at 9:15 a.m., we talk about the battleground in the election and preparations for the upcoming democratic national convention in september. "washington journal" is next. >> getting 70% of the vote, gary johnson accepting the libertarian party presidential nomination. welcome to "washington journal"

for this sunday may 6. congressional republicans are expected to take up 82 is $60 billion budget cutback bill. hillary clinton is in india today urging the country to become less dependent on foreign oil and the president is back on the campaign trail. he will be in albany talking about the economy on tuesday and on the west coast later this week. we want to focus and gary johnson and his impact on the 2012 presidential race and the role of third parties in american politics. our phone lines are open -- we put independence on the top. you can join us on our facebook page and send us a tweet or send us an e-mail. front page of "the washington post" --

carey johnson ran a republican and and opted out into the libertarian party. he served two terms as the new mexico governor. he is accepting the libertarian presidential nomination and live coverage yesterday on c-span. [video clip] >> most americans are fiscally responsible and socially tolerant. i fall in that group. i think this is a broad brush strokes of the libertarian party. a broad brush stroke of the

libertarian party is government needs to exist to protect us against fraud. government needs to exist to protect us against individuals, groups, corporations, countries that would do less harm. imagine a libertarian president challenging congress to bring about marriage equality. [applause] imagine a libertarian president challenging congress to reduce impediments to free markets. free markets means no tariffs. [applause] imagine a libertarian candidate for president challenging congress to repeal the patriot act, abolish the department of homeland security. [applause] imagine a libertarian presidential challenging congress for meaningful immigration reform.

[applause] the libertarian candidate for president will be the only candidate talking about gun rights and gay rights in the same sentence. host: gary johnson, his speech and our coverage of the libertarian party nomination process is on our website any time at c-span.org. as we look back at past rows of third partisan politics, garnering anything, zero to a handful of electoral votes but knows notably in 1968 and more recently ross perot, 1992, getting about 19% of the vote but getting zero electoral votes. kevin is on the farm from winter park, fla., republican line. and caller: good morning.

thank you for all you do on c- span. i totally agree with three parties, for parties, five parties. i believe that is the dynamic in american politics. we can voice their personal opinions and we can gather together and rally around and move on from there. i truly believe what you say about ross perot. i listened quite attentively to him and i listened to president obama boss speech at the virginia commonwealth university yesterday. there is plenty of room for rhetoric for all the united states of america. host: next is michael from oklahoma city, democrats line, good morning. caller: good morning, i watched some of the c-span coverage

yesterday of the libertarian party convention. what i really pulled away from that is the fact that ron paul and i believe some of the tea partiers should join the libertarian party because that is where they belong. with a lot of their platform as well as i don't agree with a lot of the republican platforms. i-map hard-core democrat. host: abc news/washington post, asking the question -- does the country need a new party? nearly half said yes.

that is our question this morning and alan is on the phone from pennsylvania, a republican. volume down your television set and we will hear you better. caller: ok - host: we keep getting an echo. when you found in, turn the volume down. robert s. schlesinger wrote about the third party -- his pieces available online at u.s. news.com -

next up is gladys from washington, d.c., good morning. caller: as a growing number of the population who either are democrats or republicans become more disenfranchised with their parties respectively, due to questions about gay people and their whole thing -- they have this movement going on with their rights and then the economy, the environmentalists -- there are different things and people are becoming disgruntled with either of the two mainstream parties. i think it is inevitable that there will be a third-party campaign. once they have instituted themselves, they will remain.

because of the fact -- it is politics but it is politicized to the point where it is not affording us domestically and abroad the highest quality of enjoyment of life here. we say one nation under god which brings about a moral stance. when you have a president who lied to create a blood bath, an ongoing war for how long in iraq and those things, they affect us at home. the families are at home without a soldier who went off to fight the battle. that was immoral. host: thanks for the call. the comment from "the daily times" -

we're talking about third-party politics. the constitution party has also selected its nominee. this is a recent web video posted on the constitution party website. [video clip] >> how much is your liberty worth? how much are you willing to pay to take back your country? how much are you willing to pay to take back your freedom? how much are you willing to pay to get the government off your back? criminals are in washington. would it be worth $10? if you could get those guys out of washington, would you pay $20? if you let them stay in there, you'll pay more than $20. if you think you'll get social security when you retire, it will not be there. they stole it.

they are borrowing and spending more money. they're putting a tax on your children and grandchildren and insuring your children and grandchildren are enslaved to the federal government. somebody is going to pay. we will not get social security and your kids will be enslaved to the government. how much are you willing to pay to stop that? host: from the constitution party. from "the new republic"--

a look at americans elect. we are focusing on the role of third-party american politics and you could join the conversation on our twitter page -- laura is on the beach from florida, democrats line, good morning. caller: i have a comment about third parties in politics. it really should be people who belong to a third party. forget the politics. i am so sick and tired of people being eliminated from everything. i was glad to see that the libertarian candidate was chosen.

at the conference, they mentioned people. they said take this personally. i watched the barack obama speech and not one thing human was mentioned. it was economics and let's move this country forward, whatever that means. there is no people at all. same with the republicans. economics, economics, economics and the budget but people have been allowed in washington for a long time. they are subsidizing other government programs. we may not be paying our share in taxes but the cuts are the same. host: we will go to jim in newberry, south carolina. caller: good morning so early in the morning. i have one comment i would like to i am familiar with the libertarian party.

i would like to say that to support the libertarian party at this time would simply siphon votes away from the republicans. it would not do anything for obama or against obama because a libertarian party is the opposite of obama's philosophy. host: thanks for the call. we will add more from the president's trip yesterday in ohio and virginia but this is from "washington post." this is also available on the rnc web site. and david is on the fund from

illinois. caller: i agree with the last caller. we cannot let barack obama be elected again. for the state of illinois, we have to change your voting tactics. illinois does not allow any third party on the ballot. the only thing republicans and democrats agree on is never letting a third party be on the ballot, thank you for cspan. host: let me go back to the question in "the new republic." there's a photograph of michael bloomberg who was a potential third-party candidate. last friday, the former u.s. comptroller david walker was talked about as a potential third-party candidate possibly

for america allege. here's a portion from our conversation friday. >> ross perot ran on fiscal responsibility and public -- and political does functionality. we are demonstrably worse off by a large amount those areas. 20 years ago, 20% of americans or political independence and now it is 42%. there is a lot of dissatisfaction. there's a lot of disgust with the state of play today. you can get name recall, that just takes money. it would not be worth anybody thinking about it unless you believe you could qualify for the presidential debates. that only takes 15% public support in five public opinion polls and being eligible to achieve at least 270 electoral.

i think it is very feasible for a credible ticket campaigning on the right issues matter who it is to be able to qualify for the presidential debates. host: david walker joined as friday on [video clip] "washington journal." we are asking you about the influence of third-party candidates. the former governor of new mexico, gary walker, accepted the libertarian on evasion. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ nomination. from a viewer in seattle --

that's from an e-mail. you could join is also on our twitter page. mitch is on the phone from dallas, good morning, democrats line. caller: thank you for cspan. it is my personal opinion that most of the republican party has been hijacked by the tea party. what worries me is that americans having a third party will take votes away from the president which will allow the tea party to take over the country which would be my worst nightmare. elliott ackerman of americans elect with chris matthews and

said he worried about what ralph nader did in the last election. talk aboutid let's it. so far, he has never gone back on the show to keep his word to talk about it. i would like to politely ask if elliott ackerman or some later of americans alike would go back on the air or any show to discuss the spoiler issue. it is my opinion that those who might not be happy with the president or who might not vote republican may vote for americans elect as a spoiler which may give the election to what i would call the tea party and allow the tea party to take over the country which, in my opinion, would privatize health

care, give tax cuts to the rich, thet the pour in country would change for the host:: i can't tell you that elliott ackerman and others from the americans elect are always welcome on this program. we cover the libertarian convention over the weekend and it will be hard to find the story inside many newspapers but it is on our website. we will cover other third party events as they developed during the campaign season as we have since this network began. let's go to the story of the president as he traveled to ohio and virginia. the president has been in campaign mode for months but he made it official yesterday. he was at two events that

illustrate old strengths and significant new harper -- hurdles for the incumbent. the president directly attacked his opponent naming mitt romney and praising him as a patriotic american by ridiculing his claim that corporations are people, a legal truism that has proven to be a favorite democratic attack line and then there was this at the conclusion of the president's speech from richmond, virginia. [video clip] >> if people ask you what this campaign is about, you tell them it is still about hope. [applause] you tell them is still about change. [applause] you tell them it is still about ordinary people who believe in the great odds that we can make a difference in the life of this country. you tell them -- [applause]

because i still believe, va., i still believe we are not as divided as our politics suggest. i still believe we still have more in common than the pundits tell us. we're not democrats or republicans first but we are americans first and foremost. host: the president in campaign mode yesterday in virginia. going back to the gop website -- there is this from "politico" --

the question 40 this morning is the role of third-party american politics and this is from our twitter page -- fallen fromthe fun mississippi. caller: thanks for having made. republican.r-old i voted for george w. bush twice. i started out more in the neo conservative wing but since the days of bush and now that obama is in office, i began to wake up. to all my gop friends, our party is in danger. i don't think anybody is really enthusiastic about mitt romney. these ron paul people which i am

not 100% in agreement with but i think we need this guy to win. they are grabbing the delegate slots and taking over these caucus states. at the conventions. they may have was there. we may need to start listening to them or i believe ron paul could go third party and hurt us. look at what happened with kerry and nader in '04. we may have to swallow our pride and listen to these ron paul fobbs. ul folks. a lot of you are weighing in on twitter - democrats line from st.

petersburg, florida, good morning. caller: good morning, i would like to remind people -- we don't have coherent platforms there really give you much difference between the two parties. there is an honorable history in america of the populous state -- back in the late 19th century and the progressives under teddy roosevelt when the two major parties, there was not a dime's bit of difference between them. they get millions of votes and pushed the two parties to enact the women's right to vote, popular election of senators, eight-hour work day -- those things would not have come about except for the influence of third parties. host: thanks for the call.

this is from inside "the washington post"-- robert caro is the subject of "q &a" this week and next week. [video clip] >> these 47 weeks is a.

unlike any other in lyndon johnson's life. he has all these forces within him. it is like he rises to something else and i don't think it is really heart but their hints of it like what he does to stop the texas journalist from looking into his fortune. it is a minor part of what he does. he knows he has to be the leader for continuity. a young president has just been struck down and although most of these conspiracy theories are disproved in a couple of days, that is not the headline. host:robert caro is our guest on

"q &a" this weekend and next week. from " the new york times book review" --- bill clinton reviewed robert too's book and robert caro night on c-span at 8:00. the role of third-party

politics and mike is on the phone from new york city, independent line. caller: good morning. it seems to me that the point lost in all of this is that everything is getting worse. everybody is talking about the next election. that will not change anything. i was born overseas. everybody and other countries are going into the medical field and trying to come to the united states. it is because of the money. in egypt, the doctor will make $700 a month. everybody is stealing from the government. it is almost like nigeria. the largest number of real

estate [inaudible] host: thanks for the call. a look at some of the third party activities including events we have covered. the constitution party met in nashville, tenn. last month. virgil good accepted the nomination. the libertarian party convention wrapped up this week. american select which is on line is taking place june 12. another comment from twitter -- other third party activities -- a new book that we have been featuring on book-tv.org is "

even worse than it looks." robert kaiser wrote this --

on the republican line is eric from phoenix -- caller: good morning, cspan. i'm a libertarian republican and gary johnson used to be a fantastic guy. by believe that the ron paul supporters, there is a good possibility they will turn to the libertarian party. we need to get the libertarian party on ballots. the way the republicans and democrats behaved the last 20 years, it is disgusting. we need an alternative. we will have to work to do that. we need to make a change and i am hoping that people will take a more pro-active approach to the politics and stop the monopoly of the democrats and republicans. a profile interview we did

with gary johnson as he was entering republican race last year is available on our site .or politics c-span.org virgil good is a former congressman from the central virginia area and this is how he accepted his party's nomination last month [video clip] >> as a key distinction between mitt romneyan't its and obama, his campaign fund- raising. they are clocks - hawks and they are adept at getting $10,000 out of couples for the primary and general election and really

sharp and getting big money from big pacs. besides a few leftover campaign funds from congressional races and donations from media families, no donations over $200 and no pac contributions. it is time the average citizen had the same voice in government as the orgel of auto mall hall, the head of google, the head of facebook and all those entities. let's stand up for the average citizen and not the special interests. let me and the constitution party ticket in 2012 and we will give america the change that is needed and it will not be the barack obama change of 2008. speech isil goode's

available on our website as we focus on third parties this morning. he mentioned campaign finance. this is one editorial from inside " the new york times." this is focusing on public financing. and how it has collapsed. candidate obama opted against accepting funds and the promise -- and the president has promised to fix this system but has made no motion to fix this problem.

welcome to the conversation -- caller: good morning. there has not been a good independent party sense the progressives under teddy roosevelt. if it keeps on like this, we could just as well let people in europe and southwest asia vote for whatever in the united states because that is basically what you are doing when you let people in google and people in corporations control what will be the u.s. policy. i was getting ready to go to iraq in 2008 when they had the other election. basically, i did not have much of a say. we do need to balance the independent party, we need a valid party that is separate from what is going on now. host: thanks for the call.

we'll go to eric in nashville, tennessee. caller: good morning, i appreciate the article you had a minute ago because i think the voting structure is what third parties -- the winner-take-all allocation is why people you are throwing your vote away as opposed to europe or they have proportional representation or even states that split their electors where you have to form coalitions and third party can exert a little more power on the system. we end up kind of stuck with a two-party that is really one party because they both benefit from excluding any challenge to their shared power. host: don has this point --

"the baltimore sun" has more on the president's speech in richmond, va. -- that is when the stories that seemed to be coming out about the president's launch or the week and. richard trumka is our guest on "newsmakers" after [video clip] ."ashington journal

[video clip] >> put together a permanent campaign structure. in the past, they put a campaign structure in for nine months before the election and after election day, we tore it down. this time, after election day, we will continue to build and to outreach to partners in the civil-rights community and the african-american community and the latino community and bringing people together and we will continue doing that in between elections so that we can move from electoral politics to advocacy and then from advocacy to accountability. we will be able to hold those politicians accountable, a democrat or republican theme, you plan to spend this election cycle? >> are you spending more on boots on the ground and issue- oriented campaign? >> i am fascinated with your fixation on what we will spend.

we can outspend by multiples 30- 1 but that is not the issue. when we talk to people, will continue to go after people on the ground and educate them and register them and work with our allies in the african-american and latino community to register voters and educate them and get them out to the polls on election day. we will use our super pak in a way others did not. super pak is doing a bunch of negative ads. we will not do that. we will talk to non-union workers because in the past, we could not do that. >> does that mean less money going to individual candidates? >> i think there is a couple of kind of candidates.

there are real friends, acquaintances, and enemies. enemies will not get any money but acquaintance -- acquitted as will probably get less and friends will get more help. host: richard trumka on "newsmakers" at 10:00 eastern time. here is a suite -- -- tweet -- next is carry on the telephone from sterling, virginia, republican line, good morning. caller: i am an eisenhower republican. i think it really comes down to two issues. are you pro-life or pro-family or do are you pro-choice? that means you don't support

enabling single mothers to have 15 special needs children. that is what comes down to, common sense. thank you for your time. host: our cspan bus is making its way across north carolina which is also the site of the 2012 democratic convention in charlotte. you'll find it across the state and this is outside the charlotte government center. coming up later, we will have a conversation with the mayor of charlotte about the convention and democratic party politics and why this state is such a battleground in 2012. you can follow the bus movements on line at c-span.org. cleveland, good morning to you. caller: good morning, i am thinking about this third party. what is more important than a

third party is if we get the allies out of politics. i think we constituents have become way to accepting of the lies. we should have some kind of system of outing a politician or punishing them. some of them should even go to jail. it seems the lies are creating all this confusion. if everybody would tell the truth and did something they would really do, we would be in better shape. host: from one of our viewers -- the house and senate are both back in session this week in the first order of business for congressional republicans is taking up a spending bill that would reduce about 260 billions in government spending.

there's a story outline what will happen and the sequestration process. we have a couple of stores overseas. this is from "the washington post." also from inside " the new york times" a faltering german party with an election that could have an impact on angela merkel. in europe, looking for a crisis at the polls and an election in

greece and france. for more than two years, they have imposed their will on the european debt crisis. next is lowry from rockaway, minn., good morning to you. caller: i got a couple of ideas of what i would call to diminish this crazy money and get about 90% of the voting eligible people to the polls.

every ballot on the bottom will have a line that says "none of the above." if none of the above wins, the seat stays open and the people who ran for the seat are not eligible to run again. this will take care of all of this craziness and the republicans will oppose it. host: thanks for the call. this is from our twitter page -- jim gray is still libertarian vice-presidential nominee is a judge from california. this is how he expected the nomination. >> you will never regret this. i've never been excited about something i've been involved with. the work is now beginning and we have the best candidate i can think of to lead his party

ticket and i will do my part as well. however, let me tell you our strategy -- we need everybody in this room to take this election personally. we need you to get our information, to pass it around your circle of friendsyouryour emails, what ever it is and tell them to take it personally as well and when that happens, we will start polling. we are now about 7% and then we will start calling around 15%. what happens is that governor johnson will be in the presidential debates with obama ann romney. host: he is the libertarian vice-presidential nominee and all of our coverage this weekend is on our website at c-span.org. we will turn our attention in a couple of minutes to the anniversary of the raid of osama

bin laden from last year. it included a treasure trove of documents. we will be joined by an osama bin laden unit to achieve. trey grayson has a new survey on young people in 2012. politics is what the topics this morning on the sunday morning programs. >> good morning. topics today include presidential politics on the sunday talk shows and foreign policy and the economy. beginning in noon eastern time, cspan radio re-airs the five talk shows. we begin with"meet the press." the host welcomed vice president joe biden and republican senator kelly ayotte.

after that, david axelrod is on the next program along with republican senator john mccain, the ranking member on the senate armed services committee. fox news sunday follows at 2:00 p.m. and chris wallace talks with three marco rubio. "stated the union"is at 3:00 and they will have newt gingrich and ted strickland of ohio and former virginia republican congressman tom davis. also the chairman of the senate intelligence committee, dianne feinstein and house intelligence committee chairman congressman mike rogers. "face the nation" will re-air and they will have newt gingrich and michelle bachmann and chuck schumer and howard dean, former vermont governor and former democratic national committee chairman. those re-airs began at noon.

five networks and five sunday talk shows , talk airing at noon and they are brought up as a public service and you could listen to them all on cspan radio 90.1 f m in the washington, d.c. area or listen under blackberry or go online to cspan radio.org. >> this past week, the congressional executive commission on china held an emergency hearing on the ongoing human rights abuses there and the case of the chinese activist chen who spoke by phone during the hearing. [speaking] >> i fear for my other family

members lives and we have installed several video cameras and even an electric fence. those security officers in my house basically said we want to see what else we can do. >> watch the entire hearing on line at the cspan video library plus you can click portions of the event to e-mail and post. >> "washington journal" continues -- host: we want to welcome back to the program michael scheuer. we want to talk about these documents released last week. this is how it is playing out in a couple of newspapers.

guest: they will use this as a forum to show the american justice is biased toward moslems. what we will see is episodes of silence and episodes of unfortunately probably an elegant arabic to talk to the moslem world about the problems with american justice. i think that is what we are

seeing. in many ways, it is a self- imposed problem and have insisted for 15 years that these people are not somehow prisoners of war. you get what you pay for and now we have given them a forum into the judicial system and they will take advantage of it either passably or aggressively. host: this is the trial that originally the united states had considered moving to york city and that was nixed by the mayor of new york city and chuck schumer. would that have changed anything? guest: it would have made it worse. in a federal court, it would have been a circus and there would have been muslim supporters outside and opponents outside and there would have been a destructive crowd inside. the say this thing for america would have been to declare these people prisoners of war, put them in a stockade, and let us decide when the war is over.

no trial. host: the next hearing will be in june and the trial itself is at least one year away. guest: yes, there was the possibility that one in detainee was going to commit suicide but he said would not, he said the americans would kill him first. they are trained to fight the jihad on the battlefield and the courtroom. host: khalid sheikh mohammed looks quite different today than when he was captured about six months after 9/11. guest: through his early career and 9/11, was a raconteur, a cosmopolitan guy and someone who is anything what we think of as a good moslem. he was a traveler and drinker and a womanizer. he seems to have found the straight and narrow in prison. host: our telephone lines are

open. you can join the conversation on our twitter page or send us an e-mail. let's go to these documents. these are the writings of osama bin laden found from western officials inside pakistan. he said this about the president -- guest: they were afraid of obama at first because he made the speech in cairo and made a couple of other speeches bed looked like we were changing our policy in the middle east. there were very eager to get rid of him. until a somewhat died, but backed off a little bit because

words were not followed by deeds by the american government in terms of our policy in the middle east. host: guest: it was very big. the documents are odd. there are 17 of 6000. there are only four in the package of 17 that were written by osama bin laden. when you read those documents, you come away with the idea of there is no incompatibility between the seventh century religious zealot and a 21st century ceo. they are an impressive small group of letters and consistent with his attitude since 1978. it is important we kill them. there is a steady hand at the tiller and very intelligent. he had established an order by which to be jihad should proceed. first was to attack the americans and drive them out of the middle east and then go at it -- after the arab tyrants and

israel and then go after the shia. he tried to maintain that in these documents, keep the focus on what you call the head of infidelity. host: let's go back to the words of the bin laden -- what is he referring to? guest: he is referring to what they call the caliphate, this -- the one islamic entity that would not have borders. it is one group of muslims and that has to start from somewhere. it has to start from a geographical position. they viewed afghanistan as the start of that before 9/11, a

base to build that and now they believe that when we go, moslems under mullah omar will take power again and you read your land base. afghanistan is very important. it does not seem there is very much realization within the american government about how important us getting beaten in afghanistan is. host: what motivates anyone to go on a suicide mission like the players involved on 9/11? what kind of charisma did osama bin laden have to motivate these individuals? there are those who remained in guantanamo for the last 10 years. guest:bin laden was a unique individual. many people talk the talk but not everybody walks of the walk.

bin laden give up the life of a billionaire to fight against the mujahedin against the soviets. he was injured and has interpersonal skills -- had interpersonal skills. he lived a life that he preached. in the muslim world where poverty is endemic, the idea that a man gave up a billionaires' lifestyle to join the mujahedin is an extraordinary come on. if you believed president bush or president clinton or president obama they hated women in the workplace and beer and elections every four years which is nonsense. what motivates these people is they believe they are fighting for their faith and whether we agree with that or not is largely irrelevant. they believe their fate is under attack by u.s. foreign policy and by the foreign policy of our allies whether it is support

for the saudi police state, the presence on the arabian peninsula, are bombing of libya and yemen, our support for the israelis -- these are substantive issues and we have a situation where the united states government identifies the motivation of our anime -- of our enemy. they tell us repeatedly hell, they don't care how we live in north america. they want to get us out of their backyard. the drive of these people is the inspiration of the modern person but also a very widespread belief in the idea that u.s. foreign policy is an attack on islamic civilization. host: we will get to your calls and a moment. here is another excerpt from the words of bin laden - guest: he is conscious of

getting the troops out for himself. guest: everybody put words into bin laden's mouth and al-qaida's mouth that this is the end for

them. they'll hate this because people are rising up and overthrowing their government. what's very clear in these documents is every journalist in "the washington post" from "the new york times" to "the los angeles times" to "the times" of london were wrong. they rejoiced at the arab spring. bin laden called it the most important point in the history of islam in reclaiming the muslim world for islam. of course, there's no responsibility for bad analysis but it should make a lot of people embarrassed when they read these things. host: the author that you're referring to is lawrence wright? guest: yeah. host: our phones are open. james is on the phone from champagne, illinois for michael scheuer formerly of the c.i.a. and head of the bin laden unit. good morning. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. thank goodness for c-span. my comment is basically this. i'm ex-military and since world war ii which this country won in less than 2 1/2 years, we haven't waged all out war. we didn't do it in korea.

we piddled around in nam for 10 years. we piddled around in afghanistan for 10 years. we pulled the same stunt in iraq. if you want to stop terrorist attacks against this country, the very next time they hit us, we need a commander in chief who says i want every troop from all 731 bases we have around the world, i want you to hit them, hit them hard and don't quit hitting them until every last one of them is dead and desolated and gone. if you did that one time, all the terrorist groups around the world would look at each other and say uh-oh, we americans are actually serious. guest: and a little crazy, i think you want both, sir. i agree with you entirely. we are dominated by multiculturalists and diversity people that think all people around the world are the same. in the muslim world, force is a

liberal franca. the weak are taken advantage of and the strong that don't use their power are more taken advantage of and that's where we are. our military, the strongest on the earth has lost two wars in iraq and afghanistan at least in the perception of the muslim world. men armed with korean war era weapons. the correct response to afghanistan was a punitive expedition that would have lasted about 15 months, destroyed as much as possible and left all the people there with the idea that the americans were not only serious but a little crazy. and that's the way to at least make your mark because right now our military is held in contempt except for the drones and air power and they're finding ways to get around those. so i think we in america have completely lost the idea of it's important to win. we're willing to compromise on anything. obama the other day, president obama the other day said we didn't come here to beat the taliban which, of course, was 180 degrees different from what mr. bush said or what he said

previously. but i agree with you. the military is meant to kill. it is not meant to dig ditches and wells. and until we use the military in a form it should be, we're in deep trouble. host: our guest is michael scheuer who spent two decades in the c.i.a. and head up the bin laden unit. how long did it take for you to determine when those planes hit, bin laden and al-qaida was behind it at 9/11? >> it was immediately apparent, sir, it wasn't a surprise. it was only within the senior bureaucracy that we had to wait a couple of days to figure out who is going to do it. we knew -- we captured computer in 1995 early in 1995 from the fellow who bombed the world trade center the first time in 1993 and in there was plans to train people on 747 airplanes, what caught our attention especially was that one of their top targets was c.i.a. headquarters at langley. so there was no surprise when it came about.

at least amongst the intelligence community, sir. host: george is on the phone from hudson, florida. good morning, republican line. caller: good morning, thank you, c-span for having people like michael scheuer, i respect this man tremendously. guest: very kind, sir. thank you. caller: you don't pull any punches which is great. mr. scheuer, i got one question for you, who do you think is probably the most dangerous politician, republican or democrat that we've had in the last 30 years that has helped expedite the thing with the terrorism and their attacks on the united states? is it one person? is it many? who's responsible for this? guest: sir, i don't think there's a nickel's worth of difference between the two parties in terms of foreign policy. they have made it their business to lie to the american people to insist that somehow we're being attacked because of what we think here in north america or how we live rather than what the

united states government has done. and the core of the problem is intervention in other people's business. part of that intervention, unfortunately, is necessary. we have to defend the saudis. we have to defend them because we depend on oil but our support for israel, our intervention in south sudan, for example, the relentless intervention of the united states on the issues that are not very important to it is the cause of what's going on and it's a bipartisan stimulus. it's not just one person. and until we stop that really or at least think about stopping it, there's really no chance to stop this war and that's why so much of al-qaida has spread so greatly since 2001. host: michael scheuer who is the author of a number of books that we've featured on our network including "why the west is losing the war on terror" and "from pandora's box" we are

discussing 17 letters found by the government but written by bin laden from september of 2006 until just before his death in april of last year. next is den on the phone from richmond, virginia. good morning. caller: thank you, guys, for taking my call. i appreciate it. actually i studied at virginia tech and they mandatorily made us read "the leaning tower" which is an excellent read by lawrence wright. i just want to say real quick comment and the fact that james from illinois said that we need to go in and bomb kind of colin powell dez -- style desert storm. i don't see enough that we can't go to war and there's not 19 people that is going to send airplanes into the tower. so i feel like if we were to do that, that would maybe fan the

resentment toward us and see what your opinion was on that. thank you. guest: i think that's true. any time you bomb someone, you don't win any friends. the question is ultimately how do you defend the united states? and the problem for the u.s. military and for the american people generally is that their leaders from both parties are out in the muslim world causing wars. no one has been more responsible for the alienation of muslims than mrs. clinton, ambassador rice at the u.n. and president obama. it's odd in a sense that the war, clash of civilizations is what professor huntington, the clash of civilizations is really being waged by the united states. it's mr. obama and mr. clinton with the support of john mccain and lindsay graham who want to insist on women's rights examine installing them by force. ready to see marines die, if you will, in afghanistan so mrs. muhammad can vote. i think until that kind of

nonsense stops, we are creating wars. there's no way to cut the defense budget and there's no way to stop attacks on the united states. if you stop intervening in people's internal affairs, then at least you could reduce the size of the threat but until then, the only option we have is to kill them and we're not doing that with efficiency or speed. host: last week in the president's speech in afghanistan, he said something that we don't want -- america doesn't want to have a country of mirror image referring to afghanistan saying that we want the afghan people to determine their own destiny. guest: that's what he said. he's changed his tune and of course, he has to say that because we don't intend to win the war there. mr. bush didn't intend to win the war there because it was too bloody of a thing to do. we're cutting and running. we're going to give the muslim world the perception that the americans get beat on the battlefield everywhere they go and so he's going to say that kind of thing. it's a very political speech. the whole last week it seemed to

me to be a very tawdry use of the valor of american soldiers and intelligence officers. the leaking of all the information by john brennan about how the drones operate, the surprise visit to afghanistan, the publishing of these documents, all within four days surely wasn't a coincidence. it was a tawdry political move, one that i suspect the president would also have conducted. host: who is responsible to lead the public to believe that bin laden was hiding in caves all these years? guest: there is a tendency in temporary america to have no respect for our enemies and so mr. bush -- i think you have to assign that responsibility to mr. bush but followed for a long while by mr. obama. mr. bush would say they're running from rock to rock and cave to cave and as it turned out, bin laden led a very

sedentary life. if someone is running from cave to cave a lot, you'll catch him because he'll make a mistake. he couldn't communicate with his organization because he was so isolated. first, you have to wonder if he had been in a radio shack in the last 20 years. you can communicate with anyone on earth if there's a satellite overhead. it's important these documents that came out make it very clear that bin laden in his isolation was very much aware of what was going on within the organization, not only in south asia but in somalia, in yemen and in other places. host: sylvan is on the phone from silver lake, michigan. good morning. caller: good morning. that's sylvan. host: right. caller: i completely agree with your guest there. the world doesn't really fear us anymore is one problem right there due to our rules of engagement and all this kind of bunk. but they also -- the muslim

world, everything that we do over here is strictly against the quran. and to them, we're infidels and we all deserve to die. and that's how that's played out. thank you very much. host: thank you for the call. guest: i think that's another popular misconception and one encouraged by the politicians because they don't want you to understand the problem. they want you to be afraid and let them do what they want to do. i would ask you that why the united states hasn't been under constant attack since 1776 by muslims because we were and are a christian dominated nation. if your argument is correct, we would have been attacked in 1824 and 1874 and 1924 and we weren't. what we're being attacked for is the post-1970, 1973 expansion of u.s. intervention and interference in the affairs of the muslim world and most of

all, our support for the israelis and our support for arab tyranny. host: follow up on your view of the bush and obama foreign policies from a viewer self-described as right wing. obama foreign policy equals bush policy with drones and apologies. guest: i think that's -- i don't think there's a lot of difference between president bush and president obama in terms of the mechanics of their foreign policy except as the writer says there's a difference in their words. bin laden, when he was alive was always more worried about democratic presidents because they spoke more softly than republicans. they weren't going to exchange anything but they fooled a few muslims and so he always preferred republicans because of their brash and harsh rhetoric. but really, if you step back and think we spend x numbers of hundreds of millions of dollars on defense every year and right now the defense of the united states is dependent on these little airplanes with one or two missiles on each one trying to kill an enormous enemy one at a

time, there is rather something comic about that. host: another point from sasha saying how many years did president bush and the u.s. government pay pakistan with tongue and cheek to harbor bin laden. we did provide pakistan assistance. guest: we did. i think another failure of both parties of our political leadership and it's in a congress that's executive, and it's in the media is to believe that every nation's foreign policy and national interests are the same as ours. it was never in pakistan's interest to turn usama bin laden over to us. he was a hero in the islamic world. the pakistanis are very close to the saudis and the saudis never wanted usama bin laden in our hands because he knows where the skeletons are buried in the kingdom and so you accept reality as it is. the pakistanis helped us with overflight.

they allowed karachi to become a naval nato base. there's no way to supply the military in afghanistan without karachi. we expanded our presence in their country and musharraf sent his army for the first time in pakistan's history into the tribal areas to try to help us and the result of that was a civil war on his own territory. so i think when you look at another nation, when you ask them to do something that is against their national interests, you really make a mistake that hurts you because they'll say yes especially in the muslim world but they'll never do it. host: i want to go back and we've been watching this video of bin laden as he's watching cable television. it's become almost a caricature by late night talk show hosts. i'm wondering in a more serious venue what you think he's thinking as he's monitoring cnn and other cable networks in an enclosed room in pakistan at his compound. guest: is this the case where he was watching himself? host: that's right. that's right there. guest: bin laden is a man who is very conscious -- or was a man

very conscious of the fact that he was not the best educated person in the world. especially in terms of religious theories and in grammar. he was intent in appearing to muslims as a very well spoken and very presentable person. in some of these letters, he talks about the problem of islamic resistance leaders appearing in an unkept fashion or talking ingrammatically. he may be admiring himself on that. if the evidence we have available to us is correct, what he was doing was trying to make sure that what he was saying was grammatically correct and that he looked the part of a leader. we in the united states tend to forget that the muslim world because so much of it is illiterate is an overwhelmingly oral culture and leadership comes from an ability to speak and speak correctly. so i can't say that he wasn't an egomaniac looking at himself but

the odds are if you believe what we have in terms of evidence for the last 20 years, that what he was trying to do was to see what he did and see if there was room for improvement. host: we welcome our listeners on c-span radio heard coast to coast on xm channel 119 and albert is next. you are from st. louis, missouri. with michael scheuer. good morning. caller: thank you for your program and your guest. i'm just a little curious about his -- some of his ideas. i don't say they're wrong. but if we're the autocrats over there on the holy land, these guys are moving to the western countries like england where they talk about putting sharia law in place but they don't have the numbers and they come over here, are they galvanizing us to their holy land? are they misplaced into the den of inequity that we call the modern left? i suspect there's a little bit of heavy leaning on a group of

religious leaders. and i think that's what causes these problems. i have to ask you if you can verify that. but they're afraid of the west not so much of the oil and all that stuff but their ideas and their thoughts that are contrary to islam corrupting their power. that seems to me to be the whole thing and it hasn't got much to do with all that other stuff in my opinion and i'm just a layman. could i get your comments on that? guest: i think there's an increasing worry in the muslim world whether it's their allies that certainly under president obama the intention to apply western values or paganism and put your view on the muslim world is a worry. two things, part of the problem that we have with muslim immigration comes from the absolute disaster of our immigration policy or the lack

of an immigration policy. i think there's a very good argument to be made or at least a debate to be had that not all forms of islam are compatible with american culture. it's just -- they're at 6's and 7's but the other point that i would make is what's too often forgot is that at least in this point in the muslim world, americans are not hated as americans. their government surely is hated. but americans in terms of their personal behavior in terms of their personal generosity, the money we give and send when there's earthquakes in pakistan or tsunamis in indonesia, it's very welcome and most americans, myself included who have traveled in the middle east and the arab world and the muslim world generally find that americans are very welcome. but your hosts are always very conscious of asking why are you giving f-16's to the israelis to kill palestinians? so if america ever got to the point where americans were hated as much as their government, then we'd have a genuinely large

problem, sir. host: as the arab spring was taking place in egypt and other parts of the arab world, bin laden had this to say. "these events are the most important events that the nation has witnessed for centuries. it is known that comprehensive popular movements inevitably change the conditions so if we double the efforts to direct and educate the muslim people and warn them from the half solutions while taking care in providing good advice to them, the oncoming stage will be for islam." guest: it was a very straightforward statement and there's several statements in these letters to the same effect, that they welcome the advance of the arab spring. i think we need to remember we talked at the beginning of the show, sir, that one of their goals was to get rid of the arab tyrannies to clear the way for islam to become the ruling theory, the ruling idea of government. and they found out they didn't have to do it themselves.

the people rose up in places and islamic won every election since the arab spring began. they stabbed in the back the allies had it depended on for decades. in western foreign policy in the world was built on a strategy of maintaining internal tyranny and i think that was the wrong move from the beginning but that was our policy. when egypt went, tunisia went and we helped libya to go, we find ourselves now with about zero influence across the middle east and certainly, if you look at egypt, it's the muslim brotherhood that are driving the political process at the moment. something that is not going to resolve in anything but an al-qaida friendly government. host: this e-mail saying why was bin laden killed and not captured? guest: i think the papers that you went over at the beginning are a good evidence of why he

had to be killed. bin laden would not have been either aggressive or passive. he would have been quiet but eloquent in a courtroom and would have talked to the muslim world for years or as long as his trial went on. i think it was a wise thing to kill him and not capture him. i think they botched the aftermath of it in terms of all the leaks and burying him at sea and all that kind of thing but i think they did make the right decision to kill him. host: how long do you think before the photos of him of him being buried at sea show up? guest: i don't know why they don't release him. we can sit down every evening on tv and there can't be anything more gory than what we see on tv of the pictures of bin laden. idea that they didn't want to inflame the muslim world, well, worse than the pictures was burying bin laden at sea because that's not an acceptable way of burial in the muslim world unless you actually die at sea.

host: next call is joe from cedar rapids, iowa. good morning. caller: good morning. i really appreciate this show. i had a few points i'd like to make. i consider the announcement of bin laden's death more or less a big intelligence failure. we would have tried for at least a month or two to exploit any intelligence. also, why have they never considered -- well, you know they have stationary satellites. why not determine the choke points on the infiltration routes into afghanistan and destroyed them? guest: on the first one, i think there's room for disagreement, sir. i think your point is a valid one, valid basis for a debate. my own view is that bin laden

was of a nature we would not have gotten anything and if we spent two months and then had to try them in guantanamo or wherever, and given him a forum for his eloquence in the muslim world, i think there was a great downside to it. the second answer to your question is we don't let the military -- used to say let reagan be reagan. we don't let the military be the military. if anybody believes that we have seen 10% of what the u.s. military can do in terms of destruction and bringing victory to the united states, they're crazy. there's enormous amount we could have done. we could have protected our troops, for example, by spreading land mines all along the border between afghanistan and pakistan. but we're more comfortable with dead american soldiers and dead marines than disturbing this anti-mine effort that was led by, you know, that half brained british princess diana.

we're in an odd position where we're letting our soldiers get killed because we don't mind and we don't want to upset people who don't like land mines. it's a crazy situation that we're in, sir. host: as part of these 17 letters by and two bin laden that total about 175 pages, we don't know the author. it could have been bin laden and could have been somebody else. when asked about al-qaida, we thought it was interesting to share with you and our audience as part of these documents, this is what it says. why is this important? guest: it's important for two things. al-qaida's real name is al-qaida, the base of jihad and the short parlance of newspapers and the press, it's called al-qaida which leaves out the

universal part of it, the jihad part of it that would appeal to all muslims so the restoration of that name would certainly be helpful. if you read that memo, they're very conscious of how the media works and how people perceive things. just as important, though, it gives you a good idea that al-qaida as an organization was very much a modern multi-- multinational corporation. you could almost -- it reminded me the discussion of should we change our brand of coca-cola's problems after they introduced the new coke and nobody liked it? they had to go back to coca-cola classic to restore their image and to get the product sold and basically that's the kind of thing that that letter was talking about. is we need to get this focus off the organization and get it back to where we want it to be which is an organization that's leading the muslim world as a

whole. host: daniel joining us from winnipeg in canada. welcome to the program, dan. caller: thank you very much. i appreciate your program. i'm former officer from iranian army. i have a question as told us, we have islam and islams. i have a question about the old sources. we hear many things about al-qaida and other terrorist organizations, what is the place of outsources because, as you know, the sources from iran give so many protection and financial support and technical and information to so many different terrorist organizations. can you please share with us what you know about that because i hear about, as you know, that, for example, the people who did

the terrorist attacks on 9/11, it was for two weeks in iran. what happened? what has he done there? guest: i'm not aware of them being in iran. the force of the iranians is the lead force of their guard. it is involved in nefarious activities and iranian defense activities around the world. i think, you know, ultimately, we'll be going to war with iran if the israelis want us to and i guess that will take care of that problem. but i'm not your expert on that, sir, i don't know much about the force at all except they're very talented and a very much a thing worth worrying about. host: since the viewer was from iran originally but phoning in from canada, are you saying that bin laden considered iran as an enemy and what does this imply about u.s. policy? guest: certainly, bin laden

comes right out in the documents and says we can never trust the iranians but there's obviously discussions going on between iran and al-qaida over the fate of bin laden's family which was held in iran. what it says about u.s. policy is basically iran is a country in a lot of trouble. it's an island of shias in a sunni world that would rather kill them than kill us. the economy is declining because the oil production and energy production is in decline and they're surrounded by american military bases. in a more rational world, that's the kind of country you would look at as a potential ally or at least not as an enemy. we have not really changed our attitude towards the iranians since the hostage incident and the politicians used that as a means to keep driving us towards what would be an absolutely

disasterous war with iran. host: our guest headed up the c.i.a. bin laden unit and michael scheuer is here at the table. follow-up from an interview we conducted earlier here on c-span is the first wife and the fourth son able to testify, journalists who wrote their story of leaving bin laden, they left before 9/11. guest: i can't remember the lady's name but it's a wonderful book, "growing up bin laden" i think it was called. a book that i used extensively in my biography of usama bin laden and very, very interesting first-hand testimony. another piece of evidence if people of the united states wanted to read it of how mischargedi mischargedized bin laden and al-qaida and their goals have been. bin laden in particular is portrayed by his wife and his son and his son doesn't like him very much as a man who was

willing to sacrifice whatever for his faith. a man who put a tremendous amount of time into leading the organization into learning how to speak correctly into putting his own life at risk in fighting so it's a book very worth reading if people want to understand the enemy. host: john is on the phone, capital heights, maryland. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for your guest. he's about the first person i've ever heard on c-span that i've been listening for quite a few years since 9/11 has any idea of what's going on. normally you have the same old beat up, beat down politicians and the army general speaking the same old crazy stuff but to hear this guy come with a breath of fresh air. there's several points i'd like to make and get his response to. number one, our government in part of the world is looked as a government without justice and without any real religion. that's number one, number two i think usama bin laden, qaddafi,

and also saddam hussein, all these guys should have been brought to trial but the reason they were not brought to trial is because they would have been the guys who really wake the american people up to what our government is really doing over there in that part of the world. this gentleman is bringing out a lot of points but the people who could have really woke us up not from our own government, this guy is a little light in the dark but the reason they had to be killed, he's saying mr. usama bin laden would have been speaking to the islamic world. they knew what he had to say. they knew his doctrine, his ideology and his philosophy. host: thanks for the call from maryland. guest: you might have a good point there. but the ability of the mainstream media to twist what and excerpt and cut what bin laden was saying, you know, you would probably had to tune into al jazeera or somewhere else to get the whole gist of it. our media, our politicians are

intent on making americans afraid of, you know, this boogie man of the islamists coming to invade milwaukee or atlanta or something. i think unfortunately i come down to the idea that bin laden is better off dead than speaking to the muslim world and the americans don't need anymore from usama bin laden to understand what this war is about. we have not had an enemy since the general and ho chi minh who have been so elegant and clearly spoken about what their grievances were, what they intended to do about them and how they intended to beat us. bin laden laid it out consistently since the mid 1990's and yet, the american people have had very little opportunity to read what he said. the only thing that was ever quoted in the media was something that could be framed as a threat.

host: let me conclude. these are the words of bin laden. this came about from his writings a year ago on the 10th anniversary of september 11th. host: give you a sense of what he was thinking of. guest: when you read these letters, they're conscious of media and appealing to the next generation of young muslims. as we talked about when we looked at the little video of bin laden watching himself, oral communication is extraordinarily important in the muslim world and that's what he was looking for there. host: will more documents be coming out? guest: i don't know. this to me was from a politician's viewpoint, this is

a foolish batch of documents to let go. especially the ones written by bin laden because they disprove virtually everything, president obama or john brennan or senator mccain or lindsay graham, whatever they've said about him as a mad man, as a killer, as a terrorist, having nothing to do with islam. one of the main features of these documents is bin laden's effort to get his organization to stop attacks in all places that would kill innocent muslims so the idea that out there he's killing left and right which is what our politicians want you to believe is disproved by the documents they released. it's a very odd, i wonder if they read these things beforehand. host: you've written two books, is there another one in the works? guest: i published one last year, i published "biography of usama bin laden" by oxford press and that came out in a paperback. next year, i'll have a book about founding fathers and nonintervention and our failure to abide their guidance on nonintervention has landed us in

a great deal of problems especially in the middle east. host: author and for more two decades at the c.i.a. heading up the bin laden unit from 1996 to 1999, michael scheuer, thank you very much for being with us. guest: my pleasure, sir, always. host: please come back again. coming up in a couple of minutes, we'll turn our attention to a new study conducted by harvard on the role of the youth vote in campaign 2012. trey grayson, a kentucky politician, now the head of the harvard institute of politics is going to be joining us and later, the mayor of charlotte, north carolina, anthony foxx as c-span continues his bus tour across the state. this weekend on c-span 2 and c-span 3, we continue our look at oklahoma city history. we'll be joined by journalists and have highlights of our coverage from -- that we taped earlier this spring, video journalists speaking to authors and historians about oklahoma city history and again, that will be showcased on c-span 2 and c-span 3. a reminder, tom brokaw joining us on book tv starting at 9:00

eastern, three hours in depth including his best selling book "the greatest generation" that's coming up today here on the c-span networks. we're going to take a short break and come back in a moment.

host: joining us from harvard is trey grayson, the director of politics a study looking at young people in 2012. thank you for being with us. guest: good morning, steve, glad to be here. host: as you look at this study and look specifically at where young people are and where they were in 2008 when they overwhelmingly supported the president in his election efforts, where are they today in 2012? guest: the president, i think, has a little bit of work to do to try to get back to where he was in 2008. and he may never get there. it was really a historic election but young millenials, the folks that we surveyed are very concerned about the economy and less supportive of the president today than they were during that 2008 election. host: why? guest: the big thing to me is the economy. when you dive in and you look at the statistics, if you ask -- if

you ask 18 to 29-year-olds like we did, what's the most important concern for you? open ended question. a huge number of them say the economy and jobs. if you also look at some of the other questions we've asked like trust and institutions and government and political activism, things like that, all the numbers are lower than they were over the last couple of years. the economy seems to have played a big role in their attitudes towards politics and the president has also now got a record. he had soaring rhetoric in 2008 and had a lot of promises and it's always tougher to run for re-election because you get judged on the reality and i'm not making a judgment on the policies for the purposes of this discussion, the economy has been tough in the last few years and young people have beared the brunt of it. unemployment rate is high. the underemployment rate is high. they see their classmates struggling to get good jobs and that's got to impact the president and everybody else's approval ratings. host: let me share with you two moments in the campaign trail and the president did get some criticism as he tried to take a number of microissues, in this

case, student loans and the possibility that if congress failed to act, loans would be going up for those stafford loans by july 1st. governor romney as he campaigned with senator marco rubio at a campaign event before the pennsylvania primary in april had this to say. >> there's one thing i wanted to mention that i forgot to mention at the very beginning and that was that particularly with the number of college graduates, that can't find work or that can only find work well beneath their skill level, i fully support the effort to extend the low interest rate on student loans. there was some concern that that would expire half way through the year and i -- i support extending the temporary relief on interest rates for students as a result of -- as a result of student loans as a result of

extraordinarily poor conditions of the job market. host: student loans important to anybody who has to pay them back. the president spending really two to three days campaigning on that issue and mitt romney as you heard a moment ago making the point to say that he supports the president in keeping loans at their current rate. guest: both those positions in my view are things that we're exactly talking about today and trying to get them on board. we talk about the president's trouble in getting this coalition back where it was. it was really an important part of that winning coalition. he probably wouldn't have won indiana or north carolina without the 18 to 29-year-old voters but the same numbers are even worse of a story for governor romney. he has not shown very strong support. president obama actually increased the support from this poll from a previous poll we did last fall, and if you dive in and look at governor romney's support among levels of passion from young people, he ranks very well. even ron paul basically tied him in this particular survey. so governor romney has got a lot

of work to do but he probably senses an opportunity to make this -- to close the gap and in order for him to win, he'll have to close that gap. host: here is one area again digging into some of the details of the survey of young people. by the way, how many people did you survey, trey grayson? guest: we surveyed 3,000 and because 18 to 29-year-olds, too many of them don't have traditional land lines, this was an internet survey although it is scientifically based. basically, it's based on addresses and if you don't have internet access, our survey partner will provide it for you. but it only -- it has a small 1 1/2 point margin of error so it's a big sample size, 3,000. host: this is something i suspect the romney campaign will be looking at when it comes to young people. it's the right track, wrong track of the country. at one point in december of last year, 12% said the country was in the right direction. now, it's up to 20%. but still, the wrong track is at 43%.

>> yeah, it's significant. those who offered an opinion, it's still 2-1 negative that we're heading in the wrong direction. it was about 4-1. that's what makes these numbers so interesting is they -- they represent an opportunity for mitt romney despite how poorly he does in the head-to-head matchups with the president because there's a lot of pessimism and that wrong track message is coming through loud and clear from this generation. host: here's the overall survey among those questioned would they vote for the president in december in 37% said that they would support the president, 26% for mitt romney. now, that's up to 43% for the president and mitt romney still at 26%. we should point out the survey conducted in march which the primary was still fairly intense. will that change now that he is the presumptive nominee, do you think? guest: my presumption is the numbers for romney will pick up a little bit. romney doesn't do as well among republicans in our survey as obama did among democrats and there's a large number of

undecided voters that really don't fall into either political party. so there is an opportunity here for him to close the gap. but he's got his work cut out for him. and i think that's why you're going to see this talk about student loans. romney had to cover his time there. his general focus on the economy which is probably his best argument to try to close the gap among the 18 to 29-year-olds. host: any coincidence that the president began his campaign yesterday on two college campuses? guest: no, the president's advisors and the president's staff know politics well and they know what they need to do. i thought that was a smart thing to do. host: here's the president in downtown richmond, virginia and had this to say about what campaign 2012 will be about. [video clip] >> now, after a long and spirited primary, republicans in congress have found a champion. they have found a nominee for

president whose promise to rubber stamp this agenda if he gets a chance. but virginia, i'll tell you what, we can't give him the chance. not now. not with so much at stake. this isn't just another election, this is a make or break moment for america's middle class. we've done too much to turn back now! we've come too far to abandon the changes we fought for the last few years. virginia, we got to move forward to the future that we imagined in 2008. we've got to move forward to that future where everyone gets a fair shot. and everyone does their fair share. and everyone plays by the same

rules. that's the choice in this election and that's why i'm running for a second term as president of the united states. host: the president in richmond, virginia, trey grayson is joining us from boston, head of harvard's institute of politics and taylor is on the phone from rockford, illinois, line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. the reason why i think we should be democrats is because if we were democrats, then we could be together and if we were together, we'd be a bigger nation, a bigger nation is better. and we can't just be all alone. we need to be bigger and better. it's not that i'm not saying our country is weak. i'm saying if we had a bigger country, then it could help a lot of people and who knows? it could really get some really good ideas from people and they could make our country the

biggest country in the world. host: taylor, tell us about yourself. how old are you and why are you a democrat? caller: i am 10 years old. and i think -- and the reason i'm a democrat is because i really feel bad for the less fortunate and i'm just really grateful for what i have and i wish people could have the same. host: taylor, thanks for the call. why are you watching us as a 10-year-old on a sunday morning? we appreciate it, don't get me wrong. caller: i was just watching it because my grandma's friend was watching it. host: thanks for your grandmother's friend for watching c-span as well. guest: it's great to have taylor call in. i have an 8-year-old and 11-year-old at home and i don't think they're watching it right now. we're recording it for future

uses. some of the things he said there is a large level of support for government trying to help out those who are less fortunate among millenials although they're not so much big believers in big government programs. for example, private accounts for social security, aren't big supporters of affirmative action or climate change but they do believe that government plays a role in helping out those who are less fortunate so i think there are other voices like taylor who are out there and glad you tune in, taylor. host: you have a lot of fans on our twitter page. you're lighting up comments including this one who says you're a good kid, taylor. this week as part of c-span's tour through north carolina, we are partnering with tout. many are calling tout a video version of a twitter and we're going to share with you some of the comments from those who we were able to track down across our tour through various parts of north carolina and all this is available on our web site at

cspan.org. you can learn more information about tout by going to tout.com/cspan. here's one comment. as a graduating senior, one of the most important issues in this election is maintaining the low interest rate on student loans. a lot of my classmates may be graduating and not having a job so it's really important to maintain low interest rates. host: trey grayson on the issue of low interest rates, did mitt romney neutralize the issue? guest: well, i don't know if he neutralized it or not, but he -- having that position, the president is in a better position to talk about this because he's in the debate because this is an issue that's being dealt with an issue in washington. one of the things that i should have mentioned earlier, in addition to romney, it's not a third party debate. it's not a third party candidate. it's will the 18 to 29-year-olds vote? i think that's a bigger concern for obama is there's a sense of

lack of engagement and it's getting a little worse over the last couple of years. so that's -- so that's an important challenge and romney has to better connect with these voters and coming out in favor of the extension was a smart move. host: may have to have taylor come on the program or host the program. a lot of people weighing in. a 10-year-old watching c-span's "washington journal" that's pretty cool. well done. we'll make him a trending topic. absolutely. evelyn is on the phone from houston, texas. good morning to you. caller: good morning. number one, i would like to say that 3,000 students do not represent all of the young population. here in texas, they are actually trying to suppress the youth vote. they cannot use their college i.d. but if they have a gun license, they can do that. number two, president obama has more in common than mr. romney.

he has been through what the students are going through. the last thing i want to say -- why are we in america making education so expensive that only the rich can afford it? not the smartest people we have but only the rich. why are they doubling the student loan rates but yet the banks and other financial institutions are borrowing money and, i mean, the lowest interest rate they can. host: thank you, evelyn. guest: evelyn bought up a lot of great points. to clarify things, even though we are affiliated with the university, our sample size is all 18 to 29-year-olds, not just students. and while 3,000 in the country this big can't necessarily -- we can't guarantee that the views are completely representative, it's a big sample size and we feel pretty confident plus we've

been doing this for now, this is our 21st survey of millenials so we have a pretty good track record and you can see some trends. one of the things that was interesting about the -- we asked students about their debt load and about 40%, over 40%, as i recall, feel like debt on student loans are going to be -- play a big role in their futures. in other words, they're concerned about it. and as far as the voter i.d. laws, they vary from state to state and as a former secretary of state of kentucky, i'd like to encourage everybody to figure out what their laws are in their specific state. some will let college i.d.'s count but not in others. it will become a big story as we get to the fall as these voters are voting for the first or maybe the second time who aren't as familiar with the rules. host: trey grayson, the former republican secretary of state, served two runs in that capacity and ran for the u.s. senate in kentucky, heading up harvard institute of politics.

as we said, we are partnering with tout, a new way to share your thoughts and comments via the web and we have a special site set up through tout's web site, tout.com/cspanbus. here's another comment. >> are young people going to be a factor? if you take a look at the last election, this is in response to all the young people that did come out through social media, this media is going to be key and a great way to spread the word of what people think. host: trey grayson, let me go back to the 1972 campaign. i bring that up because it was the first year that 18-year-olds have the ability to vote, george mcgovern thinking it was going to help him in the general election. how far have we come since 1972? guest: it's been an interesting trajectory and from 1972 until roughly 2000, we saw a decline in the turnout among young voters. starting with that election, we

started seeing an uptick so in every comparable election, 2000, 2004 to 2008 there was an uptick and the off years so 1998, 2002, 2004 to 2006 we saw an uptick. in 2010, that trend reversed itself and we saw a decline among the participation of young people. it's still better than it was back in 2000 but what i think we've seen is that young voters want to be engaged. the student who was talking on tout about social media, it's a tool that's relatively cheap. it's where a lot of young people spend a lot of time so there are opportunities now that campaigns have that they didn't have before to target young people and the obama campaign did an amazing job in 2008. president obama was an aspiring candidate. the campaign was well resourced and able to get a lot of volunteers on the ground to organize young people and get them to the polls and also able to communicate with them via social media and i'm interested to see how this plays out in 2012 where social media has

gotten even more important. more people have twitter and facebook accounts than they did in 2008 and it's kind of matured a little bit. we'll have to see how it plays out especially in light of some of the tough economy and some of the cynicism that's out there among milennials and hope we can get back on the upper trajectory of voter turnout among young voters. host: joining us from austin, welcome to the program. caller: thank you very much for taking my call and thank you to c-span as well. first to the democratic line, i have strong republican values and always appreciate the republican party. i'd say my comment is on the tax code. the tax code is actually designed, i think, less attractive or actually put a burden on middle and lower class families in terms of paying for education and it would make education more expensive.

and then families have to decide between food and school. obviously, we have a lot of folks who are not going to college and america will become less competitive and i think mitt romney here as a disconnect problem, one of the many disconnects, i think, here. obviously, he didn't have to worry about student loans and that sort of thing and his kids would never have to deal with that or never had to deal with that, but also, you know, i think, again, you know, with the attacks coming, here's a person who said i make a $10,000 bet and claim that he's also unemployed so i think he has a disconnect with the populous. host: patrick, thanks for the call. and trey grayson, you certainly understand what it's like having run for statewide office on a number of occasions in kentucky that personal narrative and how that plays out among the electorate. guest: it's really important and probably in no race is that

personal connection more important than the president of the united states. obviously the president unlike when i ran for senator and ekt secretary of state in kentucky, he's not going to have as much one-on-one personal interaction with the voters. more people pay attention, they watch the debates and watch the rallies. they watch the kickoff speeches like the president had yesterday. they want to get to know that president and it is governor romney has had that challenge. patrick in massachusetts. he's seen him first hand presuming he lived on the state in 2002 and 2006 when romney was the government there. that's the challenge that romney has, making the connection with the voters on a personal level. the president has been able to do that for the last five or six years going back to his appearance for the first time as a candidate. it's one of the struggles that romney is going to have. our polling data shows that the romney supporters were less likely to go out and volunteer for him than the santorum and the paul supporters even at this point when the poll was taken where romney was in a comfortable position and likely to be the nominee. so even among his base, he's got

to get a more passionate following even before he gets to those undecided voters. host: our guest is trey grayson, director of harvard institute of politics. i want to frame this next question from one of our viewers by beginning with this morning's "new york times" looking at some of the battleground states. as we said, the president in ohio and virginia yesterday, nine states writes "the new york times" key to the election with a mixed lot of voter statistics, those nine states, colorado, florida, iowa, new hampshire, nevada, ohio, pennsylvania, virginia and wisconsin and there's this comment from one of our viewers, trey grayson, which battleground states could you see the youth vote having the biggest impact? >> well, in 2008, we saw that in north carolina and indiana, the youth vote put obama over the top. in iowa, the youth helped president obama and then candidate obama win the iowa

caucuses. they had an extraordinarily high turnout. hillary clinton thought she had enough caucus goers to win that caucus and it turns out she didn't. there were a whole lot of people that came and they were young voters but in ohio, there are a lot of universities. the turnout effort in ohio was very strong for president obama and almost impossible for a scenario with romney winning without him winning ohio so i don't think there was any accident that you saw the president in ohio yesterday and the same thing in virginia. i think those are the two swing states that are critically important and they're big so if you lose one, you have a big hit to your electoral votes in your column. but of all those, the youth vote will be pretty important. host: charles is on the phone from connecticut. republican line. good morning, thanks for waiting. caller: good morning, steve. this is probably a little bit of an unsequitor but i've been looking at some of the numbers for the cost of an education. if you take the average major

university, you've got 30,000 students paying $40,000 a year in tuition. that's a big in $200 million a year. what costs so much? i simply don't understand why it should cost a billion, $200 million to run a university for a year. and i'll hang up and listen to the answer. thank you. host: thanks for the call. let's break the numbers down closer to home. if you attend a private institution like princeton and harvard it's $50,000 to $60,000. if you attend a public institution, it can range from $5,000 to $7,000 to as high as $20,000. guest: tuition doesn't cover all the costs. the public institutions are get a direct subsidy from the state

and the private institutions have costs that offset it. harvard's cost, i know it's higher. i think it's a good question and given the economy and given the struggles of graduates of universities and to find good jobs, there are a lot of questions being asked, what exactly are we getting for this investment? i think nobody questions the value of having a better education in this information-based economy but there have been some questions about, you know, what exactly are we getting? is it really worth it? are there better approaches? and this week, harvard, it's really fascinating. they're doing this on-line venture and that's going to shake up higher education. it might create some opportunities to be more efficient by using technology to deliver lectures and things like that that might reverse some of these upward pressures on the cost of attending college. host: another comment as the c-span bus continues its travels across north carolina. a conversation with the mayor of

charlotte coming up later in the program. here's what some of you are saying in that state. >> i would say that my family, my parents definitely includes opinions and also my friends but here in wake forest, my professors have had an impact on my opinion. a little more liberal so it's made me change my mind a little bit. host: university of north carolina among the stops of the c-span bus, trey grayson, comment? guest: what's interesting is all those forces do shape political views, it's certainly true for me. if you ask the folks, when we asked them where they fall in the ideological divide, they were pretty split between conservative and liberal with a lot of folks that classify themselves as moderate. but there were a lot of conservatives, for example, the number of conservatives that classified themselves as republicans was actually smaller. this group tends to think of

itself as being a little bit more independent. they're probably more liberal overall but it doesn't exactly work on traditional lines. they, for example, split private accounts for social security. much more supportive of gay marriage and homosexual relationships than their parents are. very supportive of the military, really supportive of the united nations and multilateral actions and those cross party lines. so this group has a little bit different views. they are a little more less of center if you aggregate them all but when you dive in, it's a pretty interesting group to study. host: this is what the report looks like. it's also on line at the institute web site. michelle has this group, how did they rate congress in your survey? guest: they rated congress really low. congress is one of the most lola rated institutions and that's stayed relatively flat over the past polling cycle. one of the questions we asked is

how many -- where do you put your trust in institutions? and congress rates really low on that. we also asked for approval ratings and we've been tracking those approval ratings over the last couple of polls. democrats picked up a little bit from last fall's poll. democrats in congress that is but republicans in congress did not. and it's in the low -- it's 20% which i guess is a little higher than if you ask americans across the country how they approve of congress, we hear of that percentage being in the teens. but it's still really low number and the president's approval rating by comparison is around 50%, i think it's 52% exactly so there's a big gap in the approval ratings between congress and the president and in between, i think it's about a 10-point gap between democrats in congress and republicans in congress. host: a personal question for you. any interest in returning to elective office? returning to kentucky? guest: yeah, i would love to. actually watching the kentucky derby yesterday reminded me of one of, you know, how much i love the state. we had a party up here at our

house with some kentucky food. when my time is done, i committed to do this for five years, i would love to get back and run for something back in kentucky. i didn't -- the loss in the senate race didn't discourage this. this is too good an opportunity to pass up at this point in my life. host: new york daily news had it on its cover, 134,000 people at churchill downs. guest: it was a big crowd. a little bit down from last year. but it was a beautiful day. and once again, i didn't have the winner. host: we'll go to jeff next in houston, texas. good morning to you, welcome to the program. are you with us? caller: there's a guy on there talking about college and the tuition and i'm a young man from texas. i'm 19 years old. i originally dropped out and what happened is that you have to understand the business cycle of the feds and how all this

credit keeps being created. and what is happening, it doesn't matter which administration, if you're democrat or republican or if it's obama or romney, they're still going to be there profitting the benefits, they're supported by the big banks that have profited from giving so much credit like bad credit in subprime loans. host: how do you respond to that sentiment? guest: i'm sure -- i don't know if mike is a ron paul supporter or not. those are views that are commonly held by ron paul supporters. what they found about him is wall street was the least trusted institution, about 13% of millenials trusted wall street to do the right thing some or all the time which is a really low number. even lower than congress. that being said, the bailout of wall street was not a popular movement. if congressman paul were to run as a third party candidate, i

don't know that he will, i don't think he will, if he were, the millenials surveyed showed most of the support he gained came from romney. romney dropped to 18% and congressman paul would get 13%. he ends up running or somebody that can capture that voice like the caller just talked about of sort of a populous anger towards wall street and the federal reserve, it would be bad news for governor romney. host: this point of view, referring to ron paul "which politics has used the internet most effectively this cycle"? the answer is ron paul. guest: that's absolutely right and again not surprisingly, the paul supporters in our survey were the ones most likely to want to passionately go out and support him and if you did a head-to-head, we did a head to head of romney and paul among the republicans in our survey, they tied. even, again, even at the point in the primary where romney had

effectively wrapped it up, romney and paul tied among young people. we saw that on election day after election day during the primary season that ron paul did extraordinarily well among young voters. there is a kind of libertarian strand for him and also a great deal of appeal for his plain spoken, telling exactly what he believes. young people find that refreshing in a day where they're more cynical towards elected officials. ron paul doesn't act or behave like a lot of elected officials. host: let's go back to some of the young people we've been able to catch up on part of c-span's bus tour in north carolina. >> i think the most important issue this election is finding a way to invest in america, in order to grow our economy and develop an economic model that say i want a future not just by cutting but investing in research and development, we can grow jobs again. host: our thanks with tout as we partner with him as part of c-span's tour. let me follow up on that point and share with you what john also living in north carolina

says about this election. my young adult children voted for obama to my dismay. not this time. your response to that sentiment? guest: it's interesting. when you split the 18 to 29-year-olds in our survey in half and you look at the upper half, the 25 to 29-year-olds and then 18 to 24-year-olds, the older group which would have been the group that would have been more likely to vote for obama last time, the president does a lot better among those groups. we're seeing a bit of a split. the cynicism that we're seeing, the economic picture, the folks that were 18 years old who are now 22 looking for jobs who are struggling, i think that's the sentiment that the gentleman from north carolina that you referenced, children, that's probably what they're seeing. that's what it's important for the president to try to come up with a forward looking message as his slogan is to keep those -- to keep those folks part of his coalition. he really needs them in order to

win. one area where he's doing well is among african-american millenials. he struggles with white millenials. romney actually does better with them. that's a group he won in 2008 against john mccain. host: mary sent this e-mail in. please identify trey grayson as a republican activist and give some of his republican credentials. so here's your opportunity. guest: sure. i guess as everybody knows where i'm coming from. i was the republican -- the president of the republican association of secretary of states for number of years and was on the platform committee at the 2008 convention, was a delegate in 2008 and 2004 so yeah, i'm a republican and was elected twice statewide as a republican. host: vince is on the phone. we should point out democrats and republicans have held your position in the past.

guest: correct. correct. host: from lebanon, ohio, battleground state, vince is on the phone. good morning. caller: good morning. i just called in not to change topic but to talk about lgbt rights and the right to marry whoever they want to. and i think that when republicans say no, they're kind of forcing their christian values on other people who might not necessarily be christian and i think that violates everyone's amendment to freedom of religion and freedom from it. host: thanks for the call. your response? guest: she hits on an issue that really sets the millenials apart from other folks in america. they are much more tolerant of their views on the relationship between homosexual lgbt

relationships themselves and it's going to be a problem probably for the republican party going forward if opposition on the issues remains a big part of the party platform. these are voters who disagree. not clear where it is on the priority list, the economy right now is still the biggest issue but it cuts across, you know, the republicans who are millennials as well. they're not quite as supportive as the democrats and progressives of this issue. it's definitely -- this generation has very different views than their parents and grandparents. host: this survey of 18 to 29-year-olds what's the demographic of those who are you questioned? guest: well, it's all 18 to 29-year-olds even though we're a university, we survey everybody. it's pretty representative. you have students on campus and people in the work force. two year folks, folks at community colleges, public, private, we probably -- i'm sure we have some 18-year-old who's are still in high school as well. designed to be very

representative of geographic, race, gender, and age and it's -- and with having 3,000, it's pretty -- what's nice about it is it's a big sample that allows you to get really good data from the cross tab so we can make more confident observations about the views of different minority groups and different age groups. host: all of this available on your web site talking about the new harvard survey that came out last month conducted from january through march of this year looking at the 2012 campaign. and how young people view congress, mitt romney and barack obama. our c-span bus making its way across north carolina checking with young people as well. getting your questions and comments. >> most important issue to me for the 2012 election is immigration. i'm a latin american studies minor, spanish minor and social science major and i've learned a lot about immigration in the past few years and i think it's really important. host: how big -- by the way, the tout web site, tout.com/cspanwj.

how big was immigration on this survey? guest: immigration itself, one of the things we did for the first time is took about 20 issues domestic and international and paired them head to head to see where millennials viewed them and immigration ranked pretty low as a priority but higher than the international issues but one thing that was interesting about this survey compared to our survey last fall is the president performed a lot better among hispanics. in fact, most of his improvement, his approval rating as well as in his head-to-head matchup with governor romney can be contributed to a pretty sizable increase among hispanic voters and you could -- i assume that has something to do with the way the presidential primary on the republican side played out where immigration was a big issue and in a way that probably was not the best way to get votes among hispanics. so that probably played a role, i'm sorry, in the president's increased performance among

hispanics. it represents a real challenge to governor romney. he can't lose the hispanic demographic whether it's millennials or the older voters as well by a large percentage or he can't be president. host: first, a call from tim in massachusetts. go ahead, please. caller: oh, yeah. hello, mr. grayson. i'm looking at this election in massachusetts between mr. warren and mr. brown and this kind of brings out the issue of this college tuition which i think is outrageous and it's one of the issues that's been under the radar for quite sometime. but there's warren who says the way to resolve part of the tuition problem is to have all these students volunteer for a year and if they do, they wipe away their whole tuition and i'm saying to myself, where is he going to get the money to do this?

as a professor, one particular year, she made $350,000 teaching one class. i'm like, you're way overpaid. host: thanks for the call. we'll get a response. trey grayson? guest: the warren-brown race is one of the most fascinating races in the country and it's amazing every day, there's developments and there's stories in "the globe" and "the herald" and on line and the education, in particular, because miss warren is a professor at harvard university is going to play a big role in this and as well as the deficit so it's going to be exciting to watch but i think he raises, if i can kind of take it back up around 30,000 feet, some of the things we talk about earlier where the universities -- where do we spend our money? is it the best kind of investment? where can you get the best kind of jobs? and in -- how can we make this more affordable assuming it's an important need and that's going

to be a very tight race and one that's exciting to watch. host: let me conclude with one final tweet with regard to the survey conducted by harvard institute of politics, a viewer tom p. is wondering does the education level influence the opinions of these young voters? guest: the education level, off the top of my head, i don't think it was a big difference between them. the one difference that we did see primarily was this age gap that seems to be developing between 18 to 24-year-olds on the one hand and 25 to 29-year-olds on another. there are some instances where college students are more likely to volunteer than noncollege students and things like that. but i don't recall, and i apologize if i'm wrong, i'd encourage the gentleman with his tweet to go look on line and as soon as we're done, i'm going to dive in. i don't recall there being a big education difference. host: trey grayson, we will check in with you during the course of this election year. thanks very much for sharing your expertise. the director of the institute of politics on the campus of

harvard university, appreciate it on this sunday morning. guest: thanks, steve, and thanks to c-span for all you guys. host: when we come back, we'll continue our discussion on politics, north carolina politics, charlotte, north carolina and the democratic convention. anthony foxx who is the mayor of that city will be joining us in a moment, part of c-span's bus tour through the state. first, a look at what's on c-span radio, every sunday beginning at noon eastern, 9:00 for those on the west coast, we reair the sunday morning programs and nancy in the radio studio keeping track of all of that. good morning. >> good morning, steve. yes, politics is one of the topics on the sunday shows today. also, foreign affairs and the economy. our reairs of the programs, as you mentioned, begin at noon eastern with nbc's "meet the press." host david gregory welcomes vice president joe biden and new hampshire republican senator kelly ayotte. abc's "this week" follows at 1:00. jake papper talks with david

axelrod and republican senator john mccain, the ranking member on the senate armed services committee. fox news sunday follows at 2:00 p.m. chris wallace talks with florida republican senator marco rubio. former democratic governor ted strickland of ohio and former virginia republican congressman tom davis and newt gingrich. the chairman of the senate intelligence committee, california democratic senator dianne feinstein and house intelligence committee chair congressman mike rogers. at 4:00 p.m. "face the nation" from cbs completes the line-up. today, host bob schieffer talks with former republican presidential candidates newt gingrich and michelle bachmann and new york democratic senator chuck schumer and howard dean, former vermont governor, and former democratic national committee chairman. again, the reairs begin at noon eastern time with nbc's "meet the press." 1:00 abc's "this week." at 2:00 fox news sunday.

3:00 state of the union and at 4:00 "face the nation" from cbs. five networks, abc, nbc, fox, cnn and cbs, they're five sunday talk shows airing at noon on c-span radio and brought to you abouts a public service. you can listen to them here in washington on 90.1 fm on your dial. nationwide on xm satellite radio find us at channel 119. listen on your blackberry or download us as an iphone app or go on line to cspanradio.org. host: there it is, the c-span bus on a week-long tour of colleges, universities and towns across north carolina. all of this in advance of tuesday's north carolina republican primary. also, charlotte, north carolina, the site of the democratic national convention. and joining us is the mayor of charlotte, north carolina, anthony foxx. thanks very much for being with us.

let me ask you first of all about a state that barack obama won with 14,000 votes or by 14,000 votes back in 2008. it is a battleground state in 2012. how does he win that state? what worries you the most as you go into this fall election? guest: well, the president's team is already here on the ground. they've opened 13 field offices in the state. i think the most important for the president is have those folks starting early on the ground game and continuing to work towards november. in addition to that, the president has visited the state many times over the last three years and we've seen a lot of him in 2012 and i think the more he touches this state, the better his chances are, and of course, the convention is going to be a critical piece, too. host: this is a story this morning from inside "the washington post." reminders that 2012 is not 2008. differences that the president will have instead of being the challenge, he's an incumbent.

running on a record that many say when it comes to domestic issues like the economy and the so-called sluggish recovery could hurt him this year. guest: you know, i disagree with that. the president took office at a time when we were losing 700,000 jobs a month. and we've had 26 successive months of private sector job growth. charlotte, north carolina, had an unemployment rate of 10.2% when i took office in december of 2009 and it's down now to 8.1%. we are making progress in this economy and largely because of the president's efforts. i would also add that the auto industry has been saved. we were on the verge of losing our big three. now, g.m. is back as the number one auto dealer, auto seller in the world. and i think that's another testament to this president's leadership. it's been a tough job and at times it's been thankless but he's absolutely done the right things at every step. host: let me ask you about the

preparations for the democratic convention. there was a story in "the new york times" last thursday that the host committee is having trouble raising money to put together the events around the convention. in part because of some sel self-imposed regulations between the obama campaign and democratic party but the inability to organize because north carolina is a right to work state. guest: we're right on track. we're reaching out to donors all across the country. people are excited about this convention and excited about some of the format changes associated with the convention. i have no doubt it will be a successful event this fall. host: are you raising the money, though, that you expected? guest: we're right on track. we feel very good about where we are. we're continuing to reach out to people across the country and as i say, i've seen a lot of excitement and enthusiasm not only here in north carolina but also around the country. host: let's talk about the

organization and the planning for the convention because the first day which is the labor day will take place not inside the arena but the host committee organizing an event at the charlotte speedway. that will be followed by two days of proceedings inside the time warner arena and the president accepting his nomination on a thursday of labor day week at bank of america stadium. guest: that's, you know, the format changes, i think, are one of the most exciting parts of this convention. monday, we're going to have an opportunity here in charlotte to do something that no city that's hosted a convention has had. which is really a day to celebrate the local in state and region. we're going to have the opportunity to tell the story of our city, the people that have come from all over the country and the world and we'll do that at one of our largest venues in north carolina which is the charlotte motor speedway. tuesday and wednesday we'll be at the bobcats, the time-warner cable arena and we're going to have a great experience there

with the gavel to gavel activities. and of course, at the panthers stadium, it will be a big event as well so there's a lot of excitement around here about the number of venues that are going to be used about the economic impact of the convention and also frankly, how it's going to play a role in the campaign going forward. host: you mentioned gavel to gavel. we will be the one network to viewers can watch the proceedings in their entirety. our conversation with anthony foxx, the democratic mayor of charlotte, north carolina, the host city for the democratic convention. he is at the charlotte mecklenburg government center where our c-span bus is parked outside and hopefully we won't get a ticket on this sunday. if we do, we'll give you a call. guest: try to help you if i can. host: let's go to barbara in kentucky. good morning to you. caller: hello. host: go ahead, barbara. caller: yeah, i'm wondering why that they haven't complained about groefr northwood and the

koch brothers stopping people from the freedom of voting. is that not a form of communism? host: barbara, what are you referring to specifically? caller: well, it seems the koch brothers and grover norquist are buying us up all together. i don't understand why people aren't complaining about this. host: ok, we'll get a response. anthony foxx, about reverend norquist, koch brothers or any other special interests in this election. guest: throughout my lifetime, steve and barbara, campaigns have been supported by individuals. those individuals have had caps on what they can give to campaigns and they've had to be disclosed. and i think one of the points that barbara is making is that the citizens united case that the supreme court handed down about a year or two ago is going

to wreak havoc in this election, i think, in the sense that money is going to be coming out of the floodgates. disclosures are not required as they are in typical races and we're going to see an onslaught of money coming into these races have nothing to do with promoting a candidate but have everything to do with tearing other candidates down. i think it's a really bad precedent for the country and we're going to see really a campaign that's going to be more about special interests than they are about the candidates and what the candidates want to do. i think barbara is right about that. there's been a lot of complaining about that case, by the way, barbara but, of course, the supreme court has the final word on most issues of law. unless the congress is going to changes the constitution to overrule the cases precedence, we're going to be in for a stormy 2012 and probably beyond that. host: our guest is the mayor of

charlotte, anthony foxx in his second term and a former city council member, earned his law degree from n.y.u. and donna has this point as we refer to bank of america stadium where the bobcats play and also time-warner arena where two days of the democratic proceedings will be taking place. these, of course, are corporations. this viewer saying that's just sad. i like the real names they used to have. the president has gone after wall street. is it ironic he will accept his nomination at the bank of america stadium? guest: well, i think the reality is and the president's team has said this. it's a venue and people basically understand it's a venue. we in charlotte have several venues we're looking forward to using for this convention where the charlotte motor speedway is one of them. our basketball arena is the other one and bank of america stadium is the third.

and i don't see the issue. host: on tuesday, voters will go to the polls in north carolina. among the issues, a statewide marriage amendment known as amendment one. can you summarize what the decision is that north carolina voters will have to decide and your view on this particular issue? guest: well, we have this amendment on the ballot that basically is redundant and it actually outlaws same sex marriages that north carolina statutes already do and the concern that many of us have had is it may be overbroad in the sense that it might also prohibit civil unions if the state ever decided to take that route to solve some of the challenges that are associated with committed couples who are same sex. in addition to that, a lot of our businesses employ people who are lgbt and as a result of that, there's concern that this

may be a job killing piece of legislation if it is approved. and so there's been a lot of efforts to -- to get the word out to the voting public about this -- this amendment and some of the dangers that it causes. and i think the third challenge with it is it really thrusts north carolina in the middle of a culture war and at a time when all of us need to be focused on job creation, education and investments in infrastructure. so there are a lot of us who come out in opposition to this amendment. the voters will decide that on tuesday and my hope is it's defeated. host: our c-span bus making its way across north carolina, key battleground state for democrats and republicans in this 2012 election year. you can see the live view outside of city county offices in charlotte, north carolina. we're also talking with young people on college campuses including university of north carolina chapel hill. university of north carolina charlotte and at wake forest university about issues

important to them in this campaign and we are broadcasting them as part of our partnership with tout, t-o-u-t, a new form of social media, you can check out new information by logging on to tout.com/cspanbus. here's what some folks are saying. >> i think young people will definitely be a factor in the presidential election since they were such a huge part of the 2008 election. host: anthony foxx, when it comes to the enthusiasm level, especially among young people, is it different in 2012? guest: you know what's interesting is the enthusiasm level is pretty high on the democratic side at least. the president was at u.n.c. chapel hill a couple of weeks ago and did a speech on student loans and it was very well attended. the students were boisterous and excited and i think in a state like north carolina where we've got large numbers of college kids who were not able to vote

in 2008, this election presents an enormous opportunity for both campaigns but particularly for the president because i think his appeal is much stronger to the younger generation. host: steve is on the phone from scottsdale, arizona. good morning, welcome to the program. caller: yeah, good morning. i just wanted to say, you know, the bigger picture, i think if you vote for obama or you vote for democrats, i think then you're saying that you want the country that had more, you know, communism and socialism, and if you vote for romney, you're looking more towards free markets and capitalism. i think that's just bottom line. it sure seems like obama is really trying to make our country very communistic in nature and i don't think that's the right course for america. what do you think? host: thank you, steve.

you know, steve, i think that is a criticism that is really unfair to the president. i've actually been in meetings with this president and with his economic team and these folks understand free markets. they understand business. they understand how to make markets work. and they are confronted with a crisis that was really caused by some of the same policies that steve is talking about which are policies that allowed for businesses to take extreme measures to burden consumers and to create problems in our economy that ended up having a huge bubble burst and created so much misery in our country. what the president has been trying to do in the last several years is trying to fix that. and unfortunately, not everyone agrees on the changes but i think it's clear that if we were

to go to a system that eliminated all regulation, we would find ourselves in a situation very similar to the one that we had a few years ago. i used the analogy of consumer protection regulations. you know, if you have young children as i do and you have toys that you give them, you have some assurance today that when you buy those toys, they're going to be toys that won't create medical problems or some type of accident on those children. that's because we have a consumer protection division within government that allows those products to be manufactured in a safe way. the same is true of financial products, the same is true of so many other types of products in the marketplace. and the president has been trying to fix problems that were caused by the same type of mentality that steve is talking about so i actually think the president has done a great job. i think he's involved in industry. he's involved everyone that needs to be involved but the

solutions are hard at a time when people are fighting over trying to keep market share. i think he's done the right things. host: mayor foxx, why did governor purdue opt out of seeking another term? guest: you know, i think you'll have to ask governor purdue. i thought she was doing a good job and certainly would have supported her but, you know, people in politics have to make decisions from time to time about what -- what they want to do. and she decided not to run this time. we have some great candidates on the democratic side and i'm excited to see who prevailed on tuesday. host: there's also been a lot in the news about the state of the democratic party in north carolina with the chair having to leave and now the search for a new democratic party chair. what impact does that have in oranging the state for a governor's race but also for a presidential election? guest: well, you know, i think

in reality, people vote on candidates and not on what party leadership is doing or not doing. and i think that will happen in north carolina this year. i think we have a great presidential candidate in barack obama. we will have a great gubernatorial candidate and great candidates all the way down the ticket and i think that's what voters will be focused on this fall. host: next call from west virginia. george is on the phone from west virginia. some of the scenes around the greater charlotte area including the raceway, time warner stadium and bank of america stadium, three venues for the democratic convention when we cover it in early september. george, go ahead, please. caller: good morning. the biggest problem i've got with mr. obama and i don't call him my president because i didn't vote for him. he comes out and spins everything. and his main man, mr. axelrod is the biggest spinner in country! and he listens to the wrong

people. he hasn't got the right advisors. everything that he said in 2008 when he run for president, he went just 360 degree around the other way. he did everything the opposite of what he said he was going to do for the american people. that's why he got elected, especially by the young people and the older people, i'm 81 years old. but he's not getting my vote this year neither. and i know he's not going to get a lot of young people's vote because he lied to them! in 2008 and he's doing the same thing now. i watch every speech that he makes. and i can tell by just the way he talks that he's lying again and he's not going to win. the best thing the democratic party can do when they have their convention is to nominate somebody else to run for president. host: george, thanks for the call from west virginia. mayor foxx. guest: well, i disagree with

george. he's certainly entitled to his opinion. what i heard the president say back in 2008 was that he was going to end an unjust war in iraq and he did it. that we were going to find a transition out of afghanistan and he's doing that. that he would work to identify and find usama bin laden and he did that. that he was going to try to work to turn the economy around and he's doing that and the auto industry, again, saving the auto industry, getting gm back to the top of the heap is a huge accomplishment based on where we were a few years ago. the 700,000 jobs that we were losing under the previous administration and what president promises to lose 700,000 jobs. this president has turned that around and gotten us to 26 successive months of private sector job growth. so i see the president as having been very successful in what he has set out to do. even with the hand he's been

dealt. and i think he needs another four years to help -- help finish the job. host: let me follow up on george's point. here is how the president, mayor foxx, framed the argument yesterday as he campaigned in ohio in this campaign rally in richmond, virginia. >> if people ask you what's this campaign about? you tell them it's all about hope. you tell them it's still about change. you tell them it's still about ordinary people who believe in the faith of great odds that we can make a difference in the life of this country. you tell them! [applause] because i still believe, virginia, i still believe that we're not as divided as our politics suggest. i still believe that we still

have more in common than the pundits tell us. that we're not democrats or republicans first. but we are americans first and foremost. >> the president in richmond, virginia, yesterday, mayor foxx, your response? guest: i think the president said it better than i ever could. he knows what he's working for. he's working for a country that's moving together in a forward direction and is not drifting backwards into the policies that got us into the mess that we've been trying to dig out of. and i think when people see the comparison and when they hear the arguments in favor of the president and they hear what i think are speeches and response on the other side, people are going to speak the forward thinking progressive vision of our country and that's what the president presents and i think he has a monopoly on that right

now. host: john has that point. paraphrased? we are still hoping. here's more on our tour through north carolina as we partner with tout. some call it a video version of twitter and some young people weighing in on this election. >> because the more i hear what people think, the more contradictions i hear. it makes me want to do a lot of research. and i'm learning more about the political process. host: thanks, by the way, for all of those stopping by our c-span bus and sharing your points of view with us. james on the phone from brownstone, michigan. good morning, independent line. caller: good morning. i hear that, you know, he disagrees with a lot of people that are calling in against obama. that's fine. i'm an independent. i don't like romney either. he's just as bad. but when you have a president that according to him is a constitutional warrior who has done nothing but undermine it, he's taken away your right to

assemble, your freedom of speech, and due process. he signed into law. now he's running around talking about the student loans when according to the health care bill all the interest rates on student loans are going to jump to 11% and that's his doing, too. how is he going to explain that? thanks, bye. host: thank you, james. guest: congress has an opportunity to address the student loan rate issue and the president is working very hard to prod congress into action. it's been a little bit difficult herding cats for the leadership on the house side as well as in the senate, getting consensus on these issues but there have been times when we haven't gotten congress to move. president trying to move congress along and that's why he was in north carolina a couple of weeks ago speaking to the

kids at u.n.c. chapel hill. host: from your standpoint as the mayor, what is the single issue that you face day in and day out? guest: well, jobs is obviously one of the largest issues that we face and, you know, quite frankly high in the population growth and city, we continue to face that challenge. having said that, we know that the keys to solving that problem are both short and long term solutions. we're working as hard as we can to recruit new companies into charlotte. we've had a great run of success. most recently with chaquita announcing its corporate headquarter relocation to charlotte. in the last three years, we've seen the largest corporate relocation and the largest expansion of our company in our city in 25 years so we've had some successes. but we also know that education is a part of this equation and making sure that we are providing opportunities to people regardless of where we

come from and regardless of what their circumstances are to learn and become xet if i have in the 2 -- competitive in the 21st century. our school district was named by the foundation as the best urban school district in the country and i think it's really emblematic of this community that we're not just satisfied with that. we've got a private sector fundraising effort to put $55 million into the toughest part of our school district to try to improve outcomes even beyond the outcomes we already have. that's the kind of community charlotte is and that's the kind of country that america is. host: we're talking with the democratic mayor of the town of charlotte. vivian has this point of view saying young people who do not vote for president obama will not change to vote for mitt romney. if anyone, they will vote for ron paul. more from our tour across the state as we check in with young

people about this election. here's what you're saying. >> the people in my life that have cared for me most and love me most who identified with my values have influenced me the most. that would include my parents, my closest friends and even my professors. host: anthony foxx, let me ask you, who has influenced your life the most when it comes to public service? guest:, well, i would have to start with my mom and my grandparents. my grandparents were school teachers. and they were the kind of educators that stayed up late during their grading of papers and calling on students and visiting the homes of students who were having problems with work and having them come over for extra work and i learned a lot about their work ethic and their commitment to a community based on that and as they grew older and retired, the reverence with which their former students treated them even if they saw them at a bus stop or wherever

was just incredible so i learned public service from some of the best folks who do that every single day and that's our teachers. host: lawrence is on the phone from the bronx in new york. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. thank you for accepting my call. good morning, mr. foxx. i agree with most of what you said. you to me are very, very, very good and nice person. i am from the virgin islands and a republican. and i am very troubled with the way republicans, we republicans call ourselves christians. and we are going after the poor with a vengeance. mr. foxx, please, i hope you do run for president. i will vote for you. thank you.

guest: well, i appreciate that. i want to -- let's get through 2012. host: do you have sights set on statewide office, maybe governor? guest: no, i've got. as we say in north carolina, more than i can say grace over right now. i have a lot of things i want to get done in charlotte. we have this wonderful convention coming to our city and that's as far as my thought process is right now. host: as we look at the state and those who have been to charlotte see the influence of bank of america and other large financial institutions, why are so many locating in your state and in your city? guest: financial institutions have grown up in north carolina. it's actually kind of an interesting story. back in the 1800's, north carolina was a heavily egrarian

economy and many of our farmers and folks who lived in north carolina and in the south couldn't borrow from companies in the north. so what started to happen is they built up community banks and those community banks became larger and with some of the changes that happened in the late 1980's to allow banks to combine across state lines, north carolina banks were much more aggressive at doing that and that's why we've seen the proliferation of that industry in our city. and in our state. as we've gone through this recession, charlotte has taken a punch. we lost about 13,000 jobs in the financial services industry between march of 2007 and december of 2009 but we have recovered. and we are actually starting to see some of the smaller financial services companies coming into our city, snapping up the great talent that we have and we look forward to seeing

more growth over time. host: mayor anthony foxx joining us from charlotte, day four of a six day c-span bus tour as we crisscross the state and talk to young people about issues important to them in this campaign. here's another point of view. >> influencing both my political views have been my father. and i believe that the young people will have a great influence in 2012 election. host: our thanks to tout allowing us to partner with them. tout.com/cspanbus if you want to get more information. dave is on the phone from mckinleyville, california. good morning. caller: good morning. can you hear me? host: sure can. go ahead. caller: north carolina is a beautiful state. i would agree with the mayor that president obama inherited a bad hand. however, i will call it political spin to say that because the unemployment rate is coming down, his policies are working.

because the unemployment rate has been coming down because the labor force has been shrinking because people are dropping out. now, i'm 64 years old so i remember that ronald reagan came into office and he inherited an economic situation similar to that which obama inherited. the unemployment rate reached 10.8% early in his presidency. but his prescription was almost the exact opposite of obama's. his prescription was smaller government, lower taxes and less government regulation. and 3 1/2 years into his presidency, our economy was creating more than 300,000 jobs a month despite the fact that the population of the country was smaller then than it is now. host: i'll stop you there. thank you for the call and the comment. mayor foxx said one of the pages that the romney campaign hopes

to use in 2012, a comparison to what jimmy carter gave ronald reagan and what george w. bush gave barack obama. guest: well, you know, i think i'd like to see that comparison because the thing that ronald reagan did not inherit was the worst recession in 70 years. and that makes all the difference. because simultaneously, what the president had to do was to try to keep the economy from going off the deep end and then to quickly pivot towards policies that could shore up our financial system to prevent a similar crisis from happening in the future. and then at the same time, to try to give the markets confidence to start growing jobs again. the president has done that job as well or better than i think anyone could have. it's a very difficult, thorny challenge to work through. but again, we've had 700,000 jobs lost in the previous

administration on a monthly basis. and the president's now got 26 successive months of private sector job growth. i think that's a testament to the work that this president has done. host: one of the issues and you touched on this earlier, the rising debt and deficit in excess of $16 trillion and jim heinz says we have been deficit spending for five decades. is that working? blaming democrats for deficit spending. guest: well, you know, look, one can cast blame in a lot of different directions over a 50-year period. we've had republican and democratic presidents. we've had republican and democratic led congresses and i think the important thing is the president even yesterday made a comment about the fact that we need to -- we need to address that issue. and i think this president is going to be just as vigorous at addressing that issue in a second term as anybody would but i think one major difference is

that the president is ready to talk about the things that he will continue protecting his investments, things like education, things like infrastructure investment. and reforming but not eliminating entitlement programs that are so critical to the future of so many of our seniors. so i think -- i think that kind of prescription is the type of prescription the country is looking for. host: kathleen wright, one of our regular viewers that goes by kiki has this point. nobody in u.s. history has inherited a $12 trillion debt, two incompetent wars and a stock market crash because of deregulations. and another point of view from one of our viewers who we caught up with on our north carolina tour. >> yes, young people are going to be a factor in 2012. watch out. we're going to vote. host: mayor foxx, will young people vote? guest: i have no question young people are going to come out and

vote. and in very high numbers. young people who are in college and coming out of college today know that they have a vested interest in the outcome of this election. and again, i think they're going to be part of the critical mass that's going to push our country in a forward direction and not in a backward direction. host: next call is james from adams, massachusetts. good morning to you. caller: good morning! host: good morning, james. caller: good morning. guest: good morning. caller: yes, this is james from massachusetts. i can't stand mitt romney. i can't stand obama. so i'm voting libertarian and i think all young kids should vote libertarian. take our country back! host: thanks for the call, james. in fact, mayor foxx, we began this sunday morning by asking our viewers about the role of third parties in american presidential politics over the weekend, the libertarians nominating gary johnson.

obviously, you're a democrat and supporting the president but do you see third parties as a future in our country? guest: well, i think any time people express their beliefs about our political system and the direction of our country, it's a good thing. and that's what our forebearers impressed upon us with the first amendment. i happened to think that the president's prescription for the country is the best one we have and that's why i support him. but i understand his point of view. and i respect it. host: and this viewer saying romney, obama, who cares? those two puppets are bought and paid for. go ahead and fool yourselves. the game is on you. well, our last call is from richmond, virginia, where the president was yesterday. deborah is on the phone. good morning. caller: good morning to you, how are you doing? i'm calling to tell you that -- hello? host: go ahead, deborah. caller: i'm calling to say my

mother passed away on may 1st. she was 91 years old. and no matter how much that we try to get her to vote, she never voted in life. she would never -- she wouldn't want to vote. over two months ago, she finally registered to vote because she saw how obama was treated and she could relate because she always told us about the times when as a little girl she had to walk to school in the mud miles while the buses passed. host: i'll stop you on that point. quick comment from mayor foxx. guest: well, it's a very moving story and one that i saw repeated over and over again in 2008. and that we're starting to see again in 2012. where people are moved to act in an election season and to do things that they think are going to improve the country and we're

going to see that again in the obama campaign not only in north carolina but all around the country. i think people know that this man has been working as hard as he can to turn this country around and we're just starting to see some of the good results of that. and i think that's a testament to the hard work he's done. host: anthony foxx who is the mayor of charlotte, north carolina thanks for allowing us to spend some time with you inside and outside of your government office center. we appreciate your time. guest: thank you. host: we'll continue the conversation tomorrow morning on c-span's "washington journal" among our guests, radio talk show host and the author of "reawakening virtues" and continue our look at north carolina politics with conservative activist art pope. among our guests tomorrow on "the washington journal." getting under way at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. 4:00 for those of you on the west coast. thanks for joining us on this sunday. enjoy the rest of your weekend. "newsmakers" is next.