Needed. Says campaign i s united. Republicans, it is your opportunity to tell the campaign what you think. Some say intervention is needed but what you think . If you support donald trump, 2027488000. If you are opposing donald trump, 2027488001. You can also send a tweet or poster comments on post your comments on facebook. Com cspan. From donald trump yesterday. He tweeted this out. At unity in my campaign, perhaps greater than ever before. Thank everyone for your tremendous support. Beat crooked h he repeated that at a rally in florida yesterday. First joining us on the phone is a political reporter. And whoo as panicking thinks there needs to be an intervention . Alex the people who are oficking are a number different people throughout the Republican Party who are panicking over this. Importantthe most are those overseeing house, senate races and who are concerned about this election and what it could mean for the partys house and Senate Majorities. There are a lot of people who are trying to come to the increasing conclusion that trump wont win. But in light of that, what happens if trump losese . How do we maintain our house and Senate Majorities and what does that mean for the party in terms of keeping house and senate seats . People are looking close to these polling numbers that came out yesterday which shows secretary clinton pulling into a big lead over donald trump in battleground states. In states with competitive house and senate races . Host who is behind the idea of an intervention . It is happening, what is the status . Alex it is unclear. There were some reports yesterday that rnc chairman Reince Priebus wanted to stage an intervention along with trumps children and Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and perhaps a few others. Newt gingrich is him to push back on those reports. Its unclear whether others could be involved in some way. Its very clear there is something happening at this campaign, that theres increasing concern about his standing in this contest. Host why . Reason why is because if you look at a number of polls that are coming out today, in states like new hampshire, in states like pennsylvania, you see secretary clinton with a lead of around 10 . Trumpss more, you see numbers crumbling in a lot of different areas following these two conventions. Republicans feel like the Republican Convention did not go well. They feel like trumps speech did not go well. And they feel that the Democratic Convention went a lot better. Some theres concern is as as we get closer to labor day and voter start to tune in, the choice here is beginning to crystallize. And the states that are going to determine the outcome of this contest. Host those that are saying that donald trump needs to change in order to win, what are they asking him to do or not do . Alex its interesting because people have been asking trump to change for a long time. Been asking him to be more on message, to use the teleprompter more. Better communications team, a better ground game. These are the kinds of things people have been telling donald trump for some time. And he hasnt changed. There is a lot of speculation that yesterday, after having and so off message talking about how he would refuse to endorse paul, people thought yesterday he would be more on message. Guess what . He wasnt. Perhaps maybe a little bit more, but he went off on a number different tangents on two events in florida. This is a candidate who is running his own, very unscripted, unvarnished campaign and it may be starting to weigh him down. Host what is happening inside Donald Trumps campaign . Your piece, trump fires two aides. How are they responding to republicans outside of the inner circle . Alex the people i have been talking to in this campaign are insisting that everything is fine, that a lot of the media chatter, people like me and you, our discussions about this race are overblown, and that perhaps too negative. They dont necessarily see it the way other people in the press seeit. This is a campaign that is really struggling, having a hard time. And this is what happens at a lot of campaigns, they you head down the final stretch and into the final weeks before an election and they are losing, denial about where they stand. Host you can follow his reporting on political. Com politico. Com. This is what we are going to do on washington journal. We are going to let you talk and let the party know and let the nominee know what you think. Is an intervention needed . That is what folks are talking about in washington but what do think . Jacob in baltimore, you are opposing donald trump. Republicans only for this first part. What do you think . I got to push the line. Sorry, go ahead. Caller good morning. So, the intervention should have happened months ago. I know the establishment leaders in the party did not want trump from the getgo but they should have done an intervention along time ago. You cannot change the nation of whom the nature of who a person is. This is clearly who donald trump is. He has not put on any fronts. Now they are surprised . Host what you going to do in the fall as a republican . Caller unfortunately, because ent giving any other options because they did not support any decent candidates, im going to end up voting for hillary because you cannot trust theseat of power with person of Donald Trumps temperament. Host what is it about, what do you mean trust the seat of power . Caller he falls for the smallest insults against his personal character. He is so gullible. It was clear with the kahn family that that was a line wa that was thrown out there by the Clinton Campaign and he fell for it, hook line and sinker. All his reactions are like that, way if yout be that are going to be the head of the executive branch of the United States. Host did you ever think about supporting donald trump . Caller i considered it. I gave him the option. A few of the things he had to say but the fact of the matter is he is too willing to say whatever needs to be said that he feels will get him to the position of. President. Host matt, you are undecided. What do you think about this idea of the republicans, some saying an intervention is needed . Caller you know, something i think the unity right now should be the clear message. And what defines unity. Im quite of set of both parties to tell you the truth. Republicans,the every time something happens, it seems like the democrats are ahead of them. And they are always on the reactive side. They start throwing out the conservative values but they wont publish the message of ehat they stand for, of what th conservative values are, so they can almost like a mandate, because right now we are this country is bipolar. We are so polarized it is not even funny. It is almost like watching a game, sadly. Its just, it hurts to see what is going on. And host you do not know what you are going to do this fall . Have you thought about voting for the libertarian candidate . Caller you know something . Thats a good question. Id love to. I would love to see someone in the middle that can bring the proper nature of things in order. But at this point, as history has shown, every time there is a Third Party Candidate all it does is siphon votes from one party or the other. To think my like vote counts but it is a political machine. And theres a lot of things going on with trump right now that people are ripping him apart, but do you really think you should put his platform out there just to have a torn apart because there will always be two sides of both stories . And so, he might just be waiting end to put out a proper platform. You know what you say, the rest of the cream rises to the top. Lets hope that happens with him. Because with hillary, on forcibly, she has been in their for 35 years and have things gotten better . The only thing she should be working on right now with technology. And lets hope thats used for the better of this country. Thank you. Host matt is undecided in germantown, maryland. Put the spotlight on the Libertarian Party last night at a town hall meeting with the president ial ticket of gary johnson and william weld. The libertarian magazine says this, that the two, they are not sure the two succeeded in seeming very libertarian or selling the partys position as an outlook on politics and government that someone could understand. They often seem to go out of aeir way just seem like centrist, independent mixture of what someone might see as good aspects of both by the parties. David in greensboro, north carolina, your supporting donald trump. What do think of what is happening by Republican Leaders and others you are saying that they need donald trump to change . Caller well, i personally like the tournament in front of the lady that just spoke. He hit a mess load of points. Ill say this, and then it will get to my message to trump. Citibank was allowed to change and chop up 71 pages of frank and dodd. They rewrote it. We understand to be able to make a mistake and 300 trillion would be left in the taxpayer hands. Trump, whoever is running this country, they need to set up a committee. Women, im sick of the 30 million women sold on the internet with kids. That has to do with the u. N. Out of georgia and serbia. We have several areas in this world where we have got people going in and killing the people. Ive been running my mouth about the sudan and what is going on with china supplying the guns. Than we have got boko haram. We are not taking care of women and children. Wherever roses country news december committee of native americans, black, white, spanish and women. Keep the mouth shut about what is going on with the abortions. Right now with the vaticans. I have awe, the History Channel years, notin four been correct about two president s. Loraine, supporting mr. Trump. You are on the air. Him becausepport with hillary getting into office she already she says she is going to raise taxes like you would not believe. And bill still have gotten money from undisclosed places. They wont say let her off the hook. They didnt let Martha Stewart off. I dont understands. Is still in jail, and he has done less than hillary has done. I dont understand this. They are always picking on donald trump. Host do you like the way the donald trump talks about issues . You have no problem with what he has said . Caller yes, because he says it it. He sees he sees i think things are rates by the hillary and the burning campaigns. Bernie campaigns. He says, and listen to all of what he says, he is not against anybody. He just wants the best for america. Host in College Station who is undecided. Dave, it is your turn. Everybody seems to want their president to be a soft, cuddly teddy bear. They want to, somebody like george w. Bush. In reality, we need somebody who is going to fire 750,000 federal employees and rip unions from government, slash Social Security, slash medicaid. Somebody who realizes the debt is too high, the obligations are unsustainable. Whoever does that is going to be hated by all the people that are affected by that. But that is what is going to solve the problem for our grandkids by cutting the debt and literally taking a shovel to this government. Host it sounds like you do not think either one of these candidates, Hillary Clinton or donald trump, are capable of doing that. Caller for sure, Hillary Clinton is not capable. I think barack obama has been, has set the pattern in play for what she is going to do. As far as donald trump is concerned, tough call. Already he is starting to be hated by everybody already. Hell get used to that. I hate to say that he would take a businesslike approach, but certainly if anybody took a spreadsheet to him and its unsustainable. Host how would you characterize yourself . Do you like the Tea Party Movement . You can align yourself with those sort of ideologies . Is that how you would characterize yourself, or more establishment conservative part of the party . Caller i can probably summon up by saying i did vote to legalize marijuana in colorado. Host ok, so libertarian . Theer well, but i like smaller government. I do not have a problem with the marijuana. I got some liberal tendencies. I think Everybody Needs a hand up. But its got to be some way that we can afford to do it. We are at point right now where the key phrase has been kicking the can down the road. The can is sitting in the middle of a culdesac right now. Host that is what some republicans are saying. Donald trump needs to focus on the Economic Situation and debt. He needs to talk more about that and less about the kahn family. Do you agree . Caller well, youve got 24 hours a day to fill. He has got the same problems as all the networks. He has got a lot of content to come up with. The fetus going to say the Hillary Clinton is no good over and over again, no one would listen if he was going to say Hillary Clinton is no good over and over again, no one would listen to him. His twitter account and what have you, so the people latch on to one particular comment out of a days worth of a diabt i tribe, so be it. At the very least, he keeps throwing logs on the fire. When it gets close to the election, he starts spelling things out, which i hope he a a, as long as hes got lot of stuff on the chopping block, then i think a lot of people will wise up to that. He hurting the republican brand and reputations along the way . Go tot toll, i mean, i think we are all adults and the sticks and stones mentality has really taken on a life of its own. If you cannot handle getting, having some names thrown at you, youre in the wrong racket. Host george wills column, conservative in the Washington Post, similar to what youre saying. Deep. s shallowness runs he seems to understand if you produce a steady stream of stupefying statements there would be no time to dwell on any one of them. He talks about one instance is that in recent interview before ended, donald trump expressed his displeasure with the schedule for president ial debates george will says that mike running mate, indiana governor is the most recent example of how the rubble of ruinge reputations will become deeper befor november 8. E sooner or later we all sit don to a banquet of consequences. The Republican Partys banquet has begun. John in arizona. You are supporting donald trump. It is your turn. Good morning to you. Caller yes. My name is j arizona. Ohni was on the fence until i saw hillarys america. After id seen that movie, i was convinced i was going to vote for trump. I think it calls on hillary. And i think she should be locked up. The wayu dont mind donald trump talks about issues . Think he is right on the ball. He is a businessman in the is out there for the businessman. We do not need more taxes. And i think he can shake things up enough, set things right with america. Host does it bother you that he could be telling fibs, that he could be lying . Caller he is not telling fibs. Hes telling it like it is. Host steve, you are opposing the republicans only this morning. What do you think, is an intervention needed . Caller i think an intervention eta, here ist gr the thing. I will be voting republican on the down ballot. I wont vote for donald trump hurt i think he is bad for the country and bad for the party. We all know his appeal is that he is a breath of some kind of air from washington politics. He is not an establishment politician. He does not do business in that building behind you through that back window we see there. He is likable and a china shop. He is outrageous. That is attractive to some people. But here is the thing let me say something. Im very disappointed that the only people in the green party and the Libertarian Party. I will be voting for Darrell Castle of the constitution party. I wish people would take a look at that. The fact that only two parties are allowed on the National Stage in debates is proof. And is the reason donald trump is popular, is proof the media and big money control politics in this country and control washington. It is clear as day. Nobody else will be invited to be on the stage. Here is the thinker people tell me im wasting my book. Im voting my conscious. I wont be wasting my vote. You know what your state will be right now. Here is the biggest question of all, that nobody asks. For all those big shot Establishment Republicans who are antitrump and wont support him, who are they supporting . Dont tell me they are going to support hillary. They need to make a movement to get behind a good Third Party Candidate. Remember George Wallace got 46 electoral votes in 1968. I hope somebody set you down and says, who are you voting for . Host a couple of things i want viewers knowd our who are interested in the constitution party. We spoke to the candidate on washington journal. You can go to cspan. Org and learn more. Also on monday, we are going to have a group headed by republicans looking at a Third Party Candidate, specifically the Libertarian Party. Cnn last night, gary johnson and his running mate did a town hall meeting with cnn. Mike, cary, north carolina, you are supporting donald trump. Go ahead. Caller im supporting him reluctantly. [laughs] needsot think mr. Trump an intervention. He is what he is. He was delivered to us on a silver platter because of th establishmente, the behavior of Establishment Republicans and the dislike of the mainstream candidates they served up. Here is my point this morning, ok . Yesterday a story breaks that back in january, my personal opinion is that pbs and most of the Mainstream Media needs the intervention, not donald trump. Donald trump is donald trump. And this is my point. A story comes out yesterday that pallets of cash back in january were put on a plane and sent to iran and this coincided with the release of hostages. It was done by the Obama Administration. Why is that not the lead story this morning . Too many people seem too concerned about what donald trump says. They are just words. Meanwhile, we have actions, ok . The actions of Hillary Clinton, the actions described in the wikileaks hask of the hack of the dnc emails. That the dnc wanted to go after the taco bull vote, referring to hispanics. You guys, meaning the media, you guys are all over anything republican or conservative has racial biasaint of or bigotry or any reference to ethnic groups or Something Like that, but when it stares you in the face from the left, from the democrats, from hillary, from bill clinton, i wont get into, it has been being to death regarding his personal war on women over the last 30 years. These are all actions, ok . These are actions that have impacted peoples lives. Oo concerned or you are way too concerned and the people that choose your stories with what donald trump says. They are just words. Yes, they all lie, ok . Whether the nfl thing, whatever. Ive excepted that from all politicians. They cancel each other out. Host let me jump in. I hope you turn up your cv to listen. Because let me go through your point about the story on a payment to iran. Let me show you where it lands in the papers. Wall street journal front page. Doubts that were raised by the justice departmen front pagep on their story that made the news yesterday and triggered lots of questions at the Daily Briefing for the white house and the state department. Top republicans accuse president obama of payoff. Washington post pust thei put their story inside the paper. The white house and state Department Says no, republicans, some saying, yes, paul ryan saying, if it is true, it is problematic. The New York Times put it on a5. Fuels a campaign clash. We are going to get your thoughts on this and the last hour of washington journal we will have all of you tune in then and start calling in with your thoughts on this story. We will show you what Hillary Clinton had to say. Locals asked via a television station in colorado and also donald trump talked about it on the campaign trail in florida yesterday. We will get your thoughts on that coming up on the washington journal in the last hour. Mary in michigan. You are supporting mr. Trump. What do you think about this chatter of an intervention needed . Caller good morning. Yeah, i think an intervention is needed to the Republican Party. Reason thatat the none of this goes away is because every time you turn around the establishment, the themoney, the people who, American People reject and reject ehri proposals their proposals, they are trying to force this on to us and mr. Trump. Now, all these other side issues like the kahns. For one thing, i would like the American People to do their own research. Look up mr. Kahn. Look up the organizations he has been involved with. Sharia law. He is a lawyer and also a clinton backer. Before the convention. Not new, and mr. Trump has been aware of this, but he has not brought it up until the convention because they brought it up. Washingtoncans in need to understand that there is a reason that the American People have overwhelmingly rejected their candidates, and it is because we want change. We want the big money to get out of our lives. We want the government to get out of our lives. Donald trump listens to his audiences. He listens to the people. After orlando, he specifically talked about the lgbtq community. Convention,lican that was highlighted, and he actually thanked the audience for their reaction. Washington,n in opposing want opposing donald trump, republicans only. Your opportunity to tell the party what you think about this idea of donald trump changing, an intervention. Caller good morning. Is abelieve that trump symptom of a greater problem, but i dont think that he is the solution to the problem, and if we are going to talk about ,ctions as opposed to words which i do find his words offensive. Words do have power, and especially as a president ial candidate, you should not be ofenating a great portion who would be your constituents or the citizens of the United States. That said, publicans do need to understand that republicans need to understand that, and i think vote parties should be abolished because i dont see a lot of difference between obamas presidency and bush juniors presidency. It seems like basically everything has gone Pro Corporation and forget independent citizens. Host how will you vote, this fall . I will vote my conscious and it will probably not be the democrat or Republican Party, do lesser of the two evils. Actions for everything from suing everybody to being accused of rape, to going ,ankrupt and everything he says it is just as bitter a pill to swallow as the corruption that Hillary Clinton is being accused of. I will look for an independent or other party at this point. Catherine, a republican on the west coast. Usa today with the headline, president obama committed 214 sentences. Cbss mark noller who has been covering the white house tweeted todays commutations brings the total to 562, the most since at least president truman. Also in washington yesterday, a wall street journal headline, adc officer charged on isis aid. Or was arrested on charges that he tried to help the Islamic State communicate with recruit. A u. S. Lawirst time enforcement officer has been charged with supporting terrorism. There is also this on the Supreme Court. Justices block transgender restroom court order. The Supreme Court temporarily blocked a court order that had allowed under boys to use the boys bathroom. In a Virginia High School the vote was five to three with Justice Stephen breyer joining with the more conservative members as a courtesy to preserve the status quo while the court decided whether or not to hear the case. The court order has no affect on any other case. Texas agrees to loosen rules on ids for this november election. An agreement was reached wednesday which will weaken the and allower id law voters to cast ballots even if they have none of the seven identifying documents that the long recognizes. The accord filed with the District Court followed a july 20 ruling by the court of appeals that the texas law violated the Voting Rights act. Back to our calls, tim in chicago supporting donald trump. What do you think of the conversation that is happening about how this campaign is being run in mark run . Caller he really needs to concentrate and run ads like hillary. She runs ads with little kids and i think that is so pathetic of her. He should run the ad were she is in the senate and saying what does it matter about benghazi, because that is how she feels about our soldiers. She purposely but that guy up there and said she did not know him until three months ago, which was a lie because obama and Michelle Obama used to work with that guy at a law firm before he became president of the United States and when obama became president , khan quit that law firm and started his own law firm because he has been helping theary and obama bring in refugees from syria, and everybody wants to praise this man, but they are not looking at the big picture. They are going to sneak in 12 million, they are putting them in cities, all the rich areas in chicago. That,where did you read of the numbers of refugees and where they will go . Caller i saw the numbers of refugees the democrats were talking about it. They were talking about bringing them in an illinois. They have been bringing them into michigan. Host we heard her point. Jarrett in new york, you are opposing, go ahead. That will trump sounds like he is off his rocker. The pundits are legitimately questioning his sanity and i would love to hear what a psychiatrist has to say about this last year. To be prodonald trump, you have to be prorepublican before you are an american. That is why i am antitrump, because i am an american first and a republican second and donald trump is that embarrassment to the presidency and our nation, so i will definitely not be voting for him. I dont love hillary, but she is definitely better. She is president ial, and she has experience and she is better than the alternative. It is unfortunate that the Republican Party gave us this faustian exchange. Host why the you think that is why do you think that is . A senator from arizona said that an opening was made for a candidate like donald trump because publicans overpromise that they can repeal and get rid of president obamas obamacare. Those sorts of promises by the party led to what we are seeing now. Caller i also think obstruction of congress during obamas leadership and guys like Mitch Mcconnell have pulled the party to the right, but that is not where the tide of the nation is going. The tide is going left, and so this kind of thing is bound to happen. Donald trump, someone said he is a symptom of a problem, but not the solution. It is important it is unfortunate that he is the nonestablishment candidate. Some legitimate businessman whose sanity is not being question, that would be a different story. Folks,here are republicans that lay out their arguments for not voting for donald trump like you have, and they say they cannot vote for Hillary Clinton, so they will vote for the libertarian candidate. Ont do you think that does election day . What do you think the results are if folks like that vote for gary johnson . Caller i think gary johnson will probably do better than any libertarian candidate has ever done. I actually think if the ticket was wells with johnson is the vp, it would be better because i think Jhansi Johnson is little bit wacky. Very spry and sharp. That said, i hear what you are saying, but i dont think the Libertarian Party is going to have enough. What is going to happen is Trump Campaign is going to dump him. I dont even know if he wants to be president. People have mentioned that and i am just sort of regurgitating pundits. It does not seem like he is trying. Host Washington Times this morning, the trump crash the trump train crashes into the Tea Party Movement. The Tea Party Movement dominated republican elections in 2010 and 2011. Caucus chairman tim lost his primary this week, meaning one of the movements leading voices on capitol hill will go silent. On the campaign trail, senator ted cruz was booed off the stage at the Republican National convention and marco rubio is now seen by many as a member of the gop establishment. There is a quote, the reversal of fortune is what the tea party has the Tea Party Leadership wondering what went wrong and the answer they keep coming back to his donald trump. Predicting abeen tea Party Resurgence in 2017 because the climate was right for it, but then donald trump came along and coopted the movement. Joe in Fort Washington maryland, you are supporting donald trump. Good morning. Caller the gentleman that just called. He resonated with me because he spoke the truth. That theonster Republican Party created. They wanted to obstruct him and make sure president obamas presidency was a total waste. They did not care about the nation and you still have people calling in and talking about anything from alireza who other, and they have nothing to do because that is whats happening. That is how you govern in this country, that is how the system runs, and you are using that to try to obstruct. Donald trump is a product of a lot of hate. A lot of people are not going to change anyway, because anytime they make a comment, they have to bring a president obama and blame the administration. We have all the tools and resources we need. Through goes everybody goes through growing pains. We are our own worst enemy. Hillary is the best qualified. She has ups and downs like everybody else. Host i will leave it there. An update on the zika funding. Greg kaplan, who covers capitol hill here at cspan, tweeting out that the entire florida delegation has called on the cdc to send more sick of funding, divided over when and how congress should pass the money. The impasse could end zika vaccine trials. The cdc and nih have nearly spent all the money they have an a package for more money is stuck in congress, but congress is not in washington, they are back for their august recess, campaigning for this november. The opinion section of usa today, their view is that congress should come back to fund the fight against spreading zika. They say that Neither Party has clean hands in this mess. Republicansee, threw in language to make sure that planned parenthood cannot share in any of the 95 million. That is both counterproductive and direct lycra democrats. Senate democrats have balked at a perfectly sound republican spending bill in part with unused money set aside for u. S. Territories to start Health Exchanges under the Affordable Care act. The opposing view is written by speaker of the house paul ryan. Andaid drop the politics put health care first, and he said that one important thing to know about this plan is that it is a compromise. We agree to the exact level of Funding Senate democrats have supported. Democrats ought to have done of the funding be offset and we agreed to partially offset at. The speaker of the house saying it is democrats blame. The usa today saying both parties are to blame. Sporadic zika cases are expected for possibly a year in florida. That is the headline in the Washington Post. Another headline for the impact that seek it could have on tourism in florida, which is an 82 billion industry. A couple more calls. Don in ohio, you are supporting mr. Trump. Caller good morning. I like donald trump because hes and i am a christian answers because right now the enemy is beating us with propaganda. Donald trump knows how to use the media. He will be like ronald reagan. He will saturate radio and television and hollywood movies from the white house and he will be fun, and he is dynamic, with a great personality. He has a great name. Tell everybody to get out there and vote. The a Great American voter. This is a great country. Host could fun be dangerous . Caller did you see the way he dedicated a golf course over in scotland . He was very calm. The laws of success. He will get experts and that is what president s do. I liked george w. Bush, i support the war in iraq. When i cant when it comes to republicans, you will not get us all to agree on the same thing. Donald trump is more like a rhino, republican in name only. I have some democratic values. I like hillary, she is not the devil. She is a Great American, so is president obama. When the president was talking about donald trump eating unqualified, being unqualified, without trump fired back at him. Host hillary said at the convention and in colorado that we cannot trust somebody with Nuclear Weapons who gets angry about a tweet. The detonation of 100 Nuclear Warheads could kill 2 billion people according to the International Position for the prevention of nuclear war. America runs its own constructed destructive power. Whose finger is on the button . They say there is no button, there is a briefcase and it follows the president everywhere. It is a manual for conducting nuclear war, a how to. The briefcase is referred to as the football and the card as the biscuit. Jimmy carters rumored to have sent the biscuit to the dry cleaners. Bill clinton allegedly misplaced the biscuit and never told anyone for months. Was shot, hisagan suit was cut in the biscuit fell with it. The Washington Post notes that the biscuit was presumably one of the president obamas in president obamas pocket as he became the first president to visit hiroshima. Been many, there have times throughout the years where there were close calls, where in one instance in 1983 and 1995, moscow came within minutes of retaliating against false alarms. In with arizona, supporting donald trump and the last for our conversation, hello susan. Caller i love your dress this morning. Watching since the day donald trump came down the escalator, and i felt like he was one of us. I know he has made mistake mistakes with the way he is speaking and the way he dealt with that young man. I do not want to miss pronounce his name. Wrong, but like the lord says, we have to forgive and forget and keep going and correct it. Host can i ask something about what you said . The moment he came down the escalator of trump towers, you said you felt like he was one of us. Some people might have a hard time understanding that. Here is a very rich man coming down an escalator of trump towers. Caller he worked hard his whole life. He got some money because his mom and dad help them out. If i had money, i would give it to my kids so they could work on their businesses. My whole life i have been working for somebody else because i was not that lucky, and that i got hurt, so now im disabled, so i wasted my whole life working for somebody else to make them rich. Donald trump took that money. You will have ups and downs. Donald trump has that, but he wanted to put his own money, his kids, his family, his business to help the United States and get it back on track. Hes going to win the white house and find out whats going on, but if people would watch the Hillary America and watch the clinton cash, you will learn more and more about what Hillary Clinton and bill clinton have been doing since day one. Host i have to leave it, there. Coming up, we speak with who as youe take a look at the promises made by donald trump and Hillary Clinton and backcheck those and later, military chimes will join us military times will join us. Chairmanspan founding rob rosencrantz packed the way this passed away this week at the age of 89. Multichannel with the headline cable legend rosencrans dies. That only was he one of the first Cable Operators to support of the idea for cspan, but he continued to work on our behalf for almost 40 years. I want to introduce to you the gentleman on my right, bob rosenkrans. He threw in the first seed money to get cspan started back in 1977. In august 1977, bob , then president of you a columbia cable and his Business Partner for the first Cable Operators to agree to support the idea for cspan. At that time, only about 19 of American Homes are wired for cable. Wrote a check for 25,000. With that money, cspan3 to the infrastructure to send out cable televisions first live views of the u. S. House of representatives. 1979, to some 3. 5 million homes. Understandpublic what goes on in washington, what the issues are and how they deal with them. Missionabove all, the at cspan has been just that, and we are very proud of that. Steered thecrans nonprofit through its initial challenging years and continue to serve on cspans board of directors until his death, most recently in the role of chairman emeritus. The people can only benefit more exposure to our political process and give us all a better feeling that we are participating in this process that carries our nation forward. Washington journal continues. Host at our table, angie with political act, here to talk about Fact Checking the campaign. Lets begin with what is polit ifact. Caller we called guest we publish reports every day that fact check what Campaign Candidates say on the campaign trail. We have a rating system. If a statement is really accurate, it gets the true rating. Less accurate make it mostly true, have true, mostly false or false. Completelyent is inaccurate or ridiculous, it pantsands on fire on fire. Host how do you make sure you are giving campaigns and candidates the right ratings . Guest this is the second this is the Third Campaign we have been Fact Checking. And likeurnalists most, we are listening to the news and seeing what the candidates say. We are listening for things that would make the average person say i wonder if that is true. That is how we pick the facts to check. We dont balance the ratings in any way, because we think the facts need to speak with themselves. The ratings are whatever they are. Do that whenyou the truth is not always clear . Guest we have a method for Fact Checking . Every fact check is little diversity there is a of political discussion we have in the u. S. , the we emphasize a few principles. We emphasize original sources, primary documents, primary evidence, our reports are written in a way that the entire story is, this is what we said, we wanted to know if it was accurate, so we reported and researched and here is all the evidence we found and of the end of the story, we assign a rating because we are online first, we publish all of our sources online. There is a source list with every story. We find people are skeptical and they want to verify our work and see for themselves. Our reports run in newspapers across the country that have our articles, but online, people can see the sources and investigate for themselves and they seem to like that. Host i want to show our viewers Hillary Clinton on fox news, talking about the claim by fbi comey and whether or not she gave honest testimony before congress. After a long investigation, fbi director james comey said in of those things that you told the American Public for true. That is not what i heard irector comey say, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify. He said my answers were truthful and what i said was consistent with what i told the American People, that there were decisions discussed and made to classify retroactively certain emails. I was communicating with over 300 people in my emailing. They certainly did not believe and had no reason to believe that what they were sending was classified. In retrospect, different agencies come in and say it should have been, but that is not what was happening in real time. And a congressional hearing on july 7, director james comey directly contradicted what you had told the public. Secretary clinton said there was nothing more classified on her emails sent or received, was that true . That is not true. Secretary clinton said i do not email any classified material, was that true . There was classified material emailed. He directly contradicted you. Not only directly contradicted, he also said that you were extremely careless and negligent. Looked at the whole transcript of everything that was said, and what i believe is that i made a mistake, not using two different email addresses. I have said that, and i repeat it again, today. It is not anything that i ever would do again. We looked at this exchange very carefully. This is the kind of thing that catches our attention. We found that clinton was wrong. We looked specifically at her statement that said everything she said was true all. We rated that pants on fire. As Chris Wallace said, there was some classified information and in her email. She repeatedly said there was nothing marked classified when she sent or received it. , to get the full context forit was a very small f messages. The classification marks were not in the headers. We really get into the details of this stuff. You can see how she thought she was right. Their fulli did investigation, they did find classified information. Her publicot endorse remarks as being truthful. He did not say she lied either. He said, basically, that is not what the fbi found in their investigation. Host lets get to calls. Florida, independent color. We will talk a little bit more about statements may by both candidates. Caller we need to take a view and hindsight is 2020, looking back in time, comparing things now over the many years gives you the best balanced perspective. Only 10 of the richest americans now have the same good lifestyle that the average american hat in 1965. In 1965, the rich were paying any tax rate of 90 . 1972ad from 1948 to increases in worker productivity directly matching increases in worker ranges. Deficit is trillion because the rich have not paid their fair share of taxes over the last several decades. The low wages for u. S. Citizens now is due to the massive integration immigration that has taken place over several decades. The more people in the country, the lower the wages. It is that simple. We do not create 2 million new good paying jobs every year. We allowed 1. 5 million legal and illegal foreign nationals in the country every year. Since obama has taken office, more of the new jobs have gone to foreign nationals then u. S. Citizens. All this should be very objective and taken into account. Fact check that all quickly . Guest i can put a couple of reporters on that statement for a few days. The wealthy used to pay 90 tax rate. That is true. When we look at historical tax rates many time during the eisenhower years, and the highest tax rate was 90 , 70 . During the reagan years, those tax rates started to come down. They are now much lower. We fact check claims about inequality as well many times. You cane many ways expect that. Sometimes people talk about wealth that usually means homeownership. Sometimes they talk about income. It is all a little bit different. One thing we have noticed is that inequality, he said, was worse when the recession was the worst. That is because so many people lost their home values or lost their jobs. Now the recession seems to be in the rearview mirror, the inequality statistics, there is still a lot of inequality, but it is not as dramatic as it used to be. The last thing i will mention on immigration, he talks about immigration lowering wages. This is one of the hardest things for us to fact check because in the broader economy summary things can affect wages. Is immigration one of those things that affects wages . It is certain one, but it may be outweighed by other trends. Many say immigration is an overall improvement to the economy because more people are being productive. There is also some evidence that they do lower wages for people who are in lowwage jobs. Mixed evidence there on immigration. Lancaster, ohio, republican. Caller i do not like Hillary Clinton. She lies. Nothing is going to happen. She is going to be just as bad as obama if she is elected. I love donald trump. Of things that people wish they could say. Guest host lets take a point about Hillary Clinton lying many times. Do you tally statements of each campaign . Guest we do. We look at tally of every candidate with a scorecard on political act. People can look at Hillary Clinton clinton or donald trump and see how the statement we have selected rate. Number one, we picked statements for their news value. Were not taking a random sample. If someone makes a statement that is likely true that is every day, it will not make it to our site. We like to correct misinformation. We fact check a lot of statements that sound wrong. About Hillary Clintons record, she is we have been Fact Checking her since we started in 2007, and overall the impressions i have of her is she is very careful, she studies Public Policy a great deal. We do not often capture in a misstatement cash her in a misstatement of policy matters. She is pretty accurate. We have found misstatements more in interviews which he is under pressure. In addition to that statement we talked about a few minutes ago, she also spoke in 2008, she tried to defend herself as first lady and her International Relations by saying she landed in bosnia under sniper fire. Ofrequire,ideo children greeting her at the airport. That is the kind of statement we see from Hillary Clinton. Donald trump is a first time ended it. He does not seem to study policy very much. He makes many errors of fact. His record with us is quite poor, about three quarters of his statements have been rated mostly false, false, or caps on fire. Pants on fire. He gets a lot of things wrong in his stump speeches where he seems to be talking off the top of his head. He does not seem to use notes. He gets basic factual matters of policy wrong. In new york, he was talking about the clintons refugee plan. Here is what he had to say. Mr. Trump Hillary Clinton also wants to settle middle eastern refugees in the United States on top of the Current Record level of integration that we already have immigration that we are cap. For the amount of money she would like to spend on refugees, we could rebuild every innercity in america. Guest this statement is completely wrong. We went through the numbers on it because we rated fire. Pants on fire. The statement is we could rebuild every innercity in america. Much less than 100 billion on refugees. A city like new york that needs a lot of Infrastructure Improvement exceeds that. That is just one city. The numbers are completely off. We do not spend that much money on refugees. Americas cities have a lot of infrastructure problems that caused more money than that cost a lot more money than that to fix. When republicans say obama wants to put a control on the salt levels. Assault rifles. They want to take away your Second Amendment rights. That seems to be effective. That is a lie. They have been using it and getting away with it for years. Let me digress. For the first portion of the show, donald trump and all the democrats wanted to get in on this. Only republicans were allowed in. Segmentome up with this on the email thing. You let republicans get in and found hillary. Trump. D not go after i dont think that is fair. Host all right. Guest we have been Fact Checking the Second Amendment, and it is a republican talking point. They regularly say, donald trump and others, they want to abolish the second. Clinton has said nothing of the sort. She even responded to that during her convention speech. She said that people do have a right to bear arms, but like many rights, the government has the responsibility to put reasonable regulations on it. Just the way you cannot shout fire in a crowded theater, it is not guns for anyone at anytime. Whether she checked wants to abolish the Second Amendment. Irate that false. Host a republican. Ohio. Caller thank you for taking my call. Ands clear that mr. Obama the democrats want to change the demographics of the country. Did you ever have a chance to fact check what mrs. Clinton said to the lady at the airport, i believe her name was pat, the one that lost her son. I have another question. Host go ahead. Guest we have looked deeply at this question. This is about the benghazi attacks that happened in 2012. The mother of one of the people who died there give a speech at the Republican Convention that said she blamed Hillary Clinton personally and Hillary Clinton lied to her. Lying stemson of around what did Hillary Clinton wheno the victimsfamilies the bodies were returned to the United States. Hillary clinton was there, president obama was there. Hillary clinton spoke with the families, all of the families. We do not know what was said. These conversations were not recorded. The mother says that Hillary Clinton blamed a video. For people who remember this, there was a video that was offensive to the religion of islam. In the middle east, there were riots around u. S. Embassies about the video. Time, there was thought that this video was related to the attack. Later it was shown that the attacks were corrugated, it was not spontaneous. The question is what does hillary tell the families . We do not have recordings or independent evidence about it. We have spoken to as many members of the families as we could locate and who were willing to talk to us. Some of them said she did not mention a video. Specifically they said she gave indolence is, said this was a terrible act, did not mention a video. Smith andst patricia another Family Member said she mentioned a video. We have not given this fact check a rating because it does seem like a he said, she said situation. We cannot verify what happened in this conversation. Said it wasthat she a video. Some of the initial intelligence around the incident pointed to the video. People may remember that susan rice went on the talk shows and spoke about the video. There is no evidence that the video was some sort of manufactured excuse. It seems to be whats one of the leads they were generally pursuing at the time. That is accommodated situation. It is a sad situation. That is what our reporting has found. Host we go to a democrat in South Central carolina. Caller good morning. I kind of question some of the objectivity of your guest language here. You have already admitted that you go for the more spectacular ratings. To me, you said that hillary speaks in lawyer talk and ill trump just wins it donald trump just wings it. In with the controversy about what has been going on in the newspapers recently. Did you take into account that the fbi director had rescinded some of his testimony the day after he gave it in regards to whether hillary lied or not . It seems to me that there is quite a few factors that you guys pick and choose how you want to present. Host we will get a response. Dont recall the at the fbi director rescinding any of his testimony. He might have made additional comments. I am not aware of that. We get a lot of reader feedback of people who have strong opinions on politics who tell us they do not like our reports because we are biased, or they do not like our findings. When i say to them is that we are trying to give you credible, accurate information. We give all of our sources. We lay out all of our findings. If we got something wrong, we are human beings, we make mistakes. We try to correct it promptly. I would ask people who do not like the findings that think we are biased, what is wrong in the report . We feel like people can look for themselves in our sources and gauge the accuracy. A lot of readers will disagree with the ratings. They will say i do not like you rating it mostly false incident mostly true, even though i agree with your fax. Feelings run very high on both sides. We feel like our method is a sound method and we invite people to look at our sources. Host ohio, independent. Are you there . Caller hello. Host go ahead with your question. Caller i have a comment and a question. Number one, this is my comment. Obama twice. Arack i wanted to vote for Hillary Clinton, but she got beat. Happened withg the benghazi thing, now the email thing is going on. I feel that i just dont trust feel that ifso donald trump does not get his way and somebody says something bad about him, he will push the button. That kind of scares me. This may be the first time that i may not vote. That is kind of sad. Heres my question. , i amn the two candidates on Social Security disability, i am just wondering, who is going to keep Social Security whobility in place, and wants to get rid of it . On top of that, Social Security for like my parents or my son host okay. Guest good question. I cannot speak specifically to Social Security disability. I can speak about Social Security generally. In this election, both donald trump and Hillary Clinton are supportive of Social Security. The democrats have traditionally supported the program. There isen talk been a lot of different talk within the Democratic Party of Social Security. Some say they need to reduce the rate of increase, this gets really wonky, as a way to rein in government spending. Others say dont do that. Bernie sanders was publicly opposed to that. Others say raise Social Security for the poorest seniors. It is a modest amount that is your soul retirement income. The republicans have talked about privatizing elements of Social Security as a means to save money. Donald trump has said we will not do this. This is one of the most popular programs in government. We should not it is politically a bad idea to touch Social Security. That is his position. His running mate, mike pence, he has favored some of these privatization plans. Donald trump is the candidate. We fact checked harry reid during the Democrat Convention that said donald trump and mike pence want to privatize Social Security. We rated that mostly false. We are pulling that up for our viewers. They can see it. A republican in mississippi. I getting the view that lers do your cal not have a view of what is going on. Clinton has been in the political arena for 30 years. Donald trump has been a businessman. His business has nothing to do with this election because he was a businessman. Clinton, you have to hold her responsible a little bit, a lot really. Waters forsting the and the voters. Host we will leave it right there. A republican in scottsdale, arizona. Caller hello. Thank you to cspan. Im going to consummate you, complimentppelman you, angie that you will throw all this propaganda as and believe we will believe it. You are so biased in your reporting and how you brought things through. The sunday program from chris walls was very interesting. The only had one great question he asked her regarding benghazi. Here is my question. Im disappointed. Has asked her, and he had the opportunity to do it, and that is when you were in the situation room for the four hours you were in there, where was obama, and were you watching live video of the attack with the drone . No one has asked her that question. Host let me turn to our guest. Guest that comes up a lot. Where was president obama . We have looked at this before. They were not watching live video of the benghazi attacks unfolding. That is something that has been repeated. There is no information to support that. We have not found any information to support that. We have done some Fact Checking where we looked at where was clinton. The attacks happened at night in libya. That was in the middle of the afternoon in washington. No one was in their bed. Callers was saying we were biased. But which way are we biased now . We get it from both sides. New jersey, democrat. Caller good morning. Confused. When you spoke of that Chris Wallace interview, and hillary got pants on fire for all those phone calls, emails that were supposed to have been spent, houses that were supposedly thousands that were supposedly sent over her computer. How can hillary sits at her computer and send thousands of emails and be the one that is sending them. It does not make sense to me that she could be the one that sent those emails and is accused of being the one that sent them. There is no way that i could conceive that she sent thousands of emails because if she did that, she would not have anything else to do. Host ok. We take your point. Guest these are all the emails. Let me back up a little bit. Controversy ise what Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, she did not want to use a government server. She wanted to put all of her emails on a private server that was in her house. Some of the messages she sent at the time, she was concerned about her personal email becoming public. That is what she said that then. During the campaign, she said she did not want to use two devices. The idea being that you have a state department device and her personal email device. For all the one system of her work and personal email. The thousands of emails where the emails she sent and got back from her staff. A lot of these have since been made public. Attorneysned is her went through her emails and deleted everything they thought was personal. They turned over the state Department Emails to the government. That is what they have been going through and making public. Byis not she sat down herself and typed out thousands of messages. There were thousands of messages exchanged between her and her staff. Host lets talk about the Democratic National convention, the Republican National convention. We will start with Hillary Clinton at the dnc. She is talking about the Obama Administration and the economy. Take a look. Ms. Clinton i do not think president obama and Vice President biden get the credit they deserve for setting us from the worst economic crisis of our lifetime. [applause] our economy is so much stronger than when they took office, nearly 15 million private sector jobs. 20 million more americans with Health Insurance. An Auto Industry that just had its best year ever. Angie dobnic holan. Guest we will give her credit for the Auto Insurance Health Insurance and Auto Industry. She said there were 15 million private sector jobs, the actual number is not 15 million, it is 10 million. We rated her half through on that. She got to the 15 million number by counting from the very lowest point of the presidency. If you count from the day they took office, they were still losing jobs when they took office. In went down and then back up. Then again was 10 million. Host lets look at donald trump at the rnc in cleveland. Mr. Trump these artifacts. Are the facts. Decades of progress in bringing down crime rates are now being reversed by this administration rolling back criminal enforcement. Inicides increased by 17 americas 50 largest cities. Int is the largest increase 25 years. [booing] capitals,ons killings have risen by 50 . [booing] they are all nearly 60 in baltimore. In the president s hometown of chicago, more than 2000 people have been the victim of shootings this year alone. Almost 4000 have been killed in the chicago area since he took office. Rated his statement half true. He is correct in his numbers about the homicide rates going up in the largest cities in a single year. The problem is that it looks like it is just that particular year. The longterm trend is going down. The murder rate has slowed significantly since the 1990s. When we talk with knowledge us, we asked how significant this oneyear increases. They said we cannot even tell you because the Crime Statistics fluctuate your year. You need to look at longterm trends. Murder rates are being driven by your particular cities that have problems, houston, washington, baltimore, and chicago. In most cities we see these trends going down. Trying to paint this picture that crime is on the rise, but the statistics overall, looking at the longterm, they showed declining across the country. Host lets hear from maria, independent. Caller good morning. I wanted to bring up stories that have not been sufficiently explored. The first one is the fact that right bar brought out that khan is retired from a firm that represented the clinton foundation. He is from a Group Actively recruiting muslims to buy their way into the United States as citizens. Hillary clinton claims to love children and women, and yet her husband has gone 22 times to a place with a convicted pedophile. Host where did you g that information . Caller breitbart. The third thing i wanted to when up is the fact that he was at oxford, bill clinton took a trip to the soviet union. Nobody wants to explore that. Is, ithing is that am sorry have a response to what you said so far. Guest im not sure i have a response to what she said about mr. Khan. This is a conservative website. We have fact checked a lot of claims of what people see on bretbitbart. It is extremely conservative sites. It is promoting a point of view. As far as bill clinton visiting the soviet union. That is on back sometime. I think that has been investigated several times. I would have to look at the research on that. Biography, bill clinton and Hillary Clinton, there is a lot of Research Done on it. We have books about them. Whenever we have fact checked about either of them, we have decades of reporting to look at. Host you can look on their website where they had bill clintons file and his scorecard over the years. Caller good morning. I think you and your producers do a fantastic job fielding the calls from the public, we are a difficult lot to put up with. Having allr in democrats sometimes, all republicans sometimes. Hillary clinton live a times on sunday with Chris Wallace. Times lied eight times in the last year. Like australia, taking guns away from american citizens. Thank you. Guest the astro the example is an interesting one. We have looked at it australia example is an interesting one. They did a gun buyback where they purchased them. Clinton has mentioned that. She has not put that forward as a proposal. I believe the republican comments have been that is one way that her candidates comments have been that is one way other countries have done it. She has emphasized back rent checks and making the system background checks and making that system safer. Not in are you are gunshot, you are not publicly advertising gun sales in an ongoing basis, those private sales are not background checks. A lot of the Mass Shootings we have research at the fact, they are often people buying guns legally. It is hard to see how tightening background checks what happened prevented that. If they do not have a criminal record, if they do not have a record with the Mental Health system, they can buy guns legally. Flagstaff, arizona, democrat. Good morning. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Pretty much what is on my mind says, theis, as it way things happened going for donald trump. The things he has been saying, doing, what not. I dont think thats something the republicans believe in. Not like that. Them for backing away and saying nothing at times. They dont approve of what he is saying and doing. I dont know exactly. Is that conservativism . Is that the party in general . Trump,think that donald how do you put this, i think he might be by pollen bipolar. I do not mean that as a joke. I have studied psychology. Go too fart want to down that road. That is your opinion. I want to end with this by politifact. 500 promises, 500 promises from obama that he made on the campaign trail. We have been tracking these promises. We have a section called the obamameter. We are planning more coverage for later this year. We will see what he has a conflict and what he has been unable to fulfill. Projectvery interesting that is tracking an entire presidency. We are also getting ready for the next version. We have been collecting Campaign Promises from donald trump and Hillary Clinton. We will be tracking their Campaign Promises, seeing if they can achieve their agenda. You can stay current with all the promises they have made on the campaign trail. Website,o to the facts politifacts. Com. Thank you very much for your time. Guest appreciate it. Host we will take a break. We will talk to leo shane about military veterans issues. He is with military times. We will get to that conversation after this break. This weekend, cspans cities tour along with our Comcast Cable partners will explore the history and literary life in michigan. We will learn the role of railroads. Particularly the connection of sugar containers moving from china and elsewhere, railroads are part of that. When you go to long beach, california, where there are large shipping facilities, the railroads are right there alongside the container ships. Might, former executive editor for the poor to run times. He talks about the current state of the economy on the city. The 1990s were just a really thriving economy, not just in the state, the locally. But locally. In 2000, if you go by household income, michigan was one of the 15 wealthiest states. In 2008, we are one of the 15 course states. American history tv will visit the train depot where Thomas Edison work as a young boy. We will also speak with the museum manager. We have a recreation of his Chemical Laboratory and printing equipment where he was the first person that we know of to print a newspaper on a moving train. Newsd access to the latest through the telegraph agency. He would get that news hot off the presses. Lighthouse,wo or a the first lighthouse in the state of michigan. Easternsaturday at new on booktv. The cspan cities tour, working affiliates and cities across the country. Washington journal continues. Leo shane is at our table this morning. We are talking about military issues in this campaign. We want to talk to active and retired. This morning. 202 7488000 ever notice how in at 202 7488001. The military is at the center of president ial politics for all the wrong reasons. Guest we are hearing from active duty folks. Hearte had the purple controversy. We have had a lot of issues around the military, but not really know terry issues. Issues. Eally military survivorsto benefit of the folks who die in iraq and afghanistan, that is not where we are. We are in scandals and controversies. We worry that this will be a lost opportunity. That they will just move to the next topic of the day, not really get into those issues, why is it important to show respect, what do we mean when we talk about rules of engagement or National Security strategy. They are worried. They are hoping they can redirect this conversation, turned it into a positive. Host we will try to tackle some of those. What are gold star families . Guest these are people who have lost someone in iraq or afghanistan or any of the wars over american history. We are talking about spouses, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children. This is a group that the military really worries about. They had paid the ultimate sacrifice. Who wase lost someone defending the country, who is providing the freedom we all get. They want to make sure that they are treated right when it comes to benefits, survivor benefits, education benefits. That has become an issue with the Democratic Convention and highlighting Hillary Clintons work. What we have heard recently, and ,he concern with donald trump they want to make sure that those families are treated with respect. They are allowed to speak, they are allowed to present not just their frustration and sadness, but some of their views regardless of when it comes down to all caps. Regardless of where you come down on anyone who spoke at the convention, regardless of where you come down, lets not do personal attacks on them. These are people who have suffered for the country. Lets not take part their lives and turn them into political footballs. If you disagree, you can step away from that. They have earned the right to say that. Host the story you have today is that donald trump met goldstar families. Guest he met with a group of 10 families. She is a mother of a navy who was killed a few years ago. She said she wanted to organize this in wake of some of the controversy that said donald trump was being insensitive. She said she walked away being confident that he understands the gravity of these issues, understand the sacrifice of these families. She urged him to try to move on. She has been an advocate for changing the rules of engagement, making it easy for troops are employed to iraq and afghanistan to defend themselves. She has complained that the Obama Administration has put too many restrictions on when they can fire back. She says she wants these issues focused on. We are focused more on the issue of is this a sensitive, how is he responding . Sensitive comment, how is he responding . Host what are candidates saying they will do . Guest both of the candidate spoke at the veterans of foreign war conference last week. We have a clear split and where the two candidates are going. Mr. Cop donald trump said he wants to provide more choice in health care to veterans. As a major mess right now. Forees it as an opportunity folks to go outside the v. A. For health care. Said privatization is the first step in dismantling the v. A. Which is a critical safety net or veterans. She says she is for reform. She wants to make it more efficient and get rid of employees that are automatic, but do it within the framework they have now. Get some outside care, but not an expansion that would potentially chip away at the department. Host lets get to the cause. Active and retired military, we want to hear from you and hear what you think about what the candidates are talking about and what issues you want them to highlight. 202 7488000 four active and retired. Everyone else at 202 7488001. You are on the air. Retired. Caller good morning. Two questions i want to ask. Trump isall, donald being disingenuous when it comes to veterans. He will say anything to get your votes. He said what he needed to say in the very beginning. This is my two questions. , what its took to get that purple heart, that is not something out of pride myself in being injured. I served my country and did my duty. For him to receive a purple heart [indiscernible] awarded basedare on your injuries in common. Donald trump make a statement that when he gets to the house, he will have a hotline that he will talk to all the veterans and resolve their issues. Country,0 across the he is going to talk to each one of them and resolve those issues before he gets off that fun. If that is not disingenuous, i dont know what it is. What is your opinion on that . Guest we have one controversy and one policy thing that came up. The purple heart issue, one of his supporters gave him a purple heart. I believe this was monday. Donald trump responded by saying that he always wanted one of these and it was easier than earning one of them. This is one of those issues that has upset a lot of people. Other people say does not in the guilt. A purple heart is a sacred thing for folks who have received it and earned it. A lot of people saw that as belittling service, not understanding the gravity of what that means. Cap supporters says this shows the passion of his supporters and where he stands. This is distracting from some of the other issues. The hotline issue that he referred to, that is part of Donald Trumps 10 point plan. He has promised a 24 hour hotline in the white house concernspecifically to veterans have about the v. A. He said he will have someone on staff to address that. Supporters think that is a great idea. A lot of people have concerns about how the v. A. Is run. The other side said that is an unrealistic and it. Bandaid. A lot of these issues are systemic. You cannot just say you are fired. Host steve from florida. You are on the air. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking the call. I am a veteran, vietnam veteran. That is only relevant for the fact that i was treated well as a veteran. I got wonderful fits to go to benefits to go to college. I got respect. What has changed is the Hospital System. Bill clinton opened the floodgates because the Hospital System was being underutilized in 1997. I have friends and people i know, and they went to the v. A. Putuse they dont have to anything out of pocket. It started for combat wounded veterans to take care of people with serious problems. Bob dole, they even collected money in his hometown because the v. A. Only gave rudimentary care. I know it is categorized. Most of the people in the v. A. System are not combat wounded or even Service Related health care issues. , if ther thing gentleman would touch on compensation. How inople dont realize the scheme of the economy today, the military is paid well. Hard enlisteds a right to retain. That is between 70000 and 75,000 us all the benefits. A lot of misconceptions about the military. Disconnectstrong between patriots. You cannot be critical of the military. Im not talking i want to be careful saying this. There can be no criticism of our military leadership or our military veterans, and in a way they become some of the most entitled people i know of. Host lots of issues. Guest what a few things to unpack. This is something folks have talked about. This tough to get into during the election. We have seen expansion of the veterans eligible to receive health care. This has been one of the issues for the v. A. In wait times, not just the recent wars, but Vietnam Veterans who are finding promises from 20 years ago and adjust. Just appearinge now. Donald trump has said we will hire more doctors, we will get more people in here. The v. A. Has been trying to do that. There are nationwide shortages that they have not been able to deal with. This is where the Clinton Campaign has said these are complicated problems. This is not a matter of saying we will bring in 10,000 more doctors and we will get rid of wait times. This is about creating the system. As is about getting to areas that are more difficult to get to and taking out where to bounce that. Balanceing out where to all of that. There is the backandforth are the troops to wellpaid or not located not . There is no middle ground. Everyone outside the service says they are getting give money. Inside, they would happy to be paid more. There has been pullback in recent years in military papists each year. Boosts each year. There is concern that will start eating into the morale. Will that hurt recruiting and retention down the line . Host dayton, ohio. Caller good morning. Word iyone, we have one like to throw. Defunding. Privatization. Two words. Dentists inhad 17 dayton, ohio. In 2014, we had four. They were forcing veterans to go to private doctors. We do not have that kind of money. Privatization is killing us. There is a fixed. Fix. Put the money back or you took the money. Can you help me on that . Guest the v. A. In the last 10 years has almost tripled their budget. There is a lot of critics on capitol hill with said more money is not the solution. The solution is reforming the system and finding another way to approach the inherent systemic problems. I dont know the situation in dayton, obviously, but is that an issue of physician shortages . Is that an issue of lack of patients at one point, so they decided to downsize, and now they are seeing a surge. This is not an easy solution. Plenty of people on capitol hill say they are willing to give more money if you can show that will help. We need to find some way to really address these issues, make sure that we are getting rid of fraud and abuse. Host what role does Bernie Sanders late in getting the Veterans Affairs Department Getting more money . Guest it will be interesting to see if he comes back into the fold after the election. Of thecrats take control senate, he could be chairman again. He was chairman during the height of the v. A. Wait time scandal back in 2014. Massive 5roker this billion 20 billion influx to the department of Veterans Affairs to get more physicians, but also this choice expansion program. This was seen as a step towards addressing wait times by letting veterans go out into the community and talk to private doctors. It has had a mixed record. The v. A. Has said theyre doing the best they can to administer this, but that is part of the problem. Veterans cannot necessarily walk outside and get an appointment tomorrow in a private clinic. Has saidns on the hill it is because the v. A. Is not administering the program well enough. Flourishaid this could and we would not have the problems we are having. Host kevin in manchester, hampshire. Caller good morning. It is a very emotional thing. Goldstar families. They have made the ultimate sacrifice. That sacrifice was for this country. They have already been praised and given medals and everything. That is awesome. That is great. It is emotional. If you want to step back and really look at it and talk about the issues, why were they in iraq . So they could fight for halliburton to go over there . Lets step back from the emotional stuff and look at the overview. We have people coming back from iraq, my father was a vietnam veteran, he was on disability. He passed away. Veterans are coming back that are injured. They need to be taken care of. They need the best hospital care that they can get. They have families. Some of them are homeless. The federal government is not taking care of what theyre supposed to take care of. Host lets take that up. Guest when i was at the Republican Convention, i spoke to someone who was actually imprisoned with john mccain who is supporting donald trump. We were talking this time last year about his comments last year about pows. He told me that he hated those comments, he did not like what mr. Trump said, but this election is about more than some momentary gaffe. He said he liked Donald Trumps veterans land and National Security plan more. Pointd he hoped at some donald trump would apologize for those comments. I think that is where we are with the goldstar family issue. There are plenty of people who want to move on to other issues. While this stays in the new cycle, while he keeps saying things that are seen as insensitive, it is hard to move past that. Host where is the freedom of speech on this issue difficult start family steps into the ring . Ohio, active military. Hello, rick. Caller thank you for taking my call. Number one, one of my main concerns or aggravations is with the military leadership. I wish the generals and admirals who are concerned about this country as much as they were about getting the next star on their shoulder board. Number two, im not convinced that either hillary or donald are nearly as concerned about the veterans as they would make it appear. I think these are selfserving comments geared only to get them elected. Wifer three, the v. A. , my works at the v. A. She tells me that many of the veterans do not want treatment outside of the v. A. They want to be treated by the v. A. Get in thet, either war and win the thing, or get out. Those are my comments. Go, are you you referring to the fight against isis . Caller yes. Host well take that up. Guest last point first. This is where people would like to see more conversation. We have heard some really broad outlines from donald trump about how he would battle isis. He has been insistent in saying he would not reveal too much because he feels that is revealing military secrets. Ms. Clinton has offered more robust plants in terms of working with allies and nofly zones. In terms of some of the other issues, we hear all the time from veterans who say they love the v. A. , but i just want to be able to get in. How do you fix those wait times . Is that administration, better appointment systems, hiring more positions . If you want to go to the v. A. And are fine with waiting, go there. Republicans say you should have other options. Democrats say we should find ways to make the system better. Host president obama taking a trip to the pentagram pentagon today. Hes holding a News Conference at the pentagon about this issue of combating crisis. When he had a it Prime Minister News Conference with Prime Minister of singapore this week. Pres. Obama after they had already made significant progress against isil and had into aally pushed isil , it is inned area americas National Security interest to make sure that they are able to finish the job. We are working in partnership isilthem to assure that does not get a stronghold in what even as libya begins will be a long process to establish a functioning government and Security System there. Host this was announced earlier this week by the pentagon. Precision airstrikes took place in libya at the request of this governmentons backed in libya. Guest this is part of the ongoing war. What we are hearing from active duty folks and veterans is we still do not that they do not have an authorization for military force in the area. We do not have an endgame or parameters. We are seeing more troops sent to the middle east and extend to parametersother countries. The Obama Administrations state Department Said they are comfortable with this. This is part of hitting them where they are. For donating with allies in the region. This is very amorphous. Where does this go, where does this end up . Do we get sucked into another longterm war . On the election standpoint, we have heard trump and clinton talk about their plans. They have not talked much about the authorization for the use of military force and the legal underpinning. Tim kaine has been one of the loudest voices of this in congress. He has been talking about it whenever he can to reporters, administration officials, and colleagues. With him on the ticket it will be interesting to see if that is amplified and we get into more conversation. Most veterans and folks we talk to our upset. With the administration, but with congress. They have had a plan from the obama and illustration sitting thee than a year Obama Administration and sitting on it for more than a year. They will pen the blame on obama. Host the state department asked under what authority did this airstrike take place. Guest they have maintained that this is under the existing authorities laid out in the aftermath of the september 11 thecks and will lead up to iraq war and the war in afghanistan. They say they can work on it. They would like a more limited, timelimited, authorization so that it is not seen as an overreaching unlimited war power. Host will you be at the pentagon . Manning thatl be today. I have a few hours off to work on more hill veterans issues. Host we will be covering on cspan. We will see if that gets the question at 4 15 p. M. Eastern. Live coverage on cspan and cspan. Org. Cspan radio as well. If you have the cspan radio app coming you can radio app, you can listen in. In florida, go ahead. Caller thank you for taking my phone call. I love you guys. I want to say with the comment that donald trump, there was nothing to that. That man paraded his son. And womenat all men who served this country are gold stars. He did not say anything about his son. His son had chosen to go into the military. Y husband, 30 years retired i came from a military family. My brothers, my father, world war ii, vietnam war, korean war. Im still in the military, as family. People, listen words cannot hurt you. I think it was disgusting at the dnc to put that man up there to parade his dead son. He served his country. You do not parade Something Like that. Yes, all men and women in uniform serve the country. They are gold stars. Stop separating the soldiers. Host did you hear leo saying earlier that a gold star mother spoke at the Republican National convention . Exactly. She did. What im saying is the way that he got up there and used his sons death to attack donald trump, you dont do Something Like that. I was thinking the same thing. How come the mother didnt speak up . Do not parade this. Of differentle issues. One, the caller said he did not talk about his son. There is a video that led into the speech that spoke extensively about captain khans service and his death. The circumstances around that. Not onlytalked about, the familys reaction, but his sons service and what he felt about the sacrifices his son had aid, the sacrifices on the family. Atre was a woman who spoke the Republican National convention and offered, not quite the same criticism of Hillary Clinton but similar criticism on similar things. I think that one of the comparisons that a lot of folks have pointed back to was when george bush was in office. Cindy sheehan had made quite a few headlines about the iraq war after her son was killed. Some of the way she conducted herself and the complaint she made. I sympathize with her. I disagree with her positions, but she is a gold star mother and has earned the right to express those. When you contrast that with mr. Trump, that is where the veterans and gold star families get upset. That there was not due respect shown. That there was more implications that somehow, because of his muslim faith, that he practiced shield law. They made reference to the wife not speaking. They said she was too devastated by grief. I spoke to the khans before the speech. You could tell that she was still very upset so many years later. It is not an easy thing to go before a National Audience and talk about losing a son or child to the war. That is the kind of criticism. Those are the attacks people are saying and ending on not only donald trump, but the Republican Party saying this is out of line. Host retired military, welcome to the conversation. Caller thank you for taking my call. Im am pretty upset about the situation with the purple heart. The purple heart, we did not want it. I have one. We received it in combat. When he gave that purple heart to trump, which i do not even believe was deserved, i felt bad about that. I think the person that gave away the purple heart should be stripped of the purple heart. It is not a metal to give out like a chocolate chip cookie. Side this is the opposite. I have heard several folks questioning the gentleman who gave the purple heart. A couple of news reports said he does not regret what he did. He feels passionate about mr. Trump. It is his award that he earned. For people question whether or not we had this with john kerry now we are questioning if he deserves the award or if you should be stripped of the award. He served honorably and was awarded the award. They want there to be an area where we are not questioning these peoples integrity. If this gentleman wants to give his purple heart to mr. Trump and wants it to be a reminder on the campaign, that is his honor to do that. What veterans groups have looked have could mr. Trump could been more articulate. Could he have said something to the effect of this is quite an honor and i will keep this with me and treasure it. Not that ive always wanted one and this is an easier way to get it. That makes it more open to political attacks. Host seattle, good morning. Caller there is a question i want to ask because i found out information. The gentleman in florida said the va hospital was established to help military wounded and those who need medical help. In thishe va hospital day in time doing transgender sex changes . That is a selective surgery, not something life and death. People are waiting for appointments to be seen for medical reasons that are combatrelated. This goes back to an issue that came up earlier. They said they would take steps toward offering these things. I will check. I do not think they have agreed to fullfledged offering of the surgeries. There are steps involved and it will be a multiyear process before they offer them. The answer to the question is intothe va has evolved covering all sorts of things. Dental care was not always in their. Caring for spouses and families was not in there. Become because of choices made by administrators in both parties and members of congress by both parties its role has expanded. They have started covering more things that they deem important to the health and wellbeing of veterans. A Fairly Extreme example of that case. Not use the offer posttraumatic stress disorder care. I do not think anyone would question the need and value of that. The va has seen an expansion of who is eligible. Folks may have other insurance options, other things, they can still come to the va for certain types of care. This is a point where is not only how can we make the system work, but what does the system need to be . Addong as Congress Wants to things on, as long as they want to say, you need to help these veterans, these veterans, these veterans, the mission becomes more complicated and difficult to fund. It becomes tougher to get folks in. To get the right physicians. Host i want to follow up on msnbc saidhat yesterday. That donald trump was in a meeting with military experts. That he repeatedly asked, why can we not use Nuclear Weapons . What is the reaction to that . Guest it is two camps. One is the cautious, this is one tv pundit making a remark and we dont know the details. This could be taken 19 different ways. We have seen quite a few folks who have worked in the Nuclear Triad that are alarmed. They say that this is an outsider being too cavalier with the possibility and responsibility of Nuclear Weapons. Have a former jeb bush and mitt romney advisor on twitter, i believe he was on msnbc later, who served in the air force and worked with a lot of that talking about the gravity of the system. The chain of command. The faith that troops have to have in their superiors so if they get that call that all other options have been exhausted in this is a necessity. Someis really way 24yearold in the middle of the country in a secret bunker can go to work. Knowing that everyone above them in the chain of command understands the gravity of this. A lot of Foreign Policy folks are saying with that comment, does donald trump understand the gravity of what using Nuclear Weapons is . This is loose talk, will it encourage countries like russia also consider the use of Nuclear Weapons in cases where it would have been unthinkable . Host tampa bay. Good morning. Caller good morning. Im glad to talk with you. Greta, thank you for taking my call. There are a couple of questions. Bay, youlive in tampa worry about the zika virus. It was reported on this morning by the general news. There is a very large amount in the south and in tampa there is a military base there. Of cases a high number in the military of the zika virus that is documented. Will you be asking about that . There is no money and theres appointing the fingers. Im a little nervous, i know that you are busy. Host dont worry. Caller the other question, if there is a bipartisanship, i think it was Bernie Sanders and mr. Mccain, if im not mistaken, i think i am, on that, to get some consensus for fixing the be a the va. What happened was that tears were changed. In this time when the va has expanded in so many areas, when you ask about the zika virus today, i hope so it 4 00, you will be able to find out how more transparent care will be given to people in the area. Thank you from your thank you for your time. Guest we talked about this earlier. Under sanders, chairman miller, and senator mccain they were involved in the expansion of the v. A. Program. They have made improvements. Folks are being seen quicker. There are concerned for the outside care program not being administered correctly, and a lot of republicans would like to see that permanent. It is due to expire at the end of this year in the beginning of next. That will be a political football for the next administration. On the zika virus issue, the military times had that story on monday and news issues they did up in the week. My colleague has been tracking that. I do not know if we will question that later in the day. It shows how Broader Health issues affect the military. There are tons of military bases in florida. What does this mean . We have folks that deploy all over the globe. Thepolitical fight over zika virus funding on capitol hill has nothing to do with the military, all of a sudden becomes a National Security issue when troops start to contract the virus and we have to figure out how they respond. The military Health Care System has different pots of money to deal with specifically helping them. In terms of larger research, prevention, mosquito repellent issues in florida, that is outside of the control. Have to come up with the good of the nation and the good of the military in that issue. Has begunal spring in florida. Is that right . Caller yes, maam. Host good morning, vincent. Question or comment . Caller my question is why is everybody blaming iran as the worlds leading terrorist, when the source of the trouble is that wahhabi brand of islam promoted by saudi arabia. I cannot understand it. Iran is a great civilization. Outside of pressure from israel, which scares all of our politicians into supporting this alse theme that iran is terrorist, what have they done to us outside of kidnap a few people. We know that everyone in the world has spies. I would bet that they are guilty. Host we are running out of time. Issues likely to be an that the president has to talk about at his News Conference today. That is the money that was sent weekend thate same those hostages were released. The white house saying it is not a ransom. They are saying it looks like a ransom. Guest iran and how to unpack this. That is the issue of the 400 million sent. That would have been frontpage news most weeks if not for the ongoing controversies with the Trump Campaign. I would expect issues to come up at the Pentagon Press conference to get to the callers comment. Iran has been seen by many in the government, and within the Republican Party as a major threat, and major foe to the u. S. A destabilizing agent for the middle east. That is because of their relationship with terrorism groups. Saudi arabia has been a long time problematic ally for the United States. It is the problematic friend that we have in the problematic enemy that we have, and how can we get them on equal footing . The Obama Administration has and hisoughout the deal presidency that he thinks that bringing them into the fold and having some sort of relationship makes it safer than keeping them on the outside. Republicans disagree strongly. They think there should be virtually no interaction and a much harsher tone. That is the only way they will learn. Both sides have danced around how do we deal with saudi arabia. How does that fit in . This is not an issue that will go away. It will be a foreignpolicy headache for either candidate if they become commanderinchief. Host final question. The impact that active and retired military will play in november. Somet to show our viewers statistics. Military active duty personnel by state. California, texas, north carolina, for jenna, georgia, south carolina, maryland. Retiredalso look at military. Which states have the most. What impact could these folks outcome in november . Guest they could have a gigantic impact. In the past, it has been in the military will vote on party lines like other folks. We have not seen issue sway the entire population to one candidate or the other. The military generally went mitt romney four years ago and i didnt make that much of a difference. More of a split with mccain and obama. Mccain had military service. In the polls that the military times has been running, we are talking to folks wishing a lot of support for donald trump with almost a two to one margin over Hillary Clinton. Folks are doing that on party lines and are frankly dissatisfied with both candidates and wished they had that are options. A place like virginia, where some of the veteran and the lee terry votes bucked the trend and it was more 50 50, that was part of the equation that pushed that state for obama. In swing states, each candidate has to look back and raked down the smaller populations. Whether or not they are hearing and responding to their concerns. With 22 million veterans, active duty, and their families, the families of their families if they see or hear something that is distasteful or upsetting to the military, like the gold star families or the purple heart, it might be enough to have them not show up to vote or sway to the other side. Host you can follow him on militarytimes. Com. In yesterdays wall street journal, this was the headline. U. S. Sent cash to iran as americans were freed. It prompted a lot of criticism from republicans, including this tweet from donald trump. Incompetent secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, was the one who started talks to give 400 million coming in cash, to iran. He calls it a scandal. We want to know what you think. The front page of the wall street journal reports that the Justice Department objected to sending the cash on the same weekend that these americans were freed. This is what josh earnest, the White House Press secretary, had to say yesterday about this transaction. [video clip] facts. Est you know the for those that are flailing and attempting to justify continued opposition to the deal to prevent iran from obtaining a Nuclear Weapon, i will review the facts. The facts in this case, i have 2 relevant ones than we can pursue others that we need to discuss the first is the 400 million. It is actually money that the iranians had paid into a u. S. Account in 1979 as part of the transaction to procure military equipment. , asmilitary equipment relates to the 400 million, was not provided to the iranians in 1979, because the shaw of iran was overthrown. That was the right decision. Why it was hard for the United States to make an argument in this case that we could just keep the money. Did was United States resolve a longstanding claim that saved the American People potentially billions of dollars. As it relates to the details, the fact of the matter is the United States does not have a banking relationship with iran. The reason for that . It is that the administration, the Obama Administration, has kept in place tough financial sanctions against iran because of a variety of concerns about their behavior, including support for terrorism, violation of human rights, and a Ballistic Missile program they maintained that is inconsistent with u. N. Council resolutions. The facts are quite clear. I think it is an indication of opponents of the iran deal are struggling to justify their opposition to a successful deal that has prevented, and continues to prevent, iran from developing a Nuclear Weapon. Ransom for theey folks that were released . Esther ernest no, it was not. It is against the policy of the United States to pay money for hostages. We talked about this in january, too. There was a conscious decision of the obamaart administration as we were implementing the deal to prevent iran from obtaining a Nuclear Weapon to resolve other longstanding concerns with iran. Host that was josh earnest yesterday explaining how the negotiations went in regards to the 400 million that was sent, in cash, to iran on the same weekend that those hostages were freed. He says there were 2 separate negotiations. Republicans are very critical of the administration, saying that they knew the deal was made six months ago, but they did not know that it happened on the same day. They did not know that it was sent on this cargo plane. This is the wall street journal front page. Reporting that senior Justice Department officials balked at sending an airplane loaded with cash to tehran at the same time they released imprisoned americans. The objections were overruled by the state department according to those familiar with the discussions. After the announced release, president obama said he would pay 400 million to iran for a arms deal. The first payment would be 400 million in cash, flown in at the same time. The timing and manner of the payment raised alarms at the Justice Department. People knew what it would look like, and there was concerns that the iranians had considered a ransom payment. It could complicate white house efforts to fortify before mr. Obamas term ends. Have beenicans who feuding, president ial candidate donald trump, john mccain, paul ryan, were united in blasting the administration on this. We want to know what you think about this this morning. 202748 8001. 202748 8002. From 77i worked in iran to 78. The money was for f14s. Kidd. He we also kept the money for the tanks. In 1978i was working for the mosul government. All the people that ran it, we just kept the money. The same package for the f16s. Jimmy carter. Shake it off, bye. Host a democrat. In florida, donald trump reacting to the news. We showed you what he said on twitter about Hillary Clinton and the money sent to iran. Here is what he said at a town hall in florida. [video clip] mr. Trump iran provided the footage of them taking the money off of the airplane, right . Cash. Illion in how does the president do that . We are going to send 400 million in cash . In cash, in currency. When the plane landed, top secret, they do not have a lot of they dont do so well over there. They have a perfect tape done by obviously a government camera. The tape is of the people taking the money off of the plane, right . That means that in order to embarrass us further, iran sent us the tapes, right . It is a military tape. A tape at the perfect angle, nice and steady, no one getting nervous because they are going to be shot says they are shooting a picture of money pouring off of an airplane. You say, who gets the money . I doubt it is the people of iran. Who gets the money . Who is authorized to give cash . No, who is authorized to give cash . You know what . I will tell you. It is a disgrace. Host that was donald trump in florida. They fact checked what he had to say about the video, and they say that several senior u. S. Officials involved in iran negotiations said on wednesday that they were not aware of any such video at donald trump refers to. They also said about Donald Trumps tweet earlier about Hillary Clintons role in this, they say that donald trump is wrong about clintons involvement. Separate from the Iranian Nuclear deal. That Hillary Clinton initiated here at the payout process resulted in decades before she became secretary of state. In the late 1970s, they paid 400 million for military equipment that was never delivered. In 1979 the government was overthrown. Revolutionaries took american hostages in tehran and diplomatic relations were severed. The money was frozen. In kansas, democrat, what do you think of the conversation . Caller this is typical republican. This money was taken in the 1970s. They paid us 400 million up front for these airplanes, aircraft, and what have you. We never delivered. Millioninterest on 400 for 30 years. This was part of the agreement. Give the aircraft or pay the money back. Lets be realistic, people. You cannot take money out front and not produce something. Is acting like this came out of our pocket. It did not come out of our pocket. This was iranian money. You have to go to 1979 when this had iraned, then you contra. Do you remember iran contra . Not money, but guns. Ronald reagan. Oliver north. And now theyre andng to blame barack obama Hillary Clinton. Hillary clinton was not fair. She had been gone from the white house for three years when the deal was struck. You cannot blame Hillary Clinton, she was gone from the white house. Host lets show our viewers with Hillary Clinton had to say. She was in colorado campaigning. She sat down with a local nbc affiliate and was asked about the news. Elena start with the news of the day on iran. You have talked tough on iran dualorking with obama on a pronged strategy. America learned there was a shipment of foreign currency on a secret air cargo flight to the country. Did you know that was coming, and do you approve of it . Mrs. Clinton the white house is aggressive. This is old news. It was first reported eight months ago, as i recall. As far as i know, it had nothing to do with any kind of hostage swap or any tit for tat. It was something that was paynded, as im told, to act iran for contracts that were canceled when the shaw fell. Tothe case were trying settle. That said, do you approve . That is a lot of money to fork over to a country that you yourself have said is not trustworthy. Mrs. Clinton we know that the lid on theas put a iranian Nuclear Weapons program. I consider that to be a positive step. We know that our businesses want to do business with iran. We are taking that very carefully. We know that there are outstanding legal challenges are the iranian government against the United States government, and other u. S. Interests. It is all part of the same picture. The most important thing is that we have, in my view, preventing iran from racing to get Nuclear Weapons which is very much in americas interest. Yet republicans will say no way do you fork over cash to that regime. Mrs. Clinton they want to criticize the agreement. I think that they are wrong about that. The agreement has made the world safer. It has to be enforced. Ive spoken very strongly about how i will enforce the agreement. I will hold the iranians to account for even the smallest violation. That is exactly what i think needs to happen. Host those Hillary Clinton s response. What do you think . Kansas, democrat. Will tell you exactly. If you gave money to a business, 50 up front. And they did not produce. This went on for 30 years. You have a right to ask for your money back . That is exactly what they did. Host we got your opinion. , republican. Nia are you there . Caller yes. Host go ahead. Caller this deal was made in 1979. It is 37 years later. Have to be paid back the same way can the hostages were released after 37 years . It is not a coincidence. Anyone who thinks it is is insane. Coveringthe way, capitol hill for fox says jason republican from utah, is asking the secretary of state to explain payment to iran. He wants him to appear at a hearing. Illinois, independent. Good morning. Is whetherquestion it was 37 years or 100 years, would you give someone money and you want your money back, how in the world can it be a ransom or anything . I think it isand 1. 7 billion dollars should be given back to the iranians. America cannot go on taking peoples money. Barack obama did the correct thing. They should give the iranians their money, whether it was ransom or not. How could it be a ransom if it was their money. It was not americans money. Host referring to the interest that has accrued since the 400 million for the iranians for the military equipment in the 1970s. More phone calls coming up. ,irst, this is Craig Gilbert the Washington Bureau chief with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to talk about primary day in wisconsin for the speaker of the house. That is coming up. Craig gilbert, who is challenging the speaker of the house . Guest a guy named paul neyland. He is not from wisconsin. He has only been living there for 10 years. He was a political neophyte when he announced his challenge to paul ryan. It has been a sleepy race despite ryans own prominence, despite this week when donald trump intervened. Host the primaries tuesday. What does it look like for speaker ryan . Guest we do not have fresh horse race public polling in his district. We have a lot of public polling about ryan and trump, including in his district. What that tells us is that it is very hard to look at the polling and find serious signs of danger for paul ryan, for number of reasons. He is arguably the most popular republican in wisconsin. You can make the case he is the most popular politician in either party in wisconsin. His numbers among Republican Voters are overwhelmingly positive. His favorability rating in his district, those that have a positive view of him, is in the 80s. That is higher than Donald Trumps numbers in his district and state. Donald trump is at 50. Paul ryan is 85. This is a district where donald trump underperformed in april and the president ial primary. He lost the district by double digits by almost 25 points to ted cruz. Does not tell us necessarily what is happening on the ground today, but it does tell us that during the summer, and going into the race as of a few weeks ago, paul ryan was a very well positioned in the primary. Host has he had to spend a lot of money . Guest the has a ton of money. He is not spending all of it, but he is dramatically outspent his opponent. He is on television, radio, doing local media, he is spending today and tomorrow doing multiple radio interviews, including interviews on conservative talk radio a Political Force in southeast wisconsin. Another thing that sometimes you see in districts where nationally known members of congress are ambushed in primaries is that they neglect their district, take it for. Ranted, or are surprised again, this is a case where ryan is someone who has a history of working his district. I think that he will want to not win win, but would like to bys larger margin as possible for no other reason than the race has taken on National Significance in the last several days. Host donald trump is saying im not quite there yet on endorsing speaker ryan for his seat. His running mate, though, and friend, mike pence is saying that he is 100 paul ryan. Does that matter in this congressional race . Hast again, i think trump some support. Again, less support than ryan has. Been aisconsin has not good state for donald trump. He has performed at a lower level in wisconsin then nationally. Coreure there was a support for donald trump, but then you have a member of is very well known and has a long history in the district. He is not only popular among apublicans, but, for republican, is fairly popular less unpopular than other republicans among democrats. It will be interesting to see what this does for turnout. August primaries is not usually a place for you see high turnout. Wisconsin is a place where they do turn out in high levels. It will be interesting to see what the National Attention does for turnout, and who it helps. Resume monthly it should help it could help ryan by mobilizing his supporters if they get a sense of urgency. Host the night before the primary donald trump is holding a rally in green bay, wisconsin. There. An will not be scott walker is not attending. Ron johnson in the senate is facing a tough race there. He will not be there either. Impact could what this rally have the night before the primary . The primary is tuesday. The rally is tomorrow night. Host i mixed that up. Guest is not in the district. It is in a different part of the state. Donald trump is more popular in northern wisconsin, where he is having the rally, then in sore than wisconsin in southern wisconsin, where brians district is. The last time he campaigned, he antagonized the Republican Party in wisconsin. He antagonized a lot of conservative leadership. It was a stormy relationship. They have it a little patched over since then at the convention. Now, it is torn open again. His coming into wisconsin on the heels of this new breach with ryan, who is again a popular figure among republicans in the state. You have prominent republican staying the way. You have the chairman of the national Republican Party a close friend of paul ryan, trying to be the peacemaker. He was kind of blindsided by trumps comments. Theres a lot of drama within Republican Party. A lot of antagonism between Wisconsin Republicans and donald trump. He is coming into the storm, just like he came into the storm four months ago in the primary where he was clobbered. Host that is tomorrow night. Friday, 8 00 p. M. He is holding the rally in green bay, wisconsin. Coverage on cspan, cspan radio, and cspan. Org. Let me show the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel speaker ryan should disavow donald trump. Will that happen . Guest i do not necessarily expect it to happen. For one thing, to do it now, it. Ould look like a quid pro quo you did not endorse me so i will unendorese you. Onn has criticized trump numerous occasions and distance himself him a lot of his policies. So, to do it now would raise obvious questions, why now . Is it just because donald trump disrespected you . Im not holding my breath. A tight rope, a balancing act. It is very awkward. It has been painful politically for paul ryan. He is getting flack from all sides. He is being criticized by even conservatives who are antitrump are not repudiating him. He is getting flack and his primary race from some republicans who are protrump who think he is being disloyal by not criticizing him at all. Go to theirn website for more. It has been a pleasure. Back to your calls about the story that made for page news on the wall street journal. Lots of reaction in washington about the iran payment. 400 million for military equipment that they bought in the 1970s. Republicans say that it is ransom for hostages. The Administration Says that they were separate negotiations. Sam, oklahoma city, democrat. Good morning. Caller well, the caller before is saying the same thing that i am. The money they are giving back to iran is their money. It seems like to me, if we can get these people freed out of prison by using their money, even if it is a ransom, it seems to me that that is not a bad deal. Host ok. Larry in biloxi, mississippi, republican. What do you think . Caller well, it is really in the same character as the Democratic Party has been since president obama took office. He gave himself the transparency in government awarded behind closed doors. I see this as a ransom payment. We owed iran the money, but the. Iming smacks of a conspiracy it is what is going on in our government today. Host david, texas, democrat. Your turn. Caller how are you . No one knows if this is a rant some are not. Were talking about paperwork years. Ack 30 to 35 you have to do your homework. Youre dealing with the president , secret service, fbi. This is all speculation. You have to do your homework over 35 years. It is impossible to say if it is a ransom or not a ransom. No one can know that. We are not working with the secret service, the fbi, we do not work with government entities. For someone to be running for president to make a claim about something that is a ransom having ever held a Government Office in the Republican Party, and they support it, it shows a lack in their responsibility. We have to have a good grade to pass anything. I do not think the republican frontrunner has a passing grade. He has never had a Government Office, never been a mayor, a state senator these are the standards, we held our kids to be standards to qualify for certain things. I am sure in any other administration, we had problems before then. We cannot act like this problem just started. This is a 40yearold deal. We do not know the paperwork. No one in this program can say they came forward and saw the paperwork that went back 35 years. Host we heard your point. The Washington Post says the state Department Spokesperson says that three separate teams of negotiations were assembled to conduct talks on the nuclear deal. The prisoners walk and the financial settlement went into teams to argue that they were not linked. The 7 billion saved taxpayers money, because it wouldve paid more if it had gone to arbitration. Ofyre giving back part frozen assets after americans are released as part of an agreement that led to the 52 remaining Embassy Hostages freed in 1981. Iran received 3 billion of its 12 billion dollars in frozen assets. The rest was in escrow to cover judgment against iran. North carolina, norman, good morning. Caller yes. I just have a question about all of it. , they support terrorism. Terrorism came to the United States and killed 3000 people in 9 11. So, i dont know why people think we owes them. Host if you are interested in theiran has been spending money, now that the sanctions have been lifted, the cia director made recent comments that they have a good idea that they have been spending it on the economy, infrastructure, paying off their debts. If youre interested, you could find that online. There was also a series of josh earnested of yesterday. You can go to cspan. Org and watch all of the questions asked by reporters as well as the state Department Spokesperson on the issue. Francis, california, democrat. Caller thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to say that when i first heard, when i put on the tv and heard we gave 400 million to iran, i was swinging off the chandelier. And wasd my laptop getting ready to write obama and scream at him. Then, i listened to the rest of it. I found out that we owed them money to iran. , no one in the United States of america is happy about giving a dollar to iran. We hate iran for sure. I have a person from iran that is my neighbor. I love her. She is awesome. There are a lot of good people in iran. The other thing that im scared to death of, i just read online , why can weas asked not use Nuclear Weapons . Oh, my god. Tell me that is not scary. If he is listening, and i hope to hell he is, trump, you lost my vote without one. I am scared to death. Please, god, do not let that man become president. Host the latest polls about the headtohead matchup in key states. Reporting in pennsylvania clinton has doubledigit leads over donald trump. In new hampshire, she is ahead by 15. This is from the detroit news out of michigan. Clinton has a big lead over trump and that battleground. Tate theres also this in the New York Times, in colorado where Hillary Clinton was yesterday, she beats donald trump in holes and presence. Independent, good morning. Caller good morning. , i am aanted to say professional engineer. I worked all over the world. I worked with the iranians. There are good iranians and bad iranians. One thing that you have to is that you have to draw a distinction between iranians, they are called persians and arabs. Persians and arabs dont get along. Ost all right arlington, texas. Independent. Caller thank you for taking my call. I watch you all the time. The Crucial Point that everyone is missing is the history lesson. What was happening in 1970 . 1970, the shaw was in control and attempted to rebuild the country and bring it into the 21st century of all of its goods, services, products, and so on. In thes an investment country. At that particular time. We have to look at the history at the point that this took place in 1970. Remember, there was oil that was cheap at that time but was ready to go sky high. It was going to change the world. , weoint in all of that is are 30 years later and were looking at it as if it happened last week. That is 30 something years ago. I your history before you make comments. Missouri,charles, republican. Good morning. After push the button. Good morning. Caller i am reflecting a little bit on what the caller just said. What took place in the 1970s and now with the two regimes being entirely different, it does not mean the money that is owed to them necessarily should be paid to them for the same reasons that the debt was. Secondly, why is it that the money could not have been paid in a legal form and fashion through banking, checks, or any other form other than hidden cash in the night with an unmarked plane . Host if you go to cspan. Org and watch the Daily Briefing with josh earnest, he was asked that. His explanation was that we do not have a banking channel with iran. We do not have a Banking System set up. Caller again, to go in the middle of the night, unmarked place, itcash, hidden does not speak well to what we would like to see as a country. Host the wall street journal, they note this. The administration recently approved a 17. 6 billion deal for boeing to sell commercial iranian main airline. Other officials have tried to encourage european businesses to go into the iranian market. Congressional push back undermines the agreement. They have sought to impose new sanctions to scare away outside investment. The president ial election could shift that dynamic. Donald trump opposes the nuclear deal. Hillary clinton supports it. New york, democrat, good morning. Caller good morning. Comment. Want to make a that is no matter what the Obama Administration does, even if they know, and we all know it is the right one like we are now finding out about the 400 million to iran they have misrepresented that. Saying that with trump it is unbelievable how they could have a con man, he is a con man and has been one all of his life, how they can even listen to a con man. That is because they have so much hatred for obama. Host i will leave it there. A reminder, you have to turn down the television and talk to your phone. Illinois, republican. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I thinkrmer military, we are missing the point. Americans do not leave americans behind. That is number one, no matter the circumstances. We do not pay ransom. I do not care whose money it was. There is a parallel with bergdahl. It was bodies are bodies. What is going on with this country is with those that we have left behind in the war. Look at north korea. 500. Antimissiles Defense Systems that they want to trade. We still have americans and unmarked graves lying in both countries. Were not doing anything about it. Host connecticut, independent. Caller thank you. Just wanted to comment on the 400 million sent to iran. Some people find it suspicious that you had the unmarked airplane coming in. Youas caring plenty of cash need advertise it . If you watch the movies, you see. Eople plan and run off they steal millions of dollars. In real life, it would be a lot messier. It is prudent to not advertise it. Host ok. That was paul in connecticut. Alabama, go ahead. Barbara, good morning. You are our last. Caller good morning. I can hear you, can you hear me . Host yes. Go ahead. Caller the 400 million, my question is if the debt occurred obama, why at to this particular time with our conditions with iran as it is, not to the president fill the debt or made an effort to pay part of it . The other thing i would like to say, if i may, if you are a member of your family had to have a heart transplant. You ask around for someone, that is a serious operation, do you know a good doctor . And everyone said, yes, i know a good doctor that has been a doctor for 40 years. Not trustworthy because the Surgeon General in washington has said on public tv that she is reckless and careless. You or your Family Member is having open heart surgery, which you trust that surgeon knowing that they will likely falsify documents . We need to ask ourselves this question. It is an extremely important election. We will have Supreme Court judges. This will affect our country tremendously. Host i will leave it there and and with a little bit from the wall street journals original reporting yesterday. They said that it was the swiss government who really sought the cooperation from the state department and iran on the deal. That they saw an opening when there was Movement Made on the nuclear deal that this could happen. They have been negotiating on behalf of the United States on the longstanding dispute between iran
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