cooperative and fully supportive of what we were doing. i talked about the fight down in baramcha on the pakastani border. we had to alert the pakastani army to that and we asked for their cooperation in certain ways. they were forthright and quick about giving those assurances and providing that cooperation, although we did not have pakastani forces involved. . .

again, from my limited observation, the pakistani government was, and the pakistani army, especially, was supportive of our operations along the border, as long as it gave them plenty of notification and were not open to our plans. regarding the reintegration process, the government of afghanistan has a very robust reintegration program to bring insurgents back to their communities. i think it functions on two levels. the first level is a reformal system, in which you formally present yourself to the afghan authorities, you formally surrender your weapon and

then you are reingrateed through jobs into the community. that system has been taken off but the structures there, as of yet, i have not seen a flood of people coming over. however, that said, at the trooper level, the private through sergeant level, we are seeing an anecdotally, pretty solid evidence of them coming back over to go back into their communities, to be returned in a much more informal basis, simply to be brought back to their families, given jobs back on the farm, and without a lot of bells and whistles attached that would attract our attention. i remember eating early in my tour there men of great import, and religious leaders, and after a long discussion and a nice lunch, the leader pulled me as side and said you have to understand about the insurgency. he said of the 100%, there

are probably 70% that come back to the villages, come back to their homes and simply drop their weapons and become -- just lead a normal life. he said there's probably 20% that will take some form of formal reintegration. they have blood on their hands and it will be some kind of a process to bring them back and then to watch them after that takes place. he said there is probably 10% you got to kill. he said they're just incore ridgessable and you -- incorrigible and you have to kill them. i think he has his numbers pretty solid. the weaker side of the problem and there is a weaker side, i believe the counterattack has to come back and our job is to figure how they will do that. we are well positioned to counter whatever he brings

but he has to do it. helmand province is the heart of the posturing community and it is where can dar har prove ins next door -- kandahar province is next door and it is extremely important and he can't give that up. like any commander, he needs resources. he has got to fund his people, and we know he is having problems. we have seen evidence that local commuters have to sell their personal effects to pay their people. we have seen evidence that they're running short of critical military supplies and he's having problems bringing the $10 a day taliban, men working simply for a paycheck, and there are many of them, that he is having trouble attracting them because he doesn't have the cash, why? because the drugs aren't available to say, so he has to go back to places that are list ft. knoxs, where he has got his money. his money grows in the

ground and gets sprung up every year. that's why the drug trade is so important to him and that's why our interdiction efforts, we are r. have received hundreds of tons of narcotics are critical because it cuts him away from the one thing he needs. it is money. he is fueled by that. >> ok. let's take two right there, and one over here. let's start right here. >> hi, i'm with the navy and i was wondering whether you can talk about whether mar sauk has brought any capabilities to fighting in afghanistan and talk about any issues that you have in terms of uav's in terms of reliability, communication and what kind of improvements you could see there. >> i'm lieu ten and pete gabrielle, retired u.s. army. thank you for your presentation. i spent a lot of time in pakistan but i'm interested in your dealings with

corruption at the local level, how you would deal with it, and also how you see things three to five years out with our potential pullback. thanks. >> and there is one right here. go ahead. right there. >> hi, i'm from the asian society, washington. the female engagement group seemed to have crept into the female population, but what will happen after the u.s. exits afghanistan and will there be any programs to help women? >> >> marsauk has played a vital role and i could give you numerous examples. the special forces across the board, u.s., marines and the seals and u.s. army special forces and the u.k. special forces played a huge role in disrupting the c-2

capabilities of the insurgency. in fact, quickly, they gutted the c-2 capability. we got there and did was estimated that the average regimental commander in the insurgency was about 35 years old. when we left, he was 23. why? because the rest of them are dead. what does that mean? they are promoting less experienced men into greater responsibility. that is a weakness on his part. the special forces were absolutely valuable in attacking the the ied networks and the provider and maker networks at level and taking those downs. the other thing mar sauk did along with the other special forces was to provide local village stability operations. we would put them into areas that were still being contested and they would go into local areas, talk with the elders, stay in the village, establish a safe house and then begin to recruit local boys to provide local police protection both for the elders and for the village

itself. that became that expanding ink blot that you heard so much about. it's very critical that you do that. they're good at that. they are very brave men. they are in very dangerous situations. many times they fight for the first ten days on the ground until they couldn't of sort out who is who and then they began to expand into more peaceful developmental projects which, again, turn that village over to the government of afghanistan. one of the things we do with that early is get the district governors involved, district police involved so it has an afghan face to t we do not want a coalition face. we want an afghan face in the crowd. regarding uev's, i could use more of them. absolutely they're invaluable to us, both in our campaign to take out the c-2 and take out specific highly valued intelligence targets. uav's give us great effort to do that and has full motion video attached to it and weapons systems and the

ability for precise fires against very easily identifiable targets in an environment where civilian casualties were our number one concern. we did not want to cause civilian casualties so with a uav overhead, that good imagery overhead downlinked to the proper decision makers we knew the weapons systems we wanted were implied at the targets we wanted when there was no threat to civilians being on the ground, so the uav reliability was good as far as any other aircraft, i would say 80, 90% liability on a daily basis and never caused us to have operational problems. corruption, you know, corruption, you have clearly identified the issue. corruption is pervasive. it's part of the culture there. it's something you have to work around with, and hopefully by through example and by targeting and helping the people to develop a rule of law and a system of

courts that can take that on, that they will change. my personal opinion, that's going to take some time. you've got to really change some concepts and you've got to change some ways of doing business. the price of afghanistan first business practices where you give contracts to afghan companies and afghan workers are the great benefit is you get money into the afghan system and employment, which is critical. the bad side of it, the flip side of it is that you are subjected to afghan corruption tactics. i think the work to attack that is the best way we know how, but it is a long-term problem. it just needs to be addressed. it's great to say you're going to make switzerland, but when you look at the rest of the world, corruption is not an afghan problem. it's everywhere, so you're right, you're absolutely spot on, but in the short term, it is something you have to deal with. you have to work your way around it. in regards to the female engagement teams, that's a good question. i appreciate that very much.

they were extraordinarily effective, as we said. i think the ladies in afghanistan were at first surprised and then very pleased that we were dealing with them, and as long as we didn't have men working that issue, we could have never have done that. it was really interesting to see that part of their society open up to us, and the feeling is like all our vermontal projects, including the security piece, one of the fundamental planning criteria that you had to have is we can't disrupt them, so we leave here, we bring down, you know, retribution on anybody. we certainly are not going to turn -- we're not going to start the league for women voters in afghanistan this way, i got to tell you. i mean, what you can do is educate. what you can do is set an example. what you can do is reinforce through personal conversations, but to think that you're going to empower

the afghan women overnight is foolishness, and it's dangerous, and so we never attacked it that way. our females were carefully screened and prepared and when they went in, they talked about what are projects we can do that are not entirely disruptive and things like healthcare, very, very good, a tremendous number of women die in childbirth. midwife ry is something you can teach simply and it is something we can leave behind and turn over to the u.n., places like that that can continue that operation, but you're spot on. we're not going to rebuild america and we're not going to leave them in a dangerous position when we do, in fact, leave and they all know we're leaving. >> richard mills in washington today. we will show you all of these events later in our program schedule. lucernely find it on-line in our video library and so

we're going to move on with our campaign 2012 coverage taking us to iowa city and the studios of the exchange at iowa public radio. they have started the program talking about the release today of president obama's birth certificate, just getting underway on c-span. >> chiming in with what you said, our c-span listeners have just joined us and want to remind our listeners that this is an, change, the exchange from iowa public radio and this is politics wednesday, a day when we bat around the political developments of the past week, and of course, c-span listeners being in tune with the latest news will know that president obama released the long form of his birth certificate this morning, and also comments on it. we are talking about that in the first half hour, and perhaps longer during this hour of the exchange. donna hoffman is our guest, one of our guests, chair of political science at the university of northern iowa in cedar falls. tim haggle, associate professor of political science at university of

iowa sitting across the aisle from me, two of many political analysts we regularly feature on the exchange politics wednesday. we're so glad to have them on. let's get back to that discussion about this, and i'm looking at a cbs/"new york times" poll released a few days ago and it reveals that a quarter of americans incorrectly think president obama was not in america and among republicans, 45% believe he was born in another country as do 45% of tea party supporters. where do we go from here considering that such big percentages believe that the president, maybe this changes it, maybe it doesn't, believe that the president was born in another country, and therefore not eligible to be president. tim haggle. >> it's kind of an interesting thing, because i first, i guess i'd want to know more about the poll, when you see these with large numbers you think that is a large number that don't

believe this or that or whether it is the birth issue or something else, but even aside from that, i don't know how many people are taking it all that seriously, even if they don't believe it or not, and quite frankly, i think a lot of people hope that it is not really an issue, because if it is, gee, what are we going to do if we were to find out if he wasn't born in the united states, all of a sudden kick him out and joe biden is president? it could be a constitutional crisis on a serious level, but i think for the most part, more of the mainstream folks are saying well, ok, whatever. it's an oddity that he didn't release it earlier, but things do seem to add up so we're not going to spend too much time on it. it is kind of a sideshow and many republicans have suggested that as well. >> sideshow carnival barker he used in that same segment along with sideshow. let's go to jerry in waterloo. jerry, what's on your mind as we talk about this issue this afternoon? >> well, i was just going to

make a comment on the quote, unquote, birthers and their approach to it. the media is using it as entertainment rather than as news too often, and so many people picked that up and believe it truly is the news and the truth, and the individuals who are in the birther movement won't believe anything no matter what. the conspiracy theories hold so strongly in their mind, you can't get the truth to them. >> ok. jerry, thank you for that reaction from waterloo, iowa. let's talk specifically about donald trump's bid for the white house. he has not formed an exploratory committee, but he has led in the polls in fop rarity in recent weeks -- in popularity, largely because he has risen this birther issue up in the polls. what happens now with donald trump's bid that a turn in this issue has taken place?

>> i think now that obama has satisfied him, i suppose in some ways he might have to talk about policy issues. he hasn't done that. i think once he starts talking about policy issues, he, you know, potentially has some explaining to do we might say, because he has taken some stances previously that really aren't in line with some of the things that the republican party or at least some of the current republican candidates espouse right now, so i haven't heard a lot out of his mouth out of actual policy issues and you know, to go along with the caller's comment previously, you know, the entertainment aspect of the media, the media we know from various studies they do not a great job focusing on policy issues because they're more complex. they're not black and white, but it might be nice if we could have a discussion now based on policy issues. >> tim haggle, let me put new the shoes of a republican strategist. according to a pew research poll from days ago, 39% name

donald trump is most visible, more so than all other possible g.o.p. candidates combined on the visibility scale. half of all americans. 53%, could not name anyone when asked which g.o.p. candidate they have been hearing anything about. you're a g.o.p. strategist. let's make believe you are. what do these poll numbers tell you. is the g.o.p. in trouble in mounting a challenge to president obama? >> no. we are, as much as sometimes those of us in iowa don't realize it, we're still 18 months or so from the election. we're a long way to go. yes, people are gearing up for the iowa caucuses and certainly in iowa, we have had -- had over 100 visits from potential candidates at this point, so we're getting ready for the caucuses for us at the end of the year. >> let me jump in. if we go back four years ago at this time, we had hillary

clinton, and we had barack obama as rising stars, hillary clinton as the presumed nominee, did we not? >> shifting the topic a little, because i think what you're getting at is who is the frontrunner? who is the person everybody knows? well, we don't have that kind of a situation in the republican side this time. you don't have that clear front are runner and the point i was getting to is that for the rest of the country, they aren't worried about it yet. they've got other things to do with. they have the economy to deal with. they're talking about a surge in gas prices over the summer and you know, everybody is talking about it, we are talking about the 2012 election, but for the most part, folks aren't really that interested in it, so when you get somebody in the news like a donald drum p who has a television show and a showman and entrepreneur and very successful at it, or even somebody like mike huckabee who has a television show and has been in the news or a few of these other folks, those are the ones that will tend to do well in the poll, only because of name recognition.

it's not particularly because people are aware of any of their policies or anything along those lines, and so, again, in iowa we tend to treat this differently because we're getting ready for the caucuses and generally we're looking at this differently than the rest of the country. >> donna hoffman, do you agree with that if you're a republican, not worried if you're a democrat, maybe the shoes on the table, leaning back, this is nice that they're distracted by that? >> certainly i agree with dim that it is all about name recognition. i would remind you that in the runup to the 2008 caucuses, national polls put giuliani at the top of the list and he did terribly in iowa, and quite frankly, looking ath national polls gets back to the media and their horse race kind of journalism because we don't have a national primary and so looking at national polls to tell us who the frontrunner is can be misleading. what happens in iowa, it is true that iowa does not pick any party's nominee. we can narrow the field down

quite a bit, but it is things that happen in iowa can influence subsequent events after this, and tim is right, the american public is not yet paying attention to this and as iowa people, we are paying more attention to it, and that's some of us. there are still a lot of iowans that are not paying attention to it. we welcome our c-span listeners not only with their viewing but also with their calls. mary must be tuning in to c-span in brooklyn, connecticut. mary, welcome to our program. >> hello. >> hi. >> you're on the air. you're on our program. thank you for joining us from connecticut. >> hi, how are you? >> i'm fine. >> i want to make a comment about the brouhaha about president obama and whether he is a united states citizen or not. i paid attention in 7th grade civics class which states that you are a united states citizen, not nationalized or fall into

the green card process, you are a full blown united states citizen if you are born from an american mother, and it doesn't matter where you are, anywhere in the world, and all she has to do is the minute she puts her foot back on united states soil is have the baby registered and in this case she did that in the state of hawaii, so he is a citizen. i mean, obviously these other people did not pay attention to their 7th grade civics class. >> tim haggle. >> that is exactly right. it is the first time i have heard anybody actually say that. it is one of the things i have been thinking about for i don't know how long. look, his mom, if nothing else, is a citizen, and so it really doesn't matter whether he is born here. now, when you read the constitution, it says the world "natural born citizen" and some people believe that means you have to be born in the united states but that's not true. we have a lot of people that are american citizens that are born elsewhere. >> when you go into that constitutional law that they wrote into the bill of

rights, it specifies that she just has to be a citizen, a recognized registered, you know, birth certificate here citizen. >> thank you very much. >> that makes him natural born. >> mary, great point. thank you for joining out conversation from connecticut. mary joining us. we're broadcasting live also today on c-span one. let's move this along a little bit. we had other developments when we're looking at the 2012 field of hopefuls in the presidential category. ron paul, the texas congressman, was in des moines yesterday to announce that he is forming an exploratory committee to begin raising money for another presidential run in 2012. congressman paul has twice before sought the presidency, once as a libertarian and most recently in the last go-round, 2008 as a republican. he says he expects this campaign to be different. >> i believe there are literally millions of more people now concerned about the very things i talked about four years ago, and

they're concerned about the economy, and they're worried. the conditioned are deteriorating, and the verying things i talked about are the things that are most important. it is the excessive spending, the entitlement system, the foreign policy, as well as the monetary system, and number of people who become aware of this, i think, you know, is growing tremendously and they're evident around the country. the anticipation, of course, would be that it will be a much, much more significant campaign if it comes to a campaign and an announcement when that comes about. >> texas congressman ron paul recorded in des moines yesterday announcing egg is forming an explore tore are ry committee to raise money for a run in 2012. he wanted to participate in a debate for presidential

hopefuls in south carolina next week and says he will make a final decision about whether to run in the coming month of may. donna hoffman, let me ask you, we have had two go-rounds with ron paul in previous elections. do you agree that his appeal is broader now this time around with this context? >> i think he is potentially correct, because the economy, you know, is a little bit more resonant in this particular election. one of the things to remember about ron paul and especially ron paul in iowa is that he is a libertarian essentially, which means he is libertarian on economic issues but he is also libertarian on social issues and iowa republican caucusgoers might not necessarily like

cad dre of supporters that, that you could see some growth in that, but you know, there is also going to be a segment of the iowa republican caucusgoers that don't necessarily have an infinity for his libertarian social positions. >> how do you view the ron paul candidacy here, paul haggle, better than he did in the 2008 caucuss? >> i think so, because the economic issues are a little more in the forefront now and it's a limb hard to remember back in 2007 as we sort of entering our economic troubles, but they weren't as present or omnipresent as they are right now, that, you know, we were sort of thinking bad things were happening towards the end of the campaign is when the collapse occurred and it

affected mccain's campaign and so forth, but now a lot of the things that paul is warning about more or less come to past, so that gives him a stronger voice. he has that small cadre of supporters but i was reading this morning, too, that a number of his supporters, three, are on the republican state central committee and they're in a position to really be able to help him and use their resources and expertise and contacts to help him be very successful in august and so they will get started earlier than what paul had done previously. they still have to overcome that social question, but to the extent that the economic issues dominate the social ones, it puts paul in a stronger position than he was in the last go-round. before we go to a break, mississippi governor haley barbour says he will not seek the g.o.p. nomination. sources close to him say he saw a path to the nomination but not to beating obama. tell us the picture that was there for haley barbour that

dissuadeed him from going any further with his hopeful -- this bid for him? >> he's the current governor. he is the governor of mississippi, and it's hard to run for president and have to go to iowa and new hampshire and south carolina, and run your state, and i think, you know, he mentioned that he didn't have the fire in the belly and i think that he wasn't -- it wasn't, you know, it is going to be whoever gets the republican nomination, a tough campaign against the sitting president, but i think that he didn't feel like he was had the commitment for it and he is also the current governor and running the state is something he has to pay attention to and i think he just didn't want to go any further. >> quick comments, haley barbour, from you? >> it is the fire in the belly thing and we have seen that before. it is an interesting comment about and sitting govenor having to do it because people are saying now that haley barbour is out, maybe mitch daniels will get n.

>> when we come back, the power rankings, the fourth edition of the 2010 power remarkings are out. we will talk about that. today we have tim haggle of the university of iowa and donna hoffman of the university of northern iowa with us and also with us c-span viewers from around the country. if you have something to chip? as we talk about the 2012 hopefuls and the field of candidates 1-866-817-1000. we will comeing back in just a minute. this is the exchange from iowa public radio news. is

>> our c-span listeners are still with us. c-span listeners, welcome once again. it is great to have you. this is our little radio show we do in iowa. if you're listening and watching from outside the state, iowa public radio is and a mall ga mation of public radio stations throughout the state that was formed fairly recently. the exchange is our noon talk show. we deal mostly with newsy topics on the exchange every day, every weekday. i'm the host of the show, and on wednesdays we like to call it politics wednesday and we get together to talk about recent developments as we are doing today. donna and tim are our guests today. they represent two in a whole bank of really wonderful analysts that we have the pleasure of having on our show. probably about a dozen analysts we have, and so we rotate them through, depending on the specialties that they are looking at in the field of politics, what

we want to look at from week to week, and you in connecticut, mary, you called in from connecticut, and other parts of the country, you may not feel that the 2012 caucus race or the campaign is on. it's far too early to talk about it, but we are about nine months away from caucus day, which is february 6 of next year. three months away from the g.o.p. stronghold, i believe, in august. that would be a rough estimate for that. so in iowa, we are on an accelerated pace. our schedule is put forward, tim and donna, about a year in front of everybody else in the country, and that's two sides to it. we get a good dose of it, but by the time the election rolls around, i guess we're pretty sick of it. >> iowa is a great place to be if you are a political person. before i lived in the state, i never saw a presidential candidate. it is a good state.

>> we get very excited as the momentum builds at this time. a little bit more about iowa public radio. iowa public radio contains, for you people interested in trivia out there, the first radio station west of the mississippi river which began broadcasting way back in 1919. it was licensed by the government in 1922, and in 2004, iowa public radio or the iowa board of regents established iowa public radio. it has a statewide network combining the radio stations at at three public universities in iowa, iowa state university, university of northern iowa, and the university of iowa, so we've all come together here in the last few years and i think we've got about 20 signals in the state that comprise iowa public radio. each week, about 200,000 people listen to iowa public radio. most of those, of course, in

the state of iowa, but knowing -- judging buying the calls that we regularly get on this talk show, our signal, of course, goes into the neighboring states, so we serve a large part of the midwest and are happy to have listeners, of course, from other states, as we are happy to have c-span listeners with us today, to look in on what we do. we have about three minutes before we go back to our program proper. i'll just say it that way, and we will talk a little bit more about the 2012 field of candidates. so let me look at my notes and we'll collect our thoughts here. donna and tim, what do you want to get to in this second half hour that we haven't talked about? tim, i know you're involved with the power rankings. we'll talk about the power rankings, that it's not a scientific poll. >> we can talk about this a little bit on the air, too. it is a panel of folks, at

least ten. i saw them mentioned in the recent one, i'm not sure of the exact number and i don't know anybody else who is on it but it is a number of political activists and folks like me and journalists that are on it and each week we submit some comments and then sort of that one to five ranking or one to three and it rare varies a little bit in terms of what is on there. i do it a little differently than other folks in that i don't do it, if the caucus was held today, i do it as where are with we are in terms of the longer race up to the caucuses usually mine is a little different than what comes out. i noticed this time for four of the five that they had in the top six, i guess they had the top ones that i had in mind, five, but quite different order. >> ok. right now iowa public radio listeners are listening to

dennis reece in the far window doing the state news, and that's what iowa public radio listeners are doing in this break from me. it's a nice break to collect our thoughts before we go into what is the final 22 minutes of the show. >> have you seen any of the candidates at u of i? >> in the des des moines area you have more critical mass so my guess is we will see those candidates later once things firm up a bit but people tend to be going to the des moines area mostly and so we haven't seen a lot. >> oddly enough, we're getting a fair number here, partly because of the

campus, but then also folks coming coming to cedar rapids. it is a high population area. >> it is a little bit higher population area than we are in and our population tends to be more democratically oriented. >> we have more than just a county. >> well, not in that terms but in terms of critical mass. we will see more than we saw in 2008. >> coming back in 25 seconds, we have a nice caller from michigan we will take first of all and then get into our power rankings as we come back here. put our headphones on. here we go. great to have you with us on this edition of politics wednesday here on the exchange from iowa politic

news at iowa public radio. we have c-span listeners and viewers and also over xm sirius, satellite radio and viewers of c-span across the country. thanks for joining us. we are doing our weekly politics day. we check in with a couple analysts. we have a whole bevy of analysts from around the state and today we have joining us tim haggle of the university of iowa in the political science department in iowa city and also donna hoffman, chair of the political science department at the university of northern iowa, which is located in cedar falls, and we are talking about the 2012 race, which, in iowa, gets started a little bit earlier than it does for the rest of the country. our caucuses are nine months away. we have some other important happenings, and we increase in our interest as everyday goes by and we have a lot of political developments that happened just this past week. ron paul announcing his

committee, exploratory committee yesterday in des moines. haley berber says he won't -- haley barbour says he won't run so we want to reach out to one of our c-span viewers right now in michigan. dorothy is joining us. good afternoon, dorothy. welcome to iowa public radio, the exchange. >> good afternoon. yeah, when they first answered my call, they said do you have something to say about ron paul? i said yeah, i know he was the tea party guy who had the money bomb when he was running in 2007 and 2008 and it was my college son who got me interested in him. i was a parole supporter back then, but now my focus is all on ron paul. i do believe that what is going on in today's world that ron paul says a lot of stuff that makes a lot of sense to a lot of people, and he wins almost every

straw poll, but they just don't bring it up. they don't like to mention ron paul and all the support he has. >> dorothy, give me two points that hit home that make. >> ron paul supporter? >> well, he is a strict constitutionalist. i like the fact that you can look at his record and see that he has never changed his views. all right. he might have been a libertarian -- well, he still is, but i mean he has switched to the republican party from '88 to 2008 when he ran, but i just like the fact that i know that he would get us out of the wars. i know that he will concentrate on making america better and great again, you know, and if there is any hope for our children's future, it will be somebody like ron paul that will do it for us, in my opinion. >> dorothy, thank you for that opinion, dialing in from michigan, one of our c-span viewers, c-span broadcasting us live today. let's talk a little bit about the power rankings

which may be an unfamiliar term for most people listening and viewing today. on monday, the fourthest digs of the iowa -- the fourth edition of the iowa public rankings. this is not a scientific rate of voters. the power rankings are put out by a non-profit independent news network called the iowa independent. they're taken from staff members of the iowa independent, from state political reporters, part of the activists, academics, elected officials, political consultants, other sort of insiders. they're all invited to participate by answering a question that is asked every two weeks and this week's question was, if the iowa caucus was held tonight, what would the results be? in fact, the iowa caucus is about nine months away. tim haggle shall you were involved with this power ranking and were on one of the panels. >> as i was saying during

the break, i don't look at it in terms of if the caucuses were held today what would be the rankings, but i look at it in the long term but the panelists will contribute a variety of bits of information that i summarize and talk about that and talk about how it has moved people up or down, pro and con and even beyond the people in the top five, we will comment whether somebody is moving up, moving back, helps them, hurts them, that kind of a thing and ultimately we will submit who we think our top five are at that time and it all gets jumbled together and they figure out what the overall ranking is. >> to give you the ranking, i don't know if this agrees with your personal ranking, but coming in number one, mike huckabee. he was the victor in the 2008 g.o.p. iowa caucuses. he is at the number one spot followed by michele bachmann, former minnesota governor, tim pawlenty,

number three, at number four, a tie between mitt romney and donald trump and number five, newt gingrich. mike huckabee hasn't really said if he is going to jump in but obviously still a lot of resonance here in iowa, and a lot of potential there, if he would ever decide to do that. >> right, and i think huckabee is high in the polls because he did so well in the caucuses in 2008. he still has his networks that he can rely upon, and he has been a little coy about what he is going to do he said he will decide in late summer. the other person that potentially is on the list but further down is mitt romney. you know romney came in second in the caucuses, and i think he is maybe being cagey about what he is doing in iowa waiting to see what huckabee is going to do in iowa because my gut is if huckabee wants to compete, romney won't compete like he did previously, but we don't know what he is going to do yet. both huckabee and romney

have networks but i would say huckabee has networks in the state that he cultivated in the leadup to the 2008 caucuses and still exist. a lot of people still like what he has to say and if he chooses to enter, i think he would do very well in the iowa caucuses. >> tim, what do you think about the latest rankings in which you participated in? >> well, as far as the top three, i didn't even put huckabee in my top five. in the past week or so, since i turned in the rankings, i'm starting to feel a little bit more strongly or more warmly towards huckabee, but the problem that he has got is although he has that established network, he is losing a lot of people. some of his backers, a lot of his staffers have gone with other campaigns. now, i have seen some comments by some huckabee supporters who say well, there is no hurry. there are plenty of people. that is true. there are political activists from iowa or elsewhere that can be called in but you can't wait too long and people are starting to get into the summer season and people are starting to look for the grassroots supporters,

starting to pie up the political activists in each of the counties, the folks that will be out walking in the parades which are so important in iowa and so at a certain point, you're not going to be able to rely on that. you're not going to be able to put that organization together that you need to do well in the straw poll in august and that has the potential of knocking candidates out or getting bumped up. >> it was the straw poll that helped huckabee before because he came seemingly out of nowhere. he was doing the grassroots campaigning that we like to see in iowa and it surprised people in the straw poll back in 2007, so that propelled him on to win the caucuses. he is going to have to get on the ball as well as some of these other candidates, too, seem to be waiting and waiting. at a certain point, they're not going to have that ability to put that organization together that they need. tim tweets, he tweeted us, he tweeted that rick santorum was in ames this morning and left no doubt in his mind he is officially running, not exploring from

this conversation that the listener tim had in the cafe in ames. let's go to andre in fayetteville, north carolina. andre, one of our c span viewers. welcome to the exchange from iowa public radio. >> hello. i appreciate you giving me time. a few comments this afternoon. i don't think mike huckabee will run for president in 2012. i think he is doing great with his talk show on the other network, an and the republican field seems weak. i know it's early and the primary is a month away but it just seems very weak to me when a guy like donald trump, a businessman can do so well in the polls and so is michelle bachmann -- this is just my opinion -- is so far to the right is can do so well in the polls. it just seems split at this

point. >> donald trump and michele bachmann are they indicators with their views that that is a weak republican field or not? >> it depends on what you mean by weak. some people think weak in the sense that there is nobody that strong candidate. i would look at it a little bit differently at this point in that it is weak in the sense that we don't have a strong frontrunner, that four years ago, and particularly even go further back to the leadup to the 2000 caucuses, there seemed to be two, three, four people who really were ahead of the rest of the pack. that's what we don't have this time and somebody like trump who, yes, he is getting a lot of attention, but from the more serious republican operatives, they're still thunking this is not a serious candidate. they are not thinking he is a serious candidate. we don't think so either. >> we're glad to have c-span aboard with iowa public news. we want to go joe in manhattan in new york. welcome to our program. what's on your mind as you

listen to this conversation? >> i appreciate it. it is more of a process-type question, i suppose. i'm wonder wonderinging about the caucus of having a good ground game in position, which candidate and how much money that is going to cost and which candidates seem, a, i guess, to already have a ground game in place, and b, have the finances to back it up and get running, much like obama did? >> interesting, joe. i love you're calling it a ground game but because this is a part of the equation that a lot of us don't see when we just look at the headlines in the press, how would you evaluate the ground game, the network that exists for the hopefuls out there right now? who is strong? who is weak? donna hoffman. >> well, you know, the caller is right. iowa is doing well.

doing well in iowa caucuss is about retail politics and having a ground game and being organized. part of the straw poll in august is important is because it is a straw poll. people have to pay to participate in it, but it does signal some of the organizational abilities that the candidates have. it is not important in the sense that it tells us necessarily who is ahead and who is behind but it does tell us about the organizational game. there are some latent networks, i think, that haven't necessarily been activated and i would say huckabee and romney in that category, are who have participated here before. ron paul, potentially, has the ability to activate a lot of people in this state, but he's, you know -- it's not clear to me of what he has got in the works right now other than he has just made this announcement and he can also rely on that core of fervent supporters that he had in this state, but this is where things are

hard to predict in the iowa caucuses because you never know who ising going to excite people and who is not going to, site people. that is difficult to judge and especially difficult to judge this far out. it is true that organization is really key. somebody like donald trump, if he chooses to run, you know, and is not taken seriously by a lot of folks, but he is going to have to shake hands in the state. he is going to have to come to the state, and he is going to have to look people in the eye and it's not clear if he can do that but you do have to look at retail politics and that is one of the values of the iowa caucus is that we do make candidates go through the ropes and do that, and it makes them better candidates in the long run. >> donna hoffman at the university of northern iowa, chair on the political science department there in cedar falls. timing haggle in the political science department at the university of iowa in iowa city. let's go down to venice, florida. nate is joining us. nate, what does it look like

for 2012 from venice when you hear about the iowa caucus being nine months away? >> well, i guess what i'm most intrigued by right now is the fact that all of the people that are coming forward in the republican party are so extreme in one way or another, and what i was wondering from the panelists there is who do they feel independent voters are going to gravitate towards as far as the republican party is concerned because no one really has a solid simple plan. all of them have huckabee a strong against gay rights or, you know, trump is this crazy tea party birther movement. is somebody in the middle of the road that they feel can take control of the republican party coming up? >> nate, great question from venice, florida. thank you for joining us. tim, let's have you weigh in on that question. >> well, i wouldn't

necessarily say that all of the folks that are running on -- apparently running for the rep cant side of -- republican side of things would be extremists. that depends on starting points in terms of where you are. if it is really going to boil down to the main issues, what sparks someone's attention. ok, trump got attention with the burth certificate issue but that will be long forgotten i would assume, or i would hope, by the time we get to the caucuses let alone the general election, so really it will be a matter of where the focus is going to be for the most part in the public, and i think again, it is going to be the economic issues and so the folks that are either in the tea party or generally, and again, the previous caller mentioned that ron paul is the original tea party guy before there was a tea party, that those are the kinds of things that are going to resonate when you start to drift over to some of the other issues, that will seem more splintering. >> coming close to the end of our hour. i want to point this out because this is an interesting new development this week on the political landscape in iowa. a new ad has hit the

airwaves in iowa this week. it takes aim at how president obama is dealing with the deficit. you're speaking of economic issues there, tim haggle. the ad paid for by college republicans features quick cuts between the speakers and their all-college age. let's listen to it. >> winningth future. winning the future. winning the future. we need to win the future. win the future. >> did you know that the interest alone -- over 5 trillion dollar, that's interest alone. >> over the next decade, $5 trillion. >> the president talks about winning? he's losing. >> when the candidates come to iowa, stand up strong. just ask them. >> an ad paid for by college republicans, airing currently in iowa. well, we know that president obama's victory in 2008 was fueled largely by younger voters, caucusgoers who came out for him in record

numbers. is this an indication, donna hoffman, that the republicans are ready to see the young demographic in 2012? >> certainly. that ad has good advice for anybody, any voter, you know, ask candidates what their stance is on various issues. this one happens to be focused on the debt. that's great advice. you know, college students did turn out in large numbers for obama in the state and across the country, and they're not -- the republican party is not going to cede that ground to obama and obama has work to do to shore up the base he had in the 2008 eye lections as well. college students that i come into contact with, and that is not a representative sample by any means but they really do not care about issues like same-sex marriage very much, but they do care about financial issues, you know, what their future looks like, what jobs look like, and the challenge for the are republican

candidates in this cycle is if they're going to -- what's going to be their emphasis? is it going to be financial issues or is it going to be social issues? potentially the social issues don't do a lot for some of the young students in the state. >> it's interesting that iowa has the first in the nation caucus and is one of the only states that has legal same-sex marriage but then in the aftermath of that voted to oust three of the iowa supreme court justices that participated in that opinion, and g.o.p. caucusgoers are overwhelming conservatives, so we put all those things together, so will this, tim haggle, this issue have an national stage come election time, same-sex marriage? equality for gay couples in the country? >> it will probably be an issue to some extent. certainly there are groups that have focused on that such as the family leader, because they are interested in family issues and so forth and other groups as well, but it's a matter of

reaching out to the different audiences and as fred karger who came and visited the college republicans at the university of iowa last night, he is looking for the big tent issue so maybe he wouldn't appeal on some issues but would appeal on other issues and he is one of the folks that is reaching out specifically to college-aged students to vet his economic message and his other messages will resonate with them. whereas, if you're talking other groups, they will focus more on the social issues. i think overall, it is probably go to going to be economics what i see on the students is that they are more focused on economic issues that before were too far in the future for them to worry about. >> let's go to margie in west virginia as we wind up this conversation. one of our c-span viewers through iowa public radio at the time. please make it brief. we only have a couple minutes left. >> yes. i would like your guests to comment on the last presidential caucus,

democratic caucus. i watched it on c-span, and i saw a gentleman that was a supporter and went to the hillary group and decimated them by saying hillary doesn't stand a chance. can we have your votes? i was just shocked, to be honest with you, because i thought these people, i'm assuming, were chosen by people to represent a certain number of people, and they just whipped it, and i thought, how does the individual voter get fairly represented in a caucus system as opposed to a primary system? >> excellent question, margie. we will have about a minute for a response but an excellent question. this iowa caucus animal is a different creature than we have in many other parts of the country. donna hoffman, can you tell us for our nationwide viewers and listeners how the iowa caucus operates different from a primary vote? >> it is a meeting, not secret necessarily but the democrats and republicans do

things very differently so what the caller saw in the democratic caucuses in 2008, you will not see in the republican caucuses of 2012, which is where all the focus is, because they don't do things that way. there is a straw poll that essentially is taken that can be secret and may not be public. it depends on the precinct you're in but the caucuses are different from a primary because the vote is not necessarily -- where you stand is not necessarily private and people will talk and try to convince people, but it happens more on the republican side than it does on the democratic side. >> that's where we have to leave it. next, tim haggle, association professor of political science at the university of iowa in iowa city. this has been very enjoyable as politics wednesday here on iowa public radio, the exchange, and it will be heating up in weeks to come.

we're so glad we have c-span listeners as well to have us onboard this week. the exchange is produced by katherine perkins and alex hoyer. production assistance from alex moon. also, thanks again to the c-span, the crew in our studio, kip and bob. thank you very much. the executive producer is jeff schmidt. the theme music was composed and performed by dan knight. we welcome your comments and questions. you can e-mail us and the exchange is production of iowa public radio news. donna, tim, thank you very much. thanks to all of you for joining us.

many topics from iowa. >> we had a lot of people, and i think it's interesting that we have to get a perspective from us from florida, from manhattan, from connecticut that they can view the iowa caucuses and see how we do things on the inside here, because usually it is the network anchors that trot out here at a certain time at a process and give us their view. i mean, this is -- if you live in iowa, this is what happens this is not a bad place to be.

this is an interesting thing for you. >> i think you have to look at the debate in south carolina. and it will be interesting to see how that goes forward , because that is the lead-in and i think it is some of the candidates in the same spot and potentially responding. that is pretty constrained. ok. well, we want to thank our c-span listeners for joining us. again, you have been listening to thing exchange from all iowa public news. i'm ben and it has been great to have you aboard. great to you have nationwide # we will wrap up tomorrow with the jim fisher show in davenport and talking about campaign 2012.

and on c-span, the first ever federal reserve conference. ben bernanke will hold the first news conference this afternoon following a two-day meeting of the federal reserve in washington. this news conference is expected to be the first of four this year. we will have the news conference live at 2:15 and will follow that with your phone calls and your tweets: #. #. #. #

>> the unemployment rate is still high. in its early stages, the economic recovery of the financial system, the expansion of monetary fiscal policies, and the building depleted inventories. economic growth slowed significantly in the spring and early summer of 2010 as the impetus from inventory building and fiscal stimulus diminished and as europe cost debt problems roiled global financial markets. more recently we have seen evidence that a self sustaining recovery in consumer and business spending may be taking

hold. notably, real consumer spending has resumed at a solid pace since last fall, and business investment in new equipment and software has continued to expand. strong demand both domestic and foreign has supported steady gains in u.s. manufacturing output. the combination of rising household business confidence, but, did it voluntary policy -- but, did monetary policy, seems to -- the most recent economic projections by the federal reserve board members and reserve bank presidents prepared in conjunction with the meeting in late january are for real gdp to increase 3.5% to 4% in 2011, half a percentage point higher than our projections in november. private forecasters projections for 2011 are consistent with those fomc participants and have moved up in recent months. while indicators of suspended

production have been encouraging on balance, the job market has improved slowly. following a loss of 8.75 million jobs, a gain has been very suspicious -- barely sufficient. we seek optimism out the job market for the next few quarters, including notable declines in the on a plan rate in december, january, and an improvement in firms hiring plans. even so, if the rate of economic growth remains moderate, as projected, it could be several years before the unemployment rate returns to a normal level. fomc participants see the and the planner rain still in the rate of 7.5% to 8% at the end of 2012. >> some of -- some of ben bernanke before the committee

last month. he will be before reporters for the first time ever in about 10 minutes or so, at 2:15 eastern. we will have live coverage of that news conference in c-span -- on c-span3 we will show you the entire news conference and follow with phone calls. ron paul was in iowa yesterday and made the announcement for a presidential exploratory committee. he has been one of the sharpest critics of the federal reserve, talked about some of his concerns over to the's meeting of the fed and fed issues in general. here is what he had to say. >> tomorrow there will be a major change in the way our foreign policy is being held, monitored in this country. there will be a first press conference by the federal reserve board chairman. this is significant because that is a reflection of a grass-roots movement that pushed the congress into trying to find out more about what the fed is doing and what they did do in the

bailout. we are finding astounding things. the monetary policy is to me a very significant issue, because if you want to curtail spending, and it seems like everybody is talking about it but i do not know how sincere they are -- you cannot do that without addressing the inflationary system because congress does not have to ask -- does not have to act responsibly if they can run up a debt, tax to an extent, borrow to an extent and they still do not have enough money in washington, so they have resorted to printing up money. then they get into trouble and they massively print up money. what has happened in the last couple of years, they perpetuated the same policy that gave us our crisis, too much spending, borrowing, and regulating. but the inflationary problems,

the creation of new money is historic. world history has never seen the monetary inflation that we have seen in the last couple years. trillions of dollars and monitored by the congress, and guess what that inevitably leads to -- higher prices. higher prices will be the key issue in the next year election because people already know that prices are going up. to some who might make a profit, they might not think it is a bad deal, but when it is the american consumer who suffers because their standard of living goes down and their cost of living goes up and they do not have jobs, and then they see interest rates cropping up, this is a big deal. this is related to the federal reserve system to the problems that we're seeing around the world today are related to the fact that all countries are suffering the same problem

because this phenomenon is worldwide. we issue world currency. the reserve currency of the world. that gives us the privilege of exporting our money, and unfortunately our jobs and our businesses. see whereies that you there is riding, there are all sorts of explanations. in most countries where there is writing, the problem is the cost of food. oting, theri problem is the cost of food. the only solution for bernanke is to print money. ron paul fromtte yesterday. donald trump held a brief news conference today in new hampshire. said chairman ben bernanke is coming up about 10 minutes or so, under 10 minutes at 2:15. the associated press reports

about how he prepared for this news conference. this is the first time that the federal reserve chairman has taken reporters' questions in a live setting. he has watched tapes of how his counterparts in europe, the john claude trichet, and drinking have -- have reacted in a press conferences. following the news conference we will be talking from michael derby from "the wall street journal." we will take your calls as well. in local the wall street journal" yesterday, john hill's arrest wrote about the preparation for today's news conference. he writes that president obama

-- mr. obama -- mr. bernanke has taking questions from the media twice before, at the national press club. on both occasions reporters wrote down questions on cards and a moderator from the media chose which ones to ask. this news conference will be more traditional. hands will go up, he will call on reporters, and the questioning will begin. we also got a preview of today's news conference from today's "washington journal." >> to get a sense of the conference today, joining us is john from bloomberg news. mr. landon, what is the purpose, the message, that mr. bernanke has to deliver today? >> this is historic. the bailout of bear stearns,

aig, over $2 trillion now, adding more than what has been called qe2 last november. they face a lot of criticism. there is a portion of the population that does not understand what the fed does, that they want it to be more in front of the public. so there are several purposes to it. one is to explain immediately what the fed has decided today when they finish their policy meeting, their meeting in washington. this is not just a press conference for no reason at all. he will explain the decision they made, their economic forecast for the coming year and three years, and then he would get a chance to answer more general questions about the economic outlook, the fed decision, and maybe have a chance to address some of the criticism and doubt they have been hearing from callers. >> all of our callers this

morning is pressing some kind of skepticism about what mr. bernanke has to say. as a reporter, what kind of information you and others want to learn from him in specific? guest: it is our job as reporters to ask questions that can be listed useful information for the public, for the markets, and other people, and mr. bernanke has had to face a lot of these questions about the role of the fed from congress. but he has never had to face questions on the record from beat reporters who follow the fed closely, who know the fed very well and know the kinds of questions that he might be able to answer specifically about the fed about what might happen is next -- about what might happen next that have not been addressed in such detail at the hearings. that can give the public a better idea of what the fed will do next and how that will affect

people topos pocketbooks. host: one of the columnists who wrote about this this morning is david hard in. he poses a question himself -- "why has mr. bernanke accepted widespread unemployment for years even though he has the power to reduce it?" can you expand on that? guest: i do not know if mr. bernanke has accepted the widespread employment. he has made it the case that he is trying to find employment, and he has gotten much criticism from people on the other side of this argument that maybe is not worrying as much about inflation and he is not doing much to bring down unemployment, and there is a vocal portion of congress who wants to change the said's legislative mandate which currently says they must achieve maximum employment and stable prices. they must change that to stable

prices if not maximum employment. there is a lot of concern that no matter what the fed does, the limit of their powers in trying to bring down unemployment, they just do not have the capacity to create jobs in the economy. money in banks, but it is not set up to be a stimulus program like the federal government house stimulus can build roads or provide tax credits for things like that in the realm of fiscal policy. >> one of the themes that with the story in the papers today was the condition of the dollar, as it stands. for those that may understand it more or less than you do, can you explain why a discussion about the strength of the dollar is important to mr. bernanke to that? guest: first of all, the fed usually defers questions about the dollar to treasury as a source of u.s. dollar policy,

so if he is asked if he supports a strong dollar or not, he would probably prefer that to secretary geithner. on the other hand, looking at the dollar as an economic indicator, that there are two main sides to it, that a weaker dollar can actually improve the prospects of u.s. exporters by making their goods cheaper overseas. >> we take you live to the news conference with fed chairman ben bernanke. >> good afternoon. welcome. in my opening remarks, i would like to briefly review today's policy decisions, then turn to the federal market committee's quarterly economic projections, also being released today. i will place today's policy decision in the context of the

projections and the federal reserve statutory mandate to foster maximum employment and price stability. then i would be glad to take your questions. my goal will be to reflect the consensus of the committee while taking note of the diversity of views as appropriate. my remarks and interpretations are my own responsibility. in its policy statement released earlier today, the committee announced that it is maintaining existing policy, reinvesting principal payments from securities holdings. second, that it will complete its planned purchases of $600 billion of longer-term treasury securities by the end of the current quarter. going forward, the committee will review the size and composition of its securities holdings in light of incoming information and is prepared to adjust them as needed to meet the federal reserve's mandate. the committee made no change today in the target range of the federal funds rate which remains 02 1/4%.

the committee continues to anticipate that resource utilization, subdued inflation trends and stable inflation expectations are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate for an extended period. in conjunction with today's meetings, fomc but japan's submitted projections for economic growth, the unemployment rate for 2011 to 2013 and over the longer run. these projections are conditional on each participant 's individual assessment of the appropriate path of monetary policy needed to best promote the committee subject -- committee's objectives. a table showing the projections has been destroyed. i will focus on the central tendency projections, which exclude the three highest and lowest projections for each variable in each year. i call your attention first to the committee's longer run projections, which represent

participant's assessments of the rate of economic growth, unemployment, and inflation will converge over time under appropriate monetary policy and assuming no further shocks to the economy. as the table shows, the longer run projections for outward growth have a central tendency of 2.5 to 2.8%, the same as in the january survey. the longer run projections for the unemployment rate have a central tendency of 5.2 to 5.6%, somewhat narrower than in january. these figures may be interpreted as participants current estimates of the economy's normal or trend rate of growth, and it's normal unemployment rate over the longer run respectively. the economy's longer-term rate of growth and unemployment are determined largely by non- monetary factors such as the late did -- the late -- the rate of growth of the labor force in the speed of technological change. aestimates of these rates are

uncertain and subject to change over time. the central tendencies as measured by the price index is 1.7% to 2%. in contrast, the longer run outlook for inflation is determined almost entirely by monetary policy. consequently, given that these projections are based on the assumption that monetary policy is appropriate, these longer projections can be interpreted as indicating the inflation rate that pparticipants judge to the most consistent with the federal reserve mandate to foster maximum employment and stable prices. at 1.7% to 2%, the man the consistory of inflation is greater than zero for a number of reasons. most important is a hint -- making a rate of zero -- could

lead employment to fall below its maximum sustainable level for a protracted period. hence the goal of the zero inflation is not consistent with the federal reserve mandate. most central banks around the world aimed to set inflation above zero, usually at about 2%. i turn to the committee passed economic outlook. as indicated in today's policy statement, the economic recovery is proceeding at a moderate pace. household spending and investment in equipment and software continued to expand, supporting the recovery, but not residential investment, still weak, and the housing sector is depressed. in the labor market, overall conditions continue to improve gradually. for example, the unemployment rate will move down further and payroll employment increased in march. new claims for unemployment insurance to indicators of hiring plans are also consistent with continued improvement.

looking ahead, committee participants expect a moderate recovery to continue through 2011 with some acceleration of growth projected for 2012 and 2013. specifically, as the table shows, participants' projections for output growth have a central tennessee of 3.1% to 3.3% for this year, -- have a central tendency of 3.1% to 2.3% for this year. these projections are a little below those made by the committee in january. the markdown of growth in 2011 in particular reflects the somewhat slower than anticipated pace of growth in the first quarter. the outlook for above-trend growth is associated with the projected reduction in the unemployment rate, seen as edging down to 8.4% to 8.7% in the fourth quarter of this year, declining gradually to 6.8% to 6.2% in the fourth quarter of

2013, well above the central tendency of the long run projections of unemployment of 5.2% to 5.6%. the projected decline in the unemployment rate is relatively slow largely because economic growth is projected to be only modestly above the trend growth rate of the economy. on the inflation front, prices have risen significantly recently reflecting geopolitical developments and robust global demand among other factors. increases in commodity prices are in turn boosting overall consumer inflation. however, measures of underlying inflation, though having increased modestly in recent months, remains subdued, and longer-term inflation expectations have remained stable. consequently, the committee expects the effects on inflation and higher commodity prices to be transitory. as the increases in commodity prices moderate, inflation

should decline to its underlying level. specifically, a participant projections of inflation havene a tendency of -- that is noticeably higher than january projections, before declining to 1.2% to 2.0% in 2012, both about the same as in january. the committee economic projections provide important context for understanding today's policy action as well as the committee's general policy strategy. monetary policy affect output and inflation with a lag, so current policy actions must be taken with an eye to the likely future course of the economy. the committee's projections of the economy, not just current conditions alone, must guide its policy decisions. the lag with which monetary policy affects the economy provide that the economy focus on meeting its objectives over

the medium term, which can be as short as a year or to but could be longer depending on how far the economy is from the conditions of maximum employment and price stability. to foster maximum employment, the committee sets policy to achieve sufficient economic growth to return the unemployment rate over time to its long-term normal level. at 8.8%, the current unemployment rate is elevated relative to that level, and progress toward more no -- more normal levels of unemployment seems likely to be slow. the substantial ongoing slack in the labor market and the relatively slow pace of improvement remain important reasons that the committee continues to maintain a highly accommodative monetary policy. in the medium term, the committee also seeks to achieve a mandate consistent inflation rate which participants longer- term projections for inflation suggest is 2% or a bit less. although the recent surge in

commodity prices have led inflation to pick up somewhat in the near term, the committee continues to project inflation to return to a mandate of consistent levels in the medium term as i have discussed. consequently, the short-term increase in inflation has not prompted the committee to tighten policy at this juncture. importantly, the committee outlook for inflation is predicated on long-term inflation expectations remaining stable. if households and firms continue to expect inflation to return to a man they consistent level in the medium term, increased -- to a mandate consistent level in the medium term, inflation -- not commodity prices and in nominal wages. thus besides monitoring inflation itself, the committee will pay attention to inflation expectations and possible second round effect. in the aftermath of the crisis,

the committee has not only reduced its target for federal funds rate to a very low level, but has also expanded the federal reserve's balance sheet substantially. the committee at this meeting continues its ongoing discussion of the available tools for removing policy accommodation. at such time has actually become appropriate. the committee remains confident that it has the tools that it needs to tighten monetary policy when it is determined that economic conditions warrant such a step. in choosing the time to begin policy normalization, as well as the pace of that normalization, we will carefully consider both parts of our dual mandate. thank you again, and i would be glad to take your questions. >> mr. chairman, tomorrow we will get a premium first quarter gdp number. your own projections for the year have been downgraded at this meeting. what do you see as the cause of

the weak growth, even with the monitor of the payroll tax cuts? >> you are correct. we have not seen the gdp number yet, but we like the private sector forecasters that are -- most private sector forecasters are expecting a relatively weak number, something under 2%. most of the factors that account for the slower growth in the first quarter appear to us to be transitory. they include things like lower defense spending than was anticipated, which will presumably be made out in the -- be made up in the fourth quarter. other factors like the weather and so on. there are some factors that may have a long term implications. for example, construction, both residential and non-residential, was weak in the first quarter. i would say that roughly most of

the slowdown in the first quarter is viewed by the committee as being transitory. that being said, we have taken our forecast down just a bit, taking into account factors like weaker construction, possibly a bit less momentum in the economy. >> mr. chairman, given what you know about the pace of the economy now, what is your best guess for how soon the fed needs to begin to withdraw for normal stimulus to the economy, and can you say what is your definition of what "expanded -- "extended period" means? >> we are in a moderate recovery and we will look carefully first to see if the recovery is in need sustainable as we believe it is, and we will also look closely at the labor

market. we have seen improvement in the labor market in the first quarter relative to the latter part of last year, but we would like to see continued improvements and more job creation going forward. we are also looking carefully at inflation, the other part of our mandate. as i have noted, headline inflation is at least temporarily higher, being driven by gas prices and other commodity prices. our expectation is that inflation will come down towards a more normal level, but we will be watching that carefully and also watching inflation expectations, which are important that they remain well anchored if we see inflation remained under good control. to answer your question, i do not know exactly how long it will be before the process begins. it will begin on the outlook and on those criteria which i suggested. the extended period language, the condition on exactly the same points, extended period,

conditioned on resource slack, on subdued inflation, and on stable inflation expectations. once those conditions are violated or we are moving away from them, that will be the time that we need to begin to tighten. extended period suggests that it will be a couple of meetings probably before action but unfortunately the reason we use the vague terminology is that we do not know, certainty, how quickly a response will be required. therefore, we will do our best to communicate changes in our view, but that will depend entirely on how the economy evolves. >> mr. chairman, thank you for doing this. this is a tremendous development. there are critics who say that fed policy has driven down the value of the dollar in the lower value of the dollar reduces the american standard of living. how do you respond to the criticism that fed policy has

reduced the american standard of living? >> thanks. i should start by saying that the secretary of the treasury of course is the spokesperson for u.s. policy on the dollar, and secretary geithner had some words yesterday. let me just add to what he said first by saying that the federal reserve believes that a strong and stable dollar is both in american interest and the interest to the global economy. there are many factors causing the dollar to move up and down in short periods of time, but in the medium term, where the policy is aimed, we're doing two things. we are trying to maintain low and stable inflation by our definition of price stability, by maintaining purchasing value of the dollar, keeping inflation low. that is good for the dollar. the second thing we're trying to accomplish is get a stronger recovery and achieve maximum employment. again, a strong economy,

growing, attracting foreign capital, will be good for the dollar. if we do what is needed to pursue our dual mandate, it will also generate fundamentals that help the dollar in the median term. >> i cannot help but noticing it has been unsuccessful so far. >> well, the dollar fluctuate. one factor that has caught fluctuation has been quite extreme, the safe haven effect. for example, during the height of the crisis in the fall of 2008, money flowed into the treasury department. a lot of what you have seen over the last couple of years is the unwinding of that as the economy has strengthened and as

uncertainty has been reduced. that is indicative of the high standing dollar still retaining in the world. the best thing we can do to create strong fundamentals to the dollar in the median term is to keep inflation low, maintaining the power of the dollar, and second, to maintain a strong economy. >> many americans are upset that gasoline prices are rising so fast and that food prices are also going up. can you talk about whether there is anything that the fed can or should do about that, and can you also comment, elaborate on the increase we have seen in the inflation forecast that the fed put out today? >> sure. thanks, john. first of all, gasoline prices obviously have risen quite significantly.

we of course are watching that carefully, but higher gas prices are absolutely creating a great deal of financial hardship for a lot of people. gas of course is a necessity. people need to drive to get to work, so it is obviously a bad development to see gas prices rise so much. higher gas prices, higher oil prices also make economic developments less favorable. on the one hand, higher gas prices add to inflation. on the other hand, by draining purchasing power from households, higher gas prices are also bad for the recovery. they cause growth to decline as well, so it is a double win a coming from higher gasoline prices. ammy -- it is a double when t coming from higher gasoline prices. on the one hand we have a

rapidly growing local economy, emerging market economies growing very quickly. their demand for economies including oil is very strong. indeed, essentially all of the increase in the demand for oil in the last couple of years, the last decade, has come from emerging market economies. in the united states, our demand for oil, imports, have been going down over time. the demand is coming from a growing economy. on the supply side, as everybody knows who watches television, we have seen disruptions in the middle east and north africa and libya and other places that have constraints, supply has not been made up, and that has driven gas prices up quite significantly. this is a very adverse development. it accounts in the short run for the increase in our inflation forecast in the near term. there is not much that the

federal reserve can do about cast prices per se -- about gas prices per saye. after all, the fed cannot create more oil. we do not control the growth rates of emerging market economies, but what we can do is basically tried to keep higher gas prices from passing into other prices and wages throughout the economy and creating a broader inflation which will be more difficult to extinguish. again, our view is that most likely -- we do not know for sure but we will be watching carefully -- that gas prices will not continue to rise at the recent pace, and as they stabilize or even come down, as the situation stabilizes in the middle east, we will have to watch it very carefully. >> thank you.

mr. chairman, you stated several times this year that the recovery will not be fully established until we see a sustained period of stronger job creation. first, has it become truly established yet? if not, what is your definition of a sustained. -- a sustained period and stronger job creation? >> we made a lot of progress last august when we began to talk about another round of securities purchases. growth was very moderate, and we were quite concerned that growth was not sufficient to continue to bring the unemployment rate down. since then we have seen a reasonable amount of payroll creation, job creation, and that picked up in the most recent few months. together with the decline in the unemployment rate, from 10% down to the current rate of 8.8%. the labor market is improving

gradually, as we said in our statement. we would like to make sure that that is sustainable. the longer it goes on, the more confident we are giving it is encouraging to see the improvement we have seen in recent months. that being said, the pace of improvement is still quite slow and we are digging ourselves out of a very deep hole. we are still something like 7 million-plus jobs below where we were before the crisis, and so clearly the fact that we are moving in the right direction, even though encouraging, does not mean that the labor market is in good shape. obviously it is not, and we have to continue to watch and hope we will get stronger and increasingly stronger job creation going forward. >> robin harding from "the financial times." you say in your statement that maugre expectations -- that

major inflation expectations remain stable, and you expect that it to run to core inflation at some period. is there anything the federal reserve can do to prevent the public from may be in direand indirectly -- >> again, the inflation expectations that we are concerned about our median term inflation expectations, so we have seen, for example, in the financial markets, in the indexed bond market, or in surveys like the michigan survey, we have seen near-term inflation expectations rise significantly, which is reasonable, given the higher commodity prices, higher gas prices. for the most part, although there has been some movement here and there, i think it's fair to say that the medium-term inflation expectations have not moved very much. they still indicate confidence that the fed will ensure that

inflation in the medium term will be at the mandated consistent level. what can we do? we can communicate and try to make sure the public understand what our policy is attempting to do. to be clear what our objectives are and what steps we are willing to take to meet those objectives. ultimately, if inflation persists or if inflation expectations begin to move, there is no substitute for action and we would have to respond. while it is very important for us to try to help the economy create jobs and support the recovery, every central banker understands that keeping inflation low and stable is absolutely essential to a successful economy. we will do what is necessary to ensure that happens. >> mr. chairman, what will be

the impact on the economic recovery, job creation, and rates on mortgages and others when the fed ends its $600 billion buying program? a quick follow-up is -- will the fed -- how long will the fed to continue to allow for reinvestments? >> as i have noted, as you are all aware, we will complete the program at the end of the second quarter, $600 billion. we are going to do that pretty much without tapering. we are going to let the purchases and. our view is that based on past experiences, based on our analysis, the end of the program is unlikely to have significant effects on financial markets or on the economy. the reason being that, first, just a simple point that we hope that we have telegraphed and

communicated what we are planning to do, and the markets have well anticipated this step. you would expect that policy steps which are well anticipated by the market would have relatively small effect because whatever effects they would have had have already been capitalized in the financial markets. secondly, we subscribe generally to what we call here the stock view of the effect of securities purchases, by which i mean that what matters primarily for interest rates, stock prices, and so on, is not the pace of ongoing purchase but rather the size of the portfolio that the federal reserve holds. so when we complete the program, as you noted, we will continue to reinvest maturing securities, both treasurys and and b.s., and so the -- we should not expect

any major effect of that. put another way, the amount of these, monetary policy easing should essentially remained constant going forward from june. at some point, presumably early in our exit process, we will -- i suspect, based on conversations we have been having around the fomc table -- it is very likely that an early step would be to stop reinvesting all or part of the securities which are maturing, but take note that that step, although a relatively modest step, does constitute policy tightening, because it would be low in lowering the size of our balance sheet. that being said, we therefore

have to make the decision based on the outlook, based on our view of how sustainable the recovery is and what the condition of the situation is with respect to inflation. we will base that decision on the evolving outlook. it depends on the outlook. the committee will have to make a judgment. >> [inaudible] >> is it in the fed's power to reduce the rate of unemployment more quickly? how would you do that, and why are you not doing it? >> i should say, first of all, that in terms of trying to help this economy stabilize and then recover, the federal reserve has undertaken extraordinary measures. those include obviously all the steps we took to stabilize the financial system during the crisis. many of which were extraordinary measures taken under extreme

circumstances. even beyond the steps we took to stabilize the system, we have created new ways to ease monetary policy. we have brought the federal funds rate target close to zero. we have used for word guidance in our language to affect expectations of policy changes. as everyone knows, we have been through two rounds of purchases of longer term securities, which seem to have been effective in easing financial conditions and providing support for recovery and employment. going forward we will continue to make judgments about whether additional steps are warranted. but as we do so, we have to keep in mind that we have a dual mandate, that we have to worry about both the rate of growth to but also the inflation rate. as i was indicating earlier, i think even purely from an employment perspective, if inflation were to become

unmoored and inflation were to rise significantly, the cost in terms of unemployment loss in the future as we had to respond to that would be quite significant. so we have to make sure that we are paying adequate attention to both sides of our mandate. we have done extraordinary things to try to help this economy recover. >> mr. chairman, it is the view of the lot of economists that the second round of quantitative easing has not done much to help the economy. what positive effects can you point to directly, and if there are positive effects, can you really afford to in the program in june with the unemployment rate still around 9%? >> thank you. first, i do believe that the second round of securities purchases was effective. we saw that first in the financial markets.

the way monetary policy always works is by easing financial conditions, and we saw increases in stock prices, we saw it reduce spreads in credit markets. we saw reduced volatility. we saw all the changes in financial markets, and quite significant changes that one would expect if one was doing an ordinary easing of policy via a reduced federal funds rate. we saw the same types of financial market responses in the first round, which began in march, 2009. we were able to get the financial easing that we were trying to get. we did get very significant easing from this program. you would expect, based on decades of experience, that easing financial conditions would lead to better economic conditions, and i think that the evidence is consistent with that as well. as i discussed in more detail in

my humphrey-hawkins testimony in the beginning of march, between late august when i first indicated that the federal reserve was seriously considering this an additional step, and earlier this year, not only the federal reserve but many outside forecasters, upgraded their forecasts. we saw strengthening labor market conditions, higher rates of payroll, job creation, etc. now, the conclusion therefore is that the second round of securities purchases could only be validated if one thought that this step was a panacea, that it was going to solve all the problems and return us to full employment overnight. we were clear from the beginning that while we thought this was an important step, at an important time when we were worried about a double dip,

worried about deflation, we were very clear that this was not going to be a panacea, that it was only going to turn the economy in the right direction. we published some analytics which gave job creation numbers which were significant but not enough to completely solve the enormous jobs problem that we have. again, relative to what we expected and anticipated, i think the program was successful. why not do more? this is similar to the question i received earlier. the tradeoffs are getting less attractive at this point. inflation has gotten higher, inflation expectations are a bit higher. it is not clear that we can get substantial improvements in payrolls without some additional inflation risk, and in my view, if we are going to have success in creating a long run sustainable recovery with

lots of job growth, we have to keep inflation under control. so we have got to look at both parts of the mandate as we choose policy. >> mr. chairman, what is the right response is high oil prices persist? on the one hand they push inflation higher. on the other, they could hurt the economy by hitting spending. in the current environment, what is the best strategy? >> we are going to continue to see what happens. our anticipation is that oil prices will stabilize or tend to come down. if that happens, or if at least oil prices do not increase significantly further, then inflation will come down and we will have -- we will be close to our medium-term objectives. as we look at oil prices, as you point out, we have to look at

both sides of the situation. i do think that one of the key things we will be looking at will be inflation expectations, because if the medium-term inflation expectations remain well anchored and stable so that firms are not passing on at least on an ongoing sustained basis these higher costs into broader prices, creating a broader inflation in the economy, as long as inflation expectations are well stabilized, that will not happen, then we will feel more comfortable just watching and waiting and seeing how things evolve. if we fear that inflation expectations look like they are becoming less anchored, we would have to respond to that. >> you have talked a lot in the past about the problem of long- term unemployment. can the fed effectively reduce long-term unemployment?

>> first, you are absolutely right. long-term unemployment in the current economy is the worst, really the worst it has been in the post-war. . -- in the postwar period. we know the consequences of that can be very distressing, because people who are out of work for a long time, or their stskills can atrophy, they lose contact with the labor market, with other people working, the networks they have built up. we saw it in the european experience in the 1980's and the 1990's, that a high period of unemployment with long-term unemployment spells, can lead to launder unemployment for a more protracted period. that is one of the reasons the federal reserve has been so

aggressive. by getting unemployment down, we hope to bring back to work some of the people who have been out of work as long as they have. in that respect, try to avoid the long-term consequences of people being out of work for months at a time. that is part of the reason we have been as aggressive as we have. as the situation drags on and as the long-term unemployed lose skills and contact with the labor market or perhaps just become discouraged and stop looking for work, then it becomes really out of the scope of monetary policy. at that point, job training, education, and other types of interventions would probably be more effective than monetary policy. >> do you think that is out of the scope of what the fed can do? >> indirectly, if we expect that we can help the economy recover, and help job creation proceed, some of the people who

get jobs will be those who have been out of work for a long time. that being said, we do not have any tools for targeting long- term unemployment specifically. we can try to make the labor market work better, quality speaking. >> peter barnes of fox business network. last week standard and poor's put the united states debt on a negative watch for the very first time ever. what is your reaction to that, and are you concerned, are you worried that the united states will lose its aaa credit rating? >> in one sense, s&p's action did not really tell us anything because anybody who reads the newspaper knows that the united states has a very serious long- term fiscal problems. that being said, i am hopeful that this event will provide at least one more incentive for

congress and the administration to address this problem. i think it is the most important economic problem, at least in the long term, that the united states faces. we currently have a fiscal deficit, which is simply not sustainable over the longer term. if it is not addressed, it will have significant consequences for financial stability, economic growth, for our standard of living. it is encouraging that we are seeing efforts on both sides of the aisle to think about this issue from a long run perspective. it is not a problem that can be solved by making changes only for the next six months. it is really a long run issue. we are still a long way from a solution, obviously, i think it is of the highest importance that our political leaders to address this very difficult problem as quickly and as effectively as they can, and to the extent that the s&p action

gets a response, that is constructive. >> mr. chairman, john barry. in the past there have been times when fiscal policy has tightened and the federal reserve has chosen to ease its policy and response partly to the extent of the economy at the time. congress appears intent at this point in cutting spending significantly, might restrain the economy as it appears to be doing in britain where they are following a similar path. is there anything the fed can or should do if indeed there are large budget cuts sometime in the next 18 months? >> first, let me say that addressing the fiscal deficit,

particularly the long run unsustainable deficit, is a top priority, and nothing i would want to say would be construed as saying that anything other than a temporary. it is very important that our leaders address this issue. i would say that the cuts that have been made so far don't seem to have had very significant consequences for short-term economic activity. my preference in terms of addressing the long-term deficit is to take a long-term perspective. it's a long-term problem. if congress and the administration are able to make credible commitments to cutting programs or in the way changing the fiscal profile going forward over a long period of time, that is the most constructive way to address what is in fact a long- term problem. if the changes are focused entirely on the short run, they might have some consequences

for growth, and in that case the federal reserve, which is as always going to set monetary policy to meet our mandate, we will take those into account properly. but so far i have not seen any fiscal changes that have really changed our near-term outlook. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to ask about the uncertainties in the global economy. in the meetings, the committee noted that the development increased uncertainties. what is the assessment of those risks for uncertainty such as the tragedy in japan or the crisis in europe, and the crisis in the middle east? what would be the potential effect on the u.s. and the world economy? >> one of the things that our projections includes, we are

only producing the forecast today with our -- within three weeks, we will include the detailed projections as we normally do. one thing we included the views of the participants on the amount of uncertainty in the forecast going forward. i think i can say without too much fear of giving away the secret that fomc participants see quite a bit of uncertainty in the world going forward, and a lot of that uncertainty is coming from global factors. i have talked about middle east, north africa developments, which affect oil prices. conditions in emerging markets which affect commodity prices and other things. european situation continues. we are watching that very carefully. obviously you asked about japan. let me first say that i have had a lot of contact with my japanese counterparts, the

central bank governor and other people in the japanese government. we collaborate with them on the foreign exchange intervention, as you know. we are very admiring of the courage of the japanese people in responding to these situations, and of the central bank of japan, which has done a good job in providing liquidity and helping to stabilize financial markets in what are very significant disturbances to the economy. the implications for japan have been discussed at some length, and i think the governor recently talked about them. in the near term there will probably be a decline in japanese public reflecting the destruction, reflecting electricity problems, etc. we believe that will be relatively temporary and that the economy will start to come back, but this is a major blow

and it will take a lot of effort on the part of the japanese people to restore the economy and to recovery for the united states we are looking at this very carefully. thus far, the main impact of the japanese situation on the u.s. economy has been through supply chains. we've noted some automobile companies, for example, that have had difficulty getting certain components which are manufactured mostly or entirely in japan. and that has led a number of companies to announce that they would restrain production for a time. there may be some moderate effect on the u.s. economy but we expect it to be moderate and to be temporary. again, the most important issue here is the recovery of japan and our good wishes go out to the japanese people and their

efforts to overcome the adversity that they're facing. >> mr. chairman, you have often stressed, as you indeed did again today, the importance of keeping inflation expectations low and stable, to keep inflation itself under control. but irrespective of inflationary expectations or psychology, isn't it possible that the fed's policy providing monetary tender, is that -- >> well, we view our monetary policies as being not that different from ordinary monetary policy. it's true we have used some different tools but those tools are being used through different financial conditions and we have a lot of experience understanding how financial conditions, changes in interest

rates, changes in stock prices and so on, how they affect the economy. so we're monitoring the state of the economy, watching the evolving outlook, and our intention, as is always the case, is to tighten policy at the appropriate time, to ensure that inflation remains well controlled, that we meet that part of our mandate while doing the best we can to ensure also that we have a stable economy and a sustainable recovery in the labor market. so the problem is the same one that central banks always face which is choosing the appropriate path of tightening at the appropriate stage of the recovery. it's difficult to get it exactly right but we have a lot of experience in terms of what are the considerations and the economics that underlie those decisions. so we anticipate that we will tighten it at the right time and that we will thereby allow

the recovery to continue and allow the economy to return to a more normal configuration at the same time keeping inflation low and stable. >> many of the commercial partners of the united states are very concerned about the evolution of your foreign exchange rate. if in one particular case the dollar would sink to a terrible level which would hurt the u.s. economy and in good prospect for the world economy because it effects so many people, would you consider changing your monetary policing according to that threat? >> as i said earlier, we do believe that a strong and stable dollar is in the interest of the united states and is in the interest of the global economy. our view is that the best thing we can do for the dollar is,

first, to keep the purchasing power of the dollar strong by keeping inflation low, and by creating a stronger economy through policies which support the recovery, and therefore cause more capital inflows to the united states. so those are the kinds of policies i think in the medium term will create the conditions for an appropriate and healthy level of the dollar so i don't think i really want to address a hypothetical, which i really don't anticipate, because i think the policies that we are undertaking, notwithstanding short-term fluctuations, will lead to a strong and stable dollar in the medium term. >> mr. chairman, anthony mason shes cbs. this is that rare news conference that actually makes news before it happens. can you talk a little bit about your decision to take this

historic step of holding a news conference after a fed meeting? what choices did you make? and facing the media comparing facing congress? >> thanks, mom. well, the federal reserve has been looking for ways to increase its transparency now for many years and we made a lot of progress. it used to be that the mystique of central banking was all about not letting anybody know what you were doing. as recently as 1994, the federal reserve didn't even tell the public when it changed the target for the federal funds rate. since then we have taken a number of steps, a statement with -- includes a vote. we have -- we produce very detailed minutes which are released only three weeks after the meeting which is essentially a production lag. we now provide quarterly

projections including long-run objectives as well as near-term outlook. we have substantial means of communicating through speeches, testimony and the like, and so we have become i think a very -- a very transparent central bank. that being said, we had a subcommittee headed by the vice chair of the board looking for different steps to take to provide additional transparency and accountability. and the press conference was -- came right to the top because this is an area first of all where global central bank practice includes now many central banks do use press conferences and we have some experience with them. and secondly, it does provide a chance for the chairman, in this case, to provide some additional color and context for both in this case both the meeting and the projections that are being made by the

committee. so we thought it was a natural next step. we're not done. we're continuing to look for additional things we can do to be more transparent and more accountable, but we think this is the right way to go. i have always been a big believer in providing as much information as you can to help the public understand what you're doing, to help the markets understand what you're doing and to be accountable to the public for what you're doing. now, of course, the fed didn't do this for a long time and i think the counterargument has always been that if there is a risk that the chairman speaking might create unnecessary volatility in financial markets or may not be necessary given all the other sources of information to come out of the federal reserve, it was our judgment after thinking about this for sometime that at this point the stay digsal benefits for more information, meeting the press directly outweighed

some of these risks and i think over time, you know, we'll experiment to try to make sure that this is an effective venue as possible. >> last question. >> mr. chairman. i wrote a book looking at 800 years of financial history. . i discovered when you have a financial crisis it takes a lot longer for them to recover. are people expecting toosm from the federal reserve in terms of helping the economy recover and has that hurt -- >> ken rogoff was a graduate schoolmate of mine. i played chess against him which was a big mistake. i enjoyed that book very much. i thought it was very informative. as you say, it makes the point that as an historical matter recoveries following financial

crises tend to be relatively slow. now, what the book didn't really do, though, is give a full explanation of why that's the case. certainly part of it has to do with the problems in credit markets and my own research when i was in academia focused a great deal on the effects of problems in credit markets on recoveries. other aspects would include the effects of credit problems on areas like housing and so on, and we're seeing all that, of course, in our economy. with that said, another possible explanation for the slow recovery from financial crises might be that policy responses were not adequate. that they -- that the recapitalization of the banking system, the restoration of credit flows and monetary and fiscal policies were not sufficient to get -- to get as quick a recovery that might otherwise have been possible. and so, you know, we haven't

allowed that historical fact to disswayed us from doing all we can to support a strong recovery. that being said, it is a relatively slow recovery. you can identify reasons for that. credit factors are one. another very important factor is that, you know, this was triggered by a bubble in the housing market and the housing market remains very weak, and under normal circumstances, construction would be a big part of the recovery process. there are a number of factors and now we're seeing high oil prices and a number of things, there are things which are holding the recovery back. so there are good reasons for why the recovery is slower than we would like. at the same time, it's very hard to blame the american public for being impatient. conditions are far from where we would like them to be. the combination of high unemployment, high gas prices

and high foreclosure rates is a terrible combination. a lot of people are having a very tough time. so i can certainly understand why people are impatient. i guess the only thing i can say is while the recovery process looks likely to continue to be a relatively moderate one compared to the depth of the recession, i do think that the pace will pick up over time and i am very confident that in the long run that the u.s. will return to being the most productive -- one of the fastest growing and dynamic economies in the world. and it hasn't lost any of the basic characteristics that made it the preeminent economy in the world before the crisis, and i think we will return to that status as we recover. thank you very much, and thank you for coming. captioned by the national captioning institute ---www.ncicap.org--- [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

[captioning performed by natonal captioning institute] >> ben bernarningy ending an hour-long news conference on an upbeat note there. a news conference which covered a wide range of issues from unemployment to interest rates to budget cuts and this is the first of what's expected to be four news conferences from the fed chair this year. we're inviting your reaction to what you heard, what you saw. the numbers to call if you are a republican. 202-585-3885. democrats, 202-737-0002 -- 202-585-3886. and independents 202-585-3887. encourage you to go online and comment on our facebook page at facebook.com/c-span. linda smith writing about 20 minutes ago that the dow is at its highest point of the day, the highest point of the year, in fact, she writes. also, your comments welcomed on twitter and we'll keep our eye

on. if you use the hash tag fed presser we will trial to key keep our eye out for some of your comments. we have lots of calls waiting. let's hear from david from ude jean, oregon, who is waiting on our democrats' line. go ahead. caller: i hope you give me a moment to get this all out. it's not too long. there is no changes for now. and to me this is kind of polyanna policy where we hope -- polley anna policy where we hope it's all good. i am a blue dog democrat. rich people need to have to make their money work which puts all of us to work for them making their more profits. but no changes in the banking system means another repeat of the problem. how can a bank employee -- employ dozens of people at banks and not charge me for my basic account and still say they're going to make money?

it just doesn't make sense. >> david, if you wanted to hear one thing from the fed chairman -- a change from fed chairman bernanke, what would that have been? caller: you know, i don't really know enough about banking to really say the noes important thing, but from the base of what i can see way down here on the street level is that, you know, paying my $7 every month for my account made the banking industry stable. and now over the last 15 years they haven't been doing that. >> let's go to chris who's on our independent line in taylor, michigan. welcome. caller: thank you very much. glad to be on. you know, the funny thing to me is we've been listening to ben bernanke for the last three or four years continuously giving the spin doctor approach, coming on and telling people

all these things and half of it is lies and they know they're lies. you could see the fear in his eye. he's afraid the whole economy is going to collapse. we need to get rid of these -- this two-party system of republicans and democrats because the country is so divided it's going to destroy our nation. all they do is spin people. they say the unemployment rate is 8.8% for the general populous. 15% for black americans. and in reality it's more like 15% for the general populous and 22% for black americans. as far as the immigrants go, all the immigrants coming into this country, everybody is always saying, well, we're all immigrants, we're all immigrants. we aren't all immigrants. the immigrants that originally came here, like my grandparents and their parents, when they came from england, that was 150

years ago. >> ok, chris, we're moving on, staying on the topic. fed chair ben bernanke and his first news conference, what did you think? in mesa, arizona, republican line. and this is jane. hi. caller: i was watching ben bernanke and my stomach is in a knot. i am so worried for our country. i am a republican but i'm going, our country is falling apart and so what does our president do today? he flies to chicago to tape at oprah winfrey. why didn't she come to the white house? and then -- >> jane, let's stay on the topic of the fed chair. what did you hear about the fed from the fed chairman at his news conference today that has your -- as you put it, your stomach in knotses? caller: well, 20 million people are out of work and he doesn't have an idea of how we're going to get back to work. he doesn't have a clue. like you said that last minute he was upbeat, upbeat. for what? and i'm sorry, peter, but our

country is in trouble and our president wants to be president, stay in the white house. he's going on a family trip again on friday to cape canaveral. >> we are going to move on to will in asheville, north carolina. independent line. your thoughts on this first federal reserve news conference. caller: well, i appreciate him having the news conference. but my question is, as he mentions central banks around the world, i really like to know as far as in the context of globalization what do central banks and how do they effect our sovereignty as a nation and in the context of globalization, do they arm or hurt us in terms of our unemployment rate and so forth and so on as far as banking and commodity prices, etc., etc.? >> thanks for that comment. mountain view, north carolina. excuse me. mountain view, california, is

next. richard, republican caller. go ahead. caller: yes, thank you very much, peter. you're one of my favorites and thanks very much for c-span. what really kind of struck me was when mr. bernanke made a comment about we need to have capital inflows to the u.s. so what kind of struck me was number one, how did this happen? we know that the u.s. cartels and a lot of the u.s. venture capitalists, you know, moved our resources, you know, into these emerging markets. and the reason was that the key drivers were very low labor rates. also, the u.s. tax codes. and so we see also what happened when that happened the u.s. banking interest then moved into those emerging marketses to facilitate this banking thing. now, bernanke is asking for these companies to invest in the u.s. and buy our resources. this is really insane. we are talking about indian and chinese companies when it's clear that our monetary policy does not work in global

markets. why? because the lack of his knowing the time sequence of the gap factor. >> richard's comments he canowed a little bit by donald trump earlier today, held a brief news conference in new hampshire, which you will see later on in our program schedule on the c-span networks. the associated press just reporting this afternoon, congress is back next week and word that nevada governor brian sandoval has named republican dean heller to replace jon ensign in the u.s. senate. next up is dallas. eric on our independent line. how are you there? caller: how are you there? thank you for taking my call. i want to give a quick shot out to congressman ron paul. just for his influence on this public debate. i think that's unquestioned at this point. >> so your thought on this, eric, is that ron paul's sort of pressure has made the fed come out and do this sort of news conference? >> absolutely. i think he found it a bit easier to get to the public arena than to continue to sort

of fight with ron paul in the committee meetings. again, i just wanted to thank him but also i wanted to at least comment on the fact that many of our founding fathers debated the role of the central bank, and it was stated by jefferson that the role of a private central bank, and it is a private bank. he did mention that he is in the private sector as part of his commentary. so they are not a government agency. there's a flag sitting behind him. so my comment is, i would just like to hear mr. bernanke respond to jefferson's commentary that a private central bank would stand more of a threat to our country than a standing army. >> lots of questions about the federal reserve when we do segments on the topic including this morning's "washington journal." we linked online to the fed's website and their information

page on the details of the formation and the fed's duties. a fox business reporting about the news conference this afternoon. they tweet indicates that during his comments mr. bernanke said the fed is reducing its estimate to the u.s. economy. the growth of g.d.p. rate from 1.3% to 3.3%. that's down from 3.4% to 3.9%. looking ahead to 2012 they write that his view has been trimmed to 3.5% to 4.2%. that's down from a-4.4%. reflecting some of the comments made by ben bernanky. we're joined on the line by michael derby of "the wall street journal." michael derby is covering the news conference this afternoon and writing about it in "the wall street journal" today with sort of a primmer on the news conference this afternoon. the headline is "bernanke's code: a guide to the fed chairman's first q&a." michael derby, thank you for joining us this afternoon. michael derby, are you with us?

>> i am with you. can you hear me? >> yes, we can. how did it feel, this first federal news conference? >> well, i guess one of the big risks that the chairman took in doing this was, you know, it was be a arn experience. he faced -- it was an experience. he faced questions and he had chances to make a mistake. it is could he handle this event without making mistakes? the way it looks to me, and i'm probably -- he got through this experience pretty well. he didn't seem to make any mistakes that i noticed. he seemed to answer everything pretty well. i mean, he got good questions from the reporters who were in the room and he navigated all that pretty handedly. >> among those questions, what did you hear that really stands out in terms of the news? what's the news out of this? >> well, he -- i think the press conference -- and in is what the fed wanted in the first place -- something to

amplify the federal opening committee market statement that came out today and that was a fairly status quo statement that the economy continues to grow, showed a little bit of concern what commodity prices with inflation. and didn't really do much for us in terms of changing the monetary policy outlook. it basically affirmed that the fed will continue through to the end in the summer request its $600 billion bond buying program. bernanke to amplify that added some details. he did talk about he doesn't know when the fed will tighten rates but he did give criteria that will help the markets and the general public to understand when they will. i guess for people who are in my business, a lot of what he said is sort of familiar things. he said they would be watching what happens with inflation, what happens employment. when to tighten. i looked at the press conference as an amplification. the newer stuff is the fed

doesn't like to talk about the dollar very much. that's something that's left to the treasury. and in parts bernanke sounded almost like a treasury secretary, talking about how a strong dollar is in the interest of -- is in the interest of the united states and a lot of fed's critics is accused of following policy of making the dollar less valuable. bernanke hit back again in the press conference. >> well, a lot of inflation in particular. did you hear anything in this first press conference, did you hear any more heightened concern of, for example, the rising gas prices? is that an area that you'll be watching in terms of how the fed reacts to rising gas price and other commodity prices? >> well, one thing that bernanke was able to do, talk about gasoline prices today, clarify how he thinks about it. it's not in some sense rising gasoline prices aren't a settled issue in economic prices. some people gas prices are inflationary. other people they're a -- they're bigger impact is that

they cut consumer spending power. for every dollar you have to pay at the pump is not a dollar you can spend on consumer good. so depending on which of those two things you believe gasoline prices -- depends on how you view that situation, it sort of argues for what your policy outlook is. bernanke when he spoke about gasoline prices today, in one sense it's not something the fed can do. it's a supply and demand thing. gas prices are out of the fed's control. but beyond that he did sort of shade it more in terms of -- cuts into consumer spending power. but he said inflation expectations are everything for the federal reserve. they believe if you believe inflation will go up in the future inflation will go up now. so he says he's monitoring how much gasoline price increases to underline inflation. he helped clarify for people how to look at the situation or at least how he looks at it.

and if you understand how he looks at it can understand what will come next for monetary policy. >> michael derby from "the wall street journal" in washington. you can read his article on wsj.com. thank you. >> thank you for having me >> thanks for all your calls and comments. the conversation continues online. facebook.com/c-span. just a reminder for you in terms of our program plans, you'll be able to see all of this news conference, this hour-long news conference again tonight beginning at 8:00 eastern. that will be here on c-span. next up, though, we are going to take you to new york university, the new york university school of law held a discussion, a symposium on public corruption and whether who should regulate and prosecute corruption on the federal and local level. among the people you'll hear from are the former house ethics committee council and the deputy attorney general from the state of connecticut. this runs nearly an hour.

>> so let's begin with a hypothetical based upon the case of united states against marcus. marcus was a water commissioner, not a waterfront commissioner, water commissioner and had responsibility over the entire municipal water supply. he had met an individual during the campaign which led to him becoming water commissioner who was an f.b.i. informant. he would engage regularly in criminal activities and only when he was caught would he begin to cooperate. he gave some advice to marcus, the water commissioner, investment advice. told him to buy a stock on margin. the stock went down and marcus was in terrible financial

situation. on the other hand, marcus had an emergency contract to dredge a reservoir and it had to be done immediately so he was the person who could give out the contract without competitive bidding. itkin advised him he could get a lot of money for that contract and he introduced him to the right people who would pay him to do so. he agreed to do that. the contract was let. the money was paid. and the local district attorney's office began an investigation into it. as soon as subpoenas went out itkin, realizing he was going to be the target of the investigation, along with marcus, dragged marcus to the f.b.i. and then to the u.s. attorney's office where they made a clean rest of things. itkin went scott free and marcus, of course, was indicted with the people to whom he had given the contract and who had paid him. there is a fight between the

u.s. attorney's office and the district attorney's office. the local and the feds. normally that gets fought out in a boxing ring. this time, however, the two sat down and said, let's put together a panel of distinguished experts in the field, none of whom have a dog in the fight. and we're going to put them together, sit them at a table and have them discuss the issues and decide who it is who should handle the case and maybe even think about in addition to who, why and maybe something that could lead us into the future. kathleen, why don't you start? >> well, thanks for the hypothetical. i'm really happy to participate on this question of who should be involved in enforcing ethics

standards here. it seems to me that anytime it's essential to have someone who has some independence but not too much independence. in a sense i would draw you back to the 1980's, 1990's to a situation where the federal government found that it was too much independence for an independent counsel to be not politically accountable and could therefore go off the reservation. so independence is key but you can too much of a good thing. so i get it. the first question that seems to ask is whether the federal government has jurisdiction to -- >> am i going to assume there is jurisdiction both federally and on the stateside? >> ok. the second place i would draw your attention then is not just on what you've asked us to focus on that is prosecution, who should prosecute, but also, what mechanisms exist to fair

out this behavior and disclose it and so therefore i ask you to think about, you know, what the substantive standards are for contracting, what the disclosure requirements are for contracting -- >> yeah. that's all good stuff. who should prosecute? >> who should prosecute? >> and that's the reason the five of you are brought together. i don't want to call on each you. it's not a class. you are having a discussion about this. [laughter] well, any views? >> there's a number of things. i would want to know on this panel, you know, more about how the case was going it the d.a.'s office, the subpoenas issued, how much work had been done. >> i'd be happy to answer any question you'd like. >> it goes to the fairness of what the outcome should be, who started the case, how much has been invested, how much

evidence has been collected. >> sweat equities in the hands of the local prosecutor. >> well, then -- >> but the confessions are in the hands of the federal prmplet >> the case is where it can be prosecuted best and i would hope that the heads of both of these agencies could agree to that. from time to time these things do come up. >> amazingly each one thinks that they can do it better than the other. i know this is shocking but that's the way it turns out. >> i'm sure mr. hogan mr. thought that and also mr. morguen that will thought that at the time as well. >> this is a hypothetical. >> the hypothetical. it's truly who got into the case and how much work was done and what kind of evidence and witnesses had been assembled and sometimes when i was a

federal prosecutor there were cases that we worked on with the d.a.'s office and charged federally as a rico and other times there were charges that were brought on the stateside. and hopefully the people running these offices and decisionmaking could see to what i said a moment ago was that it should be brought where it can be best brought. all of the defendants where that can be done best. >> i'm not sure what that means. does it mean who goes to the worst prisons? does that mean who can capture little fry in addition to the big fish? does it mean who can spend more time and money on it? >> both. >> does it mean who will give up other stuff? >> all of the above. >> nora? >> the one --

>> i'm sorry. >> i agree with rose. i agree with rose that the jurisdiction that can do it best whether it be by resources, the sweat equity and the tools available should do it. but the other one issue that's going to come in i would think is the fact that this was an f.b.i. informant. i assume he was not acting at the direction of the f.b.i. at this time but did he have any agreement with the f.b.i. as to what he could or couldn't do? what other information does the f.b.i. have about this fellow? are they going to be willing to give it up? and how will that progress? if those kind of issues may be an impediment to the local -- local jurisdiction? i'd like to say they all play nicely together, but the agents may not and there may be some real turf wars about that kind of information how it gets disclosed and who gets it. so that would also be a factor in how fair -- >> i'm not sure what you're saying here.

are you saying that the f.b.i. gets points for having an informant or loses them? that the feds gets points or loses them? after all it was the federal informant who was involved in this case, not as an informant. he was a crook. should the fed get the benefit of having lots of crooks out there only cooperating when they get caught? >> no. that may be one -- a greater interest for the feds on this but the -- what he's done as an informant for the fed is critical to this case in terms of making sure it gets prosecuted fairly and the information about this guy gets disclosed and that's something that needs to get weighed in a discussion. >> rick, you had your hand up. >> it's kind of funny. i'm almost undoubtedly the most ignoreant person on this panel and i have the strongest priors. my parents always said the less you know the more you'll apine. i think there should be an overwhelmingly strong presumption that the state should take the lead simply

because of principles of federalism. the issue should be handled in the same way the way the justice does with pettitte policy. they say, look, if the states can handle it and it looks like they're doing a decent job prosecuting civil rights violations, they are going after the people that beat rodney king, do it. if it looks like they failed egregiously, either because they don't care or it's just blithering incompetence then we will just take advantages of our double jeopardy. i think main justice should assess every major jurisdiction -- subnational jurisdiction and say, look, do these people have the compass toyota police their own corruption issues? do they have a strong department of investigation or strong state laws, do they have a vigorous d.a.? if they do they have no role whatsoever then forcing federal law except to back them up.

we have resources they might want. so we should take the cases to them and say, do you want the lead? if they want the lead we should give them the lead and should make available our investigative resources. we should make available our prosecutial resources because they want to take advantage of a harsher policy. the whole core of federalism is these issues should be handled at the local level. if you don't have that bar, what in god's name are you doing bringing in the feds? that offends my constitutional scrupals to the core . [laughter] i want to add -- >> you are opining. >> i want to at one point, in the u.s. attorney's manual, when i teach this in my class, there is a sentence that is often envogue. that the fed can get a harsher sentence. that strikes me as rather

bizarre because if federalism means anything it means that on penal policy regional variation and sentencing should matter. the fact that texas likes capital punishment and new york doesn't should matter. it seems strange to me there is a federal interest because the feds have a different sentencing policy than the states. that's entirely different sort of interesting say the -- interests because they are in cahoots of the crooks. my policy is that the states should always take the lead. i don't think can you divide jurisdiction by having them do a comparative assessment of who's better. >> any time the fed gets involved it's a sign of state and local failure? >> i think so. i think it's a very important sign of state and local failure and there ought to be some assessment. by the way, when everybody is pressed, the mail fraud statute, in every venue they'll say it's because the locals are too close to the corruption which means in some sense they're tainted by it. no one's ever said, oh, well,

the reason we have this vital federal interest is because after all even when the locals are completely unconnected and are impartial they simply shouldn't handle it because federal sentencing policies better than state sentencing policy. >> state and locals get better at it if the feds refrain the way perhaps congress would get better at policing itself if the executive branch would refrain from policing? >> look, we have this bribery case. here's the file. what do you want to do with it? if they bury if they should go to main justice and say this is something in my analogy of the pettitte policy this is a sign these guys aren't good at it. it's not if you're able. it's if you're willing. if they turn down a slam dunk bribery case, a quid proquo case, we are not talking about gratuities or campaign contributions, pushing the edge of what violates corruption,

it's a violation those states aren't good at it. >> kathleen's last comment had one jump up. >> guess at some level my constitutional scrupeles must not be very strong. >> noticed that. [laughter] >> maybe put the wrong five people together. >> tend to like the idea of respecting federalism, putting things down at the state level. i am a policymaker at the end of the day. i like policy. the questions i am going to ask, what's the inputs, what's the conduct and what's the output? if there is a campaign finance piece, if there is a straight bribery piece in the middle and the -- what got bit as the contract, i am going to look at all three of those things and try to line those interests up and say, where does that sit? who really has the best responsibility over the inputs? who has the best ability to get the evidence over the corporates of the conduct? and that's look at the outputs and who can have the biggest

effect of driving the policy in the future. and then as a good politician i am going to look up and say, who has the best chance to make and the biggest splash in setting the deterrent side on the publicity side. those are the factors i am going to run into this and try to decide in this case it's fairly straightforward to me and say i am going to put it at the state level. >> what about the inputs of who has the best procedural laws, who has the best substantive laws, who has least difficulty improving jurisdiction, who las the greater amount of re-- who has the greater amount of resources, does that play any part in your analysis? >> in mine it does. and that's absolutely some of the things i am going to look at. part of me says, and maybe i'm going to blend things and try to look at this. i don't think you should ever take errors out of the quiver. you should always leave them in there. i like the idea of saying, look, if the state's not going to deal with it, if it doesn't

make any sense to, then you ought to grab it from the federal level and go do it. but, you know, at the end of the day we may -- and this is a fairly simple hypothetical. i mean, this is straight up -- >> i'm a simple person. >> so am i. i like that. the idea is i am going to look at it and say this is a simple case. it ought to be done where it sits the best. you move this hypothetical a little bit you make it a little bit more where it touches more americans and i'm going to start talking about, yeah, we need this to be bigger. because i don't need to move federal law here. i can do this right on the state law and that seems to me to be the right place to be. >> rose, supposing you had been investigating that as head of the department of investigation, you can't prosecute it, you can decide to which prosecuted agency to take it. you happen to be in a place unlike others where there are probably half a dozen, even maybe more, possible prosecutive possibilities,

where do you go? >> i mean, there are eight prosecutor offices in the city, and they're all excellent and they are all robust and they're not weak and they all have exceptional public corruption and/or racketeering bureaus that perform public corruption cases of significance and with integrity. so it's an abundance of riches for a law enforcement agency that does investigations in this town. that's not the case in a lot of other cases, and i talked to a lot of people in other cities who are my counterparts who are green with envy at all of the offices that do cases in new york. now, yes, there are these turf battles which is essentially what you were describing before, but the fact is i consider us to be lucky to have so many different choices in this city. so where do we go? last year d.o.i. referred 850

cases for prosecution, and so we divide them up based on venue. we don't flood one office with 850, you know, calls. some of our cases we are part of a task force, and typically there is a prosecutor's office attached to the task force and so that's where the cases ultimately going to be prosecuted. and so we're a member of a multitude of task forces, and i suppose you could say it's a foregone conclusion as to where prosecutions will take place depending on what the task force is. >> this is your case and you have venue in, let's say, three district attorney's office, one of which has sweat equity and two u.s. attorney's offices. so you have a choice. and one u.s. attorney's office happen to have the confessions. >> look, oftentimes for us one case leads to the other and there maybe someone who flipped, you know, as was the

case in your hypothetical, and you make one case and you keep going. and so all of the cases will remain whichever office made the first one and you continue to do a series of cases. when no one has a case and it's a completely clean slate and we're making a decision about where to refer to a d.a. or to a u.s. attorney or to the attorney general there are some factors that we take a look at. and they have to do well features of the case itself. the city's social service programs and many other projects are mainly funded by federal funds or they are in large measure funded by federal funds even though they're administered by the city. so we have done some extremely significant and sizeable program fraud cases with the u.s. attorney's offices in town because there's a strong federal interest. >> so you're -- >> largely federal money. one example. >> do you agree with that because there are federal funds

involved even though it's administered bit state and the state -- >> it's like an extension 626 case. yeah, if the funds aren't simply a pretext of getting involved, if they are at stake, i think there is a strong federal -- >> 666 is a federal statute that makes it a federal crime to steal or extort money from an entity that receives more than a certain amount of federal money from a federal practice. but, of course, the city of new york receives that money. supposing this is not money that is federal money but there are 666's jurisdiction merely because the city of new york receives federal funds. >> all money is green. all money's green. so on the city's -- if the money that's being spent is officially city money or for that matter state money, some state grant, but the city is

essentially administering the program that's awash with federal money and i think there is a federal interest, i think it's more difficult if you're saying the city of new york -- let me just give you an anational jeefment n. yumplet is covered by the solomon amendment because we get some -- n.y.u. is covered by the solomon amendment because we get some federal money. the science labs get federal money, that strikes me is nonsincecal. and so i would say -- nonsensical. so i would say where the fraud is taking place involved with federal laws and federal conditions and federal money, is it tarp money, for instance, is it medicaid money? >> where does this federal money come from? doesn't it come from the citizens of the state of new york? >> not in their capacity as state citizens but as national citizens. and -- >> i thought money was green. [laughter] nora? >> just to give a different perspective and say it's not

new york. >> it wasn't. >> give my experience from somewhere like connecticut and with due respect to the notion it would be much better for the state to do it, the criminal justice system in connecticut, there's no state grand jury system. in a case like this, again, i have to believe it goes beyond just the concessions. a grand jury's probably critical to this case. and so that would weigh highly in favor of the federal -- fed taking the investigation in case. the resources. again, for better or worse, the fed has a lot more resources usually and the luxury of doing complex cases that on the local or even state level -- in connecticut, they have -- the number of cases they have may not allow them to have the resources or time that's going to take to do what arguably is a very complex case. >> how many state prosecutors

are there in connecticut compared to federal prosecutors? >> there's a lot more state prosecutors. i can't give you numbers. but there's a lot more. >> resources. >> but, again, the resources, you can't just say how many prosecutors. what do the prosecutors do? they're in jurisdictions where they're doing murder, rape, car jackings, that's what they do on a daily basis and the volume of cases they handle is huge. and so you have to look at, are they going to be able to handle this case as well as how much work is put in. so, again, i say it sounds nice to say it should be a state case but you have to look at the practicalities of how will this case best be done. >> i'd like to ask a question of the moderator. and i want to know your opinion of how commentive to have this scenario where you have competing state and federal prosecutors who want to take a

case versus a situation where there is nobody on the ground at the state or local level who wants to go after, say, the local official who is accused of corruption, is this the typical situation you describe? let me know. >> i don't want to have to put in the position of answering questions but let me -- i will give one answer and then i'll follow with a question on the same tag. i was at a meeting with richard daley when he was state attorney in chicago. he was clearly not interested in handling political corruption cases. he wanted to be the mayor. it's not a good thing to do in chicago unless you are the u.s. attorney. and his answer was, the feds have all of the ability to handle political corruption and organized crime. we handle street crime and with one little sentence absolved himself of the need to do any difficult cases. i'm not quite sure what rick

would say about that. whether you just write him off and the feds come in or you try to develop some capacity in his office to handle those kinds of cases. let me follow up with the other question and then maybe rick will answer the first one. let's take a case based on margiata. again, hypothetical. i'm cutting out most of the facts. he's the republican chairman. happens to be in the town of hempstead in nassau county. he gets his person elected as county executive. they have the ability to appoint the broker of record. the broker of record is the person who insures all of the property and receives a 10% commission for doing so. margiata says to the broker of record i will -- the person who wants to be broker of record, i will get the county executive to appoint you but you need to

split your fees not with me but with other brokers who have been helpful to the republican party. the broker of record says, fine, happy to do that. i like the republican party. they're the ones putting me in position. i think we ought to do that. there is in fact an informal opinion by the state ethics board which says splitting a brokerage fees is permissible. the state looks at the case and chooses not to prosecute. federal government looks at it and says this is a violation of preskin honor services and let's throw skin out for all purposes right now. should the federal government, seeing this as an independent federal issue, prosecute that case? you can start. >> no. and, you know, the difficulty with that is that you have a

very public determination by the state accountable in numerous ways to the voters about the nature of the ethics issue at stake. if you didn't have that, if they were trying to sweep it under the carpet it would be a different thing. i take the core federal interest to be that the feds would step in when the states are too corrupt or too politically tied to deal with local corruption. when the state says, no, as a matter of principle policy, which we wrote in west law, any voter can complain about, we don't think this is actionable corruption. then for the local u.s. attorney to claim he's a political scientist, capable of knowing how best to -- strikes me as bizarre or arrogance. let me take you the marcus hypothetical and give you an analogous case. suppose marcus said to a union, not a dredger, i will approve your collective bargaining agreement if you endorse me for

re-election. and so it's a quid pro quo bribery case. it's endorsement. and the u.s. attorney says, i think it violates -- not after skin, not the mail fraud, you can make a 666 claim. i think it would be extraordinary for the u.s. attorney to take upon himself the job of assessing whether political activity, which could be constitutionally protected, could be corrupt. you know, endorsements. >> i promise to dom back to that in a -- i promise to come back to that in a minute. >> this is a similar case. government does not function unless you are able to make deals. deals are the heart and soul of government. the only way you can get jorts. i wish our local political scientist was in this room. you cannot make government function unless you trade votes. for an executive to say, look, this is how we want to arrange insurance patronage and they say it's within the bounds of i will jit massey so the voters have a chance to retaliate, it

seems to me what precisely federalism is about. i would like to have more confidence in the u.s. attorneys who are second guessing those judgments, have some knowledge about how to make government work before i say they are entitled to second guess them. step on the u.s. attorneys who tried to go after that case. >> so in your hypothetical, this sort of indirect kind of paid to play situation that you described, this is above bored and not on the record. >> i am giving you the situation in which it is. incidentally had been carried out by previous administrations, both republican and democrat, well-known. >> ok. if one things -- it's one thing to says well-known. it's another thing to say it's actually clear and on the record what is going on, right? but i guess i would -- i think there is a difference between

disclosure and disclosure in a way that's actually politically actionable. and this is true on capitol hill as well as elsewhere in government where the politicians or otherwise are required to make disclosures but they're on paper or they're not searchable, etc., so it seems to me that i guess i have a little bit -- i am less optimistic about the ability of the public to use this information and to protect itself from corruption on a local level than i think i heard implied in professor hill's initial response. so yeah, i would want to know more about the political economy of corruption in that county and what information is available and what -- what n.g.o.'s are doing and how people are able to use this information if at all to get political accountability from their elected officials. >> i think at some level it

seems to me that the underlying tension is the level of independence that you need to make, judgments about who to prosecute, who to go after. and whether you believe that entities can self-police themselves. and i think this case is probably sort of in the middle at some level where you're trying to carve a lot but do you believe that the closer you get to an event in politics, particularly, that you can police yourself or entities can police themselves? i happen to believe you can. not all the time and i think that's the variable that you need to look at and i think the tension that you're getting at is to say, if the closer you are to something you can't, you just -- you're not showing the willingness or ability, then you need to step up the level of independence and move up the chain. but if you can be -- if you can be -- if you can do the job right and you ought to do it closer to where the conduct is.

>> look, i think that if the state ethics panel it cleared the conduck and it was conduct that had been going on for many generations, i think that proceeding under those circumstances is certainly a question, a fairness question, and i would think there would be some deference given to the state ethics panel. in the margiatti -- that's in the abstract. in that case they took it to trial, they got a hung jury and the jury information suggested that almost half of the jurors were totally confused about what the government was alleging to be a crime. the government retried the case , pared it back. my understanding is -- ron, you correct me. they pared it back to just the components of the case that related to margiatti put in his pockets and stripped away -- am i wrong about that?

>> what he put in his pocket was minuscule and it was in a footnote. and they clearly wouldn't -- >> it was part of the crime of conviction at the end of the day? if i'm wrong i'm wrong. >> this case was not about margiatta. i just gave that as the name. [laughter] i will give you another case. let's try this. something based on mccormick. you have in west virginia, it was virginia legislature who was approached by an individual who represents a number of foreign doctors. they have trained and licensed in foreign countries, come to the united states, but have not yet been licensed. but virginia has a dramatic shortage of health care professionals, and this particular legislature would be

willing to introduce a bill to allow them to practice while obtaining their license. the individual representing them says, ok, we would like you to introduce the bill. the legislator says, ok, but you have to give me $20,000 campaign contribution. that is recorded. should this be prosecuted, and who should prosecute it? anybody? >> shoot from the hip rick. i would think if it is a violation of state law, the state should prosecute it. this is the kind of political activity the fed should stay away from. it strikes me that endorsements, campaign contributions, agreed not to run for office go to the heart of political activity,

that if you make it a crime runs up against first amendment issues, it runs up against political competitiveness issues, and it would be a terrible mistake for the fed to think that with these very vague statutes, statutes that cover everything -- >> i will not introduce this bill unless you pay me 20,000 others in a campaign contribution. >> it is not pay me, it is paid the party. >> pay my campaign fund. >> that is radically different than saying, give me $20,000 for my vacation home. does anybody think that big donors to get embassador -- to be ambassadors got these jobs because of their skills with diplomacy with one important countries? no!

because they put money in the pocket of the republican or democratic national committee. the notion that should be an offense is reasonable, if congress says so. but because of an attorney says the show strikes me as ludacris. >> nora is vibrating. [laughter] >> it must be explicit quid pro quo. as a footnote, on a smaller scale, i once prosecuted a case much smaller. it is $10,000, and the conversation was not recorded. it was, i have done what you asked me to do, but this to the state party, now you do the deal for me. a pension investment was made on that and a jury acquitted on that account.

jurors look at campaign contributions differently, regardless of the law. who should prosecute this? again, as a theoretical matter, it is better for the state to prosecute this. as a practical matter, i have to ask, how did the conversation it recorded? who got this information? who was the lobbyist working with? who put the effort into this? there are federal laws and state laws that cover this. >> same circumstance, same conversation as recorded is somewhat different. the conversation goes like this. i represent unlicensed doctors he wore a license to outside of the country, there would like to practice and west virginia, you need them here. the legislator says, i agree, great idea, the problem as i am

running for reelection and the person running against me will slam me in the media. he has a lot of money, that experience, no ability, but he will make this an issue. the issue will be that i believe in substandard care for west virginians, i don't care for my constituents. we don't have medical care now, this is much better, these are good people, they're going for their license, but i don't have the opportunity put the message out. if i had the opportunity, i would be the first to support this bill. and the representative says, what do you mean in terms of ability? and he says, well, i would need commercials, this is west for janet, it will not be expensive, i could probably do it for $10,000, $20,000 in my campaign chest. they say, no problem, we will give you $20,000. nora? >> that is a much more difficult

question. >> i will introduce the bill if you give me $20,000. >> he did, but the conversation was not this before that, with a campaign contribution. it was more of, this is what it will take for me to have the funds in the campaign to introduce the bill. it is a different conversation, and i think it is a much harder case. >> doesn't make any difference if this was presented to the local authorities and a decline that? -- and they declined it? and then it was brought to you as u.s. attorney? >> it may. i would have to understand why they declined it. >> for the same reason everybody declines it. i don't know. [laughter] >> at the end of the dead, if you said, i don't know, that is

not saying i can prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt that is rule one. if the law is not clear, and i think in the campaign contribution area that it is, no, you should not bring it. >> just on that point, you bring up reasonable doubt proof, there is no fact dispute here. at the facts are all on disputed. it is a matter of ambiguity of law, which is a different question, which is whether u.s. attorney should be making legal policy of questions that apply to the first amendment and political participation. it is not, can we win this case, we know we should if we can prove everything. it is, should we win this case. >> and when i say beyond a reasonable doubt, if the laws is not clear, as we are agreeing

ist it is, i don't think it a criminal prosecution is the way to go with it. >> it seems to me what this hypothetical is getting at is not just the question of who is it that should prosecute and regulate corruption, but getting back to the title of the first panel, what is corruption and whether or not the scenario you describe it counts as corruption or not. i would hate to leave the audience with the perception that once we are talking about money not going directly into the pocket of the politician but money going in directly to the politicians through campaign contributions that somehow the first amendment cloaks that politician with the immunity from scrutiny of prosecution for possible corruption. given that politicians can use campaign funds in ways that can benefit themselves, their family members, their best friends, whomever, i don't think it is

appropriate and i doubt that the law supports the idea that nearly -- merely funneling money as campaign, to patients means it cannot scrutinize whether or not the transaction is corrupt or not. >> i guess we're starting to get to the place where i can say i work, which is not. -- which is not criminal prosecution but regulation. of the't take heroes out quiver. this may be a close call for federal prosecutors and local prosecutors, but it is an area that can be regulated under campaign finance laws or the legislative ethics rules. there is another arena that can be opened up and looked at. it can run concurrently. on have to wait for prosecutors to to this.

from the self policing side or the regulatory side. that is an important variable that often gets overlooked. >> let's talk about that. there are more ways than just prosecution, investigation and prosecution and incarceration, to deal with corruption issues. who should decide how to deal with reducing corruption? should it be the department of investigation, ethics boards, integrity boards, the mayor? should it be a legislator, city council, the prosecutor who acts as a problem solver? >> in the first instance, it is always the voters. the number-one thing that gets you out of office in terms of corruption investigations is the voters. they get rid of you. that also leads to the point that at all to be the law that drives the discussion.

you ought to sit there and say, you have to define what corruption is. you have to talk about what it is and what you regulate. then you start driving into, or be put that discretion and who makes the decision. i happen to believe from the congressional ethics standpoint, and i know that i am taking this way outside of west virginia, but the constitution puts that in the hands of each chamber of congress. notwithstanding federalist no. 10, it cannot be judge and jury at the same time. the framers thought about the fact that it itself police. i am a deep believer that you can, and i think that you can manage through the political system because ultimately these are political judgments. >> well, somebody has to come up with these rules, though. we have 50 states.

we have many municipalities, who have different rules. who decides on things like disclosure? disclosure of assets if your public official? does that make sense? should we do it? who should decide whether or not we do it? rose? >> yeah, i think we should do it. there are laws in the city that govern disclosure. they are part of the process. there codified and unforced. it -- and enforced. i think they should be related to disclosure of assets and public issues. >> there are laws, but why should they exist? >> in order to prove whether or not a public official maybe perhaps laboring under some kind of conflict in carrying out his or her duties. >> the rules say, for example,

you have to list all stock ownership as of december 31. if you sold your stock on december 30 and bought it on january 1, you would now have to list anything and would be in compliance. or if he did not want to be cute and you were just selling stock and buying stock in had a conflict in march, april, june, july, sold it, nobody would ever see it. what is the point of having these disclosure statements? >> for me, the point is to make sure that parties are not laboring under a conflict. that do-si-doed that talked about in terms of moving assets around so that on the date the filing is due you don't have a particular asset may be something that somebody would look at. it really is not within the spirit of the document itself and the requirement itself. >> it always struck me if i was

looking to bribe a public official, i would go through the financial disclosure statements and try to find somebody who did not have much money, had very few stocks, had debt, and then i would have my private individual to bribe. isn't that an opening? >> that is a good point. >> thank you. that is why you are on the panel. >> i am glad i am serving my purpose. this question of what purpose is served by public disclosure, government officials, is a little unclear. one possibility that disclosure is able to aid it in conflict of interest statutes. but that was the case, disclosure would be tied closely with the conflict standard. it turns out in many cases they are not. members of congress in general are not subject to the same kind

of financial standards that executive-branch officials are, but nevertheless are required to disclose every year but their financial interests are. it maybe that is not for implementing financial standards but for informing the public, so the public when they decide whether to re-elect a member of congress, knows what the interest of that member, with the interests are and can consent to those conflicts, even if they're not legally cognizant. i think this purpose being served by financial disclosure, whether confidential disclosure or public disclosure, is key. it is under-the theorized. >> disclosure can also be used by incumbents to retaliate against donors who give money to challengers. disclosure can be used in all sorts of abuse of ways.

i am and land-use regulation, and disclosure, as applied to the zoning boards and small towns, can guarantee that you'll never get a real-estate professional on those boards because the developer will disclose their options in land because it automatically means every other person in the area will hold out against them when they tried to assemble a large parcel. disclosure has serious costs, including encouraging corruption. i would not say they go through to find out who to bribe, but it deters contributions to challengers. i think that is fairly well documented. it is something you have to worry about. that leads to the point, something i care passionately about, it hard to tell, is these questions about defining corruption, proper disclosure should never be given to u.s. attorneys.

they're not skilled in answering these questions, that on have the right political incentives, and even have political incentives to answer them in ways that are too aggressive. it seems to me in the first instance is should be by congress, which means more clear statutes and more detailed, and in the second instance by state and local legislative bodies. but having u.s. attorney's make the common law disclosure and pressing the envelope rather than focusing their attention on bread and butter corruption, quid pro quo bribery that does not involve political but merely personal favors, strikes me as a bad idea. >> let me talk a little bit from the federal disclosure -- from the federal perspective about disclosure. often we forget that many times people are elected by their constituents not in spite of but because of their conflicts. they represent their districts

and their people, and it is our job through disclosure to identify the interests, to identify the potential conflicts. what the voters do with that in the disclosure sense is up to them. i am not a huge fan of prosecuting or regulating to strongly for legislators conflicts of interests. i am in favor of disclosure and i will say that prosecutors have a huge role when it comes to prosecuting the failure to disclose where it is a willful. the move from there to personal interest, and that is the distinction. when you move beyond a simple conflict -- when you are regulating in farm legislation that affects everybody, that is different from when you are regulating -- when you are regulating environmental legislation that affects everybody, that is different from something that will benefit you yourself. the next that is to identify it and then you look at, was there

a personal interest at stake, and that is where as a regulator, and i think prosecutors as well at some level, you begin to take action. >> when you look at what you should regulate, and i am asking all of you in your official capacity as either academics, prosecutors, people whose job it is to deter as well as investigate corruption, and you think about the kinds of rules that you want to institute, how much do you think about the cost of corruption, if at all? that is to say there is a dollar cost with enforcing the rules, but there are other costs as well. i take that some people who thought that financial disclosure was an invasion of privacy may not want to fill it out and may not choose to go into government service, even though there would be fabulous government servants. i take it that there are people who are not risk takers in government anymore because they

don't want to make decisions that might violate a particular role. a rulebook slowdown it works because people follow rules, nothing gets done. it is the equivalent of a strike. there are conflicts of interests that would stop government from getting the best material because it is technically a conflict. the brooklyn bridge steel had to be three times as thick because the person who built the brooklyn bridge owned the biggest steel company, the best steel company, and tammany hall insisted he not use that steel, and that occurred over and over again. you take the lowest responsible bidder for corruption control, which means that government always gets the envelope that does not stick and the computers that are outdated. do we take this into account when we construct rules?

>> i think it is absolutely essential to take cost into account, including the cost of personal privacy or harassment, the hassle cost. and just to provide some facts in context, right now about 300,000 government employees have to fill out financial conflict -- confidential conflict of interest forms every year. for many of them, it is an enormous hassle, more difficult than doing taxes every year, and it is difficult to get anybody in government to do anything to attend to whether or not this is the right approach because to suggest it might not be the right approach, that it might be more hassle than it is worth it suggests that you and not in favor of strict ethics. you sort of risk not being tough on corruption but perry bridget kerr project you risk not being

tough on corruption. but if there is a way to tie them to the values they're actually trying to express, you would be doing the calculation of whether the cost is worth it or not. >> rose? >> in the city, and i will continue to pull this to the city level as that is okay, the disclosed items are tied to the set of conflict laws that we have. is not just a gratuitous set of questions. no, people don't like to fill them out and it is a hassle, depending on who you war, but it is purposeful. i think it is person fall. -- i think it is purposeful. it is a direct set of questions and they are tied with conflict laws, which are rigorously enforced in the city through the conflict of interest board

conducting those investigations. i think it is a requirement in the city that has a basis, and people understand that however much they may not enjoy participating, and staff does not enjoy it either because it covers the household, i have to say i think the process that we have that the city level works pretty well, and the disclosure forms are actually incredibly useful and are used by us and others. i think it is a good transparency measure. >> in the last response on that question? >> i think what rose said highlights the importance. some national officials have incentive to balance cost and control. u.s. attorneys generally don't. the conflict of interest board has extreme policy.

when i taught land use, i was surprised to learn that if you don't have a liquor license, you cannot sit on the community board. i was shocked. that has a big cost to them, but actually have a sense of the cost. u.s. attorneys very rarely, because they don't have a lipitor connection and didn't have to manage anything but crime -- because they did not have a connection with the electorate, they have to manage crime. i think the person who should decide is the state and local structure. >> ok, we have time for probably two questions. susan? this is the susan rose ackerman.

>> i was thinking that he was a little too optimistic about how the state and local governments are going to solve the problems themselves. you can certainly imagine a situation that is bad equilibrium. they're all kinds of models like that and corruption. it is true, the citizens don't like corruption, but all across the political spectrum there is a lot of corruption. of course people are not voting to correct guys out of office because that is the only guys that are offered. you have examples of this happening, of other people not wanting to run, or situations in which parts of government basically captured by certain powerful interests and competitive political process is not functioning. there is a question, then, of

how we think of these federalism items in that context. >> i would have main justice make an assessment of the political competitiveness and capacity of the jurisdictions, and only differ in those cases. i know this will sound like chambliss sucking up, but new york city has great capacity. that's great on district attorneys. york city would get an "a." they should only be there for backup. when they get word from a justice that new york city has lapsed, they check back in. >> we have time for one more. >> i'm a professor of law.

it seems to me with all of these bright minds suggesting that the fed should trump state and local government, why not come up with a model of legislation that all of the local governments can use so we will not have systemic failure by having variances with what is corrupt? thank you. >> i guess i want to draw your attention to the worked that an ngo in d.c. is pursuing right now, i think it is the center for responsive politics, but it is an organization that is connected with global integrity, what they're looking at not just corruption perception index, but looking across all of capacity of at the

the states for accountability. it is an accountability index. i want to emphasize, it is seen not only on criminal prosecution of corruption but looking instead at disclosure obligations, the existence of the vibrancy of specific societies through these measures. it is starting and will continue through the next year-and-a-half or so, it could provide a model, not uniformity across the state, but finding best practices. in fact, new york city, the conflict of interest board, the local accountability mechanisms here are not a stunningly strong, but that is not the case across the country. not every area has the capacity that new york has, but again, i would focus not just on

corruption prosecution but other attempts to prevent corruption. >> ok, thank you very much. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> tonight, it is "afterwards." at 9:00, former defense secretary donald rumsfeld talks about his memoir. after that, pakistan's role in the global jihad movement in his book "deadly embrace." >> this weekend, on "american history tv," catherine mayor on medical science during the civil war and the advancements made by the north and south. bob dole looks back at his

political career during the nixon administration, and an examination of the disputed presidential election of 1876 between rutherford b. hayes and samuel j. tilden. but the complete we can schedule at c-span.org/history. it also have the schedule email ed to you. >> saturday, >> screaming at c-span not work. >> and the white house today released president obama's birth certificate saying that he was born to an american mother. shortly after that, the president came to the white house press room -- the briefing

room to speak to reporters for just under 10 minutes. >> i was back there listening to check saying it is amazing he will not be talking about national security. [laughter] [laughter] >> as many of you have been briefed, we provided additional information today about the sight of my birth. now this issue has been going on for two and a half years now. it started during the campaign. i have to say that over the last

two and a half years, i have watched with amusement. i have been puzzled as to the degree to which this thing kept on going. we have every official in hawaii, a democrat and republican, every news outlet that has investigated this, confirmed that yes indeed i've was born in hawaii, august 4, 1961. we posted the certification that is given by the state of hawaii on the internet for everybody to see. people have provided affidavits that they have seen this birth certificate, and get this thing keeps on going. now, normally i would not comment on something like this because obviously there is a lot of stuff swirling in the press at any given day.

i have other things to do. two weeks ago when the republican house had put forward a budget that will have huge consequences potentially to the country, when i gave a speech about my budget and how i felt we needed to invest in education, infrastructure, making sure we have a strong safety net for our seniors even as we were closing the deficit -- during that entire week to the dominant news story was not about these huge monumental choices we are going to have to make as a nation. it was about my birth certificate. and so i just want to make a larger point here. we have got some enormous challenges out there.

there are a lot of folks out there, everybody is still suffering from high gas prices. we are going to have to make a series of very difficult decisions about how we invest in our future but also get a hold of our deficit and our debt. how do we do that in a balanced way? this is going to generate huge and serious debates. important debates. there is going to be sincere said disagreements. that is good. that is how democracy is supposed to work. i am confident that the american people and america opposing political leaders can come together in a bipartisan way and saw these matters. we always have. but we are not going to be able to do it if we are distracted. we are not going to be able to do with if we spend that time vilifying each other.

we are not going to be able to do with if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not fax. we are not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnivals. we live in serious times are now, and we have to deal with things that will make our grandkids proud. i have every confidence that america in the 21st century is going to be able to come out on top i always have. we are going to have to get serious to do it. i know that there is going to be a segment of people for no which what we put out, this issue will not be put to rest. but i am speaking to the vast

majority of the american people as well as to the press. we do not have time for this kind of silliness. we have better stuff to do. i have better stuff to do. we have big problems to solve, and i am confident we can solve them but we have to focus on them. not on this. thank you very much. >> and about the same time as the president's remarks, potential presidential candidates donald trump held his own news conference in new hampshire. he commented on the release. this is half an hour. >> something that no one else has been able to accomplish. i was just informed while on the helicopter that our president has finally released a birth certificate. i want to look at it, but i hope it's true. that way we can get on too much more important matters.

so the press can stop asking me questions. he should have done a long lead time ago. why he did not do it when the clintons asked for it, and why he did not do it when everybody else was asking for it, i do not know. but i am really honored, frankly, to have played such a big role in hopefully -- hopefully getting rid of this issue. we have to look at it. we have to see if it is real. is it proper? what is on that. i hope it checks out beautifully. i am really proud, i am really honor. now we can talk about oil. we can talk about gasoline prices. we can talk about china ripping off this country. we can talk about opec doing numbers on us like nobody has ever done before. we can get on to issues and hopefully when i sit down with interviews, people do not start talking about birth certificates

like they have been doing. so i feel i have accomplished something really, really important. i am honored by it. >> a lot of people said what you cost is a distraction? >> i in taking great credit. you have to ask the president why did you not do this a long time ago? when hillary clinton was asking, when everybody was asking, why did he not do with? it is shocking. shocking. >> why is that relevant? >> it is very relevant. people ask me for my gut certificate -- people ask me for my birth certificate and i david two days later. >> before that you said you would not believe what my a ground team is seeing the people --. people need to got the information you were giving? were you making this up? where did this come from?

>> i think what you are going to see -- first we have to look at the certificate. but i am really happy this is finally taking place. we have some issues that are unbelievably important. >> you did not answer my question. >> i think you did. >> what do you mean you have to look at it, you have to decide. what did you the authority? >> i am going to take a look at it and many other people will take a look at it. we will have many people looking at it and we will have to make the decision. it is rather amazing that all of a sudden it materializes. i hope it is the right deal. we have to look at it. a lot of people have to look at it. experts will look at it. i am really happy, and honestly i am very proud that i was able to bring this to a point. nobody else was. the clintons during their campaign word. all of the other people that talk about it. for years they were not. i am really honored by this.

next question. >> if it is not true for example, is that what you're saying? >> what does hope it is true. i do not want to answer that question because it is negative. honestly it is so negative. at this point i do not want to answer the question because you are asking a negev's question. if it is not true, if it is not really his birth certificate. i hope it is true -- i hope it is not true. we have very big problems in this country. this country is suffering right now. we have people that cannot keep gasoline in their tank. they are topping out the tanks because they cannot afford to do it properly. they have never had this before. the look at resorts around the country, they are not doing any business because people do not drive. and then you look at saudi arabia and what they did, it is unbelievable. three days ago they announced essentially that they are going to raise the price of oil by cutting back on production. we have nobody to speak to these

people. we have nobody that calls for talks and says you are not going to do it, we are protecting you. he would not be there if not for us. we have nobody. mr. they are president said he has very little impact over the price of gasoline. i think he is 100% wrong. opec is setting the price of fuel. we have oil all over the place, all over the place, every ship at sea is loaded up with oil and they do not know where to dump it. yet every day we are setting records and pretty soon we will be at to 1 $50 a barrel. the all-time record. when the president says he has no power over that, it is pretty sad. >> is it possible that the country is being led and not by an illegitimate president, is that possible? "i hope it is not possible. i hope we have accomplished a lot of what i have been doing the past couple of months. i hope we can talk about china

and opec taking our jobs. i hope we could start doing that. what i would do differently is come down really hard on opec. if you look at these nations, they would not even be there if not for us. the ticket look at kuwait, we handed kuwait back to the people. they essentially on kuwait. it is really ownership more than anything else. you look at these nations, saudi arabia, we protect them. then they want to raise the price of fuel, it is not high enough? so it would be very easy and it very quick to get gasoline prices down. gasoline prices are $4, $5 that are going to $6.70 dollars as sure as you are standing there. >> in terms of credibility, you were running as a democrat in

1988. what makes you -- >> let me just sort of tell you. this sort of interesting because new hampshire is a special place. i came up in 1988 or 1989, long time ago, as a favor to a friend of mine. i made a speech. but it is a place i have always liked. i have been there many times, new hampshire. in making the speech, everybody thought i was running for president. as you know, i was not running for president. i never said i was running for president. i made a speech on success for a friend of mine around 1988. the buzz was unbelievable because it happen to be new hampshire. it was sometimes prior to primary season. anyway, new hampshire should sort of got me started. i did come up in 1988, i made a speech, it was a speech on success more than politics. in fact, i do not know if politics may role in the speech. it was great. it really got me started.

it really did. but i did the speech actually for a friend. i did not do it because i was running. >> what did people think you were a republican? >> i am a republican. i am a very strong republican and i have been a republican for a long while i think i am quite work conservative as a republican. if you look at the polls, i just thought two more polls today were i in leading the polls. i think the fact that i was able to finally get him and issue a birth certificate can only help. i will say this, one other thing. one of the big posters who came out with a very strong poll were i am leading yesterday said that if you actually announced your poll numbers would go substantially up. a lot of people think i am having a good time. i am not having a good time. >> you are an intelligent question. are you intelligent? have you been listening? i just do not know. are you intelligent? here is the problem.

i hate saying it because it sounds trivial. i have a very, very successful show on television. the number one show on nbc. a show that even the new york times yesterday said is a very successful show. i have a show called "celebrity apprentice." i cannot announce to the show is over. i cannot do it. when the show is over -- let me explain. when the show is over and the finale will be may 22, when the show is over i will then be free to announce. i think he will be surprised at a number of things. i think you will be surprised at what my announcement is. >> you also raised these questions about his education credentials. are you prepared to say that all these issues are to be put to the side and you accept that mr. obama says he is who he is or you think there are legitimate issues flooded u.s. me questions

that nobody gets angry. the press does not get angry. the press is very protective of president obama. very protective. they are not protective of me, but they are protective of president obama. they are not protective of most other people either in most fairness. the word is according to what i have read that he was a terrible student when he went to occidental. he then gets to columbia. he then gets to columbia. i heard at columbia he was not a very good student. heating is to harvard. how'd you get to harvard if you are not a good student? maybe that is right or maybe it is wrong, but i do not know why he does not release his record. what is he not release his records? i will tell you why who cares. everybody says he is a great student. if he was great, if he was not a great. >> what you continue to -- >> @ i think academics -- alltel

you what. education has meant a lot to me. i think education is good. if he wants to release the, that is fine. if he does not, that is fine too. but the word is -- i think he would want to release actually. the word is he was not a good student and he ended up getting into columbia and harvard. i've latino -- this is what i read a written by some of the people in this room. i've latino how he gets into harvard and columbia if he is -- i would like to know how he gets into harvard and columbia if he is not a good student. i am just reporting what i read. i read things that you people like. what people say about me. i have the ultimate in the window. i will promise you one thing, nobody will protect me like they protect our president. just then finishing, i am really honored and i am really proud

that i was able to do something that nobody else could do. i am really happy about it. now experts will check it and everybody will go over it. i hope everything will be perfect. if you remember, from day one, i said i hoped he'd give his certificate because i do not want this issue clouding a campaign. ok. >> that is not up to me, that is up to experts. >> i have had a lot of friends are democrats and a lot of friends that are republicans. over the years, as you know, new york is a largely democratic place. it is very rare that you see nyc as an example for a republican to get elected. the numbers are staggering were a democrat will get 94% of the votes, that is if the republican

is doing a good job. it is a very interesting fact that it happens to be almost all democratic. over the years i have supported many republicans and democrats, i think there is something nice about that. when i watch washington and see washington, and i see the way the fight like cats and dogs and i liked nobody has ever fought before, people that have been in the senate who are friends of mine that have been friends of mine for a long time, they say they have never seen hatred -- the use to argue and then go out to dinner together, the democrats and republicans, they would get things done. and now we are at a stalemate. i think it would be great if somebody got in there that could get along with both sides. i know many people that are on the democratic side. in some cases they are friends and i get a lot with them great. i think it is time for people to sit down and get together and get this mess that we are in right now solved. i view that as it asset not a

liability. >> [unintelligible] >> might use change, and i do a lot of speaking about success. the world changes. the world will always change. you cannot just have an idea and then this idea let go through a wall. sometimes you have to be able to go under the wall, over the wall. i always said, have a goal, work hard, but you have to have a certain flexibility. if you look at virtually every candidate that runs for office or currently running for office, they have had used that are much different 10 years ago than they have now. my views changed, and virtually all of the candidates use change. i do not think that is an uncommon thing. >> are you plan with us or are we plan with you? >> i think your plan with me. i accept that.

>> are you going to play with us a little more willing and would you make your announcement? >> i think you are going to be very surprised. >> and coulter said last night you were not running for president. she compared the to charlie sheen. >> and coulter? a, you will have to see. we have three weeks. not a big deal. in three weeks you will see. i think you will be very surprised. i think if i do wrong, i will do very well. i am already leading the polls and i am not running. am i leading the polls? thank you. >> [unintelligible] >> cnn did a poll recently where obama and i are statistically tied. if you would like i can send it to you, to call up cnn. i think i would be obama. if i look at the so-called -- economy and how bad it has been.

it has done so poorly, i think largely it will be about that. if you look at what he has done and libya which is a total disaster. nobody knows what is going on in libya. you look at gas prices were he says he has no control over gas prices, which he does if he gets off the phone or the basketball court or what ever he is doing at the time. he should be focused on opec and getting the prices down. that is what he should be focused on. i am going to handle libya much differently. i have said it many times, the rebels i hear are controlled by iran and al qaeda. "they make it "gone with the wind", isn't it romantic. you could end up with worse than gaddafi. i have a great problem with our military people losing their lives and libya and we do not

know what we are getting into. i have always said i go for libya, but i want the world. nowadays when you when they were, you lose lives, you spend billions of dollars, and then we come out and we go back home. we have all of our wanted to take care of. we have all of the dead soldiers and a dead military, and what do we get? nothing. this is interesting, libya, because the arab league which a saudi arabia and many of the wealthiest nations in the world told us to go in and take out gaddafi. if they would have said that to me, i would have said five billions dollars right now. just for the question they would have given you all of that money rock and paid in two seconds. the other question i ask is this, we did know well from libya. we did know well. china which is taking over the world economically because they are smart, meaning their leaders are much smarter, china taking over the world it's a big

portion of its oil from libya. they are libya's biggest customers. why is time and not involved? where are be involved with libya and china is not involved. the imf came out two days ago. they said by 2016, china is bigger than we are. the you know why? because they are making our products. if they were not making our products, they would not be bigger. china is taking unfair advantage of the united states and other countries by a total manipulation of the currency. if they continue to manipulate their currency -- if i am an office and i decide to run and win, within one day they are going to be told, you keep manipulating your currency, we are going to tax to 25%. that will do two things. first of all they will stop manipulating at the mere thought

of it. when the president of china comes to the united states, we hold a state dinner for him in the white house. here is a guy that has been scoring our country for years. there are going to make $300 billion profit this year, 300 billion more than that, and we hold a state dinner. the reason is because they manipulate their currency brilliantly. i have no anchor at china. if you can get away with it, if i was from china i would be proud of my leaders. i am from this country, i am proud of this country, but not by leaders. they are allowing the world to take advantage of us. they are allowing the world to rip us off like never before. by the way, would you talk about budget deficits, how can our economy ever get good? how can our economy ever be strong, however, when we have other countries making our

products? it cannot happen. i watched ben bernanke not long ago say unemployment is going to be bad for a long time. do you know why? because india is taken so many jobs there outsourcing. china is making our products so we do not have -- i look at places like iowa where maytag moved out and they moved into mexico. if you put a tax on chinese products unless they change their way, you are going to start bringing back to this country and bring them back fast. were, and i think this is more likely, it would change its policies so we can now compete. it is real easy. remember this, we have all the cards. they do not. if we pull back on china, in 2016 they will not be bigger than us. they will be bigger than us because they make our products.

they make products for others, but they make products for us, big league hit. if we ever pulled back on that, china is not bigger than us. china has a big problem. just remember what i said, we have all the cards. they do not have the cards. they have one trillion dollars in debt. it is a lot of money, but it is peanuts compared to the overall big ball of the world. we have all of the cards. the reason a lot less money is because they taken so much money from lots. it takes some mothers, but mostly from us. remember the numbers. over $300 billion this year and they are taking our jobs, very sad. the president could solve that so easily. instead of having steak dinners, he could solve that so easily. >> what do you hope to learn here today from the people of new hampshire? >> i was very honored because i just saw paul and -- a poll in

new debt -- new hampshire and i am doing very well. you have to understand, i am running against some people that i like. it is always hard to run against people you like. the fact is, when you live in new hampshire and you are a few points up on top, that is not saying much. you have been campaigning for six years and have not campaigned at all, because i really have not, i have not announced. that is a really bad statement when you are almost even in a poll and here i empyrean -- here i am. >> what kind of news are you looking for? what will help you -- >> there is one example that i saw the other day. there is one example i saw the other day that is amazing.

$276 billion prison built in new hampshire. the latest and the greatest and the town is devastated because the federal government does not have the money to open it. very pathetic. it is very unfair to new hampshire. it is very unfair to that part of new hampshire. but they spent $276 billion to build a prison and the town is all for it. they have great employment prospects, and the federal government now does not have the money to open the prison. i am going to see some of that, and i know will see different things. one more question? >> [unintelligible] >> i do not know what my campaign in new hampshire will look like. i would just tell it like it is. i know how to make money. i have always known how to make money. this country is