Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20160413 : comparem

who ignore part of the reform law. that brings us to our question for viewers. what do you think about the quality of education in your local schools? special line today for this question. parents of school age children can call 202-748-8000. eachers can call 202-748-8001. school administrators can call 202-748-8002. nd all others can call 02-748-8003. we want to talk about the equality of education in your committee. let's talk about how king talks about the new law puts more power in the state's hands. >> learning standards that will prepare all students for college and careers. the law supports investments and quality preschool and it requires the information on student progress to share through state-wide assessments while reducing and improve state and local taxes. it builds on work already underway to raise expectations for students and establish tailored systems for school improvements and states. the law shifts responsibility for develops strategies to support the highest needs students and schools to stay in local decision makers. and it creates opportunities for states to reclaim the goal of a well rounded education for every child. host: and he's talking about that new every child succeeds act. that's the subject of our conversation today as we discuss the education at your local schools. host: lamar alexander charged the department with trying to implement new regulations that would require equal, not comparable spending per pupil. he accused the department that local school districts must use when calculating whether funding between schools is comparable. a move that he says is not allowed under the law. he says that in a quote, he said during a hearing not only what you're doing is against the law but you're trying to do it against another provision in the law. we're talking about education today. again, we have special lines for parents, 202-748-8000, teachers can call in, 202-748-8001. administrators, 202-748-8003. and -- 202-748-8002 and all others can cool in at 202-748-8003. we'll look at system of the other headlines which includes house speaker paul ryan's decision to take himself out of the running for the presidential bid. amid growing speculation he might jump into the race at the convention in today's paper, we have a little more about that. it says the circus surrounding what in any other year would be a statement of the obvious, a newly installed speaker of the house does not wish to indo the wall -- undo of wills of thousands of voters and delegates at his party's convention is simply the latest strange turn in a race replete with them -- on tuesday, he said he would have none of it. that's a little bit from today's "new york times" about paul ryan's decision not to run for president. but let's get to your calls about your thoughts on the state of education in your school. first, let's talk to michael. michael, you're calling in from new kensington, pennsylvania. what are your thoughts of education in your local schools? caller: yes. good morning. thank you for c-span and thank you for taking my call. i come from a different school district. i have students in the school district but now they've grown and have gone on to work and things like that. they're out of the school system right now. but our school system, our school district is, i believe, does not have a high quality of education. it's gone downhill. it was a decent school district at one time. and now i think we've been ddled with a lot of problems whether it's problems with kids that are troublemakers, that have been put into our school district for one reason or another. it's kind of an inner city school. and i feel bad for the kids who really want to get an education. host: michael, how do you think that things have changed since our kids were there? caller: well, i don't think there's as much of an emphasis on good quality education. i don't think they have a good standard -- good standards. a lot of the emphasis has been on sports. they spent a lot of money on a stadium and things like that for the kids which was not arranted, i don't think. i just don't see a lot of improvement on that. my kids had a good background and when they were in school, when they finally went to the public schools, they had a good head start on a lot of kids that had been in school for a long time. so i believe in school choice. i think that they need more competition, especially these inner city schools where, you good school from a district. and i think it's unfortunate that things aren't even but they very rarely are. host: ok. that is michael calling in from pennsylvania. up next, we have eric calling in who is a parent in cedartown, georgia. eric, what do you think about the quality of education of your children's school? caller: i feel like the quality of schools in certain minority neighborhoods is bad even in the rural areas. they're building new schools out in the suburbs. they're not building them, improving the schools in town, even in small towns. but we must first look at the background of education in the united states. first of all, it was illegal for black people to even learn how to read and write. it was illegal for somebody to teach this person to read and write. and that was not school for black people. then you come with the separate but equal. in the school and the education system in the united states have always been discriminatory toward blacks, african-americans and the poor because without education, you cannot advance in life. host: let me ask you this -- caller: just like in the black community. host: what ages are your hildren in school? caller: i found a way to get them educated. we have a voucher and we sent them to a private school in the next town over from where i live at. and they went on to college in different -- they even had a better education than me. when i went to college because if the parents don't believe in education, you know, they are not going to teach this to their kids and pass it on down. this is the way out of poverty. but you have to look at the discrimination that has happened in the past. i would like to ask this question. can you tell me when it became legal for black people how to relearn how to read and write? thank you. host: up next, we have erica calling in from charlotte, north carolina. erica, you're a school administrator. what is your role in school? caller: i'm a school board member. i'm elected to provide governors to -- governance to the school. host: what are your thaws of education? caller: we're truly at an impasse across the country. a number to have localities are underfunding the school. here where i live in the state of north carolina, education as a percentage of the state budget 2002 was 41.5% of all revenue. in 2015, k to 12 education is under 40%. it's at 38.9% as a percentage of the state budget. so we're underfunding our schools. and what we see in north carolina in particularly is low teacher pay. we're currently 46th in the nation as it relates to teacher pay. and that's really giving us a very difficult time in terms of recruitment and retention of teachers and talent. host: ok. erica, let me ask you a question in today's "washington post." there's a story about teach for america, which is a program that recruits young college grads to in nto classrooms to help some of the nation's toughest classrooms to sort of help plant some of the teaching talent there. and they're seeing their pools for application shrink. and the chief executive recently acknowledged that some of the recruitment problems are due to an increasingly vocally critics of teach for america saying that the toxic debate surrounding education and attacks on organization that seek to bring more people to the field is pushing future leaders away from considering education as a space where they can have a real impact. what do you think about programs like teach for america that seek to encourage people to pursue educational programs and do you think the pay issue is making it difficult for them and for others to go into teaching? caller: i've had the opportunity to meet miss beard and unfortunately, i would say i disagree with her on this particular topic. if you look around the country, the pipeline for teachers are slinking altogether. when you look at colleges of education enrollment is down about 30% nationwide. so when you don't have people coming into the pipeline the traditional way, alternative routes are going to see shrinkage as well. a lot of times, states are being very hostile towards public education in terms of regulation and statues that impact -- statutes that impact the classroom and impact the quality of life of the workplace for teachers. and i see that people are really reacting to those factors and just the reality of being in the classroom. e have more hard staffed subjects. it's very difficult to get teachers who are qualified and who will stay in those positions. i think you're just seeing the amal mation of all of those hings. amalgamation of all of things. i think there is a role of government for education but in the last education, they were definitely overreaches. hopefully, we'll see some course correction with the new authorization of the every child succeeds act but i think it's really going to be up to the states in terms of how they interpret that law and its tenants and how they put it into place. i know some states are look at it as a tool to repeal the common court. i think that will be a mistake. hopefully, they will save the court and standards. this will hopefully bring back more delole local school board into states. host: ok. that was erica, a school board member calling in from charlotte, north carolina. committee chairman lamar alexander talked a little bit about how the new education law changed the role of education. >> this bill passed by huge margin, 359 to 64 in the house. 85 to 12 in the senate. the president signed it and called it a christmas miracle. the reason we were able to achieve such unusual consensus is to put it bluntly, is that local school boards, classroom teachers and states have gotten tired of the united states department of education telling them so much about what to do. and that one just republicans complaining or governors complaining. you often hear that kind of thing when it comes to the responsibility. this came from the school suspects -- superintendents from the american federation of teachers, from the chief state officers. almost everybody involved in education. there hasn't been a broader coalition in a long time. the objective has been a national school board telling kansas what its academic standards had to be, telling tennessee how to fix failing schools, telling washington state how to evaluate teachers. so the legislation we passed not only got rid of those things, we went further in a remarkable way and have explicit prohibitions on what a how much secretary might do. this was all a dramatic change. it's called the biggest evolution from the federal government to states in 25 years. but it's not worth the paper it's printed on if it's not implemented properly. host: and that was lamar alexander talking about new federal law that replace the previous no child left behind law. and up next on our caller line, we have fuller calling in from maryland. fuller, you're a parent. what grades are your children in? caller: my daughter -- can you hear me? host: yes, i hear you. caller: my daughter is a junior in high school. my son is in the eighth grade. and i'm part of prince george's county public school. it has a terrible reputation. but a child can get a very good education if they know what they're going in. i can talk about that in a minute. my daughter is a junior. she was in high school here. it was a horrible experience. she did have a -- the administration just really messed things up. and she had a number of challenges. so we ended up taking her around. she's now in a catholic school which fortunately my wife is a math instructor teacher. son, however, is at a fascinating charter school which is directly connected to the university of maryland. learning a 100% online environment. it's phenomenal. now the caller who talked about black and i'm an african-american, blacks and education and economic. the problem with that that what he was referring to isn't that people can't get an education. now the problem is the legacy. in other words, percentage-wise, you're going to have a whole lot less african-american families that can have a legacy of higher education or a legacy of economic capability. but today, i am confident that anyone can get a great education. the bottom line is the family and the cultural value that talk about -- you know, family, how can a parent survive? my wife was a teacher over at collegiate public charter school in d.c. district seven. it was a horrible environment. host: well, let me ask you this. fuller, you said that one of your children had the opportunity to go to a charter school and the other had the opportunity to go to a private school. what about parents that don't have that ability? if they have to send their children to public school. do you still think their families can ensure the same level of education for them? caller: if the parents have the capability to fight and deal with what they have to do. you have to interact with the school. and it's hard being a parent. trust me. i got teenagers and this is the hardest thing i've ever done, raising teenagers. it's hard. so when the culture and around you is hard, the drug, the premarital sex and the fact that you can't have mommys and daddies anymore. my son -- he has friends who tell him that he likes girls. these are pressures that's hurting us as people. it makes it hard for us to raise kids and to be able to interact with children. they have the -- have to be so aware. it's tiger. you come home from work and you have to do homework. it's hard. we need something in our value system that says hey, let's care about the family because that's really what the education is occurring. it's not the school. but the bottom line and i as a parent going to do whatever i can to ensure that my children get educated. working with the teachers and with the administration. host: up next, we have charlotte calling in from tallahassee, florida. charlotte, you're a teacher? what do you teach? caller: higher education, preparing the next generation of teachers to bring forth the methodology that is needed to create and improve our education. what i wanted to speak on and really, the gentleman from georgia, the lady from north carolina and now, the gentleman from maryland, i think kind of capsizes the full of it where we've gone from the historical perspective that the man from georgia brought forward and the lady from north carolina bringing in from the administrative school board elected oversight. yesterday with mr. king having the review, i think for our local schools, i live in a majority minority school district. and we are a college town here in tallahassee. so we have the opportunity of having a very high educated populous in this area and therefore, we have a lot of teachers who are quite capable. i wanted to speak, really, in relationship to the recruitment retention and the inadequate funding that is not supplementing but rather supplanting. the pipeline for teachers as i come from a large generation of teachers, male and female in the family, in k through 12 as well as higher ed. and now we have the reverse going on where we do not have a pipeline in hbc use. we had, my father who was a science and biology major went into the navy and then had to come out and be a teacher. could not go into the area that was in fact his discipline. host: well, charlotte, let me ask you this. what do you think would be the solution to increase the pipeline into teaching and also what do you think about programs like teach for america that try to encourage college students to go into education and teaching? caller: thank you very much. my niece, i have two nieces. one that just graduated in math. she's a teach for america in atlanta, georgia high school. i have another niece that was a biology major three years ago, planning on going to medical school that was a teach for america. we do have teach for america having made an impact. as the lady administrative said, i think that the criticism of teach for america is really a combination of multiple things. but the biggest point that i want to make, ma'am, is that accountability with the new education bill and the local control content is about the adequate funding that is not been there to supplement the intervention needs and we have a teacher forth that really needs to, i believe, move forward. i'm in my 60's. so i think we have a teacher forth that needs to move forward, let our young people come in who have been given, i think, kind of a different training, to come into the school with the intervention of technology and also we need to have an accountability on the federal funding. we fund our schools through property taxes. 40 p.c., 50% now of property tax. that cannot be sustainable. we as a country must decide if we're going to have paramount duty of public education for our children and therefore, the funding mechanism has to either come from a collective pot because fixed income when you retire, you can no longer continue to increase property taxes to fund the schools. so we have to as america decide how we're going to fund quality education and yes, families and parents have in fact the value to bring because children come from a home to the school. and therefore, they must have a value that comes tthe school for the teachers. so we've been blame union, we've been blaming teachers. so we collectively have to decide what is the value? host: ok, charlotte. we get your point on that. we have a lot of calls. we want to get to more voices on this. we have pete calling in from auburndale, florida. pete is a parent. in what grade level are your children, pete? caller: eighth and 12th grade. host: and what do you think about the quality of education in their schools? caller: well, the education of -- quality of education has gone way down. because you've got teachers that's coming in now, they're very young and they're basically just trying to get a paycheck and moving on. and they got zero tolerance for the kids. and it's -- that has to be stopped. a lot of programs had been -- have been implemented into the system but if it's not enforced, it's not going to do anything. you can look over at any newspaper recently, newspaper and newspaper and the past and see the activities of these local teachers in the county. and they got hit -- i'm going to give you an example. my granddaughter at a school and she called her the n word and she got suspended for five years. she reported that and they suspend her for five days. that's what we're facing down here in florida. host: so what do you think are the main causes of this? do you think that it's a problem with resources in the schools? what do you think is lacking in your children's schools specifically? caller: ok, right now, it's understanding and culpability and stuff. these teachers, is not understanding these kids that's coming from broken homes and they have certain needs and stuff. so if they understand that, they can understand where these kids are coming from and they can get fundingesource is there the schools and there's other things funding the schools and stuff. but like i said, the programs that's been implemented need to be enforced. they're not being enforced by the super school, superintendent or other principals or the deefpblets none of this stuff is being enforced on the teachers. it's not about the kids and stuff being disciplined or kicked out of school or hatever. i really believe it starts at the top. host: up next, we have jerome calling in from douglas, georgia. jerome what, do you think about the quality of education in the local schools in your area? caller: in the area they live in, i think it hasn't been the best. i'm married to an educator. we live in one town and he works in the next town over. and in the area we live, both towns has a significant number of people either close to the poverty line or under, below it. and unfortunately what i'm finding, i'm looking in to becoming an educator at some point, is that -- and this is not a knock at, you know, people ho are quote-unquote poor or under the of -- poverty line. we have to get it back to the family. i think about a lot of times when there are -- when it comes to questions dealing with education, i always think about ok, but we don't want to just send the student to the school if there is a babysitter -- host: jerome, what specifically do you think that families need to be doing more of to improve the quality of education in the schools? caller: specifically, ma'am, i think you need -- there needs to be an encouragement in families and communities to get their children to read more, turn the tv off and seriously get to reading comprehension. i think about dr. ben carson. i know my parents tried it with me when i was a child where it was specifically, you know, 30 minutes on the phone or in front of the tv or computer and i had to get a list of books that was reading comprehension book i had when i was a child. and literally each book i went to and answered a certain number of answers and give them a book report. though i hated it, it helped me out. host: all right. that's jerome calling in from georgia. we have a lot of calls on this topic. a lot of people whan to chime in. -- want to chime in. next is judith. you are a parent. in what grades do you have hildren in your school system? caller: i have a daughter who is supposed to be entering head start this year, the preschool program. and i didn't go to preschool when i was a child. i just went straight to kindergarten. and i was 5 years old. and she's not yet 3. she was born in the summer time. and honestly, like i have a heck of a lot more questions than i do answers on this subject because i really think that 3 this too long for her to be going to school. i think that her primary education now is me. she learned to count from one to 20 in two different languages already because my mother's german. so she is bilingual. she knows her abc's. host: so what is your concern about her actually being in a school at this age? caller: the fact that she needs home time. she needs family time. she needs that more than she eeds to be with other students that may not understand where she's coming from and don't understand her or teachers that don't. and i can't blame the teachers either. there are several different learning styles that children have. there are several different teaching styles that teachers have. they don't always match up. host: ok. caller: so the cookie cut kerr thing that we're seeing in school, this is the only way to do this. there's no other way. host: ok. that's judith calling in from kansas. up next, we have gilbert calling in from tulsa, oklahoma. gilbert, you're a teacher. what do you teach? caller: i taught early childhood kindergarten and preschool. and first and foremost, let's start from the beginning. and this is to all of the parents. start working with your children long before that first day in kindergarten. we only have 26 letters. 10 numbers. take your time. teach your children. because we certainly cannot count on the school system that exists here in tulsa, oklahoma. host: well, gilbert, what things about the school system there do you -- are you concerned about? caller: all of the above. trust me. and the sadness of it all for me black educators here have caused the seven samurai collectively got together and called them kept school solely to get a two-year gym teacher at the head of the class and our systems have been failing. parents, if you love your children, teach them at home because we cannot count on anyone else to do it for you. and secondly on this teach for america, those people have no background experience on anything. they come out of their parents' home and into the school system. they have no creativity about them. i work with these people and 150% le reid, she was correct. but with the american federation of teachers, they spent more than $1 million getting rid of her. it is sad, but this is where we're going. and look at what we're filling up. not the school system, but our prison systems. host: all right. that's gilbert calling in from oklahoma. getting back to yesterday's hearing on education, senator chris murphy of connecticut talked a little bit about the role that federal regulation play in the department under the new law. let's take a look at that. >> regulations are also a means by which we help school districts understand how to comply with a law that is, you know, relatively broad in its requirements as to how school distribution -- districts go about accountability systems. i want you to speak for a moment on the -- when regulations are done right, it's helpful to school districts so that they won't get surprised by an enforcement action on the back end. because you still retain not only authority but responsibility to enforce this law. you want to give them the accountability sections where the guardrails are wide. some ideas ahead of time is how they stay. >> that's exactly right. those are the principles that are behind our development of the accountability regulations. if you imagine a high school that's struggling because they have a significant number of english learners who are performing poorly. a good thing about assets, there's flexibility for them to develop with a tailored, targeted strategy, that leverages their native languages in a thoughtful way. but at the end of the day, the district and state theens sure there's actual progress. and so if years go by and education rates don't improve, there's got to be evidence that the state and district are changing the strategy to get better outcome. and the regulations are a way to ensure that there are clear guardrails for states as they do that work. host: and we are continuing our discussion about the quality of education in your local schools. we have special lines for this talk. we have parents can call in at 202-748-8000. teachers can call, 202-748-8001. administrators can call in at 202-748-8002. and all others can call 202-748-8003. and up next, we have mike calling in from ashburn, virginia. mike, you're a parent. what level are your children? caller: my kids have graduated from the loudoun county public school system. now i like to talk a little bit about -- you know, so i've got them both through that system. i wanted to talk about a couple of things. your administrator in north carolina talking about the budget and how they're challenged by -- it sounded like about one and a half, to two percent decline in their budget. you know, coming out of college, our erage teacher in county with benefits makes $72,000 a year. that's comparable to, you know, a chemical engineer or any kind of engineer. so they're paid at the top level. now they get, you know, a good part of that in benefits, $27,000 or so. but the point is is that to suggest that teachers are not paid well is a joke. it really is a joke. and it's been pushed forward by you know, the teachers are intelligent group of people. they're all high school -- or college graduates. some of them in our area, or a lot of them have master's degree. so they're very, you know, they're well put together. they're well organized and they understand what it takes to put this out there. host: well, mike, let me ask you this. when your children were school age, were you satisfied with the level of education that they got? and if it's not teachers pay, what do you think is the issue in some of the classrooms? caller: well, let me talk about that. i'll give you an example. my daughter got through a fairly high level of math as i recall. when she took the s.a.t.'s collects failed miserably in math. and what we determined is the teacher passed her through. she's a hard worker. she worked hard at it. but basically, she was getting b's and a's in math throughout er high school, you know career, if you will. and she failed miserably in the s.a.t.'s. so again, you know, the idea that they're getting these great education -- now, our area is fairly affluent. we have a lot of money in the school system. we spend a lot of money in the school system. you can spend all the money you want but if the teachers are not teaching to the kids and they're not really engaged in teaching the kids, then i don't care how much money you spend. you're not going to get a quality education. host: ok. that's mike calling in from virginia. we have a lot of calls to get to we want to get to mike calling in from rockford, illinois. mike, you're a parent. what school level are your children? caller: the school level, my oldest is garage waited high school last year. in texas. we're paying about $15,000 a kid . i think the schools should be much better than they are. host: what is your top concern about this about the quality of your schools? caller: well, the privatizing the school is the top concern and cherry-picking the kids. i watched one sell for $200,000. we pointed the school for $200,000. we sold it for $200,000. and they cherry picked their kids and put them in these private charter tools and we're paying them $15,000 for our kids. the problem here is these kids are coming home with stacks of homework after watching five movies a day. and that's the problem i see. i feel the simple simple fix. there's a camera on every bus, on every corner. if we had a camera in the back of every class where you can tune in, to sew what your kids are doing, five minutes after the bell rings, you know, every sit-down, turn the camera on and you can see what's going on. people would be -- things would hange overnight. host: ok. that's mike calling in from illinois. on our next call, we have barbara calling in from gaylord, michigan. barbara, what do you think about the state of the schools where you are? caller: our schools up here are great. t i was watching the detroit schools and how they condition even -- they're in such bad shape and i just can't believe, states are the taking over the teaching. my parents lived down state and they're 98 and 94 years old and they're paying still, school taxes and charter taxes, you know. -- for their city. and i just don't believe that's fair when you're 98 and you're 94 years old. host: barbara, let me ask you this. what do you think -- do you think it's the responsibility more of the local governments to ensure the quality of the school? or do you think that the federal government should do more to have equal standards in different school districts? caller: well, you know for etroit, governor snyder, you know, not a good governor. we have the flint and detroit schools. nd i just don't believe that they're going to do anything right now before they change this law. host: ok. that's barb calling in from many. up next, we have greg calling in from seneca, south carolina. greg, you're a grandparent. what do you think about the schools where your grandchildren go? caller: i'll start off with my own kids. i raised four sons and three out of four did graduate and they are making their way through life fairly well. they got a decent education. and i noticed with the grandchildren that they have a much lower level of actual attainment in all areas whether it be math, history. it doesn't matter. it's pretty much across the board. host: what do you think is the reason for that difference, greg? what do they tell you? caller: i truly believe just from straight observation is that there's a quite a concentration and a clear amount of effort put into extracurricular activities, especially sports rather than academics. and the kids seem to be more inclined to want to play games than they are to want to actually learn. and the teachers, i don't think, are drive the children hard enough in the academic area. they're encouraging them more into trying to be a sports hero just from what i see. they get aspirations in that area versus actually trying to learn, especially when it comes to basics. and the dropout rate here in south carolina in this area well, the graduation rate is right around 66% to 70% and that's pretty low. and there's not much opportunity here. so it seems to have become a cycle now where the children are not getting their level of education, especially like i said, in basics. i think that if they would spend more money on academics and less on sports activities, it would contribute just greatly to the entire overall education level of the kids. host: all right. that's greg calling in from south carolina. up next, we have sydney calling in from maryland. sydney, you're a parent. what do you think about your kids' schools? caller: my kids' schools are great. i'm from hartford county. the schools are really into the kids and early into families. i think that's where a lot of your downfalls are. the home lives of some of these kids like i see some of the stuff. i want the parents to have kids like the inner cities and stuff like that and you run into -- the kids are not being disciplined at home. if they're not being disciplined at home and they bring it to school, then what is the teacher supposed to do about it? host: ok. up and next, we have arma from tampa, florida. you're a parent. am i saying your name correctly? caller: arima. host: i apologize for that. what do you think about your kids' schools? caller: i think the schools are ok. right now, he's in high school. we've gone through private school up until now that he's in high school. i think what is happening is that teachers are not able to teach. and because they have so much restrictions and also you do meet teachers that are in his school right now that became a teacher because there was no other job. because there is no love for the profession. i'm from the islands and a lot of kids -- with the students in the school, you don't see it here. you can do whatever. a lot of people calling in and saying home life. i've been disciplined at home. so you're not -- the kids are not learning. but if you make learning a priority when the kids go to school from the very beginning, they would be excited about going to school. diversity s a lot of in florida in the sense that they're marginalizing a certain group of students because of whatever they would see. -- ey would think that is that the priority. because i know my kids. when he was in the first grade at the public schools, we had an incident with a student, a teacher because of another kid calling him, you know, the derogatory name and i went to her and she said oh, that kid just says some of the darndest things. i don't understand her. but don't worry about it. that's just how she speaks. and i was like excuse me? a teaching moment here. this is when she talk about diversity and being kind to each other. that's why i moved my kids out of the school system. now he's back into the public and i'm watching them because i'm on the school board. parent-teachs and i'm going to follow him all the way till he graduates. host: thank you. we're out of time for this segment. it's almost tax day, 2006 2016. and we will have tom rice from south carolina joining us. he's a member to the ways and means committee and he will be talking about the i.r.s. and tax policy. later on, we will have brendan boyle of pennsylvania and he will be talking about the latest on capitol hill and previewing the upcoming presidential primery. first, in case you missed it, we wanted to show you portion of youtube singer and one campaign founder bono's opening statement. the topic, foreign aid as a tool spendism. iolent >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, members of the subcommittee. my name is bono. m the founder of the one campaign. as you know, the irish invented the filibuster. and so i'm going to read this because that makes it faster. i've just returned from africa in the middle east where i was lucky to join senator graham there. i visited kenya, jordan and with the team turkey and egypt. this visit revealed one fact and two fictions. the fact is that aid can no longer be seen as charity. a nice thing to do when we can further it. if there's one thing i would like you to take away from this testimony, it is that aid in 2016 is not charity. it is national security. and when it struck you properly with a hard focus on fighting focus and to qualify for that aid, it could be the best work we have against the violent extreme that is gaining traction. the two fictions, the expedition revealed to me were number one, that this refugee problem is temporary. the typical crisis that creates refugees last 25 years. on our trip, senator graham and i had the term permanent temporary solution thrown around the irony of that phrase requires. the second fiction is that it's a middle east problem. refugees are flowing from all over the world, especially africa, actually, of the top 10 countries that are hosting refugees today. five of them are african. in europe, the problem has moved from practical to existential. in 1989, the wall that divided europe came down. a remarkable moment to live through. whocket imagine in 2016, another set of walls being built up. this time, made of mesh and razor wire but walls, nevertheless. members of the subcommittee, let me soberly suggest to you that the interrogation of europe, the very idea of european unity is at risk here. europe is america's most important allies since the second world war. are we not your most important ally in the fight against violence extremism? this should really matter to you. i know it does. put simply as we europeans have learned, if the middle east catches fires the flames jump and it's out of control. africa fails, europe cannot succeed >> "washington journal" continues. host: and joining us now is congressman tom rice. he is a republican from south carolina. and we're going to be talking about the prospects for passing a republican budget, tax reform proposals and cybersecurity and taxpayer information. but first, let's start off by talking a little bit about politics and the campaign. yesterday, house speaker paul ryan took himself out of the running for the possibility of jumping into the convention. what did you think about his decision? guest: well, i wasn't surprised at all. i mean, he said repeatedly the same thing. people i guess don't want to hear it. i thought he handled it extremely appropriately. i thought it was very straightforward and honest like he is. and i thought it was a very selfless thing to do as well. i think he did the right thing. i'm proud of him. i'm proud of him as a speaker. host: ok. you are not currently endorsing any of the current candidates for president. might that change? might you make an endorsement before the convention? guest: i don't think so. i think i want people to decide hat they want. i'd rather see the people decide. host: ok. in today's "wall street journal," there's an opinion piece that talks a little bit about house speaker paul ryan's decision to bail out and also his call to the convention delegate to impose rules that would prevent somebody else that isn't already running from jumping into the race. the paper says we disagreed that the g.o.p. convention must pick someone who has run for the office this year the nominee is likely to be one of the men now running. but in our view the delegates can and should choose the delegate most likely to win. if none of the current candidates win, a majority of the delegates after two or three ballots, anything can happen and the delegates have to nominate someone. what did you think about speaker ryan's call to limit the pool of candidates to those two threw their hats into the ring during the campaign? guest: i agree with him. they have worked very hard and putting themself out to voters. i think for someone to come in at the very end without having been in the process, if i were people who had run and did all that, i would -- we can't win if we don't unify. that's the bottom line. the republican party has two choices. unify or lose. and i don't think that the way to unify would be to bring in a dark horse at the last minute. and again, i think what paul ryan did is a very selfless thing. and what we need is more people like him to exhibit that kind of selfless leadership and to put the needs of the country first. i think he's doing the right thing. host: ok. do you have concerns about a brokered convention, about what that can do to the party? guest: sure. we've got to unite or we lose. if nobody comes in with a clear consensus, the chance of unifying go down. but let the process work. let's see who comes out of it. i think the chances of a brokered convention are more and more likely. i don't think trump supporters should take that as some sort of a slight or a cheat. i mean to me, that's like if he comes in with less than 1237 votes, i believe that's the number, right? if he comes in with less than that, it's like golfer missing his last putt by a half an inch and we say we should give it to him anyway. no, we shouldn't. the rules are the rules. if he doesn't come in with 1237, then the delegates need to decide. host: ok. we are talking with congressman tom rice, a republican from south carolina. for lines for this conversation, republicans can call in, 202-748-8001. democrats, 202-748-8000. inns can call -- independence can call 202-748-8002. nd independents, 202-748-8002. i think i said that twice. i apologize for that. guest: you get flustered. host: i do too. a little bit. it's so much going on at this campaign. it's such an exciting time that's got me tongue-tied a little bit. you're speaking a little bit about donald trump in today's "new york times" editorial page. steven ratner piece says that congress essentially has created donald trump by -- through their efforts of spoiling the obama administration and some of the things that they've been doing. it starts off saying memo to republican legislatures. biting your nails over the new york primary, wondering if you can finally derail donald trump's candidacy with gulp, ted cruz, you brought it on yourself. not just by failing for too long to take mr. trump seriously or by lacking an effective response what do you say of that? this is by steven ratner of the "new york times." guest: probably there's a grain of truth but it's primarily utter nonsense. he's right in a sense that washington created donald trump because there are problems that the president talks about every single day. and that democrats and the congress talk about every single day and republicans in congress talk about every single day and yet nobody offers solutions to those problems. and it doesn't just come from congress. it comes from the president as well and the president is supposed to be our leader and the one thing -- you know, i certainly have admiration for the president. i think he's a smart guy. he's charismatic. one of the primary quality he lacks is leadership. i think he's failed in that miserably. so when the president gets up every other day and talks about need for tax reform, i absolutely agree with him. we need to do tax reform to make this country competitive. every day that we don't do it, we hurt our children and our grandchildren coming up through the system because more and more american companies and jobs leave our shores every other day and that's less opportunity for our kids. we need to do something like that. the president says it every other day. it.y congressmen says and yet that proposals have -- what proposals have we seen? the president has not made any proposals for comprehensive tax reform. the only person i know that has made any proposal is dave kemp and he did that over the objection of the republican leadership. why? because whatever proposal you put out there, you're going to make people mad. some people are going to win. some people are going to lose. that's just a fact. and people don't want to take arrows or make hard decisions about things like tax reform. same thing with president obama care. that would be a republican thing. but one other things i respect about paul ryan is he came in and immediately said we're going to have this agenda project and we're going to put our ideas out there for specifics of tax reform, for specifics for replacing obamacare. for specifics with doing with our debts, so on and so forth. and, you know, social security and medicare. another thing that everybody talks about, the president, republicans, democrats, have you seen proposals to fix it? no. the only person who's put out a proposal to fix medicare was paul ryan. he put it out like five years ago. remember the commercials with the democrats put on with paul ryan? paul ryan has thrown grandmom off the cliff. the truth is if we don't fix it, we are throwing grandmom off the cliff. paul ryan has had the courage to put the proposal out there. and what did he get for it? he got arrows for it. that's why there's these basic problems and there's not that many of them. i believe that if we could solve them, our economy would accelerate. the country would be more confident and secure. and they're problems that everybody talks about, not just the congress but the president too. if we could solve some of these problems, if we could show the leadership to solve some of these problems, we wouldn't have donald trump. so to that extent, i think he's right but to lay it on the republicans and congress is nonsense. and in fact, a lot of the things that we complain about, the republicans in the house had put up solution after solution after solution. and harry reid and 46 democrats in the senate prevent from even taken up for a vote. so best example i can think of on that is the ceiling of refugee issues when the head of the f.b.i. said that we're not properly vetting these people. we 80% of the public in a programmed delay. the house has a built in november, december and said we will delay the program and not stop it until headed the fbi says we can properly that these people and it passed the house with strong democrat support. over 290 votes vetoed, the majority. law evenlity to appeal six democrats to get a vote in the senate and give it to the president is fascinating to me. of all the things that have overwhelming public support, so a lot of stopping up congress has come from the collusion between harry reid and the president, and that is a fact. to lay this on republicans in congress is under nonsense. host: we are talking to republican congressman tom rice about the state of politics info andfriday's tax other issues. we want to bring in a caller from new york. caller: [indiscernible] guest: hi, mike, how are you? caller: i am fine. what i am saying to you is there is no reason why you, obama, you, obama and the democrats cannot get together and put everything on the table and type to work a compromise. -- and try to work a compromise. the risk should be taken. can spend $20p million, why didn't he take that money and buy and do it rockefeller senior did. i could take some of that money and spend it on education like [indiscernible] you, theno reason why republicans, the democrats, the moderates, the liberals and obama can get together and get together to find a program. guest: you know what the reason is, mike? lack of leadership, my friend. there is a fear to come out with specific solutions to solve these difficult problems. that is why you have not seen the president make a proposal on tax reform. the only proposal has come out of the house committee. we are working on hearings right now in congress. there have been three or four different hearings. they call the listing sections. paul ryan has said he wants to come out with a specific tax reform proposal by june, and i am very proud of him doing that. that requires leadership. it should have been done years ago. and iran in 2012 for the -- when the first a talk for time and people asked about tax reforms, i said that our tax code is reprehensible and it makes our country uncompetitive in the world, and it is costing us hundreds and thousands, millions of jobs every single year. we have got to do something about it. the president says it all the time. when you heard him campaign in 20 to with a new tax reform, i was sure it would happen in 2013. we have a lame duck president with nothing to lose. i was sure he would lead us to one of those campaign policies and it did not happen. no specific proposals. came from overal the objection of the republican leadership at that time. why? because they did not want to take the error for something that was not passed, but that is what leadership requires. it has got to get done. it is hurting our country, your region, your children and your grandchildren. it has got to get done. we have got to show leadership in paul ryan with his agenda project is starting us down the path. tax reform,sue of what is it about tax reform that is so difficult? the attempt to try to pass tax reform proceeds the obama administration. it started taking place in the bush administration as well. what about tax reform is so difficult? guest: excuse me. like 60,000 is pages now. it is incredibly complex. there are people with invested interest in every single aspect. the most obvious example, let's say, you go to the home mortgage deduction, do think some people would be upset? i'm not proposing we do away with that, but what we need to do is start on page one and go to page 60000 and look at why deductions and credits or put in the code. some people called loopholes, but the truth is, almost every single one of them are put in with legitimate purpose to try to encourage economic activity to benefit the country, so we have to look at everyone and make sure they are still relevant. if they are not, they need to come out. we need to work toward a system with a lower rate held make us competitive in the world. anything we do, we will upset somebody. you hear about it, you have to show leadership and do it is right. host: up next on the republican line, leon from georgia. you are on with congressman tom rice. caller: hello -- thank you, congressman. i went to talk about the delegate system in the united states. i think it is wrong. i think people should use their elections to pick up a candidate that we want, not the delegates. i think we need to take care of tax on. it should have been taken care of a long time ago and it should be taken care of because and get its actions, these big companies are just cheating and lying about it terry, like your opinion on that. thank you. guest: the delegate system is really not a matter of law. it is about party rules, where the republican party has its rules and the democratic party has its rules. quite honestly, i am not horribly familiar with either one. it does seem a little askew when i hear about all these superdelegates being allocated not necessarily based on the votes of the people, but their publican party rules say that if you don't get the majority of the delegates on the first ballot of the convention, then he kind of opens it up in the delegates get freed up to do whatever they want to. had beenthe rules that in existence as far as i know for hundreds of years. broker conventions are nothing new. i think the last one was in 1964 when the democrats had a brokered convention. or excuse me, the republicans that a brokered convention then. whether or not those rules need to be changed and how they need to be changed, i'm sorry. i am not an expert. and i certainly agree with you on the tax reform. attacks code is competitive in the world and there are a lot of things to do. american competitiveness is my focus in congress. to makevery day to try this country more competitive, and there are many things that to where our companies based year can fairly compete around the world because if you have to companies, and they both make the same product, buy the both have to same materials to make their products, then they broke compete for this same customers. one of those companies is paying taxes at 39% and the other is paying in ireland at 13%. guess what? there is no way. it is an economic fact that the company paying the higher taxes can survive. we have a team of economists, republicans and democrats, and a couple weeks ago, i asked them that hypothetical. everyone of them said, when two companies in the exact same the same buying materials, compete in the same customers, one pays 39% tax, one pays 13% tax, can you tell me how the story ends? everyone of them said, either the company paying the highest tax will go out of this is or be bought by the foreign competitor. look at what is happening. companyamerican icon after american icon company either moving offshore or being bought by foreign countries. it isnot when people say a matter of corporate greed that they moved overseas. it is not corporate greed. it is a matter of economic fact. they cannot survive paying two times or three times as much in their rate has the competitors overseas. it cannot compete. that is a matter to her economic fact. all the issue in the world will not change that. host: up next on the independent mind, sheila from winchester, virginia. you are on the line with congressman tom rice. caller: good morning, congressman rise. i have two things for you, sir. one, what is the chance of congress getting a budget passed in the next two days, if not, what will happen? and you had made a comment about obama care. i went to say i was the proud recipient of obama care for the first time in 12 years, i did not go into medical bankruptcy. i have been paying off medical bills for good team years. -- for 15 years. host: ok. guest: i don't know that we will get a budget passed in the next two days. i know paul ryan continues to work on that. he is desperate to get back to the regular appropriations process, so he is working desperately to try to find an agreement among republicans on how to move forward with the budget. with respect to obamacare, i don't think i did mention obamacare. i think you talked about obamacare and that is fine with me. there is a fraction of people out there that i believe has helped, and unnatural white sure why you cannot get insurance before, other than maybe fork of pre-existing condition, which is always been able to buy insurance and you may have a hasing period, insurance always been available in my experience. i think obamacare is a dismal failure and most policies aren't with high co-pays and the premiums are higher, but it was ,ritten by insurance companies johnson and gruber, so i think it is a downward spiral right now. i think if we do not do anything, it will implode within the next few yea and i think it also hurts our economy and our labor force because companies that are on the verge 50 employees and having to buy this insurance, they don't hire or they hire people part-time and it takes people's potential jobs away. i think it is hurting our economy. host: on the issue of the budget, what you are talking about a moment ago, a story in "the hill" says that republican senators say the holdup is on the house side because house lawmakers are divided on it, house republicans, specifically, badly divided. it says that a senator who requested anonymity said the senate gop conference is waiting to see it house republicans can overcome the internal divisions to pass a budget. id. think anybody thinks that can happen, the lawmaker said, projecting the chances of senate action as low. are there internal divisions and what are the sticking points? guest: absolutely. i think most people in the house with a preferred we stayed that a powerful budget number of 1030, which was a sequestered number. $40 billion of it that. the reason was because the pentagon was saying they cannot carry out their mission of being able on two fronts without that additional $20 billion. i was on the budget committee last year and we took care of that contingency account, and theycontingency, actually finalize the budget and we passed this in december. they took care of it through the regular budget process. the president said he would not accept that $20 billion increase did not also we increase 20 billion dollars in nondefense. i think most republicans were ok with $20 billion in defense, even over sequestered, but they were not ok with the increase in nondefense, so i think that is where the rug is. paul ryan is trying to figure out the path forward. host: speaker ryan said there would be no spending bill without a budget. do you agree with that? guest: some people take the position that the omnibus go in december set the topline number. i think he would rather do it in a straight up budget. ont: up next, we have herman the democratic line from louisiana. caller: good morning. guest: how are you, herman? caller: i am doing fine. i retired military. guest: thank you for your service. caller: thank you. i keep hearing the republicans talk about taking our country back and make it great. i would like for you to elaborate on that, what you mean take the country back? i fought in vietnam for two tours, and who has taken our country? i would like for you to elaborate, thank you. guest: yes, sir. i think what people are frustrated about are the performances in the economy. i think that is their primary things, and a lot of the that the carter administration has done, i feel like or a lot of people believe, and i agree, have held act the economy more than help it. the obamacare is one of those. it isk worse than that, an abysmal failure and it was passed on the premise of [indiscernible] if you look at the actual numbers, the percentage of total banking assets held in the country by the top five banks has grown by about 10% since 2010, when it came in to being, so it has failed in the primary premise. we were forming an average about 100 community banks before dodd frank passed. since. frank passed, i think we form than 20 banks in that entire period. community banks, they are the ones who own small businesses. in the last five years, more small businesses closed and have opened. i don't think that is coincidence. small businesses employ 75% of the people in the country, and 94 million people have left our and have given up trying to find work. i don't think that is a coincidence. two thirds of the economy is based on consumer spending. are outnumber of people of the labor force and the economy is performing at 1.5% to 2%, which is historically very weak, which is why must people outside of the bubble of washington, d.c., new york and san francisco, to not think the economy is performing well. i think that is the primary problem. i don't think it is a racial thing at all. i certainly admire some of the president's characteristics for it i think he is a smart man. i do not believe he is a leader. i think he has his heels dug in on two programs that are hurting our economy and people are tired of it. they want a different direction, so when they say to take the country back, i think that is what they mean and it has nothing to do it is race. host: we are talking to congressman tom rice, republican from south carolina. we are talking about tax policy, including cyber security when it comes to protecting tax payer information. yesterday, at a senate finance committee hearing, irs discussed the number of cyber attacks and how the threat to irs data has changed. let's take a look at that. >> we work continuously to protect our main computer systems from cyberattacks and to safeguard taxpayer information stored in our databases. these systems withstand more than one million malicious attempts to access them each day . we are also continuing to battle the growing problem of stolen identity refund fraud. over the past few years, we have made steady progress in protecting against roger refund claims and criminally prosecuting those who engage in this crime. we have found the type of criminal we are dealing with has changed. the problem used to be random individuals filing a few hundred false tax returns at the time. now, we are doing more with organized crime syndicates in other countries and here. they are gathering unimaginable amounts of personal data from sources outside the irs to do a better job of impersonating taxpayers, invading i return processing filters, and obtaining fraudulent refunds. to improve our efforts across this evolving threat, in march 2015, we joined the leaders of the electronic tax industry, the software industry in the state to create the security summit group. an unprecedented partnership focused on making the tax filing experience safer and more secure for taxpayers in 2016 and beyond. host: that was irs commissioner saying cybern, thieves of becoming more sophisticated. are you concerned about that threat? guest: in the first place, might experience with this gentleman leads me to take whatever he ofs with a big old grain salt. with respect to the technology of the irs, there are still using mainframe computers that were manufactured in 1980, so their ability to deal with sophisticated cyber attacks is a little questionable to me. tryingve that they are to take steps. one thing that is a great concern to me, with respect to .yber security is technology i cannot guarantee much. i do not know what will happen tomorrow, except for this -- technology will continue to improve. if the folks at apple, who are pretty good at technology, had built a security system that was able to be broken in a fairly short period of time, i don't know the dire rest will be able to build something that is anymore impenetrable than apple. is everyal government department, from the irs, the department of the interior, homeland security and our military, they need to take every reasonable step to protect that they do, but the sit here and say that we can build an impenetrable wall i think is not true. i think there is always going to thieves that are looking for ways to attack and i think we should do everything to prevent it, but i don't think we can tell people that they will not be improving technology and with that improving techniques for hacks. i think the things we have doubled for the last 10 years with people hacking into businesses and it's a government entities, i don't see that stopping tomorrow or anytime soon. are talking to congressman tom rice, the republican from south carolina, about tax policy ahead of friday's tax day. member ofn rice is a the committee and was elected in 2012. up next, on the republican mind, cottage, newlley york. you are on with congressman rice. caller: you got it right. congressman, nice to talk to. guest: thank you. how are you? caller: good, thank you. we have not been tax reforms since 1986. one of the main problems i see with doing tax reform, it is never indexed to inflation. one thing that people don't really understand is that the federal reserve creates inflation. , 2% try to shoot for it inflation rate every a, but since 1973 to 1990, inflation averaged about 4.5%. the american people do not understand that that is a tax on them. every year, because the tax code is not indexed to inflation, every year, more and more people get sucked into the alternate minimum tax and higher tax rates. people do not understand that they are being taxed. they think it is greedy businessmen but it is not true. host: do you have a specific question? caller: i want him to address the fact that the congress, whenever they do tax reform, they never indexed it to inflation and it is a hidden tax that people don't understand they pay. host: let's let the congressman address that. guest: peter, for 25 years, i a tax man. -- what you said is true in some parts. are are in that right, and i'm almost positive the brackets were absolutely indexed to inflation. i agree with you that in general, every specific number in the tax code should be indexed unless there is a specific reason not to be. host: on the independent nine, rachel from texas. yes, hello. a while back,me they asked me the difference between democrats and republicans and i cannot give them an answer because i have not seen any. you both point your fingers at each other and blame each other for what is going on today. let me also finish. paul ryan's way of fixing medicare was to put them on a bouncer program and once they went through that amount of money, you are on your own. is insurance companies overcharging what they do, and going up to companies that hire and historyu know, is your worst enemy. do nothing but point fingers at each other and do nothing. host: ok, let's get the congressman a chance. guest: a lot of questions there. i want to come back to paul fixingprogram of medicare. the truth of it is is that what his plan is, the average person gets out of medicare three to four times what they put in over the lifetime. we have a search of people retiring, so we are on an unsustainable path. medicare, the trust fund in medicare will expire in about the year 2030. we do nothing. will do nothing, it expire. we have to do something. health care costs continue to rise, so we have to find a way to make this promise that we cold,ade to our seniors solid, good and golden. was was toan's plan allow private insurance companies to bid to allow medical care coverage. the government would also continue to provide medicare coverage. the government would reimburse cheapest thathe everybody would bid, including the government, and the government would not reimburse you for the cheapest plan before the second cheapest plan. if you wanted to buy one that cost more than the second cheapest plan, you could do that and pay out of pocket. if you wanted the second cheapest plan, it would cost you nothing and if you wanted the cheapest, he would get cash back and it would create competition that theoretically would hold down health cost and make medicare sustainable. this is a great model, in my opinion. i am sure there are other models out there and everybody is open up to additional ideas. he is the only one who has put one out there and he has taken for it. that is called leadership. i am proud that he has done that. i am welcomed to listen to any other plants, but we cannot sit here and rant and not deal with the problem. we have got to deal with the problem and make this problem solid for our seniors. with respect to the difference between democrats and republicans come i think there is one fundamental thing i would bring it down to. as entitlement versus opportunity. the republicans believe that this is a land of opportunity and that they should work hard and have a limited government that will serve limited functions, outline the constitution, and that creates freedom and opportunity for people to pursue their dreams. the democrats believe that the government can provide to people. ultimately. even with the best intentions, i think the government is holy unable to provide. they have to provide a sick corp. functions, but in the end, -- they have to provide basic core functions, but in the end, competition creates the best outcome. that is why we have the number one performing economy in the world for 100 years. here,s why we are seeing we are moving more and more away from that. we have more government programs, more restrictions on freedom. host: we have a lot of calls for congressman rice. next, don, democrat from florida. caller: good morning. guest: how are you doing? caller: great, thank you. i wanted to make one thing, actually, three real quick. the leadership that the president has not shown leadership, seven years ago, are we better off now than we were then? deals.n, trade we need to stop making bad trade deals. i think trade deals destroy unions and send jobs for americans to compete against workers that are making one dollar an hour, two dollars an hour and we will never have equal playing fields. and one more question the donald trump and winning the states that he has won. i am not the donald trump supported at all, but i feel that if you win a state, should when the delegates. host: let's get the congressman have a chance to respond. guest: don, i will go back to the earlier answer i gave about the delegates. that is not a federal law. that is party rules. the democrats have their roles, where bernie sanders has won states and god bless delegates than hillary clinton because of the superdelegate. i don't understand how it works. the republican party has their roles, which are generally winner takes and others are winner takes all and some are proportionate, and they all have different ways of allocating them. pretty much, all of them say that after some period of time, if nobody comes into the convention with the majority of the delegates, based upon the states way of allocating, that after a few goats, and -- q fouts, it is freed up to who they want. that is not a new -- votes, it is freed up to who they want. that is not new. 100as been like that for years. there were contested conventions not that long ago. i think to say that the donald trump comes to the convention with 1000 delegates and the 1237 to get needs an acclamation in the first irstet, he did not -- f ballot, he did not get there and they have to follow the rules. i have not endorsed anybody and i am not going to endorse anybody, but to say that he is being cheated if he comes in with less than the required number of delegates, actually, the other people would be cheated if they gave him the nomination back acclamation if he came in with less than what is required. with respect to your question , i am alle deals about the american competition and making our country competitive in the world. i think that we have failed in that regard. i think that is one of the primary reasons for the economic release that week suffered. economics that week suffered. people go to work and their job is to figure out how to beat other states economically and there is nothing wrong with that. that is what they should do. the problem is that we don't have that same problem in america. that should be a uniting in. republicans and democrats should be on the same team and understand that we are in a global economic competition, and that we need to act that way. , ih respect to trade deals work a lot with an economics professor from harvard and an expert at the theory that has consulted with a lot of countries. he has written things that we should do and i am in congress every day preaching that. one is trade deals. we have 5% of the world consumers here and 95% live outside this country. in order for our companies to be competitive, they need to have access. we are very liberal about granting access to our consumers . other countries are not nearly as liberal. we need to have [indiscernible] put those trade deals cannot be one-sided against the united states. they have to be fair and competitive, and we have in the that wererade deals not competitive. 34 years ago, we could do that because we were so far ahead of the rest of the world. guess what? the rest of the world has caught up and we cannot afford to enter anymore trade deals that are not there and competitive for the united states. host: our next caller is from your home state, steve on the independent mind from south carolina. -- from the independent line, from south carolina. guest: so good to hear from someone from the district. how are you doing? caller: i'm doing good. beautiful place. guest: i miss it and i have only been gone since yesterday. caller: i recommend you getting back. i am an independent. i about fair attacks. that is one of my main things. you have a flat tax and a fair tax. as an independent contractor, when a person pays me with a check and i don't have the receipt and nobody knows anything about it, that is happening from one end of the country to the other. crook,riminal, prostitute, whatever they are, when they get paid cash, you are not paying tax on it. host: you only have a few seconds left. caller: if you buy a pack of cigarettes, god, you don't pay -- toothpick, you don't pay tax. host: let's let the harassment respond. guest: -- host: let's let the congressman respond. guest: consumption tax is what you are talking about. my issue with that has always been, as tax lawyer for 25 years, i have seen how tax law affects the a beer and people go to great lengths not to pay tax. two thirds of our economy is based on consumer spending. if you start taxing on spending, i am afraid it would slow down spending in the short run and further damage are already weak economy. honestly, i do not care if we do a fair tax or flat tax. what i want is for our taxes to be competitive. we have got to make our taxes competitive so our companies can compete around the world with greater american jobs. if we don't do that, we're hurting our children and grandchildren. we have four economists that were on the committee it couple weeks ago and i asked, in your opinion, is a consumption tax more or less competitive than an now?e tax likely have everyone of them said the consumption tax is more competitive. from congressman tom rice south carolina, republican from the seventh district, thank you for joining us. guest: yes, ma'am. my pleasure. be talking to democratic congressman of pennsylvania, brendan boyle. we will be talking about the latest on capitol hill and the preview of the presidential primary. nader on, we will have our spotlight on magazines, teacher and "esquire's" read editor about his latest article about pot politics. stay tuned. -- pop politics. stay tuned. ♪ >> madam secretary, we proudly give 72 of our delegate votes to the next president of the united states. [cheering] ♪ ofwarren, he had a couple meals and a steam shovel. theink in this one of reasons he was so radically antigovernment and though your entire fortune to the government. >> sunday night on "q and a, sally denton talks about her --k, which takes the credit a critical look at one of the large and engineering companies in the world. >> who else in the united states government will get to build these projects throughout the world? i think it is fine for it to be backdoor, but the american tax year is paying for it and it would seem that the american tax day or should have some access thenformation about contacts, the amount of money, their safety, the political relationships. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q and a." journal"ngton continues. host: joining us now is congressman brendan boyle, democrat from pennsylvania. sorry about that. he will be discussing some of the top issues before the house foreign affairs and oversight and government reform committee, which he is a member, as well as part of the upcoming democratic convention in philadelphia. guest: good morning. you just changed my party for a moment. host: we work in a bipartisan way on "the washington journal." have you endorsed someone? guest: i have not made an official endorsement, but i will be soon with the presidential primary in my state in pennsylvania, just two weeks when you mistakenly said i was a republican, i think it would be more fun to be a super delegate at the republican convention this summer than the democratic convention. it is pretty clear at this point that hillary clinton is the favored, whereas, the republican side has been the more entertaining phrase. not just ase that someone in politics but a political junkie, i hope there would be a real live convection -- convention like the old days for the first time in my lifetime, and it does seem as if the republicans of 2016 have managed to get themselves into that situation. host: speaking of the republicans in your state on your side, donald trump is the primary. you compared him to a third world demagogue. what do you think the appeal is in your state of the people who happen in the lead? an op-ed fore publication called "the silly boys," and i years strong language to describe donald trump and i do not do that lightly. i started off by saying that i think superlatives tend to be overused, but my point with donald trump is that he represents something different in our politics. i happen to be a democrat, but at no point with i ever say that any republican president has been dangerous to our .onstitution john kasich, marco rubio, even ted cruz, pokes i may disagree with and strongly on a number of things, it would be outlandish to say they were outside our democratic reform. donald trump really is different, and what he represents really is quite concerning. just for my own private life, i know a lot of friends who are republicans, conservatives, more intellectual conservatives and they are very troubled by what is going on in the republican party and the sort of anger that donald trump has tapped into. wasle forget that he challenging that the president erica was even eligible. these are only two of about 20 different things that he has done that really make him not capable to be commander in chief. host: are you concerned about his popularity? guest: it is a double-edged sword. on one hand, he is clearly popular with a good one third of the primary republican electorate. his numbers never drop the load they30% to 40% range but also have never risen above that. he has yet to get the majority. it looks like new york may be the first. the recent he goes into the convention without having clinched the majority of delegates is his government to win the support of the majority. you see him at his rallies, and himke on sometimes bleed tinge, he has tapped into a real anger and frustration out there. he is channeling that in a negative way. host: we are talking to congressman brendan boyle, democrat from pennsylvania, about the presidential race and other policy issues. our minds are open. republicans can call in at (202)-748-8001. democrats, (202)-748-8000. .ndependents, (202)-748-8002 let's turn to the democratic side of the race. you mentioned that you are a superdelegate, but you have not yet endorsed secretary clinton or sanders, why is that? guest: i think they are both fine candidates. willhave a lean and i announce something soon, but unlike the republican side, the democratic race and has been very healthy for our party. it has mostly been on issues and substantive debate. i think bernie sanders' voice in the race has brought something positive. i believe that the issues of income and equality, and linked to that, the shrinking ability to have social mobility in our country, i think these are the core issues that president obama calls the income and equality issues. the defining issues of our time. bernie sanders speaks to them realreal passion and elegance that i think has been positive. at the same time, when you're looking to vote for president, to me, that may be the most important domestic issue but so are other issues. i serve on the foreign affairs committee and we speak about that a little bit they do, but clearly, bernie sanders is much more comfortable speaking about domestic issues than foreign policy. i'm considering who you will vote for for president, they are all the issues you have to take into account. host: you should you don't want to announce the endorsement right now? guest: not on c-span. host: all right, there is a piece talking about the process according to superdelegates and how it has gotten more intense. the article states -- longtime democratic national committee member and superdelegate bobble holland wrote a letter to holland wroteb mul a letter to sanders last week's scoresheet in the candidate for not calling out his supporters for their "bullying" of superdelegates. host: have you been feeling pressure from sanders' campaign? guest: both campaigns have breached out and attempted to win my support. nothing that crossed the lines. i would say that i had a number of people on twitter who are passionately pro-bernie sanders asking me to support senator sanders, but none of them did anything that would cost the line. -- that would cross the line. i think they were coming from a positive place. i cannot help but contrast the sort of optimism and positivity of his message, and you see that at his rallies versus what you see a donald trump's rallies. they are both in some ways of talking about the same issues with the middle class stuck in neutral that is not moving forward, yet one is attempting to address it positively while and attemptkes it to channel that anger and frustration in a negative way. host: we are talking to congressman brendan boyle, democrat from pennsylvania. on the democratic line, eric from north myrtle beach, south carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. i love "washington journal." i watch you guys every morning. thank you for being here, congressman boyle. i have a think about donald trump, ok? i believe one of the reasons why he is getting so much notoriety, ,long with a few other things to me, he is acting like another 100on in our history did years ago. barnell.was p.t. people are getting really excited and i am just ready for donald trump to bring out the fiji mermaid. host: do you have a question for the congressman? caller: yes, i do. i needed to find something out right now. the superdelegates and -- i don't know. the superdelegates, in your doing?, what are they they will be picking out hillary or they will be picking to was alli thought it supposed -- both on the republican and democratic side -- i thought it was supposed to be the majority of the people? host: let's let the congressman respond. there has been a big debate of the role of superdelegates. guest: i think the discussion over superdelegates has been the most overhyped and overrated part in the primary process. to take a step that, on the democratic side, about 80% of the delegates of the convention come from being elected through the primary. the other 20% are the longtime democratic officeholders, members of congress, governors, party activists, etc., who are not there just that election time that year in and year out doing the low turnout off the races. for as long as superdelegates have existed, they have never voted in a way different than the pledged delegates. the one race where they could have made the difference was eight years ago. hillary clinton started off with a strong lead in superdelegates. once barack obama started eating her narrowly in the primary vote -- beating her narrowly in the primary vote, the superdelegates switched. at the end, the superdelegates supporting obama was similar to what the elected delegates or pledged delegates were doing, so i tend to think that it would eat a very unusual circumstance we see that superdelegates the will oft was the democratic primary electorate. that has never happened. it is hard to for see a scenario in which that would happen. i think they are there more as a a just innd kind of case, especially since we do have lag time between the last primaries and when the nominees are chosen. it will be late summer. host: despite who you are endorsing, if at the convention if your state does to the other candidate, would you change your vote in favor? guest: that is something i have been wrestling with. time asmy first superdelegates and there are all sorts of questions. you go with your conscience? --ou vote for the folks do you vote for your folks in your state voted for? what do i represent my district ?because i got necessarily represent the state these are important questions. i don't know at this point what i would do. host: up next, june calling from georgia. caller: hello? host: you are on. caller: good morning and thank you some much for c-span. myis where i get a lot of information. i like to listen to my information straight from the horse's mouth. my question is about superdelegates and it is about the gop. i am an independent, neither when it or republican, see happening in our country is where the people do not have a .oice in the end we vote, we do our duty as a citizen by voting, and then when it gets to the convention, it is all thrown out. i do not like it and i think you misinterpret a lot of the anger of the people. that is a big part of the anger. we do not have a voice. out,ve regulations coming or states no longer have power. if a social issue is passed and i have not had a chance to vote on it, then i feel like i don't have a voice. host: ok, let's let the congressman respond. guest: thank you. first, you made a point that i managed to make earlier witches thank you for c-span. i am part of what some called the mtv generation but it could be called the c-span generation because i grew up in the 1980's, actually learning about government and politics through c-span. this has been one of the great public treasures that has been created and it provides a real service that no one knows is providing. in terms of june's point about people not having a voice, it is distressing how many people feel that. that is a real problem that we have in our society. i do think as far as the delicate process and the conventions go, in my lifetime, from the mid-1970's, whoever has won the party primaries has been the nominee. it has not been decided by the suppose it our brokers, and i think -- the suppose it powerbrokers, and i think you will see that this time. there is a 95% less chance that the republican nominee will be donald trump or ted cruz as they receive the most votes. it does show you that if the republican party were to try to parachute someone in, at this point, that person would like legitimacy and i think they would face a popular uprising. host: what do you think about paul ryan's announcement yesterday that he would not be that parachuter? to know paul.n i like him and he has an important and difficult job. when the my challenges for my time serving, while the republicans have a majority, there is a group of about 40 to 50 actually conservative members who tend to look at compromise as something that is evil, even though our whole constitution is itself the product of compromise. you see on every difficult piece of legislation that has been passed, republicans have not had to 18, the magic number. magice had 218, the number. when speaker boehner was willing to engage our side of the aisle, we were able to get the transportation bill done, export and import reauthorization, those were just a couple of important things. the fact that we raised the debt ceiling, which he became dangerously close to not doing, that all happened with democratic votes with a certain number of republicans. and the speaker will have a difficult job at this republican caucus because in the end, they do not have the majority to what they say they are for. host: we are talking to congressman brendan boyle from pennsylvania. first-term congressman, representing part of philadelphia and north philadelphia and some of the regions. up next, we have mark calling in on the republican line from henderson, north carolina. good morning, mark. caller: good morning. how are you today? guest: good morning, thank you. caller: i cannot let you get away with two lies in told in the beginning statement. first off, donald trump did not start [indiscernible] a gentlemanton and who worked on hillary clinton from your state or the ones who actually started those and put forth the lawsuit against barack obama's birth certificate. you need to go back a little bit. i forgot myrap, point. host: do you want to respond? guest: i would be happy. it is a fact that donald trump was the person who is pushing the birth initiative and he had an investigation going on and he could not believe that they were finding one of the outlandish statements we have gone used to, and he even pursued in hawaii. guess what? the president of united states, who happened to be the son of an immigrant, as in my, my father is from ireland, and no one has asked to see my birth certificate, but president barack obama's father happened to be from kenya and he may have a different name as opposed to mine, and all of a sudden, the birth issue arises when he enters the white house. it was donald trump of fish that, pursued that, and it was an incredibly cynical thing to do and am deeply patriotic. democrat, when george w. bush was president, who i think what a little too far in their attacks on president bush, even though it i disagree with a lot of policies, if we have to show respect for the office of the presidency, donald trump has not done that at all. he is outside the mainstream of our normal democratic politics. host: let's move toward other topics. you are a member of the foreign affairs committee. let's talk about the fight against isis. you said in a piece last month that we are at war. do we know enough about the enemy to win? in thei had a notepad philadelphia inquirer a few weeks ago in which i laid out a number of my views in the war that we are in. i can now it just it to the cold war. i think this is a long twilight struggle, the same with the cold war was for a previous generation. i think this is much more complex and i talked about the three different battlefields, if you will. the first is traditional. tosee it in syria, iraq and a certain extent in libya and afghanistan. are inond battlefield these communities like in brussels, paris, britain, where , smalle a radicalized toup of extremists, who wish do ask harm, and by us, i mean any of us in the west. the third battlefield is online and through social media. the ability of isis and other similar ideological groups to reach and target the very disturbed, disaffected people, inther it was a teenager columbus, ohio, who wanted to come to the capital to blow it up, or for teenaged girls in colorado who wanted to go join isis because they were reached online. those are the three battlefields we have to wage the war on. we cannot just concentrate on one of those. i happen to believe that we are not being as effective as we should, especially in the social media realm. we are the country of hollywood, and other groups to qaeda beat us like when it comes to social media and online presence. that has to change. the final point, because i know we want to take more calls, but this is important to make, we can focus on isis, we can focus haram, but there will be groups we have not heard of that will come about. it is the ideology that we have to combat. host: the headline in this morning's "new york times." although airstrikes have killed , it is stillhters expanding. the battlefield successes enjoyed by western backed forces in isis's heartland have done little to stop the expansion of militants to europe, north africa and afghanistan. the attacks this year in brussels and other cities reinforce this myth of a --rorist group on the march the sense of a terrorist group on the march. a fight that is likely to go on for years. how do you get ahead of this expansion? guest: clearly, no one has a silver bullet or an easy answer to it. it is a military component, yes. a law enforcement component, as we have seen in brussels and paris. it is also combating the ideology. testifying in the foreign affairs committee and visiting us was the king of jordan. he said to us, in the end, this is our war. speaking from his perspective, meaning the majority -- the vast majority of muslims who do not at all support isis, but nonetheless, need to combat this growing cancer within their community. thisackdrop of that is sunni versus shia conflict. part of the reason we saw isis's initial popularity in northern iraq, people who were not all ready to join isis, but they were so strongly against the shiite dominated iraqi government, which is affiliated with iran, that they as the plot, your enemy of your enemy is your friend. we have to recognize that the backdrop of this is that shia versus sunni conflict. host: mary from franklin, tennessee. congressmanith brendan boyle. caller: i have a lot to say about the superdelegate business. it is just not democratic. far asner take all as republicans go, that is terrible, ridiculous. and that really put everything he speaks of them except abortion. i don't like abortion. host: do you have a question for the congressman? caller: yes. where could you stand on medicaid for all? couldn't we take that from paychecks to pay and increase the cap for social security? where do you stand on that? there asere is a lot part superdelegates. obviously, we discussed previously. just to point out, by the way, you are right when you talk -- somenner take all states choose that winner take all. democrats are not allowed. you havemocratic side, a uniform standard that use .roportional representation the issues of medicare and social security, it is important to take a step back because we hear so much hysteria about medicare and social security that it is about to collapse and all this. let's take a look at the facts. social security has existed for 81 years. there have been people ever since this existed who have fought it. every single year, social security has run a surplus, not a deficit. it has been the single best way of lifting seniors out of poverty. lived in poverty before social security. today, that figure is in the high single digits. seniors are better off than children in our society. social security does a wonderful job. those who want to change it i think tend to be coming from a place where they are ideologically don't agree with a social safety net. admittedly, when it comes to social security and medicare, we are going to have a problem in the out years 20 years down the line because of the trust fund and the changing demographics, age demographics in our society. small changes we can make today would help alleviate that. i make was bonds are of one bill to extend the lifetime of the social security trust fund to the year 2100. these people who want to use problems we are facing 20 years from now to put these dramatic changes to social security and medicare, they have no justification for it. they just don't believe in the program. host: next, on our independent line, catherine is calling from north conway, new hampshire. you are on with congressman brendan boyle. , north my suggestion korea shooting off missiles come in the future, nuclear threatening of different countries in the area, we would let north korea no far in advance what would happen if they tried to harm other countries. their missiles with nuclear payloads were fired, we would have drones or computers that would immediately come in seconds, detonate their missiles before they were able to leave their north korean borders, which would result in their comeles bombing themselves exploding over their own country. north korean missiles would be in fact bombing north korea itself. this would possibly stop their aggressive behavior. , what hem jong-un is doing to his people, there are no words that can describe the evil he represents. the fact that things are likely to even get worse, they are facing another food shortage and people are literally starving to death, the foreign affairs committee, we have a report last year that listed all the human rights abuses going on in north korea. he terrible dictator, and unstable individual -- a terrible dictator, an unstable individual, it shows you why we always do need a strong military. make some people uncomfortable, but i happen to believe in peace through strength. that is the best way to keep america safe. that doesn't mean we go off and start wars that are optional. we have to be judicious about exercising that military strength. we absolutely do need it because if we are not strong, people like kim jong-un in the world take advantage. host: what do you think is the best way for the u.s. to combat the potential for a nuclear strike? guest: i am concerned. unfortunately come in the 1990's and through the bush administration, we failed to prevent north korea from developing a nuclear weapon. power -- anuclear number of an assessments i've jong-un lead me he doesn't seem to be more interested in being a national player and respect that does seem toat he be more interested in being a national player and respect. in such ay he acts provocative way is to make him appear stronger to those internal dissenters who have been quietly against him ever since he took over for his father. , he has been merciless and ruthless and killing a number of his enemies internally in pyongyang. we cannot divorce his own domestic situation from what he does internationally. host: we are talking with congressman brendan boyle from pennsylvania. alabama onchael from our republican line. caller: how are you doing? i wish there was more young faces -- i just want to say about donald trump. this guy is ridiculous. are following him because they want to get stuff done. i was a marco rubio supporter. he got in, got slammed with a gang of eight bill and fox news. there's people who want to get stuff done, yet, he is promoting stuff like building a wall. you think congress is really going to pass that? it is crazy. host: let's let the congressman respond. made no've obviously secret of how strongly i opposed on will trump. -- oppose donald trump. i hope his candidacy would show a number of republican there iss of mine that a receptive audience among republican primary voters were those who want to compromise. trump for all his bluster and talk, his -- tough appeal is that he is nonideological, he will make deals, he will get things done. i hope that is an indication that this five or six year period of shut it down and extremism and absolutism could be coming to an end. i'm here for the right reasons. people might agree or disagree with me on policy issues. i'm also someone who is willing to compromise. whether as a state legislator or most deals ite -- vote for i don't agree with 100% of the time. methere is a bill that gets 60% of what i want, i'm likely to take that. as i'm attempting to look for a positive in trump's message, i hope -- while i don't want him to win, i hope it shows others that if you are a republican and attempting to appeal to the primary electorate, you can be for compromise. you are a member of the oversight committee. today, there will be a hearing today with the head of the metro to discuss the recent problems that we have had in this public transportation system here in washington. what are you hoping to ask them? you concerned this is an infrastructure issue that goes beyond washington, d.c.? guest: yes. i'm very concerned about that. i don't think that is even a question at this point. washington, d.c. has the second-highest usage in terms of its metro system. i represent the city of philadelphia which has the sixth highest. when i came to washington 20 years ago, as part of a college howram, you'd be amazed at efficient and cleanly the metro system was here. dropme back now and see it is really distressing. reflects, frankly, a lack of infrastructure spending and a look of public investment -- a lack of public investment we've made over the last 20-30 years. when i was a state legislator, i on why weald reagan needed to spend more money on transportation. that was one of the best things we could do for economic growth and to create jobs. unfortunately, this no spending andra that has taken hold has prevented us from spending --areas that are clearly there is bipartisan support for spending on as metro areas like washington and philadelphia get bigger and suburban areas get bigger, we need to spending. the fact that you had a 24-hour shutdown of the subway system here is incredible. we are competing with countries in asia and europe that have high-speed rail and here we are the only western country that doesn't have high-speed rail. japan has had it for over 50 years. we have to get moving again as a country and it takes spending on public investment. people in office need to be no longer shy about saying that. host: that meeting is at 2:00 p.m. today. it will be shown live on c-span3. , michigan.ake odessa you are on with congressman brendan boyle. caller: i think i heard you say are not republicans paying much attention to our constitution. my question for you is this -- the constitution says that no state shall make anything other than gold and silver coin a legal tender. which party was it that took the gold away from the american , which alsondard took the silver away from the american monetary standard that we use today? guest: my point about the constitution was that the constitution itself was a compromise between the large states and smaller states. larger states wanted congressional representation by population, small states like delaware wanted representation to be equal among the states. our confirmation -- our constitution is a compromise between both. copy of theold up a constitution and say they refuse to compromise because they are being restricted here when the constitution itself is a product of compromise. it's an example of how our founding fathers were able to come together to form a system that still works over two centuries later. as far as the gold standard and silver standard, i have to study my history on that i believe it was president nick and that took us up the gold standard. that's president nixon. host: sam calling from memphis, tennessee. caller: good morning, congressman boyle. you mentioned something having to do with mr. sanders not being very comfortable speaking about foreign affairs. why is that? if i can ask what chris matthews asked of hillary, he asked if she was a hawk. are you a hawk? guest: first, as far as bernie sanders on foreign affairs, i meant more that clearly his passion is for the domestic ,ssues, income inequality raising the living standard of all americans. we have a group of americans called the working poor, that is a disgrace. no one should be working full-time in america and still be mired in poverty. the fact that you have such a at the topntration 1/10 of one person while median household income has declined and for the bottom third of americans, it has dropped off a cliff -- that was more my point about bernie sanders. as far as how i characterize my views on foreign policy, that is a tough question. i would encourage people to read the op-ed i've written in "the philadelphia inquirer." it would be difficult to put me in a box on foreign affairs. i hope that shows that i'm thinking about these issues. i believe we need to have a strong military. at the same time, we have to exercise that force wisely. try to take every issue as it comes to me as opposed to having an already ideologically dictated answer and just knee-jerk reaction. i think is important on foreign affairs issues that we treat these in a bipartisan way. i love sitting on the foreign affairs committee heard i give a world of credit to the top republican in top democrat on the committee. to make it ao work bipartisan committee. host: congressman brendan boyle. thank you for joining us today. we will be going to our spotlight on magazine segment. talking about an "esquire magazine" piece titled "the inevitable takeover of pop politics." we will have mark warren on to discuss it. ♪ >> the campaign 2016 bus continues its travels to visit winners from this years student cam competition. the bus recently visited spanish springs high school in nevada to recognize just as beth -- justice beth for "wild horse management." then to california to meet with thet peters, recognizing students for their winning documentary. joins friends, family and classmates to honor second prize winners. for their winning documentary on social security called "a sense of security." special thanks to our cable partners for helping to coordinate these community visits. every weekday this month on c-span, be sure to watch one of the top winning entries before "washington journal." he had a couple of meals and the steam shovel. ironies to the other be so rabidly anti-government and owe your entire fortune to the government. >> sally denton talks about her book "the profiteers." it takes a look at one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the world. the u.s.se is government going to get to build these projects throughout the world? but it is the american taxpayers paying for it. they should have some access to the contracts,ut the amount of money, the worker safety, the political relationships. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q&a. >> "washington journal" continues. host: up next, we are going to go to our spotlight on magazines segment we do every wednesday. today, we are talking to mark warren, the executive editor at "esquire magazine," about a piece in the latest issue called "the inevitable takeover of pop politics." thank you for joining us. guest: thank you for having me. good morning. host: thank you for joining us from new york. this piece is talking about pop politics. what are pop politics and why did you think this was an important issue to explore in the magazine? guest: the rules of the political universe this year have been suspended. producing some of the worst presidential punditry that we've ever seen. lastingaw donald trump as long as he has. no one saw bernie sanders coming at all. to the fact that pundits have been using the old rules or playing by a different understanding of the political landscape. somehow, 2016 has been the coleman nation of a process that has been long in the works of the insinuation of celebrity culture into political culture. -- culmination of a process. the line between those things is gone. we are seeing cheaply through the avatar of donald trump -- chiefly through the avatar of donald trump's years of celebrity in the political world. host: politics has always had parliaments of entertainment and entertainment has always had a political dimension. means?lain what that guest: they've always drawn from each other. kennedyhe power of john , the hollywood glamour of the reagans. governor clinton playing a saxophone on arsenio hall. we have these political figures trended humanize themselves -- trying to humanize themselves by making us laugh, disarming us and making us think better of them. that is not new, exactly. we've seen element of that this year as well. larry david making a more perfect bernie sanders on snl, hillary clinton making fun of herself also on snl. taperuz and his audition for the simpsons. the degree to which we are seeing it is perhaps new. pernicious and a bit , this very famous person that a lot of voters have known their entire adult lives or entire lives, sometimes, testing the value of his fame, his raw fame in the mark -- the political marketplace. $2 billion worth of free media attention based upon that fame. seencome it we have never before. host: we are talking with mark warren, the executive editor at "esquire magazine." we are talking about the article about pop politics in the latest issue as part of our spotlight on magazines, which we do every wednesday. republicans can call in 202-748-8001. democrats can call in at 202-748-8000. independents can call in at 202-748-8002. on that last point you talked about, the attention these candidates are getting, you think the changes in media, including social media come is one of the driving points behind this boom in pop politics? guest: no question about that. of democratization information by technology is historic, one of the great things about the increasing involvement in the political process. increased -- the , he wrote congress -- the future would be dominated by events that exist only to be covered by the media. something be news was happened and a journalist would cover it. these events would exist only to be covered. his forecast has more than come true, i would say. enabled, in part, by the social media that we have now. it has me pining for a good event.shioned pseudo- they take the shape of a twitter at three clock and by a candidate or the re-tweaking of an unflattering picture of an opponent's spouse. to dominatehe power the media cycles and maybe even turn elections. it is not that they are not powerful. we've lost sight of the difference, sometimes. host: you are referring to a republican presidential candidate, donald trump. we can take a look at what he himself said in his "art of the deal." "i played to people's fantasies. people may not always think big themselves, but they can still get excited by those who do. that's why a little hyperbole never hurts. people want to believe that something is the biggest and greatest and most spectacular. i call it truthful hyperbole. it is a very effective form of promotion." is that what he is doing in his presidential race? guest: i think we had the first presidential campaign -- the culmination of a long progression of celebrity culture leaping into political culture. we have the first presidential campaign, i would say, that has been run by a reality tv producer where you introduce conflict -- once you do that on reality tv, you have to continually escalate it. that has to do with his hyperbole, i think that is consonant with who he is and who he has been. i think we will probably see more of this in the future. host: what factors do you think -- you talked a bit about media. what other factors are contributing to this era of pop politics, this convergence of politics and entertainment? not casting dispersionsi think it can incree participation in the system. a great deal of the interest and excitement around not just the trunk campaign but that presidential campaign in general viewers and of consumers who have feasted on kind of a generation of reality television, who are looking for the same in the conduct of the campaign. hopefully, they will be informed and stay for better reasons than perhaps they came for. host: we are talking to mark warren, the executive editor at "esquire magazine," about the inevitable takeover of pop politics: the entertainers and politicians who are now selling the same thing." on our democratic line, we have a caller from austin, texas. you are on with mark warren. caller: hi, mark warren. magazine, itthe supports the wealth. when you support the wealth, the little bitty guy gets kind of kicked out of the way. -- thisthis culture of culture attends to wealth. if you have plenty of money, like donald trump has plenty of gety, then the poor do not in on popo fall culture. host: let's give mark warren a chance to respond to that. what role do you think wealth plays in this phenomenon? mean, it is kind of indivisible from fame, in this instance, i think. the caller's point is a good one, is a fair one. .nd it has been a paradox because of his fame, he came into the campaign. avatar of thishe phenomenon we are talking about. because of his fame, he comes into the political marketplace and immediately prospers and gets a terrific amount of free publicity. that benefits him in the polls. when someone is the front runner or a real contender for the nomination or one of the only two major political parties that we have, that must be covered. it is a paradox because fame begets more fame. faire caller's point is a one, that someone without means, without fame, without those advantages coming into the political system does not get , and probably would not prosper as mr. trump has. fame and theth the notoriety, does it always automatically serve as a benefit? re piece itself points to apper kanye west, and it says -- host: he stood up at the video music awards and acknowledged that nobody had the courage to , andrupt, that he was high then announced his bid for the presidency in 2020. no one was entirely sure if he was getting." is that part of the same phenomenon fueling donald trump? because think so, whenever the political marketplace is viewed as just another venue in which to play with the power of fame, then that is what we are seeing with kanye west, who may or may not be serious about running for president. i am assuming -- i do not know anything about him -- but i assume he does not know the first thing about governing or running for president or what that might even mean. fact, it could be said that donald trump is a fairly low-information candidate. it is not exactly what he is in it for either. i do think that sometimes it can be confusing. it is not just the $2 billion of free media and counting that he has gotten so far. it is the power of 35 years of , to confuse people. ,s it his views on immigration or is this that he fired all those people on tv week after week for so many years, and that we have known him forever with best-selling books and all of that? it is confusing. it has the power to be pernicious in that way. host: we are talking to mark warren, the executive editor of "esquire magazine," about pop politics. ,p next on our republican line from california. what is your question for mark warren about pop politics? caller: there are a couple of things being missed here. instead of referring to donald trump is a famous person and his entertainment part, i think a lot of what is being lost is his ability as an entrepreneur and a businessman, with the empire that he has built, that he is a very successful man. man, notnowledgeable some idiot on tv. the reason he is getting a lot of criticism that is negative, half the stuff they are saying about him is not even true. so it is really not to his advantage. but the point is it is not just about his popularity. look at the businesses he has been able to achieve all these years. he employs 10,000 people. some not just some icon or popular person, like mr. warren is saying. host: let's hit -- let's give him a chance to respond. caller.air enough, i would say there are a great and successful businessman women who you never hear about. the reason for that is that they have not cultivated their fame and have not had interest in that. it is a fact -- and leaving aside any argument about how successful or not mr. trump has been in business -- i am not knowledgeable enough to argue that point and will not -- but he has meant to be famous, otherwise he would not be. he had fame before this political chapter of his life, culminated in a very successful reality television show. are a great many wonderful and successful men and women of business who you never hear of because they do not want to be famous. host: on the issue of -- go ahead. do you have more? guest: another part of this phenomenon, you asked the question earlier about what else is this owed to. a great deal of this is owed to how long these campaigns are, and the total saturation of image that has turned american politics into a celebrity business. we are seeing the culmination of that this year. the question is, what happens ,fter this year, after trump when politics -- a cardinal rule is, just study what works. this has certainly worked. this court over by a lot of political professionals. we have gotten that he will see pored-- you will see this over by a lot of political professionals. in "theere was a piece washington post" by charles lane that points out this is not exactly a new phenomenon. he says the debate between abraham lincoln and stephen douglas is remembered for the ,eriousness of its subjects slavery, king at the lincoln douglas debates were also a traveling circus. thousands of spectators, playing hooky from their monotonous farms, flocked to each small-town venue from this running countryside. bands played. what is so different about today? hasn't entertainment always become par for the course in politics? the lincoln douglas debates live tweeted, i am not sure. had somehas always very kind of commercial and celebrity appeal, there is no question about it. events that draw people. the politics of today has taken celebrityppings of and the affect of celebrity. even the debate that we see on the networks, the introductions look like game shows. they even come with commercial breaks now. they did not used to do that. so it is just orders of magnitude different, i would say. and certainly since the arrival of the internet and the rise of twitter, that is where the major political battles and new cycles are turned. we will see if those either attacks or mistakes made on twitter can have the effect of actually turning elections for or against someone. t -- up next on our independent line, vivian, you are on with mark warren. caller: hello, mark. ism so happy that someone talking about pop culture, because i agree with you totally . who started it was clinton, bill clinton. back to abraham lincoln because i can only go back to eisenhower. that was my first vote but i have seen clinton change pop happy whend i was so we got a black president and i said now it is going to change. but he also became -- people were calling him a rockstar because that is how he acted all the time. host: let's give him a chance to respond to that. do you think ill clinton was a major driver of this phenomenon, -- do you think bill clinton was a major driver of this phenomenon, mark? guest: he may terrible mistake in 1988 when he gave his speech for michael dukakis. he went on longer than he was supposed to and governor dukakis missed prime time, and was roundly panned in the culture for doing so. how did he prepare himself? shownt on the "tonight" and apologized and made from himself -- and made fun of himself. during the 1992 campaign, he went and played his saxophone on the arsenio hall show. he was very comfortable in that setting. no one probably in our lifetime is as comfortable in that setting as bill clinton. but again, this is before the internet or twitter. orders of magnitude different, still. i think that pop politics plays in the realm of extreme love or extreme hate, kind of like a reality television show. that cannot be a good thing in the long term. republicanxt on our line is don calling from south carolina. your own with mark warren and our discussion about pop politics. caller: i take my hat off to you for addressing this issue. i do not agree that it is so much the politicians driving it as it is the social news media. objectivity, the good of the country, the truth is all being put aside by the pundits just because they are trying to and it is making lots of money for the news media. i think the phenomenon of donald trump and bernie sanders is greatly supported by that social more because it causes coverage, people with jobs. an example would be, how many of your fellow newsman and reporters are trying to get on their own television shows now? i have really lost a lot of pundits.or the i would tell you that that is cbs, the president said it all when he said that what is going on might not be good for the country, but it is certainly good for the bottom line of cbs. host: let's let mark warren respond to that. caller, right on -- bingo, caller, right on. saying, being in the media as well, we are all complicit. a realforces to play role here. there's no question about it. it is a vicious circle. but again, once you have something, a campaign like no , aer, when you have someone candidate like no other, trump entering into this realm, testing the value of his fame in the marketplace, and becomes the front runner, what choice do you have but to cover him? of course it is the quality and nature of the coverage itself where you have a real point, because for the first several months, i would argue, and i think it is borne out by facts, that the covers -- that the coverage was very soft. you saw him as an entertainment figure rather than a candidate, until well into the fall when it started not being a joke anymore . as he is perilously close to candidate in one of the two parties, we must test his ideas to see what a from presidency would look like for the united states and the world. we are all complicit. after trump?t i don't know. host: as part of our spotlight on magazine series, we are talking to mark warren, the executive editor at "esquire magazine," about this month's story on pop politics. we have a tweet from dana who says -- host: this echoes several folks on twitter, who pointed out that our current president has been a celebrity since his campaign. do you have to be part celebrity in order to launch an effective campaign now? probably. it seems as if that is the way, doesn't it yet go i think part of the -- doesn't it? inwas a very fresh face president obama seems to be leading some sort of movement, showing a new face of the country to the world. a new sense of political ome confused bec with celebrity culture and can confuse the issues and maybe even drive interest in the candidate beyond even issues. i think we're seeing some of that was senator sanders and the enormous crowds that he has been getting. that has to do with that kind of system of popular movement, which can become confused in the celebrity culture. but they drive each other, i would say. host: up next on our republican line, we have peter calling in from spokane, washington. you are on with mark warren. go ahead. what is your question for mark warren? is, when isuestion our social security going to become important? and part of the spotlight of a magazine? they say they need money terribly bad host:. wrong topic there. sandy is calling in from howard, kansas. you are on with mark warren, discussing pop politics. sandy, are you there? ok, it appears we have lost sandy. back to our discussion. politics,mes to pop how does that fit in, in terms of political ideology? have we seen more of the happen on the left or on the right? how does it fit into ideology? i think that we have almost a religious relationship, there is a religiosity to our idea of fame. fame is almost its own ideology. -- i mean, when you have a candidate like donald trump coming into the political marketplace, testing his fame, then he has to adapt positions that would help him succeed. those positions have been extremely different from some of his earlier positions. he would say that that is just a matter of political evolution, which is fair enough. but i also think he has been responding to the marketplace. i do think that fame is its own ideology in a way. fame is more powerful than money sometimes, i think. think it is still a serious problem, but our great fear was that a system awash in would overwhelm and compromise our democracy, but if you hate money in politics, wait until you see celebrity in politics. isause again, i think this likely a phenomenon that is not going to go away, because it has upended the establishment of both parties. it has upended the way our politics and our nominating processes normally work. so people are going to study it because it has worked. we are talking about pop politics with mark warren, executive editor of "esquire magazine." republicans can call in at 202-7 48-8001. 202-748-8000. , 202-7 48-8002. "usa today" points out that facebook chief mark zuckerberg has stepped into the political fray. it says he has laid out a 10-year plan to connect the world that sounded as much like a political cause as a grab for potential billions of dollars. and in doing so he took direct aim at those who would limit free trade and immigration as well as donald trump. he says they plan to bring people together, with an ambitious strategy of technology, crossing borders, crossing cultures -- it sounded like a political statement. are we going to see more of that , celebrities using politics as opposed to just politicians becoming more like celebrities? great i think absolutely in mark zuckerberg's case, when you have established something that has not been done before, established a global network that has instant connectivity from one point on the globe to another with one billion people involved, that is power. so i think that he is using that power and his increasing profile as he wants told see it. this seems as if he is taking direct aim at some of the higher profile positions taken by some of the candidates in this presidential cycle, especially on the republican side. so i think there is no question about that. again, it is not anything entirely new, that you see celebrities trying to parlay into a political profile as well. usually, i think that can be to good effect if they mean well and they act in good faith and they look for issues that are worth the -- that are worthy. many of those types of -- it was written that when amy schumer is on , her cousin charles schumer is onstage talking about gun control. -- who has more power? i think it is the actual celebrity, who has more power in that moment. we will always begin to see the furtherance of that kind of -- the melding of political and civil liberty -- the political and celebrity culture. host: president reagan was an actor. al franken is in the senate now. might we see other politicians, other celebrities enter the fray ? who might they be? george clooney? he certainly has taken political positions. darfur, in work in africa. it is a very intoxicating kind of forum, and if you have a profile, by one means, you might want to use it in the political realm as well. kanye west, whether it is deranged or not, he is talking about it for a reason. though.teresting, when al franken entered the toate, he assiduously tried tamp down his celebrity profile, and to stop acting like a celebrity, like a comedian. he became studious and serious and took his place in the back of the line of the u.s. senate, which is a strict seniority system. i do not know that that is what celebrities have in mind, to gain political power. i do not know that that is what they would be doing it for, to become someone other than themselves. draw, is a very powerful so i would not be surprised to see more going forward. on our republican line, we have lisa calling in from new york. you're on with mark warren. guest: i actually -- caller: good morning. i think it is the 24-hour news cycle that caused this. i was watching a movie yesterday with ronald reagan, and it hit me. he was very presidential and the all american boy. i did not know him as an actor, i only knew him as a politician, so for me it was and lightning about how people started to go towards this guy that they saw on the big screen. for me, i also feel that you are a little slanted with the donald trump attacks. trump,rrified by donald but i think that what he is saying and doing he is doing for the country in a very strange way. is a lot to unpack. let's let mark warman respond to that. go ahead. guest: again, i do not mean to attack mr. trump. i am just saying there has never been a candidate like him before, and there is no one else like him in this field. there are not that many who have those skills. the 24-hour news cycle, i think absolutely that plays into it as well. the 24-hour news cycle can combined with a 24 month campaign, results in this total saturation of image. if you have money to do it -- which is what has turned american politics into a celebrity business -- i think you are absolutely right about that. with ronald reagan, he did not go directly from being a celebrity to parlay his allywood celebrity into political profile. total of 20er a years. governor of-term california. he studied issues. compared to a lot of candidates that we talk about here, he was very studious of the issues and had some mastery. rationaleell-defined politically, compared to certainly mr. trump, i would say. host: on our independent line, we have mike calling in from lebanon, new jersey. good morning. very much.nk you sir, i do not think donald trump is a pop-culture type. he actually is serving the purpose of the middle class of being the billionaire that we usn't have representing against the billionaire establishment. the people that they call uneducated, who voted for him, are people who are no longer fooled. he has defined the establishment as the billionaires who own the congress, who owned the government financially, who own the news media, and when he goes after megyn kelly, that is simply a case of being symbolic for the middle class. host: i want to make sure that mark warren has a chance to respond to you. go ahead. guest: a couple of things. i would say it is hard to argue that he is not a celebrity, or that that is what he is -- or that that is what he has been about before the political process. as far as your assertion that he is -- he describes the problems of the middle class well -- you are absolutely right about that. he has described the pain and uncertainty about the global economy, of a sense that their future is not in their hands anymore, to be determined by them. that they do not know where their jobs are going, or if they will come back. i think you are absolutely correct about that. effective -- he is very, very effective at channel the anger, rage, uncertainty, fear, and less well-known is whether he has prescriptions for those problems , or ideas about how to solve those problems or to ease that pain. but, no, i agree with you completely. that is part of his power. that is why he has succeeded, because he has described real problems that real people and real pain that they are experiencing. host: mark warren, thank you for joining us. for this segment about pop politics. good morning to you. guest: thank you very much. good morning. host: that is all for today's "washingon journal." 7:00 a.m. back at eastern. we will see you then. in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washeds, april 13, 2016. i hereby appoint the honorable -- washington, d.c., april 13, 2016. i hereby appoint the honorable david jolly to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, paul d. ryan, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 5, 2016, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour ebate. the chair will alternate

Related Keywords

Vietnam , Republic Of , Nevada , United States , Alabama , Lake Odessa , Michigan , Syria , Connecticut , San Francisco , California , Charlotte , North Carolina , North Myrtle Beach , South Carolina , Egypt , Netherlands , Libya , Japan , Germany , Afghanistan , Atlanta , Georgia , Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , Virginia , Brussels , Bruxelles Capitale , Belgium , Fiji , Iraq , New Jersey , Sydney , New South Wales , Australia , Maryland , North Korea , Capitol Hill , District Of Columbia , Hawaii , Louisiana , Turkey , Delaware , Cedartown , Washington , North Conway , New Hampshire , Hollywood , Ireland , New York , Pyongyang , P Yongyang Si , Tampa , Florida , Iran , Texas , Spanish Springs , Loudoun County , Illinois , Lebanon , Jordan , United Kingdom , Oklahoma , Kenya , Tennessee , Prince George County , Colorado , Ohio , Kansas , Paris , Rhôalpes , France , Hartford County , Americans , America , Iraqi , American , Holland , Britain , North Korean , German , Irish , Marco Rubio , Ben Carson , Sally Denton , Bernie Sander , Scott Peters , John Kasich , Ronald Reagan , Michael Dukakis , Larry David , Megyn Kelly , Lincoln Douglas , Dodd Frank , Lamar Alexander , Bob Mulholland , Charles Schumer , Steven Ratner , Amy Schumer , Al Franken , Kim Jong , Chris Matthews , Judy Chu , Paul Ryan , Bernie Sanders , Michelle Reid , Snl Hillary Clinton , Arsenio Hall , Dave Kemp , Chris Murphy , George Clooney , Harry Reid , Abraham Lincoln , Paul D Ryan , Barack Obama , George W Bush , Stephen Douglas , Brendan Boyle , John Kennedy , John King , Hillary Clinton , Ted Cruz ,