this morning by asking you our viewers are you confident in the u.s. strategy to combat isis? the numbers are on your screen. good morning. before we get to your calls about how confident you are in the u.s. strategy to combat iraq, let's take a look at what president obama said yesterday at his press conference at the pentagon. >> i do think that because of our extraordinary efforts the homeland is significantly safer than it otherwise would be. now, in some ways this is arguing the counter factuals, but the attacks we prevent i take great satisfaction in and i am grateful for the extraordinary work that our teams do. i don't think there's any doubt that had we not destroyed al qaeda in the fata, that more americans would have been killed. and we might have seen more attacks like we saw on 9/11, and we have maintained vigilance, recognizing that those threats still remain, those aspirations in the minds of these folks still remain. but it is much harder for them to carry out large-scale attacks than it used to be. host: a little more about the president's press conference in the headlines. we're asking you about your confidence in the u.s. strategy to combat isis. first on our democratic line. good morning, rob. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. host: are you confident in the u.s.'s approach in fighting isis so far? caller: i am confident. i think that the president has a very good command of what's going on and he's really an extremely smart human being. and i'm sure he's doing everything possible. and it's not only a national problem, it's a global problem. and i think it takes a lot of insight and intelligence and hard work, and study, and discussion with your military and i give the guy a lot of credit. there's no way that i think that trump could handle all of the input and all of the intelligence and i just hope that he doesn't look to turn a profit on the intelligence that he is receiving. now that he is a candidate. host: now that you're talking about the presidential race, is the fight against isis your top issue or one of your top issues in this presidential race? >> you know, it's not. it's maybe one of the top issues but i think there is a certain extent that as severe as the problem is, i can that we probably over-- i think that we have it overblown in our minds. we see tragedies left and right and it's a major problem. -- it's hink that we oversensationalized in the media. host: according to a recent gallup poll which tracks just how important the issue of fighting terror is among americans, it seems to be a downward trend. it seems to mirror what rob said, where in december of 2015, 16% of americans rated it the most important problem. by june of 2016, only 4% of americans said that was the most important u.s. problem facing us. and we are getting your thoughts about the fight against isis after yesterday's update by president obama. next, ronald from washington, d.c. caller: thank you for taking my call. host: are you confident in the u.s.'s fight against isis? caller: america is by far the most safe. host: you are breaking up a little bit. caller: it really upsets me the way the media and politicians in general [inaudible] host: we're having some trouble with ronald's connection there. up next steve whose calling in from florida on our republican ine. caller: it's a problem that's insurmountable that the majority of people share the ideology to the point that they won't support the efforts of the outsiders. we're always going to be the outsider influence. but the danger that isis and what we've done, we beat the soviet union in the 80s. the collapse of communism was caused by the economic collapse because they spent so much money trying to keep their military defenses up, and they also -- afghanistan they got mired down in. we are spending a for tune -- a for tune. if you go to new york city, the police are everywhere and the majority of them work tremendous amount of overtime. we are spending a for tune on tsa, we are spending a for tune. who knows how much money is really being spent. host: how would you like to see that money spent and what changes would you like to see in the u.s. strategy? caller: well the problem is, and you can go back to the root of the problem where we a overextended ourselves. we're into a sunni-shiite conflict that is unresolvable. and the difference is almost like in everybody for trump who now they -- everybody's got him characaterized as crazy. this was not our fight. this was not our issue. we need to protect american interests and american interests is not in the middle east. if we had become energy sufficient and paid a dollar more a gallon for oil we wouldn't be in this mess. host: speaking of mr. trump, donald trump's response to president obama's press conference yesterday in today's washington times says we're getting your thoughts on your confidence in the u.s. strategy to combat isis. rick from philadelphia. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to quote to your audience from ronald reagan, who, after sending a company of my military marine corps brothers into lebanon back in the 80's and got them all killed, and then he withdrune from lebanon and he addressed the country and he simply said -- and i don't know why the republican party don't get this. he said, we do not understand these people and we do not belong in those parts of the world. host: what would you like to see the strategy be then in combating isis? caller: the strategy of this president now that we're there is correct. we do not need massive ground troops. that has only offended these people even more. it was when we put troops into saub and put them in cities of mecca and medina that got the hatred for us. we do not need massive ground troops there. he is doing it the proper way from the air and he's trying to find friend liss on the ground to do the fighting. that's what i have to say. ost: up next, richard from minneapolis. caller: good morning. host: what do you think about the strategy to fight isis? caller: well, first of all i think hillary clinton and president obama created isis along with george bush when he went into iraq. i mean, they had strong men in harge of libya, egypt, and syria. they were strong men, they were cruel, but they kept things under control. host: let me ask you this. what about the idea that we hear from many democrats who say the instability that led to isis actually came from the war during the bush administration. caller: well, i just said that bush shouldn't have went into iraq. buthillry and obama made it worse. and i don't know what the answer is. but definitely they made it worse. they don't know anything about the world politics. they went around apologizing to every country in the world and showing that we're going to just give up and we did everything wrong. we were the leader of the free world. there's no reason to go around apologizing for all that. we freed a lot of people in this world. so the way obama went around apologizing, it's just disgraceful. host: let's get a little bit more reaction from donald trump, the g.o.p. nominee for president, to barack obama's comments. up next eric from california on our independent line. what do you think about the u.s. strategy to combated isis? caller: i want to lead off with the last caller about apologizing. this is the year of divine mercy. mercy is a form of forgiveness. islam does not teach forgiveness. islam is a religion of an eye for an eye. we have to be that example of forgiveness. because we're here in america nd do not demonstrate mercy, we have the year of divine mercy and we're not showing it. this is the year jubilee. host: some of our headlines yesterday, president obama also addressed the issue of the $400 million payment that was made to iran saying it was not a ransom. we're getting your reaction to the u.s.-isis strategy. timothy from north carolina on our independent line. what do you think about the american strategy in fighting isis? are you confident in it? caller: yes. i think the strategy we're using now is better than any strategy that we have used before. but let me explain something. and you have a habit of breaking in and cutting people off. ut let me please finish. what happened is that we went over there when bush went into iraq it was the republicans and some of the democrats including hillary who voted for this that got us into this mess when we occupied the land over there. now, that's what created isis when we went over there and destabilized the area. the way to fight isis is to get out of there. these people are going to continue do this as long as we're over there. we need to withdraw from the middle east. if we withdraw the way it was before the gulf war we wouldn't have this problem. we didn't have this problem before. we had very few of these problems right here. host: i just want to ask you a question about that. are you concerned that withdrawing will create the same sort of instability that would allow terrorist groups to thrive the same way that it did after the iraq war? caller: that's a chance you have to take. because we do not have the money to stay over there and stabilize the place. it was a mistake that was made, a big huge mistake, and there's no answer to it. isis is going to break this country. they have created homeland security every time you turn around and isis does something we spend billions of dollars. we're already $15 trillion in debt behind this thing that george bush and them did. they haven't even investigated. host: according to the latest americans it says are more krnt than ever about the threat of terrorism. up next, libby calling from from florida on our democratic line. are you confident in the u.s. strategy to combat isis? caller: 100%. host: what makes you so confident? caller: because the president and his people around him are maintaining a deliberate calm march towards one end. they're not running around helter skelter saying this, doing that. march st remain on the to keep moving forward and they have done that. i am so tired of people in this country worried about every time some out of control maniac wants attention, wants note right, picks up a gun and goes and kills a bunch of harmless innocent people, and then so they'll look like some hero and get international attention, they claim they're doing it for isis. host: did the recent attacks in places like nice, france, or even here in the united states, places attacks in orlando and san bernardino, do they make you nervous? are you more concerned about terrorism? caller: i am not nervous. i was born during world war ii. i grew up in the middle of threats of bombs, cold war, everything, and i have lived 99% of my life right here in our most vulnerable state, a finger that sticks out in the middle of the ocean. no, i'm not worried. everybody needs to be alert and pay attention and do it with calm -- calmness. ost: up next, bob on our republican line from wisconsin. caller: good morning to you. i disagree with obama 100%. i'm a veteran. why we went there americans are forgetting. those people were being butchrd left and right. just like hitler, just like the japanese. host: what would you like to see the president do? caller: i am him to bomb the hell out of them. i want him to attack just like we did hitler. we need to go in there with our boots on the ground and do the job. this pussy footing around is wrong. and that lady who said she is not afraid, that's because we've been so blessed as a nation that we haven't been bombed by airplanes, we haven't been attacked by ground troops. terrorism is coming here a little at a time which is a good strategy on their part. get people confused, hurt, and when they start bombing us then i want to hear these democrats and all these other liberals say, oh, i guess i was wrong. no, ma'am, we need to go in there and kick putt, period, like we did hitler. and i pray that everybody, whovers the next president is -- which i pray is trump -- will go in and do the job and let the people live in peace. we didn't declare war on islam. they declared war on us. host: up next, nate from washington, d.c. on our ndependent line. are you there? ok. up next we have janice from new york city. good morning. caller: good morning. i would just like to make a comment. all of the republicans that are calling in i just twoont say something. if you all have children, others, fathers, little babies , and you are concerned, you had better be concerned about trump. because first of all i think he is a maniac. i think he has a bipolar problem. that's number one. and you don't want this man to get his hands on a nuclear code because he is going to destroy. this man is so temperamental. he has no control. and if you people are going to sit there and support this man and want him to blow up this country you're talking about isis, forget about isis. you had better be thinking about trump. host: let's take a look at a little bit more about what president obama said yesterday on the ground isis has lost in the middle east. >> two years ago isil was racing across iraq to baghdad and to many isil looked invincible. since then isil has lost at the m, tick rit, sin jar and ramadi and now fallujaha. . syria isil has lost isil has lost territory across vast stretches of the border with turkey and almost all major transit roots into racka. and in both iraq and syria isil has not been able to claim any significant territory that they have lost. so i want to repeat, isil has not had a major successful offensive operation in either syria or iraq in a few year. even isil's leaders know they're going to keep losing and their message to followers, they are increasingly acknowledging that they are going to lose them. and they are right. from p next manny colorado. are you confident in the u.s. strategy to combat isis as the president was laying out? caller: it's really kind of shaky how our strategy is right now. we created this. back in the day we created this mercenaries from the middle east, they splintered off. we created that. president obama has actually helped them along. if his $400 million was not a ransom why did he have it laundrd before it was delivered? $400 n't he just give million and let them launder it? instead he had it laundrd. we created this. his j.v. team became varsity. host: let me ask this. is this a major issue for you or your top issue when it comes to you who are choosing in the presidential race? caller: i haven't made a decision. 21 years of active duty for the u.s. army, proud, prideful, with honor, with distinction. in the end i get -- host: next gary calling in from virginia. are you satisfied with the u.s.-isis strategy? caller: absolutely. the this is the president that went and got osama bin laden. like when he took office, i had lost 3/5 of my networth. now that he is about to leave office, i've regained 4/5 of what i had lost. another thing about hillary clinton's e-mails. is she just used the regular thing we could have found everything out from snowden by now. host: what do you think about the isis strategy, fighting terrorism? do you think that things are going well in that subject? caller: yes. host: ok. next john from ohio. what do you think about the u.s.-isis strategy? are you confident? caller: i'm confident that we will never win that war. as a matter of fact, the leaders of this country haven't even realized yet that this is a religious war. war was not declared upon the united states by the leaders of another country but by the religious leaders of that region. and until we get the correct mindset how can we win a war against religion? ask -- we going to lost john. next tina from florida. are you confident in the u.s. strategy to combat isis? aller: i'm afraid not. host: why are you not? what makes you lack confidence? caller: because i see it as a very complacent. i think we're giving too much and we're not getting the correct defense strategy. i know that the president wants to play out a beautiful picture of all the wonderful things that he has accomplished in the big theater. but the problem is that they already have brought issues to us and they don't care if it's going to be in iraq or making our lives impossible and deadly when we go out to a movie, when we go shopping. for the lady that said she is not afraid, i wonder if something would happen near her if she would not be afraid any more. host: let me ask you this. most of the president and other leaders military leaders have said it's difficult to guard against the sort of lone attacks that we've seen in places like san bernardino. do you think that there's anything that can be done? to fight that. is it even possible to fight that if somebody is a lone wolf? host: it started, it created by us by removing whether the fight in iraq was good or not we should have never removed the forces. just because a bad decision is made somewhere doesn't mean that the next manager of the company is not going to have to do risk management. i think mr. balm has been a good -- obama in some areas. he was too worried and concerned atthe peace and dn't attack by removing from afghanistan, and iraq, left the open vast area for isis to grow. isis is very astute. they're not going to tell us what they're doing. they want to come to america and hurt us because they don't like our way of life. now, again, the $400 million at they said did not know if it is possible that they're going to get their hands on. once they get their hands on we're going to see a surge again. but they are here. they will keep coming. i'm an independent. i'm not too happy at all with either party. i think they both lack a lot of integrity. host: in an opinion piece on fox news.com, matt said blame barack obama not donald trump for the rise of isis, putting the blame on the president. edward from texas on our democratic line. do you agree with that assessment? caller: well, i agree with obama is taking his time rounding up what these crazy people are doing over there and people think that it's just like you're going to rush in there and just end this whole thing. these people are just like everybody else and can blend into the crowd. so you can do all you want and they're still going to be all around, just salt and pepper. host: do you think that there's any way particularly with these bone wolf or small scale attacks, any way to prevent that from happening? caller: i think that's here to , y until somehow or another if it's cool to keep doing they'll keep doing it. if they're in a bad way mentally they can trick them in and they think if they're going to die special things would happen. really bad part is how much money we can spend every year keeping ourselves safe from religion. they always talk about how great it is but look how terrible it is. we're getting a lot worse than we are getting good when it comes to religious stuff between the christians and muslims, those two have the longstanding fight and bringing it over here. we're going over there and kicking up the dirt. but overall, in the end if we can find a way to govern religion somehow. i know it sounds weird but how could we just calm these people down and say get with the good part of your book and quit staying in the bad part. it don't make any sense. host: let's take a look at what hillary clinton said recently laying out her strategy on how to fight isis. >> over the past year i've laid out my plans for defeating isis. we need to take out their strongholds by intensifying and keeping up our support. we need to keep pursuing diplomacy to end civil war and close iraq sectarian divide because those conflicts are keeping isis alive. we need to lash up with our allies and ensure our intelligence services are working hand in hand to dismantle the global network that supplies money, arms, propaganda and fighters to the terrorists. and we need to win the battle n cyber space. we need to strengthen our defenses here at home. that is my plan for defeating isis. what's trump? well, he won't say. he's literally keeping it a secret. the secret of course is he has no idea what he would do to stop isis. >> host: that was hillary clinton being critical of donald trump toward the end of those comments there. last night he was on twitter responding to the president's ress conference. caller: president obama did a great job. the first thing that he did -- i cannot hear you. host: go ahead. we can hear you. caller: obama did a great job. e avoid america being involved in a war. in the region. en also, what he did, he brought america, from being involved. he made them fight the fight. he made them have a conscience in their environment. host: so what about the fact that we've seen so many attacks particularly this year in places like nice, france? does the increase in attacks make you concerned that maybe the strategy isn't working well enough? you. annot hear host: go ahead. caller: i'm inclined to think differently. they make a lot of nonsense for those people in the years back. you are going to find before things coming out against america, you're going to find some between them. because america is a great nation. -- the way they push it to a point. it's a place where if you've got a new idea, that's what i call new york city. imagine the capital of the world because many do. host: ok. up next, fayettville, north carolina on our independent line. are you confident in the u.s. strategy to fight isis? caller: no. host: what makes you lack confidence? if r: well, number one, you put everything on the air your strategy, you will be surprised at what they can do from overseas. now, i'm a veteran in the military. and i know for a fact -- because i worked as a contracter overseas -- what they can do with a lot of stuff that we can't do. we can only think to do it. we think they're not smart. they're much smarter than we are. if the u.s. would keep some of that stuff to yourself and stop putting plans on national television they can't come back after you. like i said, i did 21 years in the military and i know what they can do with a little bit. so if america would keep this stuff to themselves, stop publicizing the strategy. you put the strategy on the national television and stuff ike that, they already know. you set your own soldiers up to be killed. host: we have some other headlines to note today. up next dennis from south dakota in our republican line. are you confident in the u.s. strategy to fight isis? caller: no, i'm not. i just wonder what would happen if the western countries would just pull their troops out of the middle east altogether. i think it would be worth a try to see what would happen and shiites and imbs sunnis fight their own religious secular war. host: let me ask you what i asked another caller. would you be concerned. there are people who say the fact that americans pulled out of iraq is what caused the instability that led to the rise of isis. would you be concerned that might happen again? aller: i think what happened is we went in there in the first place. the bush administration would ot give the sunnis -- mall acki. and he disbanded the sunni army in iraq and that's what caused gap p or the so-called hat created this and all the young people's parents that got killed when these kids were five to ten years old. now they're in their 30s. they're going to get revenge or trying to get revenge on their parents' death. >> independent line, katherine. are you confident in the u.s.-isis strategy? aller: not really. exactly like the guy said before. let them fight their own. from to say something the italian news. there was a woman that was asking about the country, the way, what's going on. she said you know we all fight for democracy. we do want democracy. but what kind of democracy they want to promote when they go in and kill people? and i said look at this. right? this is something that nobody thinks about. because you are not promoting democracy by destroying cultures. it's exactly like she said. that's why i'm calling. they don't like people going there and destroying the country. so destruction is what's going on there, killing people. democracy doesn't mean that. and everybody knows democracy is democracy. so let them get their own freedom. fight for your own. so let them do it. no reason to go into their country and destroy them. ost: up next, dan from wisconsin. dan, what do you think about the u.s. strategy to combat isis? caller: i think the president's idea a joke to give a country that is promoting it money and nuclear power. and then recently gives them another $400 billion. it is a joke. host: what -- what would you like to see particularly with the fight against isis? what would you like to see happening that you don't see happening now? caller: well, the first thing we should do is take away their nuclear power. host: you're talking about iran. caller: yes. they should take that away for the simple fact that eventually they will use it against us. and we're too blind to see that. it's pretty obvious. and the second thing i want to say is black americans and mexican americans have to realize that they're being used as puppets. they are opening the borders and using black americans to get a vote. that's why they're opening the borders letting all these people in. and it's all for votes. and it was done in the past and it showed up that hillary clinton and obama lied about it about the scandal. host: ok. up next raffle from georgia on our democratic line. alph, are you confident in the u.s. strategy to combat isis? caller: not at all. because when we invaded iraq, that any type of bomb went off within a two-foot ball field we would get all of these people, men, women, adolescent, place those people in concentration camps and in prison and after waiting all of these people left these people remember what we did to their parents, what happened, they lost their family, because we brought this on ourselves until we pull out. host: what would you like to see the president do? how would you like to see him change courses? caller: well, i don't know. myself i'm not -- how to change the status. i don't know that much about war. i'm not privy to all that information. but what i would like to see is for us to somehow or another pull out and leave those people alone. i think we would do a lot better because we created this where we locked up family, children. they remember these what we did to their parents. host: next, robert from texas on our independent line. caller: i'm not confident. i have a couple of comments. one of them is i'm just an old former u.s. marine. hoachie men had a saying which has been translated many times over the years that kill as many as you can and they will eventually quit coming. if that is true today with these isis people, i believe that they think that if they kill enough of us that we will quit bothering them. i don't believe that they concern themselves with being part of an international law-abiding people through their religion. nd i last comment is on c-span s a -- we pay the taxes that allow c-span to operate and has truly become a left-leaning organization. you will show hillary clinton and her comments and you only show donald trump's tweets. i am not necessarily for donald trump and i'm not necessarily for hillary clinton. but the months have rolled by and i have watched c-span. they seem to be more left-leaning than in the middle. and all of us tax payers pay to be in the middle. host: coming up next, we will discuss the current state of the zika virus in the u.s. and abroad. julie will join us to discuss the efforts and the concern about athletes and visitors as the olympics begin in rio. later on, the atlantic's jonathan roush is here to discuss his recent cover piece, how american politics went insane in which he described this year's political campaign has been characaterized by dysfunction, strong voter distrust and the media establishment. we'll be right back. >> police and race relations. we'll show president obama at the memorial service for five police officers shot and killed in dallas. >> when the bullets started flying, the men and women of the dallas police did not flinch and they did not react recklessly. >> and south carolina senator tim scott giving a speech about his own interactions with police. >> the vast majority of times i was pulled over for nothing more than driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood or some other reason just as trivial. >> our program includes one family's story about an encounter with police in washington, d.c. followed by a panel with the city's police chief. >> most people get defensive if they feel you're being offensive. o being very respectful in encounters and requests if it's not a crisis, if it's not a dangerous situation, request, versus demand. those things change the dynamics a little bit. >> watch our issues spottedlight on police and race elations saturday. "washington journal" continues. host: wore back. jist a little -- we're back. just a little clarification. subscribers. we do our best to present the things that happen. yesterday president obama and presidential candidate clinton. that's why we had a video. joining us, the health and science correspondent from reuters from chicago where she will give us the latest updates on the zika virus here in the united states and the efforts to prepare for the olympics in rio. thank you for joining us. good morning. guest: good morning. host: we have here in the united states in florida 15 confirmed cases of zika. can you give us the latest update of where things stand there? guest: well, fortunately yesterday there was a press confor instance but no new cases. they have in that -- that's one mile square radius that they've isolated in miami-dade county, they have cleared out ten blocks which means they've gone door to door and tested people and have said we don't think zika is in any of these areas. so they're really going systemically to try to identify where the virus is. the biggest challenge is these mosquitos, zika is spread by mosquitos. it likes to live with humans. can survive and like a tiny cap-full of water something from a soda bottle or something. so it's really hard to eliminate breeding sites for this mosquito. in florida, i believe yesterday they started an aerial insectside spraying campaign to really try to get at these mosquitos so it's droplets from the air and it kills the adult mosquitos. they found that -- they set out mosquito traps and found a large proportion of those were dead. so they feel like they've made some progress there. host: as you reported in reuters about that aerial online spraying. the campaign will cover a ten-mile area that includes the one-square mile area just north of downtown miami that health officials have identified as the hub of zika transmission in the state officials said this week. we've been focusing on this one mile area. how likely is the virus to spread or is it really possible for officials to keep it within that one-mile radius? >> well, the limitation of this mosquito is kind of interesting. it can only fly 150 meters, which is why what they did is they expanded a radius around the area where they believe the mosquito is. but 1-mile square is bigger than 150 meters. they're trying to have a buffer zone. they know the infected mosquitos likely won't fly out but zika is a virus that many people don't know that they have it only one in five people actually have symptoms. so the problem and the challenge is that people who are infected with zika will visit that area, become infected, and they will travel and a mosquito will -- another mosquito will bite them and they will transport the virus to another area, they will infect the mosquito population and then you have another mini outbreak. and that's the concern. i think that's what they're working on trying to contain at the moment. host: ok. we are talking to july athe health and science correspondent at reuters, about the zika virus, where we have special lines for this discussion. those in the eastern and central time zones and those in the mountain and pacific areas. speaking of geographic regions right now we see it in florida. what are the regions if zika were to spread that this mosquito that carries the virus could live? guest: it's a tropical mosquito. so if you think like miami is the most likely place for it to arrive. but any area that has those -- lots of heat, tropical conditions. so you're talking about gulf coast states. areas of texas. it's actually these are in populations in the los angeles area. it's believed that these mosquitos are also along the east coast. here is another mosquito and this has a larger range. so far it hasn't been seen as u much in the population but this mosquito is believed to be competent of carrying the zika virus. it's also called the asian tiger mosquito, this ranges as far as the midwest. in some areas. but they really haven't seen zika in this mosquito so it's not so much of a concern. the biggest concern are the gulf states particularly, other areas in florida. and in los angeles i know and up the east coast a little bit. just the warmer parts. so southern east coast states are concerned as well. host: patrick from florida. good morning. caller: good morning. host: you're on with julie. caller: good morning. i actually had a question about containment of the zika virus here in central florida as well s north florida. from what i understand is that from the very first neighborhood that was tested -- they found over 13 people infected. and with that being said it sounds more of a pandemic than an epidemic at that. and it seems that for us to not fund the zika virus budget i don't understand why we wouldn't take this as serious as it really is. host: let's let julie respond to your concerns. guest: well, you're absolutely right. it is a -- considered a global health emergency. the world health organization declared zika a global health energy in february. but it's primarily because this virus has a particular -- is a particular threat to pregnant women. you always have to remember that this is why we're oncerned about zeek -- zika. it can cause the birth defect microseffly and a number of other related issues in the fetus of someone who has been infected during pregnancy. so this is really the major concern. but you mentioned concerns about containment, if they found it in this area. it's very likely that someone traveled to this neighborhood and they were infected with zika. a mosquito bit them and it became infectious and then started biting other people in this area. that's why they're containing it. that's why they're focusing on this area. it's possible someone will travel from this area to another area in florida where other people who have traveled will infect other mosquito populations in the area. and it's very important for people to pay attention, do you have symptoms of zika? but you also need to -- there's a role that people can play. you need to look in your own backyard. that's where this mosquito likes to live. dump out containers of water. do whatever you can to eliminate breeding sites. and if you are pregnant you need to be wearing insectside or insect repellant. and take the preprecaution that is the c.d.c. recommends. you also mentioned funding. that is a whole other issue. i think that zika has become politicized which is really unfortunate because there is a risk and the risk is to unborn babies. host: let's take a look at what president obama said about the spread of zika here in the united states. >> we are now seeing the first locally transmitted cases of the zika virus by mosquitos in the continental united states. this was predicted and predictable. so far we've seen 15 cases in the miami area. we're taking this extremely seriously. our c.d.c. experts are on the ground working shoulder to shoulder cdc experts are working shoulder to shoulder with florida health authorities. very aggressive effort underway to control mosquitoes there. we will keep working as one slow federal and local to the spread of the virus. expert do not expect to see widespread outbreaks of zika here that we have seen in brazil or puerto rico. that areof mosquitoes likely to carry easy cow are limited to certain regions of our country. we cannot be complacent. we expect to see more cases. symptoms are mild, many may never know they have it, we have seen the complications for pregnant women and their babies can be severe. i want to encourage every american to do what they can to stop zika by going to cdc. gop -- cdc.gov. fighting it costs money. research into new vaccines. we announced the first clinical trials. not only did the republican led congress not pass our requests, they worked to cut it. they left for summer recess without passing new funds to fight for zika. , the folks on the front lines, have been doing their best to make do by moving funds from other areas. the money we need to fight is rapidly running out. the situation is getting critical. that is the president speaking. today, the news of 15 locally acquired cases of zika was predicted and predictable. blame members of congress for not approving the administration's request for $1.9 billion to fight the mosquito-born virus. the president has called on congress and the congress in -- is in recess. how essential is this funding and what with this funding do? would go fornding research. -- zika has been around, it was first discovered in 1947. it has only presented itself as a threat recently. first in brazil and it has spread rapidly in countries in latin america and the caribbean and now it has arrived here in the united states. there has been very little because on this a virus it was only recently people made the connections between zika and microcephaly. otherwise, it is a mild illness compared to some of the other illnesses. there has not been much research at all. they had to start from scratch for developing a vaccine, for to telliagnostics, whether or not a person has been infected and they need to sort out because the virus is so , which to other viruses cause disease as well. they are carried by these mosquitoes. they have to have special tests to sort out which antibodies you were infected with and assess the threat in that way. there has been a lot of progress. they have diagnostics now. they continue to develop new ones. research has begun on vaccines. reached aid they have point they are running out of money. they borrowed asthma money as they can. if we are to develop these vaccines, we need money. it is a major issue. richard, malden, massachusetts. caller: good morning. when we have a crisis, it is always give me money, we need money. is,econd question [indiscernible] i never heard with the symptoms are. i hear we have symptoms and we need money. what are the symptoms? i don't hear that. thank you for taking my call. host: tell us about the symptoms. they are generally mild. people develop a rash, fever, body aches, you feel crummy. it lasts about a week. that is what zika is if you develop symptoms. there are some who develop a .are nerve disorder this can be very serious. it does not happen often. --n it does, it can affect cause a temporary paralysis. cases, people have to be on a respirator because they cannot breathe or work their lungs because their muscles are paralyzed. that is serious, but very rare. the biggest concern is the impact on an unborn child. right now, they are not sure when in the pregnant woman is at risk. research on do that. firstm infected in the trimester is my baby more likely to have a severe birth defect and if i am infected in the third trimester -- that is research that needs to go on. -- somed to understand people have estimated a child , whats microcephaly microcephaly is, the brain has stopped growing and the nerve cells that are developing in the fetus have been attacked and in some cases, the brain shrinks back. on how severe the injury is, it can cause stillbirth, but if it does survive, lots of issues. there is a deformity in the head. to swallowt be able properly, they may not be able to hear or see. , over ae estimates lifetime for a person with microcephaly, caring for a person cost over $10 million. that is a lot of money for one child. guest is joining us from chicago. she focuses on the latest medical breakthroughs as well as twists and turns of infectious diseases including bird flu, ebola, and it now zika. tim, broadway, north carolina. good morning. good morning. i heard you say zika was transmitted from mosquito to mosquito. initially i heard it was transferred mosquito to human and back from human to mosquito. which is correct? latter is correct. if i said mosquito to mosquito, i made a mistake. the mosquito will take blood and theynfected person will get the virus back in their salivary gland and pass it on to another human being. infected are the ones who are infecting the mosquito population. it is a cycle. infected by aome .uman being who have the virus the virus works its way through the mosquito's body and it can infect another person. it can last up to a month and does not bite just once. it can bite several times a day. it can cause a lot of damage. host: is it possible for people to transmit the virus person-to-person? scientists are studying this. there has been just one case of this occurring. hade was a man in utah who a very high load of zika. we are not sure what other medical conditions, this gentleman died as a result. we don't know if zika was the cause. he died infected with zika. someone caring for this person who had close contact also developed zika. this person has survived the infection. at thests are marveling things they don't know about this virus that they are still learning. host: arthur, huntington station, new york. you are on. caller: i would like to make a suggestion that they could use if they need the money, use the money from the clinton foundation for the control of the zika virus to cure the vaccine. can you talk about where other sources of funding can come from? can it come from foundations and other places decide the federal government? guest: foundations can contribute to research. the funds are limited. the amount of money it would take to do some of these research projects, i don't know that it would be able to come from private funds. private funds are contributing to this effort. up next, gulfport, mississippi. good morning. caller: good morning. this country is going to have to do better as a whole. these things are unpreventable. inse creatures, they live the same world we live in. we have to do better as a whole country. i love when the president gets blamed for everything. whatever happens, it is president obama's fall. we have to stop looking at it is one individual's for all. .t is not one individual we have to work together. what about hiv? it has been around for years and .ears and years and years it is getting better. we are not there yet. if something had been done about it before a time -- it would not have gotten out of hand. now, we has zika here. let's do better. host: let's let julie respond. guest: it is interesting you mentioned hiv. monkey,lso found in a it was a brand-new virus. people did not know what they were dealing with. there was a lot of research that had to go on. same is true of zika. zika is an underappreciated fire us. because it -- and underappreciated virus. because it can cause these defects. i have been talking to a lot of people who kill mosquitoes for a living. they are saying there is a limit to what we can do with chemicals. people want to have an insecticide that takes care of all of the problems, that this is a mosquito that lives in your backyard. and youave flowerpots have reservoirs of water underneath your flowerpots, dump them out. look in your yard, are there tires? paddling pools, whatever it is. you can contribute to eliminating the breeding grounds for this mosquito in europe and backyard. experts are saying we cannot do this alone. we need partnership with people. i agree. we need to do better and we need to do it together. host: we are talking to julie. have regional lines for our viewers for this segment. eastern and central can call (202) 748-8000. those in mountain pacific can call (202) 748-8001. julie, there have been some clinical trials underway according to the national institutes of health. they announced the launch of a clinical trial of experimental vaccine. it is the second such study to begin this summer. novio pharmaceuticals provided the first dose of the 26.ine back in july is it possible to provide a that to prevent spread of zika further? not this year. not this mosquito season. zika is not going to travel far this year. will be able to contain and and it will not become a regular thing, like west nile. a couple of years of testing before a vaccine can be proven to be safe and effective. right now, they just started human trials. they have good candidate vaccines. they believe they will work. humanse trying them in to see if it will prevent infection with the virus. take two years, maybe three. from the start of the whole .rocess, it will be a while experts are saying, what we need to do now is get rid of those mosquitoes and do pest control. a lot of the districts fighting zika don't have the budgets for it. are fought and funded by local community dollars, typically states don't -- there are some states that don't find any zika at all. it is very local and comes out countysting district or budget. some places don't even have effective control programs. this is where the attack and needs to be a while before we have an effective vaccine. host: we have gene calling in from new orleans. good morning. ask -- i wanted to mosquitohe zika transfers it's a virus to humans. i know mosquitoes eat mosquitoes. why is it not possible for mosquitoes to eat and infected contract the and virus that way, passing it on to humans? from the scientists i have talked to, that is not the way it happens. mosquitoes need a blood meal to propagate. do thehe females that biting. what they are doing is getting the proteins they need to make more mosquitoes. that is going on, when they take a blood meal. it will only feed on humans. there are other mosquitoes that carry west nile, like this asian mosquito. will happily bite your dog instead of you. it is not so picky. host: let's talk about the regions where we might find these mosquitoes. you said they tend to be -- it is a tropical mosquito, so they tend to be in the lower parts of this southern part of the country. should northern states also be taking measures and be concerned about this? i grew up in the midwest. there are mosquitoes there. mosquitoese are everywhere, but you have to have this particular type of marcio -- particular type of mosquito. the mosquitoes make it very uncomfortable for you to be outside. they are not going to give you the virus. the concern is addressing issues with travelers. the interesting thing about zika is not only is it transmitted by mosquitoes, but an infected person can pass this virus sexually to their partners. that is a concern everywhere. trying to get pregnant and your partner becomes infected and all of a sudden, you are a pregnant woman and you have zika. that is a concerning thing. that is a risk in any of the states. the: speaking of the ways virus is transmitted, it says bug spray there are companies who are capitalizing on the zika virus. marketers know this is a time to pounce. summer olympics are getting ready to start. 14 cases of zika were identified in the miami area. it is 15 now. and entrepreneurs are capitalizing on fears were ever mosquitoes buzz. they are promoting all manner of mosquito repellents. the piece goes on to say everything from wristbands to anti-zika condoms. how can people know the products they should be seeking out and what might be trying to capitalize on this? you have to be careful where you get your information. , in an not going to see advertisement, you will not likely get medical information about zika virus. the best place to go is www. cdc.gov and search for zika. have an exhaustive resource there how to prevent infections if you are traveling. if you have recently traveled, instructions for what to do. if you have become infected, how long you need to use repellent. you are right. this looks like a business opportunity when there is fear in the community. it looks like some cap -- some companies have capitalized. a vector control expert in florida was saying it is not just people spending their money , but it creates a false sense of security. you hire a company to spray mosquitoes and you notice you are not getting bit by mosquitoes so much. the mosquitoes they have sprayed and killed are not the ones that carry zika. you come back and sit on your porch and you have a nice cool glass of something and flying around your ankles are the mosquitoes that have the virus and you have been bitten. you have to be careful and pay attention to the sources of information you get. you have questions, go to the cdc's website. host: steve, you're on. caller: hello. good morning. thank you for taking my call. is, the transmission .rocess of these mosquitoes back in high school and in college, i learned about the process. transmit hivn't and aids. how is it zika is transmitted through mosquitoes. ? guest: different diseases have different vectors. that is just whatever carries the virus. in the case -- there are several diseases mosquitoes carry and can spread. we know of them. -- is another widespread virus. there is yellow fever spread by mosquitoes. we are all familiar with west nile virus. it is also something spread by mosquitoes. depends on what the vector is. in the case of hiv, unfortunately, humans became the vector. humans pass the virus to other humans and there is not an intermediary that care. with zika, mosquitoes are the .ector they carry the virus, infect , other mosquitoes bite the infected humans, re-infect the humans and that is how the cycle works. host: rhonda, vienna, virginia. is there a public health campaign at all given the lack of funding, you mentioned two conflicting information. first you said -- as effective and then you applied -- amp i'd spring not effective. we know the vector is resistant to deet. what are they spraying? thet actually killing mosquitoes? number two, what point can the government say you are pregnant, you should not be traveling to ?ountries that have zika that is going to cost us $10 million a pop every time one of those kids is born. people need to take responsibility. you are pregnant, you should not be going. with thewill start insecticides that are affected. all, one mosquito has toeloped some resistance insecticides in the class called pirate threatens -- in pi rithrens. they have not won the battle yet. we will see. they are considering using -- they want to kill and prevent new mosquitoes from developing in that area. this is a difficult mosquito. the best and most effective products, it has breeding sites. it can hide out in tiny locations you might not be able to find or get the insecticide to where it is. that is why people say it takes a partnership. the communitye in need to address the breeding sites. as for telling women not to travel, i have talked to pregnant women and the doctors who care for them. people are very concerned. we cannot say you are prohibited from traveling or we won't take care of your baby, but a lot of people are looking for ways to make sure they take every precaution possible and the more information they have before they travel, the better they can do that. james, prince george, virginia. hello. thank you for c-span. i have two questions. the different vectors. we have bloodsucking vectors, fliesleas and ticks and and not -- and gnats. can those vectors actually bite --ething and transmit those the virus from one person to another? aresecond thing is, how animals, the chicken, pig, towels? zika?ey affected with if our pregnant infected going to be by different viruses by what they eat. you are right. there are all kinds of lighting insects. many of them carry disease. zika is particular. mosquitoes,hrough scientists are studying other kinds of mosquitoes to make sure that it cannot also be spread through other mosquito and so far, the more common mosquito has not found to be competent to reproduce the virus and spread it. because theimals, mosquito only takes blood meals, they are not biting farm animals. they are biting people. that is the major concern. host: what about pets? guest: no. the mosquito will not bite your pets. it will bite you. host: james, montgomery village, maryland. if this is considered an international problem, why is the u.s. not using international funds? thank you. the who has to get its funding from countries. they do not have a lot of money to throw at a problem. they also had challenges raising money to address some of the work that needs to be done on zika. with zika, the united states, we have it here. we need to fight our own problem here. the united states has been active in researching zika and helping out with studies in brazil and colombia and elsewhere. host: you are on with julie. caller: i have just a few comments. number one, how many thousands of people are in that one square mile area trying to kill off this mosquito, for god's sakes? i think we're bigger than a square mile in the united states. the second point is this. anybody with half a brain knows that we have a preventative called ddt that for some ungodly reason was banned in the united states and then we used our political and financial status to ban it worldwide. how many people have -- how many millions of people in this country have to die before we say oh ddt. why don't we use it. guest: well, i think with any public health crisis you have that the the risks, infection poses and weigh it against the risks of using an insect side that can also be toxic and cause problems to a wide population. so in the united states we have other chemicals that the e.p.a. has deemed safer than ddt so we don't use it. here, you have to work with whatever is labeled and registered as safe for use in public health and those are the weapons we have to fight this zika virus at the moment. >> julie, health and science correspondent from reuters thanks for joining us today. guest: thank you. host: coming up next we will be talking to jonathan roush about his cover story in the atlantic . he will be discussing that piece which is called how american politics went insign. stay tuned. >> government abuse is largely one sided. when i started this i care about free speech and the first amendment. i'm a bit libertarian when it comes to this. i have no allegiance to one party or the other. i had written a lot about the abuses from the left but i assumed going in that i was going to find a whole bunch of stuff on the right, too. i didn't. >> live with author and legal analyst jeffery tuben. take your calls texts and e-mails. he will be discussing his latest book american heiress the wild saga of the kid napping times of patty hertz. also the author of the oath. and too close to call. a vast conspiracy. the run of his life. and opening arguments. join in the conversation with your phone calls and tweets beginning at noon eastern. then the impact a hillary clinton presidency would have on america in his book, hillary's america, the secret history of the democratic party. booktv.org for the complete weekend schedule. >> "washington journal" continues. host: joining us now jonathan the contributing editor at the atlantic as well as the senior fellow at the brookings institution here to talk about his piece, the cover piece in the atlantic entitled how american politics went insane. good morning. thank you for joining us. guest: thanks so much for having me. host: so american politics going insane. what do you mean by insane? guest: we basically spent so many years attacking the political establishment and stripping away the tools that it needs to organize politics that we're seeing politics in a state of chaos and meltdown. one major party couldn't really even choose a nominee who was in fact a member of that party. we're seeing congress, it's almost incapable of doing basic things like keeping the government open. and i'm arguing all this is related. it goes back to stripping away the tools that politicians and leaders need in order to get their jobs done stuff like vetting candidates and rewarding people loyal and getting builds passed. stuff like that. host: where did this insanity, as you put it, start? did it start here in washington? did it start on the campaign trail? what's the origin of this? guest: i traced it back actually to 40 or 50 years ago when a lot of well-intentioned reformers, me included, thought politics is too sleezey. there's too much horse trading and bathroom deals. and people should be able to choose nominees directly. so we have decade after decade of reforms, which reduced the power of parties and professionals, pac, political machines smoke-filled rooms to make decisions, deals, horse trades. give me a vote on the debt limit bill so we can keep that from failing and i give you a runway for that airport in your district. and then we turn around and you strip away enough of the stuff that politicians need to do their job and they can't do their job. and here we are. host: so you argue in this piece that the political class is a good thing. guest: it's a good thing. and a necessary thing. host: talk about what is the political class and why is it such a good thing? guest: political class are intermediaries, people in the business of politics. and they're different from most of us because unlike an activist or a protester or a purist reformer, they have to be there year after year. they have to worry about not just protesting but winning this election, winning the one after, making sure the brand of the party remains strong. they have to recruit people to run for office. they have to vet them make sure they're ok. then they've got to do the daily business of keeping the government open, counting the votes. so we need these people, and we need them to be a healthy group. host: we are talking to jonathan roush of the atlantic about his piece about how american politics went insane. our callers can join us. the numbers are on your screen. you write, what did you mean? guest: i started thinking about this problem way back in 2013. do you remember speaker john boehner, paul ryan's predecessor? he went on the leno show. the u.s. government shut down even though republicans didn't want it to shut down and democrats didn't want it to shut down. they coop keep it open because the republican party in congress couldn't even keep itself organized itself to organize a small faction within itself. so there's boehner. and leno asked him why the government shut down when boehner didn't want it to. and he said a leader without followers is just a man taking a walk. so that's the position that he and paul ryan are in now. they have very little ability to influence their own members with all these people directly elected, they're individual entrepreneurs and we've taken away so many of the tools that they use, like pork barrel spending, for example, and secret negotiations. so they're left with very little ability to organize and lead. host: it seems especially in the presidential election as we've seen it played out there's this big appetite for outsiders. there's a distaste for the political establishment. is that part of what -- guest: yeah. it's a vicious sigele, so as the establishment gets weaker and even simple things like farm bills through congress, the public gets angier. they vote for outsiders. more independent, less governable, more willing to challenge the leadership. your ship gets even weaker the cycle continues. host: ok. how american politics went insane. on the line laura from pennsylvania. you're on. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to agree with you about the insanity part. but a lot of it is issue by issue and a lot of people would say the debt is insane. you can't even comprehend what we owe in interest every day and it continues to pile up. and how will we ever get it paid off. but the biggest thing for me is i just heard that hillary and her running mate mr. cain, who is a catholic, is going to overturn the hide amendment and they've already said they're going to do it. and that was the amendment that prevented taxpayer dollars to be used to kill unborn babies and abortion. i can't believe that we're not talking about it. we hear all these other issues. but to me, rush limbaugh, shawn hannity especially because he is catholic, should be having these topics up front and center. these are the positions of the candidates. this is what they're going to be doing on this issue and this especially abortion. i have a charity called save life where i pay women not to abort. we've saved 80 babies by offering them help. so why would i want my tax dollars used to have mothers kill their unborn babies? host: let's let him answer. guest: i want to try to focus you on a slightly different issue because abortion is important. but the question now isn't whether congress can do what you want it to do which might be pro choice or pro life. it's can congress do anything? and can it even keep the government open, for example? can it pass a debt limit bill and not default on the national debt? these things were once routine, taken for granted. passing authorizing bills. it can't even do that any more. i don't think you've got to worry about a democratic president and congress if it's a republican congress repealing the hide amendment because with a republican congress it wont happen. i agree with you it's important we should be talking about it. it's in the platform. i don't think president clinton will do it because she's elected because there's lots of things in platforms that presidents don't do. with that said, let's all try to step back a minute and focus on the capacity of the system just to do its basic job, whatever you think that job ought to be. host: next, lydia from illinois on our independent line. caller: thank you. sadly, we had a lot of history these us exactly why things happen. i want to reference two studies. one a study of history. the abbridgement. president obama. because one of the reasons we have this breakdown is because nuth gingrich, our current leader, was also part of the process that set in place the current time of troubles, the crises that we now are experiencing when he helped orchestrate the obstruction that took place and that was orchestrated when president obama was being inaugurated. the other example is lord of the flies. lord of the flies is a very important study of how these things happen. they happen internally. with the young boys who came to an island totally civilized and t the very end it devolved and became bar barrens. and unless we refer to past studies on these situations and we address crises and move into e field of challenge and cooperation, we will also demonstrate that like these other civilizations that chose to fail, we will have that situation happen to us. guest: there are a couple interesting thoughts there. i agree with you actually that newt gingrich played a seminal role, a very pivotal role in the kind of breakdown i'm talking about. when he became speaker of the house in the 90s he decided to consolidate and centralize power in the house of representatives. and in the process of doing that, he began a process of dismantling a lot of the traditional seniority systems. well, that system it turned out was very good at vetting people, discovering whether they were loyal, putting experienced team players in the house and getting lots of committees and congressional middle management involved in decisionmaking. you had a lot more people involved. they had their fingerprints on legislation. they were participating. a lot of that machine has been abandoned or weakened by the tendency to move power up to the very top in congress, which gingrich started, and down to the very bottom. every individual doing whatever he or she wants. and that i think is what we have to reverse. lord of the flies is a novel, it's not a study. it's basically about the internal darkness of human beings and the fragility of civilization. it has a message tor if conservatives. never tarke your government for granted. when politics doesn't work, war and chaos is what happens. and although we are not at the brink of war in the u.s., we are at the brink of chaos politically. host: let's talk about how this is playing out on the campaign trail right now in this presidential year. in today's washington times talking about the unfavorability ratings that both secretary clinton and donald trump have that is forcing candidates to turn on each other, according to analysts. is this fueling the insanity that you're talking about? guest: well, i suppose. it's kind of my view i'm not a political professional but in my view it's a shame that secretary clinton hasn't done a better job of articulating what she's for. she's had a very long career in public service. she's done a whole lot. by this point in the campaign she should have given people a better reason to vote for her. and so, yeah, that's a problem. but it's not the problem. when you're running against a guy like donald trumple who at least in my view your republican callers will disagree but in my view he shouldn't be within 100 miles of a nuclear code. it is impossible to run a campaign when you don't point that out. and when you're dealing with trump he's incapable of running any kind of campaign that's not going to go after people. so i think people are kind of disgusted by that. host: up next, ben from indiana. you are on. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. i just wanted to comment on hillary clinton's lack of . ticulation ost: up next, we have dan from montana. you are on. caller: good morning. i wanted to kind of reiterate feelings from years back. political feelings. and that is that we kind of prayed for gridlock. we hoped for it. we hoped that agendas would be kind of normally neutralized and ended that we didn't care for that we thought were extremist. i started to feel that way in the 1990s. that gridlock helped to stop presidential agendas that i felt were off base. by the time we got into the obama administration all i saw ming along really is a marxist with a heavy socialist agenda. that's when i started to see we really need to stop this guy. we need to stop these things. because they're way out from the normal. host: let's let jonathan respond to that. guest: the founders intended for the system to be slow and hard to move. they were very worried about populism and passions driving policy all over the place in crazy directions which was what was going on in the states before the constitution was adopted. but keeping the government open, for example, or being able to pass budgets from year to year, that is like not radical reform. whether you're left wing or right wing, that's the bread and butter of government. and when organizations and politics and on capitol hill is broken down to the extent that you can't even get that stuff done without a whole lot of friction and back and forth, then you've got a different kind of problem. it's not a problem of socialism or right wing radicalism or any of those izzms. it's a problem about can yeah just get yourself organized enough to run a government. host: we were talking a little bit about the outsider sentiment from some voters that have pushed the candacies of donald trump and bernie sanders, for example. in your piece in the atlantic you write that insurgencies in presidential races and on capitol hill are nothing new and they're not necessarily bad as long as the governing process can accommodate them. what do you mean by that? guest: we've had insurgent candidates who beat the parties in their own game. 1964, goldwater, 1972 mcgovern. we've had insurgents on capitol hill like senator jesse helms who was ted cruz long before ted cruz came along. but the difference is that those insirges brought those new passions, those ideas, those voices into politics without bringing paralysis and dysfunction with them. the system was able to absorb those ideas because you had enough infrastructure of professionals and people would say, ok, how can we adopt elements of these agendas that make sense for us and move forward? when you don't have that level of organization, then insurgencies just become disruptive and you wind up not being able to pass the bill. you end up with a republican nominee who is not a republican. you end up with a second place for the democratic nomination whose not a democrat. that's unheard of. host: up next, bill from florida on our independent line. aller: good morning. thank you for being there. i was just going to bring up one thing that i noticed over the years, and maybe tell me where you think this might lead. you're talking about dysfunction in washington where i still believe if we were to maybe -- i'll just throw this out they're just doing way too much. and i know that we put people in place. you can call it lobbying, whatever it is, where people's for tunes that are tied to industry and need things passed by washington has really taken over. but i would think a big part of this solution would be to move more and more responsibility back to the states. i know that's the classical conservative view. but i think that would alleviate a lot of problems within congress, where they could just concentrate more in a area that would be more of national scope as opposed to thing that is could be handled more at the state level. as far as donald trump having his fingers on the keys of the nuclear weapon, i would just tend to think that it's more along my opinion that i think a trump administration would be more in tune with the congress in the way of probably upholding the constitution and doing things that would be more on a constitutional basis. host: that's a lot to unpack. guest: first, i don't think donald trump knows what's in the constitution. he clearly doesn't know how many articles are in it. if you ask him what article one is about he would have no idea. he would probably say i'll hire people who know about that. so i would have to disagree with anybody who sees him as a constitutional scholar. i think he behaved -- if the campaign is any indication at all he would behave wildly unpredictably in the most important office in the world. your other point though i agree with. i'm a long stappeding advocate of devolution to the states. there's a lot of them so they can trive different things. they can experiment and compete. but you can't do that without changing laws. and the problem is it doesn't matter what your agenda is it's probably not going anywhere. and also remember, i told this to my libertarian friends. what's wrong with gridlock? when congress does stuff and makes government bigger. the answer is nowadays when government doesn't do stuff it makes government bigger. but in a completely mindless bloated fashion. what government does now is automatic spending. if we're going to get our fiscal how in order if you would to shrink government to make it work better or reduce scope, you need to pass laws. you need a functional congress. host: in your piece you write about some of the outsigh groups influencing what's happening. what did you mean by that? guest: one of the ideas that we've been pursuing for the last 40 or 50 years is to get money out of politics. the idea would be that money was tainted. it would make it less corrupt, work better reflect the people's will. it turns out that money is mother's milk in politics. in the old days money was to a large extent, not exclusively, it was raised and spent by parties and they used it to oil the machine of government. if you voted with me on a difficult bill i would make sure and drop some money on your campaign. that still goes on, but as a result of clamping down on the money that can go inside the system, gobs more money are going outside the system to completely unaccountable actors. in fact we don't even know who they are in many cases because they can hide their identities. so that has a few bad effects. one is it weakens people in government who are trying to get stuff done. host: jonathan, the contributing editor at atlantic and senior fellow at the brookings institution. also, the author of six books and recipient of the 2005 national magazine award, the equivalent to a pulitzer prize. up next, claire from nevada on our democratic line. caller: good morning. i just want to go back a little bit to the lady with all them, the republican lady. i am very worried about the republicans coming in and overturning laws like row v. wade. i've been angry for a long time. i raised four children, worked two jobs for 20 years raising those kids. my pet peeve is they don't believe in abortion, they don't want abortion, they call it baby killers. but when i turn the television on and see children in different cities in our country rocks and ool with lead and yet in beverly hills they go to school in beautiful places. and i just can't understand how when i ask these people about the baby killing issue, i ask them how many children they're feeding. host: ok. guest: i don't think we're going to solve the abortion problem here today. it's a very contentious issue. if i could just get people to focus a little bit more though on problems that we can do something about, which is reducing some of the imbalances and changes that have made it so difficult for parties and political leaders to function, then i think callers who are worried about this kind of issue might be able to get somewhere with it. host: next, martin from wisconsin on our republican line. caller: good morning. i think we all can agree that congress, especially the last seven years, has been polarizing and divided and hasn't done too much. in my opinion, you've done a nice job of explaining some of the republican problems on this. i would like to hear your comments on harry reid, who i think has been a major road bloc for anything to happen in this country. guest: thank you. we've seen a bunch more polarization in congress. if you ask the current majority leader, senator mitch mcconnell, he will tell you that the senate his view is that the senate has been substantially more productive and more open to amendments and more open to regular order since the republicans took over. and part of what's interesting is going on there -- i'm not enough of an expert on congress to know specifically which leader did more filling of the amendment tree and that kind of thing. both parties have had a strategy of blocking the other party whenever they possibly could. that's natural in politics. that's what opposition parties have always tried to do since at least the time of henry clay. but what's interesting right now about the senate i think is that the majority leader mcconnell is working very hard and it looked like pretty effectively to sort of begin to rally the forces of a political establishment to be able to defend itself. n 2014, the mcconnell -- the republicans did not lose a single republican incumbent to an outside challenger. and it looks like they will repeat that in 2016. that's senator mcconnell organizing forces to say, look, if you're on my team. if you vote with me i'll protect you. that's how politics works when it works. so it's interesting to watch. it's not a hopeless situation. there are these horses trying to reassert themselves and having some success. host: let's talk more about the effect of the rhetoric on the presidential campaign trail. let's take a look at what republican nominee donald trump said on a bill o'reilly about president obama and as well as hillary clinton. >> i think he's one of the worst presidents, maybe the worst, that we've ever had in the history of our country. i think that hillary clinton maybe has the potential to be even worse. she will be terrible. look at the lie. look at the lies. look at the lie over the weekend that she told about the f.b.i. directer. i mean, such a lie. i was listening to it and i said how can anybody even say that after what was said about her. so i think she has the potential to be even worse. host: how do you see this sort of messaging coming from the republican nominee as affecting both the election season as well as the overall sense of decorium in american politics right now? guest: well, it's -- in a way, it's kind of the wrong question . that's kind of the horse race question, how does this affect decorium. we're so far beyond decorium with donald trump. we're talking about someone who appears to be an unbalanced sociopath, incapable of regulating his mouth, incapable of telling the truth or being consistent from one moment to the next. this is no longer just a problem with decorium, this is a problem with is the united states considering entrusting the most powerful office in the history of the world to a guy who seems to be unbalanced. host: up next, joe fro on our democrat yig line. caller: good morning. first, i would like to make reference to an article i read in the "washington post". about three years ago, actually. i believe the author is mitch miller. the title of the article was, it's the filibuster, stupid. and he does a very good history i thought of is the history of the filibuster and in particular pointing out how the republicans especially now during the obama administration has -- he makes -- abuse the filibuster, i think that's fair to say. and i support a nonpartisan group called common cause. you may have -- i'm sure you've heard of it. they're actually in the process of trying to sue the senate, claiming that the filibuster is actually unconstitutional. now, the grounds for that real quickly are the constitution does not mention the word filibuster and it in fact says the only time you need a super majority to vote anything is like for declaring war or reaty et cetera. i would hope that attention could be brought to this, maybe c-span could interview senator you'd al or the retired senator tom harkin. host: let's let jonathan respond. guest: so filibuster's controversial. it's been used much more often in recent years than it has in the past and it basically does impose a 60-vote super majority rule in the senate and that does slow everything down. i'm agnostic on whether the filibuster is a big part of the problem or part of the solution. there's some people who would say it slows things in a productive way. my view is try to look at what's going on underneath the filibuster which is a political problem, which is that the kind of deal making and horse trading -- which is already more difficult because of polarization -- gets even harder when you don't have the tools any more to try to attract that extra vote. whatever the majority level is, whether the threshhold is 51 or 60, it's going to be hard to get over if you don't have the tools to bring people on to your side. host: next, arkansas on our independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you. i'm curious and forgive me if someone's already asked, to get the speaker's thoughts on the media's complacency and role in , as the topic said, american politics going insane, especially with this regard for the insessnt need for balance over evidence. guest: a lot of people asking hard questions. i was on the phone with another journalist. has donald trump changed the rules? has he lied so consistently and so frequently and so shamelessly that the media are just -- can't keep up? is it time to stop pretending that he is not in fact lying and we use you'venism. we say four pin oak yos. stuff like that. so there's a lot of soul searching going on in the media about this kind of asymmetric warfare that trump is using. it's a very, very hard question. tradition yalists, the way i was brought up in the media you do your absolute best to be fair to all sides of the question and you keep yourself out of it. you don't pass judgment. you let readers decide. well, people are kind of wondering is that playing into the hands of a dema gog who will say absolutely anything. and that's an ongoing debate right now. host: it's not just the media talking about candidates. trump, president obama made statements that seem pretty unprecedented for a sitting president to say about a candidate. let's take a look. >> there have been republican presidents with whom i disagreed with. but i didn't have a doubt that they could function as president. i think i was right in mitt romney and john mccain were wrong on certain policy issues but i never thought that they couldn't do the job. and had they won, i would have been disappointed but i would have said to all americans they are -- this is our president and i know they're going to abide by certain norms and common sense. we'll observe basic decency. well, have enough knowledge about economic policy and foreign policy and our constitutional traditions and government that our will work and then we'll compete four years from now to try to win an election. but that's not the situation here. and that's not just my opinion. that is the opinion of many prominent republicans. there has to come a point in which you say enough. host: and in addition to that, hillary clinton said in a tweet a similar sentiment saying donald trump is unfit to be president and commander in chief. now, for hillary clinton she is donald trump's opponent so it's not unusual to see that happen between opponents t. but for a president to speak that much at the white house with another foreign leader by his side about the presidential race, talk a little bit about that and does that add to this insanity that you write about in your cover piece? guest: it's an unprecedented thing in an unprecedented situation. we had a system which for many, many years was good at screening out what i call political sociopaths. a political sociopath is not a crazy person. it's a politician who doesn't care what other politicians think of them and don't need to care. they can do whatever they want because maybe they're independently wealthy or maybe they survive with -- they need very little money or very little help. they come from completely outside the system, no loyalty, no roots. well, those people in politics are loose canons. they turn to turn renegade. if they are elected they can't really govern because they don't owe anybody anything, no one owes them anything. one of the things american politics has done well for 200 years is screen those people out. well, 1e6 was the first year when the system began screening them in. of the final -- the big four at the end 069 nomination process -- clinton, sanders, cruz, and trump -- three i would argue are political sociopaths in the sense that they're outsiders who owe -- don't owe anything to anyone and campaign against the system in which they're running. trump is in some ways the most extreme in terms of his personal unsuitability for office. but three out of the four are people who are running against the system they're trying to govern. this is new. this is worrisome. and this is what we have got to start thinking about. host: up next, joe from iowa on our republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. it's beautiful here in iowa. beautiful sunny day. i just want to say term limits. this is probably the only thing that will correct the situation that we have today. there needs to be limits even -- any political office, should not be more than four years. we have so many intelligent people in america. we need to keep it rotating, keep it fresh, and that's what i think should happen. any employer would want to have a new employee that would have more skills and if the other employee doesn't want to work, doesn't want to cooperate, then they need to be replaced. and people can do that every four years. host: let's get you to comment on that. guest: i take the opposite view. part of my burden in writing about political chaos is trying to push back against the overwhelming sentiment of a lot of people, which is politics is better when it's run by amateurs because they're going to be less corrupt or whatever. well, why would someone imagine that politics is the only profession in the world where experience and knowledge don't mattered? what you do with term limits is get rid of people who have a long-term view and have to worry about getting elected year after year. so if i pass the budget this year what are its effects five years, ten years from now. they have to worry about that. you replace those with people horizon, rt-term time vote and move on to the next office, you empower staff members and lobbyists who are there and do know the ropes. so while the term limited members of congress are still trying to figure out where the bathroom is the lobbyists are writing the bills. so no i don't think this is part of the -- i don't think term limits are part of the solution. i think the mentality behind them, that amateurs should run politics is what got us into this mess. host: but is the seniority system working? doesn't that provide too much centralized power? guest: the seniority system as we know it has been gone now. committee chairman are appointed on whether they toe the line of leadership and raise money. it used to be if you sat there for a long time, if you worked your way up through the committee system, you were pretty much guaranteed a senate chair. that's gone. one result is that it's in fact harder for people to be expecting to be promoted if they're loyal. that's another form of disorganization. host: next katherine on our democratic line. caller: good morning. i would say that you're a breath of fresh air. you have -- you are saying what most sane americans whole heartedly believe. that in government you have to have civility. when president obama was elected and the republican party chose to say like they did, we're going to make you a one-term president, a former vice president refused to stand at his inauguration, and at his first speech he made in congress a republican man from south carolina stood up sand yelled you lied. when none of those people were rebuked or censored in any way y their party, it is a snowball effect. there is great resentment and hatred now for both parties toward each other. we have to get back to saneness. and i don't think -- i know -- donald trump will not take us there because i feel like he is a psycho path. i would hate to think that he has his finger on a nuclear eapon. guest: there's no question that polarization is higher than it has been for decades and animosity is higher than it has been for decades. and that all by itself makes it harder to do the routine business of government. it also makes it harder to compromise. and that is a self-fulfilling prophesy because the less people compromise the less they're in practice of sort of working together and say i may not like this person but we can do business. we can figure it out. you've got a lot going on. to me the tragedy is there are still instances where people do want to work together and when they have incentive to work together. stuff like we've been talking about, just the routine business of government, for example. but they often can't even do that because the system's become so disorganized it's impossible to contain vocal minorities who want to obstruct things. so we have problems at every layer. what i'm trying to get people to focus on are problems that we're more immediately able to address. like restoring some of the tools that leaders use in order to govern. we could talk for a minute about how to do that. host: next tina from north carolina on our independent line. caller: my question is you say that donald trump is a psycho path and i am an independent. but i have a lot of problems with hillary clinton because everything that you say about donald trump i feel that hillary has those problems and more, and what i fear is that donald trump at least is out there and honest about what he is saying while hillary is kind of like the wolf in sheep's clothing where she has lied to congress, she has lied to the american people, the f.b.i. has said she's lied. then she went on the sunday morning talk shows and lied again saying the same thing but yet you sit up there and you're ok with that as a journalist. but yet you have problems with donald trump. and the last lady that called in said we need civility but the person who said no you lied, he was right. we didn't get to keep our doctor. and the thing that is obama said as an independent i voted for him. and they aren't coming true. i don't get to keep my own doctor. and these things that i thought the democrats were going to do for us didn't happen. host: let's let jonathan respond. hillary clinton the same kind of thing as donald trump? well, without getting into specifics about what she said on particular instances this is someone who has been in public life for 30 years. this is someone who was first lady of the united states and then a senator and then a secretary of state. this is someone who does fact chect her speeches. this is someone who according to the independent monitors who actually counts this stuff comes off as not only more truthful than donald trump by a long shot but the person who stretches things least compared to all the other candidates. i'm not making a partisan point about one candidate or another. but for me, when you're dealing with a figure like trump who is capable of saying absolutely anything, like russians aren't in ukraine, you're talking about something, a very different kind of animal than a conventional politics. host: in your piece, your cover piece in the atlantic, how american politics went insane, you talked about some possible solutions. you write. how might these changes specifically bring an end to this insanity? guest: well, nothing brings an end to it. it took years to get where we got to. it's going to take years to begin moving back. so no magic bullets. but with that said, we didn't just -- political caste didn't just happen. this is partly the result of years of making these policies and they can be unmade. a lot of them mechanically are not hard to do. you can restore, for example, earmarking which gives more incentives for people to cooperate in congress. you can reduce or i would say remove on the restrictions on the fund raising that political parties can do so that more of the money will flow in through the parties which will strengthen them and then their ability to regulate political behavior. something very important is to give party professionals and insiders more influence. not sole influence but more influence over the nominating process. so if you take a tough vote for me in the house and senate i can help protect you from a challenge in your district in a primary. that also is very important. we can rethink some of the transparency rules that have made it hard tore negotiate. all kinds of things like this. and none of them are technically difficult but they involve changing some of these attitudes that these politics is always evil. host: next, oak harbor, washington on our republican line. caller: good morning. been enjoying your conversation, sir. i had a couple of questions for you. first, how is it that we have allowed so much of the rule and lawmaking function to be transferred to bureaucrats who issue bundles and books and tons afrules that have the force of law? is that because congress is unable or unwilling? guest: what a great question. thank you. it's both. it's unable and unwilling. the same period we've been talking about, the last 50 years or so congress has transferred voluntarily a lot of power to bureaucracy. partly on the notion that bureaucracies will make merit-based, not politically-based decisions. they thought that was like cleaner politics. in my view, actually congress' role in the constitution is to make political decisions politically. but some of it has not been voluntarily. article 1 of the constitution is about the u.s. congress. the congress is meant to be the preimminent policy making branch. but when congress is no longer able to organize and do its job in a reliable fashion, the way the constitution is set up is the power doesn't disappear, it flows other places to actors that can move unilaterally. actually three places. it's the president, it's the bureaucracy, and it's the court and that's where power has gone. part of my agenda when i'm trying to get people to focus on is by helping politicians organize their world, do what they need to do, you can strengthen congress. host: next, mary from ndianapolis. caller: i think the american political system went awry when the public namely the tea party has let fair trump good judgment. they thought it was funny when the tea party was attacking president obama and the democrats saying obama is going to kill grandma. the traditional republicans stood back and laughed. i think this lays squarely on the g.o.p. and i think they need to vote out all tea party members. guest: i've spent a lot of time looking at the tea party back in 2011 when it first arose and it's an interesting movement. it's a principled movement. it's for smaller government, it is against immigration. but it was ideological. what's happened now to the republican party is different. partly introduced by factors the tea party did. they targeted anyone who compromised and they targeted professional politicians. but then along comes donald trump and he blows away the tea party. he is not a small government person. he is anti-immigration. but there's an article just today in the papers about how the tea party has been basically thrown off the bus by trump. beyond trump, as i say in the article, donald trump did not cause political chaos. political chaos caused donl trumped. we -- caused donald trump. we created a system where the party can no longer protect itself from wildcatting. trump may be the beginning of the series. that's what we have to worry about. host: thomas from maryland. caller: thank you. ice to speak with you. i wanted to get your opinion and find out if we could find some common ground. i think -- and i think you would be hard-pressed to disagree -- that sometimes in the course of human events it's simply natural that a group of eople will find themselves refining into i guess a pure expression of how they want to live and how they want to be governed. an analogy might be the horse and wagon. they were perfect together until it was time to split. the horse went its way, the wagon got its own engine and they did fine on their own. my thinking is this. we've gotten to a point where it seems like about half the population is fine with having creeded the power that was with we the people. they ceded that to bureaucratic leaders and politicians and judges. and they're fine with that. they agree with statutory law. they like it. they want more regulation. and then you have the purists like me who really would like to see just common law, the way our founders and framers wanted things to be with less governance. wouldn't it make sense if we split, like a civilized society would do and not fight that any more? host: what's your thought? guest: i guess if you're proposing is he session and the division of the country into two pieces, we settled that in 1865. and i don't think we're going back there. i wish i could, when people come up with all these ideas like we need to have a big new third party or we need to have some kind of direct popular representation system based on town halls or we need to split the country into entirely new regions, i try and get them to stay on planet earth, where right now we have an all-out political crisis. we have only two major political parties and one of them is in a state of catastrophic meltdown. that's a very dangerous situation. and we need to try to stay focused on fixing the situation we've got in the real world. ost: next, gary from duncan, south carolina. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. my concern i have is that hillary is stating that the student loans are going to be forgiven and we're going to get free college education for everybody else. but one of my concerns is that under the obama administration between all the government guidelines and all of the loans that have been pretty much i guess run over by the obama administration, there's actually guidelines that say if you defaulted on a student loan you can't get a mortgage. i've been in that business for 37 years. in addition to that, where they talked about the medical that you can keep your doctor and everything else, i haven't been able to even get medical at all . it would be so astronomcal it would be 60% of my income. host: ok. guest: generic answer. if you want any of this stuff to get fixed, you've got to have a government and politics organized enough to fix it. so let's start figuring out how to get politics and government reorganized. student loans are an area like a few others, like criminal justice where there's emerging bipartisan consensus that fixes need to happen. and where i think it will be possible over the next four years. if people are able to work together to form these compromises to do something. tax reform is another area. there's a lot of desire on both sides to do that. so we've got to create the structure so they can go into the room and come out with a compromise, do the horse trading and the leaders can get enough votes to get it to the president's desk for signature. it's what you read about in civics class. it's the old-fashioned process of compromise. but it requires having politicians who are empowered to do that. host: michael from michigan on our democratic line. caller: i wanted to make a couple of statements about the states rights. and that is sending things back to the states. wo points. one the civil war philosophy of denying people their rights, primarily african americans. in michigan state government has taken over the emergency managers school systems have become resegregated under the uise of school choice. according to marketplace programming, nationwide only 25% of the welfare money goes to the individuals needing it. and in michigan only 12% is returned to the people. host: we only have a few seconds left. i want to give jonathan a chance to respond. guest: there's a lot of good points i don't have a particular response to. i'm a supporter of welfare reform. it's 20 years old and example of a reform that went well. the number of people on welfare slaverping. the number of people on jobs grew. it is not true that most money in welfare does not go to welfare recipients. it does. host: jonathan roush contributing editor to the atlantic and senior fellow at the brookings institution. thank you for joining us. guest: thank you so much for having me. host: up next, we are going to your calls with open phones. let's hear what's on your mind. the numbers are on your screen. this weekend our c-span cities tour takes book tv and american huron, o port ichigan. >> on the fourth floor of what's called the municipal office center or city hall. it's right on the st. clair river, probably the most eastern point of michigan. the city population around 30,000 people of which is a decrease. at one time back many years ago, probably 50s, 60s would have been closer in the 40s. but as economic changes and industry changes that type of thing it has decreased over the years. nd demographically we probably have all different types of people but i would call it a little bit on the distressed side. we do have because we are the county seat we also have a lot of the rentals and social services and things like that. so we don't have maybe the most stable population. it kind of comes and it goes, that kind of thing. and economically, probably not the highest income. so it kind of is a broad spectrum of lower to upper income. but it's a very nice community to live in and i think a nice place to raise your family. it's just we have a whole lot of different things going on. >> the unemployment rate in michigan is higher than the country and higher than this area. it has gone down but not at the same. we're always a little bit higher than theest of the probably the rest of the county, the rest of the state, and of course the country because michigan is traditionally too. but we have had a lot of improvements over the last couple of years. everybody suffered in 2008 when the economy tanked. and we're all kind of crawling out of that. but i think it just takes a little longer for us to crawl out. but we have some wonderful things happening here so i'm very proud of that. coming up this weekend on c-span-3. the life and legacy of alexander hamilton. >> the argument was the war had been a common struggle. all the states were fighting together for the liberty of all, for the whole country. o he assumed the debt of the 13 states along with the federal debt. they would all be treated as one debt, they would be paid off at the same time. >> saturday evening a little after 7:00 eastern author and national review senior editor on the economic achievements of alexander hamilton. and then on reel america, the 1945 war department film the last bomb documents the final months of the b-29 super fortress air campaign against japan including the bombings. sunday morning at 10:00 the third and final 2000 presidential debate between democratic vice president al gore and republican texas governor george w. bush. >> law abiding citizens ought to be allowed to protect themselves and their families. i believe that we ought to keep guns out of the hands of people that shouldn't have them. i'm for instant background checks at gun shows. >> i think certainly needed with the flood of cheap hand guns working their way into the hands of the wrong people. but all of my proposals are focused on that problem, gun safety. >> also this weekend at 8:00 the series the contenders. key figures who ran for the presidency and lost but changed political history. saturday night, former new york governor al smith and sunday the 1940 republican presidential nominee. >> as i was driving up the frankly why is it that every store window, that is vacant store window, had pictures of my opponent and his associate on the new deal ticket? i don't know of any more appropriate place to put those pictures. >> for a complete american history tv schedule go to c-span.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are now taking your calls on open phones hearing what is on your mind. one of the things is this news coming out this morning on the most recent jobs report. the united states added 255,000 jobs in july, according to the "washington journal" here it says the unemployment rate is holding steady at 4.9%. u.s. plores hired at a steady pace in july. the "washington journal" reports a sign of underlying strength for the labor market despite a host of mixed economic signals. that is good news coming out of these most recent numbers. we are also returning back to see what else is on your mind. john from staten island. good morning. caller: good morning. that's great news. that sure is better than the 700 plus thousand that we were losing in 2009 when the president took his office. i'm a recovered member of the gbs, the -- jbs, john birch society. my first president i voted for was dwight d. eisenhower and i voted the last republican was nixon. then i'm also retired member of the fire department of new york city. until one day one of my buddies said to me, my coworkers said you know what the problem with you guys is? you don't have any faith in your constitution. en i -- attacked the government for not finding those communists under the bed. that's what the tea party to me is today. jbs, e an offshoot of the the john birch society. believe me, stop being fearful. have faith in your constitution and your elected officials. and don't be wayed by these fear mongers. and you know whom i'm speaking of. thank you so much for allowing me to speak. host: up next, new jersey on our independent line. good morning. caller: good morning. i would like to say i'm a united states marine corps retiree, 100% disabled. i would like to make it real simple your last segment. lawyers are the biggest problem coming into congress. greed. it's all done with smoke and mirrors. they make laws with built-in loopholes that they can argue later. so basically if you got rid of all the sheisters it would be a better government. host: let me ask you, as voters who send folks to congress, how do you know that your we'ding them out? caller: well the eastiest thing to do is look at the history. people have gene in office 30, 450 years and what they have accomplished? deeper in debt and bigger problems. so they're not doing their jobs. they're out looking to make themselves reelectable and spend half the time getting money to get elected. do a good job, be honest with your constituents, and you'll get reelected. you don't have to spend tons of cash. host: up next, karen from pennsylvania on our republican line. caller: i'm calling because i wanted to say that hillary and bill clinton are the new bonnie and clyde. they're enriching themselves off of public policy. just robbing the american public through their foundation. and the obama administration is also lying and doing things that are shady. like the 400 million that went to iran that they say spornsrg terrorism. and we're like turtles in the pot and the heat is being turned up on us. and they lie to us constantly about things. invading libya was illegal and they just ruined the middle east and then we're supposed to sit here and just let ourselves be targets that pop up one day. i think that anyone that bleevels hillary clinton just likes to believe lies. host: next, carol from tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want to sort of respond back to the gentleman that just presented. it's not that the united states is went insane. we're already insane. all the way from the inception when they came here and displaced the native americans as a group. and then we go on to the africans that they brought here from africa to build this nation and to treat them as they have. and the way they still treat us today. even though it's more -- it used to be covert now it's overt because the only thing they can do is to listen to the election. one additional thing that i would like to say. the other day someone responded and said something about if hillary had gotten rid of bill then she could be the president. if they believe in their marital vows for better or worse, that's what they did. they stayed together as the result of that. and i appreciate somebody like that that has enough gumption about them to try to work a marriage through. and that's what they've done. host: ok. from florida. are you there? caller: yes. host: what's on your mind? caller: thank you for taking my call. i just want to say to the viewers and it's not our politicians necessarily. it may be our system. but i believe that we created this. the citizenry created this. and we must get educated and not become polarized in how we think. i think it's too much polarization and that if we don't educate ourselves on what the history is of this country, then we are going to repeat it. host: what history specifically are you referring to? caller: well, how this country has been created. like the caller said that a lot of people don't believe in how our history has gotten us to where we are today in terms of like the gentleman was saying about how we have allowed these individuals to kind of polarize our system in government. and now we can't make rules and laws that bring peesm together. i think this was done many, many years ago. i would say decades. but we as citizens haven't really educated ourselves on how the system works even just locally we don't vote. so that's what my thoughts are. thank you very much. host: next mario from texas. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for such a wonderful program. i'm a little spointed. i was trying to ask mr. jaubtsdzen rouch a few questions. we got out of time so i'm just going to try to make some comments. i just was wondering, the rison industry in this country , do you think it's part of the problem or part of the solution? criminality genetic or biometric or both? so, how come the media corporations are making such profit and yet they're not they ng as many jobs that used to create in the past? host: can i ask you this. are these issues driving your decision when you go to the poles in november to vote? guest: yes. these are issues that are most mportant to me and i feel that the press is not really spending that much time talking about them. and it seems that people are spending more time either criticizing hillary or criticizing donald trump instead of readily focusing on the issues. and the issues that -- bread and butter issues. people are working two jobs and they still can't pay their bills. and donald trump is not giving solutions to these problems. hillary clinton is not giving solutions to these problems. so they're both attacking each other and not really telling the american people what the american people should be hearing. how are you going to tackle these problems? these are indemic problems. they've been with us for the longest. i mean, i'm sure that president obama had tried his best to address some of these problems but you know again we have a divided government. congress is in charge. pretty much making all these bills passing all these bills and do not help. host: all right. we have a lot of callers wanting to call in in this open phone session. maw reinis calling in from rhode island. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i agree that jonathan was a breath of fresh air. i just wanted the make one comment. that back in 1980 when ronald reagan was running, one of his top complaints was that what's the problem? and i could not believe that someone who had been governor of california thought that government was the problem. he was part of government. and i continually hold the television that government was not the problem. there's nothing for us. and we are all the government. host: just a programming note from c-span speaking of the presidential race. tonight at 8:00 p.m. donald trump will feature his rally in green bay, wisconsin. here live on c-span and on c-span.org. also, today at 12 noon democratic candidate hillary clinton will be live speaking here in washington at the joint convention of the national association of black journalists and hispanic on nalists that will here c-span at noon live. next top is calling in from danville, virginia. independent line. good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i wanted to get in on the last statement about the gal who was on there before about how he's salls throwing up about trump being the liar but he didn't say anything much about hillary and her lying, the way she lied most of her life i think. and then plus i want to thank llary for choosing tim kaine from virginia. i was hoping we would get rid of him next fall and maybe she took him out and maybe we can take one out the next time. i thank you for taking my call this morning. host: up next, tim from new york. calling in on our democratic line. good morning. this is funny to me. bill clnten had a surplus. this man had a surplus. as soon as we put republicans in we get into a deficit. we lose jobs. houses have been lost. and republicans got the house and the senate. they don't do anything. and they are trying to blame whoever. the republicans need to look in the mirror. and watch -- watch who you vote for. they're not doing anything. bush got in there, everything was a wreck. two wars, tax cuts for the rich, so they cry and they whine. come on. look in the mirror. thank you. >> ok. we are taking your calls on open lines getting what's on your mind. the beginning of the summer olympics in rio. we talked about the situation with the zika virus there on the front page of today's u.s.a. today. rio just might prove us wrong. up next gary calling from new york on our republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. host: what's on your mind? caller: i just wanted to discuss your previous guest. i love c-span but i lost a little respect. you let this man call a candidate a sociopath more than once about a half dozen times. i don't understand why you don't correct that. but i wanted to talk about foreign policy where you're assuming what donald trump might do but yet we've seen what hillary will do. we've seen the track record and the destruction in the middle east. i can't understand why they keep getting on donald trump's case. we've seen what this administration and the continuation of hillary what they're going to do. i don't understand how you can let these people speak like this. and it's not the first time that they've called donald trump nasty names and nobody ever corrected them. so i'm wondering about that. i don't want to lose respect. i like c-span. but it's getting kind of hard. host: next jim from ohio on you are independent line. caller: thank you for taking my call. about the bit about congress and senate not getting anything done, they can't agree. nobody will compromise. i think we need to go to term lilts and also do away with the pork -- term limits. you don't vote for a bill just because they agree to give you 2 or 3 million for a bridge that doesn't go anywhere or a railroad that won't work. do with the term limits for six then out for six then run for six more then that's it. you're done for your life as far as the senate and the congress go. thank you for allowing me to have my comment. host: ok. up next we have fayettville, georgia on our democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. i just want the people in this country to remember what it looked like in 2009 when barack obama walked into office. in 2009, we went into the greatest recession that we have seen, almost as bad as the depression. the unemployment rate was between 9 and 10% and some places in this country it was in the 15. african american community was that community. 15% unemployment rate. we now have unemployment down to less than 5%. we were losing 800,000 jobs a day. this man has put on millions of jobs in this country. the july report just came out, it was way higher than expected. when someone runs a car into a ditch and barack obama just got the car out of the ditch i am hoping that you all do not forget where we were and where we are. very important. because if you put this narssist into office you will see calamity that you have never seen. and let's remember when you talk about the clintons being millionaires, trump is a billionaire and he got that money on the backs of everybody else. ohio on t claudia from the republican line. caller: i just wanted to alert people because there's been absolutely no coverage. john hinkley was released this week. and i'm personally opposed to that. however, with all of the gun violence in the country right now, so much of it is linked to mental health. and so i look at this as a teachable moment to begin to discuss mental health and what we can do to help people who need help. and the other troubling thing the first report i heard last week was on msnbc. they said the courts had determined that he was no longer a harm to himself or anyone else. and that he is being released into the care of his family. who had the means to take care of him. his mother is in her late 80s. and when they said had the means, i interpret that as once again a different system for people with money and connections. so i hope -- there's nothing we can do about this particular case. but i hope moving forward that as a country we'll take a more sensible look at the health care issue. mental health care issues. thank you for taking my calls. host: referring to john hinkley, jr., who attempted to assassinate then president ronald reagan in 1981. the news that he is going to be released. next joe from mississippi on our democrat yin line. caller: first off, you had another democratic caller that said that we didn't have a deficit when bill clinton left office. and the fact of the matter is we did have a deficit. we had a balanced budget for one year. second, c-span seems to be kind of going toward more or less a liberal slant like the rest of the mainstream media to me. i've always liked c-span but i don't know about it now. as far as the democratic party now, from the years i've been n it, is going more to a ruling class liberal type party instead of being for the working class people. seems to me everything they do and have done especially in the inner city is against the working class people. they've made it much harder for all of us to live, to me. thank you. host: all right. up next billy from north carolina on our republican line. good morning. caller: thanks for having me. two short questions. i just wanted to let the people know that the united states is the biggest business in the world. and no matter what people say about donald trump, he is a successful businessman. and two things. if hillary clinton can lie to us time after time and we know it's a lie, we know that she deleted -- if she can be the president, you have to keep something private. i mean, if she can lie to us day after day with a straight face what will she do if she becomes president. thank you. ost: up next, janet calling in from pennsylvania. good morning. caller: i would just like to say that donald trump and donald trump supporters are complaining about people making remarks about him and they're derogatory remarks about his mental health issues. for the e tone campaign. he's the one who started with the name calling and he has insulted everyone not just the ther politicians but everybody race, every nationality. he's even insulted the pope. he's insulted every religion other than his own. he's insulted everybody except for his friends and his cronies. he set the tone. and they don't have any right complaining about anyone else. host: ok. janet from pennsylvania. that's all the time we have today for today's "washington journal." we'll be back tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. have a good friday. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] this friday, the bureau of labor statistics reports the u.s. jobs market added 255,000 jobs, leaving the unemployment rate unchanged at 4.9%. and the associated press pointed out that average hourly pay is 2.6% higher than a year ago, matching the fastest pace since the recession. interestbility of an rate hike is increased, according to one report. hillary clinton speaks to the national association of black journalists and the national association of historic journalists today pay we expect her remarks around noon. and donald trump is campaigning in wisconsin. you can watch the rally tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span.