any information they have requested. we were very open and upfront about our training activities in the united states. and i should say that we're very grateful for the support of communities around the united states in all of our training facilities. we count upon people's, the support of americans in our training areas and around our training areas and around our bases and are very grateful for the hospitality we receive. reporter: would you refute his concerns that this could be an issue? would you refute the concerns of those on the internet who believed otherwise? secretary carter: we are very responsive to any local officials who want to know about our training. we are very transparent. we have tried to be transparent in this case. and answer all questions, give all information about what we are doing about the need for it. and once again, i want to express appreciation we have to communities across the country who host our troops. it is very important. host: let's take some calls. let's begin with shawn in lakeland, florida, our independent line. what is the issue on your mind this morning? caller: my public policy issue really is a question. you have the patriot act now. now they are coming back saying this was a mistake. so my question really is -- how often has this happened and not been brought to the attention of the people? the one specific incident that comes to mind, the so-called war on drugs. i think this is probably the most laughable thing that has ever gone on in the united states history. you look at prisons, as an example. a prisoner should be the most -- a prisons should be the most secure spot in the united states, more secure than any border. the drugs are in prisons. common sense. drugs are imprison -- are in prison. how do you think you will stop took some getting in the united states itself? host: is there a solution? caller: honestly, there are a lot of countries in the world and none of them have the drug problems the united states has. i think the major problem with all the stuff that is going on in baltimore, all the stuff going on in ferguson the police whole issue with minorities and people of color. all of this is really a symptom of the drug war. you know, people alike this massive incarceration started 30 years ago -- host: is that legalization in your view? caller: i would not say so much legalization, but i mean, this is the land of the free. you are supposed to be able to live your life how you want to. if someone wants to live their life and do drugs their whole life, let them. you know what i'm saying? lcoocking them up is not helping them. host: thanks for calling in this morning. from politico, pressure builds on gop for police and criminal justice reform. pressure is mounting on republican congressional leaders to take up criminal justice and police reform legislation and the calls are increasingly coming from within the gop. -- to set up a new committee on the issue. tim scott is pushing for more body cameras -- that is a little bit from the political article. eugene in ohio. good morning to you. caller: thanks for taking my call. the biggest thing on my mind right now is the patriot act. basically, it was enacted should have never been thought of. should have never been past. and i think a lot of the folks that are upset that should be in abject lesson -- an abject lesson -- an object lesson. when ever you have power in one branch of government, you got rest assured that to think it happened. you are not getting those powers back. thanks for taking my call. host: clifton, miami, democrat, or independent, hi. caller: hello, sir. i am nervous. this is my first time calling. thank you, my good friend. i will say this. there are a lot of people getting killed in baltimore. i'm looking it up. another thing is that in baltimore is that there is a lot of riots. i was hoping if you guys would do another look upon the situation where -- host: clifton, we got part of your idea in the idea of investigating a little bit more in baltimore is probably a good one. jim in spartanburg, south carolina, independent line. jim: what is on my mind this week is how for the last four years, harry reid has been damone what the koch brothers are doing and their ramifications -- harry reid has been in moaning what the -- been bemoaning what the koch brothers have been doing, when hillary behind the scenes has been making money from giving and granting powers and authority and granting to the network she uses to get more in her political coffer, not political coffer but your fundraising and other things. it is amazing that he thinks the koch brothers but he does not raise an objection one moment about what hillary clinton is doing. host: from hill this morning "clinton breaks silence." she sent out a tweet saying that congress should move ahead with the usa freedom act, a step forward and ongoing efforts to protect our security and civil liberties. and an opposing article or another article on that topic mitch mcconnell and gop defend the nsa. mitch mcconnell and other top republicans defended the national security agency's surveillance program as vital to protecting national security. other republicans starkly criticize legislation that would effectively end the nsa's bulk phone records collection program. "it will neither keep a safe or protect our privacy," the kentucky republican said of the usa freedom act. mitch mcconnell tees up the teradrade war. " mitch mcconnell is coring -- calling harry reid's flbluff." the senate majority challenged reid to make good on a plan to block movement on trade until the senate has a strategy for highway funding. one more thin g on the trade bill. only two republicans admit they actually read secret obama trade deal both a supportive. -- unsupportive. with the first votes on the trade trade promotion authority days away, it is looking like mitch mcconnell excepts americans to accept nancy pelosi's obamacare logic for the trade deal -- you have to pass it to find out what senate. -- what's in it.' "if you want to learn the details of the tpp trade deal the obama in ministration is open to pass, you have got to be a member of congress and you have got to go to briefings and leave your staff and cell phone at the door," according to politico who wrote that earlier this morning. jim is in spartanburg. jim? jim: how are you? i hope you're having a good day. host: i hope you are, too. jim: i just wanted to say i appreciate all you do for c-span. i think it is an excellent group, and everything you do is well-funded. you guys do a great job. host: that's it? jim: yes, thank you very much. host: otony, georgia, republicans are you are on "washington journal"." are you with us? tony: yes. i think the biggest story is this irs thing where they doled out all this money to -- host: guess what? you have got to turn down the volume on your tv. listen to your telephone. otherwise you get the delay and that brings the program to a halt. we will move on to rick in bradenton, florida, democrat. we are listening. rick: good morning sir the reason i am calling this morning is. ethics that seems to be in politics right now that it seems to be completely out of control now. when you have people like down here in florida that we aren't even allowed to say the word global warming or sea levels changes or anything like that. they just stick their head in the sand and hope for the best before they get out of office or you have another benghazi committee that is spending millions and millions of our tax dollars to investigate nothing. it is purely a political move. we have politicians down in texas that literally have people convinced that we are -- they are being invaded by the u.s. army. i just want to know where did the common sense go? there does not seem to be any ethics whatsoever anymore in, at least the republican side of politics. i was born and raised a republican and the last time that i voted republican was ronald reagan. and to be honest with you, i was sorry i did that. but until the common sense has a viable voice over big money and they just literally ignore facts that are blocking the -- slapping them in the face, i do not believe we are ever going to get anywhere and we're due to take a full. host: thank you rick in bradenton. up next is howard in miami. hi howard. howard: good morning. i have two poinstts. the first is the moral and ethical bankruptcy of jeb bush. obviously running for president. still having not declared so that he can raise funds in excess of what otherwise would be the applicable research and on doing so. -- restriction on doing so. coupled with the complicity of the media in failing to ask him and bring this to the attention of the public that he used continuing to do this. i think it raises questions for the public about how jeb bush can be trusted if he is willing to do so, things like that. the second point i have is that there are now 15 or 18 republican candidates for presidency, and -- in one form or another. and they are all going to be slamming, criticizing, slandering demeaning hillary clinton in the same fashion barack obama has been pilloried since he was elected. and whether or not the media is going to be -- repeat everything to one of the slurs without challenging or editing them. many of these things do not deserve to be repeated, but the media takes. notes and repeats what these people say the question is -- is that going to be continuing, or is the media exercising journalistic integrity and filter out these things? i will listen to your response. host: political this morning. poll jeb bush leads gop pack in new hampshire. he has 15% of the bow. marco rubio 12%. scott walker, rand paul 11% and 10%. that is a new poll. here is another new poll from wmur, granite state poll, showing jeb bush leading hillary clinton in new hampshire 47 to 41. and rand paul and marco rubio also lead hillary clinton in that state. in chicago, democrat. you are on "washington journal." sarah: i want to say how much i love "washington journal." it is my favorite reality tv show. host: thank you for watching. sarah: that is not hyperbole. the thing i dislike the most is what i do not understand -- we have had 25 years of nafta the north american free trade agreement, and it has decimated manufacturing and good jobs good middle-class jobs. so i do not understand what the president is doing with the tpp pushing the transpacific partnership your he claims this will be an improvement over nafta, and it will have enforceable standards, and that is why he is pushing it. he was to have enforceable standards that other countries around the world will have to enforce and live up to the u.s. standard of food safety and our labor laws and environmental laws. the thing i do not understand the most is -- we do not even have the political will in this country to enforce our own environmental standards, our own food safety and drug safety standards, to say nothing of our labor laws labor safety, labor standards. how would , how does he expect us to believe that the tpp will have enforceable standards for other countries that we would enforce standards in other countries when we do not even do it here? host: what do you do in chicago? sarah: i'm a consultant. i have a background in software and management consulting. i set in office all day, but i live in the rust belt. illinois is in the rust belt. we have taken a hit over the last 25 years from nafta. it has just got it manufacturing jobs. host: thanks for watching. up next is puaul in pompano beach, florida, republican line. paul: good morning. thanks along with everyone else, for presenting such clear information to us all. one thing i was aware of, peter was it seems to be an unreported story that vladimir putin is the richest man in the world. that was reported by cnbc a few weeks ago. a casual manner about reporting who the richest people were. i might ask you can to her that? peter: first time i am hearing it is from you. paul: he said with the russian mafia he is worth $300 billion which puts president obama's strategy in a good light because if he's costing him $100 billion of that $300 billion, it is a great strategy. the scary part is that makes p utin more like a strong man and a dictator than a person with the interest of russia in his deep heart. i just thought i had mentioned that. maybe i am alerting other people to the idea of truth that is underreported. host: our producer found this article in "the new york post." putin could be world's richest man with stolen $200 billion fortune. there is your story, paul. paul: maybe you can get it out there. peter: just did. thank you for that. richard, independent line. what is on your mind this morning? richard: about the patriot act. that was one of the worst acts they ever put in. it really bothered me. some intelligence agencies -- we have 16 of them or something. people in business you walk down the street, there's cameras on the stoplight, cameras on the stores. i feel like i'm walking in a photoshop. it gets me aggravated because they use an excuse to go after anybody they want to go after, and then when people come after us they are bad people. when they do it, we are good people. there are two sides of the coin. peter: do you remember how you felt about the patriot act in 2000 along1 after 9/11? richeard: we knew about 9/11, just like we knew about pearl harbor. it is a sad thing to say but our government is one of the worst killing governments in the world. i hate to say that, but that is my personal opinion. but it appreciate your letting me talk. you all have a good day. peteer: speaking of world war ii, today is ve day. a world war ii air parade is going to fly over the national mall today, right behind us here. and you will be able to see that on c-span. a lot of the old bombers and planes will be flying up and down the national mall over the world were to memorial -- the world war ii memorial, where there will be a presentation as well. our live coverage of world war ii victory in europe 70th anniversary begins at 10:30 a.m. the president spoke about ve day recently. president obama: today we pay to be to all who served and were patriots, like my grandfather who served in patton's army. soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, coast guard, merchant marines. and the women of the wacs and every branch. they risked their lives and gave their lives so that we and the people the world over could live free. there were women who stepped up and -- manned the home front. like my grandmother building bombers on assembly lines. this was the generation that literally save the world the end of the war and laid a foundation for peace. this was the generation that traded in their uniforms for a college education so they could marry their sweethearts, buy homes, raise children, and build a strong this middle-class the world has ever known. this was the generation that includes heroes like the tuskegee airmen, the navajo code talkers and the japanese-americans of the 142nd regiment. and to continue the fight for freedom here at home, expanding equality and opportunity and justice for minorities and women. we will be forever grateful for what these remarkable men and women did for the selfless grace they showed in one of our darkest hours. but as we mark the 70th anniversary, let's not simply commemorate history. let's rededicate ourselves to freedoms for which they fought. peter: and again our live coverage of the 70th anniversary of victory in europe day is at 10:30 this morning. going to be a flyover down the national mall behind us. a lot of the old bombers in all planes from world war ii will be flying at a very low level. so if you are in the area, this is a good opportunity to see that. they are still counting the votes in england, but the conservatives are within a couple seats of being an outright majority without being in partnership with any other party. from "usa today" tory optimism in u.k. pays off. this is michael wolff's colum. " david cameron's tories were in a position to form a working majority but to do so with very little horse trading. lib dems had hoped they would be king makers and what was expected to be a close split between labour and the tories. now they would have no place to go except to follow the tories. they would have no level with which to negotiate a favorable place in a new coalition. at 316 seats, now 322 seats the tories could easily turn to the democratic unionist party with its 8 seats to reach the voting majority of 323. it is not just the tories unexpected strength it appears now to recast u.k. politics, but it is also l abour's weakness -- " they also say that nick clegg will resign as head of the liberal democrats. they lost 40 seats. labour lost 40 seats. nigel -- the head of the ukp ip party also resign. both ed miliband and nick clegg have already resigned. seattle, democrat, you are on "q&a -- "washington journal." caller: i want to talk about the media for a minute. i mean, you act like a pretty nice guy. i actually like you, but you know, all of you guys do -- all you guys do is try to drag hillary down. honesty of any of those right-wingers, rubio and walker, all those other guys. everybody worried about dragging hillary down, you know? and how come you do not have two guys talking on one side -- republican and democrat. all at the same time. all you got is the right-wingers on there. you let them spew out until they get tight. and don't read so much, man. let some people called in. you seem like a pretty nice guy. that is all i wanted to say. i've been watching for years but you know, so i know how you guys operate. you know? peter: thank you sir. thanks for calling in, thanks for watching. bob is an independent in trenton, new jersey. bob: my god, that last guy is the perfect example of a low information voters telling you not to read so much. my comment is, one of them is about the lady that called about nafta. she's right. it has devastated this country but yet every politician will agree with that but not one will lift a finger to introduce legislation to get rid of it. the most underreported story that i feel came out last month was a report from the i.g. ab social security. out there is a proximally six -- there is approximately six million that are at the age of 112 and older. you stop payment on the checks. the people that come forward and are legitimate, you give them the checks. this is the most underreported story, because hillary made an announcement she wants to give amnesty to 15 million twoo0 20 million illegals. if senior citizens do not get on this one, we are all in big trouble, sir. i really thank you for taking my call. i just hope this gets out there to the people. thank you. peter: patricia, lanham maryland, in the suburbs on our republican line. go ahead. patricia: thank you for taking my call. i am a first time caller. but i listen to. i am legally blind and cannot see the screen, so i'm grateful for hearing what you have to say. my concern -- and i may have missed it yesterday. i know yesterday was supposed to be a day of national prayer. i have not heard anything on any radio or tv anywhere that even mentioned the day of prayer. and without the prayers of this republic i think that the united states is going to be a very hard, have a very hard road ahead to stay the leader of the world. that is my comment. peter: "the washington times" had an article on that. i do not have that in front of me. that is where i did see something on that issue. frank is next. in clinton, maryland, and he is a democrat. frank: i just have a couple of comments and questions. you know the republicans run the house and the senate. why they don't talk about the issues? they just talking about slandering hillary. when are they going to talk about the middle class, what can be done for them? minimum wage? when are they going to start taking care of the things that the people want them to take care of? that is the reason why they put them in office. it just does not make any sense to me. i'm trying to understand it. they just slandering her. about 12 or 13 republicans already running for office. let's talk about the issues. the middle class is struggling. every day. so let's talk about the issues. i think the media should be more focused on it. you don't want to hear them talk about hillary. so that is basically my comment. peter: thank you, sir. tom, fort lauderdale republican. tom: hi. you know, one of the things that nobody is talking about is the republican budget being put forth by paul ryan. unless it's in a negative light. we -- our government cannot seem to be able to derive an efficiency of any kind without being demagogued and criticized as evildoers. you mean to tell me that we cannot make government more efficient without being demagogued as people who are trying to throw people out of work and being evil and all this stuff? we have to have intelligence discussions -- intelligent discussions about making our government more efficient. gosh, where do you start? the general services agency. they could be taken over by a private company. it use is billions of dollars -- uses billions of dollars. there are savings that could be made in medicare. treatment of old people that are basically dead and we are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on them? if you say something like that you are really a terrible person. why can't we have an intelligent discussion about the efficiency of government? that is what i am saying. peter: front page of "usa today," "fbi chief says u.s. cannot keep up with isil." james calmly said thursday that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of people across the country who are receiving recruitment overtures elliott, lakeland, florida independent line. elliott: how are you doing this morning? i wanted to say that i'm pretty excited about bernie sanders. throwing his hat in the ring i know he has got a very, very uphill battle if he is going to try to disband them, but just the way he is and the way he has carried through his political career has been very consistent. and i like his view on policies. he is a little curmudgeonly. personality, especially with his announcement even trying to rush it to get back to work. but i think that is kind of the attitude we need to have instead of the grandstanding announcement that that man from michigan had. i'm just excited the bernie sanders at least is -- h announced thata he to try to run. peter: did you send him any money? caller: i have not yet. but i know he raised a million and a half in say. -- in a day. he needs a lot more if it is going to do any good. if i see he's got a good chance, definitely. he will probably needed earlier rather than later with what they have been talking about so that the money kicking people out early. peter: what do you do in lakeland, florida? elliott: i am a student right now. peter: what are you studying? elliott: creative writing but i strive to take active -- to stay active in news. peter: what you plan to do with that degree? elliott: journalism or fiction writing. not exactly sure yet, changing majors, but i'm on my fourth now. peter: how old are you? elliott: 25 now. peter: all right. thanks for calling in this morning. up next is michelle in wisconsin, democrat. michelle: hi, thanks for taking my call. i just want to say that out of all the republicans that are so far running, i think the best one would be jeb bush, even though i am a democrat. i don't think walker has a chance in heck to get that. what he has done to wisconsin is a tragic. and if he was to run for president and get that, i think our country would be in a whole lot of hurt, because what he has done in wisconsin completely cutting the u.w. system and k-12 and programs that help out the elderly and the disabled are being eliminated in the budget, and it is just a really bad thing in wisconsin. so if i was republican and had to vote, right now i think jeb bush is the best best. and that is what i'm -- is the best bet. that is what i wanted to say. peter: two more people announced for president this week. mike huckabee and ben carson and c-span was alive with both of their announcements. if any of these candidates announce, you know they will be able to watch it -- it in its entirety on c-span. you can always watch it online at cpsspan.org. "bill forces obama to submit iran deal to congress. senators voted overwhelmingly to-- " diana, in jamestown, south carolina. diana is a republican. hi diana. dana, sorry about that. i apologize for that. dana: no problem. you had the town wrong. it was not williams. it was jamestown. my biggest new story of the week would be that color that called in a while ago and he's stil l in school at 25 years old and does not know what he wants to be. at 25 years old, i had done put in 7 years of working. peter: where were you working? dana: i started out as a helper on a construction job. i ended up as a welder. but at 25 years old know what you want to be in life. you've got money to give to mr. sanders. he did not even tell you he had a job. that kind of bothers me that, where these college -- get their money from, and where they are going in life when it is like they are being coached and not taught. i'd let it oggo at that. i appreciate c-span giving me a chance to speak. start your life by working, not being coached. peter: that is dana in jamestown, south carolina. jeff in indianapolis, independent line. jeff: good morning "journal." my comment had to do with the administration's response to pamela geller and the dumbest ration that took place in texas. first of all the two terrorists could not get through pamela geller's own security. one of their own security guards wound up shooting both the terrorist, not the government. and then when pamela geller was threatened this week and was put on a hit list, the administration had nothing to say about it, even though a u.s. citizen was directly threatened. and pamela geller came on two different interviews and said, the fbi nor the cia or homeland security has not contacted her yet. it goes to show that this administration really is so partisan. if you are not part of their ideology, they just ignored you. -- ignore you. obviously, they disagree with the pamela geller philosophy on radical jihadism. there is another story that came out that says another 71 isil people are in the united states. meanwhile, the administration kind of downplays it and says they're all lone wolf attacks. ft. hood was a domestic problem. it was not a terrorist act. boston was not a terrorist act. those are my comments. peter: lewis, kilgore, texas independent line. you are on the "washington journal." lewis: i would like to share some book titles. the first is a book called "don't think of an elephant," by a professor of linguistics named george -- he talks about the psychological characteristics of liberals versus conservatives. and another title is "the republican brain," by chris mooney. and this book is a little more science oriented. it lists a lot of studies that have been done that show the psychology of different groups who identify themselves as either liberal or conservative. peter: why do you want to show those two titles? caller: it's interesting that, especially as the candidates for office, for president are the 2016 election, are beginning to announce. it's interesting that there's, there can really never be an agreement about about ideology, because -- peter: we are going to have to leave it there and i apologize. running a little close on time. louise florida, democrat. what is on your mind? louise: i think the biggest new story of the week is the fact that jeb bush just admitted a few days ago that he is going to be taking advice from his brother george w. bush on mid east affairs. i find that really scare. just one book title. it is called "jeb bush aggressive conservatism in florida." written by robert crew. a professor at florida state university. jeb calls himself the most popular governor here. he is popular with the rich retirees that come down to get away from paying state income tax. they have no intangible tax, they do not have to pay on stock and bonds. where do we get our revenue? he privatizers every department he can, and these companies like the previous republican caller said privatize? they charge and they overcharge. hey, a lot of that money goes right back to jeb in campaign donations. so, we know all about jebbie. we hope he comes back home and starts giving speeches here and listen to full burdens -- to floridians. peter: "it is a good thing that c-span will cover the south carolina free to summit on saturday -- " and it will be live tomorrow on c-span from south carolina. 10:00 a.m. until 5:45 p.m. eastern time. that is from jennifer harper's column this morning in "the washington times." we have got three guests coming up one at a time this point. coming up next is the director of the national institute of mental health. it's mental health awareness month. and he will be taking your calls from nih. after that, peter schweizer. you probably heard of his book, "clinton cash." he will be taking your calls. those are two segments coming up this morning on the "washington journal." >> here are a few of the book festivals we will be covering the spring on c-span 2. in the middle of may, we will visit maryland for live coverage of the gaithersburg book festival with former congressman tom davis and martin frost as well as a former senior adviser to president obama david axelrod. we close out may in new york city where the publishing industry showcase his upcoming books. on the first week in june, we are live for the chicago tribune printers row -- flit fest. with lawrence wright and your phone calls. that is the spring on c-span 2's book tv. >> sunday night on c-span's "washington journal, -- "q&a," kate andersen brower on the world of the workhouse to the eyes of the people who work there from the kennedys through the obamas. host: who are the thicklands? >> they are an incredible family. nine generations have worked there. i interviewed the only permit butler. he works every week at the white house. nine members of his family worked there. his uncle'ss john and charles were made had butler. he told me my uncles ran the white house. they brought him in when he was 17 years old in 1950 nine during the eisenhower administration. and he is still working up to he describes how he used to work in the kitchen and how he was such a skinny guy. they kept giving him eyes compared it is incredible to see -- they kept giving him ice cream. he remembers this dying breed of person. what i wanted to do was pay tribute to these people. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern and 8:00 pacific on c-span's "q&a.:" >> "washington journal" continues. peter: north of washington d.c., in bethesda, maryland is the national institutes of health, and dr. thomas insel is the director of the national institute of mental health. what is it that nimh does? dr. insel: we are a federal agency and our focus is on research. we are all about the signs of mental disorders. that covers a broad spectrum -- schizophrenia, bipolar depression, ptsd and now we focus a lot of attention on autism as well. there are a series of childhood disorders -- adhd, there is conduct problems that are also very much in our purview. our job is to try to understand what causes these and that develop -- to develop the best approach is to recovery, prevention and cure. peter: how do you do that research? do you do it at the campus or around the country or grants? how? dr. insel: we are federal. so what we exist on is taxpayer dollars. we receive $1.5 billion of taxpayer money each year from congress. all of that goes into the science that we support. about 10% of it, a little bit more of that, is done by a group of scientists at a hospital and clinics that we run in bethesda, maryland at the national institutes of health, but the vast majority, almost 90%, is going to universities and companies throughout the country, sometimes throughout the world where we support the very best science to try to help us make progress on developing diagnostics and new treatments. peter: what is the status of mental health coverage when it comes to the afford will care act -- affordable care act? how has it changed over the last couple years? dr. insel: there are couple of provisions that make a big difference. people overlook the fact that in congress -- in contrast to cancer and heart disease and dimension, mental disorders other disorders of young people. 75% of people with the mental and disorder will have onset before age 25. extending coverage to age 26 makes a big difference for people with mental disorders. that helps. another key aspect of this is that there is no pre-existing exclusion. that is that in the past people with mental illnesses could have been excluded from receiving insurance coverage. that is no longer the case. but perhaps one of the most important aspects is that, with the labeling of mental disorder treatment as an essential benefit, we see for the first time in this country true par ity. that means the opportunity or the expectation that coverage for mental disorders will be on par with other medical problems. and that has not been the case in the past. peter: dr. insel, what are we not doing that you would like to see the u.s. as a society do when it comes to mental health? dr. insel: well, it's not a pretty picture. for listeners who have someone in their family who is affected by a mental illness, they know what the challenge is today to get either access to care or high-quality care. this is a situation we probably would not tolerate for the treatment of other serious medical problems like cancer and heart disease. the fact that many people with a mental illness and of being incarcerated in jail rather than being in the medical care system. that we have a huge proportion of people who are homeless and who are not receiving care at all. the range of difficulties for those with a disabling illness likes different in is ju -- like schizophrenia is hard to put in words. this non-system we have today. in some ways, the system we have 50 years ago where we had a state mental health system including hospitals that provided care, not great care at least provided safety and refuge for people with severe mental illness, had some benefits that were actually -- that we are lacking today in a situation where there is no system. there really is no net for people who have these most disabling illnesses. and i need to point out that these are not just -- they are more disabling according to the world health organization that have looked at what causes morbidity and mortality, what are the sources of disability for some 291 health conditions and injuries. a group of neuropsychiatric disorders -- the brain disorders -- come up at the top. they are more disabling than cancer, heart disease or diabetes. they are more costly. yet we are not doing a very good job providing you the access or the quality of care that people with these disorders need. peter: is there any movement to return to the old state hospital system? dr. insel: i do not think anybody wants to rebuild that whole system but the question is really what it is that would work better than what we have today? and other countries have already done this. in england, they have developed a very high bar for what is available for psychosocial treatments lik psychotherapy for depression and fore anxiety disorders like ptsd. you can see countries like norway and sweden putting in whol -- a whole network of care systems that are really focused on how do we provide better care in the long run for people with these very severe illnesses? how do we been the perfect suicide? the other gray area of neglect is we focus so much on homicide. there are 17,000 homicides each year in the united states. but there are 41,000 suicides each year. that is one about every 13 minutes. 90% of those are related to having a mental illness. so we have got a highly fatal set of medical problems. in fact, there are more suicides than there are deaths from breast cancer or prostate cancer. this is a really serious medical problem in terms of mortality. and there is not much that is being done. we are still at the early stages of even thinking about how to make sure we are making bridges safer so people do not jump off them. or creating the kind of preventions that are possible. one simple example is that we had 760 deaths last year from carbon monoxide poisoning. it is not that difficult to put a sensor on an automobile that shuts off the engine when the carbon monoxide levels go up. we have known how to do that for 40 years, but so far, there has not been the will to make this happen to save 760 people each year in a preventable way by removing one of the sources, or one of the means for suicide. peter: is mental illness reversible? dr. insel: mental illness is a lot of different kinds of problems. you can say the same thing about heart disease or lung disease or kidney disease. some of them are highly treatable. some of them are not going to be that treatable. you're going to be faced with a long-term disability. the ones that we look to where where we have very good interventions would be the anxiety disorders, some of the mood disorders, using psychostimulants and behavioral approaches for adhd, a common disorder of young people. these are all treatable. people do well. there are some forms of autism that we are still challenged with for those who have very low iaq and may have no language, we are struggling to figure out what is the cure, what is the best way to help people with those kinds of dairy severe developmental disabilities. -- very severe developmental disabilities. for schizophrenia, there are people who many years later are not later, are still not able to work because of the cognitive deficits that come with that disorder. host: we have a lot of callers waiting. let's hear from our viewers. rachel in south carolina. caller: good morning. doctor, i am going to make a statement. i have had a stroke. had a heart attack. i laid in a coma for nine days. the older i get the more my medication -- i am bipolar -- the more my medication seems like it is not working. i am so proud of you to keep trying. we need your help. we do have a little group of men and women that do have bipolar. we understand the ups and downs. we are also very spiritual. we understand that we are in the middle before we go down to get into deep prayer. it is a balance but i think god for people like you. i cannot get out of it. i am up one day and down the next but i am grateful you are trying. host: that is rachel in -- guest: thank you, i appreciate those words. what you share with us is the importance of finding other people involved in the same struggle. even when we do not have a cure and we do not have all the answers, we can support each other. these are tough medical problems. there was a time we did not appreciate how serious they are. there is a terrible legacy of blame and shame blaming parents and sometimes those who have the disorders themselves. i think we are at a point where we understand these are serious brain issues. ones we are beginning to get a deeper understanding of. but we are not where we want to be in terms of having the best treatments to turn around all of the symptoms and the core problem that leads to this illness. host: john is in phoenix. hello. caller: dr. insel, i want to speak to you about the use of cannabis for schizophrenia and ptsd. i believe there is some science medical science, in alleviating the fear of -- and some different byproduct of cannabis for treating ptsd and schizophrenia. when is the -- what is the national institutes of health doing to explore that -- host: we get answer from dr. insel in a minute. what is your situation? are you a cannabis user? do you have issues you're dealing with? caller: i have a brother and other individuals who served in the service and wartime theaters . my brother has schizophrenia and he uses it as a byproduct. it helps him function to come out of his depression. as far as my brother in arms dealing with ptsd, they use it to help them keep out of depression and so that they do not push themselves into anger. in colorado, where it is legal and oregon where they study it more, they byproduct of cannabis proved useful as far as use for schizophrenia and ptsd. i would like to know what the national institutes of health has done or if they have dedicated funds for the study of it. host: dr. insel? guest: if i understand the question, it is whether there is good evidence for the use of cannabis or any of the metabolites or products of cannabis for treating serious mental illness like schizophrenia. to my knowledge, there is no evidence from any controlled trial that this is useful. we do have evidence, especially from studies in england, that the use of cannabis increases the likelihood of psychosis in young people who are at risk for schizophrenia. that risk has been described as high as 13-fold. our concern as we look at laws changing in colorado and elsewhere is that the potential is there that of those who may be at high risk would be using it anyway. but in the case where becomes more available, would have a greater likelihood of an earlier onset of psychosis. the evidence for that is still unfolding. we need to learn more about that. that may be speaking to a subgroup of people on this whole spectrum of what we call schizophrenia. it is not to say that of that experience will be true for everyone who has a psychotic illness. host: georgia and south carolina, please go ahead. caller: dr. insel, i was calling -- i had cancer, colon cancer about 2011. after that, my wife see a lot of anger issues i was having. i was being impatient with the kids and not acting myself so she brought that to my doctor's attention. he called me in the office and said i was doubly struggling with depression. i told him no -- i argued with them. for me, depression are people are those who are bungled up and do not want to get out of bed and are in corners and do not want to bother with anything not anger as part of depression. now, he has me on prozac, a few other medications. around thanksgiving, i did contemplate committing suicide but my -- my question to you is, are you guys studying that in any way as far as with the anger -- like i said, i did not know anger was a part of deep -- a part of being depressed. i go out, play in coach sports, and joy everything. it was having. the other question i had about the cannabis the other gentleman called because people do -- i work in the medical field and i hear doctors ask about self-medicating, they cannot get medications for some reason. that they do have marijuana and it seems to calm them so they can cope. those are my questions, thank you. guest: thank you, george. that is important. there is a tendency to think about depression as involving sadness. if there is actually a different picture of depression in men versus women. in men, it is more common to see irritability and anger rather than sadness. many people, even positions, do not understand that. that is often the way depression emerges, particularly in men as they get older. we see suicide as a particular risk in men over the age of 50. we look at this carefully. depression is very treatable. a lot of the irritability and anger, part of this syndrome can be turned around so that people can get reengaged and enjoy the things they are used to doing. the self-medication question is always important. people will try out various things to see what works. the fact is alcohol, cannabis things people try it, may have short-term benefits. alcohol is a good sedative and it does have effects on anxiety. but it creates its own set of issues when people become dependent. the same is true for other compounds across the spectrum. we try to be careful about making sure that as people begin to self medicate, they think about long-term as well as short-term benefits and they consider options that may not have any of the adverse effects of it compound like alcohol or cannabis. host: mylan tweets into you, is the increase in autism due to it we reported? guest: that is a great question and a tough one. there is a huge increase, no question. the numbers from the cdc beginning back in 2001 they were collecting that data for the current study on epidemiology. they were about one in 500. now it is one in 64. some of that is due to more reporting, without question. that there is no much greater awareness and there are more people who get the label of autism, who may have gotten some other label in the past. it also is probably the case that people who work have not gotten a label in the past because they were quirky or a little shy and withdrawn now might get such a label. that said, for somebody who has been in this field a long time, if you look at those children who have really severe autism, the ones that you would not have missed 30 or 40 years ago, when i started in the field, that was a rare circumstance. in 1985, when i went to do a study with children with autism i have to look long and hard. that would not be the case today. my sense is that both things are true. there are more affected and more detected. when you put that together you get that nearly 10-fold increase in the prevalence of it being reported. host: abba is calling in from houston. you are on the air. caller: dr. insel, my question is -- sometimes it feels like everything falls that they cannot diagnose falls in the category of depression. for example, myself, i have been a survivor of domestic violence. i have been diagnosed bipolar. there is no history of bipolar in my family. my children, my 45-year-old son and his wife will not let me visit my grand son. there is such a stigma. last month, my daughter's wedding, i saw my eight-year-old grandson them for the first time. i think of these diagnoses are stigmatizing the families. families do not understand and there needs to be further education, and there should the a hard look at misdiagnoses. both of my feet and legs are swelling from this medication i am taking. i am under observation. it is my body. i have to suffer the consequences. -- host: we leave it there and get a response from dr. thomas insel from the national institute of mental health. guest: these days, the buzzword in medicine is "precision medicine." the hope is that come up with diagnostic labels that are precise and indicate what precise treatment somebody should receive. we see that happening in a beautiful way and cancer, where terms like "breast cancer" and "colon cancer" are being thrown away so we can get more precise molecular diagnoses that tell us exactly what to treat. we are not there formatted -- for mental illness. whether it is depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, autism these are heterogeneous terms that are limited to just describing symptoms and trying to see how they clustered together. that is one approach but it is not good enough. what we need to do is get some better understanding of the fundamentals of the biology behind any of the symptoms that we can get more precise. at that point, i think it will be possible to get more precise treatments. we often say that the pathway to better treatments is better diagnostics. we are very invested in trying to take an illness like depression and understand the five or 10 or 15 forms of this and what will be the best treatment for anyone with any of those particular forms. the question you're asking is a challenging and important one that we need to do deeper science on to be able to give you something that will be more useful so you can get a better outcome and have fewer adverse events that go with whatever treatment you received, whether that is medication or psychotherapy, or device developed for depression. host: marker is in massachusetts. caller: good morning, doctor. bipolar runs in my family strongly. my mother in the 1950's and 1960's would go to a facility and a state hospital. they would just private places. she would be gone three months. when she came home, i believe it is called ect, after those treatments, she will be -- would be fine for about seven years. my son is bipolar. he goes to the hospital, they keep him five days, and he is out. it is not enough time, dr. it is really sad and it is all about the money. your comments, please. guest: i am not going to disagree with you that treatments we have, particularly for hospital stays, are not sufficient. it takes more than five days to get someone on the proper dose of medication, to get them engaged in the right kind of treatments. we do not provide that. the reality is the treatments we provide today do not have the quality that most deserve. we need to do better. you mentioned ect, that is an interesting example. it is a treatment that has been around a long time, not used often, and not really understood. ironically, it is probably the most effective treatment we have for depression, including bipolar depression. when someone is at the end of the rope and is completely dysfunctional. though it sounds radical, this is a treatment that works at about 85% efficacy rate. it is really used in the u.s., partly because of the stigma around the treatment. many people believe it is highly dangerous. we have a modern form that is us as effective and have far fewer side effects. imagine if i told you we had a treatment for dementia that was affected 85% of the time, but no one would use it, and that it was illegal in parts of california. imagine if we had a treatment for pancreatic cancer or rest cancer that was 85% effective that takes two to three weeks to work and requires a brief hospitalization. people would not believe the fact such a treatment was being -- was not being used. there are options. we can do better. but some of this requires a change in policy and a change in how we approach the problem. most of all, remember this is a medical problem, not just social or behavioral. this needs to be taken care of and the health care system, not the criminal justice system, not a place where you deal with it in the homeless shelters. this needs to be in health care arena. host: what is ect and what is this enough -- the stigma? caller: -- guest: this is shock treatment. the statement comes from movies like "one flew over the cuckoo's nest." the fact that it could have been used against someone's will and in ap narrative fashion. though we understand little about how it works, it is the most effective intervention we have for severe depression. host: hasn't it been making a comeback? guest: in a different form. the modern version is called either the transcranial magnetic stimulation, which is done with a magnet and said it electric consultant -- convulsive there p. or you'd do just ect and a small area of the brain. the that attic stimulation though well tolerated does not appear to be as effective as tea. the unit raleigh will -- the unilateral ect seems effective. the memory loss, the biggest problem we had with ect, are about 10% of what they were with the classic bilateral ect. there is an option, here. it is an important avenue, for us. it is important to remember that just like with diabetes, we are not thinking about the magic bullet. there is not going to be a single pill or insufficient that will be the full answer. we want holistic care. you opportunity for drugs, devices, and psychosocial treatments to be available and something that caretakers and families and patients can look at and say what is the best for me. host: next call for dr. insel from the national institutes of mental health comes from virginia. caller: good morning. my problem is -- i have been doing this for 30 years. it appears to me that funding is the problem not the amount, but the way the grants go to the state. often times, the administrative costs take up two thirds of funding to the clients. i have been doing this from the medicaid standpoint. they are paying $37 a day for 24 hour care. that is absurd. you can barely get a hotel room. but this is to provide care and everything. those in charge, their minds seem to be stuck in the past. there is no progressive thinking. everybody likes the status quo because it seems to be acceptable to those in the administrative aspect. host: clans, what you do, you talked about being a provider. caller: i own a facility in virginia. host: when it comes to mental illness, you have -- caller: we house mentally ill people. all degrees. be it mental retardation says schizophrenia. guest: clarence, thank you for that question. that is way outside my lane, i would love to ask you more about it, if you're on the line. you say it is $38 a day or so what is that in respect to what the total cost should be? how sure are you? caller: it should be twice that. if you look at the hourly rate we are making over $1.75 for it. the people providing this care particularly where i am from they are going out of his us left and right because it is impossible to provide care at that rate. it seems -- if a grant fund comes through to any state, first it goes to the state, and the administrative cost from -- big beat up almost all of it. there is a minimum of $37 a day or $38 a day for us. that is pretty much a fact. guest: i am not sure i can give you anything to help on this score. we do not deal with medicaid or with -- which is in the center for medicaid and medicare services, or sam said, which provide service through the mental block health grants. we are on the science and. but it is important to know, something the public is not often appreciate, is how undervalued and underfunded mental health care is. it is interesting to know from clarence when he has to hire somebody to assist what he is able to pay and whether he is able to get the highest -- workers to care for those who has mental health problems but have to use minimum wage workers to get the support. i guess we have to ask ourselves if that is the world we want for those in the greatest need? host: would you like to make a final comment clarence? caller: there seems to be not enough money for research as well. if we could get that money funded properly to keep up with the 21st century, we could get out of this and get some of these people -- most of my clients have been to jail. it is absurd. but maybe some of these people in jail who do not even understand the reality of what they are doing. guest: we hear this over and over again and appreciate your insights. i agree. i think we have to levels of problems. the urgent need for supporting better care in the trenches where all of this is taking place. in the research arena, we have to make those investments and figure out how to offset future costs. we use the example of how insightful it was to invest in developing a polio vaccine rather than funding more and more iron lungs for those affected. you need to support the iron lung until the vaccine, but you do not want to give up on a vaccine that could cure the problem. host: catherine in maryland. please go ahead. caller: good morning, dr. insel. i have a comment about -- a question about it, you made earlier in reference to marijuana. i believe you said there is research on it inducing -- let me try to get this right. if a person has tendencies or propensities of mental illness if they use marijuana at an early age, like during their teen years, perhaps they can bring it on faster. is that the statement you made? guest: the data that have come mostly from the institute of psychology -- psychiatry in london suggests that the heavy use of marijuana is a risk factor for the onset of psychosis. the question is whether those same people would have had a psychotic event without it. we never quite know. those studies have not been done. the figure they provide is about a 13-fold increase in risk from heavy smoking of marijuana. we are talking people under the age of 18 or 20. that is a group of adolescents and young adults. caller: i find that fascinating, simply because my brother -- he was a heavy marijuana smoker in his teen years. in my family there is a history of mental illness. he was diagnosed in his 20's with full-fledged schizophrenia. i am wondering for someone like him, which i have always believed that his marijuana usage kind of heightened the risk factor for him developing schizophrenia at such a young age, if there is a way in which he can live a normal life without -- i believe he takes an injection every month -- if there is any hope for people in that situation where they can reverse the schizophrenia at some point. is there research on that? guest: i am not sure we have reversal in the lingo, but recovery is very much what we are looking for. making sure the symptoms are in check and the thought processes are enforced well enough so that they can get back to work and get on with life. that happens for many people. i want to tag something you said by way of describing your brother that is an important observation that many of us miss. for someone who has the onset of psychosis at age 20, 21, 22 -- it is always before age 25 -- the new view is that that is the end of a long process. like the way we talk about a heart attack. heart attacks happen after years of narrowing of your coronary arteries. in this case, the concept is that schizophrenia is an illness that begins much earlier. that psychosis is a late stage of it. that what your brother was going through at age 14 or 18, when he was not only smoking a lot of marijuana by becoming more socially isolated may be had some odd ideals already, but not really getting the help he needed, we call it the prodrome may be two or three years before the psychotic episode that people are already affected by this illness. the question is can we intervened by providing the proper support to prevent the psychotic episode. that is what is driving us now. we expect 100,000 people have a first psychotic episode in the united states. most will be under the age of 25. the question is how did we get ahead of that and make sure that number is under 50,000. what can we do to the back -- to detect and then preempt this psychotic event. that is what will allow people to continue to finish school, or into relationships, and thrive. it could make an enormous difference in bending the curve on what would otherwise become a chronic disease with chronic disability. host: what is the definition of psychosis? guest: psychosis is when someone loses their contact with reality. we usually think of hearing voices, severe paranoid ideas that people are chasing you reading your mind, sending signals from outer space to monitor year. a whole range of problems with thought processes that do not follow any logical continue him. what people often experience is tremendous anxiety and fear. it is scary to have your thoughts start to run out of control in a way that take you to places you find very threatening. it is obvious when you see it. someone on the street talking to themselves -- unless they have a cell phone connected to them -- that is what it looks like. host: sam in manassas virginia. caller: good morning. guest: good morning. caller: you listen to mostly -- a man makes the system to be broken -- host: i'm going to interrupt you, you are hard to understand with the connection we have. if you will just make your statement and we will get a response from dr. insel. you're talking about muslim terrorists? are you putting that in a mental illness category? caller: yes. in relation to mental illness is there a possibility that young people have melt -- have mental illness that makes them think -- host: i think we got the point. thank you. guest: let me make sure i get the question, maybe you could repeat it for me. host: he was talking about, this was sam's point that muslim terrorists get into a mindset to i guess, attack. i may be paraphrasing, your new sleep. -- erroneously. if you could make it more general. guest: the concept of if there is young people who get into terrorist organizations because of a mental illness or a need to belong. i do not think we have good evidence for that. i do not know much about what drives people into these organizations. those with mental illnesses are not joiners, but rather loners. they have a difficult time connecting to other people and a difficult time functioning when they are ill. i appreciate the concept that those who might become dangerous or terrorists or become adversaries have a brain disorder, but i do not think we have data that would support that concept. it takes us on a slippery slope when you begin to label people who disagree with us, in any way, as having an illness instead of a disagreement. host: bryan is in iowa. a few minutes left with our guest. caller: how are you doing? i have a question, wondering about what the doctor thought about this. i have a party that touches the subject to talk about when it comes to mental illness. that is social security disability and how we take care of people financially who are mentally ill. i am 46, will be 47 soon. i came down with a mental illness because of an incident that occurred at age 21 that cause me to become a very fearful and paranoid. none of this had ever happened to me before. i went home -- i had gone to work in california -- host: we are a little tight on time, so you want to talk about social security disability and mental illness and how do you want to tie that together? caller: the thing is is people on social security disability like myself who have a mental illness and cannot work a full-time job are getting -- even though i am so grateful for the help i am getting, quite frankly, the amount of money i get each month is not enough for me to survive on. i have to rely on other help -- host: let's get an answer from dr. insel. guest: brian, thank you for bringing this up. i do not know enough about your individual situation, but the national situation is worth commenting on. 60% of people who get ssi welfare, or social security income, 60% of those under 65 have mental illness. it is the largest single group. it accounts for some and like $28 billion each year in the u.s. the most recent year we have the numbers for it is 2013. that is about where it plays out in that year. it seems like an enormous amount of money when you say $28 billion, but the reality is that is covering some 3 million people. it is also a large number of people. the average payment is about $600 a month depending on where you live and your situation. the question is is that enough to live on an obviously it is not, almost anywhere. the problem we are facing is how do we get around that. does that mean we spend more money, provide different services, are there different expectations, limit who gets it. there is a limited amount of resources and a great need, so we have this mismatch between supply and demand. i do not have an answer by think it is an important conversation to have. host: that will end our segment with dr. thomas insult, director of the national institute of mental health. thank you for being on washington journal. you have probably heard of this book. "clinton cash: the untold story of how foreign governments and businesses made dylan hillary clinton rich." peter schweizer is the author and will be with us in a minute. ♪ >> the new congressional directory is a handy guide to the 114th congress, with caller photos of every senator and house member and bio and health information -- and contact information as well as twitter handles, distant maps, a capitol hill map, and a look at congressional committees, the president's cabinet, federal agencies, and state governors. order it on the c-span store at c-span.org. here's a look at some of our featured programs on the c-span networks. saturday morning at 10:00 eastern on c-span, we are live for the gop freedom summit. wisconsin governor scott walker, texas senator ted cruz, carly fiorina, ben carson, and florida senator marco rubio will speak. noon eastern on sunday, members of the first families remember first ladies, featuring the daughters of jackie kennedy lady bird johnson, and laura bush. saturday night at 10:00 eastern, author jon krakauer on sexual assaults on campuses. sunday evening at 10:00 the first female four-star general talks about her life and military career. on american history c-span, saturday at 4:45 eastern on oral histories, remembering the liberation of nazi concentration camps with an interview of kurt klein who escaped the german presentation of jews by coming to the u.s., lost his parents at auschwitz, and questioned hitler's personal driver. and the 70th anniversary of the end of world war ii in europe sunday at 2:00. get our complete schedule at c-span.org. " washington journal" continues. host: the new unemployment numbers are out. 5.4% is the unemployment rate. 223,000 added. a seven-year low for unemployment in the united states. "clinton cash" is the name of the book. peter schweizer joins us from tallahassee. on page 100 83, you write that the clintons are perhaps the most politically's -- of their generation. they know how things work in the corridor's of power and around the world. they know that foreign governments are trying to influence machen foreign policy and they know that bribery is rampant around the world. they have numerous avenues for making money. some of those avenues may not be as lucrative as giving a $700,000 speech in nigeria, but they would be much -- guest: one of the defenses you hear from the clinton camp is that they are unaware of certain things, or perhaps there is nothing seriously afoot with all the money flowing to the clinton foundation or to them as speaking fees. but they have been players on the international stage a long time. a lot of the people who pay for speeches by bill clinton they are not an insurance company in the u.k. or a media company in germany. these are companies that operate in places like nigeria, south america, and some of these individuals have sketchy histories as it relates to issues involving financial crime. i think the clintons are not ones who would be shocked that there is gambling going on as it was set in the film. they know exactly what is going on. that is what it is -- that is what is troubling, that they do not seem to have a filter that prevents them from taking money from sketchy characters. host: why don't some of these foreign governments or leaders give money directly to their own countries where it is needed rather than the clinton foundation? guest: that is a great question. christopher hitchens, a liberal writer, asked that very question and asked why is it you have these oligarchies in the third world in places like india or africa, why are they sending multimillion dollar checks 10,000 miles away to the clinton foundation, ostensibly to send that money back to do work in their own countries. the answer that hitchens gave was it is because it was a way of influence peddling. with a former president and a former president whose wife is first a powerful senator and then the secretary of state. that is what i think is mystifying. if you are in india and concerned about development poverty, you name it, it does not make a whole lot of sense to send it to new york city. why not work with the legitimate charities in india doing the same thing? that is one of the things. in addition, the timing of these donations is puzzling. host: kazakhstan, walk us through what happened. guest: causing stone is an oppressive government that has ruled that there since the collapse of the soviet union. they are rich in minerals. they have a lot of uranium which of course fuels civilian nuclear technology and military nuclear technology. in september of 2005, l clinton is there was a canadian mining investor -- bill clinton is there with a canadian mining investor. clinton says nice things about the dictator of context on. in a couple of days, the canadian investor is granted uranium concessions. he later spends $30 million to the clinton foundation. if that is not interesting enough, this uranium deposit becomes part of a company called uranium one, a canadian company. they start acquiring uranium rights in the u.s. his is a small uranium company but eight other individuals connected with this company also start making major contribution to the clinton foundation. the chairman rights multimillion dollar checks. those contributions were never disclosed by the clinton foundation. we found them in canadian tax records. the financiers in the company are major clinton foundation contributors. you have a shareholder who was not only a shareholder in uranium one, he is also an advisor to the clinton foundation and a major donor to the clinton foundation. all of these assets are accumulated and is flowing to the clinton foundation. then the russian government arrives and does we want to buy uranium one, because they have had a long interest in cornering the uranium market. this is a personal desire of vladimir putin. he authorizes the release of funds to buy this uranium company. in order for russia to acquire 20% said 25% of all uranium assets in the u.s. it requires federal approval. there is a committee that requires a number of government agencies to sign off on this deal including the state department. they do sign off on the deal. what is troubling about hillary clinton in this is that no other government agency that approves this is headed by somebody who received $145 million to their foundation from denying individuals connected with this firm. the second thing troubling is that hillary clinton had a history of opposing precisely these kinds of deals. where a foreign government wanted to buy a critical industry in the united states. both of those things raise questions about what her involvement was in this. the clinton campaign says she has no knowledge of this, was not involved in this. national polls show more than half of the american people question her trustworthiness and honesty. i do not think her verbal statement on this is going to be enough. i think there needs to be further investigation to see what precisely her role was. if three years from now we had a secretary of defense who had a private foundation that received 145 million dollars from shareholders and a foreign company that had business for the pentagon, it would not be enough to say did you do anything to help them? they would be in investigation and i think there should be one here. host: page five. "given my previous focus on bipartisan self-dealing and corruption, why am i focused on one couple?" you write. do i simply have it in for billing hillary? what is the question to that answer? guest: the last five and six years, my writing has been focused on following the money in politics. i wrote about insider trading congress members and both political parties, that this pattern of stock trading. in a book that followed up on that, i looked at what i regard as extorted fundraising practices by political parties on both sides. i got the displeasure of john boehner as a result of that book. the clintons are unique and fit into this pattern. no post residency has been marked by as much money making as bill clinton has engaged in. between 2000 and one and 2012, they took in some 30 $600 million -- that is impressive in school. they have created a new model. if this model is allowed to continue and is successful will be adopted by others. the model is getting around rules and laws we have in place that prevent foreign entities from influencing american politics. a foreign company cannot give campaign contributions to american elections. with the clinton foundation and the ability to pay speaking fees to the spouse of the secretary of state, foreign entities have a way of giving money to families of elected officials in the hope of influencing them. i think that is troubling. host: peter schweizer a way for america and media matters have with lists of what they say are errors that you made in prison cashbook -- in "clinton cash." from -- from media matters schweitzer admitted he omitted key information about clinton foundation donors. schweitzer's owing -- is anything you think hillary for america or media matters have gotten right in the book? guest: no. what is surprising is they say the book is a doubt, but their actions do not indicate that is what they believe. if you look at the list of errors -- i am glad to go into details on every of them -- it is a classic example of misdirection. one of the things in the video they put out from the spokesman was this statement that in this uranium deal, the shareholder sold his shares in the company before hillary clinton became secretary of state. i point that out in the book, we do not know if he has shares or not. the problem is the spokesperson does not talk about the eight other individuals who are giving to the clinton foundation and our shareholders of the deal, who are chairman of the company engaged in the company giving to the clinton foundation during the time the state department is considering this deal. they want to selectively steer the conversation one way without looking at the larger fat. they are hoping people will not actually read the narrative of the book and they will take their word for it. i think that is remarkable on their part. host: "clinton cash" is the name of the book and peter schweizer is the author. phone numbers are on the screen. you can also go to our ace book page facebook.com/cspan. we have a discussion there on the book and the topic. we begin with john in montana. you are on with peter schweizer. caller: hello peter. i would like to speak to the fact of people like george stephanopoulos and your host the other day attacking you, personally, on your ability to do research on the clinton project. all they look for is personal attacks. i would like for you to defend yourself there. guest: i do not feel that the current conversation is a personal attack. i think it is fair to raise questions about the research in the project. i will say that the stephanopoulos interview was a little odd in that george stephanopoulos worked for the clintons. he was part of the war room for the clinton campaign. he mentioned that for four months, i was a speech writer in the george w. bush white house. but he certainly served the clinton administration longer than four months. i thought that was an interesting decision on the part of abc news. i do not mind a vigorous conversation. what is troubling is the allies of the clintons who have engaged in vicious personal attacks against me. they try to misinterpret or dredge up a book i wrote 17 years ago and they do not want to talk about this. they want to talk about everything but this. i am encouraged by the fact that a lot of media outlets the new york times, abc news, have all confirmed reporting in the book. i think it is now incumbent on the clintons to stop the sly statements that former president clinton has said about me and engage in the conversation about eight troubling fact pattern. host: you ask in your book "i realize how shocking these allegations may appear. are these activities illegal? that is not for me to say," you write. guest: if you look at the tone of this book, and the wall street journal has a column about this. i am not a throwing, contrary to the clintons's claim. i'm not making outrageous accusations. i am laying out the fact. that is what i am doing. i am not and do not pretend to be an attorney. if you look at some of the recent cases of political prosecutions on corruption whether that is mcdonnell in virginia senator menendez in new jersey, or the case in oregon with the governor and his resignation, i contend that from what we know now, the fact pattern with the clintons is far more troubling and developed than in any of those cases. i inc. this warrants investigation by either the fbi a federal prosecutor, or by a congressional committee with subpoena power. you need to look at communication, have people under oath, and ask serious questions about the flow of funds and the decisions she made as secretary of state and how they benefit those who were giving her family money. host: california, democrat. caller: good morning. i have one question. please, not a short answer. do not answer this shortly. i want an explanation. would you show as much enthusiasm if you are writing about the koch brothers? thank you. guest: i focused my research on elected public officials. i think that private citizens -- we can have a rigorous debate about the role of money in politics, about if there is too much or whether there ought to be restrictions. the koch brothers do not actually vote or chart policy. i look at you elected officials. that is what i did in extortion. i took to task both political parties and got criticized by john boehner and other republicans for those books. hillary clinton was america's chief diplomat. she charted america's foreign-policy. she had enormous power over national security and our posture overseas. her husband took in tens of millions of dollars in funds from foreign governors, foreign corporations, and from foreign financiers over her tenure that had business on her desk. the results are astonishing. one example the caller might be interested, consider this. hillary clinton, as secretary of state, is reviewing the environmental impact and making a designation on the keystone xl pipeline, a very controversial issue. during that time, her husband signs up to do 10 speeches for about $2 million to a financial firm in canada, one of the largest shareholders in keystone xl pipeline stock. they had never paid a speech for him before, when she was not secretary of state or reviewing the keystone xl pipeline. suddenly they offer him $2 million to do the speeches and heat badly does them. -- and he gladly does them. three months after that, hillary clinton green lights that pipeline. you see that replicated over and over again. i would ask the caller cannot give me a short answer as to whether he would read the book, but actually read the book. if you do not want to put money in my pocket, go to the library. give it serious consideration. these are troubling patterns of behavior. they have not challenged any of them. the payments, the timing, who they got their money from, the decisions hillary clinton has made. host: politico recently reported that you are looking into jeb bush for a potential book. guest: yes. we are engaged in research for about four months. as governor of florida, you do not have the global scope as the secretary of state. with the clintons, you have a longer time in public service then jeb bush. but we are following the same methodology. flow of funds. it is always follow the money for me. it is about flow of funds, did decisions benefit those contributing to campaigns are giving to jeb bush's foundation, what he did a couple years after he left the governor's mansion that was connected to it individuals that benefited when he was governor. we're looking at airport and land deals, things related to educational reform. we expect a major report out in september. we are following the same model that we did here. partnering with major investigative units of major publications because they have a capacity to get answers from political figures that i cannot, as an author. authors tend to get ignored by political figures. if you get a call from the washington post, the new york times, abc news, you will engage because you kind of have to. host: john is in pennsylvania. go ahead. republican. caller: thanks for having me. you have done a page out of duty. -- a patriotic duty. for you to partner with the new york times, the washington post -- these are far left organizations. you are very credible. i have been aware of the -- i was troubled, personally, back from as soon as president clinton left office. he immediately embarked on this page speechmaking. he went before financial institutions, lobbyist. getting up to $500,000. as you indicated earlier, they made the clintons, between the two of them with look advances and speeches, they made over $100 million in two years. as far as this foundation, this is a whole new idea. if are getting all this money and this foundation. as i understand, they are spending on the actual -- helping the poor about 15% of the funds of that, into the foundation. the rest of it goes to salaries and headquarters -- host: guest: i think the color brings up a lot of good points. i think we all recognize ex-president are going to the lecture circuit and i don't think we might it at a certain level. with the clintons it is troublesome because bill clinton's wife at the time is a powerful u.s. senator and has become secretary of state. when you look at the pattern of the money they are from the speeches, it is troubling. consider one statistic. bill clinton has been paid 13 times a total of -- a total of 13 times during his speaking career $500,000 or more to give a speech. of those 13 times, 11 occurred while here -- while his wife was secretary of state. it is hard to not see them for what they are. bill clinton has never given a paid speech in nigeria when his wife was not secretary of state. she becomes secretary of state. a businessman in nigeria who is very close to nigerian government is highly corrupt contracts for him to give to speeches for $700,000. as secretary of state, one of the things that secretary clinton has to do is look at foreign aid recipients at the government of nigeria and if they have rampant corruption and they are not improving it, federal law says they are not to get a. --aid. the only way they can get u.s. aid is at the secretary of state grants them a waiver. which secretary clinton did. you can look at this and say one is a coincidence, but you find a pattern repeated over and over again. with regards to the colors question about the foundation they give about 10% of their money to other charitable organizations. the clinton foundation model is incredibly unique. you look at the website and you see bill clinton and chelsea and hillary clinton holding children in africa or in asia. but the clinton foundation really does not do a lot of hands-on work with people in those countries. they partner with other organizations that do. they function as a kind of middlemen. the world needs its middlemen but it is not like doctors without borders or american red cross or some of these other organizations that are actually doing the hands-on work. the foundation is more like a management consulting firm working in the area of charity. this is the reason why for example a charity navigator which is well regarded as a evaluator of charities, they will not rate the clinton foundation because what they call "a unique is this model." and they lack internal controls as early as two finances and governments, etc.. host: eugene in kentucky. go ahead. caller: first of all, i am not a republican democrat, did libertarian. i am an american and i do not believe in being affiliated with a party. might question is -- my question is if you and i or any other average american were brought up in question by congress and asked to give over information and we destroyed it, would we be walking the streets or would we be behind bars? congress gives them 30 days. they gave them 30 days to destroy evidence and that is exactly what they did. if we did that, they would come into our home. host: eugene, i think we got the point. peter? caller:guest: you are referring to the e-mails and servers and i think it was a big problem. hillary clinton was on the watergate committee as a junior lawyer. there were 18 minutes that richard nixon erased. we are talking about 30,000 e-mails that it just vanished. on top of that, you have the additional problem is a point out that hillary clinton, as a condition of becoming secretary of state, this was something that resident elect obama insisted on, they were required to give all the conservators of the clinton foundation. hillary clinton promised the same thing in her testimony before the senate foreign relations committee. bill clinton went on cnn and said we will have complete transparency. as we were researching this book and went through canadian tax records, we found that low in the hole that was not true. there were undisclosed donors, including the chairman of this russian owned uranium company that gave $2 million. those donations do not show up on the clinton foundation website. it is now betting knowledge that there are more than 1100 donors that have been non-disclosed. i think we're going to find there are more. think about this for a second. the president-elect of the united states, barack obama, signed a written agreement with him that you were going to share all the conservator information that you have. annually, on a basis for you taking the job. some of these donations start flowing early in 2009. almost immediately you violate the agreement. that is shocking. really, to me, raises huge amounts of questions. i think that's one of the reasons you have such a high percentage of the american people in these recent surveys that say they do not trust her or believe she is honest. host: greg is calling in from virginia. a democrat. caller: good morning. i appreciate the research you have done here. i am a democrat, but i'm definitely against the clinton dynasty as i see it. and also the bush dynasty. i have to ask. it does sound bad and i'm not surprised at all. i think it is one of those absolute power corrupts absolutely and this is not surprise me in any way. i have to ask you with your resources to me i am wondering if you would ever consider researching dick cheney and george bush in regards to the iraq war and the halliburton connection and all those things where i really feel like there was a lot of money made through that bore --war where we should never have gone in there. i think it was a lie. i think it is much worse than the corruption that the clintons i'm sure are involved with. we have wonderful american soldiers losing their lives. that to me is a far worse sin so to speak. have you considered -- host: peter? guest: i have considered looking at things in the past. i tend to look at things that are contemporary. i always think it is a legitimate issue in a fair path of investigation and i know there are people that have done some work in that area. i think it is always legitimate to ask questions about when an elected official is making decisions, who is making money on it. i am not suggesting that every elected official, that it is the only tech elation they made. i think there are other things that factor into it. maybe the money does not matter. what i am most troubled by in those concerned by is looking at patterns. that is what your me to the insider trading of the stock market. it is one thing if a guy makes a lucky stock trade at a certain time, but when you find an elected official who seems to be really good at predicting the stock market and he is buying stocks that are in an area like health care where he is on the committee that looks at health care, that is a problem. what drew me to the clintons is the cluster and the consistent pattern of the flow of funds. i think it is always a legitimate issue and should be researched because any elected government official, republican or democrat, when they are in a position of power, they have enormous livability to hurt -- capability to hurt people or help people. i think it is always there to say he was being helped and hurt and if there is any financial motivation or connection there. host: if you want to participate you can go to our facebook page for the conversation is happening about clinton cash. here are some of the comments. james says, "why don't they help the american people with that cash." josh says "if the book is full of lies in the clintons should sue for slander." john gutierrez posts, "quit making the sky credible. he is a conservative flamethrower from back in the day." host:next call for peter comes from peter in valley cottage, new york. republican line. caller: thank you very much for what you have done. i think you are a patriot, but unfortunately this investigation will go nowhere. the fbi director will not investigate the attorney general -- the attorney general would not investigate as you recall. with the lois lerner situation director mueller did nothing to investigate. mrs. clinton was part of the obama administration and his appointees will not do anything that turnage is his administration. -- tarnished his administration. former president clinton, he stated and when he was being interviewed that he did not say he -- they did anything wrong. he said there is no evidence here it you know as well as i do that if it were uri and we did what we did with our server with our e-mail, the fbi would of been there that very day to confiscate your computer. this is good because it exposes it but as far as justice is concerned, nothing will be done. i propose that they should change the way these appointees are appointed. they should be from the opposite party in order to get a little bit of transparency. but when it is a friend of the president is the attorney general, there were none would be justice. thank you, sir. guest: i think the caller raises a good point. when the department of justice or fbi chooses to investigate, there are clinical pressures that are brought to bear. i am not an attorney. i do not pretend to know exactly how the process works. i think by any objective standard if you compare the evidence that we have in this case in this book, and you compare the two cases, whether it is in virginia or senator menendez in new jersey or out in oregon, it is far more compelling here than it wasn't in -- was in those instances. that's why this information is crying out for attention. i am encouraged because i think a lot of news outlets are pursuing the stories. they sort of get the structure now of what is been going on. they see how the system works that the clintons have set up around themselves or self-enrichment. they are mining these rich veins for further information and i think we will continue to see stories on this. it will not go away. then there is the question of political courage. whether it is people that are at the department of justice. whether it is people on capitol hill that have subpoena power. whether it is a u.s. prosecutor somewhere. to have the courage to take on a very powerful political machine that very aggressively goes after people that even question the practices. there is no question is going to take courage. i am an optimist by nature and i think that is how we have to approach these things. that justice will win out in the end. host: eugene from jackson, michigan honor democrats line. "clinton cash" is the name of the book. caller: this book to me is what your guest is made a living from. the entire republican party is -- has made a living off the clintons for 25 years. the more books and stuff, the more popular they are in the better off they are. this book year is one of the best things that hillary clinton's has got to be elected president. well, you make a living off of this. that is "clinton cash" and that is what you were making. if you would you change something, have the fortitude to run for public office. you know there is not as much money and that is what you are doing right now. host: mr. schweitzer? guest: this is the first book i've written on the clintons and i think if the color's --caller's thesis is correct that i look forward to purchases from the hillary clinton super pac. they have done two things simultaneously. they have claimed there is nothing to this book, that it is a dud. they have also belted a very aggressive campaign against me. so what is it? is it a debtor something you are concerned about? i think they are concerned about it. they are see the recent poll numbers. well over half of the american people do not consider hillary clinton trustworthy. their approach to this matter, i think it reinforces it. she has not discussed these issues at all. she avoids it when the press for ask your questions about it. when the book was first coming out they selectively leaked it to allies in the press. they even had chelsea come out to vouch for the wonderful work the foundation is doing and the ethics of the family. when that did not work they had bill clinton make these sort of bizarre statements about me from africa. it still has not gone away. the question becomes does an individual that wants to be the leader of the free world president of the united states doesn't she want to just come out and answer some simple questions about this? that is really all that people are expecting. host: as this book will try to show you, speechmaking doesn't happen in a vacuum. it is part of a larger pattern of activity that is never before been exposed to public scrutiny." you go on to say there is nothing clearly illegal about these payments. "their source, size, and timing raises serious questions deserving of deeper investigation." mr. sweitzer's book is published by harpercollins. a close associate of the clintons will be on "washington journal" on monday morning to take your calls as well. alan in michigan. guest:caller: you guys are always doing the same thing. you're trying to hate a lot of hate and discontent over every little episode the goes on. i recalled you saying earlier that you want to do bush-cheney, halliburton, but it's all about chasing the money. you would to chase the money but you don't want to go i too far. you go back to far, you are dealing with cheney and bush and halliburton and iraq and weapons of mass destruction. foxnews and you guys like you all you do is put hate and discontent in the country. let amulet -- ambulance chaser lawyers and hustlers making money off of hate and discontent. host: peter? guest: i am not sure of the caller heard the part of the conversation. we are doing an investigation of jeb bush. unlike dick cheney, he is contemplating running for president. we think that is relevant and people ought to see what information is there. i would encourage him in september, if he is so inclined, to see what our reporting and what information comes out. on this larger point, i would encourage -- he probably does not want to buy the book. go to the library and read it. there is not a hateful word in the book. it is very dispassionate. there is a column in "the wall street journal" talking about is just basically recounting the facts and laying up the narrative. you have guys like professor jeffrey sachs from columbia university who is hardly a conservative who heads up the institute, and is on msnbc this morning talking about the fact that yeah, it is right. the clintons are lowering the lines. there are some trouble some things going on. i am not sure what to tell the caller. i do not think it is helpful -- hateful to bring up concerns about foreign money flowing to the family of the secretary of state while she is making decisions that affect them. i think that is a legitimate story. host: page 113. "the ericsson corporation decided to sponsor a speech by bill clinton and paid him more than he ever been paid for signal speech. $750,000. according to clinton financial disclosures, ericsson had never sponsored a clinton speech but now it apparently thought would be a good time to do so." what you mean by this a big a time? what was happening? guest: this was in 2011 when they decided to give them the single biggest payday ever. $750,000 racing will speech. as you recounted, they had never paid them for a speech before. ericsson, the swedish telecom company, was in trouble with the state department at this time. they had been selling telecom equip into a run. --iran. they had been named in state department reports about selling a club into belarus, another oppressive government. they were state department cables a came out the wiki leaks that the state department officials under hillary clinton were pressuring the sweetest foreign minister -- swedish foreign minister on companies like ericsson that were dealing with -- doing this. why would they decided this point in time to pay bill clinton this outrageously inflated speaking fee that is higher than he'd ever been paid before? i think that context is extremely important. you can look at that case and say, well, maybe it is coincidence. but you have the same thing with the keystone xl pipeline case i brought up. you have a case involving the united arab emirates that takes place. there are multiple examples would just the timing of these payments and the size just is not pass the smell test. it deserves further scrutiny here it host: host: next call comes from taylor in south carolina. go ahead. caller: thank you for having made. i want to talk about big money and politics. especially from foreign donators. that really raises my eyebrows. it was donating and what their dating for because they could potentially inhibit a national security risk. you never know what their agenda are. we know when they come around barely go this way or go that way. i seriously think that taking foreign donations from anybody outside of united states is a big no-no and essentially we should put a gap on the national amount you can get. that way we can get a little bit more content there here for the american people and they're not can be bought and basically -- and another thing, jeb bush -- host: i'm going to stick with the foreign money concept that you brought up. guest: i think the caller brings up a great point. that is what a think is so troubling to make the situation with a clinton so unique. we have a vigorous debate in the united states about the role of money in politics. is it free speech? should there be recessions on it? are the restrictions too low or too high? that is a vigorous debate that we are going to continue to have. what we do not have a debate on is the fact that anybody seriously think scott have foreign money and living -- influencing our political process to there was a case brought a couple of years before the supreme court were couple of foreign nationals sued to say it was unconstitutional to prevent foreign nationals from intervening to campaigns. the supreme court came back 9-0. when was the last time that happened? nine have been zero to say no, this is an eminently sensible rule. we have this national consensus on foreign money. what you have of the clinton foundation and bill clinton's speechmaking is a conduit for foreign businesses, foreign governments, and foreign financiers around those rules. and to say they are tossing tens of millions and sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars of the clintons, but will have no effect strikes me as absurd. especially if you're the same person concerned about domestic more -- money in politics here it. in one case you're dealing with u.s. citizens and the other case you're dealing with citizens who should have no role in influencing our leaders. host: michael from georgia. caller: good morning. this is really funny listening to this republican powwow. for the next year we're going up to listen to clowns like this here it i have worked in the government. there is no way publicans working in the state department because there are republicans working in the state department would sit back and allow hillary clinton -- president clinton to be bought off. this guy is going out a bunch of accusations and this and that. and he has no proof. c-span should be a ashamed for having him on for an hour with nobody to speak another side. thank you. guest: i'm sure lanny davis will do an adequate job when he appears on monday. all i can say to the caller is i would encourage you to at least read the book. you condemned it before you even read it. your statement about people that were not allowed this to happen. one of the things i point out in the book is -- and a book called "the clinton blur" is how at the state department hillary clinton rot in people to senior positions and gave some of those people sge, special government employee status, which allows them to maintain their outside commitments. you have commit -- individuals doing the work for the clinton foundation that are also working for the state department at the same time. they did this by abusing a law that i've been set of years ago. this law was set up so if you had an astrophysicist at university that nasa needed their expertise and they would not have to give up their tenured position, they could come to work for nasa for six months to help them on a project and then go back. the clintons abuse that and put political operatives in as as ge employees. -- sge employees. i understand the caller has his views and i respect them, but it is a little hard to condemn something when you have not read it and do not even aware of what the book contains. host: in the clinton book blurb chapter chapter five has a story about going. -- boeing. peter schweitzer is the author. the untold story of how and white foreign businesses made bill and hillary rich is the subtitle. peter sweitzer will be both tv's guest on july 5. he will spend the hours talking about all of his books and taking calls as well. lanny davis will be on the washington journal on monday to respond to some of the things that mr. spicer -- esther sweitzer writes about an "clinton cash." guest: always a pleasure, thank you peter. host: will be looking at the financial health of state governments following the 2000 and recession. -- 2008 recession. ♪ >> they were wives and mothers. some had children and grandchildren who became residents and politicians. they dealt with the joys and triumphs of motherhood. the pleasure, and sometimes chaos of raising small children. and the tragedy of loss. just in time for mother's day first ladies with of the personal lives of every first lady in american history. many of whom raise families in the white house. lively stories of fascinating women and illuminating, entertaining, and inspiring read based on original interviews from c-span's first ladies series. "first ladies" is available in hardcover and e-book and makes a great mother's day gift from your favorite bookstore or online bookseller. >> this sunday night at 8:00 eastern on our original series first ladies, we look into the lives of two first ladies. elizabeth monroe brokerage addition of making social calls to washington's political society. she spoke french inside the white house. and gained a reputation for being cleanly by her critics. catherine adams is the only first lady today born outside the united states. she played an important role in her husband's 1824 residential campaign, get had difficulty winning the approval of her mother-in-law. former first lady, abigail adams. elizabeth monroe and louisa catherine adams sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's original series, "first ladies." examining the public and private lives of the women who filled the position of first ladies and their influence on the presidency. sundays at 8:00 eastern on american history tv on c-span3. >> "washington journal" continues. host: and now a look at the physical health of the state -- fiscal health of the states falling the 2008 recession. cheryl hill late. she is with the u.s. census bureau. she is a state finance and tax statistics branch chief. also joining us is tracy gordon of the workings tax policy -- brookings tax policy center. thank you for both being here. tracy, let's begin with you. are the state fiscally healthy? guest: they are doing a lot better than they were five years ago. revenues have been increasing for about six quarters, give or take a couple of quarters where estimates are not come out and the because of actions by the federal government and uncertainty at the federal level. job cuts have abated. you heard of lot about job cuts today. the new report says state and local jobs are up by about 8000. that is good news. local governments were a drag on the national economy for less of the -- for the last love years and now they are good again. they detracted from gdp growth. they contributed about one third of a percentage point positive growth because of their consumption and investment activities. during the recession they actually took away from economic output. host: i read a report that state government took in $2 trillion. that is about the size the federal government. that's about the same size. that has increased over the last years since the recession. is it because of tax increases or is it because of red -- revenue increases by job growth, etc., or is it accommodation? guest: taxes have been cut over the last couple of years. i think some governors are eager to get rid of their income taxes and increase sales taxes to during the recession, there was some temporary tax increases. a report that my initiative put together shows that about half of those expired on schedule as you would expect. i think the revenue increases we're seeing now reflect improvement and fundamentals. guest: just to give you a sense of what was really causing an increase. for one thing, i want to mention in 2012 there was a higher level of its miniatures compared revenues. in 2013, that story reversed to revenue being greater. one of the major drivers was the social insurance trust revenues. i don't know it if you have slight three available that talks about the different types of revenues, but basically the state pension system is what brought that up. it was large increases in that area. that is what brought that major increase. it was not from taxes as tracy mentioned here. there were unrealized gains in the investments in that market and that is what made it. there were over $200 million increase in a sector alone. host: was that because of growth in the pensions or because of more contributions to the pensions? guest: more that the market improved because of the way the economy was going. host: let's look at this. the census bureau has prepared a whole series of charts to help explain why states are doing better. we will put the numbers up on the screen. if you want to participate, if you want to talk about your state whether it's fiscal health is back and what you think about that, we have a policy analyst and a person who put -- you did all the work. guest: thank you. [laughter] host: you can see the numbers on the screen. state government total revenue surpassed total expenditure. guest: that is essentially what i was talking about. that large differential between total revenue and expenditure for 2013. that was driven by the state pensions area of insurance trust revenues. insurance trust revenues are made up of a few components. workmen compensation, on compensation, and the state pension system. it's the state pension part that had that increase. and that is what can germany to that $210 billion -- host: and how is that changed in the last couple of years, particularly since the recession? guest: i can tell you as far as in 2008 and 2009 for instance, the expenditures exceeded revenues in those two years. in the years following that, 2010 and 2011, they were -- the remedies were greater than expenditures here at but then there was a step back again in 2012 where x managers exceeded revenues again. for 2013, that was a big story. revenues were up again and this market was increasing and showing improvement in the economy. host: cheryl hill lee, what are we looking at here? guest: with personal income taxes we can see the trend and how the economy was going by looking at the personal income tax revenue. with this chart, we are looking at -- there is a lag and income taxes. income taxes -- it is not a predictor of a recession. it shows you what is happening afterwards. host: during the recession time, tax revenues go down? guest: then they start to rebound. host: do we make -- a more in-state income tax or federal? guest: more in federal taxes. the federal government has an advantage when it comes to raising revenue. it is a lot harder to evade taxation by leaving the country for example. some people have done that. in europe, for example, it is easy to do. it is easy from move from state to state to evade taxation. governors warn if you raise taxes too much people will leave. generally the federally -- the federal government raises more revenue. state and local governments have an advantage when it comes to spending money. they can tailor programs to local geography level -- local needs. host: i want to ask about two states you use this case studies here it wisconsin, because of some the issues we've seen up there with regard to the unions and public pensions and etc., what is the health of wisconsin? guest: wisconsin is facing some budget challenges because of the tax cut that is made. i have not been keeping up the latest with wisconsin, but you have a number of states that have a $600 million shortfall because of income tax cuts. on the other hand, north carolina says it is exceeding its revenue estimates even of it drastically cut its income taxes. the presumption of a lot of governors is if you cut income taxes you will see gains in growth that offset the revenue losses. in some places we are seeing that they are out. although we do not know why that is. it is not obvious because of the tax increases. the brookings institution has looked at growth over time in response to tax rates and found that the results are sensitive to which years you look at. it is not really a robust relationship, but we have this grand extremity going on. host: california? guest: ah. it is also exceeding revenue estimates. host: why? guest: the health of the economy. it is a high income state. it is very reliant on an income tax would puts it in a precarious position because when the income taxes good, it is very good. when it is back, it is awful. the chart that cheryl brought shows is not the same expense for all states, but some states for reliant on the income tax and had large challenges to face during the recession. host: what is your home state? guest: pennsylvania. host: what is the status of pennsylvania? guest: pennsylvania has a new governor, tom wolf, trying to push through tax reform. i have not been tracking the day-to-day deficits and surpluses in the state. the sector as a whole is doing much better. you have some regional variations. one story during the recession with the oil-rich states like the good of a doing fine. and now we see that changing, and alaska in particular. in the last quarter for which we had data, alaska saw a 50% reduction compared to one year earlier. you have this great variation. host: sheryl lee, what is this chart states with the greatest of these change in personal income tax from 2013 to 2014? i guess i just did not quite get this. guest: it is talking about a magnitude of change. it is not saying that they had -- it's more based on percentages. what tracy just mentioned about north dakota is so true or it they had a decrease with her income tax that was actually 24% decrease their between 2013 and 2014 because of the fact that they were not able -- and they had an overall slight decline in their tax revenues because of the fact that their severance taxes were not able to bump income tax reduction. as tracy mentioned, a lot of the governors and legislation is geared towards reducing the income taxes as a way of trying to ease the burden on the residents of the state. but at the same token it can also make it harder for them to gain the revenue that they need. host: so the five greatest states -- i still don't understand what happened to the states. guest: they had more of an increase than other states in their income tax revenues. host: and the revenues? guest: some of them could of been from a rate increase and others from a collection that happened. it is not always based on an increase in the rates during -- rates. guest: new york passed a temporary surcharge should the recession that allotted to expire. then they replaced it with our income tax increase your it delaware, ohio, kansas, which are on the negative side actually reduced their tax rates. north dakota, as cheryl pointed out. sometimes you things going on in the economy and sometimes in legislation host:. host: let's take some calls. joey in oklahoma city. caller: thank you for having me on. you were hitting on some of the stuff that i was going to talk about witches a lot of the republican say wow, look a many jobs we have here. but businesses are moving to the states where they drop this taxes down to nothing. we have had $500 million in new tax credit to business. $200 million in new tax income rate reductions and we have a $600 million deficit. our schools are ranked 49th. short-term great long-term -- i like to hear your comments. host: tracy gordon, that sounds like a policy question. cheryl, you're more than welcome to answer. guest: i think there is a court case in kansas that is challenging some of these education cuts as far as the adequacy of school spending in the state. you have similar concerns in north carolina where they were center medic income tax cuts. the programs that get cut are good for long-term fiscal health. host: did you know anything about his oklahoma, what he was talking about? guest: oklahoma experienced a supply-side extremity of cutting income taxes and hoping for a rebound in the economy and not necessarily saw that played out. state spend about two thirds of the legit on education and health and human services to if you're going to cut back on anything, it is likely higher education that is going to get it because that is where the money is. host: what he states that the money from? guest: the majority counsel the sales income taxes. the charts you have up now shows there is clearly a balance between the sales and receipt tax as the majority. i kind of wanted to touch on one point the color was making which was related to the corporate net income taxes here it a lot of the states are trying to reform some of their corporate net income taxes or tailor them back so they can attract businesses. i think the color was referring to the fact that they are losing -- there is obviously some money lost from that tax but the money will probably be made up in sales taxes. that is where the states are hoping to make up the difference. it's to attract businesses when the have and could never get -- into giving it corporate net income tax. guest: income taxes are very progressive. those people pay a greater portion of income in taxes. sales tax is the opposite because low income households consume a greater part of their income for staples. that is not subject to taxation, but the idea that low-income taxes consume more where wealthier households save more. these kind of changes have an effect on who pays. host: two states only tax personal income. what is the answer? guest: as i was expanding, the corporate net income tax is not a large proportion of the income tax, but there is some corporate net income tax that makes up total income taxes. personal income is not the only way that income tax is collected. it is also the businesses that set up in states. host: sheryl lee, reading this, personal income tax -- $311 billion. is this what takes -- states collected in 2013? guest: yes. host: and they also collected $46 billion in corporate income tax. john in pennsylvania. caller: thank you for answering ladies are. my question is what is the percentage on average of any state for retirement for state employees on a yearly basis compared to what all other expenditures are paid out? the reason i ask is because i notice in pennsylvania we are going to what they call "authorities" like ngos and nonprofit organizations to handle our water and a lot of the things ecb taken care of by the state. how does that affect the budget and the total payouts? thank you. host: sheryl lee? guest: as far as specifics for the state, what we do at the census bureau is getting an aggregate figure of how much is brought in for all pensions systems for all the states. i wouldn't really be able to touch on exactly what is happening specifically in pennsylvania. i'm not sure tracy wants to tackle that one either. guest: about pensions were generally in the draw from budgets, the average for all states is about 9% of direct general spending they goes towards pension. there are tons of variations on that average. the high is not surprisingly illinois. that's at about 14% of their budget. below is north dakota because there budget system is improving. i think the color was also interested in outsourcing or contracting with private firms or nonprofits. the jury is out on how that affects the cost of providing services. it should not affect the cost of pensions because pensions are viewed as a contract in the states. those benefits are earned a canopy change going forward which is a problem for some states that are trying to cut back on costs. host: what goes into total revenue? you referenced this earlier. intergovernmental -- what does that mean? guest: tracy made reference to that earlier. that is any of the money that comes from the federal government to states or from state governments to local. it is the transfers from local to state as well. any this transfers within the different types of government. that is where the source of revenue comes from. host: that is a little over $500 billion. total taxes is a little over 750 billion dollars. guest: charges or fees for certain services. host: getting your drivers license? guest: yes, things like that. often they are related to the motor vehicle field. host: here is one of the kickers and the reason why state health has improved. insurance trust. guest: that is made up of workmen's compensation revenue as well as the largest component is the state pension system. that is where when the money that is invested into systems that gets invested into the market, basically the stock market. when the market is doing well, that is when the number goes up. that is what we saw between 2012 and 2013. that is what caused a big increase of the comparison between revenues being greater than its managers. that was a big story for the year when our state financed embers came back out in february. guest: those revenues are not available for writing services. you guys the things we think total government and general government. general government pays for schools and roads and universities. these pension investments certainly help the pension funds fiscal health that they not -- they are not available for all funds. caller: good morning ladies. i have a long story short. a friend of facebook, i was making some jewelry for my niece wedding and saw a couple of strands of beads and i thought i love them. maybe $12. they said no, i will send you a gift. i get this huge box. it turns out it is $916 worth of gemstone beads i did not purchase here it i tried to send it back. no, no, no. i still get a takes stat will -- state tax bill. i call. i am on disability. i cannot go this money right now. you have 30 days to pay it. they said i could make a payment plan. they said i would give you a little longer than 30 days. it says purchased but i did not purchase. your comments? host: anything for her? guest: i wish i was a lawyer and not an economist to say something helpful. i am surprised. i am somewhat impressed that the state is going after the source of revenue because few people understand that the sales tax is a tax on consumption. when you purchase something at a state on the internet or on a vacation, the law says that when you bring it into the state to consume it you are taxes on that. the problem is most states do not go through very much effort to collect that tax they are of the and most people don't know they of the tax. that is a very sad situation. host: our neighboring state maryland, has been described in a couple of different articles as being "unfriendly to business." with its tax and policy situation. you have any comment on that. when it comes to the tax issue. guest: friendly versus unfairly gets to these issue of taxes in growth. there are a number of studies that suggest that the effects are often overstated in political debates when you have a governor sort of decamped to other states and say come to my state because of the tax rates are lower. businesses make decisions a stunner a number of factors including taxes but often -- also regulation and educated workforce, infrastructure, quality of roads. california has one of the highest marginal tax rates on high earners and continues to grow and exceed his budget estimates. mainly because it has an educated workforce that make companies work in silicon valley in other places. host: can you break down and tell us how taxes is doing? guest: texas? texas is one of the states that recently contacted us about their tax structure because they wanted to make sure we were classifying what we were once calling the corporate net income tax. they said no, that is not corporate income tax that is gross receipts tax and we needed to change it. is the same issue i brought up before about making the state look attractive to businesses to set up. that is why the major changes that happened with texas is because their corporate net income tax disappeared. it went off the books for us in the way the classified because they insisted on saying this is not a corporate net income tax. this is a sales and gross receipts tax. it should be in a different category. you should not be coding it that way. he came from a very authoritative source at the chamber of commerce who we cannot exec leonor. -- exactly ignore here and let people ask. what happened to the corporate net income tax from texas? that is now with a have any more. but they look at the money from another source. it would be from the sales receipt tax. that will be on the consumer. host: rafael from louisiana. caller: good morning to thank you for taking my call. we have a lot of problems in louisiana. when bobby jindal took of the office we had a surplus. he gave tax rates to the rich. he started making talks on medicaid for the poor and the disabled. the senior citizens are living in hell in louisiana. we have so much cancer. i just got through with cancer. he made so many cuts. he close of the charity facilities. he privatize them and he will not take obamacare money to help the poor. now louisiana is in the red. and he's not to run for president. people are suffering here. no one is getting the word out. you that so many poor people in louisiana. the senior citizens in the wintertime, they cut off electricity to turn off the gas. in the summertime, they will turn off the gas and put the electricity back on. we lost some he people with fires in the winter. host: i think we got the point. let's hear from tracy gordon of the urban brookings tax policy center. guest: louisiana is facing a significant shortfall of about $1.6 billion. there have been major tax cuts here it is one thing we have not articulated in the back windows conversation is that the states, unlike the federal government, often faced balance budget rules. that means if they cut revenues, that money has to come from somewhere suspending gets cut as well. as a mission earlier, the federal government tends to raise a lot of revenue and transferred to states and the states tend to spend a lot of money on programs like health care and education. those of the programs they get cut revenue goes away. louisiana certainly has a challenge in terms of closing its revenue gap in meeting its balanced-budget requirements and providing services for its residents. host: sheryl lee declined -- is the state money that is spent? $97 billion and on up limit compensation down to $71 billion in 2013? guest: this is a good news story. this is showing that there is less that had to be spent for people who wanted to get unemployment insurance because her out of work. it is showing the fact that people were more gainfully employed between 2012 and 2013. there was improvement in the labor market. anytime we see the word "decline" people think that is not good but in this case it is a good story. it a trend of improved fiscal health for the states for the -- for overall. host: alice from california. caller: how are you. from what i reading in california, you need a whole program in california. some of the salaries are twice as high as in the private sector. their pensions can be as high as eight times higher or more. they can retire after a shorter. of time. -- shorter amount of time. they had more days off here. income tax and sales tax in the potholes are going unfixed. i do not think you can say california is healthy. i think you could just say they reallocate the money how are they want and then they show something but it really is not there in i think this is ridiculous that people are retiring after 30 years on full retirement and and they get another job. some of them have two or three government jobs. compared to the capitalist who have to retire at $1200 a month on social security, and some teachers retire at 8 -- host: thank you very much. guest: i did not mean to suggest every thing was rosy in california. a lot of spending areas, including a for structure having cut back. especially during the recession here it there's is talk now about restoring the spending cuts. the governor has been trying to hold the line. they are worried that the revenues might outlast. they project revenue growth of about 2.2% -- 2.6% going forward in 2015. i hear what you are saying in terms of pensions. there are these differences between the public and private sector. the public has moved on to 401(k)s. the public -- you are promised a certain level of benefits and is what you get. that is a pretty enduring promise to i think it is important to point out you really have a tale of two workforces right now here it all states have made changes to their pensions since 2010. you have new employees at actually have something more like what the private sector gets. they are not living high on the hog. best not to say that former employees are either, but you have this political problem of voters that are very concerned about the compensation costs. but because of what a lot of governments do, compensation costigan to be a part of it. a lot of public employees are not covered by social security. california is one of the states were a large percentage, i think about 66% are not covered by social security. host: trends. can you predict 10 years out what you are seeing in regards to trends in the state fiscal health? guest: the government accountability office does this forest and they project the fiscal health of the sector through 2060. they project a gap between -- at about 2% of gdp. the large part is because of rising health care costs. there are some definite trade-offs that the sector as a whole have to face. medicaid is the fastest front of state budgets. it is been growing about two times a rate of tax revenues. there are difficult choices ahead. they are doing state and local governments -- they doing better since the recession. guest: i do not get into forecasting. we just report we collect. i do not want to get into a realm beyond my expertise level. guest: she is being incredibly modest. it is a herculean effort. there are differences across states on how to classify things and they get all 90,000 governments in the united states to report. host: there are 90,000 governments? guest: special districts counties, cities districts, and i deal with the states which is not as huge [laughter] guest: within the states there are huge amount to government. host: kyle from hollywood florida. caller: i am a recent political science graduate and one might questions was at the beginning of the segment both of you talked a couple of times about the improvement in state markets and how states are no longer a drag on gdp across the country. i was wondering if this increase in investments and 401(k)s or state pensions, especially during the session, came because of the security of these investments? and the guarantees? guest: i am not sure i understand the question completely. the issue -- people are not investing in the pension funds. the pension funds themselves draw conservation from the government and employees and then they invest those funds. the pension funds are doing a lot better. back in 2009, i think revenues for that sector as a whole fell by something like 30%. that was the largest acclimate record because of the pension funds. it was not because taxes eventually help -- fell. this early boom we are seeing again is because of pension funds. host: census.gov. everything is available online or? guest: absolutely. cheryl hill lee and tracy gordon. thank you both for being -- coming over today. at 10:30 a.m., live coverage of the victory in europe 70th anniversary celebration. you will see a lot of world war ii planes flying down the mall at low altitude. a special tribute there. it might be interesting for you to watch. now we are going to go to the justice department. as we read earlier, loretta lynch, the attorney general, is making an announcement with regards to baltimore. there was an article in the "washington

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