>> real clear politics publisher tom bevin aefnd carl cannon. we have susan calling in from goodyear, arizona. what's your question? zbh good morning. thank you so much. i've been waiting all morning to get on your show. >> i am just so proud of hillary and donald trump. i mean, hillary has all these calls. my kids are in the military. i have one that passed away from the military. there are three of them. and, you know what? benghazi is a big thing. they will not talk about it on the news. the only one that talks about it is one america news. that is the only channel i watch now. but with the politics you're talking about right now, my question is, i'm in arizona. i got my card in the mail the other day saying i'm a democrat. i'm a volunteer person that

helps with voting births at at my church. voighted for donald trump. i've been voting since 2006 as a democrat. i said no i haven't. this is my first time i ever voted. i'm 58 years old. this is the first time my husband voted. i went in with me when i was volunteering. and he had to sign the form to wait 29 days for his card. >> let me ask you this. let me interrupt you since we're talking to the publishers. okay. if you have a question for the real clear politics staff. >> where do we need to make sure we have a right card to vote for democrat or republican. my neighbors are voting for trump here. >> all right. i'm not sure they know the specific rules in arizona. i'll throw the we do carl to talk about voting access s that

something that you have focused on in your coverage, issues that who goes to the polls? >> well, yeah. i don't know the specific case. and sounds like she already voted and you get to vote for trump. somebody thinks she's a democrat, maybe a local democratic party. but let's talk about this instead. it's clear that donald trump is bringing people into the republican party or at least into the republican primaries who didn't used to vote republican primaries. and maybe haven't voted at all. now is it a net gain? i don't know. he's probably going to drive away some, you know, republican voters, too, if they voted for mork y marco rubio or john kasich. but this phenomenon of trump, yeah, partly he's a creation of

it will vision. he won five states last night. that gives him six in a row. there are 40 primaries or caucuses and donald trump won 27 of them. ted cruz won seven, rubio three, i think, john kasich has won one. so trump is this phenomenon. he keeps winning and winning and winning. that's so far the story of the 2016 primary season. >> okay. up next on our independent line, we have matty calling in from houston, texas. matty, you are on with tom bevin and carl cannon from real clear politics.

i found out the president can have as much power as i thought he had. since the senate and the house. and people are talking about jobs and not getting support in their states. but the main lesson to me is the senate and house who passed the law and the supreme court carries it out. they have the power to veto anything they don't like. so i want to know why we're not focused on those people because of the democracy. >> all right, let's give them a chance do respond. how you about, carl? look, she's right. there is more than one election. we have our staff, reporting staff covered with hillary clin and donald trump won these five.

hillary clinton won four states. donald trump won five. but we also have a senate race and we had our congressional reporter write about the senate primary. i think this is fair criticism of the news media is that we probably aren't focusing on the congressional races as much as we can. but i'll just say for real clear politics, if you go on the website this morning, it's free, easy to find, look for james arkins piece. look at our coverage of the and our white house correspond with david buy letter an he wrote about the overview of the sell a primary. congress is important. >> okay. up next on our independent line,

we have tim calling in from new sweden, maine. tim, you're on with tom bevin and mark cannon. >> the question about what donald trump is talking about and the only way that will happen is if the united states would have to have to do that. i want to know why there they're not questioning him on that. >> we'll give him a chance to respond to your question. >> well, i mean, this is one of the things about donald trump. you know, he has been questioned on. that we had a number of republican debates. trade has been a big issue in this campaign because he is arguing for position that's are traditionally not republican positions on trade. he wants to slap tariffs on china and a lot of republicans think that is a terrible idea and it would start a trade war

with the second largest economy in the world. so it's not that the issue hasn't been raised. what donald trump has been able to get away with is not answering with enough specificity. he just says, look, i'm going to take care of it. and, you know, reporters and hosts of programs will continue asking, what do you mean by that? can you explain it? you can't get him to say anything more than that. so that is probably why, you know, a lot of viewers and a lot of readers on trade and some of the other issues feel like they haven't gotten enough information from trump on these policy issues. that isn't necessarily because the media hasn't asked the questions or hasn't tried to get information from us. it's he hasn't been forth coming to this point. he'll give a big, you know, foreign policy speech in washington today where, you know, he's go to lay out more of his positions.

>> tom, do you think that media missed or miscalculated or dismissed donald trump back in the summer when he began to surge. do you think this is his popularity -- it is the chicken or the egg? is his popularity due in part to media coverage or did the media miss the fact that he was riding a wave early on? >> members of the republican establishment. everybody thought donald trump was going to be a side show and a joke and only doing this to get more publicity for thim self. he wasn't -- and everyone thought he would flame out, that he would say something that would cause his campaign to sort of unravel, that he would be undisciplined. he's been all those things. he said a dozen things that

would have killed any other campaign or candidate. he has been undisciplined. yet, he has had staying power. it's really, i think people did -- what people missed really was the anger and the anxiousness that is coursing through the elect rat. bernie sanders, again, is running a campaign. nobody thought he was going to perform as strongly as he has against hillary clinton. and he's getting 35, 40% of the vote. on the republican side, yeah, i think people underestimateded media and certainly the republican establishment underestimated the electorate, what the elect was feeling that, disconnect, you take a guy like trum wlop is a reality star. that created a perfect storm in

which donald trump was able to flourish and now looks like he's going to probably be the republican nominee. >> all right. we have a tweet that came in that's asking a little bit more about how you guys aggregate your polling. in calculating the polling average, do you weight the individual polls on number of people polled or other factors? how do you come up with this polling average, carl? >> tom, you have it. >> we do not weight polls. there are other operation that's do. you know, different weighting and what not. we just provide a simple straight average. from polled polls that have been in the field for a period of time. as you get closer to election, polls usually move from, you know, adults to registered voters to likely voters and

we're always using the tightest metrik we can. other than that, it's a straight average of the latest polls that have been in the field at any given point in time. all right. up next we have barbara calling in from texas. barbara, you're on with the editor and publisher of real clear politics. what's your question? >> my question, is we hear all these polls from all the news channels of where the unfavorability of trump and hillary clinton are so bad that they don't do their work, why are they still winning? >> carl, can you take on that question?

look, i used to go to charlestown and it's a cheap claiming race. all the horses are so bad and my dad would say, no horse can win this race. none of the horses can win. the joke, of course, is that someone is going -- one of them is going to win and one is going to run second, too. there are a lot of americans who feel that in a country of 300 million people that you can get a more knowledgeable and pleasing two candidates than hillary clinton and donald trump. that's what they think. but in the end, that's not what matters. what matters is these two, trump is a jugger not right now. and hillary clinton has pretty much already clinched the democratic nomination. the options will be in november. i think they can vote for one of the two of them. they can stay home. not voting is a protest.

it is perfectly legitimate or they can write in a candidate. the two parties that seem to have settled on this, the democratic thing, we're going to look back on that, i think, and see what it was was more of a coronation. i don't know what is the next chapter for the gop. this kaerl called on the independent line. look, a lot of people think that there should be a third party in american politics. they're going to point to this election as evidence for that. a lot of other people think that there needs to be a strong independent movement. greg gorman, a guy from kansas ran for the senate. he has written opeds for us. he believes that we need is not a third party for a strong independent movement where you have independent candidates.

to give voters more choice. and i think this election is going to bolster people who feel that way. >> up next on our republican line, we have tim calling from from arlington, va va tim, you're on with tom bevin and carl cannon for real clear politics. go ahead. >> my question is a simple one. i visit your site every day. eight or ten sites a visit. why do you have poor editorials? and how do you choose those four editorials? >> okay. tom, can you answer tim's question? >> sure. there is no magic reason that we have four editorials. it evolved to that number of what we felt and we, again, try and provide a nice balance of what's going on. we go and read all the editorial pages and try to select the best ones that we think sort of

represent what is going on around the country. a lot of times they're about the presidential race or about politics. but also about things like, you know, we'll go get an editorial from the detroit news or detroit free press about what's going on in flint or we'll get something from the chicago tribune about what's going on with gun violence there. or there are a lot of really, you know, interesting local issues that these papers are writing about, they're writing about them passionately. and so we try and, again, highlight some of those in that section. you're right, it is the smaller section of our site. i think it's an important one-and-one that we try to, i think, spend a decent amount of time and to really bring those stories to the fore. >> okay. carl, how long do you anticipate bernie sanders stay nsz this race? he vowed yesterday he was going to stick with it. do you think that he can hang on until the convention?

>> we're in the homestretch now. we vind ind next and then after that mostly western primaries. bernie sanders has raised a lot of money and small donations from young people. i don't know this. i haven't done any reporting on it. this is speculation. but, you know, returning that money would be a -- would be a headache. i think he may feel obligated to see it through, through california. june 7th. he's got this money and he's got the support. and i think he'd like to -- i any he'd like to finish on an up note. so i don't necessarily think he will quit. he hasn't been a rank and file member of the democratic party. he identified as an independent and a socialist until he decided to run for president. so he's not part of the democratic party establishment. he has a lot -- he's closer to republicans than democrats. he has a lot of friends. i'm sure he's getting people telling him, ease up on the

throttle a little bit on the criticism of hillary clinton. she will be the nominee. you don't wish to damage her. i suspect that will happen. that you'll see from now on a friendlier contest on the democratic side. you know, these are people, they're human beings. i always stress that. and they get mad at each other just the way ordinary people do. and so maybe they won't be able to stick to. that but i think sanders is certainly within his right to continue. i don't think he needs to quit. i don't think he'll -- i think he'll probably not be contesting so directly with hillary clinton from now on. my guess is he'll talk more about the issues he cares about. >> okay. and our independent line next we have thomas who is calling in from indianapolis. you're on much what's your question? >> yeah. good morning.

you have looked at why people are so dissatisfied, i think 50% of it is can you go back to when that congressman lost in virginia. just the attitude, k street, madison avenue. it's also intertwined. people can see through that. and then you can get the media and look at donald trump where it's just an extension of the apprentice. and they just follow him around like flies on you know what at the early part of the campaign just every time his face and he was feeding in the dissatisfaction. >> all right, thomas. i want to give tom a chance to respond to you before we run out of time. go ahead, tom. >> well, look, it's interesting. thomas is right to a certain degree. this pop lift anger and angst that is running through the country. it's represented on both sides.

through the progressive perspective, bernie sanders supporters, right, they see a system that is rigged against the little guy, right? it's the sort of evil 1%ers on wall street that crash the economy, didn't pay a price for it. and have been sticking it to the little guy ever since. on the republican side, it's more through the angle of crony cap dalism. it's the collusion of big business and big government that have been sticking it to the little guy. so it's two sides of the same coin. and, you know, tom sass lucky enough to be nind nap list which is going to be ground zero now next week for on the republican side at least to whether folks can stop donald trump from the nomination or not. >> okay. up next on our republican line, we have another call from indiana, bob from martinsville. good morning. you're on. bob, are you there? okay, we're going november on then to john. john is calling in on the

democratic line from lebanon, missouri. john, what's your question for tom and carl? >> we just read an article recently on your website and it says that the corporate taxes, lowering corporate taxes and sweetening the international trade deals would improved the job rate. but that's exactly what destroyed all the american jobs. and i mean the past 20 years. i'm curious why you think that would improve the job market? >> carl, i'll throw that question to you. >> well, yeah. i didn't write that article. it's not something our staff would have written. we aggregate a lot of different columns and that's obviously someone's opinion. so i don't know what he is talking b i'll make one comment

and that is this sort of economic populism express fwhid caller is very strong in both parties right now. and there is a thought bernie sanders talks about it. sanders and trump say a lot of the same things on trade. and there's -- and hillary clinton, she doesn't talk like bill clinton talks when ran for president in 1992 about benefits of free trade. and that's a challenge for the next president whoever he or she is. convince americans that global trade in the end is in their interest. people see their jobs going overseas, going to other countries. being eliminated through ought mags. and they're not happy about it. washington has gone a poor job of globalization. to that extent, i agree with the caller. >> tom bevin, co-founder and

publisher at real clear politics and carl cannon, the executive editor and washington bureau chief, thank you both for joining us this morning. >> thank you. >> thanks for coming here to our new headquarters. we appreciate it. >> coming up thursday more than, david jolly, preb of the appropriation as committee about issues before the house including his legislation, the stop act to federally prohibit members from calling for the solicitation of contributions for elections. then illinois congresswoman democrat jan chakowski will discuss the re-authorizationst older american's act which provides a series of services to assist the elderly. be sure to watch c-span's washington journal beginning live at 7:00 a.m. eastern thursday morning. >> defense secretary ashton

carter and joint cheefdz of staff chair joseph dunford will brief members of the senate arms services committee on u.s. counter isis strategy. we'll take you there live at 9:30 a.m. eastern. earlier this week in florida, senate candidates faced off at a debate hosted by the open debate coalition featuring questions submitted from voters. the candidates are running for the seat vacated by marco rubio after he decided to run for president in 2016 rather than re-election in florida. both candidates currently serve in the u.s. house. this is beabout an hour and 15 minutes. >> hello, world. i'm lillian campbell, director for the open debate coalition. welcome to the first ever open debate for u.s. senate.

we're in orlando. more than 900 questions were submitted by regular people across florida and across the nation. over 400,000 votes were cast on live and tonight all of the questions for republican congressmen david jolly and allen grayson are going to come from the 30 questions that receive the most votes from people like you. tonight we have two cutting edge moderateors. we have a member from the young turks which has over three billion views on youtube and earnie johnson. we're also having maria padilla on hand to deliver a voter's question. she is founderst blog, orlando latino. and we'll have a hollywood celebrity. we'll have two fiery debaters who are each leading in num raus polls because of their political smarts. this will be an unprecedented matchup. something people will be talking about tomorrow that you don't want to miss. so that's coming up. but first, let me give you background on the open debate coalition which is hosting this

event tonight. so the coalition is compromise of top progressive and political leaders. and top tech readers from sill con valley. this includes our co-host tonight, the progressive change institute. and we also have americans for tax reform. so the coalition includes former strategist for george w. bush, the republican national committee, senate republicans and mitt romney. it also includes naral, move on, labor unions, women's organizations, civil rights advocates and even the iraq and afghanistan veterans of america. we've got media voices and leaders to support this nature of open debates. we have the wikipedia founder and we also have craig from craigslist. the members of the open debate coalition don't agree on every issue. we do agree on one core principle, the political debates

must better represent the will of the people. and what that means is asking candidates tough questions voted on by the people instead of silly gotcha questions. it also means liberating debate footage so you don't need cable tv or can you watch it on open feed that is available to any website, blog, social media platform or any individual that wants to broadcast it. we hope that tonight's debate serves as a model for presidential events later this year and soon becomes the norm for political debates all across america for every office up and down the ballot. to night we invite to spread the word on social media during the debate, letting folks know they can watch this at floridaopendebate.com and tweeting it at #opendebate. so with that, let's begin the first ever open debate for u.s. senate. i'm proud to announce our not raidors from young turks and ernie johnson from the independent review. >> we appreciate it. boy do we have a unique debate

for you to night. you actually asked the questions. so our job as moderateors will be to ask follow up questions to make sure you get the answers to the questions that you asked. and, boy, there were a the love questions out. there 900 questions submitted, 400,000 votes which is amazing. so i want to thank our open debate coalition co-host and progressive change institute and meshgz for tax reform. and this debate will last 75 minutes. there are not any questions about boxers or briefs or iphoneors black berries. why? because nobody asked for those questions. instead, we focus on a lot of substance that you'll see throughout the debate. i want to make sure everybody understand that's we'll have one minute for the initial answers for the candidates and then 45 seconds for follow ups. anything beyond that is moderator's discretion. so with that, take it away. >> for me, by the way, it's briefs. so i have the distinguished honor of announcing the real

stars of the show. the two congressmen joining us to night. fist congressman that i'm introducing is congressman david jolly. he is a native floridian. he is a lawyer by trade and practice. thank you so much for joining us, congressman. the second congressman that i'm introducing is allen grayson. this gentleman is known for his fantastic cowboy boots and exceptional taste in american flag ties which he tells me he even got a brand new tie on amazon just for this debate. all right. so let's get started. we did a coin flip right before the debate. and congressman grayson won. he lekted to do his opening

statement. >> as a floridian, every american can be all that he or she can be. unchanld by poverty, by poor health, by a lack of education or discrimination. that's my job. now more and more what we find is people are struggling in order to be able to accomplish that. inequality is rising dramatically in america. fewer and fewer people have a job, have a home. fewer and fewer people have a car or any sort of savings for their requirement or even health coverage. that has to end. i want to see an america, i want to help make an america where kevin see a doctor and has the care to stay healthy and alive. i want to see an america where compensation for work is actually a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. that means health coverage for you and your family. that means a much higher minimum wage that, means paid sick leave and vacations. but above all, i want to see a

new new deal for seniors. seniors, it's been 40 years since there was any increase in social security benefits. i'm working hard right now in the house of represent ipz ativ change that to make sure that seniors get the raise they deserve this year and they deserve in the future as well as extending medicare to cover your eyes, ears, and teeth. a lot of this may sound like common sense, the political system created to frustrate and to stop and halt progress and i have been named the most effective member of congress because all the good things i've gotten done for people time and time again. i want to do more of that in the senate. thank you. >> thank you. thank you to the open debate coalition. thank you to each one of you who submitted questions. i thank you, too, my colleague for this format. i've been in congress for only two years now. and i have made it a point every day to fight for the people of florida, to put it all on the line every single day.

for our veterans who face the health care crisis, i introduced legislation to empower them to choose where they receive their health care. for our seniors, i've introduced legislation to create a new index for how you calculate cost of living that reflects senior, calculating healthst kos, for the young people i've championed early childhood education, study readiness, for the homeowners and businesses, i've championed flood insurance relief and reform. yes where i believe the president has overstepped or is wrong in issues from foreign policy to economic security, i have challenged the president on behalf of the people of florida. at the end of the day the most important reform we can make is to reform congress. many of you have seen in the last 24 my fight to change washington forever by enacting the s.t.o.p. act.

regardless of your priority, the reasons the advances are not being made is because we have a congress spending too much time asking few your money and not doing their job. it's why i've introduced the s.t.o.p. act and i'm going to fight every day to get it done, leave it all on the table. >> let's get started with the questions. as promised the first one is from a young american, you're going to see this is unlike a lot of other debates. he asks that in new york -- his name is logan and it got voted up almost to the very top. it's on campaign finance reform. remember, every single one of these questions is in the top 30 based on florida votes. logan, take it away. >> caller: -- reform the campaign finance system. 90 frs of americans believe that money needs to get out of politics. how are you going to work with the president to create a viable

campaign finance system that people can trust? >> so, congressman jolly, you brought this up. first question, so it goes to you. >> i appreciate the question from logan. one of the things we can do for now is get congress back to work and off the phone asking for money. i'm an republican who can tell you there is too much money many politics. it's talk about transparency and accountability. let's make sure we know any political message we know who it comes from. we have to balance this with reasonable regulations. let's start by passing the s.t.o.p. act. get members of congress off the phone shaking down the american people for money. and then let's begin to address how do we get to a better campaign finance system that we how now. almost $14 million in a little over weeks in one county. imagine what that $14 million could have done for the county

of pinellas county florida instead of being spent on tv. we can do better. i'll work with any republican or democrat to get to a better place than where we are now. >> we're going to do follow-ups after each person gets a chance to respond for a moment. congressman grayson >> we're creating a new pair dime for campaign finance. imat the only member of congress out of 435 of us who financed his 2014 successful campaign with small donors. i'm the only member of congress who did that in 2012 as well. i'm the only member of congress running for the senate right now who's financed most of his campaign through small donors. we've had over 125,000 people come to the modestly named website senatorwithguts.com. this is the revolution. you can go to the billionaires and the multinational

corporations, go to the lobbyists and the pacts and the special interests and beg them for cash in return for favors. we know what those favors are. they're bailouts, no bid contracts. they're deregulation as they call it. they're tax breaks. it's quid pro quo. well, the people who come to my website, senatorwithguts.com and contributed, they want nothing in return for their money except good government. that tes way forward. that's how you do it. i was in the cram when the citizens united decision was determined you and i have discussed this on the air. and i said at the time on msnbc in we do nothing, you can kiss this country good-bye. i'm doing something. >> all right. so first follow-up goes to congressman jolly. the s.t.o.p. act from what i understand involves representatives not calling the donors anymore. but does someone still call

them, does someone on your staff call them and if so do we still have the same private financing issue at hand? >> we know about the amount of money in politics. this is about the amount of time it takes to raise money. it does not apply to challeng s challengers. it only apply to sitting members of the house and senate. it says you're cheating the taxpayers if you spend 20 to 30 hours a week raising money instead of doing the job you were hired to do. hopefully there will give breathing room to fight about what they believe in. get back to work, get off the phone. now i'll tell you one of the reason i why. we can get the s.t.o.p. act done. we could get it done this year. campaign finance, i'm afraid with all of the complexities is a multi-year effort to get it done. i don't want that to distract from something we can accomplish today which is the s.t.o.p. act.

>> i want to show you guy as graph and get your response real quick. . this is something based on the princeton and knot western study for two decades they looked at it. >> i'm mark ruffalo. >> not yet, mark. hold. >> you cannot stop the hulk. >> what they found out is public policy is not at all related to public opinion. in an ideal democracy you would have a diagonal line that said if 100% of american people wanted 100% chance of getting passed, that would be a democracy. the flat line is what it is for 90% of americans. and then the yellow line is for the economic elite and special interest. they're much closer to the ideal. they have a democracy but we don't. it's because they have the money. congressman grayson, how do you solve this and specifically bennie bas kin asked, are you in favor of a 28th amendment to the

united states constitution to make sure you put an end to money in politics. >> we live in an al gark ki. but the fact is if you're a member of congress on most committees you'll have something who comes to our office for a bundle of checks for lobbyists voting in favor of the bill. you vote for the bill and you get another bundle op checks afterward. it's not just two or three or four members of congress. i'm talking about 434 of them. that's how it's done. and frankly nobody can conceive any other possibility until now. now there's an alternative called power to the people. it would be a great thing but is it really necessary? what if every american woke up tomorrow and said i'm going to choose the candidates, i'm not going to let the party bosses

choose the candidates, i'm going to choose the candidates. i'm going to put my money where their mouth is. it would be overwhelming. it has been overwhelming. i raised more money in my 2012 campaign than any other member of congress and i.d. dit with the small donors. >> would you be in favor of the amendment? >> yes. >> congressman vjolly? >> let's fix what alan just talked about by if you're lobbyist, you can't contribute to anybody sitting on the banking committee. we can do that by an act of congress today. >> a real quick follow-up. congressman grayson would you support the s.t.o.p. act? >> yes. i've done more than that. i introduced eight bills, four introduced before the citizens united decision and four afterward. we posted it at save

democracy.net. three dwrason bills were incorporated in the kis close act and actually passed the house. they were filibustered in the senator but they passed the house. i'm already getting good things done in this regard. >> all right. so our next question, our next question comes from david in new york city. and it has been voted up thousands and thousands of times, nearly has 5,000 votes. people really want to hear the answer to this question. and it follows along a unique line for this 2016 cycle concerns the finance system. the question that david has is what would you do to finally put an end to the big too big to fail banking system? congressman jolly. >> so, i take a little different apreach to this. too big to fail can be solved by

transparen transparency, capital requirements on the large banks and routine stress tests. but you know who has created too big to fail? it's president barack obama. he's created a regulatory structure that has translated to too small to survive. too small to be competitive. dodd frank 12,000 pages of regulations and 400 new rules reduced access to community banks. risk based lending for small businesses and communities all throughout florida has evapor e evaporaevaporat evaporated because of the regulations on the local banks. a new regulation to address financial advising is actually going to reduce services to low-income investors and low dollar investors and new investors in communities throughout florida. the overregulation has so crushed the small and medium

institutions that yes we're left with too big to fail. >> congressman? >> i must respect respectfully disagree with my esteemed colleague. i don't think barack obama was responsible for the economic crisis of 2008 and the economic crisis was a function of too bill to fail if not for the fact that we had a small number of huge institutions, it would have been no worse than a sniffle and instead it was like a heart attack and almost killed america and the world economy. the answer has to be more dramatic than that. if you has an institution if you're too big to fail you're too biggs to economist. you need to be broken up in a way that the trust busters broke up the steel mills, the telephone company, they broke up any conglomeration of capital that was a threat to the rest of us. that's the way it's got to be with the banks. anything short of that is not sufficient. right now the big banks because they're known not to be at risk to fail end up borrowing much cheaper than the small banks do,

not because of regulation but essentially uncle sam will pick up the tab if there's a risk. that's something that's never going to change unless we break it up. we make it into five institutions, they will survive. i swear to you, nothing bad will happen to them. but what will happen to us is we'll no longer be at risk of an economy that can collapse any day because of some child eyed trader probably sniffing cocaine ends up making a trade that can bring down an entire institution and maybe the world economy at the same time. >> is that based on "wolf of wall street? >> let me tell you, there are one quad ril onoutstanding shares of derivatives right now. you know what that? that's a thousand trillion. that's how much is on the bank's balance sheets explicitly. we produce in the country $16

trillion of goods and services every year. if somebody make as mistake, that's 60 years worth of our production, 20 years worth of the whole world's production. we can't afford to be playing what would you call it, russian roulette with our economy ever single trading day. >> it seems like both of you, if i'm hearing you correctly, are certainly against the proposition that something is too big to fail and that is a net negative on the system. how dow you define that? where do you draw the line when something needs to be trust busted and something needs to be broken up? how big is too big? congressman jolly >> i would ask the question how does government break up a financial institution arbitrarily and what does that mean for the current customers. there are ways we can protect investors. take variations of the vul ka rule that is currently in place to prohibit proprietary trading. if we exempt some institutions

from the small requirements but apply the rule to the banks, we can protect the vulnerability of what we saw ten years ago. at the end of the day if we insist -- we can do this through regulation. if we insist on sufficient capital requirements to back investments, insist on transparency of the large banks and routine stress testing to ensure that those banks can meet their commitments, we can prevent things. listen, with respect to alan, why are community banks failing at a rate of one a day. why are there less community based lending services to communities throughout florida. wie are there fewer services in investment advising from small firms throughout north dakota, the man or woman who you go to church with and they've been your financial advise are for years and you got a letter next week saying sorry because of the rules of the administration i can no longer service your

account, that's evaporating in our local kmaens and only empowering too big to fail. >> well, again, i have to disagree. the reason why you have smaller institutions who have having trouble competing is simply because the bigger institutions have what amount to a government guarantee. and their borrowing costs are there for that very reason much less than the smaller institutions. it's not an economy of scale. it's basically a ford bailout. if we had done every single thing that congressman jolly just recommended in 2008 or before that we would have still had a crash. it's going to happen sooner or later. it's going to happen unless we take control of the big banks, break them up and make them safe for us. >> it sounded like all of the prescriptions that you mentioned twb stress test et cetera are what dodd frank does. are you happy with dodd frank in that regard and do you think it's sufficient to maintain the

banks' order so they won't cause the kind of collapse that -- >> dodd frank went way too far with the regulations and rules. 12,000 pages. alan joined with me on providing relief or auto loans. we've tried to do the same some of us on mortgage loans, on exempting or raising the asset level of small banks to have relief under dodd frank. dodd frank has hurt service to the people who need it the very most. so what we see through stress testing is the vulnerability of a system that kwle we can precisely address. it is this administration that's driven out the small lenders. >> okay. so from what i gather you like some of dodd frank and you want to do all of the things that you described dodd frank does do you think it does a little too much. you're for less regulation of the banks. am i getting it wrong? >> less regulation under dodd frank yes.

no question. how do you break up? how does government inject itself into a private institution and break it up? >> how did we break up the telephone companies. that's within my reckoning within my lifetime. i'm sure people remember there used to be just ma bell and now there's dozens of providers, including your cable company. you can get telephone service from your internet company right now. it's not that difficult. we've done it over and over again stretching back to the sherman act. i'm pretty sure if there's one thing government mastered it's how to do this and do it right. we had a rule until recently that said you had to separate investment banking from other banking. that rule is out the window. all we have to do is restore that rule and that's a big step of eliminating the problem of too big to fail. >> let's move on to the next question now.

social security. gloria hartness from tampa, florida asked this question. it was number three nationally. what will you do in your position to keep social security and medicare strong? so let's start with congressman jolly. >> sure. i'm one of the republicans who has regularly voted against the budget presented by my side of the aisle because i believe some of the changes it makes for people under 55 are too aggressive. i'm 43 years old. i'm not too young for the government to honor the promise of social security and medicare that's been made to me. the way approach reforms is this. if you have been in the system for 40 quarters with, that's how you vest for social security and medicare, 40 quarters, i think we should treat that as though you're vested and the rules that apply will apply. no changes. let's recognize the outyear debt of that obligation. congress has been to bad at the math.

let's put it on the balance sheet and own it as debt. if you're new to the workforce, you are still going to have the best social security and medicare system in the world. but it might look different than what today's looks like. but if you're currently vested in social security or medicare, let's secure that promise. it has been made. let's honor it. no changes in benefits but recognize the outyear debt. we have $19 trillion in debt. that number goes up threefold if you count the outyear debt. >> congressman grayson as you're answering the same question, especially if you can tell us the difference between your two positions that would be helpful. >> it's like the difference in night and day. what congressman jolly just talked about, i am fleetly 0 pesed to that. i wrote the no cuts petition that 100 members of congress and 3 million american citizens

signed against any and every cut in social security and medicare and medicaid benefits. we haven't had a raise for seniors in 40 years. seniors deserve a raise. we shouldn't looking at how to cut social security, cut medicare either for current beneficiaries or future beneficiaries. we should be looking at the fact that it's time for a raise. in those 40 years we've had three generations of seniors pass through the system and in those 40 years the per capita income of the united states increased by 97%. while during those 40 years the purchasing power of social security benefits has decreased by 3%. that's why i have proposed the seniors deserve a raise act giving them the 3.9% increase they were cheated out of. i've proposed that the seniors have eyes, ears and teeth act, has 147 cosponsors as we sit here today. that's why i've introduced the

scrap the cap act which the social security administration has scored and says it will eliminate any problems with financing in social security from now until the end of time. these are the things that need to be done. we need to move forward, not backward. we don't need cuts. cuts are hurting seniors who desperately need the benefits. >> if i may. >> congressman jolly, address whether it's a night and day difference and whether you're willing to expand social security or not. >> the greatest of all is a collapse of the social security system because there wasn't the leadership in congress to realize it was failing. it is neglect by members of congress who refuse to recognize that the greatest drive of our national debt isn't in programs that have been promised and earned. just because washington is bad at math doesn't mean we get to look the other way and seniors pay the penlts. i've introduced legislation myself as well that would

address how cost of living increases are considered for seniors. to recognize that seniors have unique needs when it comes to health care and other issues where the costs are higher than others in the population. we can honor every promise that has been made to our seniors. nobody is trying to cut it. but i promise you if we fail to address the long term impact of the oebl gagss on social security and medicare, the greatest cut of all will happen and it will happen at the hands of frankly my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who refuse to touch the issue. >> i've got to follow up there. in 2010, social security had a $2.8 trillion surplus. are you concerned that the surplus is not enough or are you saying we already spent that surplus, that's why we're going to run out of money? >> the time line, we know that theest bes that will be due in the outyears, there will be insufficient resources in the trust fund to fapay for it. what i've said is let's secure the benefits for everybody

that's earned them. let's say we're going to honor the earned benefits and put it on the balance sheet as an obligation of the nation. but the actuarial system of the current social security and medicare systems will ensure failure by the time the youngest generations get there. that's when we need to look at the appropriate reforms. i voted against my own party's budget because they want to make changes for anybody under 55. let's do it under a longer cost curve that that protects people in the middle of their careers >> social security and medicare, these are covenants between one generation and another. this is important to me. my masters thesis at harvard was on this. i was an officer of that organization for more than 20 years. the longest sustainedest of my entire life. longer than any political career. and i will tell you that it gals me to hear this ideas that we have to cheat seniors in order

to make the budget budget out. that's just wrong to me. there's only one small change you have to make. you have to make sure that you treat every dollar like every other dollar and it's solvent forever. let's talk about lebron james. he stops paying social security taxes the beginning ofg the second quarter of the first game of the season. the rest of the game pays nothing. rest of the 81 games of the season pays nothing. the off season, still pays nothing. that's ridiculous. if we simply made every pay the same percentage of their income, the system is solvent forever an ever and ever. >> now are you saying that about lebron james because he left the heat in that seems very personal, congressman. very important question here for both of you. do you like and have you ever watched "the avengers". >> yes but it's not as good as dc comics. i spent my mondays and thursdays

running out of the school at 3 o'clock going over to the candy store buying the new editions. i still love "the avengers." >> first ever question by an avenger. >> scientists say that a rapid transition to a clean renewable power in florida will create $140,000, eliminate 3,000 premature air pollution deaths and over 50,000 illnesses in florida per year, increase energy independence, reduce terrorism risk and reduce trekt and social costs of energy. with that in mind, here's a question from jen in rhode island that got thousands of votes. >> do you accept that climb

change is the single greatest threat our world faces? and if yes, will you support or put forth legislation that keeps more fossil fuels in the ground and greenhouse gases out of our atmosphere? >> congressman, climate change. is it the biggest crisis that man kind faces right now? >> who would you like to start? >> let's start with you congressman grayson. >> the answer is yes. i can't think of anything else that will destroy the planet other than climate change. we run the risk of a runaway greenhouse effect. no one knows if that would happen or not. we're playing dice with planet earth. that's disturbing to me. we have names for things like killing a person. killing a nation, we don't have a name for what it would mean to kill a whole planet. and that shows you how serious this is. i've worked hard to avoid this.

i'll give you some examples. this means reduced greenhouse gases. each year i've had the government hand out credits of $1.3 billion in a 20% tax credit and i've done that for two years in a row. a total of $2.6 billion green energy tax credits have been handed out to people all across the nation and they've resulted in $13 billion of invest 789 in clean energy. in addition to that i passed an amendment a few months ago that help to keep our rivers clean with a 9% increase in funding for that. i've been there. i've been fighting this battle and making sure that my children and my grandchildren inhurnt a good green earth. >> congressman jolly? >> the challenges from climate change are real. but is climate change the greatest threat to our nation as alan just said? no. the greatest threat to our nation are agents of terror like

the guy we saw in san bernardino who killed 14 people in the name of jihad. the greatest threats we face is a nuclear armed iran who have said they wish to destroy the united states. the greatest threat we face as a nation are people who wish to destroy us tomorrow. that's the threat we have to address right now. that's the immediate address. when the president of the united states stood before a state of the union address and said the greatest threat we face is climate change, he's wrong. greatest threat we face are the people who want to destroy the united states of america tomorrow and that's what we need to address. let's get to the science. what do we do about climate change. let's have a contest of ideas over solutions. we need to continue to invest in tax incentives for clean energy, renewables, for fuels were wind and solar, you name it. let's continue to advance research in these areas which we've done in congress, continued to add more money to a program that invests in research

in these areas. but what will not work is policies of this president like the clean power plan that risks putting 300 people in putnam county out of business and increases utility costs for 1.6 million people across the state. what won't work is the president's waters of the united states nation which is going to cost pinellas county $400 million and $2.5 billion. it will cost $31 billion to fix a single ditch. what won't work is a blended fuel standard that the industry can't meet. a renewable fuel standard that continues increase cost to industry. the largest beer distributor in the state of florida just went to an all solar roof. you know why they did it? the urn of investment finally in a five-year window. they're able to grow their business, and jobs while contributing to a cleaner environment. that's the transition we need. 10 years ago if there was a

regulation that said great bay you have to go to an all solar roof, they would have had to lay off their workforce because the cost was out of reach. we can solve climate challenges through incentives and research. >> i think as americans we're all certainly for cheaper beer. however, and while i agree with that entirely, i myself am not a climate scientist. i'm a journalist. and a very reputable journalistic magazine has a graph, a chart. i think we can put it over here on the screen. this is what they have published as a future outline of the state of florida in year 2100. this is if the water line of the ocean rises by 5 feet. this is what is projected. my question to both of you is,

is that is realistic view of what could potentially happen to the state, that you want to be one of the two senators for? >> so i'm not one in my party that's going to argue with the science. i would rather argue about where the solutions are because i think the president is wrong. the miami of miami beach what are our municipal governments doing to underground utilities to eventually protect, life, safety and property. there are a lot of things to need to be done to deal with what the scientists are saying. i'll accept the science. let's alan and i have a debate over the solutions. we have a disagreement on the solutions. >> i want to point out. this is completely fortuitous. the method you just showed is something that was at my website when i declared for congress in 2006. i wanted people to see what this

glorious state would look like once the ice caps melt and the sea level rises and once miami is under 50 feet of water. you're going to have a lot of trouble putting it up on stilts if you're talking about 50 feet of water. rush limbaugh's house is on the coast so his house goes first. but all that aside, it's tragedy. avoidable tragedy. in the last eight years the president who has been the person who has done anything about pipt the president's clean water plan attempting took tied up in the court by the other side, it's a means to cut our car ban emission substantially. and with regard to the autoemissions, who was it who actually increased the corporate average fuel economy standards in this country. it wasn't the house of representatives. it wasn't the senate. it wasn't the republican ors the democrats. it was the president of the united states. and now with the president's

paris climate agreement which i support and i've told the president i support it, i think we actually see a way forward. look, i voted in favor of the cap and trade bill in any first term. i was punished for it. the koch broerts spent $4 million to defeat me the following year. i can live with that. the planet is a lot more important than that. >> keep the answers a little shorter on both sides. i want to go to a video on this same topic. it's from edward in miami florida. >> how will you work to make renewable energy more affordable in florida. we receive sunlight that could support a solar project. our coastal tidal power could also be harnessed. >> tax incentives that continue to create an industry that employs more people in the state of florida and gives greater

energy options throughout the state that is cleaner and cheeper. we can also consider to invest federal dollars in research. the clean power plant that alan and i were talking about was stayed by the supreme court because of its irreparable financial harm to states. okay. this has been stayed by a court because the has imposed irreparable harm on states. my point is simp. let's reach consensus on this. let's solve this as a country and get out of the mandate world that's destroying communities. >> look, unfortunately in public life there are people who are anti-pollution and people who are pro-pollution. that's a fact. i'm suggesting to you that the reason we have the policies that we have today is because in the same way that wall street determines or economic policies, it's a fact that big oil determines our energy policy. and that has to change.

it must change. what are we doing about it? what have i done about it? i've passed more amendments than any member of congress in the past three years. there will 26 grayson bills that are now the law of the land passed by the house, passed by the senate, signed into law by the president. fourp of those i discussed earlier. the fact that we have $2.6 billion in energy credits for conservation in people's homes to make homes green that wouldn't have existed if these bills had lapsed. that's what i'm doing, that's what i've done. people can count on mep. i think we have to take it a step further. right now it's technically illegal for you to pubt solar panels on your roof and sell that electricity to the utility companies. we have to eliminate that law here in florida and throughout the country. >> next question is from someone who is live in the studio. go ahead. >> politicians all over the

country are getting between a woman and her doctor and taking away her constitutional right to choose. how will you protect a whom's right to choose? >> who would you like to go first? >> congressman jolly. >> i believe life begins at conception. that life deserves to be protected. for me it's about create agriculture that values life from the unborn to the child facing significant economic or hunger issues to the elderly person who perhaps is a shut-in. pi understand it's personal issue, a very human sissue. i will tell you the supreme court in its landmark case 40 years ago recognized the viability of the unborn as a test when they put certain restrictions on it. i believe life begins at conception. for others it might be later. but i will tell you the supreme court and congress eventually possibly will have to deal with

the fact that 40 years after the viability standard was created, viability has changed as a result of medical science. >> i believe quite simply that the most important right you have as a human being is to right to control your own body and that means terminating a pregnancy if that's what you desire. there shouldn't be any shame in that. there should be a shame in the concept that you force a woman to have a child that that woman does not want to have. to me that itself is criminal. and therefore among other a things i've adamantly opposed every effort to try to restrict a woman's right to choose. i've proudly opened a planned parenthood clinic in my district and faced down protesters. and i have with some degree of pride actually attended planned parenthood fundraisers and contributed to them. i think it's very important that women be treated the same rights as men.

believe me if men would have abortions you could probably get them at slot machines. >> ann marie is the person who asked that question. next we have the founder of orlando.com going to ask a question on behalf of one of the people who got voted up. >> good evening. vi a question from samantha warren from pembroke, massachusetts. and she asked, she says, planned parenthood is under fire for doctored videos that prove no crime or wrongdoing. do you support defending or defunding planned important hood? >> defending. there's a short answer for you. >> bingo. congressman jolly? >> i'll say two things and i'll keep it brief. when the videos came out they were shocking. my side of the aisle quickly rushed to author a legislation to defund parenthood but in the process reduced medical care to individuals throughout the country. it's actually the jolly

language, i introduced a bill that said we're going to disqualify planned parenthood as a vendor but we're going to continue to fund women's health care services at the top level funding it has been at. when my side of the aisle asked for an investigation of planned parenthood, i voted no. should the issue be looked at? yes. there were already three committees looking at the she. we didn't need a forth. so i did vote no against the planned parenthood investigation. >> so congressman jolly i'm confused by your position on that. you voted no in that case but we've had 12 investigations at the state level within they've all said that the video wu doctored and there was nothing illegal whatsoever but yet you voted to defund planned parenthood. why vote that way? >> i voted against the investigation because i think the investigation had run its

course and frankly i don't think my party should spend three months in the summer revisiting this issue. we can continue to assess whether or not there was violation. that can be done without a special congressional committee. what my legislation would have done is pending the investigation disqualified planned parenthood as a vendor but continued to provide the maximum level of resources for other providers of the same services. >> what defund planned parenthood if -- >> did you see the skroo in that's why. >> but 12 investigators saw it and said it was doctored. that's why i'm asking. you don't agree with the investigations? >> don't agree with which investigations? >> that there was nothing wrong, that planned parenthood had done, they had not sold any body parts? >> i don't know the outcome of 12 different investigations. it could have been settled with a single investigation which is why i voted against the special committee. >> go ahead. >> i think it's fair to say that

americans by the millions found the practice of selling baby parts quite horrific. >> let me address that. >> let's jump -- tweet me afterwards. >> give me a minute hear. that's what jewish people like me refer to as a blood liable. that's a lie that's utterly horrific that it takes away people's judgment. all it can do is stir up hatred and demonize people. respectfully that's what you just did. that eats not the appropriate way to discuss. it's inciting people to hatred. god bless barack obama, whatever you say about him he never indulges in that. let's not say someone is selling baby parts or the mexicans are all rain is. or any other lie like that that is meant to make people hate other people. >> respectfully i was merely the

proposition of the video and what they were based upon. that was the context. and that is not something that i am making a ruling on as did or did not happen. the context of the videos caused outrage because that's how they were sold. >> it would be a violation to cry yat a revenue line for the organization based on transacting in fetal parts. that was the point of the initial investigation rn. >> i do not claim to be an expert in the videos or the investigations. >> yeah. let me just end on this note. just for the record, of the 12 investigations at the state levels, a lot of them were conducted by republicans and one in harris county texas did indict two people, but not the people at planned parenthood but the ones who made the videos. that's the only indictments that ever came out of that. according to those 12 states, no selling of body parts whatsoever

and the only people dieted were the people who made the videos. let's move forward to the next question. >> the next question comes from james in arkansas. this question is asked concerns a very hot topic right now, the supreme court. do you believe that president obama's supreme court pick should have a hearing before the president leaves office? >> who would like to answer that first? >> congressman grayson. >> the answer is yes. there's a house resolution to that effect. it's a sad situation that we're in. under the original constitution african americans were considered to be three-fifths of a human being. now our first african american president gets 7/8ths of a term. he should be able to appoint someone until his last day in office. >> the president has the article 2 authority to appoint the senate has the article 1 authority to accept or reject

it. i end up in the same place as leader mcconnell here. i think the united states senate should have a hearing and consider a vote and understand this, rejecting the nominee because he is wrong on the second amendment and he is wrong on labor yuan yours is not obstructionism. it's tes proper exercise of the senate's article 1 authority. if they bring it up for a vote, vote him down. ask the president to nominate a second person, one that could actually meet approval of republicans in the united states senate. what the president has to accept is that republicans currently control the united states senate and they have the constitutional prerogative to vote the nominee up or down. i do think he should have a hearing and i would like to see a vote because i think he would be voted down. >> if you were serving in this position currently as a senator for the state of florida, would you meet with mere rick garland. >> sure, of course. >> yes. >> let me follow up with congressman grayson. merrick garland has voted in

favor of citizens quis united. he did further citizens united. so on those issues not progressive. would you -- if a democrat won the election would you ask -- and you won your seat, would you ask president obama to end his nomination and let the next democratic president pick a different supreme court nominee? >> if the unfortunate event that garland's nomination is pending, i would say yes. it's unfair to say in most cases where were you on this issue, where were you on this other issue as long as they're following precedent. and you yourself pointed out that once the supreme court decided citizens united the awful day i was in the courtroom, mitch mcconnell two seats to my left, that was the law of the land until they decide otherwise. i'm pleased that four members of

the court supreme court have said they will overturn citizens quited with a fifth vote. i asked the president to make a recess appointment to make that happen. president decided not to. he went through a normal nomination process. i want to have the bad laws, the bad precedents changed as quickly as possible. but you can't curse the man for simply following precedent. that's unfair to him and the system of justice. >> let's move on to the next questionant minimum wage. it comes from delore is from kissimmee, florida. are you for a minimum wage increase on the federal level? would you bring it up to the poufrty level of $15 an hour? if instead you believe it should be incremental, how long until you would make it $15 an hour. >> look, i'm for getting people off of minimum wage.

the state of florida has an $8. $8.05 that is higher than the state level. i would be willing to have the consideration to allow for stability of financial planning for employers. here's the important thing. if you went to the 1010 level of a few years back, the cpo says we would have 500,000 viewer jobs. if you went to hillary clinton's proposal of 12, you would have 3.8 million fewer jobs. and if you went to bernie sanders proposal, you would have over 6 million fewer jobs. how do we get people off of minimum wage and in a growing economy. we do that through conservative proposals. i would consider and index at the federal level but an arbitrary lift that would kill jobs for the bottom fours of the workforce. it would be felt by the people who need to jobs the most. i was a small business owner. i went through eight months one

time where i didn't pay myself because i wanted to keep my employees employed. if the government had told me arbitrarily you have to raise your employees' salaries by 30%, i already wasn't paying myself. my only option would have been to laypeople off in the name of a minimum wage act. >> let tl are parts of the country that have higher minimum wages than the federal minimum wage and they have in metro a a areas where the economy can support it. >> we live in a metro area. >> explain to the person in iowa why $15 is a wage that employers should have to be able to sustain. >> let me continue here. let me tell you why. if you calculate it out you'll see that living on minimum wage right now trying to survive on 1400 dollars a month.

nobody is survive on that. i went through the minimum wage challenge, tried to do it a few days, i ended up dropping it because i had to take my son to the dentist and so much for the minimum wage challenge. it's impossible when you is a health bill, a car repair bill, nil that might throw you off the track of eating nothing but ramen noodles every day for the rest of your life. this is america. in australia they have $16 an hour minimum wage. in australia and they've had a booming economy for years and their unemployment has been less than ours for most of the last ten years that they've had. minimum wage. if they can do it, then we can do it. in germany by law, every worker gets four weeks plus of paid vacation. you haven't seen the german economy collapse because of that. there's only three countries in the world where there's no paid vacation by law. we happen to be one of them. we're treating our workers like

dirt. out of the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the entire country, orlando is dead last in wages. in the seniors that seniors deserve a raise, workers deserve a raise and we need to properly compensate the people who are doing the work that makes everything possible. couldn't be in the studio today, couldn't be standing behind the leg turn until somebody made the studio, made the lectern. >> is there a number that we can go back to the person who asked this question and say here's the minimum wage you think is ideal, that you would like to get to? >> just like on climate change, this's few economists in congress. why do lawmakers arbitrarily choose a number why was it 1212, 1010, 15, let's index it. get the brightest minds in the world in the room, figure out what the number should be, index

it and get the politicians out of this. it works in states across the country including florida. so employers can plan for the increased wages of the next year. >> here's a funny thing. i was an economist for four years. i can go through the economic data and tell you that the aurkts against the minimum wage are false. misleading. the fact is if you gave people a $15 wage, there would be more customers. that's what the businesses want. they don't want to force their employees to rely on food stamps or medicare. what they want most is customer. they'll spend it. the whole economy gets elevated. >> how does somebody in my situation call an employee in and say i'm sorry i have to let you go because the government has just said i have to give you a 30% raise and i'm already not paying myself and there aren't

funds to keep you employed. you can study the economics all you want but the impact on job losses is real and it hits the small businesses the hardest >> before i took up the cause of the $15 minimum wage i met with people in tampa making the minimum wage for florida, about two dozen of them. i asked every one of them the question that congressman jolly asked, are you willing to run the risk that you might lose your job so people can have a $15 wage. every single one answered yes even the they knew they might be the one. and frankly, with a properly managed economy like germany has, you would never have to worry about that. >> what's keeping you from raising it to $87 an houren. >> it has to have some correspondence to the value of people's labor. but the fact is there is a value to people's labor and it's $15 an hour or more. we artificially subsidize it to make it seem less than that. the only way people survive when

they're making $8, $9 or $10 an hour is because the government subsidizes it. you look at the amount of money walmart gets for their employees benefit for the earned income tax credit, the medicaid coverage, the food stamps, every other form of benefits that they get, this is subsidizing the pay. if they're making $15 an hour, the taxpayers would be better off. >> eddy from california has a question that was vote nd on very enthusiastically. what are you plans to deal with out of control college tuition and student death. just a few numbers here, gentlemen because with we're in florida. over half of floridian students carry student debt when they graduate. the total amount of sturnt debt in florida exceeds a billion dollars. florida doubled the national average of student debt loans in

default. and the average floridian owes north of $26,000 in student debt, ranking the fifth highest in the country. how do you combat this problem? congressman jolly. >> so 41 million americans have student loan debt. next the mortgages, it's the greatest debt on families. we can make them eligible for reorganization and bankruptcy cases. those are two nishives i've supported, creating accessible for accelerating pell grant need based aid. but you want to know the real way to do this? let's tie the performance of long term student loans to what the universities receive. because understand, you can rack up $100,000 in debt and the day of your graduation the university has been paid but you might struggle with that debt for decades. right now the only trigger 0 an

university that invokes any kind of penalty is if a default rate of their graduated students reaches 18%. i think we should go back to the system where the university is renumb rated based on the performance of the long term loan. >> congressman grayson. >> i've introduced the sanders college for all act. that include everything congressman jolly described. it also makes public college free. there are seven other countries around the world where public colleges is a, free, and b, trauth in english. how can sla vein ya afford to provide public college in english where florida and ie highway and new hampshire sn somehow can't. the entire college system for the state of florida is a tiny fraction of the state's overall budget. we already have the federal government providing a substantial part of the k through 12 cost of education.

why do we stop there? you know, it's not a new idea. free public college dates back in the united states to the 1840s. my father went to the city college of new york, a free college. there's no reason we can't make the promise to everyone else. we want people to reach their potential in life. every single one of us is a unique bundle of talents, skills, interests, limitations and i want to see the truck drivers who are willing and able to become doctors, become doctors. i want to make sure that everybody reaches their full potential and in our 21st century economy that often requires a college education. i say let's open up the public colleges to everyone. >> congressman jolly do you support debt free college? >> that's a state decision. if the state and taxpayers decide to provide that for students, that's left for the states to decide. i don't think the federal government should be telling the

state of florida you have to give free college. if the voters want it, the administrators can decide how to pay for it and the taxpayers would have to accept that. i disagree with alan and i disagree with bernie sanders on this. >> next question is about for-profit prisons. black persons are being persecuted and mistreated in the prison system. private prisons are at the root. if elected will either of you support abolishes private prisons. >> the answer is yes. what is government? one way to look at what government is the government holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of force, whether they're talking about killing foreign soldier, the police arresting anyone or we're talking about a judgment in court, a minute judgment being enforced or for that matter we're talking about imprisoning

somebody. the core function of government is that. so it makes so sense whatsoever to contract it out. it's fundamentally ir responsible to say to someone we'll let you make a buck off incarcerating somebody else. and it delegitimizes the entire system. the reason why prison guards do what they do, it's a difficult dirty job, a horrible job to have. the reason they can do what they do is because they stand there in the place of you and me. they stand there in the place of the entire u.s. all citizens all together making these decisions through the justice system collect tyly. once you start to say to people we'll give you an extra dollar if you cut back on the rations or you put three or four prisoners in a cell instead of only two, you've corrupted the system in a fundamental way. we cannot allow that. >> listen, i think privatization is an issue for elected leadership to decide if these the appropriate use of taxpayer

dollars. the question is the administration of prisons regardless of whether it's public or private. if somebody is violating the law in the way they're ad ministering a prison, they should be held responsible for that. i had a dear friend who made mistakes and he actually ended up spending time in a state prison here in florida. he faced significant health care challenges that i don't believe were being responded to adequately. i don't know if it was a private or a public prison. to me it didn't matter. the issue was that the administration was failing. and so should we wholesale prohibit privatization? i don't know. perhaps there are areas where that is worksing for the taxpayers. but if somebody is violating the law in the way they ad minister a prison, they should be held accountable for it. >> it doesn't stop there. 23% of the african american adults in the state of flort can't vote because their rights

have not been restored. it's the highest proportion in the entire country. we have to treat prisoners as if they are human beings and not profit centers but we also have to understand that when they've served their time, it's time the let it go and have them rejoin the family of american citizens with full rights. >> congressman jolly there are some studies out showing that private prison are not really cost savers. in arizona they cost $1600 more per inmate mer year. but to me the larger question, not just the effects that it has and the costs that it has, but the fact that we insent rise some companies to take away the freedoms of some americans. is there something inherently problematic with that? >> that's wrong and lij lay tors should be held accountable for that. there may be a model that saves taxpayers dollars lied a lly ad

prison. >> joe from hialeah, florida. it goes like this. what will you do to improve voting not yourself in florida but nationwide. what will you do to improve -- there it is again. i personally would like to see open primaries everywhere, a federal voting holiday and auto voter reg ration at 18 years of age. we have the video. i think joel is here to join us. >> well then you'll hear it again. >> -- not just in florida but nationwide. we continue to see the effects of voter suppression wreak havoc. i would like to see open primaries in all 50 states. >> so let's start with congressman jolly on this one. and if you can be specific on his ideas open primaries with federal voting. >> i think it's a great

solution. open primaries. we should have them in the state of florida. you've got a third of the electorate that's disenfranchis disenfranchises. we can grow the party by embracing conservative solutions that appeal to independents. i would say yes to open primari primaries. and whatever makes us have greater participation, i'm willing to consider that. >> i've introduced legislation for this purpose. i've introduced more bills than any other member and i introduced a bill for democracy day making our federal elections a holiday. we have a lot of people in my district twho work one job, maybe two jobs, sometimes three jobs and they work on tuesdays. another thing i'm in favor of is the same spm they have in colorado where they mail every single voter a ballot.

you can use it or go vote on election day. that has elevated turnout enormously. jond that i think we have to accept the fundamental idea that it is fundamentally wrong for the government to do anything to frustrate the right to vote. so i favor a constitutional amendment that declares the right to vote. i also have introduced legislation that would ensure that when you serve your time apart from cases of murder or manslaughter or sex crimes, when you've served your time you get back your rights. in flort we have first class citizens and second class citizens and that's just wrong. when you've served your time and paid your debt to society you should be able to vote and protect yourself through the political system and have the same rights as everybody else. >> do you find any problems with the voter id laws if they disenfranchise a significant percentage of some folks of the country, for example, 25% of

african americans don't have voter ids? >> let's do better. make it accessible for anybody who legally and responsibly want to do so. >> i think that we don't have time for another question so we're going to go to closing statements. congressman grayson is going to go first. >> i'm delighted to have had this opportunity to address the issue of the day. you'll notice that the choice of paper versus plastic never came up. the choice of diet coke versus coke zero never came up. it's a big debate in my household. and i'm happy that finally the american people get to see what it's like two serious members of congress my friend struggling with the great issues of the day. this is what it's all about. this is the way politics ought to be. we shouldn't be talking about how much we're sweating or how big our fingers right be. this is not what this is about. >> on that issue we have not done you justice. >> it is awfully hot in here.

>> it is florida. >> but look, it comes back to what i said earlier. we're both struggling with this issue. the issue is rising inequality in the country. we want people to be able to be all they can be at the beginning. but we have economic equality, social inequality. people are falling out of the middle class. so the question is whether you're talking about student loans or social security or whatever it may be, what are you going to do about it? what are you actually going to coto fix it? what have you done to fix it? my organization i mentioned for the alliance of aging research, they have an award they give out every year. it us called the claude pepperer award. i want to win that award one day. i want to be the same champion as claude pepper was for the state of florida for an entire generation or more. that's what florida needs today, a champ'n for seniors, a champion for workers, a champion for you. >> thank you to the open debate

coalition. it is warm in here i think because of the lights. and yes some of us are sweating. but i tell you what. every single day i try to lay it on the line. i said i've been fighting for florida for two years. i'm asking for the opportunity to continue to do it again. when the veterans need better health care, let's give them the choice of where they receive it. when the seniors don't have an increase, let's fight to get it. when we have children that's not ready for school, let's invest in study readiness, making geds more affordable and accessible for people who want it. and yes when the president is wrong on issues of national security and on overregulation that is reducing services and cripples an economy in parts of florida that need it the most, let's stand up and say there's a better way that do it. you know i started by talking about the s.t.o.p. act. there's probably no better we form that we can do right now,

get congress back to work. this contest of ideas alan and i have had tonight is what we should be doing as candidates and mention. it's why i introduced the s.t.o.p. act. it's why we have the s.t.o.p. act.com to ask people to join nus a movement, more than a campaign. i thank you for tuning in. i thank each one of you for participating tonight. this has been a great night. alan, thank you. >> okay. hey, thank you guys. thank you gentlemen, congressmen so much. we had so much that we didn't have a chance to get to. that proved the strength of the d debate. i wanted to thank the congressmen for being here, our partners and progressive change institute and for everybody who submitted questions and for the nearly half a million votes we got to decide which questions were answered. so thank you so much and for the public who followed along. >> if you like this style of debate and you would like to ask

the questions going forward, can can do at the congressional levels but you ooft go to impress to the representatives that this is the right way to this. if you're on facebook, share it, like it, go to florida open debate.com and make sure everybody gets the word on this. so congressmen thank you so much and for all of you at home watching, thank you as well. ♪ ♪ our c-span campaign 2016 bus continue to travel across the country to honor winners from this year's student cam competition. recently our bus traveled to

wyoming. to recognize winners. they were recognized by classmates and families and local elected officials for that video access to affordable higher education is the investment of the future. then our bus traveled to south dakota and visited with winners in rapid city and sioux falls and the final stop of the week included a visit to minnesota where third prize winners were honored for their video on water pollution. a special thanks to our cable partners, comcast, charter and mid cofor helping to coordinate the visits. every week be sure to watch one of the entries. the nightly shows larry will more will be the head lynner at this week's white house correspondent's dinner. we caught up with him earlier. here's a look.

>> larry, will more you get to meet the president saturday night. >> i'm excited about that. i had to give them all of my identification and now i can't vote, you know. they got everything. it's going to be a lot of fun. i'm looking forward to it. >> did you think about saying no when the call came? >> absolutely not. when the president calls you have to do it, you know.