cspanwj. comments always welcome at facebook.com/cspan. as we mentioned, overnight, results from hawaii, from alaska, from washington state, here's the headline in politico this morning, sanders romps in alaska. washington, alaska, hawaii, the 1w50e7 of three states offers the senator a chance to gain ground against hillary clinton. let's take a look at the results much these are caucuses in alaska. in alaska, senator bernie sanders winning 82% of the vote. hillary clinton, 18%. in hawaii, the results just come in early this morning, 71% for bernie sanders, and that's hillary clinton 29%. that's with 88% of the caucuses reporting. and finally, washington state, busy day for caucuses in washington state. the results there, bernie sanders winning 73% of the vote, and hillary clinton 27%. as we mentioned at the top, the role of the president obviously setting the tone for foreign policy. as he did with the editorial board of "the washington post" earlier this week, donald trump spoke at length with a couple of "new york times" reporters, and their front page, "person policy in trump's view is about feel." some of that, donald trump, said that if elected he might halt purchases of oil from saudi arabia and other arab allies unless they commit ground troops to the fight against islamic state or substantially reimburse the united states for combating the militant group, which threatens their stability -- host: just some of what donald trump said to the "new york times." we'll get back to that, too, as we ask you this more than about the u.s. role in the world and what that should be. here's the front page of the first draft of a piece that came out earlier this week on hillary clinton, a speech she gave in california at stanford university. hillary clinton dismisses rivals for reckless actions in foreign policy, setting the tone for what her administration, what a potential clinton administration, would be like. here's some of what she had to say. i'm sorry, we're going to show you donald trump's comments from earlier this week. mr. trump: i see nato as a good thing to have. i look at the ukraine so tion, and i say, ukraine is a country that affects us far less than it affects other countries in nato , and yet we're doing all of the lifting. they're not doing anything. i say why is it that germany is not dealing with nato on ukraine? why is it that other countries that are in the vicinity of the ukraine, why aren't they dealing? why are we always the one that's leading potentially the third world war, ok, with russia? why are we always the ones that are doing it? i think the concept of nato is good, but i do think that the united states has to have some help. i'll give you a better example than that. i mean, we pay hundreds of billions of dollars every year into supporting other countries that are in theory wealthier than we are. hundreds of billions. well, if you look at germany, if you look at saudi arabia, if you look at japan, if you look at south korea. i mean, we spend billions of dollars on saudi arabia, and they have nothing but money. and i say why? now, i would go in and i would structured a much different deal, and it would be a much better deal. you look at the kind of money that our country is losing, we can't afford to do this, certainly can't afford to do it anymore. host: that was donald trump before the editorial board of "the washington post." sorry about the audio. that's just what we could hear from the post-release of that meeting last week with donald trump. we'll play you the comments from hillary clinton in just a bit, earlier this week at stanford university. after that, a meeting with "the post," tweets from donald trump talking about nato, he says that nature 10 obsolete and must be changed and additionally focus on terrorism as well as some of the things it is currently focused on. he also said that we should pay disproportionate share of the cost of nato. why? it is time to renegotiate, and the time is now. so we're asking you what should be america's role in the world. let's go to gary first. he's on our republican line in sterling, virginia. gary, good morning. caller: good morning. thank you, everyone. the united states, we should be supporting middle of the road people. u take iraq, for example, we tacitly supported the re-election of mall akay, which it should have been mall awould i. his father was a sunni. his mother was a shia. so he was middle of the road. you take egypt for an example, he arab spring, instead of acquiescing to morsi, we should have been supporting elbaradei. he was a middle of the road person. and you take egypt, or libya, you know, when you knock off the balance of power, and that's what gaddafi was, you got to fill the vacuum. we did the same thing in libya that we did when we went to egypt. we led a vacuum for them, and can't have that. you got to have the middle of the road people running the show. i think hillary clinton was a failure. i think that's the worst mistake president obama made. other than that, yes, sir? host: you think the worst mistake he made was making hillary clinton secretary of state? caller: yes, sir. host: ok, square any sterling, virginia. on -- gary in sterling, virginia. on iraq, the former ambassador to afghanistan and to iraq, he wrote in friday's "wall street journal," it is true iran has considerable influence in iraq. the total withdrawal in 2011 created a vacuum that iran and its regional rivals tried to fill, pulling the country apart. the disintegration of the iraqi army and the rise of shia militias to combat islamic state also known as isis increased iran's influence leader, yet many leaders want to strengthen ties with the u.s. -- host: the independent line, connecticut, we hear from tim. good morning. go ahead. caller: hey, good morning, c-span. i think the united states should lead by leadership. i think using a policy of brute force for what some presidential candidates have said as in going in and bombing and then leaving is absolute idiotic. i would ask your listeners this, how much money do you think we have spent in afghanistan over the past 15 years? and if you say less than $600 billion, you are wrong. that number actually can be as high -- some people report it as high as $800 billion. if anybody can tell me what we've got for that money over the last 15 years, i welcome the call. now, when we talk about national security, and that seems to be a hot button looking forward in this election, i too am in favor of national security. but if we continue to spend money and we don't have additional funds for our infrastructure, for our education system, for our healthcare system, then this country will be rife for anarchy. and when i think of national security, i think our own worst enemy is ourselves, because i do think this country is on a precipice. but this precipice is from within and not outside. where does that put us in terms of our role in the world? is that sort of a balance how much we commit overseas? caller: absolutely. we to have a plan, and unfortunately, petraeus i thought was a gentleman that had it on the ball. unfortunately he led his personal life get in the way, and he's out. but he was one of our few military leaders i thought that understood that you have to have a plan. you cannot just assume we're going to go in and wipe out everybody, and it will be replaced with somebody that has our same values and our same democratic process. host: tim, appreciate the input. let's go to illinois and levi, republican line. go ahead. good morning. caller: yeah, that's right. i want to tell you that the united states has been keeping the world out of major conflict for the last seven years since world war ii, and we need to try to get back into that position, even though it's a ot harder now. host: levi, thanks for your call. our question this morning to you about the u.s. role in the world, and reading some of what donald trump is saying to the "new york times" in an extensive interview. the headline, in trump's view, foreign policy is a deal to be made. they write, mr. trump's views as he explained them fit nowhere into the recent history of the republican party. he is not in the international stamp of president george bush, nor does he favor george w. bush's call to make the united states' mission to spread democracy around the world -- host: that's donald trump in the "new york times." again, earlier this week, hillary clinton with a foreign policy address at stanford university, laying out some of her beliefs on the u.s. role in the world. secretary clinton: it would be a serious mistake to stumble into another costly ground war in the middle east. in we've learned anything from iraq and iran, it's that people and nations have to secure their own communities. we can't and i argue must support them, but we can't substitute for them. it would also be a serious mistake to begin carpet bombing populated areas into oblivion. proposing that doesn't make you sound tough, it makes you sound like you're in over your head. slogans aren't a strategy. loose cannons tend to misfire. what america needs is strong, smart, steady leadership to wage and win this struggle. to do that, we need to strengthen america's alliances in europe, asia, and around the world, and that is the second point i want to emphasize. on 9/11, nato treated an attack against one as an attack against all. on september 12, headlines across europe, most notably in limon, proclaimed we are all americans. there were very few planes in the air that day, but one was a british jet carrying the u.k.'s top national security leaders to washington to offer any help they could. now it's our turn to stand with europe. we cherish the same values and face the same adversaries, so we must share the staple determination. host: hillary clinton, stanford university. it's available on c-span.org. what should be america's role in the world? 202-748-8001 for republicans. 202-748-8002 for independents. you can send us a tweet, and lots of comments on twitter already. we look what the karen thooze say. i think that adventures in the middle east are making things worse, let's do some nation-building at home. this one says why do we have to police the world? jaden says we should first provide an example of democratic institutions and second be a partner in the defense of other democracies. and kenny said, we should be the world leader, that's not where we are. under o, our position has been reduced significantly. jerome is next on our democrats line in erie, pennsylvania. welcome. caller: yes, i think we should work together with all our allies to keep our country safe, and as long as we sit here and we have people taking donald trump is going to lead us into the promised land, we're blind. just the blind leading the blind, all his followers, and as long as we listen to that rhetoric and him wanting to talk, it makes our country less safe, and that's not it. host: amherst, new york, independent line next. we hear from richard. caller: yes, i believe america should exercise responsible leadership, even though many mistakes have been made by president obama and his two predecessors. for example, running after first yasser arafat and then mahmoud abbas to try to make a peace they didn't really want to make, instead of our going after the people who have toe clired war against us, like osama bin laden, and the regime of iran. mistakes have been made, but you can't throw out the baby with the bath water, and we would compound the felony greatly if god forbid we were to elect a guy who's willful and self-possessed, but totally ignorant like the donald. that would be insane. i think, really, america needs responsible leadership in the world, not trying to make democracy everywhere, not trying to tell other nations what to do, but being a friend to our friend and enemy -- ad very vary to our adversaries. i think that's the only way it's worked well over the last 70 years. host: do you think it's still working well? caller: well, it isn't working because president obama isn't working it. he's somewhere between being a difficult i can't and feckless and disengaged in some alternative universe why cuba and venezuela become the priorities in the midst of a world raging with conflict. he has tuned out the u.s. he compounded problems that president bush 43 helped create in the second iraq war, but we pulling out and leaving a vacuum that isis has filled. it is has mideast ass sized to the whole world. i think if we went back to the responsible leadership and learned the lessons of where interventions since world war ii have worked and where they not worked, i think we could have a responsible course. it's not trying to save a few billion dollars by bargaining sharply with south korea or japan or our european allies. yes, we should insist that they pay their fair share, but it sounds like the donald is going back to the policies that helped create the great depression and world war ii. host: on richard's point, the president returning friday from his trip last week to cuba and to argentina. the president will host a summit on nuclear security in washington this week, later this week. to our democrats line, james in chattanooga, tennessee, good morning. what should be the u.s. role in the world, james? caller: well, first of all, i think we should have a greater understanding of how to pick a leader. i don't understand how donald trump as a businessman has done so far, when back in the day, 10, 20 years ago, so steve forbes had a problem, you know, in the primary and went out early. now i am a hillary fan, but it was a better candidate, i'd be all for her. but at this point, you know, i'm just wondering what you think about that. host: thanks for your comments, james. a question for you this morning about the u.s. role in the world. we did talk earlier about bernie sanders winning the caucuses last night in alaska, in hawaii, and also in washington state. this is a piece in huffington post, an opinion piece about america's changing role in the world. it was written by kathleen hicks, who's with the center for strategic and international studies, just a couple of quick points, and i'll hold it off so you can see some of her points. she said the first key factor shaping the role of the united states today is the paradox of enduring superpower status combined with lessening global influence. the united states will likely remain the world's sole superpower for at least the next 15 years. the nation boasts enviable and natural resources, cultural region, of course, military power. she also says the second factor that should form division for u.s. foreign policy is the con stan of american public support for international engagement. one more third point from kathleen hicks in huffington post, equally important is the third factor that policy makers should take into account, a selective engagement approach to u.s. foreign policy is unavoidable. let's go next to core any las vegas on the independent line. good morning. thanks for joining us. caller: good morning. our place in the world is disastrous. when we created the state of israel, we created the worst terrorist base there is. israel is a state of russian and american where they dissect everybody and have everybody, and all they do is sell weapons, weapons, weapons, weapons. we are going to have another world war three. world war i, world war ii was all about creating the state of israel. world war three to come in to wipe out the third world countries and america is becoming a third world country, the enemy was -- within success what's going to hurt us. we are supposed to have a free society. we should be like that, but we're not. we have a media that controls the presidency and the government of the united states , and this is where the problem is. i think trump can change that by being disastrous to the government and creating a better view. host: core any nevada, las vegas. and let's hear next from nick from the republican line. good morning. caller: this is vick. host: vick, go ahead. caller: yes, i'm going to agree with trump's views. we really need to bring back america's strength by backing off from being a police of the world and the policy of spreading democracy around the world. and i really think that would strengthen america and bring down the national debt. thank you. host: all right, here's robert next up, democrats line, california. welcome. caller: thank you. i feel like these are really very complicated matters. we should continue to elect brilliant leaders such as president obama and not turn our nation over to a real estate developer. thank you very much. host: all right. front page this morning of "the washington post", first the off lead is about the terrorist attacks in belgium. they write, the headline says belgium charges man in attacks, suspect might be on airport video after a series of embarrassing failures, belgian authorities announced apparent progress in their efforts to unravel a web of interconnected terrorist plots and said that they have found the most wanted remaining suspect inspect tuesday's devastating suicide bombing. your thoughts this morning on america's role in the world. oklahoma, good morning, john, independent line. caller: yeah, i believe we could simplify this real easy. the congress votes and the boys and girls in another country on the ground, they ought to be able to send their family there first. thank you. host: ok. here's the federal court, maryland, harriet, republican call they are morning. hi there, harriet. caller: good morning, c-span. i am a registered republican, but i voted for obama twice. and i must say, it's nice to have someone running on the republican ticket that isn't going to cure our deficit by taking away from social security and reforming all what we're counting on that is going to get a trade straightened out, get money generated here in the united states again. protect our borders. and i am voting for trump. host: have you already voted? your primary in maryland is a couple of weeks away, right? caller: i think the 28th, yeah. host: you're all set to vote for donald trump? caller: i am. i tell you, i never liked donald trump. i never liked him as a person, but he got in there, and he is worried about our country. he's willing to give the money, get our money back here. this deficit is -- and our infrastructure, things that are important to us in this country. host: tell us about your thinking. you mentioned you had voted twice for barack obama, 2008 and 2012. kevin: and i'm not sorry. host: what's the arc of your thinking about voting for donald trump? connect the two previous. caller: i'll try. let me give you more or less -- i'm thinking about the american people, all of us, and in the past, every time they came up they t the money issue, wanted to settle it with what they call entitlement, with money we put in for our retirement. host: right. kevin: and their cure for the deficit was all around that. well, these trade deals, they took our businesses and our jobs, a lot of our pensions, took it away from us. onald trump is talking about -- we'll have our jobs back. that money will be in the united states now paying in and not bothering social security, because more people will be paying into it. we'll have jobs. host: harriet, thanks for sharing your comments this morning. a couple of comments on twitter. lots of folks tweeting. this one says that the american role in the world, that's our question this morning, should be taking care of americans. good old common sense. monty says reducing violence on international levels, to do that fighting poverty, reducing hate and fear are basics. steve says u.s. should be able to solve the world's problem. over the past 15 years, we become experts at knowing what doesn't work. and karen says, i think our adventures in the middle east are making things work. let's do some nation building at home. back to calls at waterloo, iowa. it's cicero on our democrats line. caller: yes, hello, good morning. host: good morning. caller: america's role should be what it is right now in the world, because we are world leaders. not only are we among them, we are the ones who do lead the world. take, for example, we're also there. we're the first ones. we send money. we send our troops, and thank the lord we have a mighty fight. my mama was in the army. thank the lord that we have them, and i respect them, and i send a god bless out to all of them. thank them for keeping our country safe. like belgium over there right now, you can rest assured one thing, we might not have all the answers, but we are there. we are there. and we will get to the bottom of it. host: next, massachusetts, independent line. hi there. caller: hi, good morning. i love c-span. thank you for taking my call. i believe america's role in the world right now is -- we're like the mother figure to a lot of dependent countries. extremely re compensate incident on us, and i feel that, yes, we're looked to as a world power, emergencies, so for the and so on, and it just seems like it left them off the hook. they don't have to make the hard decisions and the hard choices. they leave it up to the united states to fix everything. host: you mentioned the u.s. being like a mother figure. do you think -- does it feel like some of the children are still hanging on to mother's apron strings for lack of a better -- for lack of a better analogy or metaphor? caller: yes, that's exactly what i mean. they can't stand on their own two feet. it's like what america decides, or they look to us to make the hard choices. it's like they don't -- in that way, they don't have to -- they don't have to -- they can just blame -- well, we just -- we followed their advice, you know? and that way they don't have to make the hard choices themselves. host: thanks for calling. on our european allies, this is an opinion piece in "the washington post" this past week, europe at risk is the headline of the piece. the continent must solve its own grave problems, but it could use more help from president obama. they write that the united states has a vital interest in europe's survival as a prosperous and democratic union, which is why the isolationist stance donald trump is so dangerous. europe could use u.s. help in coordinating counterterrorism operations. it also needs more aggressive action to reduce islamic state's bases in the middle east. president obama should reconsider the pace of u.s. operations, given the potential cost to europe of delay. and on the issue of supporting nato in the wake of the brussels attacks, we played you some of the comments earlier of donald trump before "the washington post" editorial board. some reaction here from senator ted cruz. senator cruz: it is striking that the day after donald trump called for america weakening nato, withdrawing from nato, we where nato is headquartered, the subject of a radical islamic terrorist attack. donald trump is wrong that america should withdraw from the world and abandon our he is wrong that america should retreat from europe, nato, hand vladimir putin a major victory, and hand isis a major victory. >> what should nato do? withruz: nato should join to destroystates isis. nato is ready to act in a way our president is not. senator ted cruz on the u.s. role. bet should our role --202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 four republicans. and 202-748-8002 four independents. --202-748-8002 for independents. this is from a recent article in the atlantic. joseph goldberg writes about the president's comments -- if you have a professional army, sponsored by two large states who have huge stakes in this entry are fighting against a farmer, a carpenter, an engineer who started out as protesters and suddenly see themselves amidst a civil conflict, the notion that we can have a clean way, that did not commit military forces change the equation on the ground. the message is clear. he would not end up like the second president bush whose wounds andilled the helpless to stop the obliteration of his reputation, even when he recalibrated his policies in a second term. obama would say the first task of an american president was "don't do stupid stuff." james on ourexas, public line. good morning. caller: thank you for having me on the show. i am a gulf war veteran and i witnessed firsthand nato and what they have done. we had been footing the bill since world war ii and they can even peter parking tickets. i believe donald trump is right. we are not going to abandon nato, but we need them to help .s more in the world we need more of our allies to help us put the bill. host: ok. and we cannot even control our own borders. upis time for nato to step and help us more. host: james, how long did you serve? caller: i did 22 years army. war.ved in the gulf second gulfin the war. my great-grandfather was world war i. my grandfather was world war ii. my brother did two towards in tour-- my brother did two s in itraq. iraq. we need help. our economy is hurting. it we are billy helping barelyes -- we are helping ourselves. defense secretary stops use of e-mail. that ashton carter used his personal e-mail account for nearly a year before december 2015 when news reports revealed the practice. the 1300 e-mails from carter's personal account were released friday. none contain classified information and most pertain to routine business of scheduling and logistics. here is bill and arizona. democrat line. caller: good morning. host: good morning, bill. caller: i am glad to be able to speak a minute. i have a couple of brief questions. the last real democrat we had was kennedy. a few days he was killed, he signed an executive order to pull all troops. when johnson took over, it immediately -- he immediately escalated the war and that is concerning to me that we had , and by the1963 time i got there are 1966, there were 400,000. when you study your history, you find the brothers who sponsored -- anyone who ever knew that was in vietnam, you find everyone everywhere in huge helicopters. it is concerning that the only two people we have to vote for is hillary clinton and a socialist. hillary clinton has put together a $2 billion foundation while she was sick terry. -- while she was secretary. that is pretty concerning to me. someone who was broke when they left the white house and now has a $2 billion foundation for helping people, and spent 2% of it. who are we supposed to vote for really? i am really concerned about hillary that she sold out. host: what did you do when you have the primary customer how did you vote? [laughter] caller: i probably shouldn't say. [laughter] because in myump, mind, he is not bought and paid for. i realized johnson was. those people that people don't understand, but on june 4 of bill kennedy also signed a that he was going to start printing money that was act by backed bythat was silver. they were going to start .rinting $10 and $20 bills we have a fractional banking system that has destroyed every financial country throughout the world. host: we will let you go there as we continue our discussion. you mentioned voting for donald trump. donald trump's views on foreign policy, a major piece of this morning's and as an interview was published in the "new york with david singer on his foreign-policy views and some of what they write this morning on donald trump, they said mr. his views inlained concrete terms, but failed to reflect consequences. he personalized how he would engage foreign nations suggesting his approach would depend partly on how friendly they have been toward us, not just on national interests or alliances. at no point did he express any believe that american forces were by themselves, bible to the united states. administrations have for decades argue that they are essentially -- essential to protecting commerce and gathering intelligence. him, -- d contain with your calls and comments, let's go to pad in jacksonville, florida. independent line. good morning. pat, are you there? ok, lancaster, california, cheryl on the republican line. caller: hi. i believe our entertainment industries in america are much more powerful than any candidate not only is it generating a lot of money, but thatence, and i believe song has a lot to do with what can change the world and we found it helped in the fee the world campaign, so we can do that again. look at taylor swift and all of stars.op they are worldwide sensations. they could loan a voice to america's song. did boys and girls together -- .et boys and girls together if they are so talented, they can do that and raise a lot of money. people needed -- people need a better opinion of us. to be a worldd power. we are a free country and we need to promote that. also, it is in the bible where it says, we are supposed to write a song and it means exactly that. it was one of the commandments. that's all. host: cheryl, thank you for your comments. about the easter message from the pope this easter. the pope delivers an easter message of hope after a grim week of terror. also from the irish time, look at how we lost that. the easter sunday parade marking the 100 anniversary of the uprising in dublin. want to tell you about the city's tour. we are on the road in tuscaloosa exploring the history and literary scene of this alabama town. filmed at the university of alabama with its rich, historic sites. while we are there, we will be doing some sightseeing. our comcast cable partners in tuscaloosa, alabama -- once our team returns, we will put the program together and future the program during the weekend of april 16 and 17th on book tv, c-span2, and american history tv on c-span3. as always, you can i more information -- you can find more information on www.c-span.org. let's get a couple more calls. we go to mark who is in the valley, washington. democrat's line. good morning. caller: good morning. i feel like we should close the majority of bases around the world and keep the ones that are for the protection of america. take the trillions of dollars to involve -- to keep all of the spaces open and bring it back to america, rebuild this country for a change, and i agree with trump, even though i caucused for burning yesterday. of theick up too much cost. host: so you caucused for bernie sanders. if the general election comes down to it, you are on our democrat's line, and it comes down to donald trump and hillary clinton, who would you vote for? caller: that is a good question. i don't know. i don't trust hillary. i don't trust her at all. she is going to say whatever it takes to get elected, and flip-flop on issues that corporate america wants her to flip-flop on. .leshy is a neocon she is going to keep us in all the wars we have been. host: mark, thank you for your thoughts. jody tweets, we should have left to protect. we continue to be a country of war. rebuild infrastructure before rebuilding afghanistan and iraqis. times, the new york lawrence downes, a member of the editorial board, writing about the easter uprising. in 1960, bells told the risen christ, the shooting began that doomed volunteers. is to beold footage thrown into the present day when armies bond rebel and bystander corpses are abundant. it makes it harder for anyone to feel anything but remorse. here is david in ohio. on our independent line. whoops, sorry about that david. caller: hello, thanks for taking my call. job ande that america's role is protecting israel and protecting the teachings of christ. he taught that we love one another. he taught that whether you beat gen or --tile our president has turned his back on israel and buddied up with iran. i think he lied about being a christian. we see the many went to church under. people within the donald trump is erratic and says all these crazy things. host: david, you said you thought the president lied about being a christian? caller: i do believe so. i don't know that for a fact, but after hearing the way his pastor talks of the church he went to, they he said he did not believe -- after he said all those crazy things. since then, the way he's bloodied up with iran -- the way iran justed up with days after what they did to our navy. from durham, north carolina. i think they need to do something about these aliens getting our tax money and taking from the elderly and disabled. host: is that it? caller: yep, that's about it. i don't think it's right. i am disabled and barely making ends meet now. host: thanks for your call. washington journal continues here on c-span this morning. hear from james hollifield with the wilson center and hear an update on the migration crisis facing europe. then we will turn our kitchen to health care and be affordable care act with rachana pradhan had a politico. next, on newsmakers, our guest tom cole. he has been chief of staff at the rnc and talks about the possibilities of a contested convention and how house speaker paul ryan could be drafted. think anyone has it in the bag. it will be very tumultuous, multiple ballots, unless someone is literally inches away. himor speaker ryan, i take at his word. i don't think he has the desire to be the presidential nominee, or he would have run for it. sometimes you could be a figure of destiny and he was much like that. he did not want to do it with the speaker's race. it became evident that he was the only person that could get us off to a decent start. he has already been vetted, been on a national ticket, millions of people have already voted for him in that regard. we know how he performs. i don't think there is a person in politics that do not like, respect paul ryan. even people who do not like him, respect him as a person. valuesesents a kind of as a republican you would want to put forward. there is a chance that he, or somebody else to emerge. fan, i would ryan be happy to see something like that happen. again, for it to happen, it has to happen on its own. usdid see that in the eager's race. this is a more complex process and with a -- using the house conference can be chaotic. delegates never been to a convention before showing up with various allegiances. how someone emerges out of that, i don't know. host: you can see the entire interview with congressman tom cole on newsmakers at 10:00 a.m. eastern. you can hear it on c-span radio. and it is always available online at www.c-span.org. we are joined by james hollifield who is with the wilson center looking at the migration crisis that has happened in the wake of the war and the uprising in syria. at present day, what is the status of the numbers of migrants coming into your? 1.2 million we had that came last year in 2015 and 100,000up in the mid- range. we are on track to have another big year for refugees in europe. host: as you're ever seen anything like this before? -- has europe ever seen anything like this before? host: after the war, you had a lot of people coming in, especially germans being expelled from eastern europe. we haven't seen anything like this. host: europe was already be impressed to begin with by migration -- europe was already being pressed to begin with by migration. who are the types of people coming out of iraq and syria because of the conflict that? we are talking about 70%, 80%, or coming from syria and iraq. it is the conflict in the regions causing people to move. --s began in the aftermath in east africa, sub-saharan africa, you have great instability. look at somalia. from allws are coming around and southeast asia. host: what is it about the makeup, the nature of the eu that has made it relatively easy for migrants to enter and move about between nations? guest: i would be careful using the term "the." up until this most recent exodus -- i would be careful using the term "easy." people latest crisis, are coming the land route. the eu is committed to respecting the refugee conventions, so they are willing to look at and consider anyone coming in and asking for asylum. host: because of the sheer numbers and probably related to the attacks that have happened in paris and even before brussels, the eu has reached a deal -- here is the headline on the wall street journal, they agreed on a deal to send migrants back to turkey. how is this supposed to work? each: well, they -- for migrant that arise in greece, they want to send one back to oneey and they will take that is legitimate asylum seeker. aspect is it europeans are going to pay the turks a lot of money to take care of the people who are there, to police the border, and to stop the flows coming into your. host: turkey a member of the eu? guest: no, but they have long sought leadership in the eu. this is part of the deal that will open the talks with turkey and allow turks to move around on a visa waiver program in europe without having to go through the arduous process. guest: the deal that was made between turkey and the eu, how does any of this effect the u.s. approach to potential taking in syrian migrants in particular? guest: last year, the u.s. took something like 75,000 migrants total of all populations. out of those, i think only a small number are coming from this region. president obama has pledged to take up to 20,000, 30,000 people from syria and iraq. so the u.s. is taking the respond numbers compare to the germans, who took over one million last year, the swedes took something like 180,000 in a very short period of time. role.s. is not playing the of helping to take the pressure off the europeans in terms of taking large numbers of refugees in this country. holifieldguest is jim . the topic is about the syrian migrant crisis and we invite you to call in at 202-748-8000 for democrats. 202-748-8001 four republicans. independents and others is 202-748-8002. we have set aside a line for 20 2-748-8003. are feelinges syrian refugees. they say they are calling on what the countries to contribute $9.3 billion to help the syrian refugees and 2016. they're saying that rich countries gave 56% of the $9 billion needed in 2015. the u.s. given $1.6 billion. the can you tell us about u.s. role for migrants in syria? guest: we need to realize that many syrians who are refugees within their country has been displaced by the war. you're talking about a very large number of people, most of those syrian refugees have fled to the front-line states. in lebanon, one in four people is a refugee. in jordan, has taken very large numbers, like 600,000 700,000. turkey is looking at 3 million refugees. but the u.s. does, the primary role for the u.s., is to support the you united nations. -- is to support the united nations. they have a mission in terms of getting people in a shelter, give them food, and take care of them. there is an operation in these front-line states. it is vastly underfunded. guest: look at the origins of people applying for asylum. those who get into the eu, and this is a chart from the vbc. first-time applications and the thousands in 2015. you said -- first-time 350,000.ons, over afghanistan is next, but half and number between 150000 200,000. jim hollifield, we have colors. we hear first from milton, florida. rural is on the line. -- earl is on the line. caller: how come they don't stay? again, earl.t caller: the 1800 something refugees that came through new orleans eight months ago. they don't talk about that. they don't know where they went to or anything. comes every refugee that in this country come through a very long screening and vetting process. it could take up to two years to process a single asylum application. unlike regular migrants, refugees who come into this country, are we addled, given support, -- we settled, given support. the follow them very closely until they are ready to go out to society, find a place where they can live in the u.s.. many of them end up with family members. the process of getting them resettled may be shorter in some instances and longer and others. we take really good care of asylum seekers. guest: has the process been slow down by political considerations on capitol hill? guest: oh sure. the security concerns meaning that anyone coming from and arab, muslim country is going to get extra special scrutiny. overgain, it could take two years to go through the vetting process. there are many agencies involved in this. this was to be for the latest terror attacks that occurred in paris and brussels. guest: you said, we keep track of migrants who come in. host: it is many the department of homeland security which is where all the immigration offices are. everything from customs and .order protection we have a large office there to take care of refugees and asylum-seekers. but also the security agencies are involved in this bedding. this vett involved in ing. let's go to do board, michigan. norman is on our democrats' line. caller: good morning. yes, i would like to mention something talking about people coming in through the country and everything. havethis amnesty that they , quite a few are allowed to come here, but the one thing i am concerned about is a credible fears act. i don't know how many people are aware of that, but it can come 90% of themuntry -- come across the border and they say they have credible fears and they stay here and put into a place. it is, such a country club. they are put into a place until they are processed. they should get an asylum review, but not a credible fears review. i think they should do something about that law. also, i've heard there are airportsrking in our that we don't have their registration numbers, or anything else, you know? these things should be looked into it they are concerned about energy -- about security. if they get rid of that credible fears act, people will feel safer. we got thousands of people coming in every year. norman, appreciate that. what is the credible fears act? guest: the part of the law that allows asylum-seekers to come here and if they could show a well-founded fear of persecution , they are put into an asylum process. some may be granted something called temporary protective status that allows them to stay here for a period of time while their asylum claims are being processed. the law says if someone has a well-founded fear of persecution, a credible claim they are going to be subject to persecution, we cannot segment them back to the country for until we havee given them an asylum hearing. sometimes, that can take a very long time. many of these people are kept, especially for example, essential americans, they are kept in facilities that are not exactly prisons, but they are kept their, not allowed to go in and out. and there are many, many people in these detention facilities. we are pretty careful about the way we handle this. and they are kept their while claim is being processed? yes, while the cleansing process. host: here is jim from boca, raton, florida. caller: good morning. i would like the gentleman to direct his comments. turkey isminister of considered to be a terrorist himself. see what has happened in norway and sweden and france where the refugees, who, before that, the people in the colonies reignede etc. have terror on the jewish community in france. i am wondering, instead of having them come to europe, why can't we have egypt put them in the sinai and possibly saudi arabia. i saw that kuwait gave the most. i don't see anything from saudi arabia. i am wondering if this is a program that will eventually overthrow of these people like sharia. state, youe the become an apostate and deserve to be killed. this -- is refugees aren't being set to islamic countries where they would have some similar culture and they would be able to be trained to go back into syria? question, let's get a response. guest: there is many parts to this question. he mentioned the german word for a cultural struggle. say that people are andng with their feet voting in absolute desperation, trying to get away from the violence and the killing to see themselves and their families. most of them have gone to neighboring muslim countries. so they are in jordan, lebanon, and especially in turkey. it is true that the turkish that is anis a party islamic party. it is not a radical islamic party, by any stretch of the imagination. the kids really argue about the direction of turkish politics, whether it is good or bad. we shouldn't get into that too much this morning. to address the question why they are not going to saudi arabia, egypt, again, these are people. they have their own desires and they are voting with their feet. most of them, many of them would not want to go to saudi arabia , they feel they would not be treated well. and the saudi's do not want to .ake them saudi arabia itself has its own social/political problem, so adding another large population to the mix could potentially be destabilizing. refugees are pretty clever. they are not going to go to countries where they wouldn't feel welcomed necessarily. and they're not point to countries where they do not have a prospect of making a living. host: or an infrastructure in place to take care of them. yes, so the turks are scrambling and the need to get credit for this for trying to take care of these people. of course, what we saw is want ,he europeans opened the door they said they would take the syrians who can get here. northncouraged them to go and to head for the eu. host: let's look at the numbers from the bbc's of asylum claims. this isn't 2015 -- germany with the biggest, 500,000 or more. you mentioned sweden. 100,000. is our asylum claims. i thought hungry had closed its yorders -- i thought hungar had closed its borders. guest: that was probably taken in the middle of 2015. it shows half of what occurred during the course of 2015. don't forget, at any given time, look at the geography, if you ry, you may bega stuck there for a while. they don't necessarily want to stay there. they are ready to get across the border and move further north. you that the calls. jill in south bend, indiana on the republican line. good morning. jill, you're on the air. ok, we will go to ed in hollywood, florida, independent line. caller: good morning, gentlemen. how are you doing? i would want to make the point that right now in the united court, we have our own our own veterans who are having a lot of trouble being able to take care of themselves. as the last caller mentioned, these are people coming from a completely different ideology. my question is, my grandparents came over -- they came over and had a voucher. they were not from a war-torn nation or fighting for 5000 years. be that usaoing to citizens come first? guest: certainly, there are always cost in taking care of people like this who are in a desperate situation. i would say that the u.s., we have had -- we have taken millions of asylum seekers since the second world war. quite wealthy and generous country and maybe legal commitments to live up to the international refugee convention , that we do have legal obligations here. in the grander scheme of things, the refugee program itself is not something that cost us all that much money. it is not free. it is a tiny, tiny fraction of our federal budget. a bigk the u.s. is country. i could we are a generous country. i think we can do our part to help shoulder this burden of refugees. interest.ur it is in our national interest to do this because it would be a big mistake, in my view, to bottle people up in a desperate situation and large camps which would create more involuntary -- which would create more volatility. we have to take the pressure off of these front-line states. europeans, that the greeks, italians, swedes deserve enormous credit for taking this step to allow people to get out. many of these people will hopefully return to their country someday. the germans took over one million people last year. germany is a smaller country than the united states and is not as wealthy. the equivalent of the united states would be taking 10 million people in a year. hollifield -- a couple of comments on twitter. this one is from jim who says, is it a bad thing that the u.s. has not taken more of these refugees? who haves, countries taken so many refugees are ruined today. you jamesuestion for hollifield, has russia could. funds to help? guest: russia takes on a fair number of migrants. it is second only to germany. of are people coming from all around central and south asia. russia has a very, very large border and there are lots of people who make it to russia. russia is not very good about processing and accepting asylum seekers, but that does not mean that russians have not taken a large number of migrants. to crime ratesck among immigrants. all the statistics looking at all of the western democracies in europe, the u.s., and canada show immigrants have much lower crime rates than the native population. that is simply fact. it is true that there are problems often associated with refugees. an earlier caller alluded to an incident that happened on new year's day in germany. unfortunately, most of the people who participated in that, were north african .mmigrants who came attentioncts enormous because these people are immigrants, they are different. your color should be aware that crime rates are actually much lower among immigrant populations and in native population. host: teva, florida. sean is on the republican line. welcome. caller: morning. i have a quick was it up. the statement was that refugees are being properly vetted. also the border patrol has stated they have a catch and release program with all the people who come over the border. a two of that, we have day period in which they reported that nothing was done and they lost track of who was coming over. guest: um. well, the kitchen release program was very much -- well, the catch and release program was scaled back. if the people that have come over the border, they will be put in holding facilities and we are going to start processing them as potential refugees. so, i think the border patrol is pretty careful in how they deal with people coming across the border. we did have a policy for many years of catching people coming across and simply sending them back across the border. much closer, cooperation with mexico in dealing with some of these flows. ,he central american kids women, and others, the flood that came through mexico, the mexican's have helped us control that and process these people. so mexico is helping and cooperating, especially with the refugee flows from central america. host: raymond in washington, independent line. caller: good morning. good morning. my comment is i do not support bringing muslims -- muslim immigrants to this united states. after 9/11, trump made the statement that if you don't believe it, google it. these people were having a holiday around the world because we were getting attacked. now they want our help, no! i say no! thatve infrastructure needs to be fixed. what are we doing? we're rebuilding afghanistan third i am independent. but if someone had to get my vote it would betroth a because he is willing to say what is true, even if he cannot escape. at the other contenders, they are not willing to say what they believe. thank you very much, gentlemen. guest: again, if you look at how much we spend on our refugee and asylum program, it is a tiny fraction of the federal budget. i think that is money well spent anause america is in important leadership position in the world, especially to the middle east and africa and europe. these are our most important allies. it is important that we do our part to help deal with this humanitarian crisis. it really is a unitary in crisis. careful invery, very not painting everyone with the same brush. all muslims are not jihadists. and all refugees and asylum-seekers that have come to this country since 9/11, and a million.ver only two were found to have engaged in suspicious activity. do notse asylum-seekers pose an and on the security threat. i would add that if you look at the syrians who are fleeing, yes, it is too many muslims, but they do not tend to be radical muslims. if anything, they are muslim-like. they are religious, but certainly not jihadists. host: we talked about the role of germany. this is a piece of earlier this weekend, the "new york times" -- it says france takes a backseat to germany. french/germane couple has always been the crucial team of an on sprawling on the ruling family. the tandem has become visibly lopsided as germany takes the on crisis after crisis. the question keeps popping up, where is france? historically, it is true, the european union when it was created back in the 19 these, was largely a french/german creation. the engine for europe and europe immigration has been the german couple. whether you are looking at the euro crisis were germany is by far the most powerful company in the eu, the germans had to take role.l and a leadership the same is true with the refugee crisis in europe. germany has stepped out in front. they had taken the lead on this. traditionallyo wanted to take more of a backseat and european leadership not going to be the political leaders. you are absolutely right, that role has shifted where germany not only has to be economic leader, but the political leader. the germans took a very dramatic, bold step by opening germany and opening europe to refugees. hear from sarah on our democrats line. caller: good morning. i have several questions. i don't think c-span is doing a very thorough job in terms of refugees and immigration. we have an immigration system right now that is not able to track immigrants that come in whether it is through land or through the air, or on the boats. whenve no tracking system people overstay their visas. visas. h-1b' and the budgetary part of it, when we have the ways and means congress holding budgets up and not holding -- and of providing the necessary budget for homeland security and the state department, to do a job of because oflications the syrians are misplaced, and a lot of their infrastructure, there is no way you can absolutely check their background. there is no documentation for you to check. host: sarah, several points there on tracking, overstays and the budget issue. that people true who come to this country and many people have to come with a be said, we do not track them once they arrive. so, we can't guarantee that the people who come don't overstay their visas. of the illegal immigrants in this country are people who have overstay their visas. in that sense, she is absolutely right. the immigration system is broken and not functioning very well. after the issue of asylum-seekers -- you have to apply for asylum abroad. host: before you come here? guest: before you come here. very few people come here. with the exception of the people from central america. haitians whod came. we still have cubans who come. the cubans have a special deal that they can just get to the united states, we will automatically grant them asylum because of our difficult relationship with cuba, which is shifting now that we have opened a new avenue for relations with cuba. but there is no question, the caller is right that our immigration system has been broken and not punching very well. this is the true for many, many years. power toess has the pass laws with respect to controlling immigration, who comes into our country, and congress has been unable to come to an agreement to reform our immigration policy and laws. though, we can spin the next hour trying to understand why that is the case, but in a nutshell, in the past, when we approach immigration reform, there were coalitions who came together to pass those laws. those coalitions no longer exist and we can't reconstruct them. but we have not been able to do that in recent years. host: we go to england, watching inthe bbc's channel is simon england. good morning and welcome. caller: i enjoy c-span immensely. you are a regular watch every sunday. host: glad to have you. guest: my questions for your guest today are focused on the fact that i would question his description of the migrants flooding in. a large bass are not coming from syria, they are coming from .ountries as far as sri lanka i would question his comments on the crime rates among migrant communities. in the u k, our prison population is 80,000. some 20,000 of those were not born within the u.k. would plead with america to not accept large muslim committees. everything has been tried from -- to aturalism to very very secular approach in france. it has always failed. these groups do not assimilate in western culture. think you very much. host: simon, thank you for watching this morning. guest: clearly, the elephant in assimilate how to very culturally different and distinct populations. difficulties in many countries, clearly in belgium and france, these populations who have lived there for two and three generations, there is a radical friend element in thege youth population, kind of like joining a gang, like the bloods and crips in a way. how do you encourage the assimilation of immigrants? your caller, who is british, the british had a more laid-back, multicultural approach. the french, on the other hand, have had a pretty harsh assimilationist approach to assimilating immigrants. your caller is also right in many of the people coming and seeking asylum and refugee status are not coming from the middle east. many are coming from southeast asia. .any are coming from africa once you open up the doors, of course, you will get lots of people coming in. the question is, a of those will be processed? how many will be sent back? the germans are already sending back people coming from the balkans. many of the people who entered will be processed, many will be sent back. host: he mentioned sri lanka. the flow is going. guest: in the refugee business, i will make a couple of points here. it is incredibly expensive, generous, and in some ways, a moral position for america to open -- for them to open german doors. in making these decisions, you also create a moral hazard, which means you are saying ok, if you can get here, we are one to process you and perhaps let you stay here. so, like the insurance business, if you enter risky behavior, people are going to take greater risks. refugees will take those risks if there is a prospect for them to come and settle. governments have to be careful in how they do this. to go back your caller's point that she was british. one of the things we see in western europe, i mentioned belgium, france, you can put britain in this category. these are countries that have very old come along colonial histories. they are tied to be societies, whether they are in southeast asia, the middle east, or africa. have these they large colonial populations. one could argue that you are in a postcolonial situation here. germany lost all of its colonies after world war i. they did not have a colonial legacy. host: we have legal, ohio with rick. caller: we have been brainwashed over the last 40 years in this country. if you could put the visual backup for just one second. jobsisual had 2.3 billion from oil and gas. right now in this country, you have the south led by texas. you have bush and cheney invading the middle east because they want to control the middle east through oil. then you have the federal reserve that cut interest rates 12 times in one year! to get interest rates to zero, that is why they could manipulate the price of oil. the mostave -- it is incredible story in the history of mankind right now in this country, are the currency wars in the financial engineering through theted federal reserve, and the central banks. what is amazing about utah and about germany, three years ago, or two years ago, germany and russia told united states, britain, and the jewish lobby, stay out of my natural gas and see out of my oil! host: i'm going to let you go there. president obama is going to meet with the head of nato. this is secretary-general talking about terrorism and the refugee crisis. what should be nato's role in the crisis? guest: the simple fact is, having this many people on the move in such a short period of enormous social and political challenges, but of course, it is a security challenges well. is going to play a role. all of the european institutions are going to have to help play a role in stabilizing the situation so we are not going to have such massive numbers of peoplemoving in such a short amf time. a handley, if we get on this, we have to deal with the root causes. fortunately we have a truce that is holding in syria. if you can give people hope that they can go back home, this crisis will begin to abate. so certainly, nato will have to play a part in this. and the terrorism threat is always going to be there. it isn't going to go away tomorrow or next week. and i would be careful not to inflate this with the refugee crisis. they are separate things. and we can see with the jihadi networks in western europe that connectedlarge issue to what is going on in the middle east. the only way to stop these attacks from happening is to have extraordinary police capabilities and intelligence capabilities with lots of collaboration and nato will play a role in that. i think it is wise of president obama to be meeting with the counterparts to look at what can be done and how the u.s. can help. host: nora, welcome. it is good to talk to you today. i love this program. i want to refer back to your previous priggish caller. he touched avoid the point of assimilation. it is a difficult one. i was in a sample a few years ago and one of the things that you feel in the streets and at the universities and in the square at all of the areas is that tension between the west and between the islamic ideologies and western cultures. and that is all brought to the front in is sample. the reason why i was calling, my sister lives in auburn, in maine. that is a somali refugee population that has been established nearly 20 years ago. the is simulation there has been rough. i don't think it is for lack of effort on host communities. ofre is a level self-segregation in that scenario. thealso, what is reunification plan of our refugee policies? it has been about 20 years and if you talked about the cost in the program, correct me if i am theg but i believe that somali populations in that area are still receive it, after 20 years, stipends from the government, the host town is receiving a benefit. host: thank you. there are two things to take in. giving people the option for opportunities to return to the country from which they came from, if and when conditions allow them to do that. and that is always something that is kept open. i'm sure it will be kept open in europe for the syrians who would like to return home to their country. and my guess is that many will. deal withare able to these issues of integration with people, especially if they will be settled in societies where they have fled, you have three things. them, we have to have control of the flows of people coming in. these have to be orderly and they have to be legal. the second thing is that we need policies to cope with this. the european policy has collapsed right now and the american policy is still functioning with respect to refugees and asylum-seekers. no common there are asylum policy. so this is an enormous governmental challenge. and the third thing, we have to be able to integrate people fairly quickly. you do not want them to become public charges. i don't know the situation in maine with the somali population. but the worst thing that can happen is people get cut off from the mainstream society and they are not able to get jobs or integrate. i wouldn't be too negative about that. i think our societies have done an extraordinary job in integrating many of these people into united states. a political science professor at smu who study's and how countries handle their migrant populations. thank you for being with us. we will turn our attention next here on washington journal to the sixth anniversary of the affordable care act. by rochon aoined product on -- joined by rachana pradhan as washington journal continues. ♪ >> starting monday, the supreme court cases that shaped our history come to life with the c-span series, landmark cases. series shows real dramas behind some of the most good biggest decisions in history. >> john marshall says that the constitution is a political government document. it is also a law. we havet is a law, groups for other branches. it is the ultimate anti-presidential case. it is exactly what you don't want to do. >> who should make the decisions about those things? the supreme court says it should make decisions. >> landmark cases. book tv is in prime time starting monday night on age: 30 eastern. deliver a range of topics. plus, encore presentations. tune in for book tv in prime time all next week on c-span two. go to c-span.org for the complete schedule. washington journal continues. ist: rachana pradhan politico's health care reporter and is joining us to talk about the sixth anniversary of the affordable care act with some notes and celebrations happening in the past week. the bill was signed six years ago by president obama. how is it doing so far in terms of the number of people signed up? and the cost involved? guest: thank you for having me. far, by the obama administration's estimates, 20 million people who previously did not have health insurance the gotten covered over past two years as a result of the law. that it is funny because the affordable care act continues to be so controversial in this country. askso depending on who you how well it is working or not working, you could find either side to say why it is doing well or why it is not doing well. far, 20 million people is the largest estimate for how many people have obtained and that is to a variety of programs, one of them is through the health care exchange and about half of the states, people have gotten coverage under medicaid which is the program for low income people. host: one of the things that has happened in the last year that i have noticed is that a new tax form has shown up from the irs this year that people are getting. explain that to us? guest: there are three types of forms. where youending on get your health insurance from, this is the way the irs validates whether someone has coverage or not. daymost americans to this receive their health insurance through this job -- through their job. so one of the forms basically, your employer will validate that for the purposes of meeting the individual mandate which says americans must have health insurance. it proves that you do to the irs so you're not penalized when you file your taxes. and there are two other types of forms. and if you get health insurance through an exchange, you will receive a form saying, here is your proof that you have it. so that is what people need to use when they file their taxes as proof of health insurance. is how we will separate the lines for the purposes of this conversation. if you get your health care coverage through the affordable care act, the line to use is (202) 748-8000. if you get it through your in -- through your employer, (202) 748-8001. you can also send us a tweet. back to the employer-provided health care, one of the most recent bits of news is that employers get another affordable care reporting deadline in terms irs, what isto the that and when is the new deadline? guest: one of the requirements in the lot is called the employer mandate which says employers have to provide -- if you are over a certain size, you must provide coverage to your employees. they need to report to the irs whether they are doing that. recent extension with providing some of the forms and i think this is -- it has been delayed before by the obama ofinistration because operational difficulties in implementing these provisions. they, located and require a lot of work on the part of the agencies and employers to implement the necessary rules. provision is in effect and this year, midsize employers are also required to comply with the employer mandate. so there may be a delay associated with that. but in effect, people are still having to comply with that piece of the law. host: the affordable care act is back in the courts this week in the second incident of the requiring contraception coverage. we had the hobby lobby case and this past week, the little cases? -- why these two guest: hobby lobby was two years ago. at that time, for-profit companies where the owners of the company has religious objections to providing certain that theyontraception provide to their workers, they don't have to provide it. not an outright exemption but they can be removed from the process of making sure that their workers get contraception coverage. the affordable care act requires that all fda approved forms of contraception has to be available to people without any cost.-pocket so religious organizations have objections to that because they don't want to be complicit in paying for coverage that they objecting to on religious or moral grounds. so this past week, the little sister's case came up, and now you have a religious nonprofit, so organizations like this which , who organization of nuns are also objecting to having to be complicit in providing coverage to their employees that they do not agree with on some grounds. now, it is a little bit different and i think in oral arguments, it is interesting is the justice kennedy perennial swing vote on this and he indicated that even if you like therganization little sisters who wouldn't want to provide this coverage to their employees, where do you draw the line? should it also apply to catholic universities? the obama administration's argument says this is a public health reason. this access should be provided and there is a larger imperative as to why they should have access to this benefit. is ourachana pradhan guest, the politico health care advisor reporter. you) 748-8000 for those of who get your coverage through the affordable care act. through your1 employer and for the uninsured, (202) 748-8002. a quick tweet before we get to calls. talking about the form, more paperwork, just what we need. here is gainesville, florida. heavy who gets her coverage through the affordable care act. thank you. yes i do. let me tell you, i am very grateful to have the affordable care act act. i was in excellent health before i applied for this. and now i may end up having a because it is the most dysfunctional program we have ever set up. it took months before they would take my money. thingsu try to get resolved, you are on the phone for hours. it is not because of employees who are bad people, i think the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. i think if it had been set up like medicare, it would have been much better. that we had shame corporate lobbyists drafting peopled we seem to have in congress who don't want to fund it properly. it has been a total disaster for the american people who deserve good health care. corporate lobbyists came up with this hybrid. it is a crying shame because it made people sick. well, i think there have 2014, the main coverage expansions took effect documentedas been constantly that people have had a lot of trouble getting their calls through and getting their coverage and making sure that their premiums are getting paid to their insurance companies. was a massive overhaul of the health care system. it takes a lot of work and there are still kinks that need to be worked out. state thatorida a set up its own exchange? guest: no. florida like 37 other states, rely on healthcare.gov which is the website that was set up by the federal government because there should be another option. so most of the states that set up their own exchange are led by governors and legislature. so florida is one of those that relies on the federal site which obviously, in its early days, had huge problems. it has gotten better but i think people are still experiencing difficulties when they try to enroll. host: let's go to mike who is in ohio who gets his health care through his employer. good morning. caller: good morning. just as she started the conversation this morning, they are always touting that the ada is such a success. but the truth is that the majority of people who have gotten health care are through medicaid, which is just an expansion of the program. i say this because what obama has done, and frankly i'm not --e why oh why republicans i'm not sure why republicans have let him get away with it, he pushed back all of these taxes and they are designed to pay for it. which will drive up the cost for employees. and employer-based insurance. this is why the irs think is starting to take place. they are preparing this. to warn people that they will be paying more. we will be getting less. he mentioned the cattle act, perhaps you could explain that? is correct. the most recent budget deal in ongress put a suspension this tax and two other taxes. they're designed to pay for the pieces that expand coverage. is a taxlac tax limit very expensive health benefits that are provided through employers. now the business groups will say that the cadillac tax will apply to most people with health benefits. concern because employers are trying to make sure that they don't get hit by the tax and as a result, you could see changes where workers are having to pay for a larger share of their health care. there has been a suspension temporarily, so i think we have yet to see what the impact of the tax is. would be on tax employers and passed down to employees? guest: right. it is designed to prevent a problem where health care coverage is expensive on the treasury because of the benefits associated with it. go to david in north carolina. welcome. for rachanauestion pradhan is that i am required by the state of north carolina, through divorce, to provide insurance for my minor child. and obamacare does not address this at all, because i have been unable to get any help. it blows people's minds when i call the helpline. ie gist is that i am required law to provide insurance for my child but obamacare does not allow me to get help for this. because i don't count him on my taxes. he doesn't live with me. i'm required to pay $175 a month for a 14-year-old child that does not go to the doctor. started out at $84 a month before obamacare and now i am a two $175 a month. host: that is just for your child? caller: i am not insured. pay $575 aord to month for insurance. host: thank you for calling in this morning. that is a problem i haven't heard a lot about. it boggles people's minds that he is trying to get help but there is a requirement in the individual mandate that says nearly everyone in this country must have health insurance. whereere are some cases he deals with dependent coverage. actually as to whether his son may be eligible or the children's health insurance coverage as he is a minor. is on medicare, calling from west virginia. caller: hello. good morning. i wanted to inform you of a problem. i'm pretty sure you are not aware of this also. it has to do with my wife. she turned 65 years old last year in july. blueas on the marketplace cross blue shield. over, whenre takes your birthday is in the month, they take over on the first of the month. so she automatically went on medicare on the first of july. but the insurance company and the marketplace -- they wouldn't of julythe month although we already canceled it with the insurance company. but the marketplace paid them that money on behalf of her so now we have two forms. and 10-95 b. she was six months on the marketplace and six month on the medicare that the marketplace hated -- marketplace paid a whole month extra and now we are being penalized by the irs. we have to pay the money back when the insurance company paid the money. they said they were going to keep it. and the marketplace said that they don't have a leg to stand on. $560 because of their mistake with the insurance company. host: let me ask you, on the -- westom the irs virginia is a state that gets it through healthcare.gov? people or leted people know, this is the process? this is what will happen when you get your tax form? be prepared for this? guest: they have. outirs tries to put instructions for when these forms are coming and what should be done with them. i think one of the issues that the caller mentioned that is very complicated, anytime you have someone who is transitioning between two programs, especially in the middle of the year, that is especially prone to having a lot of mistakes because there will be a lag in the system or people don't realize or get notification that his wife was eligible for medicare. so there is no need to provide tax credit on the exchange plan. part ofsomething that it is just kinks in the system that are difficult to deal with but there are advocacy groups in washington who say that there needs to be a seamless transition when people move in between programs. that prevents things from this happening. spentrachana pradhan three years at inside health policy and now is with politico covering health care and health policy. a question from twitter -- of the 20 million newly covered, how many are subsidized or on medicaid? guest: that is a very good question. that includes sources of coverage from several sources. here is what we know so far. roughly 12.5ges million people have gotten coverage. and the vast majority of them are subsidized. a previous caller mentioned this. medicaid has seen larger growth that people anticipated. a lot of the enrollment growth that we have seen, it has not been taken out of the medicaid expansion. medicaid expansion growth is quite higher than people expected so we don't know exactly how many of the 20 million people come from each of those rocket's. buckets. 26-year-oldudes the being able to stay on a parent's plan until that here. to oklahomago back city with dorothy. she gets her coverage through her employer. caller: i have a question. employers dispel women's health care because of the employeen when is actually the owner of the policy? it isn't the religious belief of the employee that has counted? guest: that point is an interesting one. we were talking about the hobby lobby case earlier and this is -- the obama administration and groups that support having broad access to contraception, they say that the employer should not be able to dictate whether your worker gets a certain benefit or not. situation, even if there are employers who say they object to providing, there accommodation where a worker is still able to get the benefit that they are entitled to. it is that the employer is divorced from that process. host: she raises an interesting point. is says that the employer the owner of the policy? guest: america has an interesting health care policy. the majority of people receive their benefits through their jobs. you can have several and there the majority of the cost of the policy, what we get through our jobs, when you get your monthly statements perhaps and what you pay, that is really a small share and your employer is covering the bulk of the cost of your plan, so who really owns it? it is hard to say. costu had to take it to a perspective, you could say the employer owns her policy because they pay a larger share then you do. host: a call from new jersey who, we hear from patricia got her insurance on the exchange through healthcare.gov, right? caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: good morning, viewers. actually, i am 60 years old, so i reinvented myself 10 times. a seasonal insurance agent and i sign people up or medicare, and i sign people up for the affordable care act. that makes $13 an hour. teacher.m a substitute in new jersey, substitute teachers are offered through the union and now through temp agencies. i make $100 a day in the inner-city, so i have a plan and 61 point $55 because depending on if i have a good year working, i might make $25,000 a year. luckily, my house is paid for, my car is paid for, it is a 2005 hyundai sonata. i don't have any debt and my children are grown, but what i have noticed is one, from county to county, the co-pay, the benefits available and the providers out there from state to state, county to county, and lock to block, to be exaggerated, very. say this commendatory. by can't it be the same in the entire state? they are charging people from state this date, especially the southern states, $25 to sign them up. i went to blow the whistle on them, and i did not know exactly how to do that. host: a couple of points, patricia. we will ask rachana pradhan or her thoughts. guest: first, the issue about accessing providers statewide, the aca, because of the changes it made to the health insurance health insurance companies can no longer include people based on pre-existing conditions. that was one of the ways that they used to manage risks for their enrollees. the tools in the toolbox that they have to hand down on their premium cost are now quite limited compared to what they used to be able to do. one of the ways they can do that is managing their network of health care providers, so hospital positions, etc. to make sure that they don't get too expensive. the size of your network often times will dictate what your monthly premium is, and we know from -- there is widespread evidence dictating that when people shop for health insurance, they look at what the premium cost is before anything else. that is perhaps why on the marketplace, there has been several studies showing that the networks are quite narrow, and this is kind of the way of the future i think because health insurance companies only -- that is one of the best ways they can limit what they are charging people, right? accessoffer widespread to every hospital in your state or your county. also talked about brokers. what is the role of brokers? if there is an exchange, why would one need a broker? long timekers for a have been part of our country to help enroll individuals, especially small businesses in health care. many use brokers to navigate the system and help find a plan that is best for them. brokers have been involved in the aca a lot and there has been evidence in some states that they -- because they do get commission oftentimes to enroll people, their role is quite large and getting enrollment numbers to be substantial. in california, i think it was last year, there was at least 40% of their enrollment could be attributed to the fact that someone was working with the health insurance broker to sign them up. host: rachana pradhan is a graduate of james madison university in virginia. but first you interested in health care and health policy? i could pretend this was something i intended on, but it was not. i have always been interested in public service, government-oriented, public policies, journalism, and really it was a product of being in the right place at the right time. the affordable care act had not been too long signed and i thought it would be a good opportunity. here we are. [laughter] it has been quite a ride. host: let's go to florida. susan gets health care to medicare. good morning. caller: good morning. i am a little bit late and i think i called the wrong number. the i am really calling about this for my daughter. she works in the service industry, and the folks who work in the service industry usually depend upon tourism down here in florida. or fourthree months months of strong tourism and then it starts to subside, so what happens to the health surface industry is that there employees decreased their hours so that the insurance gets canceled and the employee is the one who suffers and has to pay the penalty. these workers get five dollars or less than an hour and while they are working a few months, they have to's set and enough money aside to have enough money to survive on the next six months, seven months. , andally is very difficult i am just wondering when some of these things will be tweaked? isnderstand that every state sort of different under the affordable care act, but perhaps something simpler and more wouldd across the board be the answer? host: thank you. service industry employees, especially those that work in tourism, this has been an issue that has been talked about for probably years. like i said earlier, anytime someone is shifting between different programs of coverage, you are bound to have problems. it is very hard for the system to keep up. when the affordable care act will get to a place when people start talking about the loss has not been totally open to because the republicans in congress would want to do away with the losses, but we are getting to a point where people are more willing to look at things that need to be changed. there is pretty widespread agreement that regardless of which political party you are a part of, the affordable care act will be performing at some time. when that will happen, we could have an hour-long discussion the arising. host: there is the question that tweets in, she says is that the committee in congress trying to work together to fix some of the portions of the aca? also, a couple of questions and ody should have to pay for not having health insurance. and then a question from steve -- how many are choosing to pay rather then make mistake of failing to sign up for obamacare? guest: we only have one year's worth of data showing how many people actually pay the tax penalty for not having insurance. it is quite small. i think it is only on the order of a couple of million people which i know does not sound small, but in a country that is large, it is not that substantial. the original mandate exists and requires americans to have but i can'tance, even keep track of them at this point that there are several exceptions you can claim to not pay the penalty and they are associated with hardship. if your health insurance eats up too much of your income, if you are in a state that did not expand medicaid and you would be eligible otherwise, you could claim hardship exemption and you don't have to pay the penalty. because we are now still in the second season of tax filing, where the individual mandate is in the fact -- in effect, we don't have a lot of data showing how many people are paying the penalty. as far as changes to the affordable care act, i should address that republicans in congress and the house -- there are three committees, committee chairman, working on the plan. for about six years now have promised they will come up with a replacement but it has been difficult to have a widespread agreement as to what that should be. obviously a presidential election year and house speaker paul ryan has said that the republicans will have a replacement plan ahead of the republican presidential convention in cleveland, so we may see something there. democrats running for president also have their opinions on how the aca should be changed in the future, but of course, not nearly as drastic as with the republicans do. host: here is georgia, nikki is insured to the affordable care act. caller: good morning. how are you doing? happy easter to america. host: happy easter. caller: the affordable care act saved my life. in decembert attack put and i had two stints in. i would never have went to the heart dr. without the affordable care act because what i had for me and my,000 wife and it cost me 1200 and something dollars a month. i had to pay for most of whatever was done. veryplan has made me very, hard against the republican party. i will never vote for another republican because all i hear is let's appeal, let's appeal. a lot of people don't understand millionsas done for of people in helping us. let me tell you, if in fact the for people that work and their employers did not get that tax benefit, the subsidized coverage and they had to pay taxes on the benefit they are getting, their employers would stick their nose and would not even think about covering lots of people. host: thank you for sharing your story. his,: i think stories like those stories in the country can probably help us to why president obama did what he did and put so much of his political capital on doing this early on in his presidency. he makes an interesting point. the fact that so many millions of people are benefiting from the law because they have gotten coverage, it does make it harder to undo it in any substantial way. host: the president in milwaukee earlier this month touted the enrollment so far under obamacare, the affordable care act. [video clip] president obama: today, 20 million more americans now know the security of health insurance. 20 million people. [applause] 20 million, that includes 6 million young people who are less likely to be insured before the affordable care act. americans 129 million with pre-existing conditions can no longer be charged more or denied coverage just because they have been sick. americans wholion already had private insurance, and they did not need to sign up for obamacare, they are not guaranteed free preventative care as well and checkups, mammograms. you are getting more for what you are paying for, so your insurance is better than it was. , evenf you don't know it if you did not vote for me. [laughter] thank you, obama. that was the one where he was introduced by the young men with health care coverage and have been strongly opposed to the president. you mentioned briefly the democratic candidates. if you can, tell us briefly how hillary clinton would continue the affordable care act and what would bernie sanders do? guest: hillary clinton says that she would do certain things to build on the aca. i think some of the callers raised concerns about the out-of-pocket cost that many still based despite having health insurance, so she has a proposal in her plan to create new tax credits to help people afford health insurance for out-of-pocket costs that they cannot afford. she also has things to happen down on prescription drug cost and deal with other pieces of the aca that need tweaking. bernie sanders, senator sanders from vermont, has a bit more progressive change in mind. advocateen a longtime of what we call the single-payer health care system, which is where the government is responsible for financing health care in the country or it would be in the country under his plan, so his aim is to provide universal coverage, which is what the aca was designed to do but there are millions of people without health insurance. single-payer is a very liberal idea, so i think they would obviously be a lot of opposition, not just from members of congress, but the entrenched interest in the country like health insurance companies and others that would oppose the system. the sixth anniversary of the affordable care act, we will go to michigan, don is uninsured there. go ahead. caller: thank you, bill. rachana, i have got to say to you that you said single-payer is a liberal thing. it is the right thing for all. it works in all these countries, canada. we should bring a bunch of people from these countries that are getting single-payer and show how much easier it is. they take the card swipe and they swipe when they go in and out. anything they pay out-of-pocket they get reimbursed. to,canadian who comes they're coming for quality but they get reimbursed when they go back on. act, if you care have an operation or procedures, you have to pay 2000 to $4000 and i know people make $170 a week, and you know, this does not help the people really and truly. host: you are uninsured. how much would it cost to get an insurance policy? caller: i have not even bugs. so far, -- i have not even looked. so far, i am good to the point, but i am looking at the thing with medicare. to be honest, i am on food stamps. get -- i am looking for a job and i have people [indiscernible] that is ridiculous. host: we will go to new york and get from craig, who gets his insurance through his employer. caller: how are you doing? i am with the union, and the thing i am concerned about is the cadillac tax. they say that this obamacare is supposed to give you better healthier,d keep you and we have a terrific plan. what the cadillac tax does is paralyze the owners of the plan, for giving better coverage than anybody else. i am worried that once this goes into effect, that a lot of employers might start to get rid of this plan. i am retired and i was able to keep the same plan when i worked, and i don't know how with theoing to react employers of the people who have these great plans. it will be so excessive with the cadillac tax? guest: that is an open-ended question because the cadillac tax, there is very, very strong opposition, not just business groups that labor unions, who very aggressively pushed or have been trying to repeal the tax because they are worried that it backing to perhaps pare the more conference of coverage that they have been able to negotiate as the collective-bargaining agreements on wages and other things. ifhink we do have yet to see that takes place, but there is a lot of concern that unions perhaps are not going to be able to negotiate as generous benefits as they have been able to in the past. host: what is the one story out there about the health care law that you would like to see written about that you think has not been reported on or reported on enough? givingat the risk of not any ideas -- host: [laughter] i don't want it to do that. guest: i think one of the things i am personally interested in, over the last six years, there has been a lot that happened over the country in terms of how the hospital landscape as chance for lots of different reasons. seeing how the market has is somethingapt that should be looked into because obviously, where people can access health care is one of the most important things, not just having health insurance. host: rachana pradhan reports on health care issues and policy for "politico." viewers can read more at politico.com. thank you. guest: thank you so much. host: much more "washington journal." we are opening up our phone lines for any issue. there were caucuses last night in washington, alaska and hawaii, so if you want to talk politics or any other issues, that is fine. democrats, (202)-748-8000. republicans, (202)-748-8001. independents and others, (202)-748-8002. the cherry trees are out in full bloom and d.c. and during our first series, -- our first ladies series, we talk about how they came to the nations capital. >> when helen taft became first lady, one of the first things she did was address having cherry trees. the early 20th century, it was a mess. there was a speedway were people raised [indiscernible] but there was nothing to drop people or to make it beautiful for people to gather and enjoy nature. helen taft wanted to change that, so one of the first things she did when she became first lady was to ask for trees to be planted. they were requested and the japanese heard about her interest and they decided to give 2000 trees to the united states in their honor. gift honoring the american support in japan. january inarrived in 1910. everyone was shocked. the trees that were sent to her older and taller, so it was decided that they would have to be burned. president tapped himself made the decision and said it had to be burned. veryapanese were accommodating and understanding and decided to send 3000 trees that arrived in 1912. it is those that we still have a few up around the tidal basin. this is the north section with a view of the washington monument, where many of the original trees have been planted. they are older because they are wider and they have gnarly trunks, over arching branches,. taft planted helen the cherry blossom trees. they would not be here if it were not for helping taft. people were enchanted with all things japanese in the late 19th century, architecture, pictures, plants, and it was due to her that the trees are here today. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we will open up our phone lines as a look at the cherry trees just north of the u.s. capitol on this easter sunday morning. (202)-748-8000 the number the call for democrats. (202)-748-8001 for republicans. independents and all others, (202)-748-8002. congress out for their easter break. they will be back next week and the house back one week after that. there were elections overnight. caucuses. first up in alaska, senator bernie sanders winning those caucuses, 82% to 18% over hillary clinton. in hawaii, with how many percentages of the votes -- 71% or bernie sanders, 29% for hillary clinton. caucuses,gton state democratic caucuses, senator bernie sanders winning 73% and secretary hillary clinton with 27% of the vote. with the next big grounded primaries coming up on april 5, on bernie sanders' front page of washington post, sanders planning a fierce torrent as caucus sweeps. aggressive intent toward clinton . philip writing that in the mathematical squeeze to make up ground in the presidential race. bernie sanders is preparing to ratchet up his attacks ahead of the new york show done that could establish out easily the party can pull itself back together for the general election. on washingtonnes journal. we go to indiana, republican line, charlie. go ahead. caller: happy easter to you and everybody listening. i just wanted to comment, thingng it is an amazing to look at our country and realize that we stand it -- started out with individual responsibility, hardware, little interaction with the government, and basically you rose or fell by the sweat of your brow. now, after hundreds of years, we have an openly devout socialist that is winning states and it speaks to the mentality against people today believing that them, thatowed to the government should be involved in their lives. and that socialism nowhere in the world has ever succeeded. when you asked hillary the difference between a progressive democrat and socialist, she could not answer. it makes me nervous and sat for future generations when it's about socialist can gain votes by young, uneducated people believe in things that there is such a thing as a free lunch. thank you for taking my call. host: the manila bulletin in the philippines -- pope slams terrorism. report, ins, an ap the manila bulletin, pope traditional good friday procession denounced those committing terrorist acts well decrying what he called europe's indifference and his conscious over migrants and he slammed pedophile priest, armed dealers and fundamentalists. minerva in new york is next. caller: thank you for taking my call. sorry i missed your guest as my comment has to do with the affordable care act. i am a public school teacher who small schoolry with less than 30 employees. we joined consortium years ago so he could afford our insurance premiums. the affordable care act has allowed the will be going into effect stating that if you have fewer than 100 employees, you may not belong to a consortium. if we are forced out of the consortium, we will no longer be able to afford our health care. thee are forced onto insurance exchange, those policies are just as expensive and have less coverage than what we have now. that peoplencerned are being forced out of their current health care policies and into the exchange, which i am assuming this to bring down the cost, but the coverages much less. it is an insurance policy you cannot afford to use. thank you for taking my call. have a great it. you. thank she talked about our health care segment that just wrapped and you can see all of our segments at www.c-span.org. a bulletin this morning on the latest from brussels and their breaking news with authorities in brussels. to otheror raids over cities, four of nine people remain detained. robert though, missouri, independent line. caller: thank you. are just so many issues. i think our government has betrayed us. i am a christian, experian, and i would never vote for a republican. like the democrats, and what i don't like about hillary is she keeps saying, we are going to follow obama. well, let's look at obama's record. he is worse than george w. bush, as much as i despise 10, and the affordable care act is trash. these people are paying house payments and $10,000 deductibles. go toe to die rather than the hospital because it is so outrageous that we will never pay it back by whole lifetime. that is just one example. there are like a dozen things. i think we are on the verge of the civil war. the american people are fed up. that is why they are voting for trump, and trump is not the answer. he is not even a christian. -- i havely lost totally lost all hope and our government and i think i speak for many americans out there. host: thank you. it is easter sunday and he mentioned donald trump carried a strange ritual in mexico by some accounts. mexico celebrates by burning trump in effigy. line, it is part of the annual burning of the judas festival on march 26. in a neighborhood of mexico city, every year, they burn a judas representing victory over evil, but they often choose a political character to stand in his place. that is from the washington post. roswell, new mexico, billy on the democrat line. morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i am a christian and i called about obama care but i have the opposite story. i has been would have died without it. we had a medicare plan that we had been paying, and when he came up with obama care, the plan was canceled. talk about hating him, i hated him and i voted for him and i got the betrayed me. turns out my has been had to have surgery, and that medicare advantage plan would not have paid for his medication. and then infection antibiotic cost too much. purchased a supplement toicy for $300 as opposed the 15 we were paying on the advantage plan. i was feeling until i learned that they would pay for the antibiotic which turned out to action,00, so for every there is an equal and opposite reaction. i think that there is some good and i think there is some bad. host: on the health care note, a tweet says -- get rid of the american insurance companies and let them relocate. let them all up relocate in china. here is texas, mike on the republican line. independent line, rather. go ahead. caller: good morning. how are you? host: fine, thanks. caller: this will be brief. that if the believe current president of the united states, president obama and not just obama, which you only hear that from folks who profess to be christians, it is hard for a lot of southerners to respect him because they cannot help it. it is just tradition. it started with the forefathers and i am not angry. i was at one time but i came to realize that when you are in goes, it is funny how life . bottom line is to push back with donald trump because he is the opposite of the current president. , been marriedhair three times, and has the president now has said some of the same things he has said and they try to hang him from a tree. happy easter. on therom tennessee, don republican line. make sure you turned on your television. caller: all right. i just think that this affordable care act, that they used it to intimidate the public and people say it is a mandate and i willt have it, be glad when we get the republican and that that will piece ofis sorry legislation. it is sorry. another date i would like to tell the administration, when they get 100% compliance, they can get back with me and i might , but untiltting it then, forget it. happy easter, everybody. host: open phones here on "washington journal." (202)-748-8000 for democrats. (202)-748-8001 for republicans. independents and others, (202)-748-8002. on the issue of politics, the 25 thousand sign petition to allow guns at republican national convention. they write that more than 25,000 people have signed the petition for the convention in july. firearms, they write, are currently not permitted in the quicken loans arena, known as the q where the gathering will take place. the petition on change.org saw only 5000 signatures but have on saturday 25,000 afternoon. it was posted by an author that identifies as n.a. from cleveland. the user profile appears to have been deleted from the website. next up on the democrat line. welcome. says youernie sanders will get free tuition in college, medicaid for everyone, the race set -- raise social security. how will he do all of that? host: how do you think he will do all of that? know.: i don't he said health care for everybody. he will repeal obama care. i pay for medicare, i picked get my socialnd security every month. i know medicare is not free. host: all right, jeremy, independent line. go ahead. caller: how is it going? host: fine, thanks. caller: good. love the show, man. it is exciting and helps me see what america thinks, but i think what started that this country, our founding fathers, they agreed with slavery. a lot of black people now should be going along -- should be ashamed of ourselves going along with the country knowing that our forefathers had their population in slavery. we have the nerve to stick our nose up at them and treat them as if they are illegal aliens, knowing about slavery in this country was there's originally. standg that we have to this time and abide by the laws and do everything we are supposed to do, we have failed to realize the history of this country, and a lot of scholars understand this. thank you. host: thank you. dave is next up in henderson, nevada. good morning, republican line. caller: happy easter. this like the media or anybody else does not ask the most important question to the candidates running. mr. kennedy, to facilitate her campaign promises, however get past the house and the senate? i do have an answer and what would be your answer? hello? host: thank you proposing the question. to nevada, good morning. caller: good morning. my call. for taking i was going to talk about health care, but i changed my mind in listening to some of the callers . i would like to talk about the caucuses. nevada had caucuses and eight years ago, i complained privately and nobody listened to me. when we went in with the caucus, there were 50 of us in the heavenly call him an eight in the obama column. then the republicans, their caucus was over so they came and registered as democrats for a day and obama won. the same thing happened this year. the republicans have their caucus after hours, and you are supposed to be a registered republican for 10 days before you can vote but they did it again. registered, pardon me, for bernie sanders. just a flukes are and i think they should be changed. another caller mentioned national debt and it was obama's fault. debtd in a trillion dollar , but he had programs in place that would create a $6 billion surplus which means that we .ould have a $2 trillion debt and then after george w, a stolen election, and when he left office, we had a $17 trillion debt, so this cannot be blamed on obama or anyone else. putting us so far in debt. host: it is easter morning, (202)-748-8000 for democrats. (202)-748-8001 for republicans. and for independents, (202)-748-8002. she mentioned the caucuses and bernie sanders won them all in hawaii, washington state -- times, another first for a cuba, a concert by the stones. by decades after his music was banned, which either performed his signature dance moves for hundreds of thousands of adoring fans friday night in cuba and declared times are changing. spanish,rs said in alluding to the years that american and british rock music work for good in here. here we are, it was a bit of an understatement at the start of an outdoor rolling stones concert at the sport facility. host: florida is next, john, good morning. independent mind. caller: good morning. constitutionality of the obama care act -- the first amendment says the united states will not will preventthat anybody from practicing religion. well, under the affordable care act, the exemption for the penalty for not having insurance is exception for muslims and other religions, about three that i say, and we condone and respect the religion. i think that should have been taken up by the supreme court. thank you. host: next up, pennsylvania, republican. hi there, mike. caller: good morning. happy easter. two things i wanted to say. thate, i think they forget saddam hussein [indiscernible] do you remember that? host: i do not quite catch it. caller: who was it that tried and convicted saddam hussein in iraq? it was his own people. the government had nothing at all to do with it if people remember. what i am saying is why can't we all get along? muslims, who are bad and the ones who are not, why don't they get together to fight their own battles and climate the united states soldiers talk about the americans? where are they? where are they today, sir? who are they protecting? host: thank you for your call. endorses publication ted cruz. ted cruz for president, the editorial says -- his campaignorted in 2012 because we sought in what conservatives nationwide have come to see as well. excellent on the full spectrum of issues and other public and say we should protect the constitution and cruz hasn't done it. it has been animating passion of his career. wisconsin. go to nancy is on the democrat line. good morning. caller: that is a good one? host: a challenge. caller: it means fallen water. host: thank you. [laughter] caller: anyway, calling on the democratic line, but if there were such a thing today, i'd be a socialist because i have to correct everybody's misconception about socialists. it became a bad word during world war ii when hitler and stalin claimed what they were doing was socialism when it was not. what milwaukee county did was socialism for over 50 years, starting in the late 1800s. milwaukee elected three different mayors under the socialist ticket, and those mayors doubled the library system, the park system in milwaukee county is absolutely exquisite. schools, theyded put health clinics in neighborhoods, they expanded affordable housing for veterans for poor people, they expanded transportation, they did many, many for average working people. ist is what bernie sanders getting to when he calls himself a socialist. himself to that they mayors that ran for three years in milwaukee. host: sounds like you will vote for him? "berning." host: cleveland, mike on the independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to get the word in on socialism also. , and policed roads and fire departments, come [indiscernible] parks,nal bank and state all of that stuff is socialism. we bought it, paid for it in schools, and we socialized all the doing and now we want to privatize all the results. all the trying to get stuff to the cronies out there. they put us in the whole so we are broke and then they sell the public domain to cover up for their own scandals. we need some socialism around to, but we don't need it for the big up at the little guy. we need to be doing our infrastructure and putting folks back to work here, not paying to move their jobs to china. conversation,our but if we don't change our attitude, we are already in trouble. host: thank you. we will follow up to our caller on bernie sanders. bernie sanders won in alaska, hawaii and washington state. post, formergton independent candidate ralph democratic and republican operatives or met anyone else win the presidency -- tried to read some of that. george tweets that my fear is that obama will stir up civil unrest so he can declare martial law and suspend the election. counterterrorism strategies based on bigotry will not make us safe. let's hear harriet on the republican line. good morning. i wanted to ask the question about the affordable care act. i have been trying to get insurance since it has come about, and the reason she can't get it is because she does not make over the amount of money a year and is not qualify. i thought when the affordable care act was coming out was for everyone, -- host: she makes under $11,000 a year? $11,500 andmakes she does not qualify for obama care. and she don't qualify for any help in the state of north carolina. we don't know what to do. we don't have any insurance at all for her. host: how old is she? caller: she is 27. host: so she just ate stop being covered under your plan? caller: rights. host: we appreciate you calling in. let's you from pennsylvania on the independent my. caller: good morning. theomment is about electronic voting machine system that is currently in place in this country. unfortunately, i am calling to inform the american voters of this. the electronic system has been compromised. there is a princeton university study is available on youtube, if you go under electronic putting machine fraud, -- electronic voting machine fraud, and it gives details on how they can easily be manipulated to flip votes and to affect tallies. this strikes at the core of liberties. host: what interested you first in this issue? caller: i was doing some and i put in a voting machine fraud and all this information came up. there is a ton on the internet. host: and the university study you mentioned? caller: it is available on youtube. all you have to do is search on youtube under electronic voting machine fraud or voting machine fraud. a number of videos will come up. there is for testimony given in for, a man that was hired one of the florida elections, it ofjust a complete web improprieties. host: about 10 more minutes of open phones. in houston, texas on the democrat line. good morning. caller: i would like to speak about public health system. i work in business for 30 years in houston, and i have been listening to bernie sanders and it doesn't make sense to me. i do not think [indiscernible] how they're going to overhaul everything. it does not work like that. we saw hundreds of patients every day because no one had any insurance. now that they have insurance, it should get better, but what bernie sanders is talking about is nonsense. i will vote for hillary because i know it will work. thank you. host: thank you. on bernie sanders, an opinion piece in "the washington post," saying that bernie sanders had to run as a democrat. part of the reasoning, he writes that by running as a democrat, sanders avoided exposing his campaign to immediate annihilation bipartisan attacks because if he had run as an independent, he would have faced one question daily in the media, as i did. host: a couple more calls. we go to virginia on the independent line. richard or ronald, rather, go ahead. caller: good morning. one thing that gets to me is the fact that these people who are fake republicans. they call themselves conservatives, but they are hiding behind these nice names. why do they think it is up for them to decide what the supreme court should be legal a conservative? people voted for the president supposed to is appoint the supreme court justices. -- biden was talking about he was not talking about when a person dies. he was talking about if someone was trying to play a game [indiscernible] people like mitch mcconnell and all those other people on capitol hill, if you want to know what is happening, this country will never [indiscernible] because of people like that. host: in indiana, democrat line. terry, hello. caller: happy easter, everyone. aboutd just like to say the prohibition of all call and the war on drugs, in 1920, the crime rate went up 70%. the four they passed that law, there were no murderers in our call games, there are no murderous drug gangs into they passed loss. it is ridiculous. law 13pealed the alcohol years after they passed it and crime went back down and it breaks up the murderous alcohol gangs, so it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out what should be done about the drug laws. you appealed the loss and the crime rate could be cut in half or more. host: this indiana -- had been legalized marijuana? is the no, but that number one selling illegal drug in the world. it should be legalized and you your gangsup 99% of right there. nobody would want to join anymore because they would be broke. on "washingtones journal," and taking tweets as well. we talked about health care policy earlier. here is a tweet from jean on health care and the anniversary. ae says -- obamacare was compromise between democrats and republicans. when congress compromises, corporate america wins, we, the people, lose. charles, good morning. caller: good morning and happy easter to you. i would like to say as a republican, i am so sorry for my party for the last eight years. all we have been trying to do is [indiscernible] this inge being conservatives, really, you look at ted cruz, he shut the ofernment down for an amount the check and now he's running for president to shut the government down. you have to tycoon trump, and really, i don't have nobody in the republican party to vote for now. all i can say is that we ended this conservative thing, but it looks like it hasn't really been under the umbrella and we became confederates, not conservatives. host: here is becky on the independent line in pennsylvania. go ahead. caller: i am here. i did not hear you and then you said that. host: go ahead. callingthe reason i am is i am retired. retiredsurance when i from westinghouse. it got too damn expensive. then i just want to medicare. it was a little cheaper. the economy has gotten so high and everybody, i mean everybody, even if you are working, and my sister, she has her own business. $300 a month for her for health insurance. i said, what? you have got to be kidding me. and i am paying for medicare through -- i don't know how this works into the medicare system, but i will not buy extra insurance and there ain't enough. they can pay the government gonese the government has to boot. nobody is getting tended to. all the care about are the syrians. they will come over here and take mike social security. $1500 a month and that is a lot for a woman. you know what? turningre not [indiscernible] and they are taking people's social security and they will give it to the syrians? i don't think so. host: how much do you pay a monthly or medicare? 99, i don't know. retired.p as i it was $77 and now it went up. i said, enough. if i have to pay, i never even got notified. oh, you have to pay, well, i had not paid income taxes since when i retired six years ago from working with the youth center. host: thank you for joining us and thank you for all your calls. "washington journal" is here every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. back again tomorrow morning. we will be joined by patrick tucker to talk about cyber security and national security. then the former director of the congressional budget office will join us to take a look at the cost of the deportation plans proposed by donald trump. and by ted cruz. and the assistant editor with "politico" will be here for our money segment and the cap expired programs. in hundred billion dollars expired programs for 2016. we hope you join us tomorrow :00 eastern.n happy easter and enjoy the rest of your weekend. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> there is a look at our schedule on the c-span networks. >> newsmakers is pleased to represent -- to w

Related Keywords

Vietnam , Republic Of , Nevada , United States , Alabama , Syria , Connecticut , West Virginia , Mexico , Arizona , Egypt , Massachusetts , James Madison University , Virginia , Iowa , Libya , Belgium , Spain , Norway , Canada , Japan , Germany , Missouri , Afghanistan , Argentina , Stanford University , California , Indiana , Georgia , Michigan , Brussels , Bruxelles Capitale , Milwaukee County , Wisconsin , Washington Monument , District Of Columbia , Iraq , New Jersey , Hungary , Sweden , Saudi Arabia , Maryland , Capitol Hill , France , Hawaii , Vermont , Alaska , Turkey , China , Mexico City , Distrito Federal , New Mexico , Dublin , Ireland , Russia , Washington , Sri Lanka , Ukraine , Erie , Pennsylvania , Manila , Philippines , Hollywood , South Korea , Cuba , Greece , New York , Gainesville , Florida , Haiti , North Carolina , Texas , Iran , Cleveland , Ohio , Illinois , Tuscaloosa , Lebanon , Jordan , United Kingdom , Oklahoma , Maine , Tennessee , Israel , Houston , Somalia , Paris , Rhôalpes , Kuwait , Italy , Venezuela , Utah , Americans , America , Saudi , Turkish , Mexican , Germans , Turks , Cubans , French , Iraqi , Italians , British , Haitians , Somali , Russians , Japanese , American , Canadian , Greeks , Russian , Iraqis , Syrians , Britain , Swedes , Belgian , Spanish , German , Syrian , Irish , Ralph Nader , Helen Taft , Bernie Sander , Joe Biden , George Bush , Vladimir Putin , Christian Experian , Mahmoud Abbas , Patrick Tucker , Kathleen Hicks , John Marshall , Ashton Carter , Joseph Goldberg , Boca Raton , Barack Obama , George W Bush , Lawrence Downes , Steve Forbes , Jim Holifield , Las Vegas , Mitch Mcconnell , Tom Cole , Hillary Clinton , Paul Ryan , Yasser Arafat , Ted Cruz , Bernie Sanders ,