c-span.org. today navy secretary ray mabus will have the luncheon address before press club members. he'll talk about the state of america's naval forces along with the challenges the navy faces. ray mabus his remarks getting under way in a moment or two. >> for more information visit our website, that's press.org.

on behalf of members worldwide i want to welcome you. i'd like to welcome our c-span and radio audiences. you can follow the action on twitter today. use the hashtag npc lunch. applause is not evidence of lack of journalistic objectivity. our head table includes guests of our speakers and working journalists who are members of the national press club. let me introduce them to you now. i'd ask each person to stand briefly as their names are announced. from the audiences right ken

delecky. haley sukayama. andrea andrea. thomas opal. senator john warner. [ applause ] donna, breaking news reporter for usa today. vice chair of the peoples committee.

jen jetson. tony capaccio defense reporter at bloomberg news. recent pentagon developments show that ray mabus sees change ahead for the military branch

that he oversees. last week he directed his staff to create an advisory council to quote, assist accelerate enable and thrive. he's got a page on facebook. he has named ships for former congresswomen gabrielle giffords and ceasar chavez. despite these new things there are other things for the navy

that remain constant. u.s. vessels are deployed to hot spots all over the world. the navy repositions a u.s. carrier battle group in the a arabian sea. in recent days all eyes have been on the strait of hermus was seized by naval forces. we look forward to hearing how secretary mabus plans to handle these many challenges all the way crafting a navy of the future. please join me in giving a warm national press club welcome to secretary of the navy ray mabus. [ applause ] >> thank you so much. thank all of you for having me here and being here.

i'm only going to call out one person before i start. that's my esteemed predecessor, john warner. [ applause ] >> every secretary of the nation aspires to be john warner. i just want to point out that this is john warner the person not john warner the submarine. john warner the submarine will be commissioned in august of this year and will spend the next 40 years patrolling the waters of this earth protecting the country that senator warner, secretary warner has served so well. [ applause ]

what the navy and marine corps uniquely built this country. we take whatever we need with us and we don't have to ask anyone's permission to get the job done. part of that presence has ensured the global economic system for the past 70 years. keeping the sea lanes open for everybody involved in peaceful trade has been the reason that the world's is working as well

as it does. 90% of all trade goes by sea. 95% of the voice communication and data go under the sea. the 21st century is definitely a maritime century. a chief of navy from asia told me one time that the difference between soldiers and sailors is that soldiers look down at maps. they see lines. they see boundaries. they see obstacles. sailors look up over the horizon. they see no lines. they see no boundaries. they only want to see what comes next. what comes over that horizon.

in the constitution of article one it says the congress has the authority to raise an army. it has the responsibility to maintain a navy. in that not so subtle distinction lies the importance of the united states navy and marine corps. we deploy equally in times of peace and in times of war. we've also been at the forefront. we led the country.

the way i have tried to organize my thinking and the way the navy approaches this presence and the responsibility we have to this country are our sailors and marines. platforms. our ships and our aircraft. power, the fuel for those platforms and partnerships. partnerships with the american people partnership with industry partnership with our allies around the world. i'm going to start out with platforms. there's a lot of conversation and has been for a while about the size of our fleet.

if you listen to some folks this administration is just gutting the navy. nothing could be further from the truth. then there's there arbitrary ship counting, the way we count ships. let me give you a couple of facts here. on 9/11 2001, the u.s. navy had 316 ships. by 2008 after one of the great military build ups we were down to 278 ships and shrinking. in the five years before i became secretary the navy put 27 ships under contract. that was not enough to keep the size, the size of the float from

going down. it was also not enough to keep our shipyards. in the first five years i've had this job, we have put 70 ships under contract and we've done it with a smaller top line. we're going to get back more than 300 ships by the end of this decade. 304 to be exact. congress last year in the national defense authorization act said we couldn't count patrol craft forward deployed in the arabian gulf.

it was done because it didn't match the political narrative that some people were going into, that the navy was getting smaller and we were shrinking. those sailors are combat commanders who request them and think they're in the battle fleet. we think they're in the battle fleet and i guarantee you the iranians think they're in the battle fleet. right now there's three of those around the mersk. i'd like like to take politics out of this a little while.

let's recognize the decisions were made 10, 12 years ago is what we're dealing with today. when you build ships, they tyke a long time and very expensive. if you miss a year building a ship, you never make it up. never. the size of our fleet today was decided 10 or 12 years ago. the size of our float five years from now ten years from now, 15 years from now, 20 years from now is being decided with the decisions we make today. quantity has a quality all its own. we got to have enough of those big gray holes on the horizon reassuring our allies deterring potential adversaries and keeping those sea lanes open.

the first time in history there's a dominant naval power. it's kept the sea lanes open. i'll give you a couple of quick examples. we went from 27 ships in five years to 70 ships in five years by doing some very simple very basic things.

we want those shipyards to stay in business for all sorts of reason. competition being the start but there really wasn't much competition. in 2012 we filled out three. we said the low bid gets the third ship. the difference in the high bid and the low bid comes out of the high bidders profit. once again, the high bidder, the difference came out of high bidders profit.

the second one is the virginia class submarine. we signed the largest navy contract this history last summer. we paid for nine. we got a free submarine. it was like having a punch card. i bought nine. give me my tenth one free. focusing on unmanned. unmanned is the future. we're the only one that does it above the sea, on the sea and under the sea. we needed a champion.

it could get refueled. that's our unmanned carrier aircraft. just got refueled in the air. nobody is flying that thing. it's programmed to find the carrier, land, take off, go find the tanker. people. we got the best. we put them and we have put them for years now, under a lot of

stress. i'm going to be making some announcements in may about some of the things we're trying to help the force and maintain the quality that we got to keep some people. things like career and admission programs that lets people go out of navy for a while come back in but compete as though they never left. we don't have enough limit. they got their job of retaining those women. along those lines and this is sort of seems like a small area.

i do think it's important. i was at the very first army/navy, my very first army-navy. by the way navy won. that's been true for the last 13 years. that doesn't make it special or anything. i watched as the corps of cadets mar mped out. that's one of the most moving things you can see. women wearing different uniforms, a different color.

we have changed at the academy and we're in the midst of changing the uniforms across the navy and marine corps so when you see out you see american sail sailors and marines. if we ask any other group to wear a different uniform, imagine the trouble we'd be in. this is symbolic in terms of not segregated women and making sure that they are the heart of our force. in 2009 i set energy goals for the navy.

it's got some great side effects in terms of being better stewards of the environment. we're betting fighters because of this. we're going to be there on our shore bases this year. we're going to be five years early. by the end of '15 half of all naval services. we don't particularly care what the source is.

energy is a vulnerability. it's a as a rule ner blts for two reasons. one is supply. we were depen dent on countries that may not wish us the west. the second is price. the price of oil and gas have gone down dramatically. while it's down right now, you track the long term flow of oil and gas and the price is only going in one direction with movement around that line. next year we're deploying the

fleet. we stertcertified every single ship. i was ambassador to saudi arabia in the '90ss. it was a great quote there from the oil minister of the '80s. he said the stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones. it didn't because we invented something better. the navy has always been on the cutting edge of energy and energy transformation. there's always be nay sayers and always been wrong and they're wrong this time too.

finally partnerships. the american people don't get to see how hard the job is and how good the sailors and marines are. one of the reasons i worked hard and we brought rotc back to harvard, yale princeton and columbia. we also added it at rutgers and arizona state. the two most diverse campuses in this country.

i think we ought to name ships that wereflect our values. when those ships around the world and it's the only americans a lot of people will ever see. they ask who was metgar edgars, who's gabby giffords.

industry deserves the make a fair return. taxpayers deserve to get a good deal. you think it would be pretty straightforward, it's not. let them know how many ships you're going to build and when because in return they owe us some things. they us the infrastructure improvements and training. by the way, we bought a lot more

ships. it's not been at the expense of air. finally, international partnerships. i travel a lot. i travel for two reasons. one is to see sailors and marines where they are, not where i am. second is to work with our national partners. 132 different countries and territories. we're doing something with every single one of them.

that's what we're building on a day-to-day basis is trust. just in terms of value, the navy and marine corps bring the best value for our taxpayers and our country where it counts, and it p counts. from the navy, always courageous from the marines always faithful. thank y'all very much. [ applause ] >> thank you so much mr. secretary. i mentioned many my introduction

the situation at the strait of hormuz. i wonder if you can bring us up to date or if there's anything new to report on that situation from the navy perspective. >> there's been no change in terms of the situation at least at 11:00 when i headed down this way. we have the three patrol craft in the region. i think it's a pretty good example of presence to give our leaders options. whatever our leadership decides they've got whole range of options because of those naval assets. >> the sea is a busy place these

days with unrest around the a arabian gulf how is the navy handle its multiplicity of missions and do you feel you have sufficient resources and how should our allies be helping? >> i know these come up on cards, but can i ask who asked the question. it's a good reason i'm asking. it's not bad. the first question gets a coin. we're handle the multiplicity of missions the same way we have always done. i get debriefed every time a group comings back in. the way that you do that is

you've got to have very flexible platforms and very flexible people. we push responsibility down further and faster than any organization. we expect our very youngest sailors and marines to do a great job. we're not dispientsed. we train to the maximum extent that we can. they've got to know and they do that there will be things coming over the horizon that are un unexpected and they'll have to deal with it in realtime. i think the american people have reason to believe that we can spend more money. doing it with sequester or something like that is just dumb. that's a technical term. i apologize for it. it's not putting money against strategy. it's not putting money where we think it needs to go.

it's just cutting. the president's budget for this year that we just finished testifying about gives us the resources that we need to do the missions that the country expects us to do. again, if you miss a year on things like shipbuilding, you can't get it back. finally, we have great allies. we really do. we have an agreement with the australians australians on biofuels. we'll be able to buy biofuels in australia. we have exercises all over the world. we have operations together all over the world.

the world is getting more complicate edd ed complicated, not less. more dangerous, not less. the myriad of threats, there's no one threat stream anymore. there are state actors. there are non-state actors. there's irregular warfare transnational crime. there's everything you can think of and every one of is going to be affected by it and every one of us has to bare fair share of the burden there. >> is there any discussion or consideration of moving a second carrier into the gulf region as was the case about three years ago when one carrier was removed?

>> no. i'll give you a little longer answer than that. the thing that was the aberration was the two carriers there. one carrier gives us all the presence, all the fire power that we need along with associated ships. give you an example of prens. when the decision was made to strike isis the carrier was on station in less than 30 hours conducting strikes and for 54 days it was the only strike option. it wasn't because we didn't have other assets other aircraft. we did. the countries would not give them permission to arm and take off. >> this questioner notes that the carrier based air operations

now allow us to project our presence anywhere in the world on a moment's notice. it was over a century ago that this really breakthrough technology, this breakthrough ability occurred. what can the navy do in 2015 that will rival this breakthrough or what will be the next great breakthrough similar to the way the carrier was a century ago? >> that's the revolution that's here. autonomous unmanned vehicles that can do isr and can do strike that can do really long

term monotonous tasks like refueling. we got some scientific stuff going on. part of our jobs is to get those from the lab to the war fighter quicker. ta rail gun, we've been working on it since the '80s. this is way too long. we've got to cut through some of that. >> i have a few different questions related to drones. will drones replace attack

planes and fighters. another says your comments about the f-35 being the last manned fighter fighter drew criticism from aviators. why is it important to mover quickly? >> yeah, but it drew praise from john mccain. who i believe is an aviator himself. it's important because, well, number one we always want to have two generations of aircraft on our decks. i said it should be and almost will be our last manned

aircraft. the f-35 makes decisions so fast the pilot is not involved in a lot of those. to have the endurance and the payload, to have stealth characteristics. unmanned is the only way you'll get to a lot of places. you cannot subject the human body to the stresses and we're not going to be putting people in harm's way. it has unmanned, under water mind sinking capabilities.

today on mind sweepers we put sailors in the nidmiddle of a mine field and tell them find it. we have both manned and unmanned ways to neutralize it mainly from the air. if you are a, i've said this before, if you're a 10-year-old who wants to be a naval aviator you'll get to be a naval aviator for a career because we'll have manned aircraft for it for that long. if you're born in a couple of years, you may not be in that manned aircraft. you can still be a naval

aviator, it will just be in a different way. >> we've been talking about if f-35, now that additional f-18s have been added to the budget, will the navy maintain its commitment to the f-35? >> yes. >> questionnaire wants to know about the v-22 osprey in noting its come a long way and can you comment about the usefulness of the v-22? >> the osprey, the tilt rotor is a phenomenal aircraft. yesterday the defense minister from japan was here. they just bought some ospreys and he wanted to go to norfolk to see our ships. he got on an osprey and the pentagon and he went to norfolk

and back. we're still learning some of the things this aircraft can do. we just picked it as the replacement. the osprey doesn't have to be tail hooked on to the carrier. it can land in a different spot. doesn't interfere with flight operations. we're going to get away from this hub with the carrier and take things and people directly to the ships that they're needed in.

>> the world's only operational laser was deployed last year to the gulf on the ponce command vessel. is it still deployed and what capability does it bring to any potential confrontation with iranian military vessels? >> yes it's still deployed. it's deployed in a test mode but we can knock down unmanned aircraft now question knock out small boats which are two of the big threats in that region. it's fairly small weapon. we're continuing the development and as you can imagine, energy power is the critical thing here. it's got to be able to charge up a battery or some storage thing. release it insignificanttantly and

recharge. if you want to talk about value, we're shooting multimillion dollar missiles now at other missiles. a shot of a laser costs less than a dollar. >> how do you see the role of american submarine forces fitting in over the next decade and any changes in the submarines? >> we have dominance in the under sea domain and i expect that to continue. the ones we're building today

the numbers 13 14, 15 of the virginia class don't bear much resemblance to the first one. the technology improved that fast and changed that fast. we're getting it on to the submarines that fast. they do a variety of missions. i think i'll stop there in terms of what they do. they're pretty astounding.

this is a national program. if navy has to bear the spire bill, it's going to take about half of our shipbuilding budget every year. i don't want to pay for one navy ship with another navy ship. i'm going to try to protect shipbuilding. it's going to kill something in navy. either navy has got to get plus or we got to establish a national fund to do this. congress has established the fund. we have until 2021 to come up with an answer here. we took the money out of shipbuilding. we would not only damage greatly

our service fleet we would damage our tax submarines too. a degree that's not acceptable. >> there's lots of speculation about who will fill the spot. can you offer any insight and what input do you as the secretary of navy have in helping the president choose military leaders? joe dunford is one of the finest people and officers that i've

ever, ever met. i'll give you my notion of the higher hierarchy. there's secretary of navy, secretary of defense, joint defense, the president, there's god and there's the commandante. >> would you ever support having a secretary for the marine corps? >> no. >> the navy has until 2016 to open all combat jobs to women. will you allow women to be navy seals. why or why not? >> the only part of the navy

the only part that's closed to women are trigger pullers for the seals. seals enablers intel, logistics, have women that deploy with seal teams for a good while now. my notion and this is personal 80% of men don't make it through. have some standards. make sure the standards have something to do with the job. then whoever can pass. whoever can make it through. do it. >> women now serve on submarines. tell us how that has worked out. the good, the band the ughand the

ugly. >> i made the decision for women to serve on submarines in 2010. the next month the cno -- i got to tell you nobody cared. it was big nothing. the next month the cno at the time banned smoking on submarines. everybody cared. [ laughter ]. >> we've had women now for several cruises on her ballistic missile submarines, guided missile submarines. first, women have begun reporting to our attack submarines now. they're earning and doing the things. there's no news here. they're american sailors, and they're doing an amazing job under the sea. i'll repeat what i said during the speech. we don't have enough, and we've

got to do a better job of getting and keeping women in the navy and the marine corps. >> you have been a camp onofhampion of renewable energy. how much of an impact will this have on the navy's emergency costs and should more ships be made with this new technology? >> to answer the first question, i said we're going to get to a gigawatt of renewable energy by the end of this year. every one of those is a public, private partnership. every single one. and every one is saving us money, so they're cheaper. we'll save money on all of these ashore. afloat it does not make economic sense to do nuclear on

other surface ships beside carriers or other ships beside submarines. we will continue to bill those as nuclear. it has to be higher than it's ever been over a sustained period of time, to make nuclear make sense in terms of up front capital costs. we only have three requirements for biofuels. one, it's got to be a drop in fuel. we're not changing our engines in any way. two, it can't take any land out of food production. we're not buying ethanol we're buying second or third generation biofuels. third, it has to be cost competitive. even with the dramatic decline in oil and gas, we think that it's going to be cost competitive. it's certainly going to be cost competitive over time. it's creating jobs in america. i mean these are -- our feed

stops, we don't care where it comes from. the feed stocks come from agricultural waste, landfills and algae. and whatever else scientists can come up with, we're in the market for. >> this questioner says the u.s. marines left behind $500 million in weapons and other gear in yemen when forced to retreat and abandon the embassy. has this military equipment fallen into the hands of terrorists, or what do we know, if anything about its whereabouts? >> well, i think that number, 500$500 million, is too high by a factor of several zeros. i mean it's news to me if marines' individual weapons cost

quite that much. or even the crew served weapons. i know it hadn't fallen into any bad hands because marines destroyed everything before they left. it was a decision that -- about the way they left that was not made by the marine corps. our marines pretty attached to their weapon and they don't go many places without it. >> questioner says, you served as u.s. ambassador to saudi arabia. do you see any kind of nuclear arms race breaking out in the middle east and other parts of the world when the iranian nuclear arms negotiations conclude and sanctions are lifted? >> certainly one of the reasons those negotiations are taking place is to make sure that one

of the arms races does not occur, particularly in the middle east. you -- what the president said about this -- about these negotiations, about the framework or the final deal, it's to lower tensions and make the middle east in that regard, a little safer. that is an interesting place in the world. i did serve as ambassador there. as you look around the world, it's not the only place that we've got things going on, but there seems to be a good many things going on in that neighborhood. >> we're almost out of time but i want to remind the audience

about some upcoming speakers before i ask the last question or two in a minute. vince surf, the chief internet evangelist for google, and a father of the internet, will address the national press club luncheon on monday. lieutenant general michelle johnson, the first woman to lead the air force academy, will speak on may 8th. and how was your last flight? the ceos of american, delta and united airlines will appear together at a luncheon on may 15th. i now would like to present our guest with the prized possession of the national press club. that is our coffee mug. i'm aware that you've spoken here, i think, three times previously, so you may be working on a set. that makes it especially valuable.

[ applause ] >> now, we're running out of time. i might have time for a couple questions. one questioner mentions the navy winning streak against the army in the football game, and wonders if the game is starting to lose a little interest because of the consistent navy winning. does something need to happen there so the army can win? is this bad for the morale of the country when one service wins all the time? how are you going to handle this? [ laughter ]. >> obviously, i think this is wonderful for the country. i tell you, we're going to be humble about this. we're going to take this one decade at a time. [ laughter and applause ]. >> last question we mentioned

in the introduction, you made some appearances on ncis. are there any other appearances fore come forthcoming? what do you think of the show's portrayal of the ncis versus the real thing? >> number one, you forgot to mention "battleship." i had a line in that one. "commence air operations." i had to center myself, get into character. there's a series that was on last year, coming up again, called "the last ship." the second episode, keep an eye on it. so the only thing, i can't get paid in this job for doing these things so i can't get my sag card. but i do have my own imbd page,

which is pretty cool. the ncis show, number one, i wish we had the type of equipment that they do. just from my standpoint i think from the navy's standpoint, the storylines that they pursue, the way that they handle them, i think, has been a great benefit to the navy. and to "ncis." helping people understand what it is that we do. how broad the scope is. this has been the most popular show on tv for more than a decade now. the fact that so many people have that window into the navy is great. and to go back to your last

question it is ncis naval criminal investigative service. there's not another show called cid or air force investigative service. so i think that speaks volumes. [ laughter ]. >> how about a round of applause for our speaker? [ applause ] >> i'd also like to thank our national press club staff, including its journalism institute and broadcast center for organizing today's event. if you'd like a copy of today's program or to learn more about the club, go to our website, press.org. we are adjourned. thank you.

i note that if you missed any of today's luncheon speech at the national press club it will be available online at our website, c-span.org. coming up in an hour, the bbc hosts the final election leaders of event featuring british prime minister and conservative party chair david cameron. ed miliband and nick cleg. each to be questioned separately by a studio office. it will be a 90 minute program. the uk general election takes place on thursday, may 7th. our live coverage of the bbc question time debate coming up in an hour on c-span3. back in the u.s., bernie sanders of vermont announcing he was running for president as a democrat providing hillary

clinton with her first official rival for the party's nomination. this from the "new york times" today. avoiding the fanfare that several republicans have chosen so far when announcing kand datse inging candidate, mr. sanders noted his goals. he later arcticticulated before media and curious onlookers why he was running. he acknowledged that he faced big financial challenges but said that as a politician with the most unusual political history of anyone in congress, he was optimistic about his chances. again, that from the "new york times." senator sanders was a number of presidential hopefuls interviewed recently in manchester new hampshire for "conversation with the candidate." we'll show you that interview now. followed by the station's interview with senator rand

paul. good evening everyone. welcome to the latest in our conversation with the candidate series. i'm josh mckelvin. our guest independent vermont senator, bernie sanders. we'll be getting to know senator sanders. i'll be asking the candidate questions. after the break, we'll have our studio audience ask the questions, in a town hall style format. before we start with that, let's get a quick look at the candidate's biography. >> bernie sanders was born in 1941 in brooklyn. he graduated from the university of chicago in 1964 and soon after, he moved to vermont. sanders first elected position was mayor of burlington. the independent upon the 1981 election by ten votes. then served as mayor for four terms. in 1988, he lost his first run for vermont's sole congressional seat. two years later, he was elected for the first of eight terms in the house of representatives. in 2006, he won a seat in the

senate and elected to a second term in 2012. with 24 years of ledge lategislateive experience, he's the longest serving independent member of congress in history. he supports the middle class, environment, universal health care veterans and is outspoken about the influence of big money in politics. he's married with seven children and grandchildren. >> let's introduce senator bernie sanders. good to see you. >> good to be here. >> i can't ask this of a lot of candidates, because you're independent. what party would you run for? >> there is a lot of i think, disappointment and disillusionment with both major political parties. i am the longest serving independent. putting together a campaign in 50 states, outside of the two party system having to get on the ballot, et cetera, requires

a lot of time, energy and money. >> is there a preference? would you prefer to run as an independent? >> if i was a billionaire, that'd be the preference. i'm not. >> the likelihood is you'd run as a democrat. >> we'll see. >> let's talk about the things that have been in the news. the situation involving foreign policy and isis is garnering a lot of opinion, varying opinions, about how aggressive the u.s. should be with islamic terror terror. >> i was very disappointed by the letter sent by 47 of my republican colleagues, which is trying to sabotage the effort of john kerry and the obama administration to reach an agreement with iran so that they do not develop a nuclear weapon, but do it in a way that does not require a war. we have been in two wars over the last decade, in iraq and afghanistan. i voted against the war in iraq. i do not want to see a never-ending quagmire for

american troops in the middle east. i hope very much that that agreement will in fact be developed. the second point i would make, i get very concerned by countries like saudi arabia, who literally border on iraq, where isis is functioning, and they say, we want american troops on the ground. well saudi arabia, and people don't know this has the third largest defense budget in the world. bigger than uk or france. i think at the end of the day, the war against isis is about a war for the soul of islam, which has to be won by the muslim nations themselves. we should be supportive, and we are supportive, with air attacks and special operations. but the day to day struggle is going to have to be waged by the muslim countries themselves. i want to see them get more involved than we are right now. >> so more limited approach and

no boots on the ground when it comes to isis? >> correct. >> all right. for the letter you were eluding to, involves a nuclear program in iran. do you believe iran should have the capability or be allowed to have a nuclear program? >> absolutely not. it would destabilize a region that's already extraordinarily unstable. i think if the alternative to a negotiated process to prevent them, is a war i want to do everything i can to prevent the war and support the effort for a negotiated process to prevent that from getting in the way. >> what do you think the u.s.'s role is in the middle east big picture now these islamic terror groups growing in size and seeing home-grown instances of where they can recruit here in the u.s.? >> i think we have to organize mobilize and support the nations in the region. i think along with the rest of the industrialized world, we have got to give them support, in terms of air strikes which

we're doing right now. special operations. but the idea we have been at war in iraq and afghanistan well over a decade. the cost has been extraordinary for this country. the idea of getting involved in a never-ending war in that region disturbs me very, very much. i think at the end of the day, the muslim countries themselves, with our support, they're going to have to take the lead to defeat isis. >> you're aware that people will see that as saying, that's burying our head in the sand. by the time we do bet get aggressive, they'll be on our door and it'll be too late. >> i don't accept that. we have been in afghanistan and iraq. how did the war in iraq work out? was it so good? i don't think so. i think it destabilized the entire region. and led to the problems we're seeing right now. i don't think that the united states is going to win the war

for the soul of islam. the muslim countries have to win that war, with our support. but they'll have to be front and center on this. >> how much does the immigration debate play a role when it comes to national security? do you believe that to be separate? >> i think it's a separate issue. not an actual security issue. >> all right. as that issue is being debated in washington, d.c., what to do about it a lot of people believe the country can't sustain more immigration, legal or otherwise just because of the stress it puts on our public services, where do you see this debate headed and what -- >> i do believe in -- i voted several years ago against the immigration bill. because of provisions they had in there which worried me very much. right now, real unemployment in this country is 11%. youth unemployment is 17%. african-american youth unemployment is higher than that. i don't think we should be bringing in a lot of low-wanl hflow-wage

workers from other countries. we know we have people in this country that can do the work. on the other hand, what i do believe is we need to develop a path toward citizenship for the 11 or so million undomcumented workers. we're not going to ship them elsewhere. in the last bill i supposed, i got $1.5 billion amendment included to provide youth employment opportunities. this was a significant step forward in addressing youth unemployment. >> beef up border security is that a priority? >> absolutely. we have done that in a significant way. >> all right. we're going to take a break and get to the audience. stay with us. we'll continue our studio audience conversation right after the break. now, conversation with the candidate continues. >> welcome back to conversation with the candidate.

tonight's guest, vermont senator, bernie sanders. time for questions from the audience. i'll jump in if a follow up is needed. for now, the first question from the audience, coming from george sanders, no relation, from claremont. take it away. >> thank you senator, for being here. my question tonight is in addition to voting in each of our elections what can we as individual citizens do on an ongoing basis to hold the congress more accountable for its dysfunction? >> thank you. that's an extremely important question shared by millions of americans. in my view, what we have in this country is a congress which is heavily dominated by big money and trust and large campaign contributors. that's the sad reality. in this last midterm election, coke brothers other billionaire families, spent hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. what does an ordinary citizen do within that context? number one, we have got to address the issue of voter turnout.

you're right in saying the least we can do is vote, but you know, in the last election 63% of the american people didn't vote. 80% of young people did not vote. low-income people did not vote. billionaires spent huge sums of money. the first thing we have to do is create an environment which says american democracy is supposed to involve all people. not just the people on top. second of all, i think what we need to do is develop a middle class agenda that says that our main function in congress now is to reverse the decline of the american middle class. it means raising the minimum wage creating the millions of jobs this country needs, asking the wealthiest people to pay their share of taxes. that's what the american people want. politicians in washington are not prepared to support the middle class. you know what you tell them? thank you but no thank you. your term is over. >> thank you for the question,

george. next question from the audience, coming from athkathleen allen. >> thank you senator for being here. with the average social security income of $15,000 how do us seniors get the message accepted by politicians and the voters that we can't afford any cuts to the social security and medicare programs whether by privatization or cuts? >> thank you for that question. i say that as the founder of the social security caucus in the senate senate. just a few facts. let me be clear. if you see somebody getting up on tv and they're saying, social security is going broke and we need to make cuts in social security, they are simply not telling you the truth. today's social security in its trust fund has $2.8 trillion can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible american for

the next 18 years. social security is not going broke. as you indicated, the average person right in the middle is getting $14,000 a year. there are seniors in new hampshire, vermont and this country trying to get by on $11,000, $12,000 $13,000 a year. it is criminal. it is cruel to talk about cutting benefits for those people. i've helped lead the fight against efforts to cut. what's the solution? 18 years means we're not in crisis but we need it longer than that. right now, if somebody is making $10 million a year, and somebody is making $118,000 a year, they're paying the same amount into the social security trust fund. you lift that cap. you start at $250,000 and you know what you could do? you cannot only extend social security until 2060 you can expand benefits. i was just last week at a press conference with the national committee to preserve social security and medicare. 2 million signatures on

petitions from seniors across the country, don't cut social security. i'm the ranking member of the budget committee, and i'll be in a fight with my republican colleagues who want to cut social security. it is an important issue. social security is life and death for so many people. we have to expand it, not cut it. >> do you believe, senator, you can expand benefits and social security without means testing? >> means testing is a bad idea. what's the means? it's not billionaires. it gets down to the $40,000 or $50,000. we have an increase in poverty in this country among seniors. people are struggling to determine whether they're going to pay for their food, their heat, their medicine. you don't cut social security. you strengthen it. >> thank you. next question. coming from ken of franklin. good to see you. >> good to see you. senator, if you were chosen as the next president of the united states, a child born on your inauguration day would probably

graduate from high school in the year 2035. would probably retire from the work force about the 2080s. i wonder if you could tell us your ideas your plans, policies, that you would put in place to ensure that that child is able to compete and, obviously, increasingly complex and difficult marketplace in the world. >> thanks, ken. let me be frank. again, as the longest serving independent in american history my views are a little different from many of my colleagues. let me start off. we treat children in this country abysmally. every american should be ashamed that we have by far, the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. one out of five kids is living in poverty. that should not be the case. second of all, our child care system is a disaster. working families in vermont, new hampshire, all over the country find it difficult to find quality, affordable child care.

thirdly, if a kid graduates high school and wants to go to college, and i think as you indicated, we live in a competitive global economy. why are we making it hard for kids to go to college? because the cost is off the roof. do you know in coup trintries throughout the world germany, scandinavia, you know how much college costs? zero. they understand it is a good investment for the future of their country. i'm going to introduce legislation shortly that be make public colleges and universities tuition free. it's a good thing for the american people. it's a good thing for our economy. making college affordable ending the outrage that so many of the young people are struggling with these huge student debts all of this speaks to changing our national priorities priorities. don't give tax breaks to billionaires. you don't spend more than we should on the military, then say the working families around the

country, sorry, your kids can't g to college. i'm in favor of making more attention to the kids. >> how do we pay the bills? >> when we have inequality, when 99% of all new income today is going to the top 1% i can think of many ways to fund higher education. >> fair enough. next question. coming from social media. from facebook, jim and meredith write, over the years, there have been labels placed on you, not the least flattering, of which is socialist. do you feel you are a socialist? >> i am, if you ask me a democratic socialist. what does that mean? it means that it makes sense to look at countries like denmark and norway and sweden and countries throughout europe, who have accomplished great things for working families. you go to a country and they don't have discussions about people affording health care.

it's a right of all people. they spend much less per capita than we do. it's true over the rest of the world. we're the only nation in the industrialized world that doesn't guarantee health care to all people as a right. we end up spending a lot more than other countries. there's something to be learned from those countries. in terms of a higher education, a huge issue in this country, the cost of higher education country after country throughout europe, which have had labor governments or democratic socialist governments, their cost is zero for the family. that makes sense to me. retirement benefits is stronger in those countries. in denmark the minimum wage is about $20 an hour, if you work at mcdonalds. not too bad. i think as a nation, we should learn from those countries combatted child poverty, provide health care to all people, free college education and have a tax system which is fair and progressive. says to the people on top in the

country countries, yeah, you have a lot of money and we're asking you to pay your fair share. >> we thank you for your question on facebook. back to the studio audience. a question from ilene brady. >> hi. welcome, senator. how can the clients that i work with at a homeless shelter and soup kitchen be part of the political process when they're totally convinced that money buys campaigns? they're very discouraged, and unfortunately, i think it contributes to the huge percentage that don't vote. >> ilene, that is an enormously important question. i think it's not only homeless people -- and thank you and congratulations for your work -- taking care of the homeless and the most vulnerable people of society. it is not just homeless people who think the deck is stacked against them. it is tens of millions of people who understand that while they may have the right to vote, billionaires can spend hundreds

of millions of dollars and buy and sell politicians. changing that is not going to become easy. if i run for president, that certainly would be my major mission. i would hope that regardless of our political point of view, whatever it may be no american is happy when 63% of the people did not participate in the last election. what we need in my view is to give hope to people through an agenda which speaks to their needs. what do low income people need? they need decent paying jobs. we have to raise the minimum wage to a living wage. people make $25,000, $30,000 a year and don't get overtime. women are making 78 cents on the dollar compared to men. that's wrong. we have to change that as well. in terms of low income people, we shouldn't have homelessness. i've introduced and passed

legislation to build low income housing. rental housing so people can live with dignity. we have some 45 million people in this country living in poverty. that's almost more than at any time in the modern history of america. the same time, you're seeing a proliferation of millionaires and billionaires. that has to be changed. >> thank you senator. another question from will andrews. >> thank you. it's my pleasure to be here. my question is a form of the united states consider a form of isolationism in order to not send men material and money overseas until we get our own v.a., social security taken care of. >> i'm hearing you say will before you spend billions more abroad abroad, let's take care of the needs of the american people? >> yes. >> as the former chairman of the veterans committee in the senate, who worked in a bipartisan way to pass the most significant veterans legislation in many, many years, which will

significantly improve health care for our veterans clearly, we need to take care of the people in need in this country. but i could also say that we can't bury our heads in the sand. it's a dangerous world. as i mentioned a moment ago, i do not support sending american combat troops into iraq to take on isis. that is primaryily a job of saudi arabia, of the uae, jordan. those countries should lead the effort. on the other hand, we can't be isolationists. what you're really talking about is changing national priorities in this country. taking care of those people who are hurting and not giving more tax breaks to corporations who stash their money in the camenymen islands. why do we ignore the middle class and provide for the

billion class? that's the power they have politically today. that's what we have to change. thank you. >> another question from the audience now. robert up next. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. senator sanders, as president, would you pure sue a carbon tax to make all forms of energy competitive and to give much-needed dollars to infrastructure projects? >> well, the answer is that's what i've done. along with senator barbara. she and i several years ago introduced the first carbon tax in the history of the united states congress. look, let me touch on an issue i know is controversial and sensitive. i happen to believe and agree with the overwhelming majority of scientists who tell us that climate change is real. it is caused by human activities. it is already causing devastating problems. if we do not get our act together, the situation will only get worse in years to come.

i believe that we need to transform our energy system a i away from fossil fuel. it is unacceptable to have these companies putting forth all these carbon and not paying the cost associated with it. the answer is yes, i do support a carbon tax. >> just to be clear, when you talk about climate change being real, in your opinion, how far should the government go to combat it, deal with it, restrain it? >> i agree with the world's scientific community. that climate change is the major environmental crisis facing the planet. that they are estimating that in this country, the planet will become five to ten degrees fahrenheit warmer by the end of the century, leading to floods drought, extreme weather disturbances. costal communities underwater. it is a crisis and the government has to be very bold

along with governments throughout the world -- not only an american problem -- it is an international problem in transforming our energy system. it's a huge issue. >> let's go to another social media question facebook question, from jeffrey philanders. with a couple of states legalizing marijuana, where do you stand on a nationwide legalization of marijuana? >> when i was the mayor, we have the university of vermont there, one or two kids were smoking marijuana. it was a joke, more than one or two. i don't recall that too many of them were being arrested. it wasn't an issue we felt was the highest priority, arresting kids smoking marijuana. i'm also on board legislation, co-sponsored legislation dealing with medical marijuana. colorado was the first state in the country to legalize marijuana. i want to take a good look at the pluses and minuses of that, and we can go from there. >> we have a couple minutes to

cram this in. back to the studio audience, coming from gabe. >> welcome to beautiful downtown manchester. person and public cost to deal with alzheimer's and other dementias are rising. research to prevent these diseases is inadequate. would you support investing in high levels of funding for research, and incur the future costs that could bankrupt medicare and medicaid? >> we have 30 seconds. >> absolutely. you're right the projection is that the costs in dealing with alzheimer's is going to be many many, many tens of billions of dollars. so it makes a lot of sense to us from a human point of view as well as cost-effective point of view to find cures to that terrible illness. yes, i certainly would support increased funding. >> thank you gabe, for the question, and thank you, senator. that's all the time with the

now. next in our conversation with the candidate series, republican donald trump is going to be on the program. while we're signing off on television, this is a conversation with senator sanders that will continue online, as well as our mobile app. check us out there. also find 30 more minutes of questions from the studio audience. for now, thanks very much for watching and have a great night. good evening. welcome to our conversation with the candidate series. i'm josh mckelvin and our guest this evening rand paul of kentucky. we'll be getting to know senator paul and where he stands on the key issues. at the start of the program, i'll be asking the candidate questions. after a short break, we'll have the studio audience ask questions of their own. in a town hall style format. before we start with all of that, let's get a quick look at the candidate's biography. >> rand paul was born in pittsburgh in 1963. the u.s. senator for kentucky is the son of former presidential candidate and long-time texas

congressman, ron paul and like his father is a doctor. rand paul was a practicing opt optamologist. he was elected in the u.s. senator in 2010. he is for a balanced budget amendment. he has been married 24 years and has three sons. >> senator paul welcome to the program. >> thanks for having me. >> let's talk about 2016. seems like at this point the decision is just about all made up. how close are you? >> very close. i've been traveling the country the last year or two, trying to spread a message that's maybe not quite the same as people have heard from republican candidates before. to try and gauge whether or not that message has resonance and whether or not the message has enough of a constituency to have a chance. >> poll numbers suggest you do have quite a bit of support in

new hampshire, as did your dad. do you think there's kind of a ceiling there? seems to reach a certain point. how do you branch that out and bring more people into the conversation? >> i actually think that the message that i'm trying to put forward has not only a constituency in the republican party, but has a constituency among independence and a few democrats. i'm one of the candidates that is fiscally conservative but also has reached out and worked with booker on criminal justice, or on sexual assault. it's a mix cureture of issues where people are. they're not neatly republican or neatly democrat. people say a plurality of people are neither. when you look at statistics in new hampshire, maybe 1/3 of new hampshire calls themselves independent. a lot of people attached to the word libertarian when they talk about you. the definition varies.

one, do you consider yourself a libertarian, and what is it? >> i use the word, libertarian-ish. i'm a conservative republican but also libertarian-ish, in that i believe to the right of privacy. i think the government has no right to be looking at your records unless they've got a court order with your name on it, probable cause and signed by a judge. i've had a great deal of objection to this bulk collection of your phone calls. the warrant that was revealed by snow snowden has verizon. mr. verizon doesn't have a right to release my records. you put the individual's name, what papers you want, and you should have probable cause that the person committed a crime. i have a great deal of objection on privacy issues. also on criminal jus sis ishtice issues. i think i can attract people beyond the republican party but

not defend the republican party. a kid that makes a mistake with marijuana shouldn't go to jail. a kid that makes a mistake with marijuana should go to jail for 55 years. "rolling stone" did an article. timmy tyler was caught with lsd when he was 23 23 years ago. he's 46 now but will spend the rest of his life in jail for lsd. i don't approve of that. it's bad for you but i don't want to put you in jail, particularly where there are horrendous things happening. if you look at the statistics of who is going to jail, disproportionately black hispanic and poor. is there racism involved in this? there is an inadvertent racial outcome coming from it but it is real. if you look at surveys of whites and blacks and drug use you'll

find that whites are using drugs just as much as blacks. however, the people in prison are black because of the way we do our policing. the police just happen to show up in cities and urban environments. so it adds up over time. we have a real problem with criminal justice. i think issues like this reach beyond the traditional republican ceiling, as you said. >> i'd like to ask about the controversies around your letter that a number of senators sent about the iranian nuclear program. you put your name on this letter. later explained you did this for all intents and purposes to help president obama. probably raised a lot of eyebrows. explain what that meant. >> i'm a stickler for the constitution. the constitution gave the power to write laws to congress and to execute the laws to the president. the president is not allowed to write laws. i have voted for sanctions against iran, with the hope that we would negotiate. i don't want war. i think war is a tragedy and the last resort and shouldn't be eager for war.

i also don't want an iran that's nuclear and will threaten its neighbors as well as our allies. i voted for sanctions, the sanctions have been passed by congress. they're a law. the president can't sign a separate afreemt withgreement with iran and undo law. he has to ask for permission. the reason we have the branches is for checks and balances, so no one branch of government would be too strong. we had these debates on president, whether or not he can amend health care law, immigration law. now, whether or not he can undo sanctions without our approval. also, we've had this debate over war. i think war is the most important vote any legislator makes. the congress constitution was very clear that war is to be initiated or declared by congress, not the president. the president agreed with me when he was a candidate. he said no president should unilaterally go to war without the authority of congress. that's what the constitution says. so i think the letter simply

furthers what i believe, to undo sanctions, it will have to come back to congress and be voted on. >> i want to get you on record on this. we'll take a short break in a moment. not wanting something and preventing something are two entirely different things when it comes to a nuclear iran. how far do you think this country should go to keep that from happening? >> i think in order for a diplomacy to work, there has to be the ultimate threat of using force. i think that the iranians need to know that we are serious with this. the sanctions though have worked. i've seen the sanctions as a way to not have war. i do honestly want there to be an agreement. when i said i wanted to strengthen the hand, some people scoffed and said how can it be? i am sincere. i want a negotiated settlement and not a war with iran. i don't want to see a nuclear iran. >> after a break we're going to

bring the studio audience into this conversation. stay with us and we'll be right back. now conversation with the candidate continues. >> welcome back to our conversation with the candidate. tonight's guest republican kentucky senator rand paul. it's time to bring in the questions from the audience. i'll jump in if a follow up is needed. let's get to it. the first question is coming from lauren. good to see you. >> what would you do differently than this current administration when dealing with isis? how do you stop a terrorist group whose main goal is to destroy as much as possible and ultimately bring about mass destruction? >> i think when we go to war, we have to go to war in an orderly fashion and according to the constitution. so the way the constitution intended was that the legislature would declare war. you have to decide whose prerogative it is. we've been at war eight months and the president is doing this on his own. when the president ran for

office in 2007, he said no president should unilaterally going to war without the authority of congress. that's what the constitution says. i don't think we're doing it in the appropriate fashion. had i been president in august of last year i would have come before a joint session of congress and laid out the reasons i think isis is a military threat and what we need to do. i think we do have to respond militarily to it. i think when you debate over when america needs to be involved and where america needs to be involved, you have to debate. for me, it becomes a personal debate. i have three teenage boys. i debate as if i were going to be sending one of them to war. it's a very important debate. with regard to isis what persuades me we should do something is that they very quickly took mosul a city of 1.5 million people, and i think they were within a day's march offer bill erbil, where we have a consulate. i've been critical of hillary

clinton for not defending the consulate in benghazi. we should defend our consulate. we should defend the embassy in baghdad, and it's time to do something militarily. i do tell people though that i am disappointed that we're fighting against our own weapons. many of the weapons that were sent into the syrian civil war simply went to isis. almost without any hesitation. some were probably given directly, if not inadvertently, to isis. i warned against it and i voted against sending those weapons into the syrian civil war. i said the irony is we'll be back to fight our own weapons within a year. a year after i voted against giving the weapons to the syrian rebels, sure enough, we're forced to go back over and fight against our own weapons. there are times when intervention makes things worse. i think our intervention in the syrian civil war made things worse. i think hillary's war in libya

made things worse. if there's one thing that's true in the middle east, it's that when we have toppled a secular dictator, we've gotten chaos and we've gotten the rise of radical islam. libya is an youutter disaster. there are jihadists amuck. qaddafi suppressed islam. he was no democrat but kept peace and order and didn't allow radical islam. when he was toppled, it's worse for us. same in syria. assad is a horrible dictator gassed his people. when president obama wanted to bomb assad i opposed it. if we would have dislodged assad, i think isis today would be in damascus. i'm not eager for intervention. i will intervene when an american interest is at stake and when we have to i think we need to have a strong military

and strong military might to deter attack. we should use it wisely and reluctantly. that's what reagan meant when he believed in peace through strength. >> lauren, thanks for the question. let's go to another from the audience. coming from keenan pauley. >> senator paul, you addressed this earlier in a specific context. but could you please address your priorities and philosophy when you're confronted with an issue regarding the balance between individual privacy and government-provided security, whether it be law enforcement or in national defense, any of the other contexts as well. >> benjamin franklin said those who give up liberty for security will have neither, and i believe that. i don't think it is a trade of or we should have to give up liberty to have security. i think that we can capture deter and protect our nation

from terrorists and use the constitution to do it. the reason i'm hesitant to allow sort of blanket surveillance or allow the police to go in any house in america to grab people without a warrant, is that's what we fought the revolution over. one of the things we objected to the british is the british soldiers were writing their own warrants. under the patriot act we allow that in our country. fbi agents can write a warrant without a judge signing the warrant. that's wrong. i want the separation between the police and the judge. why? because people in government aren't all perfect angels. i know my local fbi agent. he says don't you trust me? i say yes, you're my friend. i know you wouldn't do anything wrong. the reason i want you to call the judge is, there was a time in our history, particularly in the south, where you might have had people who decide they want to go in the house because it's a black person that lives there, or a jew or a gay person living there.

i want there to be a separation between police and the judiciary, so that some sort of bias or ill-feeling that someone makes that's irrational hatred for people could not ever occur where the people giving the warrant is writing their own warrant. there is a check and a balance. they have to call a judge on the phone. if someone in manchester today or tonight is accused of rape and they're behind a door, you didn't see them go into the house but you're pretty sure they're in there the police will stand outside the house call the judge on the phone, and you'll get a judge's permission to go in. we need that separation of power. it's why these things, the checks and balances, are so important, to prevent abuse or prevent bias. >> all right. thank you very much for the question. another comes from barbara. good to see you. >> will you take steps to end the corrupting influence of money in politics? if so specifically what would those reforms be? >> yeah. i think it's a good idea. we have tried in the past to do

sort of campaign finance reform, and it's been struck down by the courts as an infringement on the first amendment, the right of people to buy speech. that speech -- paid speech is a type of speech. i think there is a way that's consistent with the constitution though that you could limit the effect of special interest. i agree i think special interest and money has too much influence in washington. one way of trying to fix it that i think would pass muster with the supreme court that i've been thinking about is that when we give out contracts let's say you come to government and we give you a billion dollar contract. when you sign that contract, i think we can put limitations in the contract that says you agree to limitations on using any of the money to lobby government for more money. the thing that makes me the maddest is you get $1 billion or a contractor gets $1 billion. they take the first $1 million and hire a lobbyist and ask for more. it's this vicious cycle.

we wouldn't say you can't do that. we'd say, if you get the contract, you can't do this. there is a precedent for this. if you're in active duty military, you're not allowed to run for office in your uniform. it's a rule. if you're a federal employee the hatch act says you can't campaign. we already have, but there are limitations you voluntarily agree to. if i join the military, i sign a contract with them and i'm employed by them and i'm limited in what i can do campaign wise. the same way the hatch act limits federal employees we should do it for contractors. the only way you'd ever get it passed is you'd have to limit both big business contracts and the unions. if both were limited equally, and you had preventions built into the contract. if there is a government union that has 2 million people working for it, 500,000 people they'd have to have the same restriction a big contractor would have. that's the only way you'd probably get both parties to agree to it. i'm in favor of doing something. >> thank you senator. let's go back to the audience

with another question from mike. >> senator paul, good afternoon. as president how would your administration address our energy economic and climate security? >> i think the main thing we need to do is to become energy independent. one of the good things that has come from the technological advances we have now, is we are getting to the point where we could export oil. in the 1970s, we passed a law because of the opec and the embargo that we would have no export of oil. now, we have so much. so much natural gas. i think we are the greatest, maybe the largest producer in the world. i think we've come a long way towards energy independence. i think that you can have both a clean environment and have economic growth. i think you have to have a balance of both. i've been one that's saying the epa, the balance is kind of

shifted in one direction. we need more balance that you need a clean environment and a robust economy. i'll give an example of how sometimes i think we've gone too far. the clean water act says you can't discharge pollutants into a a stream. i would have voted for that. somewhere along the way over 40 years of rule after rule after rule, we have now defined dirt to be a pollutant. my backyard to be a navicable stream. that's wrong. the government is wasting time harassing private property owners and they're not doing what they should do. i want them to police the ohio river. is someone is dumping into the ohio river put them in jail. don't come into my backyard, because leaves have black on the bottom of it determine my backyard is a wetlands and i put dirt in it you can put me in jail. ken lucas from southern mississippi went to jail, 70

years old, ten years in jail, and the crime was, conspiracy to violate the clean water act. he was putting clean dirt in his yard to raise the elevation. >> following up how much of an issue do you believe the topic of climate change should be in this election? >> i think that there needs to be a balance. we shouldn't be alarmist about things. we've had rules -- and this is where -- everything in government gets dumbed down. it becomes either/or. you're for the environment or you're against the environment. maybe we can be for the environment and for the economy at the same time. when we look at the environment, this is a great question. john has asked his 5th grade students, do you think the environment is cleaner now or 1960. >> they're like, the polar bears are drowning statue of liberty

is worse. it's better now. manchester in 1919, you walk out in noon in pittsburgh in a white shirt it would be covered in soot. we're doing a lot better than we ever did. there have been rules on emissions from smokestacks probably since the '30s. really since the 1960s. everything that comes out of a cole fire smokestack has gotten better over the last 40 years. sulfur sigh yoxdioxide, mmercury, they've been trending down. where people go too far on the other side is they want the rules to be so low, you have no business. 40% of the electricity now comes from cole. i come from a cole-producing state, so i'd have a little bit of interest in this. we shouldn't shut them all down tomorrow. let's have reasonable rules where we can still have electricity. the only other thing i tell people to think about when we're talking about the balance of

this, the countries that produce the ten largest amounts of electricity versus the countries that produce the least amount of electricity, the top ten live 25 years longer than the bottom ten. we need to not be so alarmist that we're like, we don't want electricity because we don't want pollution cars why don't we try to balance the environment and civilization? >> thank you senator. thank you, mike, for the question. let's go to a social media question coming from maybe. where do you stand on gun control? senator? >> i think gun control is a freedom rights. you'd have to change the bill of rights if you want to have gun control. i think we've had some terrible tragedies and some very emotional debate about this. i can understand. if my kids at school got shot at school, i'd be very emotional, too. i understand the emotions of it. the thing is we do have a

problem. either through mental illness or spiritual brokenness, there are young teenage boys, primarily, committing these horrific crimes. the interesting thing, not station. these kids are crazy mentality ill, or whatever's wrong with them. they don't show up and try to shoot 20 policemen because the policemen will shoot back, so what we've done in our society is put up signs on all of our schools saying there are no weapons here. that's like a sign to a crazy person, come and shoot our kids. we should do the opposite. put a sign in every school saying, we have an armed security guard. whether you do or don't. our teachers may well have a gun locked in their desk. you know i think we should send the other message to crazy kids that you don't get a free shooting spree if you show up at a school. above and beyond that, the second amendment is in our bill of rights and people want to be different, they have to change the constitution. i'm a big believer in the freedom to -- and right to bear arms. >> all right, sir, time is flying so we have to limit the answer to a couple minutes.

al ellen cobb from the audience has a question. >> do you think last year's hobby lobby decision was a net win or loss for liberty? >> it was a net win. >> leave it at that. >> well, i mean you told me to go shorter on my answers. i thought it was a short one there. >> i appreciate that. >> no, i think the thing is that religious liberty is important. it's very important to me. and i think that it was also sort of a bizarre case in that people were trying to insist somehow, i think there were 15 forms of birth control available at hobby lobby and people were trying to say it has to be three more or something. a lot of these decisions really should be outside the governmental realm. but for all that craziness in there, there's no republican that wants to ban birth control. okay? so nothing to do with that. the other thing is is through community health clinics, you can get birth control anywhere in the whole country, so there really isn't this huge issue on birth control, but if you own hobby lobby and you have a

profound religious belief that certain types of birth control you have a religious objection to that is absolutely your right and the government ought to stay the heck out of your business. >> 30 seconds to go. do you consider this type of topic a distraction from the issues that are important as we head to 2016? >> i think religious liberty is an important issue. >> as we have this discussion about women's health care and affordable care act, these have a place because in 2012 folks thought this was you know, kind of a distraction. >> the one reason why it was kind of a made up and ridiculous issue was insinuating anybody in america wants to ban birth control on either side. i think it gets sort of dumbed down and after a while people see these ads. they did this in colorado and tried to go after the candidate out there and they went on and on and on, and finally people just said, they ran an ad saying the republican didn't want to allow condoms to be sold, wouldn't be condoms.

it became so ridiculous they voted the other guy out because his ads were so ridiculous and nobody would believe him anymore. all issues in politics can go too far. the underlying issue of religious liberty is an important one. >> thank you very much. that is all the time we have right now. we're going to sign off on television tonight. this is a conversation with senator paul that will continue online and on our mobile app. there you're going to find 30 more minutes of questions from our studio audience. for now, thank you very much for watching here on tv. have a great night. ♪ coming up at 3:00 p.m. eastern time here on c-span3 the bbc hosting the final election leaders event featuring british prime minister and conservative party chair david cameron, labor party leader ed

miliband and liberal democrats leader nick plague. each leader to be questioned separately by a studio audience. the bbc's david bimbleby will be monitoring this 90 minute program. uk general election takes place on thursday may 7th. again, about five minutes from now, the bbc question time for the three major party leaders coming up. we'll have live coverage here on c-span3. the house of representatives today continuing work on fiscal year 2016 military construction and veterans affairs spending. also the energy and water spending bill and the budget resolution. live house coverage, of course on our companion network c-span. we spoke to a capitol hill reporter today for some background and details on the 2016 budget resolution. >> the 2016 budget resolution report gets set to come to the house and senate floors we're joined by sarah mimms who writes for "national under." what's the purpose of a budget

resolution? >> well, the purpose of a budget resolution, particularly when you have one party controlling both chambers of congress, is really just to lay out the fiscal desires of that party, so here we have the republicans laying out their priorities, what they would like to see happen. but a budget resolution as we know is not signed by president obama. it's not actually law. so a lot of this is just sort of a blueprint for where they would like to go, not necessarily where they will actually go this year. >> you wrote that one of the last hurdles to get over was senator bob corker. you talked about his comments saying the word gim inging there were gimmicks in this conference report. what did he mean by that? >> senator bob corker was the last to sign this conference deal. he held it up a couple days because of his concerns they're basically taking money and assuming it will be there. he doesn't really believe it will. corker is joined by a number of fiscal conserve fifatives in that concern. ultimately he signed the budget agreement acknowledging they need to put something forward

and said he's already gun talks on both sides of the kmolcapitol to fix that for next year. >> your article for "national journal" at nationaljournal.com looks at budget winners and losers. you list tom price as one of the winners and losers. why did you do that? >> yeah. tom price -- i mean, getting the budget done, bicameral budget especially is an incredibly difficult task. this is tom price's first year as chairman. though he's been on the committee for quite a while. he really does come out a winner for getting a deal done particularly in conference with the senate. the withinreason is he's a loser they lost the medicare plan he's pushed so hard for that paul ryan actually came up with several years ago which would reform medicare and make some big changes there. that was taken out of the final agreement. and also they lost dhesh lost the battle as a fiscal conservative with the defense hawks. price's original budget did not include additional money for defense spending.

his leadership decided that they couldn't get it through their conference unless they appeased those defense hawks. so they sort of went over his head and created their own version of his budget blueprint with additional defense money and that's what they ended up passing. >> and you mentioned those defense hawks were one of the winners in this debate. in your article. also one of the losers was the conservative republicans in the house. does that create a bit of a conflict as this conference report comes to the house floor for debate? >> yeah, i think so. that's nothing new obviously. the sort of divide between defense hawks who insist we need more money to fight america's wars and to sort of protect the country abroad, and these fiscal conservatives who as you know took over the house basically in 2010 and have been really threatening boehner and saying we need to be cutting more spending here and there. those fiscal conservatives lost in this budget deal. they ended. putting an additional $96 billion into the defense accounts. we will see how they end up reacting in the house when this comes up for a vote.

really they only need a majority to get this done, and boehner seems pretty confident that they can get that. >> well, what about the senate? you talked about senator corker's objections. how's the debate shaping up there? >> the senate's planning to vote on this next week. as i said they only need a majority so they can lose up to three of their members on this budget. they got a 51 the last time they passed it. this conference budget is very very similar to what the senate has already passed so mcconnell and his team are also confident they can get it through in. >> you talked about it being a blueprint. the real grunt work has to be done by the appropriation committees who set the spending bills. we heard reaction from the appropriation chairs on how that's shaping up. >> yeah, the appropriations committee is really getting started in the house right now. they're planning to vote on some of those spending bills today. that would be the first time in more than 30 years that the congress has gotten started on

appropriations this early in the year. one of the reasons they're doing that is because they know it's going to be a difficult battle. they know especially in the senate where they need to get democrats, at least six of them, on any of these bills to get them through that they're going to need some of that time to really sort of press and figure out where those votes are. democrats are already saying senator schumer said yesterday they're going to block appropriations bills until they get a deal that takes care of the sequester. so that's going to be really interesting to see how that battle plays out especially in the upper chamber. >> sarah mimms covering the house debate. read her at nationaljournal.com and follow her on twitter @sarahmmii @sarahmmii @sarahmmimms. >> thank you. on thursday may 7th. bbc is hosting question time a final election leaders event. featuring the heads of the three major parties in the uk. british prime minister and the head of the conservative party,

david cameron. labor party leader ed milliband and liberal democrats leader nick plage. coverage on c-span3 should be getting under way in just a moment. >> our audience here in this town hall. this is "question time."