from dun kirk, france, in 1940. on booktv's "after words" program at 10 p.m., temple university professor heath davis examines gender identity in an interview with sarah ellis, glaad president and ceo. and at 11, henry olson looks at the policies of presidents franklin d. roosevelt and ronald reagan. that all happens tonight on c-span 2's booktv. [inaudible conversations] [applause] >> good morning, and welcome to the national press club. i'm jonathan salant, the

washington correspondent of the star ledger and a past president of the club. columnist george will once said that the late senator daniel patrick moynihan of new york wrote more books than most senators had read. today's guest, former house speaker newt gingrich, has written even more books than senator moynihan. but remember, there are four times more house members than there are senators. speaker ing given is -- gingrich is here to talk about his latest book, "understanding trump." we'll speak for about 20 minutes and then take audience. if you have not previously purchased a book, please do so now. proceeds benefit the national press club journalism institute that does journalism trading and helps the club. before we begin, please turn off or silence your cell phones. i'd first like to acknowledge the members of the headliners team responsible for organizing

the event x. if you're in the audience, please stand and be recognized. betsy fisher martin. lisa matthews, lori russo. heather weaver. bill pearce. joe -- [inaudible] be frank massano, and wendy underwood. thank you all. [applause] i first met speaker gingrich 40 years ago when i staked out a town hall meeting he was holding outside of atlanta to ask him about whether new york governor mario cuomo would play in the south if he ever ran for president. cuomo never did run, but speaker gingrich did in 2012 and, for a while, led opinion polls. in fact, i got to spend a week with you in florida while you were running. in the interim, this former professor of history became a historical figure himself, leading a successful effort to end 40 years of democratic control of the house and become speaker in 1995.

he resigned following the impeachment of president clinton and the unusual loss of house seats in the sixth year in the term of a president in the opposition party. speaker gingrich never reached the white house, but the candidate he supported did. despite polls up until election day showing hillary clinton ahead and site like 538.com giving her a better than 70% chance of becoming the first female president, donald trump wound up as the nation's 45th chief executive. from his perch as a top trump adviser and someone till close to the white house -- still close to the white house, speaker gingrich is in a unique position to discuss what makes this billionaire businessman with no previous political experience tick. in fact, the speaker points out in his week, "understanding trump," president trump is the first chief executive with no previous political experience, never ran for office before, came right out of the business world.

as the blurb reads, this is, quote: the first book written about the world of president trump by someone who's actually a part of it, unquote. speaker gingrich, thank you for coming. [applause] since we've both been in washington, it's usually the establishment candidate who wins the republican nomination over the insurgent. george herbert walker bush, bob dole, george w. bush, john mccain and mitt romney over you in 2012. but in 2016 donald trump emerged victorious. what changed between 2012 when you were the insurgent and 2016 when donald trump played that role and won? >> well, i would say, first of all, that the -- in '64 goldwater won the nomination against the entire establishment. and in '80 reagan won the nomination. and those were, in fact, the precursors to trump as i think the contract with america was in

'94. so i feel a little bit fortunate in in i worked with reagan both as candidate and president while i was in congress. we led the contract with america, and now you have trump. so i think the three actually have a continuity despite the traditional establishment. a couple things. i mean, first of all, trump is just a lot better candidate than i am. and i think you have to start with that. he's a unique phenomenon. at one point he called and asked me for advice on debating, and i laughed at him. i said i'm not going to give you any advice. i said you have a unique style, you are stunningly effective, and if you tried to learn what i do, you'd get totally screwed up. just do, be who you are, do what you do. and i actually think he's a better debater than i am if you measure the audience rather than sort of a princeton debate system, to cite ted cruz. i think, second, romney had an enormous advantage. i beat romney in south carolina,

and they spent about $15 million beating me in florida. and they knew it was life and death. i mean, there was actually a new york times story about one of romney's advisers the day after south carolina saying if you don't eviscerate gingrich, he is going to be the nominee. and that may have been true. i didn't have the resource advantage. trump had enough resources at any time you couldn't knock him out. but in addition, trump did something i couldn't have done. i look back on it as one of the great acts of genius in american politics, comparable to fdr inventing the fireside chat. trump, what nobody in this city -- this is part of why i wrote "understanding trump." nobody understands this. donald j. trump had a prime time television show for 13 years. it was the top show in the country for four years. now, because it wasn't on pbs and because it didn't follow downton abbey, nobody in this city underthat. [laughter] -- understood that.

so nobody in the city said the day he announced a guy who knows television that well is by definition formidable. and what trump had learned -- and he writes about this in "the art of the deal" pretty decisively. what trump had learned in new york in the '80s was that any publicity which printed your name correctly built strength. and so he was happy -- and this is part, i actually think he should modify what he's doing in terms of the tweets and all that. i've told him, i think 10% less trump would be 100% more effective. but he had figured out early on that if he could engage the media, that the hunger of the 24-hour-a-day cable news system and the power of facebook and twitter meant that he could just take all the air out of the room. so all of these other guys are running around raising money in order to be able to buy tv ads to be on television. trump would get up in the

morning, he would tweet. that would then set up his argument with mt. morning joe." he'd call in to "morning joe," and they'd argue for 25 minutes. then they'd call into "fox & friends", and they'd have a love fest for 25 minutes. [laughter] then he would have breakfast. he's already generated -- so all morning the media's covering the argument that trump's in the middle of. then about ten in the morning he would do a press event to keep the momentum up, and about ten in the evening he would do about an hour on hannity for free. so he's at about $1 million free media. meanwhile, all of his competitors are off the air, running around the country trying to raise money to get on the air. and what was happening was the sheer name id. there's only one poll in the entire campaign where trump's not ahead for the nomination. people tend to forget this. he was the front-runner from the day he announced except for one poll where dr. carson pulled ahead.

and yet nobody in the elite media could say -- and silver's an interesting example. nobody in the elite media could say to themselves if he's the front-runner every single poll, could it be he's the front-runner? [laughter] because everybody in the washington elite knew he couldn't be the front-runner, because then everything they believed in would be crazy. and since they couldn't be crazy, he had to be crazy. and if he was crazy, he couldn't be the front-runner even though he was the front-runner. [laughter] this went on. so i'm in a situation where i'm watching these so-called experts -- who, by the way, have learned nothing. i mean, the stuff you get on tv today is as stupid and as wrong as the people who laughed when he announced, the people who laughed in the primaries, the people who laughed at the convention, the people who laughed in the general election. they haven't learned anything because they can't, because it's a repudiation of their own life. so their choice is i can believe in a fantasy which at least validates me, or i can decide the world has really changed dramatically and that invalidates me. i pick the fantasy.

and that's literally where we are right now which dramatically -- it'll be interesting to see how the dance continues for the next three years, because i think gradually trump will figure out an angle to break out of all of this in a way that will be historic. >> it's still happening. you're saying that people haven't learned from the campaign. >> no. look at the whole russian fantasy. you know, what happened election night was the democrats said hillary can't have lost. and, certainly, donald trump can't have won. so somebody cheated. i wonder -- putin cheated. do you realize this is all putin's fault? and that means there must have been collusion. do you realize they must have colluded? so for the last six months, everybody on the left has been walking around town chanting watch for the russian connection, look for the collusion. turns out even dianne feinstein, the ranking democrat on the intelligence committee, says there is zero evidence of collusion. so now the newest one is, ah, but there was obstruction of justice over the collusion. [laughter]

so the fantasy that didn't occur is now being replaced by, by the way, technically the president of the united states cannot obstruct justice. president of the united states is the chief executive officer of the united states. if wants to fire the fbi director, all he's got to do is fire him. somebody said the other day if john f. kennedy had fired j. edgar hoover over investigating and wiretapping martin luther king jr., would people have thought it was obstruction? be so, you know, so there's not really collusion. so what's the latest leak to "the washington post" whose record, by the way, of running anonymous leaks is actually beating "the new york times." it's an enormous achievement. and i give the post credit -- [laughter] that in their energy and enthusiasm, they have been even more consistently wrong than the times, which is actually in the olympics of stupidity, an enormous challenge. [laughter] so the latest thing is mueller, who will not be able to get anything on russia or obstruction, is now going to look at finances.

and what you're seeing, obviously, is exactly -- this is why when i was speaker i opposed renewing the independent counsel act. you bring in a whole bunch of high-priced lawyers, they give up their regular career, they're going to find somebody. and the fitzgerald case where comey brought in the godfather to his children, fitzgerald, in order to appoint him a special counsel when they knew there was no crime because, in fact, valerie plame had already been -- was no longer a protected name at the cia, and they knew who had done it, richard armitage had leaked it. and they still appointed an independent counsel who promptly decided his mission was to get dick cheney. i mean, it is the most grotesque example of a miscarriage of justice and the danger of power of the government. you go back and look at that case, that's why i am very worried about mueller. not that mueller's a bad person. he's a patriot.

mueller's a guy who served with great distinction in vietnam. mueller -- i have no doubt that he is a person who is going to do his best. but he is surrounding himself with a collective group of people who are going to engage in a witch hunt. and i encourage everybody to actually read arthur miller's "the crucible" which is about the witchcraft trials in the late 17th century in salem. and understand that's the mentality of the left right now. the left right now is engaged in the salem witchcraft process of we know somebody's evil, i wonder who we should burp at the stake -- burn at the stake. i had two young ladies, i gave a speech earlier this year at cornell, and two young ladies who were in the college republicans said to me for an entire week after the election, if you smiled, people yelled at you because it was inappropriate to smile when donald trump had won. >> you know, my -- i know "the crucible." my son is a student at walter johnson high school, got to play in that -- >> yeah. >> the whole thing.

>> and i really do think that's the mood of the left right now. >> let me ask you, this is the press club. let me ask you a press question. you talked about the investigation into president trump. when you became speaker, you faced an ethics investigation right after you took office. the reason i bring this up is during all of that time you never threatened gene cummings of the "atlanta journal-constitution" who had broken so many stories, you never called those of you who staked you out at the ethics committee meetings, and i was one of them, enemies of the people. you never called any of the information that leaked out fake news. what's different today? why does president trump react the way he does to the press? which is certainly different than you and everybody else has. >> i think a couple of differences. first of all, let me just say for all of you -- because this is ancient history -- when i got elected, the cover of time and "newsweek," both covers the week before the election was angry white man.

for those of you who wonder -- the left keeps all these things in a drawer. they pull them back out. let's use that one again. the week after i was elected, i was on the cover of time magazine as scrooge -- you can look this up -- holding tiny tim's broken crutch. it wasn't enough i stole the crutch, i broke the crutch. [laughter] and title of the time magazine cover was "how mean will gingrich's america be to the poor." that was followed a week later by "newsweek" having me on the cover as a dr. seuss figure and the title was "the grinch that stole christmas." this was my entry into press neutrality in the modern era. in fact, those two covers didn't hurt me at all, because they sent a signal to the middle class that we were for welfare reform, and the middle class thought, well, that's really cool. i'm glad. so now we get to one of the mistakes of my career.

democrats filed 83 charges against me. 82 of the charges were dismissed. and the truth is by the third charge, i should have filed a charge against the people who were doing it. because it was a deliberate political abuse of the ethics process, and i should have moved, frankly, to expel them. that's a mistake on my part, because they knew they were phony, they knew they were absurd, but they also knew -- and this is what trump faces -- they knew it's a constant repetition. something must be wrong. if somebody files 8 82 charges against you -- the one charge, and by the way, we won against the federal election commission and against the irs. so when i talk about the deep state, i have lived this, okay? now, the one charge they got me on is a letter written by the law firm which had a mistake. it was clearly a mistake which i should not have signed where i said go pac had never done anything that was federal, and clearly they had. that's the one thing they got me on.

this is why i warned the white house to be very careful. we turned over a million pages to an independent counsel. who had been hired by the ethics committee who later became the assistant attorney general for barack obama. you can imagine his bias. okay? a million pages. and then we sat down to be interviewed, and he could pick anything out of the million pages. and if i was wrong, i could be guilty of perjury or on to instruction of -- obstruction of justice. you try sometime to remember four years ago at 3:00 in the afternoon when you're in a meeting with 22 people did you say x. and that's what they're up against. this is very dangerous, and i keep telling everybody at the white house this is not like new york real estate law. this is criminal law. these people are coming after you to put you in prison. and you need to be very careful, and you need to listen to your lawyers. and i say this as much to the president as anybody. this is not a game.

>> i'm not the history professor, but in terms of history lessons, go pac was a group the speaker had set up to recruit, basically, elect republicans to state office and basically build a farm team as you look at the republican majority. a lot of those folks started off as state, people who were elected in part with help from go pac. >> that's right. >> and it turned out to be very successful. >> well, we were not a big enough party to compete nationally. and after 1985 we decided we had to dramatically grow the system in order to be competitive. we were like a mid-sized college team in the super bowl. and if we were going to ever beat the -- took us 40 years of being in the minority, took me 16 years to create the majority, literally. sixteen years. we tried every two years. we lost in '80, '82, '84, '86, '88 -- when people say '94 was a great year, i say, yeah, you should have seen the earlier

ones. we'd been trying every single year from the time i got elected in '78. >> when the republicans had the majority in the congress in the '90s, bill clinton -- a democrat -- wound up working with you on welfare reform, wound up working with you on spending cuts and tax cuts, and you wound up balancing the budget. president trump had an opportunity to do that as well. he talked about the $1 trillion infrastructure program. democrats offered to work with him on fixing that, repealing the affordable care act, and yet the president has not taken advantage of that, and that forced chuck schumer, the head of the senate democrats, and nancy pelosi, the head of the house democrat, to sit down and negotiate. he's attacked them and gone his own way. do you think he missed an opportunity to reach out, or do you think it wouldn't have mattered? >> i think in term obviously the affordable care act -- affordable care act, it wouldn't matter. any democrat would by definition be hit by a primary and probably defeated in the primary.

so i don't think that was plausible. i think that on infrastructure they have a real opportunity to work with democrats, and i suspect they will get a substantial number of democratic votes. on, for example, on veterans administration reform, they've been carrying very large majorities of both parties in the house and senate. on medical research they've been carrying very large majorities. excuse me. so it's not, it's not inevitable that they be isolated. but when you get to tax policy, part of it depends -- when schumer and pelosi say we'd like to work with you, what's the entrance fee, you know? if the entrance fee is we really don't want corporate tax rates at 20%, well, you're not going to cooperate. we really don't want something which brings back $2 trillion in money that's tied up overseas. you're not -- you know, you go through a list of these things. so i think it depends on -- i believe they can gradual hi pick off individual -- gradually pick off democrats, and i believe the

infrastructure bill is the best place to start that process. >> you keep talking in your book and now you're talking about how the left is so out to get trump. it was john mccain, who's nobody's idea of a liberal, who said a scandal engulfing the trump administration. lindsey graham has criticized the administration. other republicans, you know -- >> sure. >> -- the newspaper, "the washington post," the former bush administration columnists are anti-trump. it's not just the left, right? the it's -- >> trump, look, there are a -- i don't know where you fit mccain and graham into this. they're clearly on the, among the literatety of the right, the people who write precious columns and articles and think deep thoughts. [laughter] they are, and then george will is one of my favorite examples. will is a torrey. he likes an elegant world. he likes things to be done in an appropriate way. trump's very existence offends him. i mean, trump by will's standard is a baffoon.

i mean, he talks at a fourth grade level, you know? he's not -- he can't be a serious man. and i start, because i'm a historian, i start from a totally different angle which is i figure a guy who wins a successful hostile takeover of the republican party -- and that's what it was, it was a hostile takeover -- then wins a hostile takeover of the national government beating both the media and hillary ain't a baffoon. he may have a style that's different, but he ain't a baffoon. this is a very serious man. and that's why i wrote "understanding trump" in part to say to people it's always worth trying to understand a president on their own terms. how did they -- i had the same thing about obama. or clinton or jimmy carter. you've got to say what is it they do right and what is it they understand that we didn't in and i think -- so the literati, the people who write national review and stuff like that, they're all, you know, their noses are out of joint.

they're offended. he probably doesn't drink chablis. [laughter] and he doesn't, actually, drink. there are so many ways in which trump's just so wrong. i mean, it's like a reporter came up to me one day and said when do you think he's going to start becoming presidential? and i said, actually, he did on january 20th. [laughter] because by definition what the president does is presidential. and that was such a shocking idea to this person, because they had a model of presidential that didn't relate to how donald trump acts. >> let me ask you one last question before we throw it open to the audience, and that's opinion polls. we've all written -- he's at record lows. if you were advising him, wait a second, since you do advise him, what would you suggest? what should he do, if anything, to bring up those numbers? >> communicate directly with the american people. ignore -- not waste his time and energy fighting over junk like the russian stuff, focus on communicating about jobs where

he's done a pretty good job already, focus on communicating about infrastructure. focus on communicating about a better health future. focus on communicating about tax cuts to create more jobs. i mean, there are positive things that they're doing. i mean, they ought to spend a full week on the veterans administration. they have already this year done so many things both with the congress, in all fairness. the republican house and senate have passed more reform legislation for veterans this year than ever in history. already done in the first five months. but none of it's going to be covered by the elite media. so they need to figure out a strategy, as reagan would have, to ma knewically focus if they -- ma knewically focus if they did a rally talking about the great achievements in reform, by the end of the week people would begin to go, oh, they must have done something right. we're learning what his base is, it's between 39-41. with everything the times says, everything the post says, everything that cbs news says,

his way is 39-41 -- his base is 39-41. mayor bloomberg said the other day he fully expects him to get reelected. i love saying during trump's second term -- [laughter] i mean, it just -- you see people in the audience who start quivering. [laughter] their mind can't adjust to that concept. >> let's throw it open to questions. please identify yourself. i think we have a microphone. it's going to come over, and let's start in the front row right there. >> mr. speaker, kevin winston, retired navy captain. we met in the first golf war when you came over to visit us. >> yes. >> my question is about the paris climate agreement and could you comment on that? >> sure. >> you mentioned mayor bloomberg, mayor of d.c., a lot of mayors are saying we're going to adhere to it regardless of what the white house does. how do you think that is going to play out? >> well, look, i think being mayor nowadays is a symbolic behavior of the left.

so you have to be for a sanctuary city. how can -- just as a side note, how can rahm emanuel, the mayor of chicago with 4,000 people shot last year, be, want to be a sanctuary city so they don't turn criminal aliens over to the federal government to deport? how can emanuel believe putting a criminal alien back on the street is a good idea in a city that had 4,000 people shot? the same thing, they make good postures, right? we're going to enforce the paris accord. what does that mean? san francisco's going to buy only electric cars, and then are they only going to buy electricity from solar power and wind power? because if they just buy electric cars but the electricity comes from coal, they didn't do a whole lot to help carbon. it's public relations nonsense. i urge everybody to to who's concerned about this to actually read trump's speech. it is a brilliant economic speech. i was doing an event yesterday with a liberal democrat, and he

said what trump has done has created a zone where china can now take the lead on the environment. and i said to him, that's great. china promised to start doing something in 2031. this means we're going to move the chinese up by 14 years. i think that's fabulous. do you think they'll start next week? [laughter] i want to see the chinese, you know, i want to see the chinese take the lead. the truth is the country on the planet. >> has done the largest reduction of carbon of any country in the world by percentage is the united states. and we're presently going to have the same level of carbon loading that we had in the 1970s. in the 1970s there was no chinese industry, they can't possibly get to that, okay? so i'm -- but if you read, and this is the whole problem of the modern left which is, essentially, an emotional, symbolic system that uses, you know, ranting as a substitute for thought. if you look at the speech, it's a very detailed, very specific speech about economics.

and and it says, basically, for example, the indians have said if you give us a couple trillion dollars, we'll be glad to do something about the environment. now, why would we give india money? explain to me the theoretical model by which i'm going to tax somebody in atlanta, georgia, to ship it to new delhi? it's not that i'manti-indian, i'm just pro-american. [applause] >> over there. right, you. yes. >> hi. alan -- [inaudible] wharton d.c. innovationing summit. you mentioned health care. it's a $3 trillion industry. the so-called affordable care act is costing people 10, 15, $20,000 per person and business and other families per year which i would suggest highly unaffordable. what is the path to better health care and more moderate costs than what we're paying now? >> well, i'm going to say two things that are probably heretical. this comes from a lot of experience in dealing with health issues including

reforming medicare in 1996 which doing that in a presidential year was probably the most elegant thing we did while i was speaker. i think health is the most complex thing in american society. i am fairly knowledgeable about health, and i'm fairly knowledgeable about national security. i would say health is ten times more complicated than national security. it is always a mistake to write big bills. we don't know enough to write big bills. any big bill has unintended consequences. it's always a mistake to write it in secret. i think the fact is sooner or later you have to publish the bill. when you publish the bill, people are going to study it. the earlier they study it, the earlier they're going to tell you what doesn't work, and then you've got to make a series of choices. i also think we are trapped into a model, and this is a good example from trumpism has not yet penetrated, okay? they are trying to write a bill which meets senate reconciliation rules and

congressional budget office scoring which both are stupid. they make no sense as a practical matter, the idea that you would redesign the entire health system of the united states so that the senate parliamentarian approves it is utterly irrational, okay? the congressional budget office is a disaster. go look how often it's wrong. new york times in '93 wrote this great editorial because the cbo had come in with a really bad score on hillarycare. and the times said the idea that you can project a 20 or 30-year pattern for that large a section of society is absurd. well, it is. so in a truly trumpian world, you would abolish the cbo you would change the senate reconciliation rules, and you would say as a practical, common sense matter where do we want to get? be we want to get to maximum personal choice, we want to get to everybody having access to care and most people having access to insurance. the two are different. you have 8,000 federal community health centers. they're never figured into a health bill.

but why respect they -- you know, if we're paying for 8,000 community health center, why aren't they an integral component of what we're doing? instead, we allow the left to define success as 100% insurance which nobody gets. and then we contort ourselves to try to to get to it. if you look at what maine has done, for example, you can do two things; create a high risk pool and guarantee everybody coverage no matter what the precondition. and there are ways to do that that are not complicated. they cost some money but, frankly, given the total waste in obamacare, it's not that hard to do. and so that's partly. second thing is what i would do to really reform medicaid is really simple, and this is what maine did recently which mary may hugh is the commissioner who did it. now going to run for governor, and she's really, really a great reformer. maine passed a rule that if you're an able-bodied adult with no children, you have to work in order to get medicaid.

the 12,000 males who were on medicaid who fit that category, 11,000 went and got jobs. and are no longer on medicaid. so you, you know, this is a radical idea for liberals. you actually reduce the number of people on medicaid by reducing the number of people who need to be on medicaid so that they -- and the average person had 116% increase in their income. so they earned more money, had a better future, had a real job and saved the taxpayers of maine a substantial amount of money. if you applied that to new york and california, you'd be startled how much money you would save and how many people you'll move back into pursuing happiness and working rather than becoming dependent on the government. >> let me ask one question over there and then we'll move it over to the other side, make it easier for our guy with the microphone. >> thank you, speaker gingrich. i wanted to ask if you could talk about the concept of the intellectual idiot that was written about that you reference

sometimes and how that fits into understanding trump in the context of the elite media but also the bureaucrats whom he deals with. and you talked about several service reform. is it possible for him to get around the bureaucracy and get out the intellectual idiot types? >> sure. let me -- for those of you who have not yet read the book, i actually include the entire article in the book. the guy who wrote "the black swan" wrote an article entitled intellectual yet idiot, it's about 800 words. and it was the most satisfying explanation of what i have not understood about modern government that i have read anywhere. and the essence of it he says, look, at least 40% of modern government is people who are really good at taking tests and writing essays. and because they're really good

at taking tests and writing essays, they get into elite universities where they study under professors who are really good at taking tests and writing essays. [laughter] and then because they do really well taking tests and writing essays, they graduate and get a job as a supreme court clerk or a new york times reporter or whatever. and the problem is they don't know anything. so they can write a brilliant essay on how to change a flat tire, but if you have un, they have to call aaa because they have no idea how to change a tire. in the sense, this is the ultimate doily vegas of the great study of leadership decisions in vietnam. early in the book lyndon johnson comes back from his first cabinet meeting under john f. kennedy, and he goes to see sam rayburn.

and he says to rayburn, the quality of the cabinet -- i mean, george bundy, the the provost at harvard, mcnamara, and he goes down this list of brilliant people, dean rusk. and at the end of it, he says, you know, lyndon, i'd be a lot more comfortable if there was one texas sheriff on the cabinet. and what he meant was a texas sheriff knew that his brand new deputy at four in the morning was probably asleep. and that he needed to be checked on because he wasn't doing his job. and that in the real world people behave in real ways. and what you had in the kennedy cabinet was this theoretical group who had a series of theoretical world views which turned out not to work very well. so they assumed, for example, a rationality on the part of the north vietnamese. they talked about orchestrating and going up and down the escalation ladder. in fact, the north vietnamese were quite clear they were going

to win or die. now, we could have beaten them, but it would have been horrendous. or we could accept defeat which we ultimately did. but they weren't confused. they'd been fighting for years. and nobody -- and this is exactly where we are today. you have all of these people, you know, and this was -- and i was part of this, candidly. i thought there was an opportunity that we could profoundly rethink the middle east. and i used to tell people i think we could guarantee democracy in iraq, and we wouldn't stay a day longer than we've been in korea. now, my dad started korea in '53. we've been in korea for 67 years. there's currently no great get out of korea movement, okay? but you couldn't run in, shatter everything and run out. and think you're going to have a functioning governing depp accuracy. democracy. there's no underpinnings.

you start at somalia, yemen, libya with, syria, iraq, afghanistan, just as starters. better part of wisdom would be people who understand maybe being cautious is a good idea as opposed to we know how to do it. that would be an example. >> over there in the middle. right here. with the glasses. you. yeah, you. [laughter] [inaudible conversations] >> hold on. wait, wait, he's working his way to you. don't -- >> how much do you think the media's responsible for the heft-wing attacks against -- left-wing attacks against republicans? >> oh, i don't think you -- first of all, individual attacks are a function of individual responsibility. and i don't think you want to get into some collective group guilt. if you have an individual who's insane, they're insane. so the guy this week who went

out with a rifle, in my judgment, is deranged. now, i think you could almost use the same term to describe a comedienne who holds a bleeding head of the president. these are personal psychological problems that are manifested by people who have an ideological, cultural overview, but the ideological, cultural overview doesn't require you to be stupid. i do think that the underlying pattern, i mean, if you look at -- it's really ironic. all the talk on the left about bullying, you look on college campuses who does the bullying, it's the left. you look at the news media, cnn was 93% negative according to a harvard study. now, you can't be 93% negative unless it's deliberate, you know? and nobody at cnn feelses any shame about it. in fact, they'll even with a straight face tell you they're covering the nudes. which, of course -- the news. which, of course, is an absurdity. so i think there's a group think. i think it's very dangerous, very difficult. some of you have probably experienced this.

you go into the right newsroom and say you're pro-trump, watch the reaction. you go to the right college campus and say you're pro-trump, but this is why i worry about the justice department. according to reports, 97% of the donations at justice went to hillary. 99% of the donations at state went to hillary. now i ask you, what do you think the cultural pattern is? in a room where by 97-3 they're donating to hillary? and that's why i think this idea of a deep state's real. i mean, these are full-time, permanent bureaucrats, and the pentagon the term used to be for political appointees that they were the summer help. [laughter] they'll be gone presently, just relax. >> over there. right -- front row. yeah, you. yes. >> hold on. microphone is coming. >> get the microphone over here. >> they're bringing it as fast as they they can, they're just t of slow. >> thanks.

peggy -- i'm the congressional correspondent -- hillary said that she would never deport an immigrant, illegal immigrant child nor his family. i didn't believe her, that was just campaign rhetoric. but how much should this campaign rhetoric be translated into real policy when they become president? >> well, first of all, i actually think you're better off as a candidate to campaign on what you mean, which was reagan's great strength and was our great strength in '94. you actually say what you mean and then you do it. so i think in that sense rhetoric -- it's not rhetoric. rhetoric ought to be about reality. that's how you build faith in a system, you actually keep your word. and that's why we became -- we were the first reelected house republican majority since 1928. and it was in part because we kept our word. and people thought, wow, those guys are real.

we're also the only group who's balanced the federal budget in your lifetime, for four straight years. actually, for four straight years -- johnson did it once, i think, by $100 million. not that it was a gimmick. but i think that let's take these -- i was very happy this morning that the department of homeland security said that they are not going to deport any of the dreamers. and that, the people who are under daca are, in fact, going to stay in the u.s. which i think is pertinent. on the other hand, the courts had ruled that obama's effort to extend that to their families was illegal. and so i think, you know, so secretary kelly said, look, in order -- i'm going to enforce the court order. if congress wants to change it, they can. but the court has ruled that the president did not have the authority to extend it from about 600,000 dreamers to about six million people.

and so i think, i thought that was a very almost solomon-like decision. i happen to think the dreamers should not be deported. i think you came here at 3 years of age, you don't speak spanish, it's a little bit goofy to say good luck in guatemala are. at the same time, that does mean you are potentially breaking up families. we just need to understand that's one of the sad parts of how you go through historic change. >> [inaudible] >> well, which kind? i mean, look, all campaigns communicate symbolically. i actually am a reaganiten in i think you should communicate what you intend to do and you should actually do it. that's not the norm in american politics. obama promised us you could keep your doctor and insurance policy, he knew it was a lie when he said it. trump exaggerates routinely, it's a part of his salesmanship, you know? you ought to come to my golf course, it's the greatest, it's unbelievable, you can't imagine how great the hotel is, it's the greatest -- [laughter]

look, he became a billionaire by selling, you know? you don't sell your hotel by going it's actually kind of mediocre, the staff's not very good -- [laughter] personally, if you can a avoid it, i'd go somewhere else. [laughter] but that wrings with it the -- brings with it the baggage that he at times overpromises and at times exaggerates. it's also true, and this is one of the things i wrote about in "understanding trump" that i think is helpful as a pattern. trump always wants to negotiate down, not up. so he'll always set the initial term, we're going to build a wall, and mexico's going to pay for it. okay? and then the congress, you know, it was great. they cut this deal with the democrats, the continuing resolution, and they can't build a concrete wall which the democrats thought they were being very clever. and the following day after the democrats claimed how clever they were, they released a picture of the steel wall. [laughter] and they pointed out, you know, listen, you negotiate with trump, i you've got to read fine print. because this guy has done more

contracts than all of congress combined, and he knows how to negotiate. >> let's stay in the front. over this. over there. >> good morning, mr. speaker. >> good morning. >> my name is kwame, i'm a software engineer, i work at the federal agencies. my question is more along the line of whistleblowers. sometimes when you're working in the agency, you're like light years away from the white house. help me understand from your perspective a framework upon which software engineers like myself would work with this administration given the animosity towards leakers, the cybersecurity issues that's out here floating around publicly? i represent an organization that's called federal software engineers and data scientists, we're about 350. and so i'm really curious, i wasn't going to even ask a question, but i just could not help -- >> sure.

listen, it's a great question at two levels. first of all, i would hope your organization might come forward and offer specific advice on how we should be dealing with cybersecurity issues, because this goes back to taleb, you actually know something about the topic. that'll be better than most of the guys at think tanks. you actually know the topic. so if your group came up and said here are six or eight things you ought to do, that'd be very endful and -- helpful and, i think, a step in the right direction. second, i would hope that you would try to implement the laws of the united states as they relate to your job and would focus on that and not worry about most of the noise. and then third, and i don't know if this affects you, but it affects a lot of federal employees, we have to rethink the current civil service rules which operate in such a way that if you're totally incompetent, you still keep your job. that just -- as you know, i mean, the people who love their job and want to the to come in

early and want to work hard and are really excited really get drawn down. i talked to somebody who runs a small agency who's actually probably a liberal democrat, but she said in her small agency she has one person who for two years has come in, put his head on the desk and slept for the entire day. she's actually taken pictures of him sleeping. and she has one person who's never come in in two years, and she cannot get the h.r. department to fire the two people. now, that's just crazy. and that lowers the morale of everybody else in the department. so that's a different zone, i think. and my advice is, you know, obey the law, do your best to help serve america. i mean, it is a great privilege to be able to serve the united states of america. and i say this -- i'm a guy who picks on the bureaucracy, etc., but i also understand that if you don't have people who care about the country and who work their hearts out, it ain't gonna work. and so i'm glad you're here today. and if you do come up with six or eight serious, common sense

steps, if you'll get them to me, i will personally put them in the white house. okay? [inaudible conversations] >> anybody over there? yes. >> morning. dave martin, biomedical engineer. in your opinion, what are one or more of the ways that the average american person like myself could spend their time, energy and resources which are limit today affect the change that we're talking about and to help the administration? trump administration. >> yeah. well, look, i think, first of all, as a private citizen, as an individual speaking up with your friends, calling in to talk radio, writing letters to the editor. people actually read the letters to the editor more than the editorials. it drives the editorial writers crazy. do a blog, tweet. i mean, there are a lot of things people -- do facebook. there are a lot of things people can do to reach out. we live in an era when you can become your own communication system, and you can find other people who agree with you, and

you can create may not. and -- a community. i also think this is an era where, frankly, if trumpism means anything, it is decentralization away from washington. so in a sense, what this gentleman was talking about. we want to find ways for everybody at every level to go out and be creative and be positive and do things and maybe -- so the ideas may flow back up to washington rather than flowing down from washington. >> yes. right this. yes. right there. and then we'll move across back to the other side by the time we're done. >> thanks. peter -- [inaudible] what are your thoughts on the election next week in georgia six and the republican prospects for holding the house in 2018? >> i think that the, it's probably even money who wins in georgia. ossoff's not a very good candidate, but he's got over $23

million which for a single house race is just kind of astonishing. i'd liked to have had 10% personally. [laughter] and that's all that's keeping him up now. i think he's actually decaying, and only the weight of money is keeping him in the game. the early voting, the republican vote is up 16%. the democrat vote's down 23. and the guess is, this is purely a guess, but on the democratic side the college students have gone home and that they have a real problem. finding them and getting them to vote. but i'm told by people in georgia that they, they're now seeing a significant shift towards handel and away from ossoff. look, if she loses, we'll be battered and irritated and a little frightened. if he loses after $23 million, this'll be the third loss in a row after kansas and montana.

the left will go crazy. i mean, if -- literally. they have so much more at stake in georgia than we do that it's the unbelievable. but i would say as of right now she has -- it's at worse an even money chance that she'll win. that's the worse you can say right now. anybody that tells you they know for sure is, i'm sure, very foolish. next year is pretty simple. two to things. do the democrats keep getting crazier? if you get identified as a party of bleeding heads, assassinations in new york public theater, a national chairman who has to use curse words because he can't figure out how to say anything intelligent including a u.s. senator who yous curse words, i mean, at some point that party has a relatively small base because they just sound nuts. that's what happened under thatcher. and thatcher is much more like trump than reagan. because reagan never threatened the left in the united states. he defeated communism in moscow, but he didn't try to defeat it at stanford.

the difference is that like thatcher, trump is a mortal threat to the left. and so the left under thatcher went crazy, and by her third election in '87, the news media routinely referred to them as the loony left. so the first question next year is do the democrats keep drifting into this insanity representing a world with view that is 20% or 25% of the country. the second question is do the republicans get their act together and actually get -- not just get good things done, but communicate them. they have done so much on veterans administration reform, and it has such a weak communication system that nobody realizes this is the best pro-veteran -- the house, senate and president are the best pro-veterans team we've had in modern times. they're doing real things. it is really working x they can't communicate any of it. now, they've got to both learn how to do things that matter and break past all the elite media and make sure that every

american hears them despite all of the hostility. and if they solve that and if the left keeps going crazy, we could actually have an election next year where we gain ground, not lose ground. >> let's go around, all the way -- there's somebody all the way in the back. so this is somebody all the way in the back. right there. go ahead. >> thanks, john. and, mr. speaker, you are a true intellectual giant and widely respected from the point of view that you have, but just to play dell's advocate -- devil's advocate, isn't it possible that trump becomes like mccarthy who became known as demagogue and imploded? it took a few years but it got there. and to give it the framework, the mueller investigation you don't think is really going to find anything in terms of russian money that supported trump against his bankruptcies

when no u.s. banks would or paying triple the funding, the value for his properties and flynn and manafort? you don't think they'll be actually indicted? and the senate that just voted 98-2 for russian sanctions because of what happened in the election? so i know it's something that can be smiled at, but there's a lot of seriousness and a lot of evidence, or do you just disagree that there's any evidence whatsoever and that this is going to go nowhere? the other thing i wanted to say was thank you for the advertisement for the rahm event that's going to be here on tuesday, he'll be able to answer your question. [laughter] >> good. there we go. i'd love if somebody would ask him that, do you really need more criminals on the streets of chicago? [laughter] let me take your question at two levels, okay? i think it's very illustrative, and i'm going to go way out on a limb. there's a remarkable book by diana west called "american

betrayal" which i recommend to everybody which basically says there really were communist spies. that mccarthyism in a sense is one of the great victories of the left, because the left decided that they had to smear mccarthy x. mccarthy was a wild man and at times a demagogue. but the underlying truth was there were at least 500 soviet spies in the united states. therethere are people on the let today who will tell you that, in fact, alger hiss was not a communist spy. now, we know because after the soviet empire fell for a brief period we had access to their records, many of which were at hoover. and we know that at yalta about 2:00 in the morning, alger hiss met with stalin and was given the highest civilian award in the soviet union for having been such a brilliant agent of influence. i mean, this is not theoretical.

yet there are professors around this country who will passionately teach that what richard nixon did in going after hiss was terrible, and it was part of mccarthyism. we also there were a lot of people in hollywood who were communist. the reason reagan becomes so anti-communist is he's the president of the screen actors' guild and goes out and has a drink with a guy who says to him i am a real stalinist, and if you win, i am putting you in jail. and reagan thinks, this guy's sincere. and he becomes a very hard-line anti-communist in 1947. and, of course, the empire disappears about 44 years later. so, one, the very framing of your question, i thought, was interesting. two, i think we should look at russian influence. why did the bank pay bill clinton $500,000? why did the bank hire john podesta's brother to be a lobbyist?

why did the people who wants uranium decision give millions and millions of dollars to the clinton foundation through a canadian foundation which does not release who donates to it? so i'm very happy to let's have a broad, and this is part of what drives me crazy and is a sign of republican just incompetence. i think we should look at russian influence efforts and russian propaganda efforts. but then let's start with the clintons. i mean, why is it that we're really worried about paul manafort, but we're not really worried about these other people? are we worried about manafort because he doesn't report it? what is the difference between john podesta's brother and paul manafort? what's the difference -- we're worried about money. why aren't we worried about a half billion dollars to bill clinton? which was paid, i think, at about the same point that hillary was making a decision about uranium.

why does a that that -- why doet matter? it's impossible for russia to be pro-clinton. and, therefore -- and this was the question actually asked, to his credit, by a republican congressman the other day to the former head of the cia who had been talking about worrying about the president talking with the russian ambassador. he said, well, how about if a president said to the president of russia as soon as the election's over, i'll be able to do a lot of stuff i can't do now? which is what obama said to medvedev. so, i mean, i'm very happy to look at russian influence efforts in the united states. i just think they ought to be bipartisan, they ought to be open. we ought to know the total amount of money that's poured into the clintons, total amount of money poured into the podestas. i think that'd be terrific. frankly, i would expand it. i'd like to know how many countries like saudi arabia give money to universities to hire professors who end up being propagandists for the countries that are giving them money?

i think this is a very important long-term question. i am very concerned about the ability of foreign governments to corrupt the american system, and i think it would be very helpful to have a deep, fundamental look at how much foreign money now penetrates our culture at every level. >> on that note, we've run out of time. i want to thank speaker gingrich again for appearing. >> thank you. [applause] >> and before you go, i know you'll be off to the holy see as your wife becomes ambassador to the vatican, and you're going to be still on american television. you're going to have to wind up getting up very early, so for coffee to be perky on cnn in the morning or "morning joe," i'd like to give you the official national press club coffee mug. [applause] >> and i'd be honored and happy to sign personalized books anybody wants to get here today. i'm delighted to be here.

thank you for interviewing me, that was great. >> thank you. this concludes our program. good morning. ms. -- [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> washington journal continues. host: our first guest, former u.s. senator from oklahoma he is the author of the book, smashing d.c. he is also a senior advisor of the convention of state project.

could you talk about what article five said and what it offers as far as power to the states? guest: colonel george ma colonel george mason when they were having a discussion on tower constitution. doesn't say we head a grievous error. we have to make sure that because nowhere in history have powers -- have powerful government seeded back to the american people. they put this second componentin into article 5 which allows the states, two-thirds of the states to call an amendments convention. not a constitutional convention but an amendments convention where the states can offer amendments which are nothing but recommendations that go back to the states and then three-quarters of the states, 38 states, would have to approve that. so, what it does is it's the relief valve for the states when they see this imbalance, and what has happened is there's no

long we are balance of power between the three batches in at the gordon. and in and no longer a balance of power ben the federal government and the states because 60% on average of the states when they raise money in state have a federal bureaucrat telling them howl they have to spend that. they have essentially lost all their power. so it's matter rove balancing the relationship between the states and federal government. >> as far as mechanics. here's what article 5 says the congress on shall call a convention for promoting amendmentses which shall by valid to all intents and purposes as part of the constitution and guess on from there. how many states are currently signed o. >> 12 have signed and have to have 34. once you have 34, the congress doesn't have any choice. they have to call in an amendments convention, which is a convention of the states, which means each state gets one vote on anything that happens there. and then whatever comes out of

that has to coincide with what the application is. there's already juris prudence on that so if you apply forap three areas you can't go outside of those three areas to offer amendmentses. >> what are the three areas that the states would call for? >> well in our application, which all aggregate -- they're all similar -- limit the scope and jurisdiction of the federalt government, force financial responsibility, i.e. a balanced budget amendment with generally accepted accounting principles and limit the terms of both aexpound elected officials. if you think about it, why is the congress not considering economic and fiscal restraint right now? where is the movement for awhers balanced budget amendment? 85% of persons want that but nobody is doing that in washington.cent o it's not going to happen unless we, the people, make it happen. >> well continue with the conversation with our guest but if you want to talk about this

proposal and article 5 and this effort to offer amendments by the states to to constitution, 202-748-8000, 202-4788-8001 for republicans and independences, 202-7 48-8002. is this a bipartisan state. >> it is in state wes have both democrats and republicans and independents supporting it, and more progressive states they're interested from a constituent extend of getting raid -- i try to remember the course case that allowed open spending through 529s. so, we have a lot of opposition because people like the power concentrated here in washington. but we also have a lot of support. we have 2.8 million volunteers right now and we'll grow that to 10 million of the next year, and

we have a volunteer in everylu legislative district in the country. >> as far as the number of states but quite a was to go to get to 34. how soon could you see that happen? >> depend on leadership and what happens in washington. the more people see what is happening in washington the more they agree we need to make changes in terms of how it happens, how it works, the fact that not muching happening, didn't happen in the last four years, isn't happening now in this coming four years, where is the work together to solve the real problems of america?er that what's i'm interested in. >> the president was elected with that kind of mandate. >> sure. but the point is, this kind of superseded politics. this says what are the real problems we have as a nation, how do we fix them and how do we repair as our founders knew we would need to, otherwise they would have never put is -- thisn there where we reevaluate the

balance of power in washington. essentially congress has given all its power away. they don't have much pair anymore and the courts and the executive branch control things. >> a couple of gentleman at the center for budget and policy priorities that look at this, you have a convention of the stated they offer this argue.en saying the constitution provide nod guidance on to the grounds rules for a convention, leaves wide tone political, ask pressures and questions how the delegate will be chosen, how many delegates each stayed would have and whether a super majority vote would be required to approve amendments. >> the only requirement to approve amendments done by the states. the constitution're says that and requires a super majority. the select of who comes is totally left up to the states. what they don't understand is before our constitution, everything happened through a convention. all our history is about convinc.is matter of fact the bill of rights, when madison and johnri jay started propose that through an article 5 convention,

congress said we don't want them to do that. congress passed the bill of rights. so, there's a ton of naysayers. i understand that. we would expect that. but tell me, here is my position as a retired u.s. senator and somebody who cares about the future of our country. what's your ideas to fix it? it certainly isn't getting fixed here. how do we fix what -- how do we guarantee a good future for our kids? here's the number that sticks with me. we have $144 trillion in unfunded liabilities and debt right now that's going to be coming due in the next 50 years. if you take the 85 million millenials, who are going to be the wage-earners, how is it fair they lose 30,000 bucks a year they have to pay off when we weren't responsible for it. so to not do anything is a moral injustice to the people that follow us and i know people don't want to pay attention to that but the fact is, we have an

obligation to those that come after to us be responsible stewards and to start acting responsibly. certainly haven't the last 25 years. >> the book is called "smashing the d monopoly. first call from ray, texas, democrats line, you're on go ahead. >> guest: good miracle, ray.nk >> caller: hi and thank you for c-span.. tom, i get you, what you're doing and i appreciate it very much. we need this in a terrible way. where do i begin? you just -- there's no way whery a sitting president could even implement any of the things they want to do their platform. too much stuff that's broken. hires my suggestion. is it possible, would it be possible, could congress muster the courage to create an

independent commission onlobb lobbying, revamp lobbying from the top down and totally divorce the money that is paid to congressmen, senators, whoever,r because it is always a perpetual election, all they're trying to run, very little gets done while they're there. it's all about taking money and staying in power. not the money itself. it's about staying in power. >> host: ray, thank you. >> guest: i think as a physician i would say that's treating the symptom instead of the disease. the disease is long-term ray money, get reelected and enhance my ability to have this position. term limits is the answer to that. self-limited my own terms but term lilts is the answer and that's what we are proposing, we limit the terms of the members of congress. a large portion of the senate

and house have never had a job outside of politics. that doesn't make them bad people but certainly limits their exposure and thought patterns on how you solve problems. so, i'm with you. i think the lobbying and the money raising is all a symptom of lack of term limits. everybody that was at the convention -- the constitutional convention was for term limits with the exception of the new york representative, who started our banking business, hamilton, and he persuaded them not to put it in and let the states decide. 26 states but in term limits and the supreme court turned it down, again, the way we do this is through a constitutional amendment that the states approve that supreme court can't have any control over, and that's why we the people have to solve this problem. we're the ones that ought to bee deciding because we're being affected. >> host: from georgia,

independent line, david. >> caller: this is nothing but the old states right argument that they keep bringing -- these conservatives keep trying to t bring up all the time. the reason they want to good back to states rights which give all the power to the states which is governed by republicans from the dark on up and it's basically just white rice. anyway, there was a thing that happened back in the turn of the center. the farmers were given the money from the state to dole out to all the other farmers for whatever reason. well, they give it to the white farmers, the white farmers gave all the money to their friends, and other white familiarers. family members, whatever and excluded the black farmers which went out of business. that's why people try to fight that states right mentality when it comes to going back to the

way we do things, because they have always hate the federal government for making things right and better for all people. thank you. sunny couldn't disagree more. to give you an example, on a highway built with federal money it costs 50% more to build the same exact highway than if you do it with state money because of all the bureaucrats and all the regulations required. this doesn't have anything to do with race. this has everything to do with freedom and that's freedom for everybody of every race in our country. >> host: from kansas, democrats line-hunt. good ahead. >> caller: okay. i have to say, mr. coburn, i could not disagree with you more. this is nothing about false advertisement. this is a g.o.p. agenda. you guys got the majority of the state legislatures throughout the country. this is backed by alec, and it's

nothing more than false advertisement. sort of like you're right to work states. this is bad news. when they open this up who knows, and you said it's not about race. it's everything to do with race. come on.ou this is what the country is about. don't be fooled, america. this is another making america great ploy. >> host: hunt, what is wrong with the proposal, then? what's wrong with the amendment proposal? he's gone. you can responsible. >> guest: i'm sorry they see it colored that way. understand why they might. but in fact it has nothing to do with it. we started this movement while i was in the u.s. senate, and it -- we didn't have the majority of the house. it has nothing to do with -- that to do with freedom, and actually this, problems infront of our country, you can ignore it but we'll pay for them eventually, and maybe not me because i'm older but my children are certainly are and my grandchildren are.

so the question is, are you a good steward -- do you actually reach out and fix he problem? this isn't about limiting other people's freedom. this is about expanding everybody's, and restoring the freedom that we were intended to have. do we really need a big brothert from washington on everything that goes on in the states? well, if you have been discriminated against you might feel that way. understand that. but that isn't the way to establish freedom. this is a solution that is as big as the problem that is in front of us, as a nation. and the real question is, who decides? is some elite person in d.c. going to decide your future, your freedom, how to do thing or some unelected bureaucrat who has never ran for office or do you get to decide? here's the other important point. as a u.s. senator i represented almost four million people. how many got to talk to me? they i can actually speak a

legislator and all i have to do is drive 95 miles and i can milwaukee any voice heard --lsen make my voice heard and so can anybody necessary oklahoma. that doesn't happen here. when you sent a leader back you get a letter back thanking you for the letter but no specific response to your question. >> host: the states that signed on to this, they're governed by republicans and have republican legislatures largely? sunny think that's true. alaska, indiana, missouri,al tennessee, lad. think that's true. >> host: will you make this pedestrian largely to red states in you talked about bipartisan nature of this -- >> guest: i think the reason it's going first in red states a is because they're more desire to give control back to the states. >> host: as far as being consistent of the three things you want thank you do you make that happen with the states having to have the same principles. >> guest: let's take the fiscal

responsibility that the federal got has to be fiscally responsible. within a convention, every state gets one vote, if oklahoma wants to send ten and california sends 20 they can but the still get one vote. you have to pass a recommendation that says, here's a constitutional amendment we would forward to the states. that would be, let's have a balanced budget amendment that says over the next ten years you have to move towards a balanced budget amendment. here's why that is important. most of the time our members of congress and our senators won't make the hard choice because if they make the hard choice they might not get reelected and the. conflict is maintaining power versus losing power. so, if they -- if we have balanced budget amendment that says you have to do this, they can go home and say, look, i'm sorry, didn't have any choice. had to vote because we now have a constitutional amendment that says we have to live within our means instead of continuing to

borrow off the backs of peoplele that aren't even born now. >> host: this is from ourho independent line. florida, bill go ahead you're on with our guest and. >> caller: good morning pedro. i agree with the earlier call, this is nothing more than undermining democracy in america, putting a limit on wages, decreasing wages, as you, have done in puerto rico, with the blue mountain hedge fund that's going on there that wrecking that economy. >> host: how do you make the connection between what you cited and this effort by senator coburn? >> caller: because that's what all the red states represent. they represent nonunion people, they represent wage controls of $7 an hour. $7.50 an hour. they won't let people unionize. they are destroying democracy.

it's the indifference to the a way of life in america that we used to have during the '50s and '60s. >> host: okay. we'll let our guest respond. >> guest: again, it's very informative to see the kind of response that we're seeing, which is one of thundershower problems in our country, the division. you're obviously bad if you live in a red state. you're not thinking -- you can't care for people. we just heard an explanation that if you're from a red state, from two different individuals, that obviously you don't have the kind of values needed forr our country, and that just isn't true.ru the fact is red states care for their people as well as blue states, and i don't know. right to work? right to work is actually w elevated wages in oklahoma. so, i understand thisut porlarization we're seeing isac difficult but if we have convention of states and force the federal government, what

wrong with us living win our means and is there a moral question to the gentleman who just called from florida? you don't think you ought to pay for your medicare? you don't think you ought to be paying for what is getting ready to come down the pike to benefit you or should you just charge it to your children? that's the real moral question. we can take it off into a back alley and say that's not what we're trying to do, but that is what we're trying to do.t >> even though the constitution allows for it do you hear the argument this is an end runen around representational government. end this is exactly what our founders intended. they knew at some point in time the ineffectiveness and the cost of the central government collecting power to itself would have to be neutralized and this is just about restoring what was originally in our constitution in terms of the states having the ability to make decisions. for example, can we -- the

$100 billion a yerbas in the military? who is working on that? i can documented that -- i have documented it in a written book. hoarse the waste. who is working on that right now? nobody. so the question is, do we have representative government or just continue to waste money. $400 million a year, according to gao is waste, fraud, abuse, and duplication. they just came out yesterday and said, inappropriate payments of $145 billion. $145 billion? that's enough to run the state of oklahoma 20 years. why would we continue to allow that? so, i understand what we're hearing from callers about i don think it has any bearing in fac of what we're trying do. >> smashing the d c'mon knopp my, using article 45 during article 5" and joining us to talk about the concepts there. ed from michigan, republican

line, you're next. >> caller: i love this idea. government closest to the people governs best you. can't govern a country the size of the united states, as diverse as the united states, from one spot. i would prefer to have people in california, illinois, massachusetts, not suffer under donald trump and a republicanre congress' policies. similar live i would not want to have texas or indiana or utah suffer are in their poll is so barack obama and nancy pelosi. so we need to decentralize power because we do that, we have more freedom. that's why hitler and the nazi hated federalism. when you do that -- i always have the left talk about states rights and how it's a boogieman. prior to the civil war there's only one political entity that opposed state and it was the northern states. the several government and southern states coddledslavery. people have more choices and with more choices you have more

competition and more accountability. love this plan. >> guest: i agree with him. it's really about who decides. and that is what freedom is about. this isn't about undermining civil rights. this isn't about taking away what is out there. it's about being responsible with what is. and what we have just heard was a good summation of why we ought to do it but the other reason is because look how much fear we have heard this morning. look how much fear. why is the fear? do we expect the elites in washington to do what is best in the long term for the country, when in fact their real conflict is doing what its bess for their political rear? give you an example from last year. last year $484 billion deficit.

published by omb and cbo. except the debt went up $1.6 trillion. as an accounting major and a degree in accounting, you can't -- that doesn't work. the unfunded liabilities grew $6 trillion. so, we can ignore that. we can continue -- what that means is the average millenial will live at a 30% decreased standard of living than what we're leaving right now and that's a moral imperative we fix that. >> host: that idea, if if can get a reaction. the president expected to release his budget today. according to the inflammation there's some spending -- new spending involved when it comess to things like public private partnerships and things like that. one thief bigger issues raised is when it comes to spending cuts, potential of 600 bin from medicaid and the children's health insurance program. is that the right approach? >> guest: well, if you look at what they found in pennsylvania? and ohio, they found over a million people that were

illegally signed up for medicaid. who lied on their applications. they compared tell to the auto applications for their auto loans and then they compared them to what they told the state and in fact they weren't eligible. for a republic to survive you have to have a virtuous and informed public. i would tell you that if you have a million people in two states that signed up illegally for a government program, and that average cost is $7,000 a year, that's a lot of money. that's 7 billion just in those two states. well if you have the same amount of fraud elsewhere, what's going on? same thing on social security disability. we know that 40% of the people on disability aren't disabled. but nobody -- we did all -- people going to jail from the oversight we did on that but who is working on that now? so, i don't overreact. our goal ought to be is if somebody needs help, we ought to

help them but we all to also help them maintain to be personally responsible and not create dean den si. arthur brookses and his books meat two great points. learn dependency is tyranny because what happens is you lose your ability to lawyer and grow into what you can -- to flower and grow but earned success is happiness and it's true. so if we create programs that help people that need and it dent allow the fraud and abuse, we know there's $120 billion ofi fraud in medicare and medicaid. just think about that. that is enough to build every new bridge we need to build per year from now on, every year airport we need build. all the new highways we need to build. just got rid of fraud in medicare and medicaid. nobody wants to do the hard work of making people accountable on the programs. i haven't looked at presidentt'' trump's budget. will. i have no doubt some of it will

be good, some won't be good. you can't be -- nobody operates a perfect budget and i read it's already dead up here. that's because we're going to vote ourselves money from the public treasury. that's how republics die and everybody has died. every republic's died. we are the longest standing republic and they all died on s the same thing. fiscal impropriety. >> democrats lynn. katherine in ohio. >> caller: good morning. and you are a true politician because you speak out of bothe sides of your mouth. sir, you were the elite in washington; if it was so bad then why didn't you try to do something at the time. you spent the money. you were the good steward who donated or decided where the money would go and then you spent it. and now you act like i'm the guilty one because now i'm at social security age, and because the money is not there, i have

done something wrong. no, sir, you were the supposedu to be the good steward. you were there with the money. you are the one that is responsible, not us. now it's time to pay the piper. we worked our entire lives, sir. i started working when i was 16. i lied. was the oldest of five and to have a winter coat i had to good to work. when i got 18 and got out of high school i got a job at the kroger company, and there i stayed until the day i retired. i worked, got married, i had children, i raised my family, i bought a home and did all the things that is required of me. but you, sir, you did not. now you spent the money. my money, my tax dollar. and now you're crying because the money is not there for you to spend again. the money needs to be put back into these places where we paid it in. now, you, sir, are the one holding the money bag.

and now you want to tell me how bad i am because i want to havem somewhat of a decent life. i'm not asking to live in luxury like you are, sir. but i like to pay my gas and electric bill and my mortgage in the same month.me >> host: thank you. we'd let our get respond. >> guest: she doesn't know my voting railroad. didn't vote for one appropriation bill the entire time i was in the u.s. senate because it thought i was immoral. number two, is i'm the guy that did the oversight, trying to straighten things out. i'm the guy that outlined the waste. couldn't get people to vote for it. so i understand your opinion but i thick if you check my voting record you would find your statements are far -- no true. >> host: as far as getting to the 34, what is the convention of the states project, what are they doing. >> guest: we're expanding our grassroots base wind chill should be at 10 million people.. at the end of the next year.

which gives us a grassroots army to actually go and lobby legislators about changing things. we will pick up probably eight to ten states next year, which will put us somewhere between 2n and 22 states, and then we'll just take that same resource and that same grassroots and work on the states that are left. >> host: convention of the states.com, the web site if you want to learn more about the project that our guest is with. also the author over the books "smashing the d c'mon knoppfully" a former u.s. snort from oklahoma, tom coburn, thank you. >> guest: it's been a pleasure.

....